Superb and Sexy (Sky High Air #3)(67)

When she didn’t answer, he swore the air blue, whipped his cell phone out again, and punched in a number. “Shayne, where are you? Damn it, that won’t help me.” He hung up on Shayne and punched in another number. “Noah, I need you. Now. Yeah, lobby.”

Less than ten seconds later, the lobby door opened, and Noah came in from hangar one, smiling wide at the sight of them. “I just got in,” he said. “And Christ, you two are a sight for sore eyes. We’re overbooked and understocked and—” He broke off and divided a look between them. “Okay, what’s up?”

Brody grabbed Noah’s hand and put it on Maddie’s arm. “Vince has an emergency. The line guys have an emergency. I gotta go. Watch her for me, okay? Do not let her pull a disappearing act, and trust me, if you blink, she will.”

Noah’s brow vanished into the hair falling over his temple as he turned to Maddie. “What’s going on, Mad?”

Maddie rolled her eyes. “What’s going on is that your partner thinks he’s the boss of me.”

“Just hold on to her,” Brody commanded, thrusting a finger in Maddie’s direction. “Do not let go for one second, or she’s going to go do something colossally idiotic.”

Noah nodded agreeably. “Sure. I’ll just kidnap our favorite employee, hold her against her will, and then hand her back over to you like she’s your hostage. Is there anything else illegal you’d like me to do while I’m at it?”

“I don’t have time for your jokes, Noah, not now.”

“Who’s joking?”

Brody sighed, looked heavenward as if seeking divine intervention, and when it didn’t come, laid a long look on Noah. “Life or death,” he said very quietly. “Hers.”

“Brody, stop it.” Maddie did not intend to bring another person into the living hell that was her life, even if it was Noah, one of her favorite people on the entire planet. No way, no how.

But at Brody’s words, all kidding fled Noah’s face, and he brought up his other hand, holding both of Maddie’s arms now.

Maddie sighed.

“Thank you,” was all Brody said, clearly relieved, as he loped off.

“This is ridiculous,” Maddie said to Noah. “He’s completely overreacting.”

“See, that’s the thing. Brody never overreacts.” Noah brought Maddie in close and hugged her. “Which you already know. Now what the hell did you get yourself into?”

Maddie didn’t answer. Couldn’t. From over Noah’s shoulder, she watched Brody stride away from them out the door to the tarmac with Vince, those long legs churning up the distance as if it was nothing. Sure. Strong. Capable. He was all those things and more, so much, much more.

“Maddie?”

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”

“Try me.” When she didn’t answer, Noah pulled back and looked into her face. “Not too long ago, my life was so f*cked up I couldn’t see straight, do you remember?”

She let out a breath. “Yes.”

“Right after the crash.”

A plane crash where he’d been the pilot. A crash that had killed his passenger. He’d nearly not recovered from that, and remembering it now, remembering his pain and how she’d felt it as if it’d been her own, her throat tightened. “I know.”

“You got me through that. You and Shayne and Brody.”

It hadn’t been easy. They’d bullied, babied, nagged, and just about begged Noah back from a deep, dark abyss. But he had made it back.

“You helped me, and now you’ll let me help you,” he said firmly.

“Noah.” Touched, scared, and just a little overwhelmed, she pressed her forehead to his comforting chest. “I can’t.”

“That’s what I said to you. Daily. You never listened, not once.”

She let out a half laugh, half sob and then annoyed at herself, swiped at a tear. “I have to do this without you.”

“How about Brody?”

Oh, God. “I have to do this without him, too.”

“Does he know that?”

“He knows we’re not going to go anywhere with our…”

Noah arched a brow, waiting.

“Attraction,” she said carefully.

“Are you sure about that?”

No. God, no. “Yes.”

Looking unhappy but not arguing with her, he turned her toward her desk, the one she hadn’t sat at for six long weeks.

The last time she’d been in that chair, she’d been shot, and she stared at it for a long moment.

“It’s a new chair,” Noah said quietly.

Behind her desk stood a man she’d never seen before. He wore a Sky High pilot’s uniform on his tall, rangy body, and he was leaning over a petite, harassed-looking woman pecking away at the keyboard.

Maddie’s keyboard.

“Jason and Kim,” Noah told her. “Jason’s the new pilot, the one who you almost took with you instead of Brody, and Kim’s your temp.”

“I don’t get it,” Kim was saying. “I don’t get how I managed to schedule you for two flights at once. I’m sure I didn’t do that. The computer must have made a mistake.”