Uniformly Hot! Volume 1 from Harlequin: Letters from HomeBreaking the RulesComing Up for Air

by Rhonda Nelson

  Jenna nodded again. “That’s good to hear, sir.”

  The colonel cleared his throat. “Jenna,” he began, using her first name in a rare display of familiarity, “I have some bad news.”

  Jenna’s pulse kicked into high gear. Was it Chance? His face was so grim that the news had to be very bad. She mentally braced herself, curling her hands into fists on her lap.

  “I’m listening,” she said.

  “I received an emergency notification from the Red Cross. Your father suffered a massive heart attack several hours ago. He’s alive, but he’s not expected to survive. I’m very sorry.”

  Jenna stared at him for a long moment, trying to comprehend his words. Not Chance. Her father. Dying. She shook her head, not quite believing what she’d heard.

  “I’ve arranged for you to return immediately,” Colonel Tyler continued. “Just pack the essentials. I’m giving you authorization to take as much time as you need. There’s a flight departing Kandahar in one hour for Kuwait, and from there you’ll continue on to Fort Lee, Virginia.”

  “Thank you,” she replied automatically. Standing up, she felt disoriented and numb. Her father couldn’t be dying. He was Erik Larson, a man who had cheated death so many times that she’d believed nothing could harm him.

  “For what it’s worth, your father is a great man,” Colonel Tyler said quietly. “He is one of the best pilots this country has ever seen and you should be very proud to be his daughter. I’m sure he is very proud of you.”

  “Yes,” she murmured. “Thank you very much.”

  He gave her a slip of paper with the name of a Boston hospital. Her father must be in critical condition if they’d transported him to Boston instead of treating him at the small Cape Cod facility.

  She went back to her housing unit to pack a bag, still struggling to get her head around the fact that her father was dying. For all she knew, he could already have died. How long did they expect him to survive? And if he was still alive, would she make it back in time to say goodbye? Her vision blurred and she swiped furiously at her eyes. She wouldn’t cry. If there was one thing she was certain of, it was that her father wouldn’t want her to grieve for him.

  “Captain Larson!”

  Jenna turned to see Chance jogging toward her from the direction of the fight line. He wore his flight suit, and even in her distress, she couldn’t help but admire how good he looked. He was lean and fit and tanned, and his pleased smile revealed the dimples she loved so much. But as he drew closer, his smile vanished.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded. “You’re crying.”

  He looked around as if he expected to see the source of her unhappiness standing nearby and fully intended to beat the crap out of whoever was responsible.

  Jenna bent her head and continued walking. “I just came from Colonel Tyler’s office.”

  Chance fell into step beside her. “What happened? What did he say? Because if it’s about last night, I’ll speak with him. I’ll accept full responsibility. Christ, this is all my fault. You were sleeping—”

  Jenna stopped and turned to face him, laying a hand across his mouth to halt his words. “This has nothing to do with last night,” she assured him.

  He pushed her hand away. “Then what is it? What could possibly make you this upset?”

  Jenna blinked and looked away. “It’s my father. He had a heart attack and isn’t expected to survive. In fact, he could already be gone.”

  Her voice broke on the last word, and with a soft groan of dismay, Chance hauled her into his arms. “Ah, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. When did this happen?”

  “A few hours ago,” she sniffed, her voice muffled against his shoulder. “I’m actually heading back to the States right now.”

  “Okay. I’ll come with you.”

  Jenna pulled away, bewildered. “What? No. You can’t come with me. They won’t let you, and why would you want to, anyway?”

  Grasping her shoulders, he looked directly into her eyes. “Because I care about you. Because I want to be there for you. I can probably get some home leave, especially if I explain our relationship.”

  Jenna gave a harsh laugh and shrugged his hands off before she continued walking in the direction of her CHU. “Oh, right. That should go over well with your commanding officer.”

  “I guess the question is, do you want me to come with you? If you do, then I’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen.”

  Jenna turned to face him. His face was serious now, the dimples gone. She let her gaze linger on his features, memorizing the square cut of his jaw, the full sensuousness of his lower lip, his cheekbones and the proud thrust of his nose and, finally, his eyes, which always reminded her of the sea. Did she want him to come with her? More than anything. Did she want him risking his career to do so? Absolutely not.

  “Listen,” she said carefully, “it’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer, because I do. But there wouldn’t be much you could do, and I’d rather you didn’t reveal our relationship to the top brass. We don’t even know where it’s going from here.”

  His features tightened. “Really? I thought we’d figured that out last night.”

  “Yes, well, I’m actually reconsidering my future,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “In four months, I’ll be eligible to either recommit with the army, or get out altogether.”

  Chance frowned. “What are you saying? That you’d throw away a great career and return to civilian life? Christ, Jenna, you’re scheduled to go before the promotion board in the spring. By this time next year, you could pin on major. You could have your own command—lead your own battalion.”

  “Not all of us dream of becoming heroes, Chance.”

  Chance stared at her. “Is that what you think? That I do this for the glory?”

  Jenna thought of how he had protected her during the previous night’s mission to save the wounded soldier. He’d been doing his job, and he’d likely receive no recognition or awards for what he’d done. More important, she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t expect any decorations. As far as she was concerned, he was already a hero.

  “No,” she acknowledged quietly. “I don’t think that. That’s not what I meant. Look, I really should get going. I’ll, um, be back in a couple of weeks and maybe I’ll get a chance to fly up to Kabul, okay?”

  Chance snorted. “Yeah. That sounds great.” He blew out a hard breath. “I’m real sorry about your dad.”

  Jenna nodded. “Thanks.”

  They stood in awkward silence for a moment, before Jenna gestured vaguely in the direction of her housing unit. “I should probably—”

  Before she could guess his intent, Chance stepped close and caught her face in his palms. He searched her eyes for a brief moment, and then lowered his mouth over hers in a kiss so incredibly sweet that Jenna thought she might start to cry again. When he finally pulled away, his expression was one of resignation and regret.

  “You take care of yourself, okay?”

  Jenna nodded. She couldn’t speak for the hard lump in her throat. As she watched, he walked away. Her vision blurred and the edges of his silhouette wavered and distorted against the backdrop of desert and mountains, until he might have been no more than a mirage. Dragging in a deep breath, she turned and walked in the opposite direction.

  16

  JENNA RETURNED TO Kandahar Air Base just in time for Memorial Day, which seemed fitting, somehow. Had she really only been gone for three weeks? It seemed like an eternity. She had arrived in Kuwait the previous day and was fortunate enough to get a seat on a military flight headed to Afghanistan. Right now, as she watched Kandahar Air Base come into view on the ground below, she was glad to be a passenger and not the pilot. She would have had a difficult time keeping her mind on the task of f
lying. She looked down at the paper she held in her hands. How many times had she read it? At least a dozen.

  Smoothing the creases, she reread it now, telling herself that this time she would not get weepy. But the fact that her father had written this letter to her nearly six years earlier, when she had first received her commission as an army officer, still stunned her.

  When she had arrived at the hospital in Boston, Erik Larson had been alive, but in a coma. Jenna had maintained a near-constant vigil at his bedside until he slipped away almost a week later without ever regaining consciousness. He’d had numerous visitors, including a three-star general who, in a brief but solemn ceremony, had pinned a meritorious service medal to his hospital gown.

  Her father had been buried with full military honors, and Jenna had been astonished at the number of high-ranking military members who had seen fit to attend the service. But the real surprise had come afterward, when she’d been contacted by her father’s lawyer and told that he had left his helicopter tour business to her, as well as a substantial sum of money. He’d also left a generous amount for her mother, despite the fact she’d remarried years earlier. But all of that paled in significance when compared to the letter he had left for her. Jenna only wished he’d had the courage to give it to her while he’d been alive.

  She sighed and folded the letter carefully before tucking it into the pocket of her camo jacket. In another few moments, she would be back at Kandahar, where she would resume her duties as a Black Hawk helicopter pilot. She’d had plenty of time to consider her career and her future options, and found herself replaying her last conversation with Chance over and over again in her head. A lot of guys might feel threatened by a woman whose career so closely mirrored their own. She knew for a fact that there were male pilots who felt that women had no place in the cockpit, but Chance wasn’t one of them. Leave it to him to encourage her to stay and advance her career. His opinion mattered, and she found she didn’t want to let him down. But neither could she see them having any kind of future if they were both stationed in different parts of the country or required to deploy, possibly at different times. They would be like ships passing in the night, and she just couldn’t see a long-term relationship surviving that kind of separation.

  Twenty minutes later, she had retrieved her duffel bag and made her way through the security checkpoint toward the military processing area.

  “Captain Larson!”

  Jenna turned to see Laura weaving her way through the crowds toward her. She smiled, happy to see her copilot.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?” she asked, giving the other woman a one-armed hug.

  “I figured you wouldn’t want to wait for the bus, so I brought a car for you.” Laura grinned. “We’re just outside.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Jenna protested, but was secretly relieved that she didn’t have to share the military bus with the dozens of other soldiers arriving at Kandahar.

  “Yes, well, it was the least I could do. Besides, I was told that if you arrived before thirteen hundred hours then I was to bring you over to the headquarters office ASAP.”

  Jenna followed Laura outside, where the dry, baking heat of the desert momentarily took her breath away. Just three weeks of being back on the East Coast, breathing in the cool, salty air of the Atlantic, had been enough for her to almost forget the arid dryness of Kandahar.

  She and Laura climbed into an armored Humvee that stood idling on the curb, with two armed soldiers riding in the front. “Why does the colonel want to see me?” Jenna asked, after she had stashed her backpack and duffel bag into the back and the Humvee began driving across the base.

  Laura shrugged. “I think he’s having a Commander’s Call,” she said, referring to the mandatory meetings that a commander periodically held in order to speak to his people.

  “Has it been crazy while I’ve been gone?”

  “No more than usual. I’ve been doing the Afghan shuffle, transporting people and troops back and forth, but I haven’t been involved in any more rescue missions.”

  “Have you seen Major Rawlins?” She tried to keep her voice casual, knowing she failed miserably.

  “Which one?” Laura asked archly. “Special Ops or Apache pilot?”

  Jenna gave her a tolerant look. “Either.”

  “Oh, look,” Laura said brightly, glancing at her watch. “We’re already here, and not a minute too soon.”

  Looking out the window, Jenna saw they had arrived at the commander’s headquarters, where both aviators and soldiers were already making their way inside. Climbing down from the Humvee, she smoothed her hands over her camo jacket and tucked a loose strand of hair behind one ear, wishing she’d had time to wash up and change into a fresh uniform. She’d been traveling for two days, and aside from feeling grungy and in need of a long shower, she felt jet-lagged and irritable. Blowing out a hard breath, Jenna grabbed her gear and followed Laura into the building to a small auditorium where the other soldiers were already taking their seats. Choosing a chair near the back, she dropped her duffel back onto the floor beside her.

  The room was noisy with conversation and laughter and the scraping of chairs against the floor. Jenna could feel a headache coming on. Leaning forward, she pressed her fingers against her aching eyes and thought longingly of her quiet, air-conditioned CHU. She thought of Chance, who was located three hundred miles to the north and couldn’t do anything to make her feel better. He hadn’t tried to contact her while she’d been gone, and recalling their last conversation, she wondered if she had blown any chance of a real relationship with him. The thought made her feel even more depressed.

  The room fell silent and Laura poked her hard on the shoulder. Looking up, she realized Colonel Tyler had entered the room. She rose quickly to her feet and stood at attention, her height affording her a clear view. The colonel stood with his aide, who held an armful of green folders and a stack of small, velvet boxes. An awards ceremony.

  “Could the following individuals please come forward,” he said without preamble. “Sergeant First Class Randy Morrison. Sergeant First Class Samantha Helwig.”

  Jenna gave Laura a meaningful look as the commander continued his roll call. She had a suspicion that she knew where this was going.

  “Specialist Leeann Baker. Warrant Officer Laura Costanza. Captain Jenna Larson.”

  Jenna drew in a deep breath before she followed Laura to the front of the room, when all she really wanted to do was protest that this was some kind of mistake. She didn’t know which award the commander was about to present, but she felt strongly that she had done nothing to deserve it. Feeling like an imposter, she fell into line beside her crew and fixed her gaze on a spot at the far end of the room. The colonel called out the names of the flight surgeon and the second medic who had performed the lifesaving emergency treatment on the wounded soldier, and Jenna watched as they made their way to the front of the room.

  “Recently, these seven individuals standing before you put their lives at risk under enemy fire to rescue an injured soldier,” Colonel Tyler said. “These men and women give great reassurance to our war fighters. They know that if push comes to shove, there are individuals who can provide the medical attention and evacuation procedures necessary to get them out of combat fast. Therefore, it is with great honor that I award each of these members the Bronze Star with Valor for their selfless and heroic actions.”

  He turned to Sergeant Morrison and Jenna heard him murmur words of congratulations as he pinned a medal onto Morrison’s uniform and handed him the citation, before saluting sharply and moving on to Sergeant Helwig. When he reached Laura, a small group of men entered the auditorium and made their way to the back row. Jenna glanced at them, and then did a double-take as she saw they were pilots. Her heart leaped, but in the next instant she realized none of them was Chance. Then there w
as no further opportunity to look, since Colonel Tyler stepped directly in front her.

  “Congratulations, Captain Larson,” he murmured, pinning the heavy medal onto the front of her uniform. “That was some great flying you did out there. You’re more like your father than you realize.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “Welcome back. After this, why don’t you go get some sleep? You look as if you could use it. Report to me at oh-seven-hundred tomorrow morning.”

  Jenna saluted smartly. “Thank you, sir.”

  Colonel Tyler finished pinning on the last medal and turned to face the auditorium. “Please join me in congratulating each of these deserving men and women, and then join us for a Memorial Day barbecue behind the headquarters building, where I understand the top brass is serving up ribs and corn on the cob.”

  The room erupted in cheering and clapping, and after shaking hands with her crew, Jenna searched the crowd for Chance. When she didn’t see his tall form, she turned away, trying to hide her disappointment. There was no reason to expect that he would be here at Kandahar. She hadn’t had any contact with him during the three weeks she’d been gone, and it wasn’t as if he knew she would return today. He was at Kabul Air Base, three hundred miles away, and the likelihood that she would see him again anytime soon was pretty remote. Her hand slipped into the pocket of her jacket, feeling the letter that she had tucked there during the flight. She needed to make a decision and she needed to do it soon.

  She felt someone bump her shoulder and turned to see Laura grinning at her. “Hey, did I hear Tyler give you the day off?”

  Jenna shrugged. “I probably look like hell—he felt bad for me.”

  Laura snorted. “You look great, and he definitely has a soft spot for you. C’mon, let’s go get something to eat.”

  Casting one last look around the room, Jenna blew out a hard breath and forced herself to smile. “Yeah, that sounds good.”