All I Want Read online

  “So . . . old friends?” Joe asked.

  Zip from Parker. A silent alpha. One more thing to add to the list of reasons why Zoe was not going to like him, despite what he looked like naked.

  “Not old friends,” she said.

  “New friends?” Joe asked. He was speaking directly to Parker now, but Parker didn’t appear interested in defining their relationship.

  Or lack of one.

  Zoe sighed. “He’s living with me,” she said, and Joe, who’d just taken an unfortunate sip of coffee, choked, and snorted coffee out his nose.

  “Goddammit,” he muttered when he could talk.

  “Parker’s a friend of Wyatt’s,” Zoe said. “It’s a favor. Apparently I’m just full of favors today,” she added.

  Joe was mopping up the coffee he’d spilled with some papers on the counter. “Dottie’s going to kill me.”

  Dottie was his office manager, and even though she was married to Devon, their other pilot-for-hire, she terrified Joe.

  Not Zoe’s problem. She turned to Parker. “Where are we heading?”

  “Rocky Falls,” he said.

  “There’s no airport up there.”

  “I need to see the layout, no landing required.”

  Rocky Falls was the northernmost county in the state. It was mostly open, rugged, isolated, nearly uninhabitable forestland, bordered by a few far-reaching ranches. Just past those, the growth was so thick, seeing anything from the air but a blanket of green sliced with the occasional blue ribbon of rivers and tributaries was all but impossible. “I thought you were here on vacay,” she said.

  “Yep. I’m sightseeing.”

  Uh-huh. “There’s nothing to sightsee out there except trees.”

  “I like trees.”

  She laughed. “That’s ridiculous. There are far cheaper ways to see trees.”

  “Jeez, don’t tell him that,” Joe said, and looked at Parker. “She’s not much of a saleswoman. Don’t listen to her. I gave you a really good rate for your two hours.”

  Zoe kept her gaze on Parker. She had a good bullshit detector and it was going off now. Blaring, in fact. But if he wanted to pay a small fortune to “sightsee,” what did she care? “I’ve got to get the weather, file a flight plan, and perform a flight check.” She eyed her watch. “Wheels up in forty-five.”

  With that, she about-faced and exited the glass door opposite the front desk, heading across the tarmac to the Cardinal tied down there. She was already busy running through her preflight in her head: tire pressure, oil and fuel levels, flight controls, cowlings . . .

  “Zoe.”

  She stilled in the early-morning sun and slowly turned to face Parker, who’d followed her out. He wore his clothes with the same ease he’d worn nothing at all. And dammit, she really needed to stop thinking about that.

  “Do we have a problem?” he asked.

  Other than she knew that the promise his body made in clothes was kept when he was out of them? “No.”

  “Is it about this morning?”

  “What about this morning?” she asked, going for an innocent tone but ruining it by flushing.

  Because she knew exactly what about this morning.

  His eyes revealed his amusement. “If it would make things less awkward, I’ll be happy to walk in on your next shower.”

  “I didn’t mean to!”

  “Is that why you stood there staring for a full three minutes?” he asked. “Drooling?”

  “I . . . it wasn’t three minutes!” She put her hands to her hot cheeks. “And you’re the dishonest one. You said you weren’t hurt that badly, but your ribs—”

  “Are healing,” he said. “And that’s not what you were staring at.”

  True story.

  He smiled. “And you liked what you saw.”

  Oh God. She had, she really, really had. She closed her eyes and wished for a big hole to swallow her up. “I hardly even noticed you were naked.”

  “So much for honesty.”

  “You don’t get honesty privileges,” she said. “Not until it goes both ways.”

  “You don’t think I’m being honest with you?”

  “Sightseeing?” she repeated dubiously. “Sorry, but you don’t seem like the type to spend thousands of dollars on a sightseeing trip just for the hell of it.”

  “Maybe it’s not just for the hell of it.”

  She shook her head. “Why do I feel like we’re playing some kind of game here, except I don’t have a copy of the rules?”

  His smile went a whole lot more real. “I irritate you.”

  “Yes,” she said, and smiled grimly. “How’s that for honesty?”

  She didn’t expect him to laugh out loud but that was exactly what he did, tossing back his head to do so. Finally, still grinning, he shook his head, his eyes lit with . . . affection? “I like you, too, and your smart mouth,” he said.

  “Are you saying I’m a smart-ass?”

  He smiled. “If the shoe fits.”

  She thought of the woman he’d been talking to on his phone, who’d had a sure and confident voice as she called Parker out on his shit. Zoe didn’t know what shit exactly, but there’d definitely been a tension there, one she assumed was sexual.

  But he seemed to be flirting with her now, and Zoe didn’t know how to take that. “And you . . . like smart-asses?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you like women who are bitchy to you?” she asked.

  He smiled. “Don’t have much experience with that problem.”

  She could believe it. “Is that your way of saying women usually fall all over you?”

  “Well, not all of them,” he said with a false modesty that made her want to laugh. She tried to hold it back but couldn’t quite manage it.

  “See?” he said. “I’m irresistible.”

  “You’re something,” she agreed. “But I don’t think irresistible is it.”

  “Admit it. I’m growing on you.”

  “That’s one thing you’re not going to do,” she said firmly, and she meant it, too. At least her brain meant it, but her body didn’t seem to be on board with the plan. After all, she’d been burned by a mysterious man before, badly, one who’d turned out to be a big, fat liar.

  She wasn’t going there again. Ever. Nope, she needed transparency from a man. And Parker, for all his bad-boy, cowboy ’tude and cocky swagger, wasn’t anything close to transparent.

  At all.

  And that made him downright dangerous to her. He was the kind of man that messed with a woman’s heart, so it was a good thing hers wasn’t available to him.

  But if she’d worried about living with him and his knowing eyes and way-too-hot bod—now she also had to work with him.

  Except the oddest thing happened when they got into the air.

  He wasn’t a know-it-all. He didn’t try to flirt or drive her up a wall.

  None of that. He asked her questions about Idaho as they flew, as though he’d done research on the area. He mentioned some of the other places he’d been—seemingly everywhere—and knew a lot about . . . well, a lot. He asked her about the wind patterns and the different techniques required for flying out of the high-altitude Sunshine airport, and she was fascinated in spite of herself.

  He was driven, focused, sharp, and . . .

  “Damn,” he murmured softly beneath his breath, and pulled out a set of binoculars when they were at altitude, locking on something out the side window for a long moment.

  He looked badass to the core. Who the hell was he? Because right now, focused and still, he sure as hell didn’t look like a guy on a break from work. He looked like a guy who kept secrets, dark ones.

  Another wolf in sheep’s clothing . . .

  At that thought, she panicked—inwardly. Because outwardly she was cool. Cool as ice.

  Or so she hoped. “Rocky Falls is coming up on your right,” she said.

  “What else is out here?”

  “White Mountain,” she said.