Читать книгу The Captain's Baby Bargain - Merline Lovelace, Merline Lovelace - Страница 9

Chapter One

“Helluva bash, Swish.”

Captain Suzanne Hall, call sign Swish, acknowledged the compliment from her former squadron mate by raising the dew-streaked bottle that had come as a “beer-in-a-bag.” She’d never tried this Dutch import before. Then again, that was the whole point of the mystery bag.

“Thanks, Dingo.”

The ex-military cop tipped his beer to hers while keeping an arm looped around the shoulders of the woman next to him. Personally, Swish thought the hold was more possessive than cozy. With good reason. The moment Dingo had walked in with the long-legged, extremely well-endowed showgirl, every male in the place had locked onto her like a heat-seeking missile.

To her credit, Chelsea Howard had ignored the goggle-eyed stares and only occasionally put up a hand to twirl a strand of her rainbow-hued hair. “I’ve never been to a place like this,” she commented as her gaze roamed the fun-and-games indoor-outdoor restaurant.

Neither had Swish. Lively, laughing groups sat elbow-to-elbow at picnic tables or clustered around fire pits or swapped after-work horror stories with coworkers at high tops arranged in conversational squares. Others conducted raucous battles at miniature golf or bean-bag bingo or darts or skeeball. A four-piece band thumped out country-western crossover, carrying over the clink of cutlery and buzz of conversation. In a separate section well away from the happy-hour crowd, families enjoyed the same fun atmosphere. There was a third section, a glass-enclosed, sit-down, linen-on-the-table restaurant for those more serious about eating than fun and games.

What made the whole complex so amazing, though, was the menu! Swish had almost drooled over the pictures online. Appetizers included pretzels and provolone fondue. Homemade chips with a deservedly world-famous onion dip. Cheddar and potato pierogis. BBQ pork belly nachos. Thai chili chicken wings. The dinner menu was equally exotic, but even without the rave reviews from previous guests, Swish had decided The Culinary Dropout was the perfect spot for this year’s Badger Bash.

The annual Bash took place whenever two or more troops who’d served under Colonel Mike Dolan, call sign Badger, happened to be in the same general vicinity at the same time. Since Swish and two additional Badger protégées were currently stationed at Luke Air Force Base, located some miles to the west of Phoenix, they’d opted to hold the reunion here. Eight more of their former squadron mates had flown or driven in from other locales.

And since the once stag-only Bash had expanded to include spouses and/or dates, Swish had insisted on adding some couth to the event. Or, at least, ramping it up from previous years’ venues. Like the New Orleans “gentlemen’s” club where the performers all turned out to be drag queens. And the wolf-and moose-head decorated bar in Minot, North Dakota, that they’d had to shovel their way out of after a late May blizzard. And the off-off-the-Strip Vegas lounge featuring really bad Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra wannabes. Then there was last year’s gathering at the Cactus Café, a smoke-filled dive on Albuquerque’s old Route 66.

Although...even reeking of spilled beer and stale sweat, the Cactus Café had produced at least one unexpectedly happy surprise in the person of the brown-eyed blonde currently sitting across the table from Swish. At last year’s Bash, Alexis Scott had walked smack up to Major Ben Kincaid, call sign Cowboy, and offered him a fat wad of cash to marry her. Ben had turned down the money but accepted the proposal. And damned if he didn’t now act even more stupid about his wife than Dingo did about his showgirl. Of course, the fact that Alex was pregnant might have something to do with Ben’s goofy grin.

“Where do you suppose they came up with the name Culinary Dropout?” Alex mused as she sipped her club soda and soaked up the ambiance.

“No idea.” Swish speared a chunk of lobster from another appetizer, this one served in an old-fashioned glass canning jar. “Maybe the genius who created these succulent delights decided he didn’t need culinary instructors to unleash his artistry.”

“If that’s the case, I agree with him!”

“Yo, Dingo!” The call came from a sandy-haired communications officer seated near the middle of their long table. “You think you can still hit a target?”

“Blindfolded and backwards,” the former military cop turned electronics engineer drawled.

“With a bean bag?”

“Blindfolded and...”

“Ha!” His challenger clambered off his stool. “You’re on!”

Chelsea went with Dingo to cheer him on. Hips rolling, her lithe body a symphony of long-legged grace, she once again popped half the eyes in the place out of their sockets.

Alex noted her best friend’s impact on the crowd with a wry smile. Cowboy with unfeigned admiration. Swish with a sigh.

“I wish I could believe it was the hair,” she murmured.

“Trust me,” Alex answered with a laugh. “It’s not the hair. Or the legs or the boobs or that wicked smile. I roomed with the woman for two years before I left Vegas for Albuquerque. Chelsea is...”

She circled a hand in the air a few times. Grinning, her husband supplied the answer.

“Chelsea.”

“Exactly. And now I have to pee,” she announced, easing off the high-backed stool. “Again. Good thing I didn’t go through all this the first time I became a mother. I might’ve thought twice about this pregnancy business.”

Although that might’ve sounded strange to an outsider, everyone at the table knew Alex had adopted her deceased sister’s stepdaughter. Correction. She and Ben had adopted the seven-year-old. The little girl had subsequently charmed everyone in their wide circle of friends.

“How is Maria?” Swish asked.

“Smart. Stubborn. Independent. Developing an attention span that lasts about five seconds longer than your average flea.” Alex patted the mound of her tummy. “And sooo excited about having a baby sister or brother.”

“You don’t know which yet?”

“Don’t want to.”

The smile she shared with her husband started a slow ache under Swish’s ribs, one she’d been so damned sure she’d finally vanquished.

“That’s half the wonder,” Alex said softly. “Not knowing and being so totally in love with this little somebody anyway.”

The ache lingered as Swish watched Alexis thread her way through the crowd toward the ladies’ room. Ben tracked his wife’s progress with a look that twisted the knife even more.

Dropping her gaze, Swish poked a finger at the little pile of maple-roasted wannabe nuts on the napkin in front of her. The music and laughter and thunk of beanbags hitting targets faded. The strings of lights blurred as her thoughts narrowed, turned inward, and summoned the image of a face she knew as well as her own.

Her husband had looked at her like Ben did his wife. Back when she’d had a husband.

She played with the wannabe nuts as the memories crept in. Of she and Gabe growing up together in the same small Oklahoma town. Of how they’d progressed from fifth-grade puppy love to high school sweethearts to being an inseparable couple through all four years at the University of Oklahoma.

They’d married the day after graduation. The same day they’d been commissioned as Air Force second lieutenants. Then spent the next five years juggling short-notice deployments, assignments to separate bases and increasingly strained long-distance communications. Their divorce had become final three years ago, on their sixth wedding anniversary.

The hole in Swish’s heart was still there but shrinking a little more each day. That’s what she told herself, anyway, until Ben—who’d known them both, had been friends with them both—took advantage of the band’s break between numbers to share a quiet confidence.

“I talked to Gabe last week.”

“Yeah? He call you or did you call him?”

Dammit! She wished the words back as soon as they were out of her mouth. What difference did it make who initiated the conversation? Divorce was hard enough without expecting your friends to take sides and remain loyal to just one of the injured parties.

“He called me.” Ben circled his beer on The Culinary Dropout’s distinctive coaster. When he looked up at her again, his blue eyes were shaded. “To tell me he’s thinking about getting married again.”

Swish swallowed. Deep and hard. Then forced a shrug that felt as though it ripped the cartilage from her shoulder blades. “It’s been three years.”

She dug deeper and managed a smile. “I’m surprised he’s held out this long. Last time I talked to my mom, she said every unattached female under sixty in our hometown was after him. Did Gabe mention which one snagged the prize?”

“No.”

“Oh, well. No matter, I guess.”

Unless it’s Alicia Johnson.

The nasty thought plowed into her head like a runaway troop carrier. Gritting her teeth, Swish jammed on the mental brakes. She had no right to question Gabe’s choice for a second trip down the aisle. Absolutely none! Even if Alicia was a pert, bubbly pain in the ass.

“He called from California,” Ben was saying.

“California? What’s he’s doing out there?”

“Someone died. A great aunt, I think he said. He had to go out to settle her estate.”

“Aunt Pat? Oh, no!”

The regret was sharp, instant, and so, so painful. She’d lost more than Gabe in the divorce. She’d lost his family, as well. They’d sided with him, of course, after the ugly details surfaced. She didn’t blame them, but she’d missed his folks and his sisters and their families. And his feisty old aunt, who could spout the most incredibly imaginative oaths when the spirit moved her.

“He’s driving back to Oklahoma from San Diego,” Ben related. “If the timing’s right, he might stop in Albuquerque to meet Alex and Maria. I told him we’d be home late tomorrow afternoon.” He paused, his eyes holding hers. “Unless something unexpected came up.”

“Like me throwing a world class hissy fit about you consorting with the enemy?”

“Is he? The enemy?”

Her breath left on a sigh. “No, of course not. Gabe’s your friend, too. You don’t have to take sides or choose between us.” She hesitated several painful beats. “Did he, uh, ask about me?”

“No.”

Disgusted by the hurt that generated, Swish gave herself a swift, mental kick. For God’s sake! She was a captain in the United States Air Force. A combat engineer with two rotations to Iraq and one to Afghanistan under her belt. She’d built or blown up everything from runways to bridges. Yet here she was, moping like a schoolgirl who hadn’t been asked to the dance because her ex chose to get on with his life.

“Well,” she said briskly, “if you and Gabe do connect in Albuquerque tomorrow, tell him I wish him the best.”

“Will do.”

“Great. Now why don’t we see how Dingo’s doing blindfolded and backward?”

* * *

As one of the organizers of this year’s Bash, Swish was among the last to leave when The Culinary Dropout finally closed its doors at 2:00 a.m. Even then, she provided taxi service to one of her buddies who’d flown in for the occasion.

She hung with him at his hotel room for a while, sharing black coffee and memories of the legendary Special Ops colonel who’d spawned their annual Badger Bash. She’d worked for Colonel Dolan only once, when she was a brand-new second lieutenant. The colonel could blister the paint off you with a single glance and did not suffer fools gladly. But Swish had learned more about leadership and taking care of her troops from him than from any of her bosses since.

Dawn was starting to streak the sky above the Superstition Mountains when she strolled out of the hotel and clicked the locks of the Thunderbird soft-top convertible she’d treated herself to when she got promoted to captain. She stood beside the merlot-colored sports car for a moment, breathing in the scent of honeysuckle and piñon while debating whether to put down the top.

The fact that she was wearing the traditional Badger Bash “uniform of the day” decided her. The generally accepted attire included boots, jeans and T-shirts sporting whatever quirky message the attendees wanted to impart. Swish had opted for a black, body-sculpting tank with a whiskered, green-eyed tiger draped over one shoulder. It had been designed and handcrafted by Ben’s wife, who insisted the tiger’s eyes were the exact same jungle-green as Swish’s. The matching ball cap sported the same glittering black-and-gold-tiger stripes and caught her shoulder-length blond hair back into a ponytail. The perfect ensemble for tooling through a soft Arizona dawn, she decided.

Mere moments later she had the top down and the T-bird aimed for the on-ramp to I-10. Luke AFB was a good thirty miles west of Scottsdale. The prospect of a long drive didn’t faze her. Having learned her lesson from previous Bashes, she’d arranged to have the rest of the weekend off. She could cruise through the dim, still-cool dawn, hit her condo, shower off the residue of the night and crash.

But first, she realized after only about fifteen miles, she had to make a pit stop. She shouldn’t have downed that last cup of coffee, dammit. For another few miles she tried the bladder control exercises she’d resorted to while operating at remote sites with only the most primitive facilities.

But when she spotted a sign indicating a McDonald’s at the next exit, she gave up the struggle. Flipping on the directional signal, she took the ramp for Exit 134. The iconic golden arches gleamed a little more than a block from where she got off.

Unfortunately, a red light separated her from imminent relief. She braked to a stop and drummed her fingers on the wheel. She might’ve been tempted to run the light if not for the vehicle stopped across the deserted intersection. It was a pickup. One of those muscled-up jobbies favored by farmers and ranchers. Older than most, though. And vaguely familiar. Narrowing her eyes, she squinted and tried to see past the headlights spearing toward her in the slowly brightening dawn.

Suddenly, her heart lurched. Stopped dead. Kicked back to life with a painful jolt.

Locking her fists on the wheel, Swish gaped at the cartoon depicted on the pickup’s sloping hood. She recognized the needle-nosed insect dive-bombing an imaginary target. She should; she’d painted it herself.

Her gaze jerked from the hood to the cab. The headlights’ glare blurred the driver’s features. Not enough to completely obscure them, however.

Oh, God! That was Gabe. Her Gabe.

Fragments of the conversation with Cowboy rifled through her shock. California. A funeral. Gabe driving home. Visiting with Cowboy and his wife in Albuquerque.

Her precise, analytical engineer’s mind made the instant connection. Phoenix sat halfway between San Diego and Albuquerque. A logical place to stop for the night, grab some sleep, break up the long drive. The not-as-precise section of her brain remained so numb with surprise that she didn’t react when the light turned green. Her knuckles white, she gripped the wheel and kept her foot planted solidly on the brake.

The pickup didn’t move, either. With no other traffic transiting the isolated intersection, the two vehicles sat facing each other as the light turned yellow, then red again. The next time it once again showed green, the pickup crossed the short stretch of pavement and pulled up alongside her convertible.

The driver’s side window whirred down. A tanned elbow hooked on the sill. The deep baritone that used to belt out the hokiest ’50s-era honky-tonk tear-jerkers rumbled across the morning quiet.

“Hey, Suze.”

He’d never used her call sign in nonoperational situations. The military had consumed so much of their lives that Gabe wouldn’t let it take their names, too. That attitude, Swish reflected, was only one of the many reasons he’d left the Air Force and she hadn’t.

She craned her neck, squinting up from her low-slung sports car. “Hey yourself, Gabe.”

“I thought I was hallucinating there for a minute. What’re you doing in Phoenix?”

“I live here. I’m stationed at Luke.”

“Oh, yeah? Since when?”

The fact that he didn’t even know where she lived hurt. More than she would ever admit.

Swish, on the other hand, had subtly encouraged her mother to share bits of news about her former son-in-law’s life since he’d moved back to Oklahoma. Mary Jackson had passed on the news that the high school tennis team Gabe coached had won state honors. And she gushed over the fact that the voters of their small hometown elected him mayor by a landslide. Somehow, though, her mom had neglected to mention the fact that Cedar Creek’s mayor was getting married again.

“I’ve been at Luke a little over four months,” Swish answered with as much nonchalance as she could muster, then let her gaze roam the dusty, dented pickup. “I see you’re still driving Ole Blue.”

He unbent his elbow and patted the outside of his door. “I rebuilt the engine a last year. Spins like a top.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

The memories didn’t creep in this time. They hit like a sledgehammer.

Swish had surrendered her virginity in Ole Blue’s cab. Impatiently. Hungrily. Almost angrily. She’d teased and tormented Gabe until he finally toppled her backward on the cracked leather seat and yanked down her panties. Even then, as wild with hunger as they both were, he’d been gentle. For the first few thrusts. Once past the initial startled adjustment, Swish had picked up the rhythm and climaxed mere moments later, as though she’d only been waiting for his touch to ignite those white-hot sensations.

She’d still been floating back to earth when he pulled out of her and started swearing. At himself. At her. At the incredible stupidity of what they’d just done. What if her parents found out he’d violated their trust as well as their daughter? What if he’d let himself come and gotten her pregnant! What about her scholarship to OU? The bridges she wanted to build. The exotic lands they both wanted to travel to!

Still soaring on that sexual high, Swish had kissed and stroked and nipped the cords in his neck until he cursed again, shoved the key in the ignition and drove her home.

Other, less sensual memories involving Ole Blue swirled like a colorful kaleidoscope. The night they spread an air mattress in the truck bed and stretched out to watch a gazillion stars light up the sky. The times they’d pulled into a space at the only still-operating drive-in movie in the area to munch popcorn and watch the latest action flick. The load of manure they’d loaded and hauled to fertilize the garden belonging to a friend of his mother.

A flash of headlights in the rearview mirror yanked her from the past to the present. They were still blocking the intersection, with Ole Blue hunched like an oversize panther beside Swish’s red mouse of a car.

She glanced in the mirror, back at Gabe. “Well, I guess...”

“Why don’t we get a cup of coffee?” He hooked his thumb at the golden arches behind him. “I obviously need to catch up on your career moves.”

She opened her mouth to refuse. The memories she’d just flashed through were too raw, too painful. She’d be a fool to resurrect any more. Then again, she did have to make a pit stop. Like reeeeally bad now.

“Okay,” she heard herself say. “I’ll meet you inside...after I hit the head.”

She cornered into the parking lot, killed the engine and was out of the T-bird before Ole Blue had made a U-turn at the intersection. This early in the morning the ladies’ room was empty and clean as a whistle, with the pungent tang of disinfectant taking precedence over the scent of deep-fried hash browns and sausage coming from the kitchen.

When she emerged, she found Gabe lounging against a booth with a coffee cup in either hand. A smile crinkled the squint lines at the corners of his hazel eyes as he tipped his chin toward the restroom she’d just vacated.

“You must’ve been on the road for a while if your iron-bladder exercises failed you.”

“Hey! I made it, didn’t I?”

Anyone overhearing the exchange would’ve wondered at the subject matter. Or assumed she and Gabe shared a history that included an intimate knowledge of each other’s bodily functions. Which they did.

Feeling like a total idiot for mourning the loss of that particular history, Swish reached out a hand. “Which coffee is mine?”

“Take your pick.” He held out both cups. “They’re the same.”

She blinked, startled. Her husband had always been a two-sugars-one-cream kind of guy. “When did you start drinking undoctored coffee?”

“When I added too many extra inches to my waistline.”

Her gaze made a quick up and down. If Gabe had put on extra inches, she sure as hell couldn’t see them. The chest covered by his stretchy black T-shirt tapered to a still-trim waist. The snug jeans emphasized his flat belly. His lean hips. The hard, muscled thighs she’d traced so often with her hands and her mouth and her...

“You sure you don’t want more than coffee?” he asked, gesturing to the illuminated menu. “I’ll be happy to stand you to a Number 3.”

The fact that he remembered her preference for a Big Breakfast with Hotcakes made her throat ache. “This is good,” she murmured, sliding into the booth he’d staked out.

The silence that followed was short but awkward. And obviously painful, as they both rushed to break it.

“What are you...?”

“So sorry about...”

They both broke off, and he gestured for her to go on.

“So sorry to hear about Aunt Pat. What happened?”

“An aortic aneurism. She died in her sleep. One of her spin-class buddies found her the next morning.”

Swish wasn’t surprised that the feisty seventy-six-year-old had been into spinning along with all her other fitness pursuits. She and Pat had once run side by side in a 5k Race for the Cure with the older woman decked out in flashing sneakers, cotton-candy-pink leggings and a cropped tank that announced she was One Fast Oldie.

“How’s your mom taking her sister’s death?”

“Hard. She flew out for the funeral but couldn’t stay to help settle the estate. Her hip’s been giving her trouble.”

The reply plucked at Swish’s hurt again. She’d been so close to his family. His dad before he died, his mom, his sisters. To cover the ache, she switched subjects.

“My mom told me about the election. Ninety-four percent of the vote. Pretty impressive for a high school history teacher-slash-tennis coach.”

“Yeah, well...”

The grin that had haunted her dreams for too many months slipped out. As self-deprecating and sexy as she remembered. She felt its all-too-familiar impact wrap around her heart.

“Hard to bask in the glow of victory when my cousins constitute at least half the electorate.”

Swish had to laugh. “I know most of those cousins. They’re as stubborn and hardheaded as you are, Mr. Mayor. They wouldn’t have voted for you unless they believed in you.”

“Maybe. Or it might’ve been because I ran against Dave Forrester.”

Her jaw dropped. “You’re kidding! Freckle-faced Forrester overcame his shyness enough to run for public office?”

“Freckle-faced Forrester now owns the largest oil and gas franchise in the county,” Gabe returned drily. “Lucky for me—but not for my constituents—he’s been slapped with a half-dozen lawsuits for property damage due to fracking. He’s not the most popular guy around Cedar Creek these days.”

Wow! The skinny, gap-toothed kid who’d traded spitballs with her? An oil and gas executive? She was still trying to get her head around that when Gabe broke into her thoughts.

“What about you? What are you doing at Luke?”

She shook off the tendrils of her past and leaped gratefully into the present. “I’m assigned to the 56th Fighter Wing. Would you believe I head up the Base Emergency Engineer Response team?”

“Prime BEEF? Now I’m impressed.”

The designation didn’t begin to describe the scope of her team’s duties. The mission of Luke AFB was to train the men and women who flew and maintained the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F-35 Lightning, the world’s newest and most sophisticated fighter. The base population included more than ten thousand active duty, reserve and civilian personnel, plus their families. Another seventy thousand retirees lived in the local area. Swish’s job was to make sure the facilities were in place to support all these people in both peacetime and wartime.

“That’s quite a responsibility,” Gabe commented. “It’s what you trained for. What you’ve worked so hard for. And why you were awarded that Bronze Star after your last deployment.”

“You know about the Bronze Star?”

She couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. He couldn’t keep the bite out of his.

“Know that my wife...?” He stopped. Took a breath. Started again. “Know that my former wife and her team risked their lives to repair an abandoned runway outside Mosul? That they opened the airstrip despite heavy enemy fire so US aircraft could use it as a base to repel an ISIS attack? Yeah, I know about it.”

Okay, that gave her a warm buzz. Almost warm enough to mitigate the fact that he hadn’t known she was now assigned to Luke. Not quite warm enough to erase the news Ben had imparted last night, though. She looked down at her now sludgy coffee. Looked up. Took her courage in both hands.

“Cowboy told me you’re getting married again.”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Anyone I know?”

He hesitated, shrugged. “Alicia Johnson.”

Dammit all to hell!

Somehow, someway, she managed to keep from crushing her cup and slopping coffee over the table. A bitter realization stayed her hand. As much as she disliked the nauseatingly effervescent pixie, she had no right to castigate Gabe for his choice of partners. God knows, he hadn’t castigated her when she turned to someone else out of desperate loneliness.

“Whatever you decide,” she got out, despite lungs squeezed so tight she could hardly breath, “I hope you find the ‘forever’ we were so sure we had.”

He stretched out a hand, covered hers. “Same goes, Susie Q.”

It was the silly nickname that did it. His pet name for her from the fifth grade on. Forever associated in both of their minds with the package of cream-filled chocolate cupcakes she’d brought to his bedroom when he fell out of a tree and broke his collarbone.

She tried, she really tried, to keep her smile from wobbling. Twisting her hand, she gave his what she intended as a companionable squeeze. His fingers threaded through hers. So strong. So warm. So achingly familiar.

He raised their joined hands. Brought the back of hers to his lips. Brushed a kiss across her knuckles. Once. Twice. Swish didn’t even try to pull away.

Until he gently, slowly, lowered his hand and eased it out of hers.