Needing a few minutes to bolster her defenses, she slipped out onto the colonnade. In forty-eight hours she would not have this magic view of Monaco, but no matter what happened she would always be grateful for her time here. She’d learned that despite her dysfunctional youth she could fall in love, but she could let go—unlike her father.
“Why do you not tread on my rugs?” Franco asked from behind her.
Stacy winced and wished she’d had a few more minutes to prepare for this encounter. She took a bracing breath and turned to find him a few yards away. He stepped out of the shadows and her lungs emptied again when she noted the lines of stress marring his handsome face. She shook off her concern. If he was stressed, it was no more than he deserved. He’d tried to buy her baby.
“I had to walk through pools of blood on our white kitchen floor when I found my mother and father. Your red rugs on white marble remind me of that night.”
“I will throw the rugs out and replace the floor if you will come back to me.”
Her heart stuttered. “What?”
He closed the distance between them. “I was wrong, Stacy. All the money in the world cannot buy the one thing I desire most.”
“An heir? I’m sure you can find some woman who’ll jump at the chance.”
His unwavering blue gaze held hers and something in their depths made her pulse skip. “I desire you, mon gardénia.”
His velvety deep voice sent a tremor rippling over her. She held up a hand to halt his approach. “Don’t do this, Franco.”
But he kept coming until her palm pressed his chest. His warmth seeped through his silk shirt into her fingers and snaked up her arm. She jerked her hand away and fisted it by her side.
“I was afraid to trust what my eyes—what my heart—told me. I offered to buy your baby as a test. If you had accepted the money, then I would know you were like every other woman I have known. But you are nothing like them.”
She couldn’t comprehend what he was saying, but that look in his eyes was beginning to fan that ember of hope she thought he’d extinguished. “Why me?”
A smile flickered on his lips. “Besides your incredible legs and the contradiction between the siren in your eyes and your cloak of reserve?”
“Huh?”
“Because my father challenged me to find a woman I could marry if she couldn’t be bought.”
Had someone slipped something into her drink? “I’m sorry?”
“Papa suggested I stop dating spoiled rich women and find someone with traditional values if I wanted to find a woman who would love me for myself and not my money. I told him I would prove him wrong by finding one of the mythical paragons he described and buying her.”
Stacy flinched. She’d thought she couldn’t possibly feel worse, but she did. Had she been nothing more than a bet? He lifted a hand to stoke her cheek, but she jerked out of reach. “So taking me to the chateau was just flaunting me in front of your father to show you’d won?”
“Oui. That was my original goal. But then you told me about your parents. You had compelling reasons for accepting my offer. Reasons which I could not condemn. And you refused to let me spoil you with meaningless gifts. I found myself falling in love with you.” He extended his arms, palms up and shrugged. “I had to push you away.”
Falling in love with her? She pressed a hand over her racing heart. “I would have slept with you without the money, Franco.”
“And I would have offered you more.” He stepped closer and trapped her by planting his hands on the railing beside her. “So much more.”
He really had to stop doing that. She told herself to duck out of the way, but her legs seemed numb. He bent and teased the corners of her mouth with tantalizing, but insubstantial and unsatisfying kisses.
“Je t’aime,” he whispered against her lips and her world stopped. Taking advantage of her shocked gasp, he captured her mouth in a deeply passionate kiss. And then he slowly drew back, his lips clinging to hers for a heartbeat longer.
The emotion in his eyes washed over her, but she was afraid to believe what she saw.
“I love you, Stacy, and if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I want to marry you. I will add fidelity to my vows, because I never want you to doubt that my heart and my soul belong only to you. And whether or not we have children, the money I promised you is yours because you have given me so much more than money can buy.”
Her eyes burned and her throat clogged. Happiness swelled inside her. Only a man who truly loved her would offer her everything she’d ever dreamed of and at the same time open the door to set her free and provide her the means to escape.
He loved her enough to let her go.
“You don’t have to buy my love, Franco. It’s freely given.”
“Tout a un prix.”
A smile wobbled on her lips. She cupped his cheeks and stroked her thumbs over his smooth warm skin. “Not this time. I love you, and if you lost everything today, I would still love you tomorrow and every day thereafter. Yes, Franco, I will marry you.”
His chest rose on a deep breath. “I swear you will never regret it, mon gardénia.”
An Officer and a Gentleman
By Rachel Lee
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 1
“You okay, cowboy?” The voice was cool, light.
Alisdair MacLendon’s eyes snapped open. Blue lights flashed intermittently, giving an unearthly look to the youthful face that was bent over him. Too young to shave, MacLendon thought groggily, and nobody calls me cowboy, least of all some snotty kid.
Moving was a mistake. Shooting stars slashed across his vision, and some idiot with a jackhammer started trying to take a chunk out of the side of his skull.
“Hey! Cowboy!” The kid’s light voice became sharper. “Open those eyes. Tell me where it hurts.”
“My head, damn it!” His eyes flew open again. Nobody called him cowboy.
“Sergeant!” The light voice took on authority as the kid called to someone Alisdair couldn’t see. “We’ve got a head injury over here. What have you got?”
“This idiot wasn’t wearing his seat belt. He’s got the windshield in his face. Can’t tell about the rest.”
“Radio the hospital.”
The youthful face turned back to MacLendon, who was thinking that if he puked now it would be perfect. What had happened? Oh, yeah, some turkey in a blue hot rod had run the stop sign at about ninety miles an hour. He remembered the sickening thud as his head slammed into the door stanchion.
“Just going to check you out a little, cowboy,” the kid said, voice pitched soothingly. Fingers moved through his hair lightly, feeling the side of his head.
“Ouch!” The fingers found the place where the jackhammer was working.
“You’re gonna have one hell of a goose egg,” the kid said. “Does anything else hurt?”
“No.”
The kid backed off a little, squatting. For the first time MacLendon was able to identify the components of an Air Force security police uniform: nylon winter jacket, beret, holstered gun. Captain’s bars winking at the shoulders. Captain’s bars? This kid was too young.
“You cold?” the too-young captain asked. “I’m afraid we don’t have any blankets, but the ambulance will be here in a couple of minutes.”
“I’m okay.” If okay was a knife in the brain, spots before the eyes, and a heaving stomach. “What’s a captain doing on patrol?” he asked. Anything to keep from thinking about his discomfort.
A grin, a one-shouldered shrug. “Keeps the troops on their to
es if I show up at odd hours. Midnight on Friday seemed like a good time to pull a little inspection.”
This baby-faced captain was a man right after MacLendon’s own heart. And God, he must be getting older than he thought if a captain looked like a baby to him. He closed his eyes against a sudden wave of nausea.
“Hey, cowboy!” The voice sharpened. “Stay awake. Talk to me!”
“I’m not a cowboy, damn it!” His sudden glare was convincing enough to cause the captain to blink.
“Sorry. Sure are dressed like one, though.” Cool eyes took in his jeans, boots, and shearling jacket. “Could’ve sworn that was a Stetson over there on the seat.”
Spunky young idiot, MacLendon thought, and in spite of his irritation and pain and wooziness, a corner of his thin mouth twitched. He wondered if he should tell this youngster who he was, then decided against it. He would enjoy it a whole lot more when he felt better.
The young head tilted. “I hear the ambulance, sir. Two more minutes.” Leaning forward over him, the captain reached to release the seat belt.
Something soft pressed against MacLendon’s chin, and he drew a sharp breath.
“Did I hurt you?” The captain’s concern was swift.
Ever afterward, MacLendon wondered what had caused him to say something so outrageous and could only conclude that he’d been more rattled by the accident than he thought. He said, “You have breasts.”
The captain blinked, and then a quirky, humorous grin spread across her face. “Yes, sir,” she said smartly. “Standard female issue, one pair.”
God, MacLendon thought, closing his eyes. This captain was going to be a handful. He could see it coming.
Suddenly a radio crackled. “Alpha Tango Niner.”
The captain stood up and reached for the radio that hung on her left hip, its weight a balance to the pistol on her right hip. Security cops called those radios “bricks.” They ate with them, slept with them, and all but showered with them.
“Alpha Tango Niner,” she said.
“Intruder alert at Zulu Bravo,” said a tinny voice.
“Charlie? This is Captain Burke. Alert the team. What have you got?”
“An alarm. No visual yet.”
“Roger. I’m tied up at a traffic accident for a couple more minutes, but I should reach Zulu Bravo in fifteen to twenty minutes. You know the drill.”
Flashing red lights joined the flashing blue ones of the security truck. Captain Burke turned and was saying something, but MacLendon couldn’t make it out. The nausea in his stomach suddenly roared into his ears, and the last pinprick of light disappeared into utter darkness.
The row of B-52 bombers were hulking eerily in the pinkish light of mercury vapor lamps that turned their camouflage colors into muddy shadows. Looking like monstrous science fiction mosquitoes, their sleek bodies faced the runway. The long wings sagged beneath their own weight, saved from touching the tarmac only by the wheels attached to the undersides of the wing tanks. As the planes rolled down the runway, however, those wings would lift and the planes would no longer look awkward. Soaring, these birds became elegant creatures of the air.
Captain Andrea Burke never ceased to marvel that anything so ungainly could fly. The B-52 pilots claimed utter faith in their planes. Like the Flying Fortresses of World World II, the B-52s could limp home even with massive damage, and having seen some of that damage, Andrea Burke could well believe the stories she’d heard. More than once during her Air Force career, she’d seen one of these bombers land safely with an injury that would have toppled a commercial airliner from the skies.
They were old, they were creaky, many of their parts now had to be manufactured by their repair crews, and they were being replaced with the technical marvel of the B1-B. Like old horses about to be sent to pasture, they had served well and faithfully. With their passing, Andrea thought, an era would end. Since earliest childhood, she’d watched these babies fly. Soon they would fly no more.
“It has to be a fault in the sensor system, Captain,” Sergeant Halliday told her, breaking into her thoughts. “There’s absolutely no evidence that someone crossed the perimeter.”
Andrea’s men had searched every nook and cranny of the controlled area in the last three hours, and she was inclined to agree with Halliday’s assessment. An optical sensor had been tripped, setting off an alarm at the monitor station, but a lot of things could trip a sensor, from debris blowing in the ceaseless North Dakota wind to a voltage drop.
It was nearly four in the morning, and Andrea very badly wanted to rub her eyes. Refusing to let her growing fatigue show, however, she repressed the urge. “What if someone was leaving the area, rather than entering?”
Sergeant Halliday was Andrea’s electronic security expert. A man around her own age of twenty-eight, Halliday had joined the Air Force at seventeen and promptly displayed an awesome genius for anything through which electricity flowed. He was tall, painfully thin, and even more painfully shy—except when he talked about electronics. Then, and only then, he acknowledged no superior.
“Well, ma’am,” he said easily in his lazy Georgia drawl, “if that’s the case, we’ve got serious trouble. That means someone gained access to a controlled area without tripping any of the security systems. To do that, they’d either have to know the system inside out, or they’d have to pass the sentries. Either way, it’s not good.”
“That’s what I figured.” Andrea leaned back against the wall and looked out again at the hulking B-52s. “Well, I think we’re safe in saying there’re no unauthorized personnel in the area now.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Halliday’s eyes were faded-looking behind his thick glasses.
“So find me a fault in the system, Halliday. Pin it down so I can get my butt into bed.” She tempered the words with a faint smile, and Halliday returned it.
“You got it, Captain.” Bending again to his terminals and displays and oscilloscopes, Halliday continued his diagnostics.
“Do you know anything about the new commander the Bomb Wing’s getting?” he asked as he worked.
“Only what everyone else has heard, I guess,” Andrea replied. “I hear he flew bombers in Nam, that he’s some kind of hotshot jet jockey—some even say he was in the Thunderbirds—and that he’s up for brigadier general.”
“That’s what I hear, too. I suppose he’ll stick his nose into everything.”
“That’s his job,” Andrea replied noncommittally. Privately, she wasn’t looking forward to the change of command any more than anyone else.
The commander of the 447th Bombardment Wing was the commander of the base’s host organization, and as such he was very definitely top dog. It was a fact that the personality of the man on top had repercussions all the way down the ladder. As commander of the 447th Security Squadron, Andrea reported directly to him, as did all the other commanders on base except the Missile Wing commander. The current Bomb Wing commander was a man content to let his subordinates do their jobs. The new man might have very different ideas.
“We’ll survive, Halliday,” she said after a moment. “Frankly, I’ll start surviving a heck of a lot better when the change of command ceremony is over. I hate those affairs.”
Halliday glanced up with a grin. “You could always get sick.”
“Great first impression.” Returning her gaze to the planes outside, she fell into uneasy reflection. Not everyone would be pleased to find one of his commanders was a woman. Command opportunities were limited, and despite the equal opportunity environment of the Air Force, those opportunities were even more severely limited for women. Because the Air Force had made some public relations hay out of her appointment two years ago, Andrea understood her uniqueness. She wasn’t the only woman in her position, but the others were few and far between.
“Captain?” Once again Halliday’s voice called her from thought. “I think I found it. We’re measuring an intermittent voltage drop on that same circuit. Unless somebody’s jumping back and forth throug
h the beam at intervals, it’s an equipment failure.”
Andrea straightened and pulled her beret into place. “Thanks, Halliday. How long will it take to pinpoint?”
He shrugged. “Maybe a couple of hours.”
“Okay. I’ll tell the sentries to look sharp in the meantime. Call me when you’ve got it repaired.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When, Andrea found herself wondering, was the last time she’d gotten a decent night’s sleep? Being a squadron commander was something like being a mother, a priest, a judge, and a jury all rolled up in one, and there was no such thing as an eight-hour day or an uninterrupted night. She loved her work, but sometimes she thought she just ought to move a cot into her office and catnap round the clock in fifteen-minute snatches.
The predawn air of late October was cold, presaging the coming North Dakota winter. Almost time for survival gear again, she thought. Not since she graduated from the Academy six years ago had she seen anything approaching a warm climate. The wind nipped at her ears and tugged at her beret as she trudged to her blue security patrol pickup truck. Always the wind. She couldn’t remember when it had ever stopped.
When Andrea Burke finally collapsed on her bed in the BOQ, Bachelor Officers’ Quarters, it was five-thirty in the morning. She spared just enough time to shed her jacket, boots, and pistol, and then fell fully clothed across the blankets. Like it or not, she was going to have to go to the office today and write a report. So much for Saturday. But first a couple of hours of blessed sleep.
She was just spiraling down into the reaches of a warm place where alerts didn’t exist when the phone rang. Cursing vigorously, she rolled over and considered not answering it. Business would come crackling over the radio on her night table, not over the phone. Groaning, she picked up the receiver anyway. You never knew.
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