Angel at Dawn by Emma Holly Page A

that.
    She drove with her molars grinding, willfully ignoring how each rotation of the tires tightened her ribs more. She felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest, like her heart was bleeding already. Turn around, it was urging. Go back to him.
    The tears began as she hit the two-lane, two long trickles that cooled in the breeze from the cracked window. She swiped them angrily from her cheeks. There was absolutely no point in missing something she’d never had, something she suspected didn’t exist.
    True love was for the movies. In real life, people had to count on themselves.

Three

    C hristian’s plane had taxied to a stop by the time Grace drove Miss Wei’s Fury onto the oil-stained tarmac. The private airstrip was in Pasadena, a drive from their house in the Palisades—not that it mattered. LA’s infamous traffic had been thin enough not to slow her down. Grace glanced at her bracelet watch, a gift from her employer. Clever charms hung from its links: a clapper board, a megaphone, and a film camera. Each year on the anniversary of her hiring, Miss Wei gave her a new one. Grace jingled it out of habit. She was actually a little early. It was ten till midnight: the witching hour.
    Four years of working for Miss Wei had inured Grace to nocturnal assignments. Nonetheless, she pulled her sweater closer against a shiver as two men in navy jumpsuits rolled a set of steps up to the small chartered jet. They must have been strong as well as used to the task, because they pushed the ramp into place like it was nothing. The windows of the plane glowed gold into the darkness, and she saw two shadows moving inside, probably Christian and his man Roy. Her breathing quickened. Feeling more comfortable not staring, she shifted her gaze away. The logo on the tail fin was unfamiliar, a leaping wolf with toothy jaws agape. “FC Air” she thought the lettering said.
    The thunk of the plane door opening dragged her eyes forward. Christian was emerging, a spring in his long lean legs as he descended the rolling stairs. He wore a Western jacket with his jeans tonight, plus a white button-down and string tie. As he moved, the shirt stretched taut across the muscles of his chest, but it was his dirt-colored cowboy hat that tipped her pulse into overdrive. He seemed quintessentially male to her, closer to the earth than the average man, more present in his body. His movements conveyed a coiled energy, as if the power that fueled him couldn’t be contained by his flesh. Seeing him like this, so confident and alert, confirmed her earlier assumption that he was a night owl.
    When his gaze zeroed in on hers, her throat tightened. Rather than let him guess what he’d done to her, she popped the trunk and stepped out. She worked to make her voice calm.
    “You’re right on time,” she said.
    He was in front of her sooner than she expected, as if he had the power to travel in the blink of an eye. Also unexpected was the way he took her hand. He didn’t shake it, just clasped it between his own. Even shadowed by the brim of his hat, his coffee eyes seemed to gleam.
    “Grace,” he said in his dark, smooth voice, sounding almost glad to see her again.
    The feel of his fingers—so long, so cool—caused a hard, quick pulse to flicker between her legs. She remembered those fingers stroking her a bit too well. Maybe he did, too. He cleared his throat and let go. Grace had the sensation that Roy’s arrival saved them both from embarrassment.
    “Nice moon,” the older man observed, tipping his head back to take it in. It was a huge, back-rocked crescent, its edges glowing cinematically through what was probably a thin veil of smog.
    “Yes,” Grace agreed. “You can stow the luggage in the trunk.” Her eyes rounded at the number of bags the two airline employees were swiftly setting on the ground. She wouldn’t have pegged Christian as a clotheshorse. “The backseat, too, if you need it.”
    Christian must have guessed her