Primed for Action

Chapter 15

Emily stepped back onto the scorching deck of the aircraft carrier but ground to a halt in the relatively safe haven against the ship’s massive superstructure. Here at least there was shade, enough to mitigate the sun from devastating down to merely horrific. She reached up to ease the stranglehold of her coveralls, only to find that she’d already done that and it hadn’t helped.

Reassigned.

She’d been reassigned to the last place on the planet she’d ever wanted to go. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House. At the side of the First Lady, one degree of separation from the President.

Reassigned.

The word rattled around inside her like a low-energy round ricocheting inside a helicopter still hunting a target.

Reassigned. She leaned back against the wall of the superstructure before her knees gave out. And not to fly. Reassigned to goddamn cook. For the wife of President Peter Matthews, the ultimate proverbial boy next door.

cook.She spotted Mark the moment she raised her eyes from the deck. An E-2 Hawkeye trapped in between them, catching the Number Two wire with a roar of turboprop and a wash of heat and the steamy tang of turbine exhaust.

Major Henderson glared at her from across the width of the aircraft carrier. She’d recognize him from a thousand others, despite the shimmering heat haze and whorl of exhaust. No one walked with such power and grace, or stood with such insufferable arrogance.

Time to face The Viper. A quick calculation proved that her day had finally bottomed out. The thought offered a certain amount of freedom; she stood caught in the spin cycle, and no matter what she did, no auto-rotate maneuver would delay the imminent crash landing, so it was time to go with the flow.

He strode to his helo, the deck crew dodging aside to let him by, and snagged her duffel. Then he grabbed a yellow-clad handler, practically by the throat, and had him guiding Mark across the flight line at a fast trot.

She snapped the best salute she could manage, which was pretty lame at the moment. He didn’t chew her out, which was a relief, but he barely returned it which she’d had enough of already today.

But before she could b***h about it, he heaved the duffel at her. She caught it against her chest.

“What the—” Her voice disappeared beneath the roar of an F/A-18 Super Hornet going to full afterburners before the catapult fired it into the sky. She could feel her lips still moving, but she couldn’t hear what she was saying.

Only after the Major grabbed her arm and dragged her back toward the closest superstructure entrance did the sounds of the deck come crashing in. She’d stepped out with no hearing protection. Had been in such shock she hadn’t noticed the incessant roar as hundreds of crew manned the carrier deck during active flight operations.

He dragged her past the handlers’ stations, through two sets of sound-deadening doors, and into a small pilot waiting room sporting a couple of vending machines and a handful of small tables. Echoingly vacant at the moment. He shoved her down in a chair in front of an amazing view of the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman. Vastly empty except for a couple of the inevitable support ships that danced around every carrier like a flock of seagulls with nothing better to do than bob about on the waves together—and kill anything that so much as thought about coming within a hundred miles.

Instead of joining her, he stood and glared at her through those mirrored shades.

Her brain wouldn’t kick in. She blinked and he disappeared from in front of her. Now he’d come to gloat over her downfall. She blinked again and he was back. He thumped a soda can down on the table in front of her.

“Drink that, then tell me what the hell is going on, Captain.”

She rolled the cold can across the burning heat of her forehead and cheeks. Tell him what? It was easy to remember the Top Secret banner on the video. Easy to know that this was one of those assignments that couldn’t be discussed with anyone. Black Ops, and he wasn’t part of the action team. Emily Beale, team of one. Totally screwed.

“Can’t, sir.”

“Can’t or won’t, Captain?”

“How do you do that?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. She could read that despite the shades.

She was tired and sick at heart enough not to care if she ticked him off.

“How do you manage to communicate your complete and utter contempt for me at the same moment you are chewing me out and threatening my rank?”

With a long sigh, he dropped into a chair opposite hers and kicked a stray into place to prop up his booted feet.

“All I know is I was rousted,” he glanced down at his Kobold Phantom Tactical wristwatch, his sole ostentation other than his shades, “an hour and forty-three minutes ago. I was told to bring you and your complete kit. I’m in no mood for goddamn chatter.”

“Chatter?” His word reached her brain. “Chatter! Pointless goddamn female chatter?” Emily had risen to her feet without noticing. She snagged the duffel, spinning the unopened soda into his lap with a sharp slap.

He caught it neatly and set it back on the table.

“You’ve never wanted me in your outfit! You’d probably rather have that i***t Bronson flying for you than me. Well, you got your wish. You’ve got me sent back stateside, thank you so damn much!” Actually, her mother had, or maybe her father—which was a more depressing thought. But her chances of finding satisfaction in either place were so slim she might as well take it out on someone handy.

moreAt the door, two handlers in the bright yellow vests of flight-line controllers stood frozen, blocking her exit. Before she could snarl at them, they backpedaled wide-eyed out of the room.

“No! Wait!” His feet thumped to the deck.

Henderson could go to hell. She didn’t stop.

“Captain!” The Major snapped out from behind her.

A decade of training jerked her to a halt. Was it possible to hate any man more?

He moved directly in front of her. Her infinitely small self glowered back at her from his mirrored shades.

“I did not assign you stateside. I never would. You’re…” He stopped. If she didn’t know better, she’d bet he was looking to the side as if embarrassed.

“What? I’m what? Is stateside too good for me as well? Well, here, read it for yourself.”

She stopped her hand halfway to the inner right pocket of her flight suit. That was President Peter Matthews’ letter asking her to come to the White House as a personal favor. Both the location and the form of the request were far more information than she intended to share with Major Jerk Henderson. Let him find out from CNN like everyone else where she landed. No question remained that the painful spotlight of public attention would focus its glaring eye on the First Lady’s newest toy. And that SOAR would never want her back once she’d entered the glare of that spotlight.

Emily shifted the duffel bag to her other hand and dug out the orders Admiral Parker had prepared before she’d accepted this “voluntary” assignment.

He read the two lines aloud.

“ ‘Captain Emily Beale, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (airborne), reassigned United States, detached. Board first available transport, Ramstein AFB.’ Detached? What the hell does that mean?”

She snatched the orders from his hand and stepped around him. “It means I’m no longer your problem.”

He moved to block her path.

She had to get away from him before she broke down. Damn him, there was no chance on Earth that he’d get to see her go all womany and weepy, and laugh about it later. So glad to have that irritating wench out of my unit. You know she cried on me when we booted her ass.

So glad to have that irritating wench out of my unit. You know she cried on me when we booted her ass.Thumping a fist on his shoulder didn’t cause his broad frame to waver in the slightest. She wanted to bury her face there and let go. All she’d ever wanted to do was fly, and they were taking that away. Surely the Major would understand that. Jerk or not, he loved to fly as much as she did. It was obvious they shared that from the core of their souls.

She closed her eyes. Maybe if she counted to ten, he wouldn’t be there. Yeah, right. Maybe if she clicked the heels of her army boots together three times, she’d wake up in Oz and marry the Scarecrow. Maybe she’d find…

A hand cradled her face. As her father had done when she was a young girl. Without thought her mind fell quiet for the first time since Henderson had flipped her out of her bunk with under two hours sleep. She turned her cheek into the comfort of the callused palm.

Lips brushed against hers. Gentle, soft, warm. The whole wretched day was slipping away. Forget the disaster that her life had become. Falling into those lips. Soft as rose petals, as intoxicating as an armful in full bloom, as strong as steel. She could—

Her eyes snapped open, and Major Mark Henderson’s beautiful gray eyes were watching her from an inch away, his shades slid up into that thick dark hair that she’d spent too much of last night craving to toy with. His lips on hers impossibly gentle, especially because of the power of the warrior so close beneath the surface.

By reflex, before the outrageous impossibility could register, she grabbed the hand cupping her cheek. She dug her finger into the median nerve motor joint on the back of his hand, flipped it over, and lifted.

Henderson’s body instinctively twisted to relieve the pain, and he crashed face first onto one of the tables.

Emily kept his hand twisted up behind his back, pinning him in place. She listened to his sunglasses skitter across the linoleum floor. With a small “tink,” they stopped against a chair leg. The can of soda bounced and rolled for a moment longer before coming to a rest under the same chair. For the space of three heartbeats, she kept him pinned in place, ignored his muttered grunts of pain.

Was that why he’d tolerated her? Let her fly? Had let her be assigned to his unit? Because he wanted to get her in the sack! He was so damn handsome that under normal circumstances, she might not argue. But he was her commanding officer which meant they both lived in a wholly different normal. Right now, it was the eighth or ninth thing too many this day.

She dropped his hand as if it were hotter than turbine engine exhaust.

Before he could recover, she marched back onto the flight deck, back where it was too loud to hear herself think.

A yellow-clad deckhand snagged her elbow the moment she hit the flight deck and jabbed a finger toward a jet that was Number Two at the catapult. Time to move.

The handler practically dragged her toward the plane already taxiing into the catapult position. She’d expected to travel on a C-2 Greyhound delivery plane. Instead, they were putting her aboard a two-seater F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jet. Somebody wanted her out of the theater of operations fast. Fine with her.

She did her best not to look back before she climbed aboard to see if a lone helicopter pilot in a brown flight suit and mirrored shades stood against the carrier’s superstructure. She tried hard not to look.

But it didn’t matter because when she did, no one waited for her.

Major Mark Henderson made it out the door in time to see Emily Beale slip into the Hornet. Didn’t matter that the flight suit hid her shape, didn’t matter that her helmeted head was already ducked out of view into the cockpit. He’d know her walk, her movements, how she entered an aircraft, how she pulled a gun, how she flew, anywhere.

One moment. One brief damned moment he’d held her. Felt her skin, impossibly softer than he’d imagined. And her lips, someone please help him, held far more than heat, more than fire. An electric shock had stunned him down to his boots. When she’d opened those perfect blue eyes, summer-sky blue, for that one instant he had fallen in and was gone.

Emily’s Hornet, a couple hundred feet up deck, locked into the catapult. A handful of greenshirts scurried around the plane while the yellow-vested shooters secured the front wheel to the catapult. A white-and-black-checked safety officer gave his clearance, a flurry of hand signals Mark couldn’t follow traveled around the flight deck.

The plane’s engine roared to life. Its dual dragon’s maw exhaust of heat and fire diverted upward by the tilted jet-blast shield that had popped out of the deck on cue.

Suddenly, all was still and everyone danced clear.

A single shooter in yellow saluted the pilot, then lunging forward, pointed along the deck, and the controller fired the catapult. With a roar that made his body ache, she was gone. Zero to 150 in two seconds flat. Six g’s. The best roller-coaster ride ever devised by man, other than a DAP Hawk helicopter in combat.

The plane pulled up its gear as it swung ten degrees to the right and climbed like only an American fighter plane could. The next one was already rolling into position as the catapult returned down the deck and the dance of color-coded deck crews started all over. When rushed, they could repeat this in under a minute all day long on both catapults.

He already couldn’t spot her. Gone from his life faster than could be possible. Than should be possible.

He shouldn’t have done it. He was her commanding officer, for crying out loud. He’d risked his career for that kiss. And hers, which was truly unforgivable. He hadn’t realized how badly he wanted her. Until he received the call to give her up.

And when she’d closed her eyes on so much pain, he’d given in. If he’d known how much her kiss would rock him back on his heels…

With a smile he’d do best to keep to himself, Mark Henderson decided it was worth all the risk for a kiss like that one.

He flexed his abused hand and wondered how much it was going to hurt to work the helo’s collective on the flight back. A twinge shot all the way into his shoulder where she’d torqued it around. It was going to sting like mad to fly back to base.

She seriously knew how to handle herself. Damn that was a turn-on. His brain tried to imagine what it would be like to tussle with a woman like that, and he decided that made a particularly spectacular image.

He pulled the tab on the soda he’d picked up along with his sunglasses. It exploded in a cloudy spray of sugar water covering his face and chest.