Dawn Flight Read online

  She began walking back out of view, but stopped and looked at them over her shoulder.

  If he didn’t know better, he’d say her smile was almost kindly.

  “The decisions,” her voice was soft, without the hard edge she’d used since the moment of his less-than-respectful arrival, “get harder from here.” Then she was gone.

  Jack’s groan was cut off when a strong hand clapped down hard on his shoulder from behind.

  He looked up at the Master Sergeant.

  “She’s a pistol, ain’t she?” Then he shook Jack like a ragdoll, before heading toward the ladder while whistling The Army Goes Rolling Along happily to himself.

  “You okay?” he asked Diana.

  Diana nodded once, uncertainly. Then again with a little more surety.

  “Don’t beat on yourself. Even Wonder Woman couldn’t have gotten out of that.”

  “But in real world, what would you do?”

  He thought about the situation again: escape, make that possible escape, but only at the price of committing others to death including their own medic.

  “You don’t know, do you?” she wasn’t being nasty. It sounded as if she really hoped he did.

  “Damned if I do,” he hated letting her down. “Maybe Major Mrs. Superman will let us know, if we behave.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it. Lesson for the student and all that crap.”

  He like her attitude and her easy confidence. “How about if I buy you breakfast at the Mess Hall and we can discuss it a bit?” It wasn’t that he wanted to share a meal with such a fine-looking woman…well, he did, but it wasn’t just that. For perhaps the first time in his career, he was well and truly stumped. Flying always just came easy to him, but this was hard.

  She nodded, shook her head, then nodded again.

  He couldn’t tell if she’d heard or even understood him.

  She covered her face with her hands for a moment and gave a small scream of frustration that almost made him feel like smiling again. Then she pulled her hands away and turned to face him.

  “It depends,” between one moment and the next she’d gotten her act back together. Just that fast. Which was pretty damned amazing.

  He wasn’t even close to having his own act back together after that simulation. “Depends on what?”

  “Are you always a jerk?”

  Jack grinned at her, “Depends on who you ask. A couple commanders, several ex-girlfriends, Mom…more like a pain in the ass.”

  “A pain in the ass is better than a jerk?” She shrugged. “Well, I always preferred forming my own opinions.”

  6

  Breakfast almost lapsed into lunch.

  Not jerk, Diana assessed. Too sure of himself perhaps, though he sounded as if he had some reason to be.

  Well, if he did, so did she. They’d both made it through the notoriously difficult selection process of the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and nobody in any military had more skilled helicopter pilots than the Night Stalkers of SOAR.

  And they’d both volunteered to go CSAR, which took a special kind of masochism—flying into hot battle zones to extract the wounded rather than fighting from far above until the battle was done and won.

  While Jack Slater didn’t tell her why he’d gone CSAR, she was finding it easier and easier to like the man. He always found the lighter side—he was funny. Not like one of those guys who only thought he was funny, but one that actually was.

  The emblem on the side of his helmet was an impossibly elaborate sword. When she finally asked if he was King Arthur, he’d told her she was really close, but kept her guessing for a while. She finally gave up.

  “Jack. Jack Slater,” he said it like “Bond. James Bond.”

  “Your name,” she’d replied still not getting it.

  He’d practically chortled with delight. “Jack Slater. Jack Slaughter. Jack the Killer. Jack the Giant Killer. They had me pegged by the end of first formation at West Point. King Arthur was the original of the Giant Killer myths; Jack came along a handful of centuries later. You see, you might be a fictional heroine, but I’m mythic! And I’ll put my magic sword up against your golden lasso anytime.”

  Mythic or not, he was sharp. They dissected that morning’s mission at length and finally decided they should have gone for the escape. Once clear, there were more options: to return, to send in others. But to sit still was to kill them all.

  They pounded out possible counter tactics for the future. Drop off the medics and automatically return to the sky to await their return? Too much risk of having to abandon the team.

  Stay just inches aloft? Tricky to sustain and it would continue to stir dust badly, perhaps making it harder for the medics to recover the injured, but offering far more flexibility in an attack scenario.

  Jack made a couple of forays at finding out more about her past, but she just couldn’t go there. It was too deep and she was still shocked that she had blurted it out, even that one little part.

  And refusing to go there, she couldn’t ask about his past.

  But he’d been kind enough to stay backed away rather than pushing or wheedling as any other guy would have.

  By the time they tracked down their apartments in the on-site barracks they were both weaving with exhaustion. They were on the same floor of the same unit. There were definite advantages to being an officer in an elite outfit—no open barracks. They stood close in the dimly lit common hall. It was barely big enough to hold a stairwell, the doors to four tiny one-bedroom apartments, and both of them with their duffle bags.

  They stood in that little hall, too close together, but she found herself reluctant to move away. She’d only flown in from Hunter Army Airfield this morning, so it’s not as if she knew this place. The only thing she did know was Captain Jack “the Giant Killer” Slater.

  “Are you sure you’re not a jerk?”

  “You mean despite my demonstration with Major Mrs. Superman this morning?”

  “Despite that,” she didn’t even know what she was asking.

  “Well,” he aimed that powerful smile of his at her again, “will it make me more of a jerk if I do what I want, or what I should?”

  “Hard to know because I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about soldier.” Unless, maybe she did.

  “Am I more of a jerk if I kiss you like I’ve been wanting to since the moment you showed me that screwy Wonder Woman helmet of yours?”

  She definitely knew what he was talking about.

  “Or is it worse if I don’t kiss you and walk away as if you aren’t beautiful, desirable, great company, and a hell of a pilot?”

  It had to be lack of sleep talking, but what the hell. “I think the latter would make you much, much more of a jerk.” No other man had ever thought to include how she flew in a string of compliments. That last was the scale tipper.

  He looked at her with some surprise.

  “Well?” Now that she’d said it, she did want him to kiss her, preferably before she decided just how stupid an idea that might be.

  Jack shrugged his duffle bag off his shoulder and it thudded onto the floor. With an easy strength, he lifted the strap of hers off her shoulder and lowered it as well.

  Then, with a gentleness she hadn’t expected, he pulled her into his arms, offering her a dozen opportunities to escape or evade.

  When she failed to vary the course of his approach, he completed the gesture. It wasn’t just some kiss, some hand around her neck and a fiery meeting of the lips and tongue.

  Kissing Jack Slater included a full body hug as if they’d been lovers for years. His arms wrapped naturally around her, as hers slid up his chest and around his neck.

  He tasted of the ice cream dessert they’d just split, the strawberries that he’d chosen and the chocolate sauce that she had. And he felt sold
ier hard and magnificent.

  This wasn’t her mother’s war. She didn’t want a child from a dead man that would ruin her career. For that reason, she’d sworn off military men.

  Until this moment.

  For tonight, at least, this wasn’t her mother’s Army either.

  She led Jack Slater into her new apartment.

  7

  Jack woke up tangled in sheets and woman. It was pitch dark and a helicopter had just roared by close overhead. Then another followed it—and several more.

  “Two Black Hawks, four Chinooks,” the woman in his arms whispered. Wonder Woman. And Diana had certainly proved that she completely deserved the accolade.

  “Plus a pair of Little Birds and a partridge in a pear tree,” he replied. “You know that a woman who can tell helo models by their sound is pretty sexy.”

  She nuzzled his neck. “Gods, I feel like such a slut.”

  “I’ve been used,” he groaned in mock complaint. He slid a hand down over that fine soldier’s butt of hers, the other tracing over that long leg of hers draped across his waist. “However, I would point out that no way does a slut feel this good.”

  “You say the sweetest things.”

  “I’m a sweet guy.”

  She snorted against his neck, her laugh sending interesting ripples along where their bodies lay together.

  “Okay,” he admitted. “You caught me,” and he wiggled a finger in the ticklish spot he’d located earlier, the soft inside of her thigh just above the knee.

  She convulsed and he used her momentary imbalance to leverage her back under him.

  He groped for some more protection and she didn’t make a single protest as he did his best to prove that he wasn’t sweet at all.

  8

  Simulator scenarios were mixed with actual night flights. And as one flight turned into a dozen, then two dozen, so did their days together—for daytime is when Night Stalkers slept, or didn’t.

  Diana was going weak in her head for a fellow officer which was stupid in so many ways. It would help if he wasn’t such a joy to fly with or an equal joy to tussle with between the sheets—but he was both of those and more.

  In a blur so fast that it was hard to imagine, a cold October dawn had turned into a bitter December, but she didn’t care. The training regimen from Major Lang-Clark was intense—and serving its purpose. The confusion of that first simulation had turned into a clear set of skills, even if the new simulations posed even harder moral dilemmas and more difficult to perfect tactics.

  And Captain Jack Slater had turned into the best man she’d ever been with. She simply couldn’t get enough of him, no matter how much they both tried.

  They alternated seats, both in the simulator and aloft until one night he looked at her after a particularly complex storm-and-mountain scenario and declared, “You’re pilot-in-command from now on. You’re better than I am.”

  “No way. You’re—” then she saw Major Lang-Clark and Sergeant Hamlin nodding in agreement.

  “You two,” Lois spoke, “make an interesting team in several ways. I’ve met better,” she tapped her own chest in a rare jest, “but I haven’t trained better. We normally would split you up after training, send you out with different units.”

  And the breath had caught in Diana’s throat. She and Jack had been together only a few months and already she couldn’t imagine not waking up to Jack’s hard body and gentle teasing. Or flying with anyone else. They’d developed a synchronicity in the air that was as effortless as their one on the ground.

  “But,” Lois continued, “keep on the way you are and I’ll recommend you remain teamed up.”

  Lois’ look carried a second meaning that Diana wanted to be surprised by, but wasn’t. They’d done their best to keep their relationship behind the closed apartment door, but obviously that hadn’t worked.

  “Of course, long-term planning in these situations is always an interesting challenge,” and Lois left them, shooing the Sergeant out of the simulator ahead of her.

  Only when the cockpit was quiet, all of the systems dark and dormant, and the last echoes of the others’ footsteps down the ladder had long since died away, did she dare turn to look at Jack.

  He wasn’t looking at her.

  He was staring straight ahead, out at the blank screen, with his hands still clenched hard on the controls.

  “Jack?”

  9

  Jack had had plenty of other lovers like Diana Price.

  He was sure he had.

  Oh, maybe not as smart. Or quite as pretty. Or so goddamn amazing in bed. Or such a good pilot he’d finally had to face his own shortcomings—but he was a better gunner and navigator than she was and that had to count for something.

  But all those others had been just like her in…no way he could seem to recall. What the hell?

  “Jack?”

  He heard her voice, distant, worried. He wanted to brush it off. Toss out some Jack-the-Giant-Slaughter joke that had always cracked up the guys, eased any situation.

  But a panic had coursed through him that he didn’t know how to handle.

  “Jack?” This time the voice was worried, afraid. Anyone else he could ignore, any woman but Diana.

  He forced his attention to her.

  Her eyes were pleading with him, wanting to understand something he couldn’t grasp, a past even Jack-the-Giant-Slayer couldn’t kill.

  “I—” he tried and failed. So he started again. “I am a jerk.”

  She blinked at him in surprise.

  “I’m not a permanent sort of guy. No one has ever been dumb enough to think that I was. Especially not me.”

  He could see the pain slam into her as if he’d gut-punched her, hard.

  “Diana. You’re a wondrous woman. You’re way too smart to think that I’m more than I am.” But the pain in her eyes grew worse, darker. “Aren’t you?”

  Tears spilled over and flowed freely down her cheeks.

  One moment she was there, her tears leaving him totally helpless. The next she was racing out of the simulator.

  He slammed against the harness in his effort to follow her and knocked most of the wind out of himself. Slapping the releases, he dumped his helmet—still wired into the simulator’s systems—and ran after her.

  She was fast, but he was faster. He caught her out on the airfield close beside a parked Black Hawk helicopter, barely visible as any hint of dawn was lost beneath the thickly overcast night.

  He grabbed her and the slap came fast and hard. Enough to jerk his head aside and fill the night sky with stars.

  Jack released his hold and she was gone again.

  10

  Jack had never slept in his own apartment. He rubbed his own eyes groggily. Well, his record was unbroken. He’d lain awake through the whole day, aware of Diana lying only a few feet away on the other side of the wall between their apartments.

  At times he imagined he could hear her weeping, at times he’d imagined that he was.

  Half a dozen times he’d crossed the tiny hall to knock on her door, but not knowing what to say, he’d crept silently back to his own room each time.

  On his last try, his packed duffle bag fell into the apartment when he’d opened his door; she’d packed his gear and left it leaning there. He hadn’t the heart to try and cross the vast divide of the small hallway after that.

  “You really are a jerk,” he told his reflection as he shaved.

  At least his reflection wasn’t answering back.

  “Permanent is a lie,” he continued. His parents and numerous stepparents on both sides of the house had proved that time and again. He had no brother or sister, but he had step-ones right and left. And then ex-stepparents were breeding more kin, many of whom he’d never met or maybe never even heard of. They should start holding extended-family reunions,
so that there could be more excuses for divorces and marriages among the ever expanding catastrophe that was his family. Maybe they had; he certainly wasn’t in touch with any of them.

  He finished shaving and inspected himself in the mirror. He should have left the five p.m. shadow; clean-shaven, Diana’s palm print stood out clearly. Well, maybe not enough for anyone else to notice it, but he could see and feel every line, right down to the whorls of her fingerprints.

  If ever there was a woman who deserved permanent, it was Diana Price.

  He wished it could be him, but it just wasn’t going to happen.

  But he wished it could.

  He got dressed in whatever he found first. Most of his clothes were a jumble, stuffed down into the duffle. At least Diana hadn’t slashed them.

  Had he been leading her on? Making promises he had no intention or ability to keep? No.

  Had his body been making promises he couldn’t keep? He was less comfortable with that answer.

  It was a night off. He hid in the base library like the coward that he was. Not that he understood a word he read. He’d never met anyone like Diana Price the Wonder Woman and had never expected to again.

  So what was he going to do about it?

  Even if he wanted to do something about it, would she let him?

  Not if she was smart. Which she was.

  His stomach growled for the third meal after he’d skipped the first two; the traitor.

  He still had no answers when he saw her eating on the far side of the mess hall from their usual place.

  Nor when the PA system called out their names halfway through the meal to report immediately to the flight line.

  11

  The weather sucked! Which was fine, it completely fit Diana’s equally foul mood. While she hadn’t slept, the first major winter storm had arrived and high winds were now slashing driving sheets of rain across the base. Trees were down throughout Puget Sound. The Nisqually and Puyallup Rivers already racing toward flood stage.