She could see the puzzled look flicker across his face. Crap! She was setting up to hurt him, and for the first time, she cared enough about a man to not want to do that. How do you let a guy down easy? No one had ever taught her that and she’d never bothered to learn. If they bore you or get all possessive, you boot ’em out and move on. She didn’t want to do that to him.
“Tim, I—”
It was as far as she got before Big John clambered out of Viper much more lightly than his smaller friend. He eyed Lola for a moment, then smacked a hand down on Tim’s shoulder with enough force to have driven a lesser man two feet into the steel decking.
“Hey, Timmy. Poker game setting up. C’mon.”
For a moment she thought John might try tucking Tim under his arm. That would be impossible for any man smaller than John, but he just settled for a headlock. He looked back over his shoulder at her as he dragged Tim away toward the front of the plane.
“Connie’s playing and I need someone to be putting dough in my wife’s pocket besides me. She doesn’t share her winnings.” His voice was light and funny, his look back to her was anything but. The message was clear—if she hurt Tim, the rest of the crew was going to turn on her, and turn on her hard.
Merde! She didn’t sign up for this shit! Nothing was making any sense. And now she was all tied up in whatever they’d found in the bloody desert before she could even settle in properly. A dozen flights, a couple of really fine kisses, and now her world was comin’ apart at the seams. She hadn’t even gotten any real sex out of the deal.
Maybe she’d taken a wrong turn out of CSAR, should never have joined SOAR. Or picking up Beale in the middle of Poland in the dead of night. Never should have accepted that mission.
Beale. Right. Lola had a small mission and wasn’t even getting that done. A quick check showed she was finally alone. She clambered aboard the Vengeance, sat on the cargo deck, and rummaged around behind the cargo net until she found the extra med kit in a small, bright red duffel that she’d stowed behind the .50 cal ammo. Bottom right corner farthest from where the zipper opened. She pulled out two sticks, thought better of it, and scooped a third into her grip before pulling them out.
“Pooh the Bear keeps honey jars in his pantry.”
Lola spun around. She snagged the three white-plastic-wrapped packages on the safety netting and they scattered across the cargo deck. Dilya, the little kid, was sitting in the shadows on Kee’s gunner seat. Her book sat in her lap. A small book light cast a soft glow onto the open pages, which was how Lola had missed her in the dimly lit end of the jet’s cargo bay.
“Mary Lennox found her key under the ground. She keeps it in her pocket. What does La Roo keep in her helicopter?”
“Uh.” Lola collected the pregnancy test packets and slipped them into a thigh pocket. “Medicine.”
“Is La Roo sick? Piglet had the worst case of hiccups once. Could you make him better?”
“No. He did? Maybe.”
Dilya nodded her head with the sage wisdom of an elder crone.
“Mary Lennox has met a very sick boy. Maybe she can make him better.”
Lola almost said, “She did.” But that would give the ending away. “Uh, when you finish the book, you can let me know. I like to make people better.”
“With medicine?”
“With medicine.”
The girl was quiet for long enough that Lola had time to restow the med kit, fasten the cargo net, and consider leaving. But something made her wait. Lean back against the net and the steel ammo boxes and just wait for the little girl to think her thoughts.
“Making people better is more good than making people dead?”
It was. But it wasn’t the choice she’d made. She’d gone from Search and Rescue to a DAP Hawk, from saving lives to taking them. Which had saved more people? Picking broken bodies off battlefields one by one, or killing the bad guys before they killed others?
“Sometimes,” she answered the girl’s silence. “Not always.”
Again, the crone’s nod of wisdom.
“Dilya only help make people dead. Not good. Dilya not do that no more.”
“Anymore,” some knee-jerk part of Lola’s brain offered up. At her age, Dilya had helped make people dead?
“Anymore,” Dilya responded. This little girl who had apparently dispensed death also worked at correcting her English. She returned to her book. “I let La Roo know if Mary Lennox makes little boy better or dead.”
Clearly dismissed, Lola left the helicopter and moved toward the front of the plane. Walking away from the little girl for whom death was as natural as life.
Lola liked flying the Hawk. Liked reaching out and saving people before they were hurt, even if it meant hurting others. She’d chosen to believe that those she fought to save were worth saving and those who wished them dead—those who flew planes into the Twin Towers—were wrong and best off removed as fast as possible.
But it left her queasy and a little unnerved as she walked up the length of the roaring cargo bay. The massive jet engines, barely a dozen feet away through a very thin fuselage, washed the bay in noise so thick you could cut it up with a knife. This was a military cargo jet, not some dressed-up passenger liner. No pretty beige walls, carpeting, or little plastic windows. The only way to tell night from day was to glance up at the flight deck three flights of steel stairs above the cargo deck and look for light through the pilot’s windshield. No security doors around the pilots. Again military, no need.
No light shone down from above. Clearly night, wherever they were. No one had said where they were headed, so no one had asked. They’d taken off right after sunset. If they were indeed flying to the States, they’d be in darkness the whole way, chasing the night halfway around the planet.
The only lights this far back in the bay were the small, red jump lights. Up forward, everyone was hanging around the front of the Chinook. She could hear their voices and laughter, a muffled overlay to the engine’s noise. The D-boy who’d been pretending to relax while watching the locked-up Chinook had set up on the other side of the bay.
From the shadow of Viper, a shadow separated itself from behind a 20 mm chain gun hanging from a weapon’s mounting hard point.
Lola slipped the three packets into Major Beale’s hand and said very softly, “Pee on the end, wait three minutes. Even if all three come back positive, it could be false. Still see the doc.”
“I’m so looking forward to a career-changing talk with a doctor.” Beale’s voice almost cracked. The Major held Lola’s hand for a long moment of thanks and bestowed a brief hug before moving off.
Lola didn’t know which was more unnerving, a child who talked of causing death or a grown woman whose hands shook with the possibility of life.
Chapter 26
Tim had waited for his opportunity. He’d lost a quick twenty bucks at the poker game, not much left to chance when Connie and Major Henderson were facing off. Then he’d found a sandwich and stood back a step as Big John managed to take two hands in a row.
Tim faded down the side of the Chinook and nodded to the watching D-boy. After eight years in, Tim had learned to just accept what came next, at least on the Army side of life. He’d find out what they’d uncovered in the Iranian desert soon enough. Probably too soon once the truth was told.
Dilya drifted by, a book clutched in her hands, probably headed forward for food. A full year since they’d rescued her from starving in the heart of the Hindu Kush, and she still ate like a vacuum cleaner. She’d eat six meals a day if she could, often did, and all she did was grow a little taller. The gaunt was gone, showing that she’d be a great beauty some day, but still just a slip of a kid.
Always a bit too serious except around Archie, always a little reserved except around Kee. Tim messed up her hair as she went by. She brushed it aside enough to show her world-deep eyes and her
smile before continuing forward.
As Tim crossed into the shadow between the Chinook and Henderson’s Viper, he spotted Lola and Beale having a little tête-à-tête. Tim pulled back into the shadow to give them their moment and finish his sandwich. He couldn’t hear them over the engine noise, but he could see that whatever the conversation was, it had drawn them close.
Even in jeans, a T-shirt, and a light vest, Major Beale still radiated strength and power. The woman was pure, unbending military. Tim knew from long experience that she was unflappable, never blinked first, and the best damn pilot he’d ever met. Other than with her husband, Major Beale never showed anything beyond pure military. The perfect, textbook, kick-ass-and-don’t-take-names blond.
Lola, by contrast, slouched casually against the side of the Black Hawk while they talked. While Beale’s off-the-shelf jeans fit nicely enough, Lola’s followed every skintight curve. She wore a dark blouse of thin material that both revealed and hid her shape. Unbuttoned enough to suggest no bra without actually revealing the truth of the promise. Her natural stance heavily flavored with casual, she could look like she was leaning comfortably against the air if nothing stood nearby for her to lean on.
Everything that was so perfectly controlled in the Major was loose and easy on Lola. Her dark hair fell in long, messy waves. Burying his face in that soft mass had been a true joy, one he was looking forward to repeating at the first opportunity. Where the Major’s hands were quiet, Lola’s waved about and shaped the air as she spoke. And all of the Major’s serious attitude turned to smiles and head nods in Lola.
Yet for all of the contrasts, there was a similarity deep inside. Something that made both of them fly like no man he’d ever seen. When they flew, it was some kind of magic. He’d spent more time than he should have watching them fly nearby on missions. He could tell instantly who had the controls.
Major Beale was a surgeon, always in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment.
Lola LaRue was a dancer, a quick bob-and-weave placing her where the casual observer would least expect, suddenly hammering away at the exact heart of the problem but from a wholly unexpected direction.
Kee’s distrust of Chief Warrant Lola LaRue had set him back on his heels. Kee was wicked savvy about people. And with Lola her dislike was deep and wide, though she still refused to explain why. Her attitude had made him doubt what he was feeling.
But here was Major Beale, clearly trusting Lola deeply. The Major had always taken weeks and sometimes months to burn in a new crew member, doing easy runs in patrol zones, then light action before trusting them with full-action missions. Even then, they had to earn her full stamp of approval through some extraordinary action, like Kee stopping a war or Connie stopping a holocaust.
Major Beale was the litmus test of SOAR. Within a week, he’d seen her discard plenty of fliers that any other commander would have been thrilled to keep.
With Lola, Beale had taken her to the front lines on the first mission. Now, after just a couple weeks, when Beale might normally let a newbie know they had a chance of being almost acceptable if they just tried harder, she was being all friendly with her new copilot. Actually gave her a long, tight hug before returning forward.
He felt almost as dazed as Lola appeared to be. The Major never did that. Ever.
Lola remained there in the shadows, blinking rapidly after the Major. Turning one way and then the other but not going anywhere, as if she couldn’t get her feet moving. Finally just leaning back against the chopper and hanging her head as if exhausted.
Tim came to her, as if drawn by a stout cargo-lifting line, unable to simply watch her wrestle with whatever was in her heart. She didn’t startle when she spotted him. She raised her gaze until he stopped a mere breath away.
He waited there. Waited for her. He’d never wanted a woman so much, to hold, to help, to care for. Normally, he’d make some joke, slide an arm around the likely woman’s waist, and pull her in. He’d earned a few slaps, but only a few. His timing and judgment had long since been honed with practice.
With Lola, he stood and waited.
Even in the dim lighting, he could see the tears in her eyes. Not weeping, he’d never seen her cry, but far from her normal laugh-at-it-all self.
She didn’t wrap her arms around his neck and bury her face on his shoulder. As if she were made of stronger stuff, she just leaned there and looked at him, eye to eye. She swallowed, a lovely motion on her long neck, and blinked a few more times. Then without a change of expression, she slid a hand into his. The shock of contact coursed up his arm and straight down his body.
Not releasing her hold, she turned and headed for the very rear of the jet. As they passed the Vengeance, she stopped for a moment and indicated he should stay where he stood. She ducked inside for a moment, then once again led him to the rear of the cargo bay.
The massive rear clamshell doors sloped upward from the cargo deck at a forty-five-degree angle like a rising hillside twenty feet wide and more than that tall. The rear rotor and tail section of the Vengeance cast a shadow of near impenetrable darkness. When Lola stepped into it, she simply disappeared.
Tim stepped into the darkness with her. When he did, she did exactly as he first imagined—turned and slid up against him. Wrapped her arms about him and buried her face against his shoulder, holding on as tight as she could.
He slipped his hands around that perfect waist and held her tight. Traced up the length of those magnificent shoulder muscles that only soldier-training could develop. Civilians simply didn’t train at the level of a soldier, not the workout queens, not the aerobics instructors, none of them compared. Especially not to the standards of a Special Forces soldier.
Her hair. He buried his face in her hair and breathed her in. Inhaled the intoxicant of her skin, breathed in until he became light-headed.
His hunger for her at the end of the last mission was no less now, but instead of ravenous, it took a gentle, savoring turn. He nuzzled her neck, tasted her earlobe with a light tug of his teeth, kissing her on the eyelids after they had fluttered shut.
His hands that had previously been so greedy for butt and breast now lost themselves in her hair, cradling her head as he kissed her, digging fingers into over-tight shoulder muscles until she groaned against his lips.
Her fingers slid up into his hair and massaged until all he could do was stand there with his forehead against hers and revel in the sensation. With an easy motion, she pulled him down enough to kiss his forehead, then guided him lower.
She encouraged him to feast on collarbone, one of her finest features on a startlingly beautiful woman. His fingers leading the way, he unbuttoned her blouse, the promise of no bra come true, but opened it no wider than the trail down to her belly. He knelt before her and nuzzled the impossible soft flesh there, and all she did was encourage, hold on, and press him closer, her hands still in his hair.
His hands traveled where his tongue did not, discovering what a perfect, generous handful her breasts made against his palm. How the lower curve of her glutes stood proudly above powerful thighs, a well-defined and awesome behind.
Her strength lay in long layers of smooth muscle. He never moved his head from where his cheek rested against her belly, cradled in her long-fingered hands, not as he studied the curve of her calf, not as he explored every curve back up the length of her body. He wished he could memorize her, every shape, every inch, every taste.
He leaned back to look up at her in the dark. He couldn’t see her face, shrouded in a deeper darkness by her hair cascading down either side, but he knew she looked at him just as intently.
There was no need for the question. Nor the answer.
Tim pulled her down atop him as he leaned back against the cargo bay doors.
***
Lola sank to her knees over Tim. Let herself sink until they lay pressed so close together that wha
t little clothing separated them didn’t matter. Wasn’t there. Just her heart pounding against his.
She slid down enough to lay her ear on his chest and listen to the quick double-beat of his heart. His hands gathered and combed her hair with a gentleness belied by their size and strength. She’d watched him hammering the side of a powerful fist on a reluctant piece of Black Hawk, trying to repair a panel. Another time, when an armorer’s lift broke, Tim had easily helped him lift fresh munitions onto the chopper’s hardpoint mounts.
And he brushed her hair through his fingers as if he were little more than a breath of spring breeze.
She lay there, her body buzzing but oddly content to remain silently tended while she listened to the double-tap of his heart. But the buzz in her body kept growing, and Tim’s clearly had similar feelings. There was no mistaking the point of contact where his hips lined up with her belly.
She sat up and began undoing his pants, testing shape and texture as she went. The hard, six-pack abs. The soft hair tickling the backs of her fingers, the impossibly smooth skin where hip met upper thigh.
When she cupped him, he made the first sound that had passed between them, the low moan of a beast in pain, exquisite pain.
She toyed with him, slowly, gently, feeling him get harder and harder until she could take his pulse there against her palm.
Without releasing him, she leaned forward to kiss him. He slid his hands up inside her open blouse until he supported her weight easily with her breasts against his palms. As if she were as light as a feather. As if she were floating.
“I don’t…” he managed to groan out before she covered his mouth with hers.
His kisses were so strong, so powerful that she momentarily forgot her hand still wrapped around him or his palms pressing against her breasts. Tim’s lips could drive a woman mad. Soft, teasing, lush. Backed by strong teeth that nipped and pulled and a stronger tongue that drove as greedily against hers as hers did on his.
She knew what he meant, of course. She sat back up and freed one hand. Slipping it into a pocket, she held forth the foil packet she’d snagged from the chopper’s med kit.
Take Over at Midnight (The Night Stalkers) Page 13