Explosive Alliance (9 page)

"Ah, I get it." Mako snagged the lighter from his polishing kit and flicked once, twice, again until a flame shot free. Slowly he glided it along the top to heighten the sheen. "Doctors Without Borders for cows."

"Pretty much. Beats hanging out watching my nose hairs grow while we wait for those shipped parts to arrive."

The flame snaked a blue path over the boot, reminding him of fire from the engine when he'd crash-landed in Rubistan. Fire that could have engulfed them after the bird strike. Fire that
did
engulf him every time he looked at Paige Haugen.

And that was the core of his frustration.

Yeah, he enjoyed women, but he was always in control, like with his music or in the plane. He called the shots right up to the time either he walked or they did. He didn't like one damned bit how much he'd wanted to stay with her—in a dog kennel for crying out loud—just to hear the Dakota melody of her voice while mosquitoes chewed his hide.

Mako set aside the boot and lighter. "If she's just an old friend, how come you didn't give her a tour of our plane?"

"Because I knew you'd smirk just like you're doing right now."

Laughing low, Mako scooped up his shining kit and boots. "Fair enough. And on that note, I'm ready to rack. See ya in the morning, sir."

Snagging his guitar by the neck, Bo stood. He meant to stride right past and stow his guitar in his room.

So why was he stopped outside Tag's door? The guy was busy talking with his wife, Rena, about their new baby, anyway.

Bo started to move on. Tag held up a hand signaling for him to wait.

Swinging his legs to the side of the bed as he sat up, Tag waved Bo in while still talking on the phone.

"Hey, babe, it's time for me to head over to the gym. I'll call tomorrow and let you know details of how they're getting the colonel and me home on Monday."

Tag smiled at whatever she said in response. "Great. Yeah, babe, love you, too."

And the guy did. No question, Tag and Rena Price had something special, that sort of something Bo had thought maybe he'd find some day.

Yet even rock-solid Tag had experienced marital troubles a year ago. The loadmaster had been in the process of a divorce at the time of their shoot down in Rubistan. After their release and return, a surprise pregnancy—and the threat of Kurt Haugen—had brought Tag and his wife back together again.

Bo waited in the open doorway. He and Tag shared some hellish memories, bonding crap that took them past normal officer and enlisted boundaries. Tag had been there for him right after the shoot down and during their capture. The older man had taken a boot to the ribs to deflect more blows after Bo's hands were broken.

He didn't know what he expected to gain from talking to Tag now. Some fatherly advice maybe? About what? He wasn't even sure.

"You okay?" Tag set the phone on the bedside table.

Was he referring to the emergency landing? Or Paige Haugen? Damn but Tag had a way of fishing with those short questions that left the field wide-open for interpretation.

"Just hanging out, nothing to do. I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

Duh. Because he couldn't stop thinking about how Kurt Haugen had held them all hostage in Tag's home until Tag had risked tackling the man while Bo shielded Tag's pregnant wife.

Haugen had hoped to find information about military drug-surveillance flights to offer his mob boss in exchange for a ticket out of organized crime and safe passage to another country. The guy had been obsessed with starting a new life with his wife and daughter, had even discussed how he would trick them into leaving under the guise of a "surprise" vacation.

His fists clenched at how close Paige had come to a fugitive lifestyle, or an arrest in a foreign country where she could have been left to rot in a hellhole cell. He knew firsthand how much hellhole cells sucked. Relaxing his fists, he worked his wrist back and forth, thankful for the modern technology of surgically inserted metal pins and screws.

"So you're all right." Tag shoved a hand through his salt-and-pepper buzz cut. "Kudos to you then, my friend, because seeing that blast from the past on the flight line had me racing for the phone last night to hear my wife's voice and make sure she's okay. Crazy, huh?"

"Nah, not at all." He slumped against the door frame, one tennis shoe up and flat against the molding.

"Exactly my point. So, I'll say it again. You okay?"

"I'm fine enough. Haugen deserved to go to jail. We weren't the ones who killed him." Ah, hell, and there was a part of his problem, because he'd wanted to dig Haugen up and kill him again, the father of that somber-eyed little girl. "Even if he'd died that day in the takedown instead of later in jail, we would have been justified. He held a pregnant woman hostage, for crying out loud." Tag, Bo and Tag's son, as well.

Tag's jaw flexed. Hard. "Yes, he did."

Logical, but still hard as hell to reconcile. "A crime's a crime, but somehow it feels worse when women and kids are hurt."

Tag's wife. Their baby.

Kirstie.

Paige.

Damn. His eyes fell away to Tag's latest paperback splayed open on the bed. "Why the hell do I feel so responsible for her and her kid?"

Tag didn't bother asking what woman and which kid. He didn't say anything at all, his knack with silence always prompting more words than a dozen questions.

"I could be spending the next couple of weeks on easy duty baby-sitting the plane while Mako finishes his repairs. Instead I'm going to be humping my butt around in a beat-up Cessna making house calls on sick cows."

Tag studied his clasped hands for long silent moments before words finally rumbled up. "My wife says one of the fundamental reasons for arguments between men and women is that sometimes women just want to vent. But when men hear about a problem, we start listing ways to fix it and cut short her rant."

"Yeah, so?"

"A woman doesn't necessarily want fixing. Sometimes she just wants to vent so she feels better about what can't be changed."

"And that helps me how?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

"Good God, now you really sound like your counselor wife." He thought of all those mandatory psych evals he and the rest of the crew had been required to attend after the shoot down. Damn but he resented anyone getting too close, crawling inside his head and making him discuss crap that didn't matter anymore.

Tag's weathered face creased with a slow grin. "Counselor? Me? You're lucky I can't punch an officer,
sir."

Bo let his return smile answer. "You chiefs have a helluva way of making that sir sound like a put-down."

"Hey, at least I don't have to worry about you sniffing after my daughter, Nikki."

"Jesus, Tag, I was just helping her out with some advice on university courses."

"Just so it stays that way."

"Yeah, yeah, we all hear you loud and clear around the squadron. No crewdogs for your baby girl."

They shared a laugh at the familiar routine of razzing.

Sure, he didn't have any answers. But at least he now knew he wasn't a nutcase for wanting to fix things that weren't his concern. But hadn't he already made progress? He'd taken care of her pilot problem and alerted her brother about the stranger encounter at the air show. That should have brought satisfaction, resolution.

It didn't.

Tag's words shuffled around in Bo's head about men searching for ways to act. There were still problems. She needed more than a temporary pilot. Any idiot would recognize that, and he liked to think he was at least slightly above idiot level. Logic told him the rage he felt must be nothing compared to what roared inside of her with no place to go.

She needed relief from that pain.

He couldn't erase the heartbreak her scumbag husband had brought, but he had a talent for making women laugh. If ever he'd seen a woman in need of laughter, it was Paige Haugen. So he would play it laid-back, tease a smile from her, lighten her load until he pinpointed the rest of the problem. Damn straight. He'd come up with a solid transitional plan.

Not a convenient excuse to play with a flame hotter than any shooting out of Mako's lighter.

Sipping flaming-hot coffee from her travel mug, Paige stared out at the Cessna wing slicing low-lying clouds in a morning sky while Bo piloted beside her. Okay, so she was actually checking out his reflection in the window with her new glasses, but hey, she was being covert and cool about it. His left hand on the yoke, his right, rested on the throttle. The steering yoke in front of her mirrored his movements until it somehow seemed he sat in her seat, as well. What a strange thought she'd never entertained when Seth flew—or that awful substitute pilot who'd pitched an unholy fit over being given the heave-ho.

Radio chatter echoed from the headsets they both wore even though they could talk across the console over the low drone of the engine. The man was in complete command here among the dials, controls and clouds. His self-assurance inspired confidence that she could drink her coffee without fear of scalding.

Chicory-scented steam wafted from her mug up to fog the new glasses she'd bought Sunday at the mall.

She set aside her mug and tugged the thin gold frames down and off, a more conservative choice than the funky retro glasses she'd bought in defiance right after she arrived in Minot. The glasses would offer a constant reminder that she needed to squelch impulses brought on by this man.

Hitching up the edge of her T-shirt, she swiped washed-soft cotton along the condensation. Coffee, a good night's sleep and a new clear vision of the world—manna for her soul. Sure the coffee stung her raw stomach, but the caffeine and warmth stole through her with a much-needed boost. The weekend attraction must have been a fluke.

A tingle of awareness prickled to life, and she paused cleaning her lenses. Her gaze skated left and...yep.

Bo was watching her. Actually, he was watching her clean her glasses, which hitched her T-shirt up to bare a band of skin.

She dropped her shirt and jammed her glasses back on her face. Coffee. Now.

Ahhh.
She gripped the mug and glued her gaze outside.

Talk about having her head in the clouds. Jeez. He was just a man, for Pete's sake. The whole dry-lightning melodrama moment from Friday and Saturday must be just that. Melodrama, not reality.

She'd been a victim of over emotionalism during a vulnerable moment brought on from visiting the base.

There could be no other explanation for why sitting in a stinky dog kennel with a man seemed bittersweetly romantic.

Paige checked her watch again. Four minutes since takeoff. Chuck Anderson's farm was only a twenty-minute ride by plane, cutting the travel time in more than half by soaring straight rather than contending with slow-moving farm machinery blocking bumpy and narrow roadways. And every minute counted for the horse hit by a car. Luckily she was qualified to take this call since her brother was already out. . Bo's legs flexed inside snug jeans as his tennis-shoe-clad feet rested on the rudder pedals.

How come she'd never noticed the tight confines inside this plane before? She could smell the leather of his brown aviator jacket worn with jeans and a white T-shirt, transforming him into something that could have been straight out of
Top Gun.

Of course, he was probably too young to remember that movie since he would have been about ten or eleven at the time. She'd seen it on a high school date. Yet watching Bo pilot the plane through the low-lying clouds with such confidence, she began to question her guess on his age, even knowing his recent promotion to captain meant he was likely less than thirty.

"How old are you?" The words tumbled out of her mouth ahead of rational restraint.

"Twenty-seven." He cut a quick look her way, a telling glance with a slight smile that acknowledged there was really only one reason she would ask.

"I'm thirty-three." Only a month away from thirty-four, actually, her conscience prodded her. She tipped the travel mug for another sip.

"Guess that means you're at your sexual peak."

She scalded her tongue and throat with a choked gulp. "I can't believe you said that. Are you always this

—"

"Blunt?"

"Audacious."

"Audacious? Hell, no. That's a sissy word."

"Fine, then. No sissy words for the big warrior man." Even while she struggled to be somber, laughter tickled her aching stomach. "Let me rephrase to more manly terms. Are you always this frank?"

He tossed her a laid-back grin. "Nah. I usually try for more charm, but you looked so darn prickly, I couldn't resist teasing a smile out of you."

Pressing back into the leather bucket seat, she wrapped her hands around the warmth of her cup, still stunned and even more tempted to laugh. "Well, please try to contain yourself next time."

"There you go being prickly again." He thumped his forehead. "Better put down your coffee because I can already feel the urge to say something frank like—"

"Bo!"

"—how it's a damn shame
I'm
too old for
you
since I'm a good seven years past my sexual prime." He held up a forestalling hand. "If we were to have a relationship at all. Which I'm totally clear that you aren't interested in with me, so the whole subject is just on a theoretical level. I'm only talking about basic biology. Surely you're at ease with physiological discussions, given your medical background."

Past his prime? Her eyes snapped right to his muscled thighs, broad chest with shoulders filling leather to perfection. Gulp. He looked mighty toned to her, fit enough to more than keep up during—

She brought her mug to her mouth and studied the wing again only to find the cerulean sky reminded her of his eyes. "Basic biology, huh? Interesting discussion you've chosen for today."

"Hey, I wasn't the one who asked about ages." His face blanked with an innocence so at odds with the fallen-angel twinkle in his eyes that she had to laugh again, which encouraged the glint even brighter. "I've always thought it was one of nature's greatest jokes, that men and women peak at different times.