Like children three years old, they jumped and chased after the petals falling like pink and white rain. Tim scooped up a handful of cherry petals from atop the grass and tossed them at Lola. A hundred, a thousand caught in her hair. One stuck to her nose, another to her cheek.
He hooked a hand around her waist and they turned into each other with all the force of their stride and all the joy, and he feasted upon her mouth knowing he could never have enough of this woman. Not today, not tomorrow, not in a lifetime, not in a dozen.
He’d fallen in love with a woman who tasted of heaven and smelled of cherry blossoms.
Chapter 35
Their run forgotten, Lola had been comfortable to wander through the falling blossoms hand in hand with Tim. She’d rarely been to a place like this, never such a wonder of natural beauty.
New Orleans had its moments, but the Deep South was about lazy heat and the people. For all her time in the service, the dice had rolled against her. She’d never served in such a place. Air National Guard had kept her close to home. The Army had shipped her off to Iraq the first moment it could. SOAR had trained at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and in the Nevada desert. Then they’d fired her off to Pakistan.
“Why do the crazies always live in the desert? Why can’t they live somewhere like this? Or maybe the Bahamas?”
“Flew security there once. Nothing much happened. Some nice beaches. A lot of women wearing even less than you are. But I’d rather be here.”
He turned to look at her and squeezed her hand lightly, just as if they’d been walking hand in hand for years.
“Feels right here. Feels like home.”
The wind curled around and chilled her skin for a moment.
“Not a feeling I know.” Actually she knew what home felt like, and it wasn’t something she’d ever wish on anybody. The only thing worse than home was family. Tim’s was different, though. Overwhelming. Overbearing. Overprotective. She bet his family was talking about her right now and how she’d never be good enough for their boy. But despite all that, at least they didn’t leave you with your skin creeping no matter how long you scrubbed in a shower.
Well, screw ’em. All she wanted from Tim was a good time and some good feelings.
Wasn’t it?
It had to be. Whatever hesitation preceded that thought was to be ignored as stupid and foolish. Lola LaRue lived her life loose and easy. Sure, she’d committed to her crew. Flew hard. Had their backs and they had hers. That was enough for any soldier. It was enough for any girl. All she needed.
She let Tim lead her wherever he wanted to go. He led her from the glorious avenue of falling petals and somewhere back toward the city through long parks and manicured trees. For now she did have all she needed. All she wanted.
They wandered down tree-covered paths, moseying like any other couple on a warm spring morning.
Tim was easy. They chatted about nothing and he made it easy. He talked about growing up in the city and visiting family in Puerto Rico during the winter and Boston during the summer. He told funny stories about his brother and sisters. Discovering that he’d probably served Emily Beale and her family at their restaurant when he was a teenager, but neither of them remembering.
Connections. To Tim everything was connections. His best friend had fallen in love with Connie Davis, and now she and Big John were his two best friends. His loyalty to his crew, to those who flew on the two DAP Hawks wasn’t something felt, like hers; it was integral to his being. To him they were family. Perhaps closer than. When someone else on the crew got shot, everyone wished it had been them instead. She’d feel that way even about bloody Kee Stevenson. The difference was, Tim would leap in front of the bullet if he could.
Tim remembered the name of every teacher from kindergarten to SOAR. She’d be challenged to remember half, never mind name them.
“Really,” Lola insisted when Tim pushed. “I was the weird kid in the back of class.”
“What did you do there, polish your nails?” Tim got her to laugh the way he said it.
“No, that was Betsy and Jeannie. I read.”
“What?”
“Anything about anywhere that wasn’t where I was. I read mostly… You’ll laugh.”
“Of course I will. C’mon, give. This sounds good.”
Lola ignored him.
He leaned forward and kind of looked up at her like a sad puppy dog.
She turned away and studied a blooming bush of vibrant yellow.
He stepped around her and held her other hand, repeating the puppy dog look from the other side.
When he whimpered she lost it.
“Science fiction,” she managed between her laughs.
That stopped him. “Last thing I was expecting to hear. I figured gothic romances or war history.”
“Nope. Arthur C., Heinlein, Card, anything I could lay my hands on. Our local library only had a couple shelves, so I read them from Douglas Adams to Roger Zelazny. I started stealing them from bookstores by the time I hit high school.”
“Ever get caught?”
“Once.” She left it as a tease. She’d never thought talking about books could be flirty. She usually kept her passion quiet and to herself. Those worlds were as far as she could get from the one she lived in. She’d lived for Diaspar and Dorsai. Regulus Base and the Benden Weyr. Kept the books hidden. They were just for her. Tim was the first one she’d ever told.
“And…” he picked up on the tease. So fun to be with.
“I got caught putting a book back.”
Tim snorted. “Putting one back?”
“Well, I had nowhere to keep them.”
“What about your room?”
That killed any sense of fun. “I had nowhere to keep them.” She knew her voice had gone cold. Couldn’t help herself. Ran her free hand down the length of his muscled forearm in apology.
All it did was raise goose bumps on her own flesh.
She could feel him turn to look at her a few times. She just kept her attention straight ahead. Focused on the line of marble steps ahead. Steps that led to somewhere hidden by the low brow of the trees they’d been wandering under.
Tim remained quiet as they continued forward.
“Holy crap!” Lola couldn’t stop the exclamation.
Tim started. Clearly he had been thinking deep thoughts or he’d have expected her reaction. The Lincoln Memorial rose abruptly out of the trees. The massive columns towered stories and stories above them.
Even on a weekday morning, the place was swarmed with tourists. Buses were emptying load after load, yet the place was so massive that Lola didn’t feel in the least crowded. They climbed the stairs.
Right near the top, with old Abe looking down on them benevolently, Tim stopped and turned her to face the city.
All she could do was sink to the warm marble steps. Washington D.C. laid out before her like a road map. The great green of the center of the city, as if saying, “We’re so powerful, we can afford to leave the whole center of the place empty for a park and pretty buildings. Our power is hidden. Our hammer is out of sight. Be careful not to forget that.”
“We’re part of that hammer.” Her voice came out as little more than a hoarse whisper.
She could feel Tim’s nod from how he sat so close beside her that their shoulders rubbed.
“We rule the night.” Tim made it sound like a prayer.
“The Night Stalkers.” Something to be proud of. Something to belong to.
Perhaps it was a prayer.
Chapter 36
“They’re in our spot.”
“They are. Should we have them shot?”
Lola looked up in surprise to see Major Beale and Major Henderson standing just a few steps below them, profiled with the Capitol Building peeping up between their shoulders.
Despite their
civvies, jeans, and T-shirts, there was no mistaking their military bearing. They looked good together, as if they’d always stood side by side. The broad-shouldered man and the stunning blond. As if they belonged side by side.
“Well,” Beale answered her husband as if Lola and Tim weren’t sitting right there listening, “officer and enlisted. Holding hands. Not good. Not good at all. Firing squad might be too kind.”
Lola tried to shake her hand loose but be subtle about it. Tim didn’t move. They were too close, and her elbow was caught inside of his.
“Right.” Henderson aimed his mirrored Ray-Bans at them like twinned miniguns. “We, at least, were the same rank. We had some respect for the military code.”
Beale elbowed her husband.
“Okay, we were eventually the same rank.”
So, they’d been different ranks when courting. At least they’d both been officers.
Lola knew the Majors could hang both of them out to dry. Fraternization was forbidden. It sometimes fell under the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” rules like the one the gays had served under until 2012, and sometimes it didn’t. Depended on the commander. Commanders.
Everyone ignored Lola’s efforts to disentangle herself from Tim’s grasp, until she finally stopped for feeling too damn foolish.
“I don’t know, dear,” Beale continued as if Lola and Tim were just specimens under a magnifying glass. “I’m off duty. How about if we convene the court-martial some other day?”
“I could get us ice cream instead.” Henderson nodded toward the rolling cart at the base of the steps.
“How did they do it, sir? Kee and Archie?” Lola had blurted it out without intending. Without even knowing where the question came from. Sure, she’d wondered as they were an officer and enlisted couple, but she and Kee weren’t exactly on close speaking terms so as to hunker down and have a friendly girl chat on the subject.
Lola also couldn’t figure out why she was so interested. Having now started it, this was not a conversation she wanted to be in. For one thing, it implied that it was part of a conversation she and Tim would be having. For another, she didn’t want to care about Kee but was finding that she did. For all of the woman’s in-your-face nastiness, she was an amazing soldier, a devoted wife, and an amazing mother.
Major Henderson continued speaking to his wife rather than to them. “The youngsters these days, no respect. That should be Sergeant Kee Stevenson and Captain Archie to them. How did they pull that off anyway? I missed it until they invited me to be the best man opposite my wife.”
Beale patted her husband’s shoulder with the hand he wasn’t holding. “You’re sweet and they were discreet. Mostly. Though there was one morning at Bati… I’ll just say that Captain Stevenson has very cute knees.” The woman’s smile was huge and wicked. Lola would give some fair chunk of her next paycheck to hear the story behind that smile.
Her husband harrumphed at that.
Beale stared down at them for another long moment, considering. Long enough for Lola to start squirming again before she spoke.
“Orange Creamsicle.” Major Beale spoke as if passing final judgment and life sentence.
“Fudgsicle!” Tim piped up.
“Didn’t ask you.” Henderson aimed a finger at him. “Wasn’t I about to court-martial you?”
Lola couldn’t help smiling. “I’d—”
“Ice cream sandwich,” Henderson finished for her. “You’re definitely an ice cream sandwich kind of girl.”
She nodded. She was. And even if she wasn’t, she’d have said yes so that he could be right.
“C’mon, Maloney. You can help carry.”
Tim rose to follow the Major down the steps. “As long as you’re buying.”
“Damn! Should have court-martialed you while I had the chance.”
Major Beale sat beside Lola and they admired the two men descending the broad marble stairs.
“Damn, but they look good, don’t they?”
Lola could only nod in response. They certainly did. Though she hoped her face didn’t look quite like the Major’s. There was a palpable look of true love across her features.
Time for a subject change. She faced Major Beale. “Have you seen a doctor yet, Emily?” It felt strange to say the Major’s first name. But asking a commanding officer about her baby was a little too strange. It was easier to ask a woman.
By the way she slid her hand over her belly, Lola had the answer to her question.
“What are you going to do?”
“Knowing, really knowing,” Emily whispered to her, “changes the world.”
***
They had lunch at a hot-dog vendor’s cart after going up the Washington Monument and peeping out the small, grimy windows toward the four points of the compass. They happily paid tourist prices for that and a snow cone covered in Blue Dye No. 1. Lola shared her snow cone with Tim, both of their tongues turning bright blue, which they made a point of sticking out at each other like a couple of kids.
They all strolled through D.C. together. Sometimes walking as couples, but more often two men together and two women. Lola felt that was a little clichéd, but she was discovering that in addition to respecting the Major, she also was coming to like Emily Beale quite a bit.
They talked about nothing much, at least nothing much that stood out as important. They spoke of their first flights: Lola’s during a ROTC recruiting event which had inspired her to be a front-seater, Emily’s on one of her father’s business flights. They spoke of first battles, that moment that proves the chosen path: Hurricane Katrina and the Opium Triangle respectively. At first boyfriends, Emily went coy and Lola didn’t want to talk about it anyway.
They circled back a dozen times to the regimen suggested by Emily’s doctor. A civilian doctor, because a military one would have grounded her immediately, had been horrified at what she did for a living and told her she had a maximum of four weeks to get off the chopper if she wanted to keep the child due to the g-forces alone, never mind the possibility of being shot.
Knowing that, Mark and Emily had decided that whatever happened as a result of their trip into the desert and this morning’s escort flight, this would be her last mission until after the birth.
Lola didn’t ask what would happen then. Neither of them was ready to face that question: Emily to stop flying, Lola to fly without her.
“Do you have any dinner plans?” Tim broke in on a discussion of jungle-flying tactics. “Ma’s lookin’ to feed some people.”
“Sounds great.” Emily considered for a moment. “Though I was thinking of dropping in on Peter.”
Tim busted out a big grin and a wink that Lola didn’t understand but that made Viper Henderson smile most evilly. “Invite him along. More the merrier.”
Emily stepped aside and pulled out her cell phone.
“Your ma doesn’t mind feeding us in her kitchen? We won’t be in the way?”
Tim pointed down the street.
Lola knew they’d come full circle through D.C., but she didn’t quite know where they’d started. Before, they’d arrived at an anonymous back kitchen door in an alley. Now she saw a building with a broad glass frontage and elegant wood-carved sign naming one of the hottest restaurants in D.C. Its reputation reached far and wide. Pauley’s Island had made Caribbean food one of the newest foodie trends.
It took her heart about three more beats before she made the connection. A side of beef, a whole swordfish, the freshest ingredients.
“That’s your family’s restaurant?”
“Ma’s the head chef, Dad’s the marketing and business guy.” His smile shone huge.
Viper Henderson was also clearly enjoying her complete discomfiture.
She jabbed Henderson in ribs, not even horrified that she’d just poked a superior officer hard enough to hurt.
“Hey,
he’s the one who hoodwinked you.” He grinned down at her and didn’t even bother to rub where she’d hit him.
“I’ll make him pay later,” she managed to growl out.
“Too bad, I’d be glad to hold him for you.”
“No need.” Lola made a fist with a slightly raised knuckle and pounded her fist into the nerve nexus where Tim’s deltoids met biceps. It was like punching a brick wall, but still it elicited a very satisfying “Yowtch!” as he clutched at his upper arm.
Emily came back over, clearly trying not to laugh at what she’d just witnessed.
“Peter?” Lola mouthed at Tim.
“Sure.” He turned to Lola. “Old friend of Emily’s. They grew up together. That’s the only way we refer to him out in public.”
Lola narrowed her eyes at the last cryptic remark. Tim just grinned at her. She considered punching his arm again, but he dodged away behind Major Henderson who raised his hands palm out to show he wanted no part of this.
Emily interrupted before Lola could offer chase, one hand over the cell’s pickup.
“Room for Daniel? Alice is out of town.”
Tim shrugged a “Sure.”
Emily finished the call, “See you at seven?”
“I’ll tell Ma.”
Lola glanced up at the clock tower that loomed above a building labeled “The Old Post Office.”
As the Majors left, she observed to Tim, “Any suggestions on what we should do with the next four hours? Other than a hot bath.”
“Oh.” Tim’s smile bloomed, again proving he was quick on the uptake. “Oh yeah!”
Chapter 37
Tim swung through the kitchen of Pauley’s Island and waved at Becca and Bobbi. Everyone else was too busy serving late lunches to stop for even that. He grabbed his and Lola’s gear. He reached for the key to the apartment, but it wasn’t there. Crap!
It had always hung next to the back door, unless someone else was using it. This couldn’t be happening. Who could possibly be using the upstairs apartment in the middle of a Monday afternoon? Occasionally his parents slept there if the restaurant closed late. Grandpop had lived there the last few years of his life. If one of the kids partied too hard downtown, better to crash upstairs than on the road.
Take Over at Midnight (The Night Stalkers) Page 18