“I can live with being on a small boat with no privacy for seven long days, the sun turning me into a lobster girl, and mosquitoes feasting on me, I really can,” Emma informed the closest passenger beside her, a twenty something year old lady who she had gotten into a discussion few hours ago after the plane had taken off the tarmac in England.
“But I swear to you, if I hear one more complaint or disgusting sexual innuendo from Mr. I’m-So-Hot-Every-Woman-Should-Bow-Down-To-Me, I’m just going to shove the idiot overboard. His constant licking his lips and saying he likes the idea of mother and daughter gives me the creeps.”
Emma cast a glance of pure loathing at Miles, the annoying idiot in question. She’d met a lot of narcissistic pigs while in her seventeen years old life, and a few at the college, even in high school amongst her peers, but he took the cake.
He was a great brute of a man, with wide shoulders, a barrel chest and an attitude of superiority that irked Emma. Even if she wasn’t already so much on edge, the presence of that awful man would have made her so. Worse, her new friend was very fragile right now, making Riley extremely protective of her, battling with some sort of respiratory issues, and his constant sexual innuendos and filthy jokes around the lady made her want to just shove him over the plane.
Annabel, a renowned horticulturalist famous for her efforts to reestablish thousands of acres of Brazilian rainforest lost to deforestation, looked at Emma, beautiful green eyes twinkling and mouth twitching, obviously itching to smile. “Unfortunately, honey, we’re in a male’s territory.”
“That’s the point, Annabel.” Emma cast another pointed glare in Miles’ direction.
The only benefit of the horrible man’s presence was that plotting his demise gave her something to focus on other than chills slowly spreading through her body and making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She was a bit nervous on going home. She was wondering what her father’s reaction would be. It wasn’t Christmas anytime soon.
But apart from that, there was something else, even now, a strange heaviness, an aura of danger, that seemed to be following them up the sky. She’d tried hard to shrug it off, but the ominous feeling remained, a weight pressing down on her, chills creeping down her spine and ugly suspicions keeping her awake since the flight began. Has something gone wrong somewhere? She wondered, inhaling deeply, blocking thoughts of ex boyfriend, Derek.
“Perhaps if I could accidentally cut his hand as he goes overboard …” she continued with a dark smile. Her friend, Maya, could have warned the man to beware when she smiled like that. It never boded well. She missed Maya.
The smile faded a little, though, as she glanced down at the murky skies and saw three weird birds flying alongside the plane at the same speed. Were her eyes playing tricks on her? It almost looked as if the birds were following the plane. But, birds don’t do that. They went about their business. And how could a bird’s speed be synonymous to their fast plane.
She stole a glance at the hostess who muttered to the two business men talking about a certain contract deal, ignoring their charges for her to give them some space.
No one had taken notice of the big birds following them. Were the birds spies? She thought, shaking her head and chuckling the next second. She was being silly. She’d been on flight many times south freaking about anything. Her imagination was working overtime. Still … the birds seemed to be following them, and there weren’t any other bird in sight.
“Ruthless girl,” Annabel scolded with a small laugh, drawing Emma’s attention back to the aggravating presence of Miles.
“It’s the way he looks at us,” Emma griped. The humidity was so high that every shirt Emma wore clung to her like a second skin. She had full curves, and there was no hiding them. She didn’t dare raise her hands to lift her thick, red hair off the back of her neck or he would think she was deliberately enticing him. “I really, really, want to smack that oaf. He stares at my breasts like he’s never seen a pair, which is bad enough, but when he stares at yours …”
“Maybe he hasn’t ever seen breasts, dear,” Annabel said softly.
Emma tried to smother a laugh. Her friend could ruin a perfectly good mad with her sense of humor. “Well if he hasn’t, it’s for good reason. He’s disgusting.”
Behind them, Miles slapped his neck and hissed out a slow, angry breath. “Damn insects. Hostess, where the hell is the bug spray?”
Emma suppressed an eye roll. As far as she was concerned, Miles and the other two engineers with him were liars-well at least two of the three were. They claimed to know what they were doing in the forest, but it was clear neither Miles nor his constant companions, had a clue.
The hostess had told them that there weren’t any bugs on the plane, Emma couldn’t see or hear any either, but Miles had insisted on the presence of the creatures. She wondered if his years staying in forests had made him paranoid.
Cole, his companion, a compact man with burnt mahogany skin and rippling muscles, swatted at his own neck and then his chest, murmuring obscenities. “You left it at home, you big bastard, after you used the last of it.”
Cole was a little friendlier than the other two engineers and not quite as obnoxious as Miles, but instead of making Emma feel safer, his proximity actually made her skin prickle. Maybe that was because his smile never reached his eyes. And because he watched everything and everyone on board. Emma had the feeling Miles vastly underestimated the other man. Clearly, Miles thought himself in charge of their mining expedition, but no one was bossing Cole.