Читать книгу Taking Cover - Catherine Mann - Страница 8

Two hundred twenty-three. Two hundred twenty-four.

Tanner counted the tan cinderblocks in the wall for the eleventh time that morning. Not much else to do since he couldn’t move. His reach for the telephone fifteen minutes ago had left him cursing—and shaking.

He cut his gaze toward the clock, not risking more than half a head turn.

The time—8:30 a.m.—glowed from the clock in the dim room, the only other light slanting through a slight part in the curtains.

He sure hoped Cutter had gone on call at eight.

After waking and realizing he couldn’t haul his sorry butt out of bed, Tanner had shouted for Lance in the next VOQ—Visiting Officer’s Quarter. Their rooms, connected by a bath, were close enough that Lance would have heard had he been around. No luck. The telephone call to the clinic had been a last-ditch resort.

Where was Cutter? Didn’t the guy ever check his messages?

Tanner hiked the polyester bedspread over his bare chest. Even the small movement hurt like a son of a gun. How long before it let up? Lying around left him with too much time to think. He preferred action, needed to be back out on the flight line.

The flight line.

Images of Kathleen O’Connell looking mad enough to chew rivets blindsided Tanner when he didn’t have any chance or the physical capability of ducking.

Had he actually touched her?

Awash in postbattle adrenaline, he’d found her fire stirred his, as well. With a will of its own, his hand had swiped that silky strand of hair away from her face.

Surely the impulse was only combat aftermath, emotions running high. He didn’t think of her that way.

But he had before.

Tanner’s head dug back in his pillow as if he might somehow dodge memories he couldn’t suppress. His first day at the Air Force Academy, he’d seen Kathleen walking across the parade ground, vibrant, toned and radiating a confidence that had found an answer within him. Every hormone in his eighteen-year-old body had roared to life.

Until he’d noticed she wore a beret with her uniform, the distinguishing symbol of an upperclassman.

Relationships between upperclassmen and freshmen-doolies were forbidden. Grounds for expulsion. And he wasn’t throwing away his career for anyone.

Maybe later, he’d thought….

Later she’d become his training officer and his own personal ticket to hell. Training officers were universally resented by the doolies they hammered into Academy material.

Tanner had stuffed his hormones into his footlocker and concentrated on getting through his freshman year. Becoming a pilot meant everything to him, and he wouldn’t risk it.

Something that hadn’t changed in twelve years.

Footsteps echoed in the hall. Closer. With a light tread that launched a wave of foreboding in Tanner. Unless Cutter had lost about seventy pounds and developed a decided glide to his walk, those footsteps didn’t belong to him.

Two quick raps sounded on the door.

Foreboding death-spiraled into certainty. “Yeah. Come in.”

The door swung wide, revealing Kathleen O’Connell.

His libido crashed and burned. And damn, but it was one hell of a plunge.

She lounged against the door frame, wearing lime-green scrubs, instead of her regular forest-green flight suit. Cotton hugged gentle curves her bulky uniform usually disguised. Her leather flight jacket hung loose as she hooked a hand on one shapely hip. “Well, good morning, hotshot. How’s the back?”

Did she have to sound so chipper, look so hot? Small but fit, her tight body tugged his gaze into a slow glide he didn’t have the reserves to resist. She came by those taut muscles honestly. More than once over the past year, the two of them had pitted themselves against each other doing sit-ups during physical training.

A stethoscope dangled around her neck, nestling between breasts that were as understated and damned irresistible as the rest of her. Apparently, the attraction hadn’t left after all, only slipping out of formation while waiting to rejoin without warning.

Time to pull out the old footlocker and replace the padlock on his hormones.

A strange thought taunted. Could their arguments have been a way of rechanneling his lust? Damn it all. “Figures you would be a morning person.”

Kathleen’s wicked smile creased her blue cat eyes. “And with next to no sleep. Imagine that? Come on. Hop up and let’s go to breakfast. What? Having a little trouble moving are we? Hmmm.” She pressed a slim finger against her pursed lips. “Guess that’s to be expected when someone ignores his doctor’s advice. Word around the water cooler has it that you even skipped out on your last chiropractor appointment.”

Tanner tapped precious energy reserves to tuck his good arm behind his head casually. “What are you gonna do, bludgeon me with your pocket edition UCMJ manual?”

“My, we’re cranky today. Just think, you could have been languishing in a Demerol daze as we speak. But, nope. You had to play the tough guy.”

“Doc, your bedside manner sucks.”

Her smile tightened. “Chalk it up to sleep deprivation. Two house calls in less than twelve hours qualifies as more TLC than you’re issued, soldier. In the civilian world I could have financed a summer home with the overtime you’re demanding.”

He might as well have been a freshman again, pumping push-ups over some infraction. She wasn’t going to cut him any slack. “And you’ve opted to take it out of my hide, instead.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” She smoothed her already immaculate hair. No sneaky strands slipping loose today, her red mane was swept back into her traditional French braid with the short tail secured under.

Tanner frowned. When had he started noticing how she styled her hair? She’d kept it cropped at the Academy, he remembered that much. Until he’d seen it loose on the flight line, he hadn’t given much thought to its longer length hidden inside that braid.

Now he couldn’t think of anything but wild red strands wind-whipped around her composed face.

Kathleen uncrossed her feet and flicked on the overhead light. “While the conversation is positively stimulating, I’ve got other patients to see. Ones who want to get well. Sit up and let’s take a look.”

“Might as well get it over with.” Contracting his stomach muscles toppled a domino effect to his back that left Tanner straining not to whimper like a kid. And now he couldn’t get his arm from behind his head.

“Bennett?” Compassion darkened her blue eyes. “You can’t sit up, can you?”

He offered silence and no movement as his answer, all the concession his pride would allow. As much as he wanted to snap at her, he couldn’t. His innate sense of fair play insisted he’d brought this on himself.

“Time to call for a stretcher.” She turned on her heel, her tennis shoes squeaking against the tile.

“No!” Tanner arched up. And promptly fell back, his hoarse groan echoing.

Kathleen closed the space to the bed in three quick steps. “Deep breaths. Look at me, Bennett. Focus and breathe until it passes. Try to relax or you’ll make it worse. No need to fight everything in this world, hotshot. There you go, in and out. Breathe.”

Her voice talked him down, like flying by instinct when the instruments were shot and he couldn’t see beyond the clouds. He locked on the timbre of her throaty voice and let it work through the fog of agony.

“Better?”

“Yes.” He offered the clipped word rather than risk even a nod.

She braced her hand on the headboard and sighed. “I’m not going to be able to talk you into a stretcher, am I?”

“No.”

“Even if I tell you walking out of here could delay your recovery?”

Man, she fought dirty. Lose air time or lose face. Hell or Hades. Same thing.

Almost.

He could grit his way through recovery. Regaining face…

Tanner opened his eyes, wasn’t sure when he’d closed them, and allowed himself to gaze straight up into her blue eyes, eyes as clear as an ocean sky. “I can’t roll out of here on a stretcher, Doc. I have to fly with these guys again. Trust in the air is everything, could make the difference in a split decision that costs somebody’s life.” Frustration snapped his restraint. “O’Connell, come on….”

“Okay.”

Shock immobilized him as much as his back. “What?”

“If we can haul you out of this bed, and if you can put one foot in front of the other, I’ll allow you to walk out of here under your own power. No doubt that flyer ego can manage more miracles than modern medicine.”

He searched for sarcasm in her words, in her eyes.

Better not look at her eyes.

Back to her voice. Not a note of sarcasm, just resigned logic.

“Thank you.” Gratitude mixed with respect. He understood how difficult backing down could be.

Then he realized he owed her, an uncomfortable thought at best. He would have shrugged it off if he could lift his shoulders. He joked instead, a safe barrier against free-falling into her eyes. “Do you think we could act like I’ve got some shrapnel in my butt? It would make for better stories around the Officer’s Club.”

Her laugh, low, throaty and her one unreserved trait, filled his senses. Like a drag of one hundred percent oxygen from his face mask, it invigorated him, left him slightly dizzy.

She chuckled again, dipping her head until he could see every tuck of her braid. Each perfectly spaced weave called to his fingers. He wanted to untwine that restrained fire until it poured over his hands.

Silken fire. He wanted it with a pulsing force that threatened stirrings within him farther south.

And he didn’t have anything more than a thin bedspread between his naked body and total exposure.

Kathleen gazed down at the 238 pounds of bare-chested man under the rose-colored spread and wondered if she would ever understand Tanner Bennett. Or her own reaction to him.

It went against every principle ingrained in her to let him walk out under his own compromised power. She told herself it was part of treating the ego as well as the man. Keeping the big picture in mind. A really big picture.

But she knew that wasn’t her real reason.

She kept remembering the Academy doolie. She’d given him hell as his training officer. No sports jock would warrant special treatment from her, just as she accepted no special treatment for being a woman.

He’d never caved.

Even if she didn’t agree with his tactics, she had to admire his warrior spirit. To crush that would be to the detriment of the Air Force.

So her decision was for the Air Force. Right? Not because he looked up at her with those sapphire eyes in which mingled determination and boyish charm.

She extended her hand. “Maybe you can try sitting now.”

“Sure.” He waved away her hand and inched up on his elbows, paling to match the bleached sheets.

“If you can.”

“Of course I can.”

More spirit than sense.

“Come on, Bennett. You need help getting up. There’s nothing wrong with admitting it’s too hard. Here, let me give you a hand.” She reached for his arm.

He pressed back into his pillow. “Doc!”

“What?”

Tanner imprisoned her wrist. “I don’t think you want to go there.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t have anything on.”

His bare chest suddenly looked all the more exposed, sporting nothing more than his dog tags and a medal nestled in a dusting of golden hair.

“Nothing?” Her wrist screamed with awareness of skin-to-skin contact.

“’Fraid not.”

Kathleen tugged her arm free and smoothed her braid, willing her composure to follow suit. “Oh. Well, I’m a doctor, your doctor. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before in your flight physical.”

“Not like this you haven’t.”

Her hand paused along the back of her head. “Pardon me?”

“Doc. I’m a man. It’s morning.”

She could feel the color drain from her face until she, as well, no doubt now matched the sheets. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

Kathleen looked at the television, the minifridge, the cinderblock walls, anything to keep her gaze from gravitating to where it had no business going. Finally she simply spun on her heel before gravity had its way and her gaze fell straight down.

“Okay, Bennett. Let’s find you some sweats.” She faced the dresser, rather than the man with a chest as broad as one. “Which drawer?”

“Top shelf of the closet.”

Kathleen yanked open the wardrobe door. The musky scent of leather and cedar wafted straight out and into her before she could untangle her thoughts enough to ignore it. His flight suit and jacket dangled from a hook inside the door like a ghostly shadow of the man. Her hand drifted to caress the butter-soft jacket, well-worn and carrying perhaps the slightest hint of his warmth.

What was it about Tanner Bennett? With any other flyer, she would have shrugged the whole thing off while helping him into his boxers.

Not with Bennett. All she could think about was his big, naked body under that blanket, and her lack of professionalism infuriated her.

She couldn’t have thoughts like this.

Yanking her hand away, she arched up on her toes to reach, searching by touch since she couldn’t see into the top shelf. She would pull it together, damn it, get him dressed and turn his case over to Cutter.

And if Cutter let Tanner slide?

Her hands hesitated in their quest. What if Tanner played the friendship card, enabling him to plow back out into combat before he was ready? Her fingers clutched a pair of sweatpants.

Flashes of the battle damage from Tanner’s aircraft flashed through her mind—twisted metal. Her medical as well as safety training had stockpiled too many graphic images of wreckage.

Her ex-husband had expected strings pulled. Being married to a flight surgeon entitled him to special treatment, didn’t it? Her ex had played that trump card with one of her workmates, and it had almost cost him his life. Thank God, he’d flown an ejection-seat aircraft.

Kathleen knew what she had to do. She understood her job, and no hormonal insanity on her part would interfere with performing her duty for the flyer entrusted into her care.

She yanked free a pair of oversize gray sweatpants and shook them out in front of her as she spun to face Tanner. “Okay, hotshot. Let’s get you suited up.”

One hundred forty-two.

There were one hundred forty-two ceiling tiles in his sparse infirmary room. Tanner squinted. Or were there a hundred forty-three? The walls wobbled through his mellow haze of drugs.

Not mellow enough to iron out his irritation.

Before, in his VOQ room, Kathleen O’Connell had shed her compassion like unwanted cargo. With cool professionalism she’d helped him dress beneath the privacy of the blanket. He might as well have been a eunuch for all the effect the awkward situation had on her.

Then she’d grounded his sorry, sweatpants-clad butt and parked him in the infirmary—indefinitely. If he had to watch one more minute of the Armed Forces Television Services, his head would explode.

He tried not to think about his crew flying without him. What if the next mission carried the golden BB, the missile that took them down when he wasn’t there? How the hell would he live with wondering if he could have prevented it? Not more than a couple of hours ago, the television had announced a C-17 crash out in California. If something like that could happen on a routine mission…

The television show changed to a service announcement full of holiday cheer. “Jingle Bells” or maybe “Silver Bells” swelled into the room. His twin sister had loved carols—

Tanner silenced the television with a thumb jab to the remote.

Definitely too much time to think.

Losing a family member sucked no matter what. Losing that person during the holidays carried an extra burden. The anniversary of her death never slid by without notice.

Tara had been Christmas shopping at the mall, for crying out loud. How could he ever forget that? They’d always gone gift hunting together in the past since his job had been to look out for her.

That Christmas he’d been at the Academy.

And some slime in search of a lone female had lurked, waiting in the back seat of Tara’s car. The bastard had kidnapped her. Beaten her. Raped her. Then thrown her unconscious body into a snowbank where she’d died. Alone.

Tanner flung aside the remote, welcoming the stab of pain from the violent gesture. Damn drugs had turned him morbid, lowered his defenses until he couldn’t halt the flood of memories.

The cops had found Tara’s car later, her packages still in the trunk. She’d bought her twin brother a St. Joseph’s medal.

Tanner gripped the silver disk around his neck and steadied his breathing. He’d learned a bitter lesson that Christmas—never, never leave your wingman.

A solid knock on the door pulled Tanner back to the present, and he embraced the distraction. He wouldn’t have even minded seeing his hard-hearted doctor. “Yeah. Come in.”

The door swung open and Major Grayson “Cutter” Clark strode through, wearing a flight suit and a cocky grin. “Hey, pal. Check out the nifty nightie they issued you.”

Tanner shifted in the cotton hospital gown. Damn thing didn’t fit right anyway. “About time you decided to drop in. Where were you when I needed you, bud?”

“Sorry, but I wasn’t on call. Only just now heard the news over at the clinic. I thought for sure O’Connell would have you in traction. Too bad. I had the big piñata joke all ready to go.”

Tanner snorted, then winced. He could always count on crew dog camaraderie to lighten his mood. “Don’t make me laugh.”

“Builds character.” Cutter snagged the clipboard from the foot of Tanner’s bed. He flipped pages. “Hmmm. Good stuff she’s got you on. Demerol, no less. You must have wrecked yourself to be hurting through all this.”

Tanner grunted. “A day off my feet and I’ll be fine.”

“Then you and O’Connell can tangle it up again.”

Thoughts of her dressing him slid right through that Demerol haze. “What do you mean?”

“Your set-to on the flight line last night is all the talk around the briefing room.”

“Great.”

Cutter sank into a chair, hooked his boot over one knee and dropped the chart to rest on his leg. “Don’t get your boxers in a twist. Nobody expected anything different from the two of you when O’Connell showed.”

“What do you mean?”

A brow shot right toward Cutter’s dark hairline. “You’re yanking my chain, right? Your arguments are legendary. Tag once suggested tying you two together, gladiator-style, and just tossing you into the arena to have it out. Two walk in. One walks out. Colonel Dawson giving that signature thumbs-up and thumbs-down of his.”

Laughter stirred in Tanner’s chest, begging to be set free even though he knew it would drop-kick him right between the shoulder blades.

“Stop! No more jokes.” A chuckle sneaked through anyway, punting his muscles as predicted until he groaned. “Did she send you in here to torture me so I would laugh myself into traction?”

“Sorry.” Cutter smirked as he resumed flipping chart pages.

Tanner sagged back on his pillow. The gladiator image began to take on an odd fantasy appeal in his drug-impaired mind. At least the drugs offered a convenient excuse. Damn, but Kathleen would have made a magnificent warrior goddess. That woman never needed anyone.

The ultimate loner. Tanner’s muscles tightened in response. That loner mind-set proved a threat to the crew mentality essential to his Air Force doctrine. The Air Force, the team spirit, was everything to him.

Never leave your wingman.

Tanner raised the bed higher, ignoring even thoughts of discomfort. “Can’t you do something about this? Get me outa here and back in action with my crew. Man, you’re one of us. You have to know how crazy this is making me.”

While all flight surgeons specialized in treating flyers and their families, a handful of those doctors were also flyers themselves. Cutter being one of the few. Tanner couldn’t help but hope that might nudge the scales in his favor. “Well?”

“Sorry. Can’t help you, my friend. I’ve seen your chart. I know your history. O’Connell’s dead-on with her diagnosis, and there’s no mistaking her notations.”

“Figures I lucked into the one doctor on the planet with perfect penmanship.” Time to invest in an Armed Forces Television schedule.

“Yeah, you are lucky. Lucky she didn’t string you up like a piñata. We flight docs don’t take well to having our orders disregarded. If I were you, pal, I would start thinking up an apology.”

“The piñata sounds less painful.” Deep down, he knew he owed her better than that. She’d kept him in the game years ago when he’d wanted to quit.

“Kick back, pal. Take care of yourself. You were only weeks away from leaving your crew, anyway. You should be up to speed in time to upgrade.”

Should be. The words didn’t comfort Tanner any more than the Demerol.

What if the grounding became permanent? What would he do without his wings? His mother swore his first word had been plane. While other kids drew puppies and trees, he’d already perfected his own depiction of Captain Happy Plane. “Six weeks is a long time in a war. If something happens and I’m not there…”

Cutter closed the chart. “I hear you, and I understand what you’re feeling. But there’s nothing I can do.”

Last down and his field goal had fallen short. Tanner scrambled to salvage what he could for the rest of his team. “Look out for Lance. Okay? Make sure he gets a solid copilot.”

Cutter stilled. “Is there something I should know about?”

“Nothing specific. He’s just not…up to speed. He and Julia are having trouble again. Deployments and stress messing with another Air Force marriage—” Tanner stopped short. Hell of a thing to say to a guy only weeks away from the altar. “Oh, hey, sorry, bud.”

“No sweat. Lori and I know what we’re up against. Nobody said Air Force life was easy on the family. It’s going to be work.” A full-out smile creased all the way to his eyes. “She’s worth it.”

Tanner gave his friend an answering smile. “Congratulations.”

Cutter nodded, then thunked the bed rail with Tanner’s chart. “Now get well. Lori’ll kill me if my best man falls on his face halfway through the ceremony. Look on the bright side. You won’t have to haul yourself across the Atlantic on a civilian flight to make the wedding. You can head back on the tanker with me next week.”

“Great. Nothing like sitting in the back seat.” Tanner’s hands already itched to be in control.

From the day he’d drawn that first airplane, he’d known he would be a pilot. Forget he was a poor kid working two after-school jobs to help support his single mom and twin sister. Course set, he’d achieved his goals, Air Force Academy, pilot. He’d never wavered in his focus. Except for the night he’d heard his sister died.

The night he’d kissed Kathleen O’Connell.