LITMIR.BIZ

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work out their differences. If you couldn’t do it in your first marriage, Murdoch, why should I look at you as serious stuff?”

      “Well,” he said, eyeing her intently, “maybe you don’t know the whole story behind my divorce. Maybe they don’t all happen because two people are too lazy or selfish to work things out.” He opened his hands. “My parents have been married since they were both eighteen, and they’re fifty now. Have they had tough times? You bet. Did they struggle? Oh, yeah, I saw it. But the one thing that kept them together was that they loved one another. It’s the glue that’s gotten them through a lot of tough times.”

      “Precisely. That’s what I’m talking about—commitment based on love.” Dallas scanned the clearing sky. Between the gray, horizontal stratus clouds were hints of blue. In another hour they’d be out of the remnants of the hurricane and into sunshine as they made their way to Hermosillo.

      She shot him a dark look. “So, if your parents are forever people, what happened to you, Murdoch?”

      Okay, it was his turn to be vulnerable. Mike was uncomfortable with her flat stare, but he wanted her so damn bad, in every way, that he decided to lay the truth on the table between them. “I wanted a forever marriage, too, Dallas. I didn’t plan to get married young—I figured if I married when I was older, I’d be better able to handle the rigors of it all. About five years ago, I met Galina Baranova, who was an interpreter for the Border Patrol. She was a recent immigrant from Moscow and a whiz at languages, speaking at least five fluently. I was stationed in El Paso, Texas, when I started working with her. I fell in love with her on the spot. But she wasn’t who I thought she was.”

      “Oh?” Dallas gave him a worried glance and saw his expression go sad.

      “She was with the Russian mafia.” He sighed. “To make a long story short, she was an ace of a con artist. She’s a genius, really. She became a mole for the Russian mafia back in Moscow. In her job as translator, she flew all over the Southwest and had access to many of the deep, dark secret records the BP kept on drug smuggling movements coming up from South America and Mexico. She was able to let her cohorts know well ahead of time when certain drug shipments were being watched, and they would change course, and we’d lose track of them. This went on for two years, until I started getting suspicious. One time, I found by accident a piece of paper in Galina’s purse. I’d been digging for money in her billfold, because I was out of cash and needed some before I went to work. The paper was a list of drug smuggling operations, and she’d made a notation in one corner—the name of her contact in Mexico. We got the FBI on it, and they apprehended the dude and interrogated him back in D.C.” Grimacing, Mike said quietly, “About two weeks later, the FBI came to our house and arrested Galina. They hadn’t told me beforehand.”

      “I’m so sorry,” Dallas said. She reached out and gripped his hand. “That must’ve been tough.”

      Her palm was warm and soft. Greedily, Murdoch laced his fingers with hers and gave them a gentle squeeze. This was the first time he’d ever shown his affection to Dallas. Would she realize what she meant to him? As he released her hand, he saw her blush. There was such innocence to her, despite her being a combat veteran. That was the part he wanted to access, to know, to care for, to love and cherish—forever.

      The realization of how he felt slammed into him, and he tried to come to grips with it. Ever since Dallas had shown up in his life, he’d desired her. Sure, at first he had only wanted to get her to bed. But then, over the course of the last month, he had started yearning for a lot more from her. His dreams, although torrid, were about more than just sex. What he felt was much deeper than that, he realized now.

      “Hey,” he called softly. When Dallas turned, he saw a velvety quality in her eyes he’d never seen before. Instantly, his heart opened even wider. That mouth of hers was begging, just begging, to be kissed. Her attraction was clearly written across her suddenly very vulnerable features.

      For the first time, Mike saw the real Dallas Klein. And, God forgive him, he just about died and went to heaven. “Don’t feel sorry for me, darlin’. What I would like is a clean slate between the two of us. I think we cleared some important hurdles at three thousand feet here, don’t you?” He flashed her an impish grin, having found out a long time ago that humor could frequently soothe a fractious confrontation. And right now, if he was reading Dallas correctly, he could see her reassessing him. Maybe even thinking about a possible relationship with him. Never had he wanted anything more.

      “I’m glad we cleared the air, Mike. I didn’t know the details about your divorce. That had to be horrible on you. The shock…If you entered that marriage with the idea it was forever…Well, what a heartbreaking situation.”

      “That’s why I was hitting the Nogales nightclubs when you arrived. I was drinking to stop the pain I was feeling,” he admitted quietly. After looking around, which was his habit as a copilot, he returned his gaze to her. “And you really snapped me out of it that first day we flew together.” Giving her another boyish grin, he said, “Thanks. I needed that.”

      “What? Being laid out flat on your back on the tarmac?”

      Murdoch chuckled. “Yeah, I’d been drinking heavily, almost nonstop, for two weeks. It wasn’t like me, but I had to do something to dull the pain.”

      “Helluva way to do it,” Dallas commented, searching the airspace below them. The sky was lightening up even more. The Cessna chugged like the stalwart workhorse it was. “Sometimes we all have to hit brick walls, Mike. Maybe I was your wall.”

      “Yeah,” he murmured wryly, “but your wall has a door, and I’m knockin’ to be let in, darlin’.”

       Chapter 4

      Dallas was sitting in her office on a cold, early December morning when Mike sauntered in. She glanced at her watch and realized time was slipping away from them. As usual, he was in his rumpled flight suit, but he made it look pulverizingly male. What was there not to like about him?

      “Hey, I heard some scuttlebutt from Thomas Boyce at the BP headquarters in D.C.,” he said, closing the door quickly to keep in the heat. He couldn’t help but stare. She was wearing a ponytail at the nape of her neck. He fantasized about removing the rubber band that held her thick, shining hair and then running his hands through it. He knew the rose-scented locks would feel like sleek, raw silk.

      “Yeah? What kind of scuttlebutt?” Dallas asked, picking up her morning coffee.

      Mike leaned lazily against the wooden counter where all the flight plans were created. “That you are landing us another flight team. Are we going to get in more personnel? God knows we’re working 24-7, and we need the help. Our C.O. was never able to pry loose more pilots and planes from the Border Patrol because of the budget.” Mike eyed her. “Is all this true?”

      Grinning triumphantly, she eased back in her chair. “Sure is.” She liked the way he glowed with happiness at her comment. “I’ve been here long enough to see that the four of us are going to be driven into the ground by the work demands.” She pointed to a map behind her desk that had red pins all across the state of Sonora. “You and I have been working seven days a week since I got here.”

      Resting his elbows on the counter, he held her gaze. “Yeah, I can’t even get a date with you because of our killer schedule,” he griped good-naturedly. “That night you agreed to go to dinner with me? Our flight that day ended up lasting far past my friends’ dinner hour, and it was scrubbed. When have we had time for dinner together? Much less with my friends?”

      A shaft of heat moved through her. Dallas didn’t tell him she was glad that long mission had happened. A part of her had been looking forward to having dinner with Mike and his Mexican friends. But another part had been reluctant. Murdoch was a macho guy who, if he saw something he wanted, went after it with no apology. While Dallas liked that kind of assertiveness in their trade, working against drug smugglers, he was moving way too fast for her on a personal front. She liked him but wasn’t ready to commit to anything. Not yet. “Well,” she drawled with a

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