Axel spit away his cigar. "What the h.e.l.l is that?"

"A falcon."

"Yeah, but look at its legs and beak."

"Interesting."

"Mechanical body parts on a bird? Seems a waste of ingenuity."

"Not for the bird." Goggles now dangling around his neck, Tuck tugged off his leather gloves and stuffed them in the pockets of his overcoat. Seemed to him that enhanced falcon was protective of the lady pilot. Fascinating. He edged closer and the falcon flapped and screeched.

Axel jerked his Remington Blaster from his holster. "Vamoose or roast, you iron-beaked p.e.c.k.e.r."

Rubble shifted as the pilot pushed into a wavering sitting position, some manner of a pistol aimed at Axel's private parts. "Harm one feather on Leo and I promise I shall roast another kind of p.e.c.k.e.r altogether."

Tuck grinned at that. "Just trying to help, ma'am."

Using her free hand to push her fur-rimmed goggles onto her forehead, she blinked to clear her vision. Her dazed blue gaze hopped from Tuck to Axel, then skyward, to where the Maverick now hovered. "Were you to steer your ship responsibly, I would not be in this predicament."

"Of all the sa.s.s," Axel remarked while holstering his piece.

Flygirl lowered her weapon as well and visually absorbed the wreckage. "Crikey," she complained, voice brittle. "Look what you've done to Bess."

Tuck a.s.sumed she was referring to her flying machine. He might have felt worse if she'd stop faulting him and his boat for her misfortune. "Plenty of time to sort blame," he said. "Let's get you out from under that mess, make sure you're in good workin' order." He stepped closer, soothing the falcon's angst with a gentle signal of peace. Leo shifted his weight, but stood down.

"I say, how did you manage that?" Flygirl asked.

"Marshal's got a way with animals," Axel said as he lifted away a mangled kite wing.

She winced as Tuck disengaged her boot from the twisted pedal. "I suppose you cannot be all that bad then, Mr. Marshal."

"Name's Tuck." Admiring her disarmingly pretty face, he helped the frank young woman to her booted feet. "Tucker Gentry."

Favoring her left leg, she slipped her pistol into the coat's pocket and gaped. "The Sky Cowboy?"

"In the flesh," Axel answered for him, nudging aside a bent wheel to retrieve a carpetbag and leather satchel from the snow.

"Did you twist your ankle?" Tuck asked. "Do you hurt anywhere else?"

"I'm fine." She licked her full lips, then glanced up. "So that's the Maverick?" she asked in an awestruck tone.

"It is." Tuck was captivated as well. Flygirl was beautiful. A tad young for his taste, but striking. Although her heart-shaped face was smudged with grease and red from the brisk cold, her complexion was flawless, her eyes as blue as the clear skies of Arizona on a dry, hot day. Her hair was hidden beneath a fleece-lined aviator cap, but given her fair brows, he guessed corn silk blond. As for her lips...d.a.m.n, he'd like to kiss that rosebud mouth.

Staring up at his airship, she whispered, "Beautiful."

"She's something, all right," Tuck said, though he wasn't talking about his ship. Even though Flygirl wore a thick leather duster, mannish boots, and had two colorful scarves wrapped around her neck, he was well aware of her womanly form.

She met his gaze, causing l.u.s.tful thoughts to scorch his brain. Well, d.a.m.n. "Listen, Miss..."

"Darcy," Eli said, coming up from behind. "And this is Concetta, her traveling companion."

The dark-haired, olive-skinned woman shook a finger at Flygirl. "I knew this mistake!" she railed with a heavy accent. "You said you see me safely to Italia!"

Miss Darcy burst to infuriated life. "I would have if not for these sky pigs!"

"You sayin' we were hoggin' the sky?" Axel asked, outraged. "We were in the right. A mite dig like yours should have been flying at a lower alt.i.tude."

"The air current was better higher," Miss Darcy argued.

"You aimed on flying that winged bicycle all the way to Italy?" Tuck asked, astounded.

"I would have done it too, if not for you."

His blood burned. "Hold up."

"Now what am I supposed to do?" she asked, hobbling in a circle. "You've ruined everything!"

"We can take you as far as Paris," Eli said.

Tuck shot him a look.

The bighearted son of a former slave gestured to the isolated landscape. "We can't just leave them here."

Amelia's blue eyes sparked, and her s.e.xy leather-clad body perked. "You're traveling to Paris, France? Spectacular. I accept."

Tuck tensed. No woman had ever boarded the Maverick in the midst of a job. The crew couldn't afford the distraction, especially with someone as distracting as Miss Darcy. How could he trust his men-the majority not having been at port in two weeks-to behave like gentlemen? h.e.l.l, how was he supposed to trust himself?

"Eli spoke out of turn," Tuck said.

"d.a.m.ned straight," Axel said. "Talk about trouble."

"Eli," she said with a nod toward the big man, "is a gentleman. I am most grateful for his kindness." She smiled then at Axel and pointed up. "If you wouldn't mind putting our luggage aboard."

"Of all the-"

Concetta marched forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed her carpetbag from the man's hands. "I will go nowhere with these outlaws," she said in broken English. "You are foolish like your padre," she told Flygirl. "Like him you will die."

The blue-eyed h.e.l.lion flushed and Concetta bolted.

Eli looked to Tuck. "Give me the dinghy and an hour or so. There was a village a few miles back. I'll drop Miss Concetta there and return faster than chain lightnin' with a link snapped."

So much for being ahead of schedule. "An hour," Tuck said. Eli was right: They couldn't abandon these women to the elements and road ruffians.

Hollering for Concetta, who'd taken off on foot, Eli hefted his pack and hurried after.

"Good heavens," Flygirl exclaimed. "Is that a working rocket belt?"

"Pogo Pack," Tuck said. "Good for short vertical flights."

"I've never seen one."

"And you won't," Axel said, chomping on a new cigar. "Not on the open market."

Eli, who was arguing with the ill-tempered woman, finally lost patience and tapped her with his stun cuff. She wilted in his arms and ten seconds later they were airborne.

"Astonishing," Flygirl whispered as they blasted straight up and disappeared over the side of the Maverick.

Hoping she'd be willing to join Concetta for a dinghy ride back north, Tuck looked to the mesmerized woman, trying to ignore her infectious wonder. "Since your friend no longer requires your services, seems you've got no reason to visit Italy."

Awe turned to panic. "I have every reason!" She gulped air, then felled him with desperate eyes. "My grandfather lives there and he is dying. I must travel to Italy in haste." She gestured to her wrecked dirigible, then glared at Tuck. "You owe me."

"Hold on," Axel interrupted before Tuck could give her an earful. "Darcy?" He narrowed his eyes, then raised one condemning brow. "You related to that kook who blew himself up building a moonship?"

She fisted her hands. "If by kook you mean visionary, then yes."

Tuck blinked. A few days ago Axel, an irritatingly superst.i.tious man as well as a fierce fan of that scandal sheet the London Informer, had shared the curious article with the gang over an evening meal. Which had led to a heated discussion regarding Lord Ashford's infamous cousin, time travel, and the Peace Rebels.

Axel swiped off his slouch hat and slapped it to his thigh. "If that don't cap the climax," he said to Tuck. "Told you she was a loon. Runs in the family."

Sore as a frog on a hot skillet, she launched herself at the burly Irishman, clipping him in the jaw just as Tuck grabbed her by the waist and hauled her back.

The falcon screeched.

"d.a.m.n!" Cringing at the earsplitting noise, Axel covered his a.s.saulted ear with one hand and rubbed his jaw with the other.

"You asked for it," Tuck said, sensitive to the woman's distress. Christ's sake, she'd just lost her pa. And now her grandpap was fading?

Flygirl smacked at his arms. "Unhand me!"

Tuck ignored her and held tight. "Settle down."

"Not to mention she's related to Briscoe Darcy," Axel barreled on. "Thanks to him-"

"That's enough." According to diversified sources, the infamous Time Voyager was either a savior or an annihilator of mankind. Either way, Tuck grew more intrigued with Flygirl Darcy by the moment.

Still squirming, she flailed a fist at Axel. "Don't tell me you're an Old Worlder. Or worse, a Flatliner."

"Don't reckon my political or social views are your business, Miss Crazy Pants." He, too, shook a fist.

The falcon swooped, grazing Axel's knuckles with his talons, causing the man to yelp and draw his Blaster.

Miss Darcy cried out.

"Holster your weapon, Ax." Tuck squeezed Flygirl's waist. "Call off the bird."

"Leo!" She gestured and the falcon settled on a leafless tree branch.

Axel sucked his sc.r.a.ped knuckles and glared.

Miss Darcy turned in Tuck's arms, gut-twisting misery clouding those pretty eyes. "My family has suffered a great loss," she railed. "And now...if you do not take me...if I do not get to Italy in time...I shall never forgive you."

He wasn't sure what swayed him: her beauty, her circ.u.mstance, or her fighting spirit. It sure as blazes wasn't her charm. "To Paris, but no farther."

"d.a.m.nation," Axel complained.

She blew out a sigh of relief as he set her on her feet. "Right then," she said, bolstering her shoulders as she turned to the ship's engineer. "I am sorry Leo hurt you, but he is most protective."

"Obviously."

"You would do well to mind your manners, Mr....Axel."

Tuck cut off the man's retort with a sharp look. "I'll take Miss Darcy. You get the luggage."

"And do what you must to hoist Bess aboard," she added.

"What the h.e.l.l for?" Axel barked.

"To what purpose?" Tuck asked while buckling on his Pogo Pack.

"So that I may resurrect her, of course."

He eyed the destruction as Flygirl and her falcon prepared to board his airship. If she could repair that mess, Miss Darcy was a d.a.m.ned miracle worker. Then again, she was related to the Time Voyager.

"Put your arms around me and hold tight." Tuck's blood burned as she pressed against him and clung. She smelled of wind, leather, grease, and lilac soap. Not nearly as pretty as Chantel's French perfume, but somehow twice as enticing. d.a.m.n. "Ready?"

She smiled up at him, then at the sky. "Oh, yes."

Oh, h.e.l.l. Were he charging for the ride, he would have asked for hazard pay. As far as cargo went, Miss Darcy was more dangerous than a crate of nitroglycerin.

CHAPTER 4.

Astonishing how one miscalculation had obliterated her logical, if not perfect plan to reach Italy, losing her transportation and translator to boot. Amelia could hardly be blamed for concocting a ruse and manipulating the situation. She was, after all, desperate. Not to mention that this quirk of fate had landed her in the company of her aeronautical hero. Even his rumored crimes couldn't dampen her excitement. In her eyes, his past heroics and present exploits overshadowed the transgression that had pulverized his reputation and rendered him a wanted man. In her heart, she believed his claim that he had been falsely accused of stealing invaluable art from a powerful American judge and then murdering the man's daughter in order to cover the theft. Crikey. Anyone who'd read about Gentry's long history of valiant and n.o.ble deeds knew that atrocity went against the lawman's very nature.

A former United States air marshal, Tucker Gentry had policed wild territories and protected and saved countless lives. His courage and daring on the ground and in the air were as legendary as his flying skills. Amelia had been following his adventures as featured in the penny dreadfuls for years, and most recently through the Informer. True, that newspaper was not quality press, but the stories pertaining to Gentry had been in line with anything she'd ever read and offered a grittier peek into his life. Though accounts were a.s.suredly embellished, she trusted they were rooted in truth and that he was indeed a good man.

Now here he was in the flesh.

Her mind spun with dazed reverence and wonder, causing her heart to flutter in a most bizarre fashion.

Perhaps she had sustained a severe head injury and this was indeed wishful, addled thinking. A grand hallucination. Yet she could feel the brisk wind upon her cheeks and a painful throbbing in her thigh. Could taste blood where she'd bitten the inside of her cheek upon impact. She could smell fuel, tobacco, and bay rum cologne. Surely this was real. As such, she intended to embrace the opportunity and to benefit from the knowledge, skill, and advanced technology of Tucker Gentry.