Page 46 of One Last Stand
More silence.
“Apparently you need a ride across the pond?”
* * *
London didn’t know who she was. Not ten thousand feet over the Alps of Switzerland, in a Learjet 36, with her ex-fiancé sitting in the seats behind her, cuffed despite her protests. (Although, he had kidnapped Shep. And bear-sprayed him. And tranq’d him. Andplease, pleaselet him not be duping her into some kind of ambush.)
She wasn’t London—she’d blown that persona apart. She saw the way the Air One team looked at her, questions behind their tight smiles.
And she wasn’t Laney. Or didn’t want to be.
Or at least, she thought so.
Maybe she was Shep’s . . . what? Girlfriend? Maybe, yes, because large in her mind, over and over, played her painfully eager and out-of-bounds response to him kissing her.
Hel-lo. That had been a big yes before she really got her brains around it all. Just an impulse and a hooyah, and what did that say about what was really buried inside her heart? What had Tomas said—a woman never forgets her first love?
Although it hadn’t been until the moment Shep walked up to her, put his hand around her neck, and kissed her—really kissed her, like he’d broken open pieces of his heart to let her in—that she’d dived in and embraced it.
Yep. First love.
Beside her, Shep sat on the Learjet’s sofa, his eyes closed, clearly still tired, yesterday’s events worn in the fatigue on his face. He’d shaved and showered after getting home and had slept until noon, but he’d been back to the Tooth by four p.m.
And of course, he’d put himself back together. Jeans, sweater, hiking boots, a wool hat, jacket, and satchel.Have woodsman, will travel.
All the way over the ocean and to the small country of Montelena. She looked out the window.Welcome back, Laney Steele.
Oy vey.
“Ziggy is a little creepy.” Shep opened an eye and looked at her. She curled up on the opposite end of the couch, her knees drawn up, her arms folded, like she might suddenly spring from the plane.
Maybe.
“You think? And apparently she has the ability to pick up the phone and send us a private jet from across the world.”
“The plane and the pilot are rented, from Seattle,” York said from the seat on the other side of the aisle. He’d spent most of the flight with his eyes closed, and Shep had assumed he was asleep. Apparently not.
“Where did you meet her?” he asked London, lowering his voice.
“She was my trainer with the Black Swans, years ago. Then my handler. Now, I don’t know . . . my boss?”
“I thought Moose was your boss.”
Right. But Moose wasLondon’sboss.
Moose gave her a tight smile, as if he’d read her mind.
“Is Ziggy an assassin?”
She shrugged. Nodded. “When she has to be.”
“I see.” His mouth made a tight line.
“I’ve never killed anyone,” she said softly. “Just so you know.”
“No one except yourself.”
Oh. Right.