Target of the Heart

by M. L. Buchman

  “No. Don’t you dare.”

  Sophia offered an elegant shrug and a teasing smile.

  “I mean it. Violence will ensue,” Danielle warned.

  “You should not say such things to a woman from Brazil, my friend.”

  “Why not?” Danielle knew her voice was far too close to being a demand, but she didn’t have control of it back yet.

  Sophia simply looked down the table.

  Danielle followed her gaze. The other three women of the 5E were seated close beside them and Danielle hadn’t even noticed.

  Patty was chewing her steak and watching her closely through narrowed blue eyes.

  Sophia’s copilot, Zoe who had emerged from the Avenger’s Ground Control Station only after several hours of practice looked at Danielle in utter confusion.

  Connie Davis’ dark amber eyes were assessing, calculating. One thing that Danielle had learned about Connie over the last month was that there was a very sharp mind working beneath her placid exterior. She was a woman who observed and analyzed everything, even if she rarely spoke.

  Connie hadn’t missed what Sophia said, even if Patty had. But Connie hadn’t been in line with them when Sophia had dropped the L-word. Still, somehow she’s heard.

  Or a worse scenario?

  Like Sophia, perhaps Connie somehow just knew. Knew that Danielle was completely gone on her commanding officer Major Pete Napier. The over-serious, full-speed-ahead soldier—in addition to being the best pilot she’d ever flown with—was also the powerful lover who could not get enough of her. Or she of him.

  And that they’d acted on that need. In the Army that wasn’t a sin, it was a crime.

  The odd thing was, the after-sex feeling was backwards. Usually there was initial attraction, getting to know each other a bit, sex, and then trying to ravel it together…which had always unraveled on her.

  With Pete, they’d spent a month flying side by side and she knew him better than any man in her life…and then the sex. In a funny way, it was the flight test after they’d done all the training, which made much more sense when she thought about it that way. And the test had been passed with beyond flying colors.

  “I find it interesting as well,” Connie began. Her meal was a perfectly normal breakfast that she was eating very neatly. None of the foods were even touching each other on her plate.

  Danielle longed to be Sue “Invisible Girl” Storm of the Fantastic Four and simply disappear, but the Spidey accolade had stuck so far—not that it helped, the requisite superpowers had yet to put in an appearance. It left her powerless to halt the conversation.

  “We have integrated so rapidly with our equipment,” Connie twisted the topic unexpectedly.

  Was she being kind or merely exhibiting more of her typical mechanic’s tunnel vision? Danielle couldn’t tell by the expression on Connie’s face. Either way, Danielle was thankful for the reprieve.

  “I think that is your and Major Napier’s effect. However, the 5th Battalion D Company had a higher level of personal cohesiveness by the time I had joined the company. Granted that was several years after its formation.”

  Danielle sipped her cream-dosed hot chocolate which was about the same as licking a stick of butter. “You’re saying we’re too unfriendly?” That didn’t come out right at all. She and Pete had been entirely too friendly all day since the aerial combat test.

  Her phrasing caused Sophia to smirk in a friendly-nudge sort of way that Patty still totally missed. Thank goodness.

  “No.” If Connie caught it, she ignored it and proceeded with a comforting forthrightness to answer the question at face value.

  That was one of the things Danielle had learned about Connie over the last month, the woman was a straight-shooter who proceeded down a path until it was completely handled, and then moved to the next topic.

  “I think that your focus on skills has been admirable. These are very unique craft that require a unique talent and last night proved that we have excelled. Beating Lola, Trisha, and Claudia. I agree with John, that was an exceptionally unlikely outcome despite your additional possession of the Chinook.”

  “Your?”

  “Another factor to make my point,” Connie continued calmly. “I should have said our without thinking, yet I didn’t. Friendships have been very slow to form within the 5E. Powerful working relationships, yet. Friendships far less so in my observations.”

  “I’m…at a loss. I…don’t know how to have friends.” To hide her unease at such an unexpected revelation from herself, Danielle bit off a piece of her hot dog, unsure why she’d salted and peppered it. Because she’d thought it was eggs and hashbrowns? She discovered that she still despised hot dogs even with salt and pepper.

  Connie eyed her for a long moment. And in that instant she knew that Connie was much the same. Danielle suddenly felt very close to the quiet mechanic. What had it cost her to leave the 5D? Had she had friends there?

  “Well,” Danielle gave up and shoved her unpalatable meal aside, keeping only the bacon and orange juice. If she was the senior officer here, aside from their commander, it was time she started acting like it. “Having our first meal together as the five women of the 5E seems like a good place to start, doesn’t it?”

  “Of course. It is a wonderful place of starting,” Sophia bubbled.

  Connie considered, glanced around the table, and then nodded once in simple agreement. There was a deeper meaning there, one that was terribly important to her.

  Danielle could feel it herself. These women would be important to her. They would fly together, fight together, and become friends as only women in a combat zone could be. She had the tiniest glimpse of them being friends for life—which would have been an unimaginable horizon only moments before.

  Patty was staring straight at Danielle.

  “So, Pete was that good, huh?”

  Danielle could feel the heat rushing to her face. He had been; more than good. All she could manage was a nod, but everyone’s laughter made her feel as if she might actually belong somewhere. Maybe even right here.

  # # #

  “Do I even want to know what they’re laughing about?” Pete hacked off another chunk of his steak and looked across at the four women. Damn but they were a sight. And Danielle…shit! The woman glowed among them. He’d wrung out both of their bodies and he could feel himself hardening anyway with his need to do it all over again.

  “Nope,” Big John rumbled out. “You can trust me on that. You really don’t want to know.”

  “Who’s the chick again?” Mickey “The Mighty Dozer” Quinn asked. The man fit his name. He was a big Alaskan native, not as big as Big John, but close. Pete felt small sitting at the table with the two of them.

  “That chick is my wife,” Big John rumbled out, but after a month of flying together there was no question of Dozer referring to Connie.

  “Lieutenant Sophia Gracie is an Avenger pilot. The 5E gets a dedicated stealth drone and she’s the one flying it.” He recognized the look in Dozer’s eyes. “And don’t even think about it.” Of course his own thoughts were plenty preoccupied.

  Dozer flinched and looked at him, “Right. Sorry, sir.”

  Big John slapped Pete on the back so hard he was glad his elbows were on the table or he’d have face-planted in his steak.

  Pete decided that if he didn’t want to know what was making the women laugh, and ten times as much he didn’t want to know what so amused Big John.

  # # #

  Danielle finally broke down and went back for a proper breakfast. She thought up a topic change on her way back to the table. She needed a topic change. The way Pete’s eyes tracked her to the chow line and back sent prickles up her skin.

  Sophia might say he loved her, but that wasn’t on either of their rosters. Though she and Pete certainly needed each other; there had never been sex like
his anywhere in her experience. The raw force of his personality had battered at her until she could only hang on and go for the ride he’d taken her on…but, oh my god, what a ride! She couldn’t wait to climb aboard again.

  She carefully didn’t look at Pete though he was only two tables away.

  “Good girl,” Sophia whispered to her as she sat back down. The woman’s wink was sly and friendly. Pete was back over Danielle’s right shoulder, but thankfully the women were to her left so she could avoid constantly glancing over at him.

  “Your Avenger,” Danielle went for her topic change, “it needs a name.”

  “It’s a drone, so we could name it Danielle for being a force of nature,” Patty suggested. “No. Wait. We already have one of those.” This time the laughter around the table was friendly and Danielle could feel herself melting. She was no longer standing off to the side observing; instead she was participating. Welcome. Maybe even wanted.

  “Or Dorothy for killing the Wicked Witch of the West,” Connie put in. “Though it was technically her house that did the work, probably suffering severe damage to its foundation. That always bothered me as a child, Dorothy gets the credit, but it is the house that—”

  “My baby, she is no drone. She is an RPA. Remotely Piloted Aircraft and I am her pilot.” Sophia sat bolt upright, fists on her hips and her dauntingly curvaceous chest thrust forward in defiance.

  “Ripley for Sigourney in Alien?” Zoe jumped in with no fear despite being new to the group.

  “Robin for Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate.”

  “No! My Avenger is very sexy and very dangerous, but not evil. Absolutamente não!” She held up a palm for emphasis.

  “Raider for Raiders of the Lost Ark?”

  “Hello, female heroine rule, remember?” Danielle put in. She was rather proud of slipping that rule past Pete without his noticing until after all his birds were named.

  “Or Raven for Marion Ravenwood in Raiders?” Zoe again, with a shy smile that bothered offered and welcomed. Danielle had liked her at first meeting last night, and even more so now. She was a good addition to their team.

  “Ooo,” Sophia purred, “that one it is right. She keeps Indy in his place, does she not?”

  “Ms. Raven it is,” Danielle declared.

  And she finally allowed herself to glance over her shoulder at Pete. He might be a powerful force, but her new friends had dubbed her a force de la nature. She was Spiderwoman. The Number Two of SOAR’s newest company. Befriended of four pretty damn impressive women.

  And in that moment Danielle knew what she wanted.

  Yes, Pete, she thought to herself. I too am powerful. You had best be ready for me.

  She offered him her blandest smile before turning back to her friends. This time Sophia offered no wink and Patty no smirk.

  But beneath the edge of the table, Connie briefly squeezed her hand in acknowledgement.

  Yes, now she understood Connie and Big John.

  Danielle knew what she wanted. And it wasn’t just for another amazing tumble among the helicopters.

  Patty started some story about a gunnery sergeant who thought he could outshoot her. But Patty was a girl raised hunting duck in late summer and deer, moose, and bear with her grandda each Thanksgiving vacation in the woods of Maine. Apparently the gunny had then tried to out-cuss her, but Patty had also grown up playing on the fishing docks of Gloucester throughout the school year.

  After being with Pete Napier, Danielle knew she was done hunting. She didn’t want anyone else. Ever.

  # # #

  “Major Pete Napier?” a cute blond orderly appeared next to Dozer. The man hooked a thumb toward Pete.

  She gave Pete a pert salute, and a radiant smile that his face typically earned him. She handed him a sealed envelope and, when he did no more than salute back, she was gone. It was hard not to admire her loose-hipped walk, but all it made him think of was Danielle’s unselfconscious elegance.

  Danielle’s walk wasn’t a tease, nor a declaration of power like Sophie’s sensuously confident stride. Danielle’s walk spoke simply and clearly, here is a woman eminently sure of herself. No need to entice, she was simply, wholly herself.

  It was the same startling way she made love. She gave as freely as she took. Not submissive, but as an equal. He’d never forget that first time when he’d taken her with blinding, unthinking-animal need, and she was the one who had sounded triumphant afterward. Whereas he’d been shattered; a thousand shards scattered at her feet in supplication hoping she would grant him more. And she had.

  “You gonna do something with that?”

  Pete glared at Dozer and wondered how the hell the man knew about himself and Danielle. Then he noticed that the man was looking at the sealed orders Pete was still holding.

  As he started to tear it open, Big John’s hard elbow slammed into his ribs. As Pete jerked in surprise, and grunted hard at the force of the blow, he tore the envelope and the orders in half.

  He pulled out the two pieces of paper and slid them together so that he could read across the tear.

  Big John leaned over his shoulder to read and offered a low whistle.

  “What?” Dozer leaned in trying to read them upside down from across the table.

  “The 5E is declared active and ready for deployment,” Pete managed.

  “Hot damn!” Dozer and John high-fived across the table.

  Pete scanned the rest, rising to his feet as he did so. He barely heard their questions trailing after him.

  He moved up beside Danielle, interrupted something that had them all laughing again: Patty’s guffaw, Sophia’s laugh, Connie and Zoe’s quiet smiles, and Danielle’s near giggle. He handed her the orders.

  “Is there a reason that you have torn these in half?” she teased him as she began reading. She stopped after the first line and turned to face the other women. “We have done it. We are declared ready.”

  “Wow!” “In four weeks?” “That is so excellent!”

  “Thank you,” Danielle sounded so sincere to her crew that Pete felt like an idiot. He’d never for a moment thought about thanking John and Dozer even though it was as much their doing as his.

  “Keep reading,” he prompted her.

  She did and then looked up at him wide-eyed. At his nod, she turned back to her companions, “Time to saddle up, ladies. First mission starts now. Hope you like sushi.”

  And that fast, Danielle had her people moving. She didn’t even have to call out to the other tables where the crew were scattered and chatting over their finished meals. The women of the 5E were in motion? Then the whole company followed.

  He finally began to understand the advantages of having women in the field for more than the immense competence they had shown him over the last month.

  Moving as a true unit for the first time, the men and women of the 5E dumped their trays at the dishwasher’s window and formed up loosely to follow him to the hangars.

  Of course, even though they were side by side, he wasn’t so sure that he and the others weren’t actually following Danielle.

  Chapter 10

  “Six hours it took to break down the helicopters far enough to fit into a C-5 Galaxy transport,” John moaned as he finished the last inspection on the reassembled Chinook helicopter now parked in a secure hangar at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan.

  Pete agreed, it was always a long, pain-in-the-ass process to move a big bird like the Chinook across long distances. A couple thousand miles was no real problem, the sixty-five hundred miles from the NTTR to Japan, was a whole different matter. They could do it, in a forty-hour flight with multiple mid-air refuelings over the open ocean…it was easier and safer to take it apart enough to stuff it on an Air Force jet.

  The hangar, not as new as the one at Mother Rucker or as dusty and dry as the one at the Nevada Range, was still si
milar enough that Pete found it to be terribly disorienting.

  Their scenery had been an exchange from an arid desert airbase in the dead of night to a hot, tropical airbase in the dead of night.

  He’d served a lot of time here in Japan, frequently flying into Korean and Russian airspace. But inside the hangar he was in some weird bubble of technology, surrounded by four helicopters he still wasn’t used to seeing, and the crew he was still getting to know, though he’d learned to totally trust.

  “It’s because you’re on the goddamn Chinook,” Patty was teasing John. “My Little Bird was ready in fifteen minutes.”

  “Pipsqueak little machine,” John said bitterly but with no malice in his tone that Pete could detect.

  It wasn’t really fair. For transport on the massive C-5 Galaxy transport jet, the Little Bird only needed to have the fuel tanks drained and then fold the rotor blades back until they hung over the tail. On the Chinook, it was necessary to remove not only the six massive rotor blades, but also tear down the rotor heads as well.

  Pete was impressed as hell that they’d done it in only six hours because the stealth modification added a lot of shapes and layers around the normal, large-to-begin-with rotor heads.

  “Then twelve hours in transit aboard a roaring steel can,” Rafe whined continuing the chronicle of the last twenty-four hours.

  “Run by the U.S. Air Farce,” Julian tossed in. The Air Force had command of all of the big transports.

  “And Connie took us all for way too much money at poker,” Pete decided it was time to shift the mood of the crew.

  “That’s my gal,” John was suddenly beaming. “Of course if she shared her winnings instead of taking my money too I might be happier.” The game had raged for hours over the Pacific, and Connie was the winner by a wide margin.

  It was clear that John couldn’t be prouder. And Pete half suspected that Connie’s winnings would find their way back to John at vacation time or perhaps as a surprise savings account at their retirement. Connie didn’t seem like a gal into frills, glad as could be to serve in the Army and let the military provide the basics.