The Dangerous Jacob Wilde

Well, more or less.

They’d wanted to send a jet for him.

“We have two of the damned things at El Sueño” Travis had said. “Hey, you know that better than we do. You’re the guy who bought them, supervised their interior design, that whole bit. Why fly commercial if you don’t have to?”

Why, indeed?

The part Travis hadn’t mentioned was that Jake hadn’t only bought the Wilde planes, he’d piloted them.

Not now.

A pilot with one functional eye wasn’t a pilot anymore, and the thought of returning home as a passenger on a jet he’d once flown was more than he figured he could handle.

So he’d told his brothers he didn’t know when he’d be able to leave, blah, blah, blah, and finally, they’d eased off.

“It’ll be simpler all around if I just get in Friday evening and rent a car.”

As if, he thought now, and smiled again.

He’d been paged as soon as he stepped into the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. He’d considered ignoring the page but finally he’d gritted his teeth and marched up to the arrivals desk.

“Captain Jacob Wilde,” he’d said briskly. “You’ve been paging me.”

The clerk behind the counter had her back to him. She’d turned, professional smile in place …

And blanched.

“Oh,” she’d stammered, “oh …”

It had taken all his determination not to tell her that, yeah, despite the eye patch, she was looking at a face that was better suited to Halloween.

He had to give her credit. She’d recovered, fast. Got back her phony smile.

“Sir,” she’d said, “we have something for you.”

Something for him? What? It had better not be what some of the guys in the hospital had told him about, a welcoming committee of serious-faced civilians, all wanting to shake his hand.

No.

Thank God, it hadn’t been that.

It had been a manila envelope.

Inside, he’d found a set of keys, directions to a particular parking garage…

And a note, his brothers’ names scrawled at the bottom.

Did you really think you could fool us?

They’d left him his old Thunderbird to drive home.

It had been a crazy thing to do.

A damned crazy thing, indeed, Jake thought, and swallowed past a sudden tightness in his throat.

The car had made the miles through the endless expanse that was North Texas easier….

And, suddenly, there it was.