A Kiss in the Dark

by Karen Foley

  Angel had seen her sketchbook, and he hadn’t run screaming for the hills. He’d actually encouraged her. Even let her take his picture so she could capture his likeness more accurately in her drawings. She knew it wasn’t done out of vanity, but in an effort to please her. Had he guessed that she was falling for him?

  He’d said he wanted to make a go of their relationship, but did he really mean it? It was one thing to profess your feelings during the intimate aftermath of lovemaking, but how would he feel once they returned to the East Coast and the first blush of romance had worn off? Sedona didn’t need to guess; he’d pretend to still be interested, and maybe he actually would be. But eventually, he’d see how impossible any relationship between them was.

  “Hey, c’mon, you’re not even dressed yet.”

  Startled, Sedona looked up to see Angel leaning against the door frame between their rooms. He’d pulled on a pair of faded blue jeans and a black T-shirt that emphasized his dark good looks. His hands were shoved casually into his front pockets. He hadn’t shaved and the dark blur of stubble on his jaw lent him a slightly piratical look.

  She shivered.

  “Sorry,” she said, pushing herself upright. “I’ll hurry.”

  “Okay, I’ll pull the car around and meet you out front.”

  After he left, she rummaged through her dresser, undecided on what to wear. It was Sunday, and the inspection teams were working rotating shifts. Neither Angel nor Sedona had to report for work that day. Angel had said he had a surprise in store for her, and now she tried to guess what it might be.

  She grabbed a pair of jeans and a scoop-necked gold T-shirt with a slender ribbon of satin piping at the neck. Casual, but still nice. Not overdressed. She almost gathered her hair back into a clip, but then let it fall loosely around her shoulders. Angel had said he liked it that way.

  Satisfied, she took the elevator down to the lobby and stepped outside. Angel stood by the rental car, and his dark eyes gleamed with approval when she came around to the passenger side.

  “You look great,” he murmured into her ear as he opened her door for her. “Really.”

  “Thanks.” She felt ridiculously pleased by the compliment. “So,” she ventured, when they pulled on to the main road, “where’re we going?”

  He just smiled at her. “You’ll see.”

  Sedona frowned when he drove onto the base, and turned in her seat to stare at him as they made their way down the now-familiar roads that led to the flight line.

  “Oh! You tricked me. Unfair!”

  “What?” Angel laughed as he looked over at her.

  “Here I thought we were going to spend the day doing fun things, and all you want to do is work.” She cast him a dark look. “Unless you’re planning on doing wicked things to me in the backseat of one of those Coyotes, you can turn around right now.”

  “Actually, mina,” he said as he parked the car next to one of the Coyote hangars, “I was planning to put you in the backseat of one of those Coyotes and take you for a ride.”

  Sedona stared at him, stunned. “What?”

  Angel grinned. “You heard me. We’re going for a ride.”

  “But how?” Sedona shook her head, bemused. “I mean, what are you talking about? You can’t be serious.”

  Angel turned in his seat to face her, one arm draped over the steering wheel. “Oh, I’m completely serious.” He shrugged. “I know it’s something you’ve wanted to do, so I’ve been planning this for a few days.”

  He’d been planning…

  To her utter horror, Sedona felt her eyes fill with tears and she blinked furiously, unwilling to let Angel see how much his unexpected gesture meant to her.

  “Hey, what’s wrong? You did say you’ve always wanted to ride in a Coyote, right?”

  His voice was warm and concerned and Sedona knew if she saw the tenderness in his eyes, she’d lose it completely. She waved him away and turned to look out the window, swiping at her cheeks and laughing self-consciously.

  On the opposite side of the flight line, a dozen Coyotes gleamed softly in the morning sun. To her eyes, they were incredibly beautiful, representing all the strength and courage of the U.S. Navy. Like the man sitting next to her. Until this past week, being close to either had only been a dream.

  She swallowed hard and turned to give him a wobbly smile. “Yes, I did. It’s just—it’s just that I can’t believe you remembered, and then actually went ahead and planned this.”

  Angel grinned, clearly relieved. “Hey, it’s the least I can do. Besides, it wasn’t all that difficult to arrange.”

  He pushed his door open and climbed out as Sedona stared at him. The least he could do? O-kay. Nothing like taking the fun out of it; he made fulfilling one of her dreams sound as mundane as giving her a lift to work.

  She pushed down her disappointment in his reaction and tried instead to focus on what he had planned. She was going to take a ride in a Coyote! The prospect terrified her as much as it thrilled her.

  He grabbed his flight bag out of the trunk. “You haven’t eaten anything this morning, have you?”

  “Well, when you told me not to eat breakfast, I thought it was because we were going out to eat. If I’d known…”

  “What did you eat?”

  She grimaced. “A banana. Was that bad?”

  Angel laughed. “Actually, if you had to eat something, that was probably the best choice.”

  Sedona walked beside him as they made their way to the Coyote hangar. “Why is that? Because of the potassium? Does it help with altitude sickness or something?”

  “Nope. It’s just that bananas taste pretty much the same coming up as they do going down.”

  “Oh!” Sedona stared at him, horrified.

  “Relax,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders and giving her a brief, hard hug. “I’ll go easy on you. Besides, you may not even need the air-sickness bags.”

  “I think I want to change my mind,” she moaned.

  “Too late,” Angel said cheerfully. “We’ve already scheduled your preflight brief.”

  He opened the side door to the hangar and sure enough, there was a Coyote flight crew waiting inside for them. She had to sign some release forms, and then the crew went to work ensuring she had at least a basic understanding of what would happen once she sat down in the rear seat of the Coyote.

  One of the grounded jets became a perfunctory classroom as the crew chief escorted her up the ladder and helped settle her into the seat directly behind the pilot.

  Sergeant Dwight Nelson was a master mechanic, on loan from the Marine Corps flight program to assist with the investigation. He didn’t talk; he barked. His voice was loud and gruff, and combined with his shaved head and Marine Corps tattoos, it made him the epitome of a Hollywood drill sergeant.

  “This is a small camera mounted on the back of Diablo’s seat.” Sergeant Nelson sat perched on the edge of the cockpit with his feet resting on the wing as he prepared her for the flight. He indicated a tiny lens affixed directly in front of her face. “It will record the entire flight and capture every scream, squeal, hurl and blackout you experience, so remember to smile every so often.”

  Sedona gave him a withering look. “I will not squeal, and I certainly will not hurl.”

  Nelson laughed. “Yeah, right. I’ve seen marines completely incapacitated by the g-forces this baby pulls. It’s no big deal.”

  Sedona glanced down to where Angel stood at the foot of the ladder, arms crossed as he watched them. He shrugged and grinned at her expression of horror.

  “Okay,” Nelson continued, “this is your seat belt and it straps you in like this.” He deftly pulled several straps across her chest and another one up between her thighs until they buckled near her midriff. “You’re sitting on top of live explosives, so whatever you do, do not touch this handle, here, unless you want a bonus ride.” He pointed to a bright-yellow-and-black-striped handle next to her seat.

  Sedona looked quizzically at
the lever. “A bonus ride?”

  “Yep. That’s the free ride you’ll get should Diablo decide you need to leave the aircraft during the flight. A free ride aboard your own rocket-propelled ejection seat. Pulling up on this handle will eject you from the aircraft with enough force to compress your spine and cause you to black out.” He grinned into her shocked eyes. “I’m sure you won’t need to use it.”

  Sedona made a mental note not to touch the yellow handle under any circumstances. Under Nelson’s tutelage, she learned about the physical effects the flight would have on her body, and how to counter the g-forces so she wouldn’t pass out. She practiced drawing deep breaths and squeezing her leg muscles to keep her circulation flowing during intense maneuvers.

  “You want to tighten those muscles,” Nelson explained, “to keep the blood from rushing out of your head to pool in your legs. It’s the number-one cause of blackouts.”

  “Wonderful.”

  It was several hours later when Angel helped her climb out of the seat and down the ladder.

  “Here’s a flight suit for you,” he smiled, handing her a dark green jumpsuit and a pair of flight boots. “We took the liberty of assigning you a call sign.”

  Sedona’s eyes widened, and she held the suit up by the shoulders to admire the name tag they’d affixed to the front. Sedona “Flygirl” Stewart. Oddly, she felt her chest constrict. Angel had given her a call sign.

  “It’s perfect,” she murmured. And it was. “Do I get to keep the suit after the flight?”

  “Well,” Angel drawled, “we don’t have too many calls for suits in a size small with extra room in the rear and chest.”

  “Oh!” She smacked him playfully on the arm, then grinned. “I’ll just go change.”

  It wasn’t until they were on the flight line and standing next to the actual Coyote that would rocket them into the skies that Sedona felt the first real frisson of fear finger its way along her spine. The Coyote engines were already whining with life, and the flight crew was prepping the aircraft. Standing below the jet, looking up at the blue sky and white clouds reflected on the glass surface of the canopy, she wondered if she really had the nerve to do this.

  “C’mon, darling, we have a schedule to keep.”

  Sergeant Nelson indicated the ladder, and with a sense of foreboding, Sedona climbed up. With Nelson’s assistance, she sat down in the snug seat and let him buckle her in. He fitted a helmet onto her head and fastened it beneath her chin, and then rechecked all the safety straps one last time. He was like a mother making sure her child was safely buckled into a car seat. His ministrations made her feel both small and cherished, and she gave him a grateful smile.

  As he turned to climb down the ladder, she grasped his arm. “Can you…can you tell me who the plane captain is for this jet?” she asked, hoping her voice didn’t betray her fear.

  “I did the final inspections myself,” Nelson assured her. “Diablo took this jet for a test flight yesterday and it’s in perfect condition. You’re in good hands.”

  As long as it wasn’t Airman Laudano, she was satisfied. After what Lieutenant Palmer had told her about him, she didn’t trust the guy, plain and simple. There was no way she’d voluntarily go up in a jet under his watch. “Right.” She gave Nelson a grateful smile. “Well then, I guess that’s it.”

  “Have a good flight, ma’am,” he said, and gave her a brief salute before disappearing over the side of the Coyote.

  Angel came swiftly up the ladder and before he climbed into the cockpit, he stood looking down at her. “Are you okay?”

  He was silhouetted against the backdrop of brilliant blue sky, all wide shoulders and chest. Sedona gave him what she hoped was a confident smile. “Of course. After all, I’m flying with a Top Gun, right?”

  “Okay, then.” His coffee-dark eyes swept over her, and he smiled, his dimples denting his cheeks. “You look good in there.”

  Sedona rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. If my butt was two centimeters wider, I wouldn’t be able to fit into this seat.”

  Angel laughed, a low, rich sound that slid along her senses like melted chocolate. “The seats are supposed to be snug, mina. That way, you don’t slide around. Nelson showed you where the air-sickness bags are located, right?”

  Grimacing, Sedona nodded. “Yes. Please don’t do anything that will make me have to use one.”

  “I’ll try. Here’s what will happen. We’re going up with two other jets. Splatt will be piloting one, and my buddy Tuna will be in the other one. We’ll begin by doing some basic maneuvers, and then we’ll segue into a mock dogfight.” He tapped the side of her helmet. “You’ll be able to hear me through your headset. Listen for my instructions, and remember to breathe. You’ll be fine.”

  She drew in a deep breath and smiled. “Okay, then. Let’s do this.”

  Angel grinned and gave her a thumbs-up, before shoving his own helmet down over his head and climbing nimbly into the cockpit. There were several more minutes of tense anticipation for Sedona as he meticulously checked and rechecked his controls, and then she heard his voice in her ear, the sound so close he might as well have been curled up around her.

  “Okay, Flygirl, here we go. The canopy is coming down. We’ll accelerate to 350 knots, and then go into a vertical 14,000-foot-per-minute climb, and level out at 12,000 feet.”

  Sedona watched as the glass canopy slowly lowered, near enough to her head that for a brief instant she was certain it was going to hit her. She expelled the breath she’d been holding, and tried to control the nervousness that caused her heartbeat to pulse hotly in her ears. The canopy closed with a whoosh and a click. Then it was just her and Angel, cocooned together in the cockpit of the Coyote.

  Glancing out through the glass, she watched as two of the maintenance crew pulled the blocks from beneath the wheels. The jet throbbed once as Angel kicked the engines into gear and they roared into life. Then they were slowly moving forward, taxiing onto the runway as a crew member guided them.

  “And here we go.” Angel’s voice was calm, assured.

  They began to accelerate down the flight line until the surrounding countryside was nothing more than a blur, and then bam! They weren’t just airborne, they were rocketing straight up into the stratosphere.

  Whatever Sedona had expected, it wasn’t to be pinned against her seat back by the sheer force of their upward momentum. She’d been to Walt Disney World once, had experienced the g-forces of the Mission to Mars ride, but nothing could have prepared her for the sense of helplessness she now felt.

  Her heart was slamming in her rib cage and her entire world was reduced to the tiny bubble she sat in, her gaze locked with desperation onto the back of Angel’s seat and the small bit of his helmet that she could see.

  “Okay, now we’re leveling out. Give you a chance to enjoy the scenery. How’re you doing back there?”

  “Good,” she squeaked.

  And they had leveled out. Sedona could actually lift her head enough to peer through the glass at the earth below. It was the loveliest thing she’d ever seen—sweeping carpets of brown, beige and occasional green, and at the very edge of the horizon, shimmering under the sun, she could actually see the ocean. She was just beginning to relax a tiny bit when another Coyote drew alongside them.

  “Are they supposed to be that close?” she squealed, her voice sounding frightened, even to her own ears.

  “That’s Splatt,” Angel responded, sounding relaxed and unconcerned. “If you look out the left side of the canopy, you’ll see Tuna.”

  Sedona looked, and sure enough, there was another Coyote on their left flank. As she stared, the pilot gave them a thumbs-up and she could have sworn he grinned.

  “Okay, here we go,” Angel said. “We’ll accelerate into a vertical climb, invert into a 360-degree roll, and then drop out through the bottom. Ready?”

  Sedona closed her eyes for a brief second. Damn, the maneuver sounded deadly. “Okay.” Her voice was breathless.

&nbs
p; “Take a deep breath, squeeze your legs, and…here we go.”

  Sedona knew a moment of sheer terror as she was pressed back into her seat, and then her head seemed to lift free from her body. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets and blackness fluttered at the edge of her vision.

  When she opened her eyes again, the Coyote had leveled out.

  “Are you back with me?”

  Angel’s voice was calm and steady.

  “Did I leave?” A vague feeling of nausea settled in the pit of her stomach.

  “You blacked out, but just for a moment. It happens, nothing to worry about.” Angel’s warm assurance filled her ears.

  “Oh, God, I’m going to be sick.” She grabbed the air-sickness bag and to her shame, discovered bananas really did taste the same coming back up. She clutched the bag in her hands and tried to concentrate on drawing in deep, cleansing breaths.

  “Okay, now?”

  She could hear the concern in Angel’s voice, and the last thing she wanted was to distract him. She needed him to be one hundred percent focused on his flying.

  “Yes,” she assured him, trying to sound normal. “I’m good.”

  “Okay, great,” Angel replied, “because now comes the challenging part of the ride. We’ll do a mock dogfight with Splatt. First we’ll be the chase plane, and then we’ll switch and be the ones chased. Ready?”

  Sedona closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing, and tried not to think about the fact she was shooting through the sky like a bullet, completely at the mercy of Angel’s piloting skills.

  “Three, two, one…fight’s on.”

  The next forty minutes were the most horrific of Sedona’s life. At times, they were upside down and Sedona completely lost sight of the horizon. Twice, she experienced tunnel vision, and nausea threatened once more.

  Angel pressed the Coyote through a series of maneuvers that made her briefly consider pulling the ejection handle—anything to get her out of this torture chamber and back onto the ground. She gritted her teeth and endured the seemingly endless flight as best she could, but just one thought kept pounding through her head: she was an idiot. A complete and utter idiot.