Conrad awoke to an empty bed. Confused for a moment, he sat up, alert. What the hell? Please, God, don’t tell him that had all been a dream. He got up and drew the curtains, wincing at the bright Vegas sun glaring into his room.
No way. She had been here. He could still smell her soap, or shower gel, or something on him. But where was she now? When did she leave? And how the fuck had she done that without him noticing?
He turned around and looked at the room. It was hard to believe every single one of his dreams had come true in this room. This crappy, dull, base lodging room.
She’d left without them being able to talk. Without having figured anything out. And now they wouldn’t have an opportunity to do so until that evening. How could he fly with her now, when all he would be able to see was her beautiful naked body that had taken his to such unbelievable heights?
His heart started pumping with excitement. She knew how he felt now. She would stay to complete their tour together, and whatever happened next, they’d be together. She’d given him a huge fucking shock when she’d said that she was going to transfer. He couldn’t imagine flying without her, let alone being as successful as they were. Thank God he would now have her close every day.
That had been a close call. After leaving the gym, he’d tried to picture himself flying with another weapons officer. Training them, trying to get them to do everything that Missy could do in her sleep. He smiled to himself. He had a whole lifetime ahead of seeing how she acted in her sleep.
He headed down to the hangar early, hoping to see her there, maybe get a quick chance to talk. Really, he just wanted to see her smile. A smile that contained the knowledge of what they’d shared. An intimate smile he’d never seen before, and really, really wanted to.
The hangar was empty except for Sergeant Cripps. He wiped his hands on a rag and nodded at him. “So where were you last night?” he said, a tinge of humor in his voice.
“What do you mean?” Conrad asked with a frown, his brain whirring from bliss to full alert in a split second.
Cripps motioned toward the cots where Missy and he were supposed to have slept the previous night. Damn. How had he completely forgotten about that? And then he noticed that Missy’s was rumpled, as if she’d spent the whole night there, while his was so pristine a pillow chocolate wouldn’t have looked out of place.
He mustered his thoughts and presented Cripps with a cocky smile, raising his eyebrows suggestively.
“Enough said, sir.” A broad grin broke out on Cripps’s face. “Nice. Thank you. That’s awesome. Good…” He made to punch him on the upper arm, as if in victory, but Conrad’s expression must have stopped him, as his face dropped at the same time as his arm.
“Why is that so awesome?” he asked the sergeant. “I mean, I get that it’s awesome for me, but why you?” Suddenly he didn’t really want to know the answer.
“You just won me a hundred and sixty bucks.” Cripps’s smile reemerged.
Conrad was bemused. He really didn’t have time for this. He needed to find Missy.
Sergeant Cripps continued. “The rest of the team bet you’d be here to take your night shift watching the aircraft, but I said you’d bail on Major Malden and find some other entertainment. A good omen for the exercises today, right?” Cripps turned back to the aircraft.
All Conrad’s excitement and joy evaporated, like they’d never been there.
He was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. A pilot. And the crew chief had put money on the fact that he’d bail on his duty in favor of chasing women. And worse, the rest of the team actually believed that he wouldn’t have let Missy down, and now they’d think that they’d been wrong to trust him.
Conrad was pissed, but there was a decent-sized part of him that was already planning some kind of sexy revenge on Missy for putting him in that position.
As it happened, he didn’t catch up with Missy until the morning briefing. He’d waited so long in the hangar hoping she’d turn up and they could speak, that he was the last in to the briefing.
The commander gave him a look, and he pulled an apologetic expression and took the seat behind Missy. He tapped her on the shoulder as he sat.
She half turned and nodded briefly. Same as she always did. His happiness to see her—the back of her, at least—diminished just a fraction. But they were in the classroom with at least twenty other pilots and weapons officers. Obviously they had to appear exactly the same as usual.
Sooner than he imagined possible, he was startled when the commander wrapped up the mission brief. Conrad had not heard one word of it. So much for acting the same as always.
He fell into step next to Missy as they left the building. He opened his mouth to speak, although he wasn’t sure what to say, when she interrupted his thoughts.
“I’ve got a quick meeting. It will only take ten minutes. See you back at the hangar.” She didn’t wait for a reply, just turned away, lengthened her stride, and disappeared into the admin building.
A slight chill ran through him. Must’ve been the breeze. Why was nothing feeling like he thought it would be? He wasn’t getting any intimate vibes from Missy, and he was now just realizing how much he craved them. Craved her, after last night.
He just needed her attention, and it was a totally alien feeling for him. He wanted her to look at him—really look at him. Not the skating, brief eye contact she’d given him. What had happened? He’d got as close to her as physically possible, and now she won’t even look at him, let alone talk to him?
Jesus. Had she one-and-done him?
No, that couldn’t be it. He had made it clear that he wanted her to stay with him, to fly with him. He must have. Well, he hadn’t actually said it, but surely it had been obvious?
He looked around him, taking in the normality of his surroundings. Airmen walking with purpose, civilians holding folders and heading toward meetings, people taking cigarette breaks. It was all so normal, so why did everything feel completely different?
Nothing was right in Missy’s head. Clearly she had been avoiding him. She’d run out on him, avoided him, and then red-line confirmed that she wanted a transfer to the schoolhouse in Florida, where she could teach prospective weapons officers.
She tried to stay one step ahead of Conrad all morning. Diving into groups of friends or talking to the crew who maintained her aircraft. She didn’t want to see that look in his eyes, the one that she was sure every girl who shared his bed saw. The one that said “you’re so beautiful, but I’m not a commitment kind of guy.”
She wondered how the other women had taken it. The gymnast, the nurse, the casino hotel receptionist. Maybe they were better than her. Maybe that’s what they thought about him too. But not her—Conrad was her weakness, and good weapons officers always understood, and compensated for, their weaknesses.
By the time she got back to the hangar, after confirming her transfer request in the admin block, it was a hive of activity. Aircraft engines were starting on the taxiway, and jets were taking to the air some hundred meters away from them. She breathed a sigh of relief: it was impossible to talk on the flight line—the roar of jet engines rendered it useless to even try, and as soon they had their helmets and comms on, there was no way to talk without somebody else listening in.
It was perfect for her, as it allowed her time to collect her thoughts and figure out what to say to him. Or maybe by avoiding him, or at least avoiding the conversation, he would realize he didn’t actually have to tell her that what they’d shared was essentially a one-night stand.
As it happened, their flight was completely normal. They worked together just the same as they always had, beating the enemy and evading missile flares.
Conrad hadn’t seemed stressed or anxious to talk to her, so she considered that a win.
They were five minutes away from beginning their descent into Nellis Air Force Base when Missy saw a plume of smoke out of the corner of her eye. She swiveled as far as she could in her seat to see what it had been, but she couldn’t. She opened her mouth to ask Conrad to go around again, but before any word managed to escape, she saw a different plume—a dust plume in a clearing below them. A dark shadow emerged through the dust.
It was an aircraft. On the floor of the valley. What the…?
“Down there!” she said, leaning forward to poke his shoulder. “It’s an aircraft. Down on the ground.”
Conrad dipped his left wing to give him a better view of the valley. “Jesus.”
“I swear I just saw someone or something move down there,” she said.
Conrad waggled his wings in case anyone down there could see them. It would alert them to the fact that they had been located.
Missy opened comms to the control room at Nellis and explained what she had seen. But it wasn’t until that they had touched down that she remembered the initial plume of smoke behind her that had made her look down.
As they taxied to the hangar, people ran from the hangar to signal them in. Before the aircraft even came to a halt, Conrad had popped the canopy back.
“Who was it? Who crashed?” Missy shouted at the crew chief as she undid her harness and yanked off her helmet.
“There were two!” Sergeant Cripps shouted back. “Major Daniels and some British dude in a Eurofighter Typhoon.”
Oh my God. It was Eleanor. Chills shot through her body, and tears sprung to her eyes. She couldn’t move. What had she just seen? Was Eleanor dead? They had to go back. She took a breath. They couldn’t go back. Pararescuers were probably already on their way. She took another breath. No this couldn’t be happening. “You sure? Are you sure it was her?” She scrambled down from her plane, followed by Conrad.
Cripps looked pale. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. Apparently her father is here too. He’s a three-star general.”
“Yes, I know that,” she said. Anxiety squeezed her internal organs until she could barely breathe. “It can’t be true. She’s the best pilot here.”
Conrad actually looked as if he was about to object to Eleanor being tagged the best pilot, but instead he kept his mouth shut, sensibly, and squeezed her shoulder. “We saw the aircraft, and you said you thought you saw something move. That’s a good sign. They’ll find her in no time.”
Missy took a shaky breath and nodded. She wanted Conrad to wrap his arms around her and hold her. She needed his strength. She couldn’t bear the thought of Eleanor being in pain anywhere.
Before Missy could say anything else, two MPs strode up to them. “Colonel. Major. General Daniels wants to see you,” the taller of the two said.
Eleanor’s father. “Of course. We’ll come as soon we’ve been debriefed,” Missy said, untying the bandanna from her head.
“No, ma’am. He wants to see you both immediately.”
“Let me just run and get my hat.” There was no way she was walking across the base to visit a general without her hat on.
She ran to the changing room and opened her locker. She grabbed a towel and ran it over her head and face to get rid of any helmet grime, tucked her hair behind her ears, and grabbed her hat. She closed the locker door and jumped at the sight of the shorter, stockier MP who was waiting for her behind it. What the hell?
“I was just getting my hat! Did you think I was going to try to escape?” she snorted.
“Escape from what exactly, ma’am?” the MP asked.
“Nothing, I mean…” Suddenly the sweat on her body turned cold and a feeling of danger prickled over her body, a sensation she hadn’t felt since she’d been a teenager. She didn’t like it.
What the hell is going on?