Midnight Kiss (Men of Midnight #7) - Lisa Marie Rice

Portland, Oregon

It was raining when they landed at the airfield in Portland. Near the township of Hillsboro. She checked the map on her laptop when she got onto the plane. It always made her feel more secure knowing exactly where she was going.

She’d been shaking when she got into the plane, a sleek corporate jet with only one other passenger, a perfectly pleasant banker-type who nodded then pulled out spreadsheets and started working his way across the continental United States without saying a word. The pilot had taken one look at her, handed her a blanket and, just before going back to the cockpit, a cup of hot tea.

The banker never even looked up.

Good. If she opened her mouth to speak, she’d probably scream.

Hope envied the businessman, envied him his focus, envied the fact that he was able to just sink into his documents. She wanted to work her way across the country too, lose herself in work, which was her specialty. Work was her happy place. But she’d been running on fumes and was beyond exhausted. She couldn’t concentrate on work right now. She’d barely escaped with her life.

This was the first time in 24 hours she’d been safe. Inside the jet, it was all muffled sounds and neutral colors and soft seats. Plus, there was absolutely nobody who would kill her here, 35,000 feet in the air.

With any luck.

Whoever was after her wouldn’t know that she was landing in Portland, Oregon because she wasn’t on anyone’s manifest.

So now was the time for her to stop and try to figure out what had happened, to make plans, maybe even to leave the country. Felicity’s company could help her with that. But she’d have to have a coherent story ready to tell them. One that made sense instead of the random insanity that was happening to her.

Analyzing data was her job. She was good at it and got paid well for it. The reward this time wasn’t a raise or a promotion, but her life. So this was her chance to stop and try to find out what the hell was going on.

Instead, she fell fast asleep. More like falling into a coma.

Since Kyle had called the previous day, she’d been on superhigh alert. Hadn’t eaten, hadn’t slept. Probably had adrenaline coursing through her veins instead of blood.

Adrenaline crash. All nerds knew them. Forty-eight and even seventy-two hour work binges, when sleep was for sissies, for the brain-dead, followed by crashing hard for twelve hours. Like that. Only with death and danger thrown into the mix.

She fell asleep the moment she buckled her seat belt and realized that there was no one who wanted to kill her inside this steel tube that was soon going to be unreachably high up in the stratosphere. She slept through the trip, through the descent, through the landing, and only woke up when someone touched her hand.

She was torn out of a nightmare, gave a raw, whispery scream and flung her arms up over her face. Because in the dream someone was shooting her in the face and a good way to avoid that is to throw up your arms, which will of course stop a bullet.

“Hey.”

Killers didn’t say ‘hey’. Did they?

She was scrabbling in her seat, wrenching at something holding her down, before she even opened her eyes.

“Hope.” She opened her eyes and saw a man standing right in front of her. He didn’t look like a crazed killer and his voice was low and deep and calm. And he knew her name. “My name is Luke. I’m Felicity’s friend. I’m here to help you.”

The words bounced around in her head, only three words making any sense. Luke. Felicity. Friend.

But she was still bound somehow, with no freedom of movement.

“May I?” the man said. Holding up his hands. Why was he doing that? To assure her he didn’t hold weapons? But those hands were big. Those were hands that could hurt.

But they didn’t hurt. Before she could react, he reached down to her lap, she heard a metallic click and was free of the seat belt.

And the cloud in her head lifted.

Hope was smart. Her essential self was basically what went on in her head. It was frightening to be out of it even for the few moments between waking up and realizing where she was. It was a sign of her exhaustion and stress that she’d reacted so badly.

She looked up at the man standing in front of her. Luke. His name was