Mackenzie's Mission (13 page)

 
He made a grunting noise. "
Wha
—?" He sounded bewildered and still half-asleep. "Caroline?"

 
"Yes, this is Caroline. Are you awake? Did you understand what I said?"

 
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm awake. I got it." He yawned into the receiver. "Look for your ID card. Lord, Caroline, how'd you misplace something like that?"

 
"I think I snagged it on a file folder."

 
"So wear it on a chain around your neck instead of clipping it on."

 
Since she had roused him from a sound sleep, she allowed him his disgruntled advice. Maybe it was a psychological thing, but she didn't like chains around her neck, even when they were called necklaces. Instead she would make a mental note to add her ID card to the list of things she double-checked.

 
"How long will it take you to get dressed?" she asked.

 
"Give me five minutes." He yawned again. "What time is it?"

 
She looked at the clock. "It's 5:43."

 
He groaned audibly. "I'm on my way. Actually, I'm trying to focus my eyes. You owe me one. I wouldn't do this for just anybody."

 
"Thanks," she said fervently.

 
She met him outside the Quonset building five minutes later. He was unshaven, his hair rumpled, his eyes bleary, but he was dressed, and his own ID tag was hanging on a chain around his neck. She stood outside while he shuffled through the door, still yawning. He was back in less than three minutes, carrying her tag, which she took with a stream of thank-
you's
.

 
"It was under your desk," he said, blinking owlishly at her. "What are you doing going to work this early?"

 
"I usually do," she said, surprised. She thought everyone knew her habit of going in early and staying late.

 
He suddenly broke into his normal, easygoing grin. "I'm going to have to revise my opinion of Colonel Mackenzie downward, since he obviously isn't keeping you up late. I'm disappointed in the man."

 
She lifted her eyebrows in feigned astonishment. "You thought he would let anything interfere with work? Surely you jest."

 
"Evidently I do. Well, have fun. I'll mosey on back to shower and shave and mainline some coffee. More moving-target tests today. We need to be on our toes, and I'm barely on my feet."

 
She gave him a quick kiss on his beard-roughened cheek, "Thanks, Cal. It would have taken forever to get it replaced, not to mention all of the reports."

 
"Anytime, anytime." Then he snickered. "Or you could have called Adrian to look for it."

 
"I'd rather face the security police."

 
"That's what I thought." With a wave, he began trudging back to his own quarters, and Caroline firmly clipped the tag in place with a sigh of relief.

 
At six-thirty, she was engrossed in running through the tests when a low, melodious whistle caught her attention. She burst out laughing and looked up, and two seconds later Joe silently appeared in the doorway.

 
"Another first," he observed. "No flying cups, reports or fists."

 
He was dressed in his
flightsuit
, though he wasn't in full harness yet. Her heart was suddenly in her throat. None of the other flights or tests had made her nervous, but abruptly she felt stricken, barely able to breathe. She had
never
cared
before, and all of a sudden her objectivity was destroyed.

 
It took a special type of man to be a military aviator, and even more so to qualify as a fighter pilot. The numbers were still overwhelmingly male, though women were now accepted into fighter training. Analysts were finding that the female jet jockey shared some personality characteristics with the male pilots, mostly coolness under pressure and situation awareness, but in other significant ways the female pilots were indubitably different from the males. The men were naturally arrogant and supremely self-confident; it took that kind of man
to
be
a fighter pilot, to have the kind of assurance that would not only allow him to climb into a machine and streak through the sky at three times the speed of sound, but to have the bloody confidence that he could master not only the machine but anything that might happen, and live to do it again. Fighter training only reinforced that supreme self-confidence.

 
She stared at him, seeing not only the cool confidence in his eyes but the actual eagerness to strap on that lethal beauty he called Baby. He enjoyed the speed and power, the risk, the ultimate challenge of it He had no doubt in his ability to make the aircraft perform as he wanted and bring it safely to earth again. His air of arrogant invincibility was almost godlike in its fierceness.

 
But for all his skill and superiority, he was a man, a human being. And men could be killed.

 
"You're going up today," she said, barely able to force the words through her constricted throat "You didn't tell me."

 
One eyebrow rose in a faintly quizzical expression. "I'm going up today," he replied mildly. "What about it?"

 
What was she supposed to tell him, that she was terrified because his chosen occupation was one of the most dangerous in the world? She didn't have the right to impose her fears on him. There was no commitment between them, only an agreement to have an affair, which officially hadn't even begun yet. It wasn't his fault that she was falling in love with him, and even if he returned the sentiment, she wouldn't tell him she was afraid, because she wouldn't risk the possibility of distracting him when he needed to concentrate wholly on his job.

 
So she swallowed her fear and fought for control. "You're too…um, I
think
overwhelming
is the word, in a
flightsuit
. What do you have on under it?"

 
The diversion worked. The other eyebrow rose to join its twin. "T-shirt and shorts. Did you expect me to be stark naked?"

 
"I didn't know. I'd never thought about it before." She made a shooing motion with her hand. "Go on, get out of here. You destroy my concentration. I couldn't work all day yesterday after what you did, so I'm not letting you near me this morning."

 
As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realized she should have known better. The light of battle gleamed coolly in his eyes as he walked toward her. She had inadvertently issued a challenge, and his dominant nature compelled him to call her on it.

 
She was still sitting down, and he leaned over her, bracing his hands on the arms of the chair and capturing her before she could scramble away. He kissed her, slanting his hard mouth over hers and using his tongue with devastating thoroughness. Her toes curled in her shoes; she surrendered without even the pretense of struggle, accepting his intrusion and welcoming it with unguarded eagerness.

 
He shuddered and instantly straightened, his face hard with lust. "What are you wearing tonight?"

 
She struggled to gather her senses, so easily scattered by his touch. "I don't know. Does it matter?"

 
She had never before seen his eyes so blue and intense. "No. You'll be naked five minutes after we check into the hotel."

 
The image was shattering. Helplessly she closed her eyes, her mouth going dry. When she opened them again, he was gone.

 
If she affected him even half as much as he affected her, he wouldn't be able to fly the damn plane. The fear rose nauseatingly in her throat again, surging back at full force. It took all of her willpower to force it away, but she managed it, because she knew that when it came down to it, that cold-blooded control of his would shut out every thought that didn't pertain to flying, the real love of his life. The truth hurt, but she took comfort in it, too, for as unpalatable as it was it would keep him safe, and that was all she asked.

 
Cal had been making a point of arriving in the mornings before Adrian, but she had disrupted his schedule that morning and was still alone when Adrian came in. He gave her an almost automatic look of dislike, poured a cup of coffee and sat down without speaking. Adrian didn't bother her much, anyway, but that morning she was so on edge that she scarcely even noticed he was there. She sat at her desk, torn between fear and anticipation. Part of her mind persisted in dwelling on the dangers of test flights, while the other part kept sliding away to sensual images of the coming night. She couldn't believe she was actually looking forward to it, but not even the realistic expectation of discomfort, at the least, was enough to quell her fever. She wanted Joe, needed him desperately, with an instinct so primal that the threat of pain was swept aside like a toothpick in a flood.

 
But first she had to live through the flights today.

 
"Dreaming about lover boy?" Adrian asked nastily.

 
She blinked at the interruption. "What? Oh—yes. I was. Sorry. Did you ask me something?"

 
"Only about your love life. I'm a little surprised, though. I didn't think it was men you liked, or have you decided to try some variety?"

 
Inexperience was not the same thing at all as ignorance, and she knew exactly what he was hinting at. She gave him a cold look, suddenly relishing the idea of a good, clean battle, free of entangling emotions. "Did you know I was always so much younger than the boys in my class that I was almost through college before I was mature enough for any of them to notice me?"

 
The question startled him; the puzzlement showed on his good-looking face. "So?"

 
"So they came after me hot and heavy, expecting me to know the score, but I didn't know anything at all about men and dating. I'd never been around kids my own age. I'd never been kissed, never been to a prom, never learned the things other girls learned at parties and on double dates. When those guys came on so strong it scared the hell out of me, so I said and did whatever it took to run them off. Are you getting the picture?"

 
He didn't, not at first. His incomprehension was plain. But then understanding broke through his hostility, and he stared at her in shocked disbelief. "Are you saying you
were
afraid
of me?"

 
"Well, what else could I be?" she flashed. "You were grabbing at me and wouldn't take no for an answer."

 
"For God's sake, I'm not a rapist!" he snapped.

 
"How was I supposed to know?" She stood up and shook her fist at him. "If you hadn't been so damn sure of yourself and thought no woman could resist you, you might have noticed that I was scared!"

 
"You didn't act scared!"

 
"So I get belligerent when I feel threatened." She was standing over him now, glaring and all but breathing fire. "For your information, Colonel Mackenzie is the first man to notice how uneasy I was,
and
he
doesn't attack me like a hungry octopus." No, all he did was make love to her with that infuriating control of his, reducing her to mush while he remained perfectly clearheaded. That, however, wasn't any of Adrian's business. "I'm tired of your snide remarks, do you understand? Put a sock in it, as of right now, or I'll stuff one in for you."

 
The shock left his face, and he glared back at her with a return of hostility. "Am I supposed to feel guilty because you're a social misfit? You're not the only one with problems, lady. I'd just gone through a god-awful divorce, my wife had dumped me for a weasel who made twice as much money as I did and I needed a little ego building myself. So don't blame me for not noticing your delicate psyche and pandering to it, because you sure as hell didn't notice mine!"