by Karen Foley
As if he’d read her thoughts, the tac ops commander flipped a page on his clipboard and looked directly at her.
“Captain Larson, welcome to Sangin. Our one medevac chopper was required to evacuate a casualty to Kandahar earlier this morning and isn’t expected back until later tonight. Therefore, you and your crew will remain on site as backup until they return. You’ll stay in B-Hut Eleven-Foxtrot tonight. I have you cleared for departure tomorrow at oh-eight-hundred hours.”
Jenna had been so sure that she would depart that very day for Kandahar that it took a moment to realize she would stay the night at Sangin. The tac ops commander was an older man with deep creases on his face, and now he waited for Jenna’s acknowledgment.
“Is that acceptable to you, Captain Larson?” he asked, a ghost of a smile touching his lips.
“Absolutely,” she responded quickly.
She forced herself to concentrate on the commander, when what she really wanted to do was look over at Chance to see his response to this news. He’d said earlier that he would make one more sweep of the area that afternoon, but he hadn’t indicated whether he would return to Kabul Airbase immediately, or if he would also remain at Sangin. As forward operating bases went, Sangin wasn’t the worst place to be assigned, but it lacked the amenities of the larger bases. This was a true combat support base.
The briefing over, Jenna hung back while the other pilots left, until just she and Chance remained.
“How about some breakfast?” he asked.
Jenna grimaced, adjusting her weapon to a more comfortable position in its leather holster. Her body armor weighed a ton, and even this early in the morning, the heat was oppressive. Beneath her flight suit, sweat trickled between her breasts and her hair felt heavy and sticky.
“How about an ice-cold beer and a lounge chair next to a swimming pool?” she muttered.
He grinned, and Jenna couldn’t help staring at him. The man was breathtaking when he smiled, the deep dimples in his lean cheeks drawing a reluctant smile from her. “Will you settle for a cold O.J. and an air-conditioned mess hall? I have a couple of hours before I need to be back here.”
Jenna knew he referred to the reconnaissance mission he would fly that afternoon. They left the operations shack and went to the chow hall. With his flight suit and sunglasses, and his easy loose-limbed stride, Chance drew his fair share of appreciative glances from the female soldiers they passed, and Jenna felt a rush of possessive pride that he was walking with her.
The mess hall was small, but the food was plentiful and looked fresh. They chose a table near the wall, and she tried not to stare at the astonishing amount of food that Chance had mounded on his plate.
“How do you not gain weight, eating all that?” she asked.
He shrugged and tucked in. “A high metabolism, I guess.” He indicated the yogurt and fruit she’d chosen for herself. “How do you stay alive eating just that?”
Jenna looked ruefully at her meager breakfast. “I have to watch what I eat or I won’t fit into the cockpit.”
Chance’s eyes turned hot as he studied her. “You don’t have to watch what you eat, trust me. With your height, you could actually stand to put on a few pounds. Not that I’m complaining.” His voice dropped to a sexy growl. “I think you look amazing.”
Her entire life, people had commented on her height or made jokes about how tall she was. Whenever she’d been inclined to slouch, her father had barked at her to stand straight, stand tall. Every summer, he’d mark her growth on a piece of trim board in his kitchen, grunting each time the pencil mark moved higher. But it wasn’t until she’d become a commissioned officer that he’d commented directly on her stature.
“My dad once told me that the only advantage my height would give me was the ability to look a man straight in the eye when I gave him an order.” She arched an eyebrow at him. “Maybe I should try that with you. What do you think? Would you be duly intimidated into obeying me?”
Chance’s eyes gleamed. “I guess that depends. I still have a few inches on you, but I seem to recall at least one instance when we were on perfect eye level with each other.”
Jenna knew he referred to their encounter in the Black Hawk, when she had straddled his thighs, her feet easily reaching the ground as she levered herself over him. Yeah, they’d been at perfect eye level. The memory caused her breath to catch, and when Chance’s gaze fastened on her mouth, Jenna felt a tightening in her abdomen and a rush of heat between her legs.
She cleared her throat and glanced around, hoping nobody noticed the electricity that seemed to leap between them. The small chow hall was busy, even at midmorning, with soldiers and some contractor civilians, but no one paid any attention to her and Chance. Dropping her gaze, Jenna pushed her yogurt around with her spoon, her appetite for food gone. What she wanted now couldn’t be satisfied by eating.
“Funny how a day can change everything,” she murmured. “Right now, Kabul Airbase seems like a lifetime ago.”
“Not to me,” Chance said quietly. “When I was turning in last night, I could have sworn I smelled your scent on my skin.”
For a long moment, their gazes locked and held, and Jenna forgot to breathe. A tray clattered nearby, breaking the spell and snapping her attention away from the mesmerizing expression in his light green eyes.
“So when do you leave?” she asked, focusing on her yogurt and fruit. She didn’t dare look at him again, in case he saw how much his words affected her. She wouldn’t admit it to him, but she’d found herself replaying those moments in the Black Hawk over and over again in her mind more times than she cared to admit.
“Teacup and I will fly a reconnaissance mission to the west in a few hours. We’ll bunk here tonight before we head back to Kabul in the morning.” He leaned across the table toward her, his lips compressed in a clear sign of frustration. “I was really hoping we could find some time alone, but that could be a little difficult with both of us staying in B-Huts.”
B-Huts were open sleeping quarters, usually contained inside a large tent, with as many as thirty or more soldiers sleeping side by side on narrow cots. On a base as remote as Sangin, B-Huts were the norm. As commissioned officers, she and Chance should have been assigned to a CHU, but Sangin was too small for such luxuries.
Jenna shrugged, forcing a nonchalance she was far from feeling. “It’s okay. Even if we had our own CHUs, it’s not like we could visit each other.”
General Order No. 1 prohibited soldiers from entering the sleeping quarters of the opposite sex, and violations were dealt with severely. As much as Jenna might want Chance, she wouldn’t risk a reprimand, or worse, simply because she couldn’t keep a lid on her libido.
Chance sighed and sat back in his chair, rubbing a hand across his eyes. “Jesus, I’d give anything to be at Kandahar or Kabul right now.” When he lowered his hand, his expression was an alluring combination of awareness and frustration. Knowing that he wanted her was almost enough to make up for the fact that they couldn’t be together.
“Maybe they’re showing a movie over at the rec center tonight,” she suggested. “We could check that out.”
“What…like a date?”
Jenna heard the gentle teasing in his voice and recalled their conversation from the previous day regarding the status of their relationship. She’d been clear that she didn’t want anyone in her unit knowing about them. But with McLaughlin’s crew stranded at Sangin, there was a distinct likelihood they would see her with Chance and draw their own conclusions.
Suddenly, she didn’t care. If there was one thing she’d realized in the past twenty-four hours, it was that life was short and you had to grab what you wanted with both hands. And right now she wanted Chance Rawlins. She’d been an army pilot for eight years; people would start to talk if she didn’t show interest in someone as overtly sexy as Chance Rawlins.
She looked at him from beneath her lashes and allowed a small smile to curve her lips. “Yeah, just like a date.”
Chance laced his hands across his flat stomach and regarded her lazily. “Only, there’s no chance of my stealing a kiss or copping a feel.”
Jenna laughed. “Sorry, none. Unless of course…”
He arched an eyebrow and waited.
“Unless you choose to walk me back to my sleeping quarters. We could take the long way around. Maybe go over to the flight line and check on my aircraft.”
Chance’s expression grew heated. “There’s no sandstorm. We could be seen.”
“I’ll risk it.” Just thinking about being with him again caused butterflies of excitement to flutter in her stomach. She didn’t want to wait. She felt as if she’d been stretched taut, and if she didn’t get some relief, she would snap. “Do you want to get out of here?”
“Sweetheart,” he drawled, devouring her with his eyes, “if I stand up now, every soldier in this canteen is going to know I’m having indecent thoughts about you.”
“Oh.” Only then did she realize he’d placed his hat across his lap to hide his growing arousal. “Oh.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” he suggested. “How did you come to have an all-female crew?”
Jenna shook her head. “I don’t know. It just sort of worked out that way. I met Laura—Warrant Officer Costanza—at flight school and then we happened to get assigned to the same unit. We work really well together. If she wasn’t my copilot, I’d want her as my wingman. I guess I’ve never really thought of us as an all-female crew. We’re professionals who’re just doing our jobs.”
“So you’d have no problem flying with a male copilot? Or copiloting for a male pilot?”
“Absolutely not. In fact, I’ve done both. Would you object to flying with a female copilot? Or copiloting for a female pilot?”
“I’ve never really thought about it,” he admitted. “But as long as she knew her stuff and could get the job done, then no, I’d have no objections.”
“You don’t think there’d be any underlying resentment, or a need to prove yourself?”
Chance leaned forward and looked directly into her eyes. “No. I. Don’t.”
Jenna was unconvinced. “You can say that now because you’ve never been in that situation.”
Chance looked affronted. “How do you know?”
“Well, have you?” Jenna would stake her life on the fact that Chance had never had to fly with a female copilot, which was why he was able to dismiss her fears about getting involved with another pilot as rubbish.
“Yes, actually,” he replied smoothly. “I flew four missions with a female gunner during my last deployment, when my own copilot had to undergo an emergency appendectomy.”
Jenna didn’t know why that information should surprise her so much, but it did. At the same time, she was aware of a niggling sense of jealousy at the thought of another woman riding shotgun with Chance, working in tandem with him and anticipating his needs and commands.
“That surprises you,” he said flatly, reading her expression.
“Frankly, yes.”
“Why? Because you were more comfortable thinking of me as a—how did you so eloquently put it? A shallow, narcissistic, egotistical, arrogant pilot, with all the stereotypical chauvinistic attitudes?”
Jenna frowned, because whether she wanted to admit it or not, his words had a ring of truth. She had wanted to think of him that way, so that when their relationship came to its inevitable end, she could put the blame squarely on him.
“Look,” she said carefully. “I may have been wrong about you, okay?”
Chance’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow. That sounds suspiciously like an apology.”
Jenna gave him a rueful look, but her heart was pounding hard in her chest. She was going to step out on a limb and hope it didn’t snap beneath her. If someone had told her just two months ago that she would be willing to get emotionally involved with another pilot, she would never have believed it. She could scarcely believe it now, and even though her head was telling her that she was about to make a colossal mistake, everything else—body, heart and soul—were telling her that this was what she wanted.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m willing to give this—this relationship a try.”
She waited breathlessly for his response. She’d thought he would be happy, but he merely gave her a skeptical look. “What about your conditions? You know, keeping it casual?”
Jenna looked at him sharply. “Is that what you want?”
He raised his hands and sat back in his chair. “Don’t turn this around on me, sweetheart. I told you how I feel, but I’m willing to play this however you want. If you don’t want me to talk to you in front of your unit, then I need to know that.”
Jenna drew in a deep breath. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that we don’t have to keep it under wraps. We may be restricted from public displays of affection, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be seen together. Even by the guys in my unit.”
Chance’s mouth lifted in a lopsided grin. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
“You don’t trust me? How are we going to make any kind of relationship work if you don’t trust me?”
Her words had been partly teasing, but his were serious as he considered her. After a long moment, he pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. “I’m going to tell you the same thing a pilot told me the first time I flew as a copilot, and it’s the same thing I’ve told each copilot who’s climbed into the cockpit with me—first and foremost, we’re equals. Every time we undertake a mission together, risks are identified and mitigated when possible. Each of us is charged with constantly monitoring the mission and re-evaluating the risks, and each of us has a voice in the mission and is charged with speaking up if concerns arise.”
Jenna knew he wasn’t just talking about flying. “Okay. I’m in total agreement with you.”
Chance braced his hands on the table and leaned forward to look at her, his face scant inches from her own. “But none of that undermines the authority of whoever is in control, and that person will always have the final say.”
Jenna’s heart thumped hard in her chest, but she returned his gaze steadily. “And which one of us is in control?”
She was unprepared when he reached out and stroked a thumb across her mouth. His expression was one of amused resignation. “Well, it sure as hell isn’t me, sweetheart.”
12
“MAN, WHO PICKED THIS movie? This is seriously lame.”
Jenna leaned forward on the sofa and gave the speaker a level look. “I did. This is only one of the best movies ever made.”
Sergeant Byron Jones made a scoffing noise. He was Captain McLaughlin’s door gunner and he and Jenna had known each other for several years.
“Aw, c’mon, Captain L., get real. What’s so great about an old dude reading a book to some old lady in a nursing home?”
“It’s a romance, Jones,” interjected another crew member, Corporal Matt Logan. “You’re gonna love it. This movie is right up your alley—all mushy and sentimental.”
Byron gave the other man a look of disgust. “Man, I’m gonna hit you with something really hard. What the hell are you doin’, bro?”
“Busting your balls.” Corporal Logan grinned unrepentantly.
“If it makes you feel any better, Jones,” said Laura from where she sat cross-legged on the floor with her back against the wall, “I promise not to notice if you cry.”
Beside her on the sofa, Chance shifted restlessly and stretched his long legs out in front of him. He had returned from his afternoon mission just an hour earlier and had just completed his flight briefing with the ops commander. Jenna hadn’t had a chance to ask him how the mission had gone, but his expression seemed a little on the grim side. They had agreed to meet at the recreation center at seven o’clock to watch a movie, but Jenna hadn’t been prepared to find Captain McLaughlin’s entire crew there, as well as her own. She’d hoped that she and Chance might have the place to themselves, but no such l
uck.
Out of deference to her rank and, she suspected, her gender, she had been invited to choose the movie. The selection of DVDs ran mostly to action and suspense flicks, but Jenna had taken a perverse pleasure in choosing a film that critics called an epic love story.
The recreation center was no more than a rough, plywood structure with a couple of worn sofas and chairs inside, but it also boasted a large, flat-screen television and a decent surround-sound system. On the far side of the room were two additional televisions and a couple of video-game consoles, where a group of young soldiers enthusiastically played a warfare game, as if they didn’t get enough of it in real life.
Jenna sat next to Chance on the sofa, while the other crew members sprawled on the scattered chairs or sat on the floor. The air-conditioning whirred softly, and Jenna welcomed the cool air against her skin. Like most of the other soldiers, she wore a T-shirt and her camo pants, but had left her jacket and body armor in the B-Hut that she would share with twenty other women. The soldiers had each brought their weapon with them, and they lay on the floor by the entrance. Someone had made popcorn, and as the bowl was passed around, Jenna felt like she might actually be able to relax and enjoy the downtime.
Chance stretched an arm along the sofa behind her head, and she froze, acutely aware of him. Her thigh pressed against his, and her shoulder fit neatly into the curve of his arm. She realized she could smell him, a clean scent of soap and spicy deodorant. His chest rose and fell evenly with his breathing, and she wondered if he was as aware of her as she was of him. But when Laura unfolded herself from the floor and stood up to flick the lights off, Jenna’s awareness ratcheted up to a whole new level.