Free Lady Liberty by Vicki Hinze Page B

himself and had instructed her in falling with minimal injury. She had expected their every bone would crunch or snap. Instead, she was sore and scraped and bruised but nothing felt broken.
    He shielded his eyes with a cupped hand at his brow. “No, I’m fine.” He reached down between them, trying to get a hand into his pocket. “You okay?”
    “I think so.” Between the aches from the jerk of the chute opening and the bruises from their rough landing, she couldn’t be sure. Not yet. “Exactly why did you do that?”
    He slid her a blank look.
    She tried again. “Why did you jump out of the plane without a parachute?”
    He stared at her a long second, as if her not knowing seemed incomprehensible to him, then scanned her face. “You’re shaking. Are you really all right?”
    “Yes,” she insisted, his breath warming her face. “I’m furious with you, actually, but fine.” She tried to slide off of him, but what looked like miles of twisted parachute cords held their bodies together. She couldn’t move, and that infuriated her more. “Would you
please
get me out of this damn thing?”
    She spoke through clenched teeth and struggled to untangle herself, but the cords wouldn’t give. Westford’s entire body felt hard, and, even in this situation, she had been celibate too long for a hard body to feel anything but good.
    Strange, but until Gabby had started her matchmaker-from-hell routine, Sybil had never thought of him as a flesh-and-blood man, only as an agent. That felt comfortable to her. Safe. She had trusted the agent and confided in him, but then he had requested reassignment and left her. She had no idea why, and she wasn’t brave enough to ask, but his leaving proved once again that when it came to men, she had lousy judgment. So this seeing-him-as-a-man business didn’t feel comfortable or safe, and she resolutely avoided feeling anything she didn’t want to feel. It fractured her control.
    “I was trying to get you out,” Westford said. “You ordered me to stop.”
    Angry at herself for panicking at physical contact with him, she swallowed a sharp retort. She
had
ordered him to stop. His touch had been unintentional and, like it or not, she had mixed feelings about that. Disconcerting, mixed feelings.
    The mid-August heat seeped through the downpour, creating a horrendous steam bath. Drawing breath was like trying to breathe through a hot, wet washcloth. She began to sweat and clenched her jaw. “Where are we?”
    “Florida.” On his back in shallow water, he wriggled beneath her, creating eddies and rocking her against him, breasts to chest and thigh to thigh. Finding the sensation more pleasant than wise, she felt her face warm.
    Naturally, he noticed her blush. “I’m just trying to get a knife out of my pocket, okay?”
    She managed a crisp nod and hoped to heaven he hurried. It was hard for a woman to hold on to her dignity while wallowing all over a man on the wet, marshy ground. Determined to beat the odds, she lifted her chin. “I’m going to be patient, Agent Westford. I’m not going to lose control.” Even as she voiced the denial her control slipped into jeopardy. “But when you get me out of this monstrosity”—she paused to glance down at the bird’s nest of parachute lines,then glared back at him—“you’d better be able to give me a damn good reason for dragging me out of that airplane.”
    The rain pattered an unnerving staccato beat on the bent grass, spattered in ankle-deep pockets of brackish water and on the fallen leaves scattered over the swamp’s earthen floor. Heavy drops tapped against the spiky-leafed palmettos and ran in rivulets down Westford’s face. He sawed at the corded lines with his knife. “I have an excellent reason right now, ma’am.”
    She watched him hack at another nylon cord. “Well, I’d love to hear it.”
    The last of the cords binding her fell slack. She rolled off of him, stood up, and then primly smoothed her skirt. Her