The Complete Mackenzie Collection (28 page)

“I can only tolerate nine for that long. And he was making sense when he talked! I’m telling you, he’s a genetic freak.”

“Gawdamighty, think what he must’ve been like ten years ago.”

“About the same as now,” Major Deale said.

The next series of tests involved the laser targeting, and Caroline edged her way closer to the monitors. She felt oddly shaky inside, and she tried to gather her thoughts. When she had been chosen to replace Walton on the test site, she had done some quick research on jet aircraft, and that, coupled with her general technical knowledge, told her exactly how dangerous those maneuvers had been. He could have lost control of the aircraft at such extreme angles of attack, or he could have blacked out pulling so many Gs and not regained consciousness in time to keep from drilling the aircraft nose-first into the desert floor. The reactions of the other pilots told their own tale.

Adrian slipped in front of her, effectively blocking her view, since he was so much taller. Caroline brought her mind back to the current situation. She had no doubt he had done it deliberately, and if she let him get away with it he would only do something worse the next time. “Excuse me, Adrian,” she said politely. “Since you’re so tall, let me stand in front of you so we both can see.”

Yates looked up and smiled, either not seeing or choosing to ignore the sour expression on Adrian’s face. “Good idea. Step up in front, Caroline.”

The targeting test went well. They were currently sighting in on stationary targets, and all of the components performed within the acceptable range. The data streamed across the screen, each item swiftly checked and noted against the hard-copy lists they all carried.

The four aircraft landed safely, and the atmosphere in the control room suddenly lightened to an almost giddy buzz. The laser team stood around Lieutenant Colonel Picollo and went over the rest results with him. Caroline was initially surprised at his knowledge of the subject, then realized that she shouldn’t be. After all, he and the other pilots had been working on this project for some time; they would have had to be brain-dead not to absorb some of the information. “The colonel may have more questions,” he finally said, “but it looks like we can start testing how well it targets and tracks a moving object now.”

An arm slipped around her waist, and Caroline went rigid. Her head whipped around. Major Deale grinned at her as his arm tightened. Behind him, she could see the other pilots watching and grinning, too. They all looked like posters for a dental convention. Dismay filled her. Damn, it was starting already.

“So, beautiful, where do you want to go for dinner tonight?” the major asked.

“Hands off, Daffy,” came a deceptively mild voice behind them. “Dr. Evans will be with me tonight.”

There was no mistaking the speaker’s identity. Even if she hadn’t recognized those smooth, deep tones, she would have known by the way her heart began pulsing wildly and her lungs suddenly constricted, making it difficult to breathe.

They all turned around at once. Mackenzie was still in his flight suit, helmet under his arm. His black hair was drenched with sweat and plastered to his skull, and his eyes were bloodshot from pulling Gs. His expression was calm and remote as he looked at them.

“I saw her first,” Major Deale protested, but he dropped his arm from around her waist. “Damn it, Breed, you can’t just take one look and decide—”

“Yes I can,” Mackenzie said, then turned to Picollo and began firing questions at him.

The major turned and gave Caroline a slow, considering look, as if he were really seeing her for the first time, and maybe he was. Until then she had been just a reasonably pretty face, a lark, but now he had to look at her as a person. “I’ve never seen Breed do that before, and I’ve known him for fifteen years,” he said thoughtfully.

“I don’t know him at all,” Caroline replied in a tart voice. “I mean, I met him last night. Is he always that autocratic?”

“Breed? Autocratic?” The major pursed his lips.

“Despotic,” Caroline elaborated helpfully. “Dictatorial. Peremptory.”

“Oh,
that
kind of autocratic. You mean, does he make a habit of commandeering a woman’s company for dinner?”

“That narrows it down nicely.”

“Nope. First time. He usually has to beat women off with a stick. They love him to death. It’s the glamour of his profession, you know, the lure of the wild. Women
looove
uniforms, but underneath he’s really dull and boring.”

“Daffy…” The calm voice was both patient and warning.

The major looked over Caroline’s shoulder and broke into a smile. “I was just singing your praises.”

“I heard.”

Mackenzie was right at her elbow, but she didn’t dare glance at him. She had specifically asked him the night before not to single her out in any way, but the very next time she met him he had all but hung a sign around her neck that said “Mackenzie’s Woman.” She struggled to subdue the impulse to sink her fist into his belly. For one thing, violence was seldom the answer to anything. For another, he was the project manager, and it would be a very stupid career move. For yet another, he looked like he was made of tempered steel and it would probably break her hand.

So she did the prudent thing and concentrated on Major Deale. “Daffy? As in duck?”

“No,” Mackenzie said with grim relish. “As in petunia.”

“As in flower child,” added the captain, who had been in the group watching the monitors.

“As in…
blooming idiot,
” several others said in unison.

“Petunia,” Caroline repeated. “Flowers. Daffy Deale. Daffydeale.
Daffodil!
” she finished with a peal of laughter.

The major gave Mackenzie a dirty look. “I used to have a good, macho nickname. Concise. Thought provoking. Provocative. ‘Big.’ That’s a good nickname, isn’t it? Big Deale. It made women think. Was it just a play on my name, or was there a deeper meaning there? Then this…this spoilsport started calling me Daffy, and Petunia, and I got stuck with it.”

Mackenzie smiled. Caroline glimpsed it from the corner of her eye, and the reaction she had been trying to ignore was back in full force. She felt simultaneously hot and cold. Shivers ran up her back, but her skin felt flushed.

“Could you see me in my office in half an hour, Dr. Evans?” the colonel asked now. She hated the way he phrased something as a question when the underlying tone made it an order.

She turned and smiled brightly at him. “If you insist, Colonel.”

His eyes gleamed with recognition of the way she had forced him to make it an outright order, but he didn’t hesitate. “I do.”

“Half an hour, then.”

As she and the others walked back to their own offices, Adrian paused beside her. “Smart move,” he said, his hostility plain. “Snuggle up to the head man and it doesn’t matter if you screw up on the job.”

She kept her eyes straight ahead. “I don’t screw up on the job.” There wasn’t any point in denying that she had any sort of relationship with Mackenzie, so she didn’t waste the effort.

Cal glanced back, saw Adrian walking beside her, and slowed his steps to allow them to come even with him. “The complicated stuff starts with the moving targets, but so far there haven’t been many problems with the program. It’s almost scary how well the tests have gone.”

Adrian walked on ahead without speaking, and Cal whistled softly through his teeth. “He’s not the president of your fan club, is he? When we heard you were going to be the replacement he made some snide remarks, but I didn’t figure it was open warfare. What’s the deal?”

“Personality conflict,” Caroline replied. Trying to place the blame was another pointless exercise.

He looked worried. “We have to function well as a team, or Colonel Mackenzie will have us all replaced, and that won’t look good on our records. They’re under a deadline with these tests. They want something good to show Congress and the media when the vote for funding comes up, and that’s in a few weeks, I think.”

“I can ignore Adrian,” she assured him.

“I hope so. I’ll try to be a buffer when I can, but at some point the two of you will have to work together.”

“When it comes to work, I think both of us are professional enough to put our differences aside. But thanks for the thought.”

Cal nodded, then grinned at her. “So, the good colonel’s interested. He made it pretty plain, didn’t he?”

“Without reason,” she said grimly.

“Maybe from your way of thinking, but not from his.”

It was foolish of her, but she began to look forward to meeting Colonel Mackenzie in the privacy of his office. Project manager be damned, she was going to tell him a few things. At the appointed time, she got directions to the appropriate Quonset hut and marched across the tarmac with anger propelling every stride.

The outer desk was occupied by Sergeant Vrska, a burly young man who looked better suited to a pro-football team than a desk, but he greeted Caroline pleasantly and ushered her into the colonel’s private office.

Mackenzie had showered and changed into his summer service uniform; the blue of the material only intensified the pale blue of his irises. He leaned back in his chair and watched her calmly, as if waiting for her explosion.

Caroline considered exploding, even though he was obviously expecting it. For one thing, it would release a great deal of tension. Losing her temper, however, would only give the advantage to him. There was no invitation to take a seat, but she did so anyway, then crossed her legs and leaned back, her manner making it plain that the opening gambit was his.

“I read your file,” he said. “Impressive credentials. You were always ahead of your age group in school, began college at sixteen, B.S. degree at eighteen, master’s at nineteen, got your doctorate at twenty-one. Boling-Wahl considers you one of the most brilliant physicists in the country, if not the world.”

She didn’t know what she had expected, but a listing of her accomplishments wasn’t it. She gave him a wary look.

“You’ve never dated,” he continued. Alarm shot through her, and she sat up straight, her thoughts darting around as she tried to anticipate where he was going with that line. “Not in high school, which is halfway understandable, considering your age and study load, but not in college or graduate school, either. You’ve never had a boyfriend, period. In short, Dr. Evans, you don’t have any experience at all in handling a rowdy bunch like my men. It upset you when Major Deale put his arm around your waist.”

She didn’t speak, but continued to watch him.

“We all have to work together, because we have a lot to do and not much time left to do it in. I don’t want morale wrecked by hostility, and I don’t want you to suffer behavior from my men that makes you uncomfortable. They’re men, and they live their lives flying on the edge of disaster. They’re wild and arrogant, and they need to blow off steam, typically with booze and women and dumb stunts. One way to keep them from hitting on you is to turn this base into a war zone, with everybody disliking you and not cooperating with you, which won’t get the work done. The other way is to let them think you’re mine.”

She didn’t like his phrasing. “That’s so Neanderthal, it has hair all over it.”

“They won’t bother you then,” he continued, ignoring her comment. “In fact, they’ll be downright protective.”

She stood up and began pacing his office. “I just want to be left alone so I can work. Is that such a big thing to ask? Why should I have to hide behind a false relationship?”

“For one thing, they all assume that you’ve had the normal experiences of a woman your age.”

She scowled at him, not liking the way he’d phrased the sentence. Her “age” indeed! He’d made it sound as if she were almost ready to file for Social Security.

“It won’t occur to them that their actions could actually be frightening to you,” he continued. “There’s also the possibility that some of their teasing won’t be so lighthearted, that a couple of them might make some serious moves on you and could turn ugly when you slap them down. I can’t afford the disruption to the program if I had to bring disciplinary charges against any of my men. I need them, and I need you. Even if they knew you’re so inexperienced, it wouldn’t keep them from trying to get in your pants. If anything, knowing that you’re a virgin would make it worse. The best thing is to mark you out of bounds for them by pretending you’re involved with someone else, and the only man on the base they wouldn’t consider poaching on is me. So from now on, as far as they’re concerned, you’re mine. All you have to do is act halfway friendly to me in front of them, rather than glaring at me as if you’d like to have my head on a platter.”

“With an apple stuffed in your mouth,” she muttered. Then the details of what he’d just said hit her and she stared at him in mortification, her eyes widening and color burning in her cheeks. Damn it, why hadn’t she hooted with laughter when he’d talked about her being a virgin? Now it was too late to deny it.

Joe was still watching her with that calm, remote expression, but his eyes were narrowed and strangely intense.

She couldn’t meet that penetrating gaze. Her embarrassment was almost unbearable. She summoned her last dregs of composure and said, “All right.” Then, for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, she succumbed to the powerful urge to run from him.