“What are you doing?” Clay asked.
She gave him a confused look. “Well, you just wanted me to taxi it, didn’t you?”
“I said we’re going to fly.”
Her heart leaped. “Fly?”
It was impossible not to smile. Clay placed his hand over hers, easing the throttles a bit more forward. “Let’s take Gray Lady to the end of the runway, and I’ll walk you through a takeoff. We’ll take a few circuits of the flight pattern and some touch and gos. That will be plenty for you today.”
Aly wanted to cry with exultation. That one smile, and the thawing of his gray eyes, made her heart somersault with euphoria. His hand was firm, guiding hers, as he taught her how to delicately monitor the engine throttles. And he had heard her call the plane Gray Lady! But he hadn’t been disgusted by it. There was, for the first time, a hint of admiration and respect toward her in his voice.
It was a dream, Aly told herself, as they sat at the end of the runway, ready to take the bird aloft. Her hand just barely spanned the four throttles as they sat there, Clay’s hand firmly across her own. For once, she was glad he was in physical contact with her. She needed his assurance and support.
“Okay, everything checks out,” Clay told her, catching her attention out of the corner of his eye. “I’m going to let you push the rudders and keep her nose down the centerline. You make the actual takeoff. I’ll keep my hand over yours to teach you the art of talking to these throttles.”
Aly nodded, licking her lower lip. “Roger.” Her voice was trembling. But it wasn’t out of fear, it was out of anticipation.
“We’ve got clearance. Let’s roll, Miss Trayhern. Rotation speed is 120 miles per hour.”
“Roger. Starting to roll…”
Aly’s world narrowed to awareness of her boots delicately pressed against the rudders to keep the plane’s nose on the centerline of the airstrip. Clay’s hand guided hers, and he pushed all four throttles slowly forward until they were against the fire wall. The P3’s four engines were fairly screaming around them. Gray Lady vibrated, as if she were a thoroughbred trembling to break the gate and race her heart out.
“Releasing rudders,” Aly called out.
“Roger, we’re rolling.” Clay kept his left hand near the yoke, but didn’t touch it. He would not interfere in her takeoff unless it became critical. It was important that Aly be able to have a clear victory in her battle to attain copilot status. Clay grinned to himself at the way she played the aircraft. She had it. She had the right stuff.
Gray Lady moved faster and faster down the strip, the huge blades cutting through the invisible air. She lightened as takeoff speed approached. Wind moved powerfully beneath her long, graceful wings. Aly felt the aircraft strain to break contact with the earth. She kept her hand on the yoke, and the nose remained on the ground. The moment the speed gauge hit 120, she gently eased back on the column.
They were airborne! Aly gasped as the P3 launched skyward in one graceful leap, the engine whine deepening as they climbed.
“Good takeoff,” Clay told her in his normal IP tone. “Now level off at fifteen hundred feet and make a ninety-degree left turn.”
She listened to his steady, calm voice. Gray Lady was incredibly responsive to her every command! So much more sensitive than any other plane she’d ever flown. Wanting to please Clay because he was going beyond the call of duty and giving her extra training, Aly worked hard.
Clay had her lightly hold the yoke, keep her feet on the rudders and her hand on the throttles as he showed her how to land the P3. It was a light, three-point landing, kissing the deck like a lover.
“Lift her off,” he ordered Aly the instant the wheels touched the airstrip.
The second time around, Aly got her chance to land the aircraft for the first time. With the long, extended tail boom, the pilot couldn’t come in nose high, or the boom would scrape against the airstrip, causing major damage to the aircraft. A three-wheel landing was demanding in comparison to the normal two-wheel landing of other types of planes. Aly worked the rudders, jockeying the P3 into the correct landing angle. Clay’s hand covered hers on the throttles, helping her to monitor the incoming speed.
They were down! The P3 bumped, but not hard. Aly didn’t have time to do any celebrating, because Clay immediately ordered her to take off again.
After the third landing, Aly had a good sense of positioning with the P3, and the fourth was her best. She grinned.
Clay nodded. “Nice landing, Miss Trayhern. All right, let’s taxi Gray Lady back to her berth. She’s worked well for us today.”
“Nice landing!” Dan Ballard said, giving Aly a slap on the back as they taxied back to the revetment area.
Flushed with victory, she looked at both men after they had parked and the chocks had been placed beneath each wheel by the ground crew. “Thanks,” she whispered, meaning it. “Between the two of you, I don’t have any choice but to become a good copilot.”
Ballard got up from his position behind the throttles. He chuckled and placed his set of earphones to one side. “Miss Trayhern, you aren’t going to be just a good copilot, you’re going to be a great one.”
Stunned by Dan’s assessment, Aly blinked. She unstrapped, nervously wondering what Clay thought of her performance.
“Isn’t that right, Mr. Cantrell?” Dan asked, standing in the aisle, waiting for them.
Clay tried to ignore the bliss in Aly’s eyes. He’d never seen her so joyful. More than anything, he wanted to drown in those azure eyes shining with gold highlights. Each of her breathy laughs he’d absorbed like a starving man. “Yeah, she’s going to be a good addition to the crew, Dan,” he said, climbing out of the seat and straightening up in the interior of the aircraft.
Nothing could dampen Aly’s spirits as she got up and followed the two men out. Once on the concrete, she turned and reached up, patting the P3 with great affection. Thanks, she silently told the stalwart aircraft.
Ballard had gone on to the hangar. But as Aly turned, she saw Clay standing there, an odd look on his face. Avoiding his piercing look, she walked over to him. “I just wanted to thank her for giving us such a good flight.”
“I see.” Clay checked his normally long stride so that she wouldn’t have to run to keep up with him.
The wind was blowing off the marshes, lifting strands of her red hair. Aly brushed several from her eyes, still breathless over the flight. “I know you probably think it’s strange to name an aircraft or think of it as a living thing, but I do.”
“I never said I disagreed with you.”
Aly laughed softly, her step light. “Then you don’t mind if I call her Gray Lady?”
Clay shook his head. Part of him wanted this heady moment to last forever. The other part of him said it wasn’t right: Aly’s brother had cold-bloodedly murdered Stephen. He studied Aly’s upturned face. Was she a traitor, too? Would she cut and run when the chips were down? How would she handle the nerve-racking tension of hunting a Soviet sub, flying fifty feet above the grasping fingers of a fickle ocean?
“I just wonder, Trayhern, if you can stand the heat in the kitchen. Your brother couldn’t.” He saw her eyes narrow with sudden and unexpected pain. “Today, you did okay flying. But what will you do when things get tight? Will you run? Flip out? Break under the strain? What?”
Aly hung her head, wrestling with incredible anguish. Her earlier joy shattered like glass beneath a sledgehammer. She looked back up at Clay, wondering if he honestly felt that way. Or was she just too much a reminder of the past, every new experience bringing out some facet of his old memories? She drew to a halt, holding his bleak gray gaze.
“You think I’m a coward, don’t you?” she demanded softly.
“I don’t know what to think of you,” Clay admitted. “One member of your family ran when the chips were down. How do I know you won’t, too?”
Defiantly, Aly placed her hands on her hips, her voice riddled with anger. “I guess we’re both going to
find out, aren’t we, Mr. Cantrell?”
Clay’s shoulders slumped in sudden exhaustion. He didn’t want to fight with her, but there was no other way with them. “Sooner or later, we will.”
Aly’s mouth tightened. “Thanks for the ride today, Cantrell. At least you know I won’t lose my nerve on a simple takeoff and landing. That ought to make you sleep better at night!” And she stormed off toward the hangar, fighting the hot tears that threatened to fall.
Chapter Five
“Stuck with the duty on a Friday night, Miss Trayhern?”
Aly looked up from behind the duty officer’s desk. It was five o’clock, and Dan Ballard, like nearly everyone else, was ready to go home. She smiled.
“Afraid so, Dan.”
“It’s a lousy Friday night, anyway. April rains, and all.” He scowled. “I suppose you’re gonna study that manual in front of you?”
“Right again. You know me too well.”
The red-haired engineer grinned. “Four months in Gray Lady with you has helped, ma’am.” He opened the door. “Hope it’s a quiet watch for you. I’ll see you Monday morning.”
“Roger that, Dan,” Aly agreed. She watched the lanky engineer quietly shut the door. Through the office window, she could see the cavernous inside of Hangar One. A number of P3s, in for general maintenance, stood silently.
Had four months really flown by? Aly had lost track of time, buried in learning the art of flying the P3 and nonstop studying of so many manuals concerned with sub hunting. Just a week ago, she’d been approved for copilot status. Now she’d be flying every mission with Clay and his crew. Happiness simmered in Aly as she leafed through the first pages of the manual on sonobuoys. I’ve made it. Aly savored the thought. Through four months of hell with Clay, she’d made it, despite their impasse over the issue of Morgan.
Clay… Closing her eyes, she pictured his face before her. Her dad had been right; Clay had lost most of his virulent anger toward her. By the end of the first month, the worst of the snipes and barbs had ended. The more she’d proved she could fly, and fly well, the less vitriolic he’d become. Still, he would take shots at her from time to time. He didn’t trust her to come through in a crisis; it was that simple.
Sighing, Aly stared down at the manual, not seeing the words. For three months Clay had been a fortress of silence. He never traded a smile or a joke with her as he did with the rest of his crew. They worshiped the ground Clay walked on because of his unique abilities to relate easily with each man. In the cockpit, he was cool and emotionless with her, and that hurt.
“Let’s face it, Trayhern, you like him and he hates you.” Still, she stood in awe of Clay, because in the cockpit, he never allowed his personal feelings to interfere with their demanding teamwork while flying.
Sometimes she could have sworn she saw burning longing in his eyes when she looked up unexpectedly at him. Sometimes it was the softening of his mouth. Little things…but each time, it made her heart ache. Dammit, she liked Cantrell! There wasn’t much not to like about the man, Aly decided glumly. He was a good officer, a fair man, and unlike what Starbuck’s malicious gossip had suggested, Clay wasn’t losing it behind the yoke. He was one of the finest pilots she’d had the honor of flying with, and he was teaching her to strive for that same level of skill.
Anger simmered through Aly as she thought of Starbuck. From Dan, she’d found out why Gray Lady had sustained landing gear damage. Clay had landed her with one engine on fire in the middle of a rare thunderstorm over the Bay Area. Dan had told her the truth—that without Cantrell’s years of experience as a pilot, his extraordinary skill and sheer bravado, they would have crashed. At the last possible second, with an in-flight emergency in progress, there had been a wind shear across the airstrip they were to land on. The P3 dived earthward, and according to Dan’s account, Clay had grabbed the yoke, slammed hard left rudder and settled the aircraft in just like a jet landing on a carrier. If it hadn’t been for his carrier landing experience, they would have crashed. They’d walked away from that one, all twelve of them, with only a damaged landing strut.
“Hey!”
Aly’s head snapped up. Starbuck, in his khaki uniform, had poked his head through the opened door. “What do you want?” she asked unencouragingly.
With a genial smile, Starbuck entered the office and closed the door. He settled the garrison cap at a cocky angle on his head. “Just dropping by to say hello to the prettiest lady at Moffett.”
“Stow it, Jeff. I’m wise to you.” The words came out with disgust, but Aly didn’t care. If she had believed anything the fighter jock had said about Clay, it would have been dangerous to her own flight career. She would have mistrusted Clay at the controls, creating even more strain between them.
“Aw, come on, Alyssa. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re turning into a sourpuss just like your lover boy.”
Rage snapped through her, and she raised her lashes, glaring at him. “That’s uncalled for, Starbuck. Or is that the latest nasty gossip you’re passing around the base?”
Starbuck shrugged. “So you’re not denying it?”
“What?”
“You two are lovers?”
“Stop being ridiculous! I fly with Cantrell, I don’t sleep with him!”
Jeff rubbed his chin, inspecting her closely. “I don’t know, Alyssa…you’ve been on board here for four months and you don’t have a boyfriend that any of us can tell. The only dude you spend time with is Cantrell….”
“Starbuck, why don’t you toddle on over to the O Club like you do every Friday night, and get drunk? It’s what you do best.”
His brown eyes danced with amusement. “You’re so much fun to bait, Alyssa. Hey! Guess who I saw pulling up over at the O Club earlier?”
She sat back in the chair, her arms crossed over her chest. How someone so handsome could have such a mean streak in him was beyond Aly. Starbuck’s winning smile and geniality were a cover for his ruthless, competitive nature. “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me, whether I want to know or not.”
Opening the door, Jeff said, “Your lover, Cantrell. Didn’t you know he hits the bottle every Friday night? Sits in a dark corner and nurses a couple rounds of Scotch, looking moody. He must be pining away for you….”
“Get out of here!” Alyssa said, rising to her feet. “And take your filthy mouth with you. I’m tired of listening to it, Starbuck.”
He threw her a salute. “Later, Alyssa.” And he disappeared into the passageway, whistling gaily.
“Damn him,” Aly ground out, slamming the manual shut. Starbuck was dangerous. He was a gossiper, and it could hurt her career if anyone believed half the garbage he spread around the station. Ever since she’d made it clear she wouldn’t go out with him, Starbuck had waged a campaign to get even.
Going into the back room, which had a cot for sleeping purposes, and a coffee maker, Aly poured herself a cup. After she calmed down, her heart and mind zeroed in on the fact that Clay spent Friday nights drinking over at the O Club. He was so damned alone. He wore those walls around himself like a good friend, she thought angrily. What was he running from? And why did that haunted look always hover in his dark gray eyes?
Clay blinked twice before he could read the hands on his watch. The corner where he sat was dark, and the luminous dial wavered in front of him. He had to stare at it a long time before realizing it was 0100. Good, he wasn’t feeling any more pain. No, that wasn’t it. He wasn’t feeling any more longing for Aly.
A silly smile stretched across his face as he leaned the chair onto its back legs. He watched with disinterest as pilots hustled the women who frequented the club, wanting to snag a fighter jock. The bar was crowded—wall-to-wall bodies—and a haze of smoke hung over the place. Tonight, Clay realized in some dim portion of his slowly functioning mind, he’d really drunk far too much. He watched the single women in miniskirts hunting the eligible pilots. It was a game he never wanted to play. And that was all it was: a g
ame.
Aly’s face hovered in front of him. Savagely he rubbed his eyes, trying to erase her image. Dammit! As drunk as he was, she still haunted him. Frustrated, he tipped his head back and rested it against the walnut paneling behind him.
How the hell could he reconcile that he liked her, wanted her in every way, with the fact that she was the sister of a murderer? Trying to ignore her breathy laughter and the gold highlights in her blue eyes when she was happy was impossible. The past four months had turned into a twisted sort of hell for him. He’d thought it would be easy to hate Aly. Instead, he was drawn so damn powerfully to her. Her easygoing nature had a quiet, calming effect on everyone during tense cockpit situations, and she had an innate ability to get along with the crew. Clay found himself unable to remain immune to her any longer.
Aly was a thoughtful, caring person by nature, Clay sourly admitted. How many times had he been sitting in the left-hand seat and she’d come back on board after the visual inspection of the aircraft? The men at the consoles all had greetings for her when she boarded. Clay watched enviously as Aly bestowed a sunny smile here, a pat on the shoulder there, and shared a joke with someone else. And then he’d watch the joy dissolve from her face as she approached the cockpit. Aly, the real Aly, would die before him.
She would take the right-hand seat, her face closed, her voice devoid of feeling, and begin working in tandem with him. And he’d discovered that hate wasn’t the comfortable companion he’d thought it would be. It had been his fault: he’d come out firing the first salvos at Aly. God knew, she’d tried a number of times in the first two months to make amends and establish a truce between them.
But Clay hadn’t allowed it. And he didn’t know why. Every excruciating minute spent with Aly made him feel the sharpened hunger just to have her smile at him. He ached to kiss those beautifully formed lips. Were they as soft as he imagined they were? As soft as her heart? There was so much tenderness in Aly. Clay saw it in little ways, important ways.
Dan Ballard had turned thirty-five a month ago, and Aly had gone to great lengths to hold a surprise birthday party for him. And then when Sam Henderson’s wife had a baby, it had been Aly who’d come around gathering money for a gift for the mother and new daughter. Little things counted a lot with her, he was discovering, and Clay liked her for it. She was family-oriented and loyal to family. And the crew was her extended family. All except for him…
No Surrender Page 8