Pursued. Catherine Mann
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that tumbling insanity on purpose? In what airplane?”
“A Christian Eagle biplane. And did I do it on purpose? As far as you know.”
“Amazing.” She shook her head, hair tickling her chin. “And a stupid risk.”
“No arguments from me on that. Do I still get the ride?”
“Yes,” she sighed her surrender. She would just have to keep her mouth shut until she dropped him off. “But only if you promise to tell me the rest of that lomcevak story someday.”
“Done deal.”
She pressed the controls to roll away the roof, then backed out of her parking spot. “You’re lucky I’ve got a full tank of gas and a crummy social life.”
Josie shifted gears with smooth force, her knuckle brushing his leather-covered thigh. Hot. Diana’s words from earlier came back to haunt her.
Holy crap. This guy was hot, in more ways than one. And she had no desire to get burned.
The sooner she got him home the better. She had a pile of her mother’s old test-data printouts waiting at the apartment to keep her plenty busy.
Josie nailed the gas, gravel spewing from the tires on her way out of the lot.
Sprawled in Josie’s Mustang, Diego stared up at the stars speckling the purple-black sky overhead planetarium style, the desert night clear. A perfect night sky for flying.
If he hadn’t nailed his feet to the ground three years ago.
Electric poles whipped past with increasing speed on the desolate two-lane road. Creosote bushes and Joshua trees dotted the inky horizon for mile after mile.
Already he anticipated another beer to rid himself of the bitter aftertaste of the hangar meeting earlier. He was a washed-up test pilot. His life was in the crapper along with his career. This job only proved it.
Baby-sitter, spy, paper pusher, and for a low-budget project at that.
This assignment only proved how far down on the food chain he dwelled these days. The subcontractor he freelanced for kept him around to trot out a legend and his medals. Apparently his surliness was starting to chafe, if this job was any indication.
He worked because he had bills to pay. For putting his feet on the floor and getting dressed each morning, he rewarded himself with a race across a dry lake bed on his Harley, the only thing other than his dogs that he’d kept when his ex-wife walked after the accident. For making it through another workday—a necessity if he wanted to keep the bike and feed the dogs—he rewarded himself with a beer.
Long-neck. Budweiser, like any self-respecting Mississippi native.
And with any luck, the bottle was thrust his way in the hands of a hot woman who for some reason didn’t know he was a washed-up test pilot who’d killed his best friend.
Bailout. Bailout. Bailout.
Even now, he could hear his own hoarse shouts. His wingman, flying alongside, had ignored the order during that last test, vowing he could recover, the instrumentation reading agreed. The poor bastard had flown right into the ground trusting his data.
Data Diego himself had supplied prior to take off.
Shit. Screw thinking about that. Rewind back to the image of a hot blond waitress thrusting a beer his way along with her bountiful breasts. Except his brain kept overlaying the image of a buxom blonde with a smart-mouthed brunette, one with minimal curves and maximum moxie.
Josie Lockworth might not be his type, but no question about it, she was hot. Self-assurance echoed from her, whether she was gliding on long legs into a bar or steering her Mustang convertible along rural desert roads.
He remembered well the idealistic days when he’d expected his work to change the world. These days, he preferred to think about beer…and breasts.
The ones beside him, to be exact.
The green flight suit hugged her slim body. High, pert breasts thrust a subtle invitation increased by the cooling blasts of night wind. Velcro straps cinched at her sides, accenting a hint of hips—
Whoa. Stop. He geared down his thoughts.
The woman who was ready to kick his ass over a simple “little lady” comment would fillet his liver if she could step inside his brain right now.
But the loss of his uniform had stripped away mental inhibitions, as well, leaving his world and expectations as off-kilter as his vertigo-stricken senses. He’d been a boundary pusher in the air, but understood the rules of convention implicit in his officer commission on the ground. He’d always kept protocol in place with female officers.
No such rules applied now, because he wasn’t an officer anymore.
“You should be nice to me.” He held up a hand. “And before you get your politically correct G-suit in a twist, I’m not implying a damned thing of a sexual nature. Yeah, I know I’m a bit of an ass. Okay, a lot of an ass. But if you’d pay attention, I talk like this to everyone. I’m just curious as to why you’re huffy and defensive when it would serve you well to be kissing up. So to speak.”
Her shoulders lowered, captain rank on her flight suit glowing luminescent blue in the dashboard lights. “Sorry. Instinct, I guess.”
“Been hit on a few too many times?” Idiotic protective instincts fired up, much like the ones that had chewed his hide when he’d been sitting in the bar shooting the breeze with Birddog and the others.
“I’ve just learned it’s better to keep things superficial.” Wind-whipped coffee-colored hair around her face in a rare disorder from this overly composed woman. “People at work look hard enough for your vulnerabilities on their own. No need to give out private information for free.”
What hints of vulnerabilities could be found in her pristine car, a place more personal than her office? He scooped her beanbag puppy from the drink holder.
“Could you put down the Beanie Baby, please?”
“Your favorite?”
“It’s a gift for Craig Wagner’s daughter when I go to dinner. I don’t want it to look all rucked up when I give it to her.”
“Sure. Sorry.” He fit the toy basset hound back into the cup holder. “I’ll get the kid a new one.”
“Don’t bother. You didn’t do any harm—yet.”
He heard her loud and clear. Get his mitts off her stuff and thereby off her. Somehow, he’d stepped too close. “So tell me about this test of yours.”
Her white-knuckled fingers loosened around the steering wheel. “What do you want to know?”
“How about start with the basics. Assume I know nothing.”
She would think he was an out of touch idiot who needed to review fundamentals. Not that he cared much as long as she didn’t throw another one of those sympathetic looks his way like she’d done when he’d talked about not flying anymore.
Yeah, let her do the talking before he shoved his boot in his yap again. Captain Buttercup probably wouldn’t even realize how much he could interpret about her core methodology from the way she presented foundation elements. “Talk to me.”
And damned if he didn’t enjoy the sound of her uptight, precise voice with its hint of huskiness begging to be encouraged.
“Our mission with this project is to improve the stealth element on the Predator unmanned spy drone. It has served the air force well in the past, but we’ve learned a lot about ways it could perform better, and thus keep more pilots and ground-intelligence forces out of harm’s way.”
He tried not to think much about his active-duty days, flying bombers then gaining admission to test-pilot school. He’d accepted the possibility of dying in battle or during a test. He’d never