The Gauntlet

by Lindsay McKenna

  “And you’ve done it,” Cam added gently. “These past five months I’ve watched you grow and blossom despite your damned family and people like Martin aiming for you.”

  With a little laugh, Molly gave a shrug, then grimaced with the pain of her bruised muscles. “I’ve tried, Cam.”

  “You’re a winner, Molly, no matter what anyone says. I’m proud as hell of you. Do you know that?”

  She gave a single shake of her head, lost in the smoky blue of his eyes that promised her so much that was yet unsaid. “I’ve got to tell you, it’s nice to have someone in my corner. You were there all along, Cam. You never deserted me.”

  His throat tightening, Cam touched her temple. “I never will, Molly, and that’s a promise I intend to keep.”

  “I was so afraid of you when I met you that second time in the library. You looked so fierce and unforgiving in the hall when Martin cornered me.” She looked away. “I felt like such a klutz up there in the library, dropping my books, almost upsetting the desk that I—”

  Gently, Cam forced her to look at him, his hand resting beneath her trembling chin. “That’s when I made that promise to you, angel. That’s when I began to realize how hard and callous I’d become because of my family’s death. Your vulnerability, your ability to be a human being, faults and all, touched me like nothing else could. Do you understand that?”

  “I think so….” Molly smiled lamely. “When you helped me pick up my books and spoke to me in that tone you’re using right now, I lost my fear of you. I saw the man underneath that cold mask you wore, Cam.”

  He pressed a slow, tender kiss on her waiting lips, glorying in her warm, melting response. Easing away, he whispered, “Just know I’m at your side, Molly, through everything. Your eyes are dark. You’re exhausted. I want you to get some sleep. Tomorrow morning I’ll come over and we’ll have breakfast together. How’s that sound?” What Cam really wanted was to take her to bed and hold her through the night, to give Molly the support she so richly deserved. It took everything in him not to say I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But he couldn’t. Not yet.

  Never having felt so loved or cared for in her life, Molly acquiesced to Cam’s reasoning. A huge part of her craved his continued nearness. Swallowing her disappointment, she nodded. “You’re right. I feel so tired.”

  Cam waited until she’d lain back down, and he helped her arrange the blankets. Molly’s cheeks were flushed a bright red, her lips slightly swollen from their torrid, hungry kisses, her hair a golden halo about her head. Reluctantly he picked up the folder.

  “I’ll be at a nearby motel. I’ll call the nurse at the desk and leave a phone number and room where I’m staying. If you need anything, anything at all tonight, you call. Understand?”

  Barely able to keep her eyes open, Molly nodded. “Just knowing you’re here is enough,” she slurred softly.

  Cam smiled gently and stood in the gathering silence, watching Molly fall asleep. He reached out, lacing his fingers through hers. Despite her fragile appearance, Molly was a lot stronger than she realized. And it was her own courage that had created that backbone of steel she’d need for life’s unexpected hardships.

  Frowning, Cam realized Molly had felt abandoned by her own family during her crisis. He was sure the topic would come up tomorrow morning. Slipping his fingers from hers, Cam stepped forward and lightly kissed her cheek.

  “Good night, angel. Sleep the sleep of an angel, because you are one,” he whispered.

  * * *

  Cam showed up at Molly’s hospital room at exactly 0800. Dressed in comfortable civilian clothes—brown slacks, a beige polo shirt and a dark brown corduroy sport coat—he tracked down Dr. Winklemann before going in to see Molly. Now, as he knocked lightly on Molly’s door and entered, happiness thrummed through Cam.

  “Hi,” Molly greeted. She was sitting on the side of her bed, her bare feet dangling inches above the floor.

  “You’ll catch your death of cold that way,” Cam warned, smiling. This morning, Molly looked wonderful. Except for the bruise on her temple, no one would guess at her harrowing escape from death yesterday afternoon.

  “You caught me before I could get into some slippers.” She held up her left arm. “Look, Dr. Winklemann said I was healthy as a horse and could get rid of the IV.”

  The urge to kiss Molly’s smiling lips was pure torture to Cam. There was such dancing light in her green eyes—the eyes of a thrilled and joyous child. It made him feel the same way. If decorum didn’t have to be observed, Cam would have followed his wild urge to pick Molly up and twirl her around and around in his arms until they both fell laughing to the floor.

  “I’ve just got done talking to him. They’ll release you this afternoon if you want.”

  “Great! I’m ready to go. I hate hospitals!” Molly got up, holding on to the sidebar of the bed. Cam went to the nurses’ station and got her some slippers and a robe.

  “I thought we’d go down to their cafeteria and eat breakfast,” she suggested. “I don’t like staying tied up in a bed.”

  Cam placed the slippers before her, watching as she daintily slid her slender feet into them. “Are you sure you’re up to all that?”

  “Now you’re being overprotective,” Molly teased.

  Cam held out the robe and she slipped into it. The dark blue robe was many sizes too big for her, and he thought Molly looked like a bedraggled ragamuffin, endearing and very desirable. “Probably am,” he groused good-naturedly. “How are you feeling?”

  “My back’s a little sore and I’m not as limber as I’d like to be, but the doctor said that should go away in a week or so.” Molly pointed to her rear. “Can you believe, I’m black-and-blue right across my butt and hips?”

  With a laugh, Cam placed his hands on his hips. “I’d like to see that.”

  “Cam Sinclair, how dare you!”

  His grin broadened. “You’re a fighter at heart, angel. And don’t slap my hand for thinking such things. Just slap it when I try them.”

  Flushing hotly, Molly avoided Cam’s hooded stare, molten with promise and invitation. “This is a new side of you,” she said with a smile and walked toward the door.

  “No, it’s always been there,” Cam reassured her amiably, opening the door for her. “You just bring out the best in me, I guess.”

  Molly’s happiness increased as they walked down the hall toward the elevator. Cam came alongside her and slipped his hand across her shoulders, bringing her gently beside him. On awakening this morning, Molly had wondered if all those fevered, starving kisses they’d shared had been nothing more than dreams created out of her shock and trauma.

  “Cam?”

  “Yes?” They moved into the elevator and the doors whooshed closed. Molly was suddenly nervous, chewing on her lower lip, unable to meet his eyes. “Last night…”

  With a sigh, Cam drew Molly into the shelter of his embrace. “It really happened. It was real.”

  She pressed her cheek against his chest and heard the solid, slow beat of his heart beneath her ear. “I thought I’d dreamed it,” she whispered, relieved.

  Cam’s laugh was soft. “I woke up this morning wondering the same thing, angel. I was hoping I hadn’t, but I’ve had dreams before that were so real, I could have sworn they’d happened.” Cam searched her upturned face, thinking the purity of honesty ran through every fiber in Molly’s sweet body. “When I saw the welcome in your eyes this morning, I knew I hadn’t dreamed it.”

  The doors opened and Molly eased from his embrace but remained close to him. Cam slipped his hand into hers and led her down the hall toward the cafeteria. The small gesture meant everything to Molly. Her world was in a tailspin. First, her father disowning her, then the bailout, and now a heated awareness of Cam’s undeniable interest in her. Molly was grateful that he seemed to sense she needed space, not pressure from him. Her battered emotions couldn’t stand much more.

  After seating Molly at one of the table
s in the far corner of the cafeteria, Cam got them breakfast, coming back with a tray laden with food. As he approached, Molly wondered what it would be like to wake up and share breakfast with him every morning. The idea was startling. Evocative.

  “You’ve got to be starved,” Cam confided, sitting down at her elbow after setting the tray on an empty table.

  Molly grinned. “Cam, there’s enough food here for five people!”

  “Shock makes you hungry,” he told her, digging into a plate filled with scrambled eggs, bacon and biscuits.

  “Your shock or mine?” she returned wryly, picking up her fork.

  They fell to the task of eating, sharing a warm silence. It was Saturday, and few people were in the cafeteria. Molly had spotted the file Cam had brought with him and realized she’d have to give him a debriefing report on the incident. Her stomach knotted automatically, the fear coming back strongly. She stopped eating.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Amazed at his sensitivity to her mood change, Molly glanced over at Cam. “A replay of the ejection sequence.”

  “Flashback,” Cam assured her gently. “It’ll happen a lot at first. With time, they get less intense and more sporadic. Finally, they’ll go away.”

  “You’ve ejected before?”

  “Yeah, once.”

  Molly cringed. “How awful.”

  “Not something one wants to do every day of the week,” Cam agreed. “Come on, try to eat a little more. You’ve barely touched your food.” He watched Molly rally. How little encouragement she needed in order to pick herself up and try again. Cam felt humbled by her spirit.

  After breakfast, Cam cleared away the dishes. Over coffee, he worked on the investigation report. Writing everything in neat, printed letters, it took an hour to fill out all the forms. Molly dawdled over her second cup of coffee, trying to be precise in her description of the experience.

  “By the way,” Cam asked, “did you note turbulence at twenty thousand feet, as Martin reported?”

  “What turbulence?”

  “He reported it on the second spin test. Said there was turbulence at twenty thousand and that’s why he didn’t get the five spins in.”

  Molly snorted. “There was no turbulence, Cam.”

  “Maybe an air pocket? Sometimes hitting one of those unexpectedly can bauble a test.”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  Grimly, Cam put the information into his report, a gnawing feeling in his gut. “Was there any turbulence on the third test when Martin lost control of the bird and it went into the flat spin?”

  Molly leaned forward on her elbows and held his probing look. “Cam, there was no turbulence encountered at any altitude, at any time during our test sequences.”

  “You’re absolutely positive, Molly?”

  Frustration laced her tone. “Of course I am.”

  Cam shook his head. “Dammit.”

  “What?”

  He glanced over at her. Should he tell Molly what his instincts were screaming at him? Or should he protect her?

  “I heard Martin tell you on the second test that we encountered turbulence,” Molly grumped. “I was going to speak up, but it didn’t seem important at the time.”

  “The meteorology report said there was no clear air turbulence over the bay. It was calm winds except at five thousand and below.”

  “It was calm,” Molly stated quietly. She compressed her lips. “Cam, what’s going on? I can see that look in your eyes. You suspect something, don’t you? That Martin lied? That he deliberately set the Tomcat into a flat spin to get rid of me or in some way make me look bad? Or—” she sighed heavily “—to create an incident that would force both instructors to overlook his lousy flight performance and concentrate on something more important, like a flight engineer bailing out?”

  Cam sat very quietly, having thought of all the scenarios she calmly laid out before him. Molly was astute as well as intelligent. “I don’t like to think any pilot would go to this length.”

  “Fortunately, not all pilots are as desperate as Martin,” Molly put in drolly.

  Cam shook his head. “None of this can be proved, Molly. Do you realize that? It’s your word against his about the turbulence. We can’t record it on instruments or video in this case. Nothing will show up.”

  “And no one can prove that Martin deliberately kicked the fighter into a flat one, either,” Molly added. With a sigh, she asked, “Are you going to grade him on the flight?”

  “No, I can’t due to the in-flight emergency.”

  “Then Martin got exactly what he wanted. He got rid of me, blew the test and gets to start over clean and dry for a second try.”

  “Well,” Cam replied grimly, “if this is what really happened, then Martin’s never going to get a chance at you again. I’ll make damn sure of that.”

  “He still has to complete the spin tests in order to graduate, Cam. Who will he pick on next? The next test-flight engineer might not be as lucky as I was.”

  Clenching his fist on the table, Cam said, “I just don’t want to believe that Martin is capable of such a thing.”

  “I don’t, either. That’s the worst-case scenario. I think the fighter got away from him on that third spin test, Cam. Compared to Dalton, Martin’s skill in the spin department is weak, in my personal estimation.”

  Cam’s gut continued to scream at him. He tried to shake the sensation, the gut instinct that had never led him wrong before—even in combat. Well, this wasn’t actual combat, but it was another, subtler form of it. What Molly didn’t realize in her tendency to see only the best in others was that some jet jocks would do damn near anything to come out on top, to win or appear to be the best. There were a few bad apples in the pilot barrel of every service. Cam knew Martin might have lied and deceived them. And the one who’d nearly paid with her life had been Molly. Chilling anger snaked through Cam. If he could ever prove Martin had done these things on purpose, he’d probably kill him or come close to it. No one put Molly’s life in jeopardy. No one.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Free at last!” Molly said, getting into Cam’s sports car. Her flight suit had been washed by the hospital and it was all she had to wear for the five-hour drive home, but she didn’t care. By regulation, she was to wear her shoulder-length hair above her collar, but she allowed it to swing free. No one would see it.

  Cam smiled and waited until she’d buckled up before starting the Corvette. If not for Molly’s slow, careful maneuvering into his car, no one would know that she’d bailed out twenty-four hours earlier. “You’re ready to go home. I can tell,” he observed, driving out of the hospital parking lot.

  Leaning back, Molly closed her eyes, the autumn sun warm through the dark-tinted window. “Am I ever.” She sighed.

  “Tired?”

  “I shouldn’t be.”

  “But you are.” Cam reached over, gripping her hand momentarily. “Go to sleep, Molly. You’re still coming out of shock.”

  Drowsily she turned her head to look over at Cam. His profile was clean and rugged. “Sure?”

  “Positive.”

  His hand felt good on hers, and she smiled slightly. “Thanks for understanding. I wouldn’t make a very good copilot right now, anyway.”

  There was so much Cam wanted to tell her, share with her, but he withheld it. Molly had another month of school left, and somehow he had to control his need for her. She was so close to succeeding on her own merits, on her own strength and courage. He didn’t want to interfere in this process that was crucial to Molly’s well-being. Reluctantly, Cam removed his hand.

  “Sleep, angel,” he whispered. Cam doubted Molly even heard him. Her eyes were already closed, her lips softly parted. Even now, darkness still shadowed the pale skin beneath her golden lashes.

  His mind revolved forward to Martin and to the possibility the pilot had gone into a flat spin on purpose to blow the test and make Molly look bad. Martin wasn’t good at spins. Or was he? Cam shook hi
s head. Fifty percent of the time when a pilot got into a flat spin, it was impossible to pull the aircraft out of it, and a crash resulted. Martin had to be very good to purposely put a jet into one and then get it out again.

  His emotions seesawed between brutal anger toward Martin if that was so, and a grim determination to protect Molly. Dammit, he loved her. He’d lost one woman he’d loved to events completely out of his control. This time he could control or at least influence the outcome.

  Wiping his damp brow, Cam glanced over at Molly. Her head was tipped to one side, and she was sleeping deeply. An ache spread through his heart—an ache so intense and filled with hope that it drove tears into his eyes. His future sat next to him, sleeping the sleep of an innocent. Sweet God, Cam thought, she’s so good and pure. Despite the punishing military system, Molly had kept her vulnerability and idealism intact. That in itself showed her inherent strength, her ability to survive on her own terms.

  The discoveries he was making about Molly were like seeing the light at the end of a seemingly endless tunnel he’d walked by himself for so very long. Each nuance she revealed to him was exhilarating, humbling. A fierce love for her swept through Cam, as startling as it was potent. The future seemed alive with promise, alive with such hope that he wanted to stop the car, drag Molly into his arms and love her.

  Cam shook his head, forcing himself to concentrate on the two-lane road. Bright autumn-colored trees and rolling green hills surrounded him. The day was a mirror reflecting the promise and hope that dwelled in his hammering heart. Never had the sky seemed bluer, the clouds whiter or the sun brighter—the color of Molly’s hair.

  Scratching his head ruefully, Cam wondered what had happened to him. He was turning into a dreamer, seeing the world from a completely different perspective. How could that be? Cam knew what love— real love—was. He’d felt it, shared it with Jeanne and Sean. Glancing over at Molly, he experienced new sensations, wonderful feelings that sprang from an unknown chamber of his heart that he hadn’t realized existed, until this moment with her.