By the third time they cut the woman off, Connie could see the simmer forming. Over the following hour and a half, the woman’s steam pressure rose to near explosion, but it hadn’t come out yet. Best way to piss off an aggressive warrior? Ignore them as if they didn’t matter. And in a female warrior, that was even more of a button. That’s probably how she’d been treated more often than not throughout her Army career. And to have another woman treat her that way would be particularly galling.
Connie had only taken action against a superior officer once in her career. She had reported a critical deficiency and had her report dismissed because she was female. The Staff Sergeant had ignored her and signed the “Flight (Combat) Airworthiness Certification by Mechanic” release on a Cobra attack chopper.
Connie had reported it directly to the man’s commanding officer. Upon investigation, the Staff Sergeant had been handed an immediate general discharge for intentionally endangering his squad with unsafe aircraft. After being caught threatening Connie’s life, he’d been bumped to “dishonorable” and tossed in jail for six months. They hadn’t treated him well on the inside, and he’d scampered for the hills when they let him out.
Connie wanted to know how this Trisha O’Malley, who Major Beale wanted, would handle being treated with so little respect.
“Permission to speak, ma’am?”
“Denied!” Connie snapped and she could see the woman’s jaw clench hard. She fired off the next question. At least the woman had addressed her request to Connie. Smart enough to see who was baiting her.
“If we’re downed behind enemy lines and have to lie low in a mudhole for a week, what am I really going to hate finding out about you?” Same pattern as the squad failure question, spread wider.
The guys came up with personal habits. Mr. Chest-Starer had tried to start a riff about the stink of his farts killing anyone who came too close. He almost got a laugh from Mr. Nasty-Misogynist-White Guy until they’d all glanced at Connie and her waiting silence. She let the silence drag out. The pair of them looked at the floor. Two failures in her book. Guy number three was honestly trying and might get a pass from her for this round. Have to compare notes with John.
At length she nodded for the woman to answer.
Her gaze locked on Connie’s, her voice rock steady despite her knuckles being bloodless white where her fists clenched tightly at her sides.
“You’re going to hate learning that I’m the one who will still be alive at the end of the week. And you’ll really, really hate learning that I’m the one who will be the toughest bitch in the mudhole, ma’am.” The thin smile she offered was as much challenge as triumph. But despite the anger, her control of her voice and physical actions, other than her hands, had been complete.
Connie learned two things in that moment.
She could absolutely trust Major Beale’s judgment, no matter what happened.
And Trisha O’Malley would be a shoo-in.
Connie couldn’t have answered the question better herself.
Chapter 19
John found Connie sitting on the cold ground with her back against the fence, out across Nightstalker Way. She looked okay. She was just sitting quietly. She appeared calm. The emotional cap was back on, screwed down tight, but he’d bet the internal war still raged somewhere deep inside. He put his own back to the fence and slid down beside her.
The afternoon sun was warm here despite the cold day. In minutes he could feel an ease roll over him. Being with Connie Davis was a quiet place for him. He didn’t need to chat or joke or entertain. They could just sit together and watch the midday activity unfold across the base. The occasional chopper in and out. Some mechanics taking a short turn around the field to flight-test a newly serviced bird.
“I learned something today.” Her voice wouldn’t have carried more than a pace or two past him, but she wasn’t whispering. It was a soft, inviting comment.
“What was that?” John shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the fence.
“I’m a stronger woman than I thought I was.”
That snapped his eyes open. He studied her profile, She too had closed her eyes and leaned her head back to enjoy the sun. He suspected that she might well be the strongest woman he’d ever met. Major Beale was a hard-ass warrior despite her runway beauty. Kee Smith was as tough and stubborn as any man around her, except maybe her new husband. But Connie…
She was a woman first and a warrior second. Maybe third. Second was that amazing mind of hers. And all three of her aspects, he was learning, were incredible. She fought remarkably well, not with Kee’s natural flair but as a highly accomplished soldier.
That brain. The one that thought up the roll in an Afghani mountain pass. He might have come up with that in a day. Or five. She’d done it in under ten seconds with exactly the same data he had.
The woman. That was the one that was blowing him away.
She looked amazing. Trim without being petite. Generous curves that bespoke wonders to explore. Now there was a thought that pushed against a man’s imagination. Her long hair, falling feather-cut over her shoulders in waves so soft that a man would never be sure when he first shifted from not touching to touching.
Even with that, her face was what captivated him. The ultimate poker face of exquisite form. Unreadable until she smiled, and then she’d been struck alight. Her eyes sparkled, her quiet mouth developed into a kiss he hadn’t erased from his mind despite three days of trying. And eyes he wouldn’t mind staring into for a day or two or three, just to learn their shades and emotions.
John suspected that most people saw Connie Davis in the reverse order: warrior, technician, then woman. He had himself, now that he thought of it. Actually, pain-in-the-ass first, then all the others.
Now he had glimpsed beneath the hood of what drove her, seen her shattered in her fight with whatever was going on inside her head, and seen her beat it back down into submission. That was a strength he’d never witnessed before. He wished he knew what she faced. Could reach in and somehow fix it for her. Replace the broken part.
He didn’t usually do that. People had their issues. As long as they didn’t make those issues his, he was fine with them. He’d roll along with the good times. Not that he abandoned friends. He’d paste them back together, let them sleep it off on his couch, but they could find their own damn breakfast in the morning. That’s all the guys usually needed.
Your girlfriend broke up with you? Fine. John would be there to thump you on the back, stand you back on your feet, but it was up to you to deal with the mess inside your head or get back together with the woman. Some asshole insulted you? Who cares? That’s their little world of hurt. You didn’t have to buy into it, and you certainly didn’t waste John’s time trying to make him buy into it.
But how could a woman as powerful as the one leaning on the fence beside him not know she was strong?
Apparently taking his silence as interest, Connie continued.
“It was while sitting in on that Assessment Week interview.”
“No shit?” He’d hated Ass Week, as the few survivors usually referred to it. The failures didn’t refer to it at all. He’d hated it then and he’d hated it today. Being on the other side of the table didn’t help; it only reminded him of how impossibly hard it had been. He ached for every poor SOB who’d crawled through his and Connie’s sights. It was not a time he’d wanted to revisit in any manner, shape, or form. Seven days with no feedback. You always had feedback. School teachers, friends, family, your squad, your instructor, your flight… always.
For seven days, the only feedback was a dozen other guys all freaking out just like you. No idea if you were a success or a screwup. Even having Crazy Tim in the same test group hadn’t helped, because they’d both felt so totally lost. They’d waited in fear for three weeks after testing before they received the approval to join SOAR, thankfully at the same time. He didn’t know how he’d have taken it if one of them made it and the other didn’t
. The orders came long after he was convinced he’d failed and maybe should just quit the Army to save everyone the embarrassment of dealing with him. Only Tim’s upbeat nature had kept his hopes afloat.
They treated you differently back in your old unit after a failed SOAR test. You no longer belonged where you were. You had wanted to leave your squad, tried to leave them behind, and then you failed. No one had to say it. You’d been tested and found wanting. They hadn’t been tested, but they also hadn’t failed. They still could have passed. Maybe.
Jumping to another unit wouldn’t help either, they’d want to know why.
“Because I failed at SOAR.”
He’d talked to some of the guys who had failed the different Special Forces tests, another place where a cut rate of fifty percent or more was normal. He learned that he was one of the few people who would talk to them.
“Damn, that was brutal for me. What could you possibly like?” he asked Connie, still sitting quietly beside him.
“I found I liked being on the other side. Having made it. Not that I was better than them, though there were a couple where that was absolutely true, which didn’t hurt my ego much.”
He hadn’t thought of it that way. They had made it. Crossed over to the other side.
“To know that as we sat with group after group, the smart ones, at least, wanted to be like me. They really wanted what I already had. And not just the validation of their skills. The good ones wanted to serve with the very best.”
He nodded, even though she couldn’t see with her eyes still closed to the bright sunlight.
“I understood that these people, and several of them were really exceptional, were fighting for even just the chance to achieve what I’ve already done.”
John leaned his head back against the fence and thought about his own view of himself. He knew his own skills were topflight; they had to be to survive on Major Beale’s crew. Yet, in a way, Connie was right. He hadn’t really acknowledged that. He’d simply worked his way up and was afraid half the time of disappointing the Major or of letting down his team.
Maybe that was the reason he hadn’t yet.
“God, John. You’re so damned handsome when you smile like that. Does any woman resist you?”
“Not many,” was his lazy answer before he caught himself.
He glanced over at Connie Davis, still sitting in the sun. Her gentle waves of hair glittering in the sunlight. Her expression was open and easy. Her smile was there, not blinding, but bright enough to make him feel he hadn’t just been stupid beyond belief. There was no invitation, but there was a zone of safety here.
That wasn’t something a SOAR flier was particularly used to.
He liked the way it felt.
Chapter 20
John still hadn’t pushed her. The man was decent down to his very core.
Connie cut across the parking lot between the temporary quarters to Grimm Hall for a meeting.
She would have to figure out how to thank him for that some day. And to thank him for coming to sit with her. The first time, when waves of the anger and sorrow and pain threatened to overwhelm her. The solo battle always wrung her dry. John had made it easier to face, or at least easier to ride through.
And the second time, just the easy companionship which was not something she was used to. And none of the pressure to get her in bed. She actually wouldn’t mind that so much with John, but the pressure got old real fast. She was pretty enough and she was Army and she was female. That put her front and center in most Army guys’ gun sights. And even when it was fun, it didn’t stay that way for long. Guys either got serious and she was never going there. Or they stopped caring it was her and just wanted a body shaped like a woman, and she had too much self-esteem for that.
But John didn’t bring the heat. He was just there, which was a gift.
Her only mistake had been trying to thank him with another kiss before they left the fence the second time. The impact hadn’t lessened in the slightest. Her body had roared aloft as her brain had settled into soft and quiet. She’d let the kiss build a bit. Hell, it had blown her away like a blowtorch finding jet fuel. She’d never felt anything like it.
Felt it still.
John’s kiss was a dangerous thing.
A lethal weapon.
A great power that could block her reason between one heartbeat and the next.
Despite doing her best to avoid him and his dangerous kiss since then—her own, personal version of Assessment Week that she wasn’t much enjoying—her body still flashed cold and hot every time she thought about him, which was a true challenge while they worked together each day.
In the narrow hall outside the main briefing room at Grimm Hall, they asked for her ID. That focused Connie’s attention back on the main track. This wasn’t some minor checkpoint, they were actually running her ID through a scanner and studying the on-screen results. Time to push John to a sidetrack. She rarely thought about only one thing at a time, but the primary focus of her mind should not be on a man she wasn’t planning to touch again. He was way too powerful. Way too dangerous.
Something unusual was up. They were already inside the SOAR perimeter inside Fort Campbell, but when they were done with her ID, they went to a finger scanner to confirm her identity.
After a solid week of training on the new ADAS equipment, the two DAP Hawk crews were ready for a serious test. However, the high security implied a mission, not a test. And that didn’t make sense. They weren’t ready for that yet.
Then they let her into the briefing room. In the center of a space that could seat twenty crews, she found a fight going on.
“No, Peter. Not no way. Not no how. This is not a safe flight.”
A man in an elegant suit and with dark hair that fell in a soft wave to his collar faced the shouting Major Beale but stood at perfect ease. This was a feat of daring Connie had trouble imagining. Clearly civilian, he must not know any better.
Major Henderson stood beside his wife, his arms folded across his chest, but incongruously, with a small smile on his lips. Several of the DAP crew members ranged nearby, mostly looking uncomfortable.
John came through the door behind Connie. She could feel him before she could see him. Her awareness of him had been instantaneous ever since their long chat and second kiss by the fence. A kiss that had left her breathless and on the verge of begging for more.
She no longer needed an ADAS helmet to know when he entered a room, shifted positions in the helicopter, looked at her. She’d tried to erase that portion of her brain’s operations, but that hadn’t worked. And with each passing day she became less sure that she wanted to.
“Em,” the suit addressed the Major with a dismissive tone that would have gotten a one-star general castrated. And yet he lived. That in itself was telling.
“You’ve always told me I didn’t have any appreciation for what you do because I never served. It’s a training mission. How dangerous could it be?”
“What’s the name of the hall you’re standing in?”
The suit glanced sideways at another suit, but the second guy was nearly as powerfully built as Big John if on a slightly shorter scale.
And, as the speaker turned, Connie saw one of the most famous profiles on the planet. She snapped to attention. She didn’t think, she simply did. Felt John do the same beside her. The Commander-in-Chief, President Peter Matthews, stood there in elegant profile. She’d seen him on a tiny video monitor at a mission briefing half a year ago. But here? In person? She remembered that he and Major Beale had an ease together, but she’d never known how much of one.
“You’re in Michael Grimm Hall,” the big Secret Service agent answered him. Now that he shifted, Connie could see the gun bulge in the man’s immaculate suit. He looked good in a suit. She did a mental shift. John would look amazing in a suit.
The President turned back to the Major, and her expression shifted even darker as she continued.
“Lieutenant Colonel Mich
ael Grimm was a pioneer of SOAR and a pioneer of the Black Route. And it killed him and almost killed his copilot. People die on this flight.”
Black Route. Rumor said that the two Majors had gotten engaged while flying a Black Route, which made no sense at all. It ranked as the most vicious test of any helicopter team on the planet. Developed by SOAR for SOAR. No one pushed the limits as they did. Nap of Earth, rarely over a hundred feet in elevation. A Black Route covered a thousand miles at night with three landings, each plus or minus thirty seconds.
“Sir…” Everyone turned to look at Connie before she knew she’d spoken. “Nine helicopters have crashed on this route. Seven of those sustained at least one death and all sustained injuries. There have also been numerous mechanical failures from the strain requiring dangerous auto-rotation landings. Sir.”
Beale nodded to her over the President’s shoulder. Over his other shoulder, Major Henderson’s smile grew. It implied a sense of humor he rarely showed, but Connie couldn’t fit it into the situation.
“Out of how many thousands of flights? Is it more dangerous than getting on an airplane?” The President’s question came fast, a quick thinker.
Connie ran some quick estimates in her head. “Less safe than an airplane. Far less safe than Air Force One, which has yet to report a single operational incident in seventy years of operation. But,” she shrugged an apology to Major Beale, “statistically, if you discount the 1980s, the first ten years of skills and equipment development, Black Route is only a little less safe than a car. The numbers change drastically for combat, but Black Route training does bring out the best in a team and no one is firing at us during a training flight.”
“There will be this time,” the Major growled.
Connie couldn’t think of what to say to that. Live fire during training?
The President turned back to face the Majors. “Only simulated rounds. We could order them only to fire at Mark. That would work for me. They could even use live ammo for that.”
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