LITMIR.BIZ

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me for dinner. How about lunch?”

      She drew in a slow, steadying breath and let it out. “No.”

      “Coffee?”

      “No.”

      Undaunted, Quentin grinned. “You’re making it really hard for me to get to know you.”

      “Not my problem. That one’s all on you.”

      “Tell you what,” Quentin said. “Before you reject me, give me one kiss. If the chemistry isn’t there, I won’t pursue you anymore.”

      “You’ll leave me completely alone?” she asked.

      Quentin nodded and held up his hand. “I promise.”

      “Fine. One kiss.” She leaned toward him.

      He faced her, puckering.

      Becca reached out and turned his cheek. “On the cheek.”

      “How are you supposed to gauge the chemistry with a kiss on the cheek?” he protested.

      “Not my problem.” When she swooped in to land her kiss, Quentin turned at the last minute and caught her lips with his.

      Her eyes widened, her breath hitched, but she didn’t back away.

      Quentin cupped the back of her neck and deepened the kiss, pressing her closer.

      She gasped, her lips parting for a second. Long enough for Quentin to slip his tongue past her teeth for a taste of her. Mmm. Rum and coconuts from the drink she’d had earlier. So sweet and amazing, he almost groaned. When he lifted his head, he smiled down at her. “Was that so bad?” he asked.

      Her drooping eyelids popped wide and she slapped him hard on the cheek she had intended on kissing.

      Quentin could swear the plane shook with the force of the blow.

      “What the hell?” Duff shouted, sitting up.

      The plane shook and shuttered.

      “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve lost power to the engine and will be making an emergency landing,” the captain said over the loud speaker. “Please check your seatbelts and hold on.”

      It took Quentin a full second to realize the slap he’d deservedly received had not impacted the plane. “What happened?” he asked, tightening his belt.

      “Felt like we were hit,” Sawyer said.

      Quentin pressed a hand to his stinging cheek. Oh, he’d been hit all right. But the plane? “By what?”

      “I don’t know,” Duff said. “But you better hunker down. It’s gonna be a rough landing.”

      With the plane shaking like an old truck on a gravel road, Quentin doubted the landing would be an easy one.

      A feminine hand slipped into his and he held on to it.

      “Just for the record,” Becca said. “You deserved that slap.”

      If he’d thought the dire situation would encourage her to apologize, he was sorely disappointed. “It was worth it. You taste so good. If I die in this crash, I will have died a happy man.”

      “Jerk,” she whispered, but didn’t let go of his hand as the plane pitched, dipped and plunged toward the ground at a terrifying speed. “For the record, if I make it out of this alive, I’m still going after the man who killed my father.”

      “I believe you,” Quentin said. “If I can get more time off from my unit, I’ll go with you.”

      “I don’t need an amateur getting in my way.”

      “I’m not an amateur, I’m a SEAL.”

      “Yeah and you’re used to kicking ass and shooting anything that moves. My kind of work takes finesse, something you are clearly lacking.”

      “Ouch,” Quentin said.

      “Loverboy, I believe you’ve been put in your place.” Duff chuckled. “Give it up. She’s not into you.”

      Quentin snorted. “This frogman won’t give up without a fight.”

      “Yeah?” Montana said from the back. “Seems we’re going down with a fight, now.”

      And he was right. It seemed as if the ground outside the window rushed up to meet them. Make that the water rushed up to meet them.

      The pilot brought the plane in on a marsh, the only gap between tall cypress trees. The belly of the aircraft slid across the smooth surface like a hovercraft until it hit a berm of land, barely jutting a foot into the air.

      The plane jolted hard on impact; the tail lifted and then crashed down with a big splash.

      Throwing aside her seatbelt, the flight attendant ran for the emergency exit and struggled to open the exterior door.

      Quentin released his seatbelt and hurried to help. Together they managed to open the door, the steps falling into the water.

      “There are flotation devices beneath each seat,” the attendant called out.

      Quentin glanced out the door and shook his head. “I suggest we all get into the life boat or do our best to stay with the plane until help arrives. You do not want to get in that water.”

      “Why?” Duff staggered up the aisle to join him at the door.

      “I believe we’ve landed in the middle of an alligator farm.”

      * * *

      BECCA ROSE FROM her seat aboard the downed aircraft, shaken but refusing to show how much the crash-landing had scared her. She’d been shot at, held hostage and beaten by one of the meanest sons of a bitch known to the drug-dealing mafia, but never had she been in an airplane crash.

      If Quentin hadn’t been next to her, teasing her and holding her hand, she might have dissolved into a very embarrassing case of feminine hysterics.

      On the ground...or in the water...they had survived. A few alligators were nothing compared to the instant death of a plane hitting the ground and completely disintegrating like she’d seen happen at the Baltimore International Airport one snowy evening a long time ago.

      Her father had brought her to the airport to greet her mother after she’d been on a work trip to California. Becca had missed her mother, and looked forward to being held and cuddled in her arms. They’d watched as her mother’s plane approached the airport on schedule. It appeared to be a perfect landing until a wing dipped and the entire plane performed something like a cartwheel on the runway.

      Her father cursed and pulled the young Becca into his arms to hide her view of the burning wreckage. No one survived. Her beautiful mother would never come home, never hold her close or sing her to sleep at night.

      Her heart hammered against her ribs and her belly soured at the memory. Where her mother had not escaped, Becca had cheated death in the SOS corporate jet. All her life, she’d flown in airplanes, pushing back the fear of crashing. Today she imagined what her mother might have felt when she realized the plane was going to crash. She could only hope it had happened so fast that none of the passengers had time to be afraid.

      “Hey.”

      A gentle hand on her arm brought her out of her memories and back to the problem at hand.

      “Are you okay?” Quentin asked.

      “Yeah. I’m fine,” she lied, barely able to stand on wobbly knees. Bile churned in her gut again, threatening to find a rapid path out if she didn’t reach open air immediately.

      She shoved Quentin to the side and staggered toward the doorway, where the flight attendant and Duff struggled with a life raft, blocking the exit.

      “I need to get out,” Becca said, her voice strained.

      “You’ll have to wait until we

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