I shouldn’t have been surprised that her little paper printout showed she emitted almost identical odor types and levels no matter what activity she engaged in. We should all be as emotionally stable as Dr. Penelope England.
Dennis O’Reilly went next. We tried the same variations—at work, at rest, during recreation. Talk about wildly skewed results!
Have I mentioned that Dennis is into chess? Reeeally into chess. Some might term him an aficionado. When he’s online, duking it out with another player a half a world away, the term I prefer is royal pain in the ass. The man moans. He swears. He thrusts his hands through his frizzy hair and glowers at the screen until he finally decides on his move. When he captures an opponent’s piece, he cackles like a mongoose on steroids. (Pen’s description, not mine. I’ve never encountered a mongoose, on or off steroids.)
Needless to say, Dennis’s odors during an online tournament were all over the place and so wildly contradictory Rocky declared his test results inconclusive.
Ditto with me. In my case, I think the Hawthorne effect came into play. I’d first heard about the effect in one of my night courses at UNLV. Seems that when a subject knows he’s being watched or measured, he’ll invariably alter his behavior despite every urging to act naturally. That really messed up attempts to measure productivity until someone figured out what was happening.
I can’t imagine why I remembered that bit of management lore. God knows I forgot everything else in Advanced Business Concepts. But there I was, trying so hard to act nonchalant and ignore the fact that my team was recording my bodily odors that my very determination to remain detached invalidated the results.
Sergeant Cassidy was the only one it seemed to work on. At first. Noel registered a normal range of emissions during the day and went off the charts during his nightly workout. No Hawthorne effect there. The guy is a glutton for sweat. Shiny drops glistened on his bulging muscles and ran in rivulets down his chest as he clanked the weights in a hypnotic rhythm. He’d gotten so into his zone that he didn’t so much as notice us wanding him.
The problem came later that night. He’d showered, changed into a clean T-shirt and boxers, and stretched out in his bunk in the CHU he shares with Dennis and Rocky. Hands locked behind his head, he closed his eyes and dropped off almost immediately.
We waited another five minutes to give him time to sink deeper. I had the wand in hand and was preparing to switch on the meter when he murmured something in his sleep. I didn’t catch it, but his next mutter was clear. Too clear.
“Oh, yeah, baby. Yeah.”
When he followed that with a low, guttural groan, I backed away, like fast! I’d plucked cactus needles out of his rear but wanding him during an obviously erotic dream went well beyond the call of duty.
“That’s it,” I told the others. “We’re shutting this test down.”
We got out of there fast. None of us said anything to Noel the next morning, although he asked about the test a couple of times. I palmed him off with a vague reference to inconclusive results.
Given those skewed results, Rocky was all for shipping the Sniffometer back to its inventor. I had him hold off. I wanted to study the specs more, possibly give the thing another shot. Consequently, it went into hold status along with the NLOS system.
WE’D been following news reports of the shooting incident throughout our stay at the test site. Our satellite dish sucked in TV broadcasts from around the world. Diane Roth didn’t make the news in Bora-Bora or Cape Town, but she became queen of the airwaves in El Paso and environs.
Her role varied considerably from story to story. As the target of a rejected lover, she formed the central figure in a number of reports of deranged individuals who obsessed over and stalked their victims. As a single working mother, she won praise from women’s groups and condemnation from a few ultra-right-wing conservatives who thought she should stay home with her kids.
But it was her role as the iron-nerved heroine who prevented possible injury or death to innocent bystanders that earned her the keys to the city toward the end of our stay at the site.
My team and I crammed into the D-FAC to watch the coverage on the six o’clock news. The ceremony had taken place earlier that afternoon in the mayor’s office. Diane looked sharp in her Class A greens, with the campaign ribbons she’d earned during her overseas tours on her chest.
When the camera zoomed in to highlight her cap of shining blond hair and brilliant smile, Noel sat up straighter and instinctively flexed his muscles.
“That’s the gal who took down the shooter?”
“That’s her,” I confirmed.
“Wow!”
The rest of us avoided looking at him. And each other, until the camera panned to two equally blond youngsters.
“Cute kids,” O’Reilly commented. “Hey, Techno Diva! Isn’t that Mitch?”
“Where?”
“Standing next to the woman with gray hair?”
I caught only a glimpse of him before the camera moved on but there was no mistaking Jeff Mitchell’s sun-streaked tawny hair and square jaw.
“Yeah, it is. Diane—Sergeant Roth—must have invited him to the ceremony. She said her kids had really taken a shine to him.”
Funny Mitch hadn’t mentioned being invited to the ceremony last time we talked. ’Course, this key-to-the-city thing could have been set up in a hurry. I suspected the mayor’s staff had waited until the police completed their investigation, then rushed to get their boss some face time with the heroine of the moment.
Mitch confirmed my guess when he called during our last afternoon on-site. I was in the admin side of the lab, reviewing our post-test reports before the team boxed everything up. As always, the mere sound of Mitch’s voice generated a little tingle of pleasure.
“I saw you on TV the other night, big guy.”
“You did, huh?”
“Yep. Right there in the mayor’s office with Diane and Trish and Joey.”
“It was a last-minute kind of thing. She called that morning, said the kids had asked if I could come.”
“Sounds like you made quite an impression on them.”
“It’s more the other way around. Joey’s a lively one, but Trish is a real sweetie. She reminds me of Jenny when she was that age.”
The pause before he said his daughter’s name was so slight anyone else might have missed it. Hurting for him, I confirmed that we intended to close down the site by noon tomorrow and be back in town by early evening.
“I would be waiting to welcome you home, but I switched shifts to make the cookout on Saturday. You still up for that?”
“Am I up for red meat and beer? After ten days of Pen’s herbal tea, organic grains, and soy steaks, with only the occasional trip to Pancho’s for tequila and green chili stew? What do you think?”
His chuckle eased some of the ache I felt for him. I hoped it eased his, too.
“Diane said she’d fire up the grill at noon,” he told me. “I should finish debrief by eight or eight thirty that morning, so I’ll run home, grab a quick shower, and swing by to pick you up on the way.”
“I have a better idea. Why don’t you bring a change of clothes and shower at my place?” I dropped my voice a couple octaves and treated him to my best imitation of sultry, smokey Eartha Kitt. “I’ll give you a free back scrub, fella.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
The smile was back in his voice. So was the tingle in my veins. When we disconnected, I threw a glance over my shoulder and saw the rest of the gang was otherwise occupied. Just for kicks, I slid the Sniffometer out of its case and flipped the switch.
I didn’t rank up there with Sergeant Cassidy on the sexual arousal scale, but the needle was definitely headed in the right direction. Grinning in anticipation, I slipped the meter back into its case.
FST-3 has worked together long enough to devise a quick, all-encompassing routine for powering up and shutting down our test site.
We finished drafting the las
t of our test reports by noon. After lunch we pulled out our individual checklists. Rocky, Pen, and I re-crated the items we hadn’t already shipped back to their owners and loaded equipment into the van. Dennis had kitchen duty. He emptied the fridge, bundled up our trash, and hauled all disposables to the Dumpster.
Noel is our power guy. He disconnected the satellite dish, stored it inside the D-FAC, and shut off power to all CHUs except the lab. That had to be kept at an even temperature to maintain the equipment stored there. The ATVs went into the storage shed, the spare gasoline cans into Noel’s pickup to be refilled for our next deployment to Dry Springs.
Once we’d loaded our personal gear, we padlocked the storage shed and the CHUs and hit the road. Pen rode shotgun in the convertible again. I’d put the top down, but she didn’t seem to mind the wind. Of course, we had to make a stop at Pancho’s, where I gave its proprietor the mandatory peck on the cheek. Pen rose up on her Birkenstocked toes and did the same.
I’m a little slow in the nuance department at times. Just ask my mother. Or my ex. Or any in my string of long-suffering supervisors. They’ll tell you subtlety is lost on me. That’s my only excuse for taking so long to ID the rosy hue that colored Pen’s cheeks when she dropped back on her heels.
It dawned on me after we’d hit the road. That was a blush. Sturdy, no-nonsense Pen, who hadn’t moved the Sniffometer more than a few ticks off center, had blushed!
Okay, I had to know.
“What’s with the heat that rushed into your cheeks when you kissed Pancho?” I asked. “Is there something going on between you two?”
“Not yet. I’m considering it, however.”
My jaw dropped. Literally and figuratively. I swear I heard it thud against my chest.
Pen caught my fish face and smiled. “Don’t look so surprised, Samantha. He’s a very attractive man.”
“He’s also married. To more than one woman, if the rumors are true.”
“Yes, well, there is that to consider,” she said with unruffled calm. “Mitch could help us there. You are seeing him this weekend, aren’t you? Maybe he could make a few calls to his contacts on the other side of the border.”
“Maybe,” I said, grappling with the idea of sturdy, earth-mother Pen and one-eyed Pancho. Together. In bed.
I was still struggling with the whole idea when Mitch showed up at my place early Saturday morning.
I’d spent the previous evening deleting several dozen calls from reporters from my answering machine, doing laundry, and perusing the glamour magazines that had stacked up in the mailbox during my absence. When Mitch arrived, he delivered a welcome-home kiss that left us both breathing very hard and brought me—eventually—to the astounding developments out in Dry Springs.
“You’ll never guess what Pen laid on me yesterday,” I said as he dropped his change of clothes over the back of the sofa. “She’s got a thing for Pancho.”
“Pen?” His brows soared under his floppy brimmed boonie hat. “And Pancho?”
“I know, I know! I can’t believe it, either.”
“Well,” he said slowly, scraping a hand across his jaw.
“I guess it makes sense. She’s brilliant. He’s shrewder than he likes to let on. She’s got her, er, quirks. He’s definitely got his. She’s single. He’s . . .”
“Not,” I finished. “Rumor has it he has at least one wife, maybe more, in Mexico.”
“You don’t know that for a fact.”
“No, I don’t. But I’d like to. So would Pen. Think you could make some calls for her? Tap your contacts on the other side of the border? Separate fact from fiction?”
“You asking me to exploit my Border Patrol connections for personal reasons?”
“Yes.”
He hooked a hand in the waist of my cutoffs and tugged me closer. My pulse stuttered and damned near stopped as a smile crept into his gold-flecked hazel eyes.
“What’s it worth to you, woman?”
I pursed my lips and gave the matter serious consideration. “I’ve already offered to scrub your back. How about I include the front?”
“Done.”
Anticipation shooting to every extremity, I led the way into the bedroom. We shucked our clothes as we went. I’d spent the morning in cutoffs, a tank top, and flip-flops. Mitch had come directly from work, so he had more to shuck than I did. Consequently, I was ready first and had staked out my portion of the glassed-in shower stall while he was still shedding his boots and uniform pants.
When he joined me, my already racing pulse kicked into overdrive. In the months we’d been seeing each other I’d come to know the planes and contours of his strong, muscled body. Yet the sight of it never failed to stir those primordial urges that drive the female of every species.
My ex had stirred the same atavistic urges. We’d been so hungry for each other those first few dates, so sure we’d met our match that we surfaced from a particularly wild session between the sheets and headed straight for Vegas’s Little White Chapel Tunnel of Love Drive Thru.
I’d reminded myself of that hormone-driven insanity regularly in the months following our divorce. I used to chant Charlie’s name like a mantra whenever I felt the sap rising, so to speak.
I’d chanted it a lot when I’d first met Mitch. Didn’t help. Heat sizzled between us from day one. It still sizzles, jumping from nerve ending to nerve ending like electrical sparks. All I had to do was let my gaze roam his broad chest and flat belly to feel my own stomach clench in eager anticipation. His lazy smile when he handed me the soap and a washcloth only added to the zing.
“Okay, Spade.” He leaned his shoulders against the slick tiles. “Do your worst.”
My worst turned out to be pretty darn close to my all-time best. It was so good we had to abruptly abandon the shower and take to the bed. We left wet tracks, wet towels, wet everything in our urgent need to get horizontal.
WHEN we finished I lay sprawled across Mitch, boneless with pleasure. I didn’t have the energy to raise my head, much less get dressed and drive to a cookout.
“You sure you want to go over to Diane’s?” I mumbled into a mat of soft, springy chest hair.
“Too late to renege now.”
“I guess.”
“We’d better move it. I told her we’d bring drinks and deli potato salad.”
I tried to analyze my reluctance as I put myself back together again. I finally boiled it down to the hollowness I’d glimpsed in Mitch’s eyes when he’d watched Diane’s kids. I knew how much he missed his own daughter. It had to drive the knife in deeper to be around a little girl who reminded him of Jenny at that age.
Or not. Maybe I was completely off base here. Maybe a few hours spent with Diane’s children eased the ache. If that was the case, I vowed, the kids were about to inherit an honorary and very doting auntie.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MITCH and I drove our separate cars to Diane’s place. He needed sleep after his long shift—and early morning workout! So we agreed he would head home when we left Diane’s. Along the way we stopped at the deli for potato salad, beer, and soft drinks.
By the time we arrived for the cookout, the noon sun had nudged the temperature up to the mid-seventies. Perfect for my jeans and purple paisley tank, although Mitch had opted for more conservative khakis and a hunter green polo shirt embroidered with the U.S. Border Patrol insignia.
Joey and Trish had obviously been watching for us. When we parked at the curb in front of Diane’s apartment, they burst out the front door and charged down the sidewalk.
“Mr. Mitch! Mr. Mitch!”
Grinning, he scooped them up and carried them back inside, one under each arm. I followed with the drinks and potato salad. Diane waited at the door, also in jeans and a stretchy top in bright poppy. She’d traded the white gauze pad and tape for two small, skin colored bandages over the deepest cuts. The rest showed only as small nicks and bruises on her skin.
“Hi, Mitch. Hi, Lieutenant.”
I st
arted to tell her to call me Samantha but let it slide. God knows I’m fuzzy around the edges when it comes to military protocol. I probably breach or bend the rules a dozen times a day. Yet I’ve discovered this rank thing hangs over us military types even when we’re off duty and out of uniform.
“Thanks for bringing the salad and drinks. I’ve set everything up out back. Hope you don’t mind,” she said as she led the way through the apartment to a set of sliding glass doors, “but I’ve invited Annette Hall. She takes care of the kids when I’m pulling shifts. You met her, Mitch, at the mayor’s office.”
“I remember.”
“She called a few minutes ago to say she’s just finishing up the coleslaw and will be here shortly.”
The glass doors gave onto a miniscule patio bordered by a few square yards of grass. A turtle-shaped sandbox took up one corner of the grassy area, a somewhat battered plastic castle the other. Two bright, shiny new bikes held places of honor next to the castle—a red tricycle for Joey and a blue two-wheeler with sparkly handgrips for Trish.
“They were a gift,” Diane explained when the kids dragged Mitch over to admire their bikes. “From the sporting goods shop in the mall.”
She hooked a strand of pale hair behind her ear and passed me a beer. We left the soft drinks for Mitch and the kids.
“You wouldn’t believe all the thank-yous and gift certificates the merchants have sent me. Several people who were there during the shooting, even some complete strangers, have sent cards, too. And money.”
A crease formed between her delicately penciled brows. She glanced at her children and lowered her voice.
“I won’t say I can’t use the cash. The gifts are great, too. I just . . . Well . . .”
“What?”
“I feel kind of mercenary to be profiting from Ollie’s death.”
I decided not to point out that she could refuse the gifts. As she’d indicated, she could certainly use a little help.
Now You See Her Page 7