A Game of Chance Read online

  Chapter 5

  A tent. Chance stared down at it, recognizing the type. This was survivalist stuff, what people stored in underground shelters in case of war or natural disaster—or what someone who expected to spend a lot of time in the wilderness would pack.

  “It’s small,” she said apologetically. “Really just a one-man tent, but I had to get something light enough for me to carry. There will be enough room for both of us to sleep in it, though, if you don’t mind being a little crowded.”

  Why would she carry a tent on board a plane, when she expected to spend one night in Seattle—in a hotel—then fly back to Atlanta? Why would anyone carry that heavy a bag around when she could have checked it? The answer was that she hadn’t wanted it out of her possession, but he still wanted an explanation of why she was carrying it at all.

  Something didn’t add up here.

  His silence was unnerving. Sunny looked down at her incongruous pile of possessions and automatically emptied out the bag, removing her sweater and slipping it on, sitting down to pull on a pair of socks, then stuffing her change of clothes and her grooming items back into the bag. Her mind was racing. There was something about his expression that made a chill go down her spine, a hardness that she hadn’t glimpsed before. Belatedly, she remembered how easily he had caught the cretin in the airport, the deadly grace and speed with which he moved. This was no ordinary charter pilot, and she was marooned with him.

  She had been attracted to him from the first moment she saw him, but she couldn’t afford to let that blind her to the danger of letting down her guard. She was accustomed to living with danger, but this was a different sort of danger, and she had no idea what form it could, or would, take. Chance could simply be one of those men who packed more punch than others, a man very capable of taking care of himself.

  Or he could be in her father’s pay.

  The thought chilled her even more, the cold going down to her bones before common sense reasserted itself. No, there was no way her father could have arranged for everything that had happened today, no way he could have known she would be in the Salt Lake City airport. Being there had been pure bad luck, the result of a fouled-up flight schedule. She hadn’t known she would be in Salt Lake City. If her father had been involved, he would have tried to grab her in either Atlanta or Seattle. All the zig-zagging across the country she had done today had made it impossible for her father to be involved.

  As her mind cleared of that silent panic, she remembered how Chance had dragged her bodily from the plane, the way he had draped the blanket around her, even the courtesy with which he had treated her in the airport. He was a strong man, accustomed to being in the lead and taking the risks. Military training, she thought with a sudden flash of clarity, and wondered how she had missed it before. Her life, and Margreta’s, depended on how well she could read people, how prepared she was, how alert. With Chance, she had been so taken off guard by the strength of her attraction to him, and the shock of finding that interest returned, that she hadn’t been thinking.

  “What’s this about?” he asked quietly, squatting down beside her and indicating the tent. “And don’t tell me you were going to camp out in the hotel lobby.”

  She couldn’t help it. The thought of setting up the tent in a hotel lobby was so ludicrous that she chuckled. Seeing the funny side of things was what had kept her sane all these years.

  One big hand closed gently on the nape of her neck. “Sunny,” he said warningly. “Tell me.”

  She shook her head, still smiling. “We’re stranded here tonight, but essentially we’re strangers. After we get out of here we’ll never see each other again, so there’s no point in spilling our guts to each other. You keep your secrets, and I’ll keep mine.”

  The flashlight beam sharpened the angles of his face. He exhaled a long, exasperated breath. “Okay—for now. I don’t know why it matters, anyway. Unless I can get the plane fixed, we’re going to be here a long time, and the reason why you have the tent will be irrelevant.”

  She searched his face, trying to read his impassive expression. “That isn’t reassuring.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “When we don’t show up in Seattle, someone will search for us. The Civil Air Patrol, someone. Doesn’t your plane have one of those beacon things?”

  “We’re in a canyon.”

  He didn’t have to say more than that. Any signal would be blocked by the canyon walls, except for directly overhead. They were in a deep, narrow slit in the earth, the narrowness of the canyon limiting even more their chances of anyone picking up the signal.

  “Well, darn,” she said forcefully.

  This time he was the one who laughed, and he shook his head as he released her neck and stood up. “Is that the worst you can say?”

  “We’re alive. That outcome is so good considering what could have happened that, in comparison, being stranded here only rates a ‘darn.’ You may be able to fix the plane.” She shrugged. “No point in wasting the really nasty words until we know more.”

  He leaned down and helped her to her feet. “If I can’t get us going again, I’ll help you with those words. For now, let’s get this tent set up before the temperature drops even more.”

  “What about a fire?”

  “I’ll look for firewood tomorrow—if we need it. We can get by tonight without a fire, and I don’t want to waste the flashlight batteries. If we’re here for any length of time, we’ll need the flashlight.”

  “I have the lightsticks.”

  “We’ll save those, too. Just in case.”

  Working together, they set up the tent. She could have done it herself; it was made for one person to handle, and she had practiced until she knew she could do it with a minimum of fuss, but with two people the job took only moments. Brushing away the rocks so they would have a smooth surface beneath the tent floor took longer, but even so, they weren’t going to have a comfortable bed for the night.

  When they were finished, she eyed the tent with misgivings. It was long enough for Chance, but…She visually measured the width of his shoulders, then the width of the tent. She was either going to have to sleep on her side all night long—or on top of him.

  The heat that shot through her told her which option her body preferred. Her heart beat a little faster in anticipation of their enforced intimacy during the coming night, of lying against his strong, warm body, maybe even sleeping in his arms.

  To his credit, he didn’t make any insinuating remarks, even though when he looked at the tent he must have drawn the same conclusion as she had. Instead, he bent down to pick up the bag of nutrition bars and said smugly, “I knew you’d have dinner with me tonight.”

  She began laughing again, charmed by both his tact and his sense of humor, and fell a little in love with him right then.

  She should have been alarmed, but she wasn’t. Yes, letting herself care for him made her emotionally vulnerable, but they had lived through a terrifying experience together, and she needed an emotional anchor right now. So far she hadn’t found a single thing about the man that she didn’t like, not even that hint of danger she kept sensing. In this situation, a man with an edge to him was an asset, not a hindrance.

  She allowed herself to luxuriate in this unaccustomed feeling as they each ate a nutrition bar—which was edible, but definitely not tasty—and drank some water. Then they packed everything except the two space blankets back in the bag, to protect their supplies from snakes and insects and other scavengers. They didn’t have to worry about bears, not in this desertlike part of the country, but coyotes were possible. Her bag was supposedly indestructible; if any coyotes showed up, she supposed she would find out if the claim about the bag was true, because there wasn’t room in the tent for both them and the bag.

  Chance checked the luminous dial of his watch. “It’s still early, but we should get in the tent to save our body heat, and not burn up calories trying to stay warm out here. I’ll spread this blanket