Strangers When We Meet. Merline Lovelace
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heard him, but I didn’t see him.”
“Do you know who he is, this one?”
Dodge didn’t have a clue, but he sure as hell intended to find out.
“From their badges,” he said slowly, “I’d guess he was part of a group of civilian contractors.”
He waited for her to explain. When she didn’t, he pressed her. “What’s with the growler? Have you crossed swords with him before or something?”
“What do you say?”
“Obviously, you recognized that guy’s voice. How do you know him?”
“I …”
Petrovna lifted a hand. The fingers she pressed against her scars were trembling, Dodge noted with a sudden kink in his gut.
“I once …”
“You once what?”
The question seemed to recall her from wherever her racing thoughts had taken her. Abruptly, she dropped her hand. Beneath the rumpled suit jacket, her shoulders stiffened.
“I think perhaps I hear a voice like this one before. I make the mistake.” Turning, she marched down the hall. “Come, we will be late for my appointment.”
“Hold on!”
Dodge caught up with her in three quick steps. When she refused to slow, he said to hell with the rules and snagged her arm.
“You looked as if you were about to pass out on me a moment ago. Why did hearing that growl almost buckle your knees?”
“I make the mistake.”
She glanced down pointedly at his hand. When she lifted her gaze again, she could have chipped granite with her flinty stare.
“We waste time. Come.”
Stiff-spined, she swept down the hall. Dodge trailed her, swallowing a few decidedly uncomplimentary remarks about Russians in general, and tight-assed Russian majors in particular.
They were ushered into the 90th Missile Wing commander’s office a few minutes later. Although the major maintained her stiff, professional manner, she unbent a little during the courtesy call. Once, she even smiled. Just a polite curve of her lips, but even so, the transformation was startling.
Well, damn! Good thing she didn’t do that more often, Dodge thought. Her snow-princess looks were enough to make a man start thinking of ways to initiate a spring melt. When she thawed even a few degrees, his thoughts took a sharp jump into long, hot summer nights.
The brief thaw probably had a lot to do with the fact that she and the colonel spoke the same missileese. Within minutes, the two astrophysicists had left Dodge behind in the technical dust.
When they were joined by the vice-commander, Dodge used the cover of polite conversation to slip into the outer office and pop a question at the colonel’s administrative assistant.
“Can I ask a favor, ma’am?”
“Sure.”
“When Major Petrovna and I entered the headquarters building a little while ago, we passed a passel of civilian contractors. Would you check and see if there was a meeting or briefing in the conference room they might have been attending? If so, I need the name and telephone number of the officer who set it up.”
“No problem.”
She punched a button on her intercom. Within moments, she’d obtained the requested information from the conference-room scheduler.
“It was a briefing on the proposed new exoatmospheric defense system,” she informed Dodge. “Lieutenant Colonel Haskell from the plans directorate conducted it.”
She scribbled his name, office symbol and phone number on a pink memo slip.
“Thanks.”
Stuffing the slip into a zippered pocket of his uniform, Dodge waited for Petrovna to make her farewells. Once they were back in the sedan and headed for the quarters set aside for the visiting team, he tried again.
“About the voice you heard in the hallway. You sure you don’t want to tell me why it spooked you?”
Petrovna’s jaw clenched, stretching her scarred skin tight over the bone. “I make the mistake. We will speak no more of it.”
Wrong. They would speak about it a whole lot more, once Dodge got a tag on Dog Voice.
“You will take me to my quarters so I may rest from the flight,” she announced coldly. “Tomorrow, you will report at oh-six-hundred. We must breakfast before the in-brief.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he drawled, with just enough of an edge to cause her to cut him a quick look.
“You must escuse me if I sound …” She waved a hand, searching for the right word. “If I sound …”
“Uptight?” Dodge supplied helpfully. “Like maybe you sat on the pointy end of a missile?”
Her jaw dropped. She stared at him for several seconds before a gleam of what looked suspiciously like laughter lit her eyes. She controlled the impulse before it could make it to her lips.
“You will excuse me,” she said again, repressively. “It has been a long day.”
Dodge figured that was as close as he was going to get to an apology. Nodding, he cut through the traffic headed off base and circled the parade ground. Stately homes left over from the cavalry days lined two sides of the meticulously mowed field. On the south end were the long, low buildings that once had housed unmarried cavalry officers. They now served as Visiting Officers’ Quarters.
The buildings’ exterior retained the look of the 1880s. The redbrick walls, tin roof and long, white-painted porches were all original. Successive renovations, however, had brought the interiors up to modern comfort standards. Each suite contained a living room and bedroom, with a bath and small kitchenette tucked into the hallway between the two. The sofa and chairs were upholstered in earth-toned fabrics, and the accessories scattered around the rooms reflected Warren’s frontier heritage. Lamps made of welded horseshoes sat on the end tables. A shadow box displaying crossed cavalry swords hung above the campaign-style desk. Framed prints and wide windows brought Wyoming’s spectacular mountains and rolling plains into the room.
In keeping with his cover of a reservist recalled to active duty to assist during severe pilot shortages, Dodge was quartered in the VOQ across the parking lot. He would have preferred to bunk down with his cousin Sam on the Double H, but the ranch was more than an hour’s drive north of Cheyenne. This arrangement let him keep a closer eye on his charge.
He’d checked the major’s suite earlier to make sure the cupboards were stocked and the protocol office had delivered the prerequisite gift basket. It sat on the coffee table as Petrovna skimmed a quick glance around the living room and dropped her briefcase on the desk. After ascertaining that her suitcase had already arrived, she confirmed the room numbers assigned to her teammates before dismissing her escort.
“I will see you tomorrow.”
Dodge ignored the brush-off. The woman intrigued him in more ways than one. With her odd reaction at wing headquarters front and center in his mind, he tendered a casual invitation.
“The pantry’s stocked with soup and such, but I could pick up you and your folks after you’ve rested and take you to dinner.”
“We ate the sandwich on the airplane.”
“You’re sure?”
“Da.” The blonde held out an impatient hand for the key. “You may leave now. And …” As if recalled to her manners, she gave him a quick nod. “I thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Her brief spate of cordiality ended, she dismissed him once again. “I will see