One of the Boys

by Merline Lovelace

  “Probably not, but I tried to warn you how a hot set of wheels can make a male lose his common sense. Particularly when it contains an equally hot female.”

  Despite the shivers racing along her spine, Maura had to grin. “Somehow I have difficulty believing the cool, composed Jake McAllister ever loses control or his common sense.”

  His brows waggled in a ferocious mock scowl. “Are you questioning my manhood?”

  “No, no, honestly!”

  Her laughing protests did no good as slowly, inexorably, he tugged her toward him. Her neck bowed, but she held on to the door handle and refused to give way. Even that anchor was lost when his arm slid down to wrap around her waist. An indignant Bea was dumped to the floor of the cab as he hauled Maura across the space between the seats and onto his lap.

  For the second time in her tumultuous relationship with this man, Maura found herself in his arms. Half rueful, half aroused, she pushed against his ribs and managed to put some air between them. No easy feat with the steering wheel jabbing in her back.

  “What is it with us, McAllister? We don’t even like each other, yet we always seem to end up chest to chest.”

  His lips twitched. “Maybe we need to work on the liking part.”

  With one hand at the back of her head to hold her still, he lowered his lips until they nuzzled the edges of her mouth. He brushed them back and forth, over and over, until Maura gave a breathless murmur.

  “What the hell.”

  Eyes closed, she put herself into the kiss. Her teeth scraped along his lower lip. Her tongue tasted his.

  Sucking in a sharp breath, he moved his mouth over hers to give her full access. Maura pulled her arms free of his loosened hold and slid her palms up his arms. The muscles bunched under her fingertips, the skin warm to her touch. Tentatively at first, then more aggressively, she explored him with eager hands and tongue.

  Jake held himself back, letting her play, allowing her to set the pace. But when her hands slid under the loose armholes of his sweatshirt to move across the bare skin of his back, his muscles twitched involuntarily.

  All of them.

  Including the one cradled against her soft, warm rear. When her eyes flew open in surprise, he grinned down at her wickedly.

  “I told you, it’s the hot wheels.”

  Maura gaped at him a moment, then laughed and pushed herself quickly, if ungracefully, off his lap.

  “If a Jeep does this to you, fly-boy, I’d hate to see you when you come down out of the sky after joyriding in one of your supersonic airplanes.”

  “Why do you think the fire vehicles are always standing by to hose us down?”

  “God,” she groaned, “you’re sick.”

  “Nope, just your average all-American horny test pilot,” he responded, opening his door to come around and help her down from the high cab.

  Maura slid out of the truck, Bea held up to her chest as a shield. Despite the way her nerve endings still tingled, her rational mind questioned what her senses were feeling.

  “Jake, I’m confused. I’m not real sure how this happened. I don’t know if I want it to happen again.”

  “Don’t worry about it so much,” he told her gently. “Just be thankful Lisa is waiting at home or there’d be a lot more confusion to follow.”

  He ran his knuckle down the slope of her nose, then jerked his hand back quickly as a warning hiss filled the darkness.

  “Good night, Maura. And go take a flying leap, cat.”

  Chapter 4

  After Jake left, Maura wandered aimlessly through her small cottage. Too restless to attack the full briefcase waiting beside her makeshift desk, she switched on the CD player. The soaring tenor of Placido Domingo performing a special collection of John Denver songs filled the night. But instead of soothing her as it usually did, the music only made her more restless.

  With Bea padding at her heels, she opened the sliding glass doors to her small patio and settled on the lounger. The cat soon found her favorite spot on Maura’s tummy.

  Soft, starry night surrounded them. The sky was just darkening to deep blue velvet, and a glowing three-quarter moon hung low over the black waters of the bay. Crickets chirped in the bushes dotting her sloping backyard, providing a light counterpoint to the occasional deep, throaty call of a frog.

  Maura stretched out on the lounger and let the night wash over her, but her body refused to surrender to the music or the magic of the breeze rustling through the palmettos. She was too restless, too wound up. Too physically aroused, she admitted with rueful honesty. Jake’s kiss had stirred more than her curiosity.

  Another shiver rippled through her, this one of pleasure, and her hands tightened involuntarily on Bea’s coat. The cat lifted its head and opened one eye to fix her with an accusing stare.

  “Sorry!”

  Stroking the animal back into its normal state of boneless relaxation, Maura tried to rationalize her reaction to Colonel Jake McAllister. Despite every warning her head sent out, her body refused to listen. She could still feel his lips on hers and the warmth of the arms that had circled her waist.

  Okay. All right. These lingering sensations weren’t that difficult to understand. She was a healthy female confronted with an attractive man. A very attractive man.

  Maura gulped, remembering the long length of male thigh his jogging shorts had revealed. Not to mention the tight, iron-hard muscles displayed so enticingly by the sweatshirt. Her fingers tightened once more in Bea’s rough coat.

  The long-suffering animal didn’t even open her eyes this time. She just used the tips of her very sharp claws.

  Wincing, Maura gathered the cat on her chest. With Bea draped across her like a slightly used feather boa, she lay back on the lounger.

  Her objective, analytical mind went to work dissecting the problem. She could admit now she was attracted to Jake. Had been since day one. Unfortunately, she wasn’t skilled enough to separate her physical and emotional responses to a man. She’d learned that lesson the hard way in L.A.

  Now this Stealth-modification project had been thrown into the mix. Maura could see only one solution. She’d have to nip physical attraction in the bud. Now, before business got all mixed up with pleasure.

  She’d tell Jake that tomorrow.

  Thoroughly depressed but determined, she unwrapped her fur tippet, turned her back on the low-hanging moon and went to bed.

  Three weeks later, Jake McAllister sat in the Central Control Facility and watched the preparations for their first test shot. The modified missile would be launched from an F-15 Eagle first. If it separated without problem and the guidance system activated, they’d fly in a Stealth for the next test.

  The three screens before Jake flickered with different views, adding to the unearthly glow permeating the room. The left screen showed the target—a solid wall of concrete fifty feet high and ten feet thick, with two intersecting lines painted in luminescent black. The right screen showed a panoramic sweep of Eglin’s runway from a camera mounted in the chase plane. When the chase plane was airborne, it would maneuver in below the F-15 Eagle carrying the modified missile and track the weapon during release.

  The center screen showed only a hazy gray pattern. An hour from now, that small square would be the focus of fifty anxious pairs of eyes. It would show a view from a camera mounted in the missile’s nose cone. Everyone in the room would watch, breath suspended, while the Maverick flew across miles of sparsely wooded terrain toward the concrete wall.

  Jake sat quietly at the console and listened while the test engineers, range safety and telemetry people all ran through their checklists. Eglin employed some of the finest, most experienced test personnel in the world. The weapons they developed had proved themselves time and again. These were the men and women who’d fielded the systems that had put a two-thousand-pound bomb down a factory smokestack in Iraq while a hospital sat untouched just a block away. These people knew their job, and Jake let them do it.

  In his
normal capacity as deputy commander for operations, he was responsible for the aircraft and crews that flew these dangerous test missions. With more than forty of the world’s finest test pilots and a fleet of thirty of the most technologically advanced test aircraft to oversee, he had plenty to keep him busy. This particular test, however, added even more responsibility. This would be the first launch of the modified missile his special team had been working on night and day for the past three weeks.

  Jake rested one arm on the console and let the low, muted voices drift around him. He knew the pretest routine by heart. Having been assigned to Eglin as a test pilot some years ago, he’d flown hundreds of similar missions. Since he’d returned as D.O., he’d planned and directed many more. There really wasn’t any need for him to be here this early. But an uncharacteristic restlessness had led him to cancel a scheduled staff meeting and drove him to the control facility.

  He knew his still face and relaxed posture gave no clue to his inner unrest. People responded to their leader’s body signals, and Jake had learned to project calm even during the worst crises. That control had seen him through more than one dangerous test, and had saved his life during a nightmarish period on the ground in northern Iraq.

  Still, projecting calm and feeling it were two very different matters, Jake acknowledged ruefully. His glance strayed to the woman seated among the folks crowded in the viewing area off to the right. In her fire-hydrant-red dress, she was hard to miss.

  Silently, Jake admitted Dr. Maura Phillips was the source of a good part of the tension now wrapping its insidious coils around his body. Ever since she’d taken him aside and calmly informed him it wasn’t smart to mix business and personal involvement, his physical frustration had grown. He hadn’t been so tied up in knots since high school.

  His assessing eyes watched while she reached up one hand to push a thick swatch of honey-brown hair behind her ear. Her movement clearly outlined small, high breasts against the red material.

  Damn! The woman was making him ache in parts of his body he’d forgotten he owned. Shifting uncomfortably, he cursed under his breath.

  Jake knew very well she was right, that neither of them had time for distractions right now. But he was also more used to directing events than being directed. Instead of turning him off, Maura’s polite dismissal had only made him more and more aware of her during their enforced intimacy the past two weeks.

  “Eglin three-six-four ready for takeoff.”

  The scratchy voice of the pilot of the launch aircraft came over the speaker. Instantly, Jake tore his eyes and his thoughts from Maura.

  “Eglin three-six-four, you’re cleared for takeoff on runway one-nine.”

  The pilot acknowledged the tower’s clearance and the right screen switched from the chase plane’s camera to one mounted on the roof of Eglin’s main hangar. A tense stillness descended over the control facility. Everyone watched the specially modified F-15 move into position at the end of the runway. The chase plane sat on the apron, waiting its turn.

  The F-15 Eagle began its takeoff roll. Moving down the runway, it gathered speed and lifted into the air with a thrust of power and smooth grace that made Jake’s hands itch to be on the throttle. The chase plane followed close behind, and both planes headed for the wide, blue waters of the bay. Their flight pattern would take them out to the Gulf, where they would turn and begin their run back over the vast test range.

  “Test planes launched.”

  “Launch acknowledged.”

  The range safety officer, a senior civilian with twenty-five years’ experience, took over. At this point, he was in charge. Although this missile didn’t carry an explosive payload, the most detailed pre-planning and sophisticated computer systems in the world couldn’t prevent a seagull from being sucked into a jet engine or a sudden updraft hitting just when a weapon was launched. If anything occurred to endanger the pilot, the mission or the surrounding communities, the safety engineer had full authority to abort the test or destroy the missile in flight.

  Maura edged forward in her seat. The viewing area was separated from the main control console by a solid glass wall that gave her an unobstructed view of the action. The theater-style seats on either side of her were filled with nervous contractors, tense engineers and sharp-eyed test pilots. The test center’s commander, a tall, dignified major general, sat in the front row. Another half dozen or so team members stood behind the rows of seats.

  Pete had his shoulders to the wall at the rear of the small room. Although not an official member of the team, he’d provided much of the basic information and had an interest in this first test. Judging by his white face and intense, fixed stare, he was as nervous as Maura.

  “Ten minutes to launch.”

  The camera mounted in the chase plane captured the image of the F-15 tearing through a brilliant blue sky. Maura tore her gaze from the spectacular imagery to dart a quick look at Jake. He was sitting straight and tall in his green flight suit, his eyes on the screen, showing no signs of the excitement rippling through the rest of the team members. Marveling at his control, she gripped the armrests, sure she would bounce out of her seat in her nervousness.

  “Two minutes to launch.”

  “Launch systems on,” the pilot confirmed.

  The chase plane’s camera zoomed in closer to show the missile mounted under the F-15’s wing. It was long and sleek and white, its clean lines belying the deadly power of its normal payload. The missile fluttered on its modified mounting, buffeted by winds as the fighter streaked across the Florida sky at Mach one speed.

  Two seemingly endless minutes later, the pilot’s voice crackled over the loudspeakers. “Missile away.”

  The central screen lost its fuzzy blur. All eyes riveted on it as the camera in the missile’s nose activated and began to record the short flight.

  “The guidance system won’t activate.”

  The already thick tension in the control facility kicked into overdrive. Maura watched, breath suspended, as the missile’s downward trajectory sharpened. The pilot tried again, and then again, to activate the Maverick’s internal guidance controls, without success.

  A collective groan swept the control facility when the missile flew into a stand of trees fifteen miles short of the scheduled impact point.

  The central screen went blank, and Maura’s gaze whipped back to Jake. Amazingly, his lean face showed none of the raging disappointment she knew must be coursing through his veins. She shook her head at his iron control and glanced back at the blank screen. Heaven only knew how much of the missile had survived the impact.

  Slowly the crowd filed out of the control facility. They’d get together tomorrow to go over the data from the pilot’s debriefing and the recovered missile. Maura lingered as the room emptied, her eyes straying once again to Jake. He stood and spoke briefly with the general, who nodded once or twice, then left.

  “I guess it’s back to the drawing board,” she said when Jake joined her.

  “That’s what the test business is all about,” he responded with a roll of his shoulders. “Trial and error. A miss, followed by a hit. You can’t expect to field a modified system without getting out all the bugs. We’ll find out what went wrong and fix it.”

  “If there’s enough left of our missile to even try again.”

  “If not, we’ll modify another.”

  Maura groaned, thinking of the backbreaking hours spent over their computers to come up with the original design.

  “We should get most of this one back,” Jake said, obviously trying to reassure her. “The missile most likely cut through the trees and plowed into sandy earth. That’s one of the reasons Eglin is such a good test bed. We recover most of what we have to drop.”

  He hesitated, his glance roaming over her face. “I’m going out to see what the recovery team digs up. Want to come?”

  “Yes, I do! I’ve been out on the range a couple of times for orientation, but never to see the results of an actual shot.
The remains of an actual shot,” she amended with another groan.

  They took the range vehicle assigned to Jake. A modified jeep, it was designed to take the narrow, unimproved dirt trails that crisscrossed Eglin’s vast reservation.

  Some of Maura’s crushing disappointment lifted as they left the main base and headed north. Tall pine trees towered above them on either side, thrusting out of the thick scrub brush that thrived in northern Florida’s sandy soil. Late afternoon sunlight flickered through pine branches and dappled the road in a shifting pattern of light and shade.

  Jake kept in contact with the range patrol via his handheld radio. Following their instructions, he turned twice onto smaller, numbered side roads. Within a half hour, they picked up the flashing lights of the response team that had sealed off the impact area.

  A security policewoman inspected both Jake and Maura’s badges closely before passing them through the initial checkpoint. A mile or so farther down the road, they pulled up behind a cluster of official vehicles.

  Even though this test involved an unarmed weapon, there was always the danger of a small explosion or fire on impact. Fire trucks, range safety vehicles, police cars and ordnance-disposal trucks cluttered the road. While Jake went to talk to the officer in charge, Maura unbuckled her seat belt and slipped out the passenger door, only to teeter precariously when her high heels sank into the soft soil.

  Grimacing, she glanced down at her shoes. She’d bought these bright red strappy sandals because they matched her dress so perfectly, but they certainly weren’t the right footgear for traipsing through the brush after downed missiles.

  “They’ve found it,” Jake told her when he returned a few minutes later. “It’s about a half mile off the road and appears to be in pretty good shape.” His glance went to her shoes, sunk to the heels. “I’ve got some boots in the back of the truck if you want to trek through the woods to the site.”

  “That’s what I came for, Colonel.”

  Unbuckling her sandals, Maura pulled on the boots and tried a few experimental steps. The rubber slapped at her knees and sucked away from her foot every time the heel hit the soft sand. Disregarding these unpropitious signs, she clumped over to Jake.