Standing under the needle spray of the shower, Andrea battled bone-numbing fatigue and promised herself that just as soon as this meeting was over, she was coming back here to sleep straight through until tomorrow morning. Dolan could have the command and all the joys that went with it.
Time for another haircut, she thought as she dried her hair in front of the bathroom mirror. And suddenly, from out of nowhere, came a memory of the long, long hair her father had never allowed her to cut. It had fallen below her hips, and she had always caught it back in an impatient ponytail to keep it out of her way. How fiercely glad she’d been when she arrived at the Academy and had it all cut off. Now she wondered, actually wondered, if she should let it grow out.
“You’re crazy from lack of sleep, Burke,” she told her reflection sourly. She didn’t have time to mess with her hair.
Dressed in a pressed, creased and impeccable uniform, she presented herself in Dare’s office promptly at three-thirty. Her weary eyes devoured every detail of his appearance, from the lock of hair that tumbled onto his forehead to the broad shoulders that stretched his uniform shirt. No two ways about it, the man looked good enough to eat.
Placing the typed report on his desk, Andrea sank into the chair he indicated.
“I’ve talked to SAC HQ,” he said without preamble. “You’re the hero of the day, Andrea.”
“Me?” She kept remembering how her goose would probably have been royally cooked if Dare hadn’t followed her out onto the tarmac.
“You. I know I sounded off this morning, but I’m convinced you would have handled matters even if I hadn’t involved myself.”
Andrea blinked. “That’s very generous of you, sir.”
“Just the truth.” She looked exhausted, he thought, and troubled. What was troubling her? “I wanted to warn you that they’re sending out a reporter from the Air Force Times to do a feature story on you. He’ll be here tomorrow.”
“Oh, no.” She was horrified. “Do I have to?”
“I’m afraid so, Andrea.” He smiled faintly. “They just can’t pass up the opportunity to show you off. Female Academy graduate turns hero. If you ask me, they’ll want a picture of you in battle dress and toting your rifle.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Why? The Department of the Air Force just dropped its enlistment quotas. Now everything’s based on ability. Truly an equal opportunity environment. Do you really think they’re going to pass up a chance to justify their decision by showing that women can do the job just as well?”
“But I can’t do it just as well,” she burst out.
Astonished, Dare sat back in his chair and studied her intently. “You can, Andrea. What makes you think you can’t?”
“I’m a sham,” she said tensely, and leapt up from her chair. “The only question is what I’m going to do about it.”
Dare watched her pace, a frown on his face. “Tell me about it.”
“Last night Halliday pointed a loaded gun at me and told me I didn’t have the guts to shoot him. And he was right. I didn’t.”
Dare rubbed his chin, never taking his eyes from her. “I don’t think,” he said carefully, “that it takes guts to shoot somebody.”
“Whatever it takes, I haven’t got it.”
“You did once before, not that I’m saying that’s a good thing.”
“And that’s why I can’t do it again. If I’d done more than graze him that first time, I don’t know if I could live with myself. That’s been hard enough to deal with. All I know is that I can’t do it again. What kind of soldier does that make me?”
A wounded one, Dare thought, watching her. Nor did he feel he should be arguing in favor of shooting anyone. “You don’t think the circumstances had something to do with it?” he asked after a few moments. “After all, you were face-to-face with the guy, and he’s somebody you’ve known for a couple of years. I don’t think most of us would have been able to pull the trigger under those circumstances.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Coming to a halt, Andrea wrapped her arms around her waist and bowed her head. “I’m not sure I want to be able to pull the trigger. I told you that once before. I guess I’ve been ignoring the question, but I think it’s time to face it. I’ve got to decide whether I have what it takes to be a soldier, or even if I want to have what it takes. It’s not a game anymore, Dare. Twice, now, it’s been real.”
“I don’t think any of us want to have what it takes, or to like it, Andrea. We just do what we have to when we have to. That’s the bottom line.”
“Well, I’m not sure I can do what I have to.” She raised bleak eyes to look at him. “Some cop.”
“I don’t know about that. You handled yourself admirably last night, and you managed to do it without bloodshed. That’s something to be proud of. And I don’t know if you should be worrying because you couldn’t shoot a man who’s been a friend of sorts for the last couple of years. I don’t think we want soldiers who are capable of shooting people they know. I know I don’t want any in my command.”
He rose and came around his desk, then folded her into his arms, holding her snugly against his chest. “Don’t beat yourself with this, Andrea. Honest to God, I don’t think I could have pulled the trigger, either.”
The green eyes she lifted to his were bright with unshed tears, and the sight sent an aching shaft through his heart.
“Come home with me right now, Andrea,” he said. “The duty day’s over in fifteen minutes anyway, and after the night we put in, we’re entitled to take off. Come home and let me take care of you.”
Home. The word made her throat ache with yearning. Unable to speak, she simply nodded.
They walked together out of the building, neither of them caring any longer who saw them and what they might speculate. Dare’s only concession was that he didn’t put his arm around Andrea until they were in his Bronco.
“Let me fix you something to eat,” he said when they entered his house.
“I’m not hungry,” Andrea replied listlessly. “Really. I just need to sleep.” And I need to be held. Desperately.
He seemed to know. He helped her out of her clothes and into bed, and moments later he joined her, tucking her into the sheltering strength of his large body, stroking her hair and back with gentle hands.
“Sleep, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Sleep.”
Her hands were clenched into cold fists against his chest, and every muscle in her body was drawn tight with tension, but gradually fatigue battered down the last of her resistance. Dare felt her relax against him finally, growing soft and yielding as sleep claimed her. He brushed a light kiss against her forehead and closed his own eyes, welcoming the end of a day that had been too long and too difficult.
Andrea woke with a start in the dark, her heart racing.
“Easy, babe,” said a drowsy voice near her ear, and powerful arms surrounded her, hugging her. “It’s over.”
She turned toward him, burrowing into his warmth and strength, afraid that she was coming to depend on him too much, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to stand being alone when the time came. The person she’d thought she was didn’t seem to exist anymore. The last thing on earth she wanted to be was a dependent, clinging female, yet here she was clinging like mad and grateful she had Dare to cling to. “I’m scared,” she admitted in a whisper. “I’m so scared.”
“You’ve had a rough couple of months,” he rumbled reassuringly. “Anybody would be having a crisis of confidence.”
As always, he went right to the root of things. She could have sworn he was able to read her mind.
“You know,” he continued, “we all go through life running on automatic most of the time. Every so often, though, something comes up. Maybe it’s something that happens, or something someone says, but it shakes us up and makes us look at things differently for a while. I guess it’s good for us in the long run, but it sure isn’t fun.”
“It sure isn’t,” she agreed, nuzzling his sho
ulder and filling herself with his scent. It felt so good to be held this way, to feel his skin against hers. Why was she so afraid of what felt so right?
“Are you getting hungry?” he asked. “I am. Why don’t I go make some soup and sandwiches? I’ll even let you pick the soup.”
She was so long joining him in the kitchen, however, that he went back to the bedroom to find out what was wrong. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in his terry robe, a pair of his black wool socks flopping on her feet.
“Andrea?”
She looked up slowly and gave him a sad smile. “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you.”
A fist clenched around his heart, and for a moment there didn’t seem to be any air in the universe. “I guess so,” he said finally. He couldn’t even make himself move. “Come on and have something to eat, and then you can tell me. And I’ll argue, anyway.”
Not until they were seated at the table in front of steaming bowls of soup did Andrea speak. Dare took what consolation he could from the fact that it clearly wasn’t any easier for her to say what was on her mind than it was going to be for him to listen to it.
“I need to stop seeing you for a while,” she said through a throat that had become painfully tight.
“I know.” Yep, he’d known. Damn it, he’d known.
“I’ve got to find myself, Dare. I’ve lost me somewhere.” The smile she gave him was pathetic. “I don’t know myself anymore.”
He lit a cigarette and managed a short nod. “I don’t quite see how I’d prevent you from finding yourself.”
“Because you’re so strong that you’re easy to lean on. Too easy. And you’d let me lean, just the way you did earlier.”
“Everybody needs to lean sometimes, Andrea. It doesn’t mean we’re weak when we do.”
She hadn’t touched her soup, and now she pushed the bowl aside, a sure indicator of how lousy she was feeling. Even as he tried to manage the pain of his own impending loss, he felt sympathy for her.
“You’ve got to understand the dimensions of the problem,” she said presently. “You’re part of it. I’ve come to need you. I’ve never needed anybody in my life before, and suddenly I need you the way I need air to breathe. That’s scary enough, but that’s what makes leaning on you come close to dependency. I don’t want to become a limpet, and I don’t think you want one clinging to you.”
He wanted to argue, but she was making sense. He didn’t want to see her damaged and gutted, not even if it meant losing her entirely.
“So, okay,” he said, and took a steadying breath. “What’s the plan?”
“I won’t see you again until I figure out who I am and what kind of future I really want.”
“And just how long might that take?”
She sighed heavily. “I don’t now. The first thing I have to do is figure out what kind of future I have with the Air Force. Or even if I have one. I’ll go to Minot and take it one step at a time. That’s all I can do.”
“Will you at least write?”
Suddenly tears were running down her cheeks, huge, silent and heartbreaking. “I’ll write,” she said brokenly. “Will you?”
Dare stood, knocking his chair over with a crash, and scooped her up into his arms. Jaw working, he carried her to his bedroom and lowered her gently to the mattress.
“You remember this, Andrea,” he said as he flung his clothes around the room and then stretched out beside her. Catching her chin in his hand, he turned her face toward him and looked deep into her wet eyes. “I…I care about you, woman. Body and soul. And I’m going to miss you like hell.”
She threw her arms around him and clung tightly, pierced by his unexpected declaration, but she didn’t answer it. Both of them were aware of her silence. It hung in the room around them as Dare made love to her, adding desperation to his desire and sorrow to hers.
Never had Andrea hated getting dressed the way she did that morning. Each item of clothing she donned removed her that much farther from Dare and brought the moment of separation that much closer. During the night, moments had become infinitely precious, each one to be treasured and drawn out. Andrea clutched every one of them to her heart against the long, lonely days ahead.
Maybe she really had lost her marbles. Trouble was, she kept remembering her mother and how she had depended on Charlie Burke. Andrea had grown up feeling scornful of her mother’s utter dependency, and while adulthood had made her more sympathetic to her mother’s weakness, she was terrified of becoming a similar shadow. It was a wonder that Clara Burke had managed to get dressed in the morning without Charlie’s direction. She had depended on him for everything else, every decision, every opinion, every action beyond the woman’s work of household chores.
It wasn’t that Dare would want or even try to turn her into that kind of person. Andrea honestly believed he would never knowingly do such a thing. No, she was afraid of the weakness in herself, the desire to curl up in Dare’s sheltering arms and let him face the world for them both. In that weakness she felt like her mother, and once and for all she had to prove she could stand on her own.
“Almost ready?”
Andrea looked up from smoothing her slacks over her hips and caught her breath. God, he was magnificent! He stood tall and straight in the doorway, turning the ordinary cut and color of his uniform into something far more. In every inch, he was a soldier, right down to his firm jaw. That jaw was set, containing all the arguments he hadn’t voiced, all the emotions he hadn’t unleashed.
“Dare…” She spoke his name faintly, uncertainly.
“No talk,” he said flatly. “Except for one or two notable occasions, I’ve never pushed you in any way, and I don’t want to start now. You’ve stated your position. I accept it. End of discussion.”
His withdrawal was a tangible thing, leaving her feeling colder and more abandoned then she’d ever dreamed was possible. If he cared about her, how could he let her go like this, so coldly?
He broke the silence between them only when he pulled up in front of the BOQ. Setting the car in neutral, he turned to face her one last time.
“Goodbye, Andrea,” he said in that same flat, emotionless tone.
Standing in the dry snow, with the icy predawn wind whipping around her, she watched him drive away. Now she knew what it meant to be truly alone.
Chapter 16
I care about you, woman. Body and soul.
Andrea jerked bolt upright in bed, surfacing from a restless sleep with her heart pounding and her breath coming in ragged gasps. Dare’s words rang in her ears as if he’d just spoken them. When she realized she was alone once again in her bed, she flopped back onto her pillow with a groan.
Call him.
No. No. If he really cared about her—if he loved her—he wouldn’t have let her go so easily.
But you love him, and you were the one who walked away.
She’d had to. It was a matter of self-preservation.
Oh sure…
Rolling onto her side, she hugged her pillow tightly and fought back the tears that had been close to the surface for the last several days. He could have called, but he hadn’t. He’d made no effort to get in touch with her at all.
Except for one or two notable occasions, I’ve never pressured you. I’m not going to start now.
Andrea drew a shuddery breath. He didn’t really want her. Not if he could let her go so easily.
But had he? Had he really let her go easily?
I care about you, woman. Body and soul.
What did he want from her? She’d never understood that. He’d never told her, never explained what it was he needed from her. She’d made assumptions, but…
Once again she sat bolt upright, this time to throw aside the covers, to rise and pace her small quarters. When she passed by the open door of the bathroom, her reflection in the mirror caught her eye. Andrea Burke in green silk. Andrea Burke looking like the woman who Dare MacLendon had seen in her.
Halting
, she faced her reflection and tried to see herself as he must have seen her. A man who gave such a gown to a woman was saying something. Well, of course, she’d already recognized that he’d seen the woman inside, the woman who hid behind the officer. That had been evident to her the first time she’d looked at herself in this gown, just a few short weeks ago at Christmas. He’d seen a woman who wanted to be beautiful for a man, and he’d made her feel beautiful.
Staring at herself, Andrea suddenly drew a sharp breath and held it. He hadn’t given her this to make her feel beautiful or because he knew she wanted to feel like a woman. He had given her this because she was a woman, because to him she was beautiful.
Turning swiftly, she hunted up her jeans and sweater. No more guessing. No more assuming. Damn it, she was going to find out what it was he really wanted from her. An affair? A long-term relationship? Or nothing at all.
The latter possibility terrified her, but she would face it. She would face the truth of this relationship at long last. No more hiding, no more running, no more avoiding.
The frigid predawn air was unnaturally still when Andrea climbed out of her car in front of Dare’s house. It was so cold that by the time she crossed the short walk to his front door, the moisture of her own perspiration had frozen into a thin sheen of frost on the legs of her jeans, stiffening them.
Afraid to hold still lest she grow hypothermic, she hopped from one foot to the other as she rang the bell and waited. Several minutes passed, and by then she was certain something must be frostbitten.
On her third ring, the door abruptly flew open and Dare stood there, eyes widening as he recognized her through the storm door.
“Andrea!” Throwing open the storm door, he seized her hand and tugged her indoors. “God, woman, you feel like ice,” he said as he closed both doors behind them. “What’s wrong? Why are you here?”
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