Target of the Heart Read online

  “Merde!” Danielle whispered so close beside him that he could feel her warm breath across his ear.

  Chapter 5

  McDermott was long gone. And still The Rapier wandered back and forth among the four helicopters parked in the hangar.

  Danielle had become even more fascinated by her new commander than by the four amazing machines.

  She’d killed the big ceiling floods once the sun reached high enough to stream in the high windows. Plenty of light to navigate by; it left the hangar’s interior filled with bright highlights and cool shadows.

  Pete didn’t inspect the vehicles of his new command—far too mild a term; he prowled them. His attention was worthy of a preflight by a post-battle mechanic’s team checking every possible surface and control for damage. His eagerness was that of a ten-year old boy and a brand new train set. His power and beauty was—messing with her brain.

  Danielle came to a stop long before Pete did and sat with her back against the main hangar doors. Ranged in front of her were four very unique craft.

  She’d guessed right on the airframes: a Chinook, a Black Hawk, and two Little Birds; just as they’d flown in from Fort Campbell. But that’s where the similarities stopped.

  The Black Hawk was a DAP. The Direct Action Penetrator was the hammer-blow version of the Black Hawk—built and designed specifically for SOAR. The DAP Hawk bristled with the weapons and sensors that made it the most lethal helicopter ever built. It was sensitive in dozens of ways that were very bad if you were the enemy…and it was stealth-rigged.

  The stealth transport Black Hawk that had been lost in bin Laden’s compound had not been the end of the program, but apparently the start. This craft didn’t look in the least bit jury-rigged, like the tail section left behind. This was one sleek, cohesive structure.

  The two Little Birds had also been stealthed. The hull covered in reshaped forms of leading-edge composite materials. Even the weapons were encased in radar-deceiving pods, only their snouts peeking out through darkened holes.

  But even more formidable than its three companions…

  Danielle wished she’d chosen to sit somewhere else, but lacked the energy to move. She’d landed with her back against the hangar door directly in front of the massive Chinook. It was a wholly daunting piece of machinery that felt as if it was about to crush her.

  Her Chinook…did she really get to say that? Her baby that rose so high above the smaller machines, was a work of the mechanic’s art at its pinnacle. Every surface was reshaped so that radar sweeps would be reflected in unexpected directions. Unlike other Chinooks, the wheels could tuck up into wheel wells making the helo smooth-bottomed in flight. Instead of looking like the biggest street thug on the block, a little ungainly but wholly unstoppable, it looked downright nasty. She liked that in a helicopter.

  Connie and John would go ape shit when they saw these helicopters. No, they’d stand aside and looked pleased with themselves. Of course, the two master mechanics of SOAR—who also had extensive forward combat experience as crew chiefs—would have been deeply involved in the designs of these craft.

  No wonder they’d agreed to transfer from the 5D to the 5E. These four craft represented the very best of helicopter tech anywhere on the planet. Each time she looked at them, she identified another level of tech that she’d never used. ADAS cameras. Predictive terrain-following. A range of aircraft survivability equipment she’d never even known existed.

  And all four aircraft were that elusive gray-black of stealth composite materials.

  Stealth. That thought clearly hadn’t sunk in yet.

  Nor had it for Major Pete Napier. He’d done his survey in layers, she could see them building in his mind. First the walk-through noting what to study. Then the next layer to make sure he hadn’t missed anything in the overwhelm of that first inspection. Then detailed systems study on the next lap…

  And somewhere in there she had burned out and had to sit down to process what she’d seen.

  But the man tired, beyond reason and tact, drove himself from 20mm cannon to heat shrouds on the engine exhaust ports. From fuel tank specs to Health and Usage Management Systems. She could feel him building up the layers in his mind as he studied and absorbed each helo’s capabilities. And all Danielle could manage was to admire his relentless pursuit of that knowledge.

  Eventually, when he was circling the craft—make that staggering around them—to no new purpose, she called to him.

  “Stop already, Pete.”

  And as neatly as if she had indeed snipped the thread holding him up, he came over and slumped against the closed hangar door close beside her.

  “Christ! What have I done?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He waved a hand at the assembled birds, “Look at them.”

  She couldn’t look at anything else. The four fabulous machines, as in straight out of a fable, and the captivating man who had prowled among them for half an hour after she’d collapsed to the floor to watch him.

  “You don’t see it?” he sat so close that she could feel his body heat.

  She looked back at the craft and it was as if his simple words had transformed them. These were not craft for training. Her days as a trainee were done. A SOAR pilot kept training through their whole careers—whenever they weren’t actively deployed—but the Colonel had said “Fully Mission Qualified.”

  Colonel McDermott had said more. That being the 5E was an appropriate company designation, “Evaluate. You’ll be responsible for receiving and testing the very latest equipment. That’s how I convinced Connie and John to come join your merry band. You will always get new tech first.”

  Danielle blinked at the aircraft. So, they would be evaluating equipment that was out on the very edge of the envelope—a whole bunch of Es.

  But now she saw what she’d missed.

  The hardware defined the missions. Three lethal helos to protect the single workhorse Chinook. All stealth. These craft were for very high security missions. High security? Who was she fooling. That didn’t begin to cover it.

  “Now you see it. Bet you that none of the others will without being told. Damn but you’re sharp, lady. That’s very sexy by the way.” He didn’t apologize or try to take back those words. So natural that he’d missed them going by, even if she hadn’t. He wasn’t sexist, but he was by-god male. Looking the way he did, he’d have to be.

  “These craft don’t need testing,” Danielle spoke in order to think about something other than the man seated so close beside her. “They’re beautiful, state-of-the-art craft at the peak of development.” As was the man.

  Pete nodded.

  “The 5E. E is for Extreme!”

  His bark of laughter was appreciative, “Just like you. Danielle, the extreme Spiderwoman, Delacroix.”

  She’d hadn’t just graduated into the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (airborne); she’d graduated into the 5E. The 5th Battalion Extreme Company was going to be special even by Night Stalker standards. Once their team was up to the caliber of these helos, they were going to be assigned to places no one else could go. Tibet would be nothing compared to where these birds could fly undetected. Even the massive Chinook would have less radar signature than a standard six-foot drone.

  Pete was still nodding, just a little dreamily. This close, his rich brown eyes were half lidded and he looked far less scary than he had before, standing in his skivvies while he’d been changing clothes. Was that only last evening? A dozen hours and forever ago. How could so much change so fast?

  “You know something, Spiderwoman?”

  “Many things,” again she was teasing The Rapier, but it didn’t feel dangerous anymore.

  “I’m just tired enough to do something wholly inappropriate.”

  Danielle could feel all of her blood drain out of her brain. She had a very clear image of what tha
t meant and she’d been fighting against the thought herself for some time. If he was less handsome. Or less competent. Or his reputation wasn’t so sterling…

  She took a deep breath and braced herself for the result of her next words.

  “And what makes you think that it wouldn’t be welcome?” Had she really just said that? To her new commanding officer?

  To The Rapier!

  His eyes didn’t widen in surprise. A man of action, he also didn’t hesitate. Pete didn’t go macho and grab her, he didn’t try to dominate or control—which she’d been ready for. Instead, he turned and leaned in until their shoulders brushed the moment before their lips did.

  The man might have a body and a reputation of steel, but his kiss offered a lush softness of surprising contrast and heat. Neither of them moved their hands. He didn’t grab her breast, she didn’t clutch his chest. Instead they simply explored the electricity that had been building all through the flight and the formation of the 5E.

  At that she started to smile. It was small at first, but it kept growing until she interrupted their kiss with a laugh.

  “What?” he whispered from a half breath away.

  She shook her head and let some of her hair partially hide her face. He brushed it back behind her ear and she’d swear she could feel every line of his fingerprint along her skin as he did so. She was sitting on the floor of the 5E’s hangar, her legs stretched out on the concrete that was still so fresh she could smell the dusty newness, and had just received a lovely kiss from a man she’d known less than a dozen hours.

  “What?” he insisted with a smile that wholly belied his rough reputation. “As your new commanding officer I insist that you tell me.”

  The changes of the last twenty-four hours were just sufficiently overwhelming for her to set that aside. Commanding officer was a problem all on its own. For this one instant, they would stay in this idealized, non-military-code moment.

  This time she didn’t keep her hands off him when she kissed him again, but instead felt his need for a shave against her palms. Instead of heat, this touch was warm electricity, like a welcome shock that raced up her arm and straight into her pulse, amping it up higher and higher.

  He rested one hand on her thigh as if he was merely steadying himself. It was neither suggestion nor possession, it was as natural as the kiss.

  Pete sighed. It was a sigh of male self-satisfaction that had her smiling again. Moments later, he’d shifted until he was lying on the floor with his head on her thigh. And between one breath and the next—he was asleep.

  Danielle marveled at the feel of it, the absolute rightness of it. When she felt the inclination to run her fingers through his collar-long dark hair, she didn’t resist the temptation. She brushed it into an order of semblance that it resisted.

  His face quieted, but didn’t wholly clear. Even in sleep there was a hint of the frown of concentration that he wore so easily when awake.

  She rested her other hand lightly on his shoulder and looked back up at the Chinook which had her centered in its sights. She couldn’t wait to fly it.

  To the finally silent hangar, still now from their inspections and from Pete’s restless energy, Danielle whispered her answer to The Rapier’s question regarding her smile and laugh. It didn’t begin to cover what she was feeling, but it was the best she’d been able to find.

  “It’s been a good day.”

  # # #

  Pete woke with his cheek warm on a woman’s leg. There was no mistaking the texture, even through a flightsuit. Definitely a female’s thigh.

  He opened his eyes to the dim light of his new command’s hangar. That thought was immediately clear…the woman’s thigh was less so.

  The concrete pressed unyielding against his left side, but he’d certainly slept in worse circumstances. Inches from his nose a sand-colored cotton t-shirt stretched tight across a very flat stomach and one of the nicest breasts he’d ever seen. He looked a little further afield, make that two of the nicest—

  He must have jolted in his surprise, for Danielle woke up and looked down at him.

  Danielle. He’d—Shit!

  Her hair slid forward and masked her face in shadow, even this close he couldn’t read her expression in the failing daylight. But he could feel one hand resting lightly on his shoulder and the other tangled in his hair.

  He tried to remember the last thing he’d done.

  And then he did and wished he hadn’t.

  Please tell him that he hadn’t gone and…jackass. No games. He’d just kissed an inferior officer under his command. That it had been mutual didn’t make it any more right.

  The last days had blurred together…and that was another lame-ass excuse.

  “How long have I been asleep?” Smooth Pete. Real damn smooth! Way to sweet talk someone who…who you really shouldn’t be trying to sweet talk in the first place.

  “Long enough for my leg to be completely numb.”

  “Oh, sorry,” he pushed upright and she hissed as blood flowed back into her leg.

  She complained and twitched as he massaged it for her.

  That set them both to laughing and he remembered her smile in the middle of last night’s kiss.

  That led him to remembering the kiss itself and the sensual pull of her lips.

  And using the excuse that he wasn’t really awake yet, he was kissing that smile again. This wasn’t some timid little testing like last night.

  This time there was a roaring flash of heat that ignited deep within him and burned engine hot.

  He knelt over both her legs and leaned down to drive their mouths together. He fisted his hand in her hair. He did it again and again to relish the feel of its soft depths slipping through his fingers.

  His heart pounded with his need to have this woman, to take her beneath him. Here. Now!

  The pounding increased and again Danielle’s kiss shifted from welcome, to smile, and finally to silent laugh.

  “What?” he demanded. This time he’d get an answer about why his kiss was so damn funny to her. She should be swooning, not laughing at him.

  Danielle nodded toward the entry door to the hangar.

  That’s when Pete understood that the need pulsing through him wasn’t the only source of the pounding. The first of the crew had arrived and, not having the entry keypad code, were pounding on the door to get someone’s attention.

  His attention.

  But his attention, and his hand, were still lost in the texture of Danielle’s magnificent hair. And his other hand was well on its way to ripping loose her t-shirt all on its own.

  “Shit! Sorry. I’m so sorry,” he pulled his hand out from under her t-shirt and made brushing motions at her hair. It seemed to fall pretty well into place. Mostly. A little.

  Double shit. The woman looked like they’d really just had a long tumble. For a moment he considered ignoring the pounding, but that was even stupider.

  That’s when he noticed that: a) Danielle didn’t look at all upset, and b) her own hands were up under his own t-shirt.

  “Okay, mutual. Still really bad idea.”

  She looked down as she freed her hands and tucked his t-shirt back into the waistband of his trousers. Then she shooed him toward the door.

  He arrived at the door, and glanced back just in time to see her disappear into the Chinook to buy herself a moment.

  Pete blew out a relieved breath that she hadn’t seemed upset. Then he swore that what had just occurred was absolutely not ever going to happen again.

  He opened the door to see that most of the crew was already assembled.

  Pete did his best to nod sagely at their varied gasps of awe at the four stealth helicopters they discovered waiting inside the hangar.

  Moments later, a vision with dark flowing hair and a luminous smile swung into view around the Chinook. N
ever in his life had he seen a woman look even half that delectable and delightful.

  “I know! Can you believe it?” Danielle perfectly covered her still slightly disheveled appearance with her excitement. “Come see! Come see!” She waved the crew forward from where they’d stumbled to a halt just over the threshold.

  Beneath the rising tide of the crew’s enthusiastic chatter he just hoped to god that he’d be able to keep his promise as a commander to never again put Captain Danielle Delacroix’s career at risk again.

  He was never again going to touch her!

  And it was going to kill him.

  Chapter 6

  Colonel McDermott settled in the jump seat close behind the pilots’ seats in the big Chinook.

  “Haven’t seen you in a month, Cass. What are you doing out here? Pentagon boring the shit out of you?” Pete knew he sounded more irritable than he felt. Or perhaps not. He was sick near to death with the training.

  Not that it was wasted, the stealth aircraft had no operational differences from their more normal brethren, except that the wheels were retractable in flight, removing even that tiny bit of radar signature. The visual imaging systems were such an improvement over the standard that they were simplicity to adapt to.

  But the helo’s handling characteristics were quite different. Not enough to matter to most pilots, a world apart for a SOAR pilot. Reaction times had to be reworked, performance envelopes investigated and integrated into skill sets.

  Even if he’d been stupid enough to break his self-promise not to touch Danielle, there wouldn’t have been a chance. Over the last month, Pete and Danielle had driven themselves and their team until the behavior characteristics of the stealth-modified birds were wholly incorporated into their nervous systems.

  They’d flown tortuous courses throughout the lowlands over most of the East Coast, missions at the top of the Idaho Rockies, and spent the last week fighting war games back and forth across the Nevada Testing and Training Range.

  The NTTR was five thousand square miles of convoluted desert terrain broken by deep canyons and abrupt mountains. With elevations ranging from four to ten thousand feet, they attacked various targets: mountain strongholds, anti-aircraft emplacements, simulated industrial and railroad targets, even mocked up cities.