In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(3)
He opened his mouth…but nothing came out. He could only stare and blink like a bewildered owl.
Holy hell, was she flirting with him?
He was saved from having to make any sort of answer—thank you, sweet Jesus—when Bill grumbled, “Cut it out, Becky. Now’s not the time, and Boss is definitely not the guy.”
“No?” She lifted her brows, turning toward Frank questioningly.
And now he was able to find his voice. “No.” He shook his head emphatically, trying to swallow his lungs that had somehow crawled up into his throat.
“Well,” she shrugged, completely unflustered by his overt rejection, “you can’t blame a gal for trying.” She offered him a hand. “I’m in, partner. That is, once I know exactly how much you’re thinking of investing.”
“Bill will get back to you with the specifics,” he hedged, taking her hand only briefly before releasing it, more eager to get the hell out of there than he’d care to admit.
Again she did that head-tilt thing. The one that caused the end of her ponytail to slide over her shoulder. She regarded him for a long moment during which time he thought his heart might’ve jumped right out of his mouth had his lungs not been in the way. Then she shrugged and said, “Fine. Go ahead and do that whole mystery-man thing. I don’t really give a rat’s ass as long as you’re good for the green.”
And with that, she hopped down from the back of the trailer.
He moved to watch her traipse through the snow to the front door of her shop. Only once she disappeared inside did he turn to Bill. “You sure she’s trustworthy enough? She seems a bit impulsive to me.”
Impulsive and arrogant and bold and…way too cute for her own good.
Bill smiled, crossing his arms. “Despite all evidence to the contrary, Becky’s as steady as they come. We can depend on her to keep our secrets. You have my word.”
“And what about the hierarchy? How’s she going to react once she realizes I’m the one calling the shots?”
Bill clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder and chuckled. “I have no doubt you can handle her, Boss.”
Uh-huh. He wished he shared Bill’s certainty. Because there was one thing he could spot from a mile away, and that was trouble.
And Rebecca Reichert?
Well, she had trouble written all over her…
Chapter One
Three and a half years later…
Pirates…
Wow. Now there’s something you don’t see every day.
That was Becky’s first thought as she ducked under the low cabin door of the thirty-eight foot catamaran named Serendipity and stepped into the blazing equatorial sun. Her second thought, more appropriately, was oh hell.
Eve—her longtime friend and owner of the Serendipity—was swaying unsteadily and staring in wide-eyed horror at the three dirty, barefoot men holding ancient AK-47s like they knew how to use them. Four more equally skinny, disheveled men were standing in a rickety skiff tethered off the Serendipity’s stern.
Okay, so…obviously they’d been playing the oldies a little too loudly considering they’d somehow managed to drown out the rough sound of the pirates’ rusty outboard engine motoring up behind them.
“Eve,” she murmured around the head of a cherry Dum Dum lollipop as her heart hammered against her ribs and the skin on her scalp began crawling with invisible ants. “Just stay calm, okay?”
Yep. Calm was key. Calm kept a girl from finding herself fathoms deep beneath the crushing weight of Davy Jones’s Locker or under the more horrifying weight of a sweaty man who didn’t know the meaning of the word no.
When Eve gave no reply, she glanced over at her friend and noticed the poor woman was turning the color of an eggplant.
“Eve,” she said with as much urgency as she could afford, given the last thing she wanted was to spook an already skittish pirate who very likely suffered from a classic case of itchy-trigger-finger-syndrome, “you need to breathe.”
Eve’s throat worked over a dry swallow before her chest quickly expanded on a shaky breath.
Okay, good. Problem one: Eve keeling over in a dead faint—solved. Problem two: being taken hostage by pirates—now that was going to take a bit more creativity.
She wracked her brain for some way out of their current predicament as Jimmy Buffet crooning, “Yes I am a pirate. Two hundred years too late,” wafted up from inside the cabin.
Really, Jimmy? You’re singing that now?
Under normal circumstances, she’d be the first to appreciate the irony. Unfortunately, these were anything but normal circumstances.
The youngest and shortest of the pirates—he wore an eye patch…seriously?—flicked a tight look in her direction, and she threw her hands in the air, palms out in the universal I’m unarmed and cooperating signal. But a quick glance was all he allotted her before he returned the fierce attention of his one good eye to Eve.
She snuck another peek at her friend and…oh no. Oh crap.
“Slowly, very slowly, Eve, I want you to lay the knife on the deck and kick it away from you.” She was careful to keep her tone cool and unthreatening. Pirates made their money from the ransom of ships and captives. If she could keep Eve from doing something stupid—like, oh, say flying at the heavily armed pirates like a blade-wielding banshee—they’d likely make it out of this thing alive.