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about?”
    Amelia swiped a tear off her cheek and took a sip from the half-empty flask. “If you hadn’t turned me away, then I never would have had to hire Mr. Newton as my guide. This is not what I had in mind when I came down here.”
    “What did you have in mind?”
    Her eyes raked over him. “Not you.” She took another drink. “Not this.” Her breath hitched. “Not guns pointed at my face.”
    Memories of those guns invaded her head and tears spilled over her lashes before she could stop them.
    “Ah, hell. Don’t do that. Don’t cry,” Brody said gruffly.
    “Don’t tell me what to do,” Amelia mumbled with an inelegant sniffle. “Oh, why did I think I could do this?”

Chapter Four
    Helpless, Brody stared at the woman sobbing next to him. Big, gut-wrenching, broken sobs that tore at his chest. What was he supposed to do? Tears always threw him for a loop. He’d been around women who cried, but this one, for some damn reason, was getting to him.
    “Look,” he heard himself say. “Just stop crying. We’ll work this out. I’ll take you back to my place, get you cleaned up, and we’ll figure out what the next step is.”
    Wet, bright green eyes met his. “You would do that for me?”
    Offended, he said, “I offered, didn’t I?”
    “Yes. But you don’t sound very happy about it.”
    “You’re in danger and I’m good with danger. And unless Pandora dropped you another name, I’m all you have.”
    The tears slowed, although her creamy skin still held a gray pallor. Brody looked away before she caught him staring at her ruby red lips. The best thing he could do for her was get her to a safe location. Then he’d get her safely out of the country before anyone else came looking for the map. His original plan, only without the complications.
    “I don’t see that I have any other choice,” Amelia murmured, resting her head against the window. “Can you turn up the heat?”
    Sweat trickled down his face, but Brody cranked up the heat anyway. As he continued driving toward his place, he noticed — with relief — that Amelia had stopped crying. She stared out the window, shaking beneath his jacket, which hung limply on her slender frame. She looked delicate as a rare jungle orchid sitting there and something unwanted tightened in his chest.
    Pandora hadn’t been delicate or soft. Beautiful, stubborn and borderline crazy when it came to taking risks, but never feeble. She drank many locals under the table the night she was in town and somehow suffered no hangover the next morning. An old ancient remedy, she told him when she showed up at his hangar at sunrise, looking bright and chipper.
    “So what’s your story? Besides being too damn trusting.”
    “I was named after Amelia Earhart,” she said, with a deprecating laugh. “She was the first woman to fly the Atlantic. Solo, mind you. She had to land in Ireland due to strong winds but she was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. By Congress. Can you imagine?”
    Brody assumed the question was rhetorical.
    “Did I tell you I have two sisters? Caroline and Brittany. They’re both very successful. Caroline owns her own bed and breakfast, and Brit is a tea expert. People travel from miles away just to sample her teas. Anyway, Amelia Earhart was the most obvious choice since she was most like my aunt. Did you know Aunt Pandora was a pilot?”
    How could he forget? When Pandora came in to charter his services, she’d wanted his plane, not him. “Yes, I knew that,” he said, glancing over to see Amelia’s eyes close. Shock was wearing off.
Crash time.
    “She was amazing. No one could fly a plane like she could. She was the bravest, strongest woman I knew,” she murmured, voice drifting. “My sisters are like her. Especially Brittany. She lives a very exciting life. Travels all over the world … she should’ve been given the name instead of me … ”
    Brody looked over to see she had fallen asleep midsentence, the flask gripped