Way of the Warrior (Troubleshooters #17.5)(128)

“We’ll be leaving shortly. Please make sure all carry-on luggage is stowed carefully in the assigned compartments,” a flight attendant said over the speaker.

Quinn was flying to Paris and then catching a flight to D.C. Home was at least eighteen hours away—if everything connected properly.

Quinn closed her eyes and focused on her go-to fantasy—McDonald’s French fries. Yeah, the Golden Arches had some thirty thousand locations worldwide, but not one McD’s graced the country where she’d spent the last three years. She took a deep breath and smelled evergreens and mint. Her body tightened and she looked up.

“Excuse me,” said Mr. Hotness. “I think I had the wrong seat,” he said in a deep baritone that seriously rearranged pieces inside Quinn’s abdomen.

“Uh, well, okay?” She was a mess in the face of all that hotness.

He smiled, which was possibly the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen on any man, ever.

“I think what I’m asking,” he began and sighed patiently, “is do you want the aisle or the window?”

She stared up at him and his brows lowered. Then it hit her. “Oh! Aisle is fine, thanks,” she murmured as she started to stand so he could sit down.

He brushed by her and there it was—the holy grail of backside views.

Quinn shook her head and sat down. But when her arm brushed against his (which was damn near impossible to avoid because the dude was huge) Quinn jerked her arm away and felt more than saw his chest rising and falling.

He was laughing at her.

Quinn drowned it out by closing her eyes again and thinking of McDonald’s fries. She was lost to the dream of salty goodness, trying hard to get Mr. Hotness off her mind, and so the rat-a-tat-tat took her by surprise.

A strong hand pushed her head down. “Don’t move!” he bit out.

“Hey,” she objected but it was directed to her knees. She tried lifting her head but his grip on the back of her neck was solid.

“We’ve got trouble. I need you to keep your head down, ’kay?” he whispered in her ear.

Trouble? Understatement, she thought. Shots fired were a bit more than trouble.

More rat-a-tat-tat-tat, and it was definitely automatic weapons fire. Children and adults were screaming, and over it all, a hard voice demanded that everyone sit down.

Well shit. “All I wanted was a mani/pedi and some hot McDonald’s fries,” she muttered.

“What?” he asked.

Then every single thought left her brain as a woman screamed. Quinn’s instincts kicked in and she reached for his hand to remove it from her neck.

“I said to stay down,” he bit out.

She twisted his hand in a move her father had taught her and he released her immediately. She lifted her head and her gaze found chaos.

At least five men holding AK47s were shouting orders to people in heavily accented, broken English interspersed with…Arabic?

“Where is the woman?” one of them yelled as he shoved his gun in the face of a stewardess.

Oh, damn. This was so not good.