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“Captain Brodie, why don’t you pick on someone your own size then?” Chris Mallory challenged, her voice cutting like a whip across the room.
There was an abrupt silence as Chris stepped into the room. She still had her helmet and oxygen mask tucked beneath her right arm, having just gotten off a flight. The dark green uniform made it obvious she was a woman even if she had no makeup on. Ebony-colored hair swirled around her shoulders, wispy bangs barely touching her knitted brows. Her violet eyes were narrowed with intensity as she glared over at Brodie. She walked in, her movements calculated to look at ease, as if she weren’t concerned with this meeting. She had heard the conversation as she walked in the door.
Brodie swung his gaze sharply to Mallory. Dropping his feet from the desk, he smiled like a cat finding a bigger mouse to torment. “What’s the matter, Captain, don’t you care for my humor?”
Chris halted, no more than three feet from where he lounged. Her nostrils were flared, her eyes flashing with leashed anger. “No, I don’t. I never did like bullies,” she returned in just as soft a tone. “I’m not about to let you say things like that about Captain Barber or myself.”
Brodie’s mouth thinned. His heart began a faster beat as anger surged through him. Mallory was exactly the same height as himself, and he felt a moment’s intimidation by her challenge. It was immediately replaced with a growing hate. “Do you always butt in where you’re not wanted?” he ground out.
“Brodie!” Rondo begged, getting up and coming over to stand between the two pilots. He smiled weakly at both of them. “Come on, ease off—both of you. It was just a little joke, Chris. Brodie, just tell Karen you’re sorry and we’ll call a truce. What do you say?”
Chris stared at Brodie. “You start something and I’ll finish it. We don’t have to put up with this kind of harassment from you.”
Rondo took a deliberate step between them, his voice hardening. “Both of you knock it off,” he growled quietly, giving them each a warning glare.
“I never apologize for anything I say,” Brodie snarled over at Chris. “Just watch your six, Mallory.”
Chris drew in a sharp breath. When one pilot warned another to watch his “six,” it was as close to throwing a punch as possible. Six was the rear position of any aircraft and was the most vulnerable area to be attacked and shot down from. “You bet I will.”
The room took a collective, silent sigh of relief. Knots of officers broke up immediately, and everyone found their assigned seats. Karen fled. Chris saw tears in her eyes. Damn Brodie, she thought angrily.
Turning to leave, Chris almost collided with Dan at the door. He gave her a strange look and watched as she walked toward the community locker room to stow her gear.
Dan ambled down the aisle, noticing the absence of noise. He felt a tenseness in the room. What had happened? Everyone was strangely quiet. His gaze slid over to Brodie and his clique on the other side of the room. Brodie looked like he was ready to kill someone. Pursing his lips, Dan went to the lectern and paged through the text. This was not the place to find out what had happened. Chris had murder written in her violet eyes. Taking a deep breath before beginning his lecture, Dan knew without a doubt the first verbal salvo had been lobbed. Now it was his job to find out who was involved and dress them down in private and stop it before it got out of hand.
“Chris,” Dan called as the pilots began to disperse for the day, “I want to see you in my office.”
Chris nodded. “Okay. Give me five minutes. I need a cup of coffee.”
“Five minutes,” he agreed. He saw Brodie’s head snap up when he had ordered Chris to his office. And Rondo looked almost as guilty, too. It bothered him that the whole class was still subdued by the end of the afternoon. Whatever had occurred was serious because it had adversely affected everyone. And in this school, confidence, positive outlook and an upbeat attitude was a must for each pilot. It was a grueling forty-six-week course that demanded the class work together as a unit in order to survive. Closing the notebook in one heavy motion, Dan picked it up, walking with slow deliberation to his office.
“Okay, what’s up?” he wanted to know as Chris entered his office and sat down in the only available chair. Dan sensed Chris’s tightly throttled anger. These days, he could see right through her, sensing her true feelings. Had it only been three weeks since meeting her? He roused himself, gently shutting off those warming thoughts and centering on untangling the present difficulty. He looked up at Chris. “Well?”
Chris sat there, relating the entire event. She glanced up at Dan.
“I’m not going to take this from anyone, Dan. And Karen shouldn’t have to take it, either. She’s not even vying for test-pilot status, and he’s picking on her. The Brodies of the world are nothing but—”
“Brodie is a macho jock. He was a hotshot lieutenant who made a reputation in F-4s during the closing days of the war.”
“There’s no war now,” she answered coldly. “If he tries it again, I’ll shoot him down.”
Dan’s mouth quirked upward. “I’d say you already singed his wing tips.”
“The only thing his kind respects is meeting force with force.”
Sitting up, Dan placed both elbows on his desk. “Look, I need you to understand where Brodie and his bunch are coming from. We won’t allow this kind of abuse to happen again, but there was bound to be some friction sooner or later. Brodie will never accept a woman as a test pilot. I don’t care how well you do. It won’t change his mind. He’s buried in the belief of outdated traditions that says women are second-class citizens and have no business behind the stick of a fighter or the yoke of a bomber.”
“I’m not trying to change his mind,” Chris said. “I just don’t want Karen or me harassed by him.”
“When I get done with him, he won’t,” he promised grimly. “But for the sake of the psychology, I’m asking you two women to understand his behavior and realize you don’t need to defend yourself against that kind of childishness. After a while if you don’t react, he’ll stop. But—” he held Chris’s gaze” —if you keep challenging him every time he pulls one of his cheap shots, he’ll know he’s getting to you. Ignore him and he’ll fade away.”
Chris choked on an expletive. “That’ll be the day!” she retorted, and turning on her heel, walked out of the office.
* * *
DAN GLANCED AT his watch. It was almost 2100. Had three hours passed since talking with Chris? Pushing a group of papers away from him that still needed to be corrected, he leaned back, rubbing his face. Captain Brodie would be stopping by at any moment now. Frowning, he pushed a lock of hair off his brow and sat back up in the chair.
More than anything, he wanted to be with Chris right now. Since that night he had impulsively kissed her on the ramp, he had controlled his desire to push her too fast, too soon. He contented himself by flying with Chris almost every evening and on the weekends. A smile flickered in his eyes. She was slowly responding to him, just like a stubborn fighter plane in a dive. Glancing at the paperwork she had done for this morning’s flight, Dan noticed how neat it looked. There wasn’t an ink smudge anywhere. All the relevant numbers and figures were carefully recorded, making the report look professional in every sense of the word.
He didn’t want to work anymore and put the pen down. Flying twice a day was beginning to take its toll on him. If the commandant found out, he would cancel the extra sessions immediately. Grimacing, Dan shook his head as if in denial that it would happen. In just three short weeks Chris had proven beyond a doubt that she had the sensitivity to be a damn good test pilot. Would she be as sensitive to lovemaking? He knew the answer to that, feeling his desire for her heightened once again. God, how he wanted all of her.
Ruefully Dan smiled to himself. You are special Captain Chris Mallory, he told her silently. No man in his right mind would want to just take you to bed and be done with it. There was something incredibly exciting about Chris. Patience, he told himself. Patience and give her a lot of care, and she’ll come around.
Chris wearily rubbed her face, glancing at her watch. It was almost ten-thirty and she was exhausted from the intensity of her studying. Her textbooks and manuals lay in a semicircle around where she sat on the carpeted floor. Leaning back against the couch, she yawned. The day had been incredibly stressful. A soft knock at the door pulled her from the reverie. Frowning, she wondered if it was Karen. Usually she came over every night for a quick visit.
Clad in only a pair of well-worn jeans and a loose weave purple sweater, Chris opened the door. Her eyes widened. It was Dan McCord. Her lips parted as she looked up at his lined features. He looked as tired as she felt. Dan offered her a semblance of a smile.
“I know it’s late—”
“That’s all right, come in,” Chris invited, trying to quell her hammering heart. Ever since he had kissed her that night on the ramp, Dan had stayed out of her life except in an official capacity. Chris was incredibly happy to see him again.
Dan took off his blue flight cap and walked into the room. He was carrying a briefcase bulging with reports to be graded. Chris quietly shut the door, meeting his warming gaze. “Like some tea?”
He folded the cap and stuffed it into the left thigh pocket of his flight suit. “Just getting to see you again is enough,” he answered.
Chris managed to return a smile. “You haven’t changed at all, have you?”
“No. Did you want me to?”
She was glad to see him teasing her again. The past two weeks of flying had been all business with very little personal interchange. But she understood why. Dan was trying to get her qualified in the F-4 as fast as she could assimilate its flying characteristics. She motioned toward the couch. “A tiger never changes its stripes. Sit down before you fall down. I’m going to make us some orange-spice tea and lace it with a bit of brandy.”
Dan ambled to the couch and gratefully sat. “Sounds great.” He watched as Chris moved across the room to the small kitchen. She looked like a contented married woman. He surprised himself with that analogy. Maybe he was too tired. Or maybe it was the clash he’d had with Brodie an hour earlier. Dan wasn’t sure. He leaned back, closing his eyes, musing. Being with Chris in her comfortable quarters gave him a sense of overwhelming peace. He had longed to see her socially, but the heavy demands placed upon them both had effectively squelched that. He rolled his head to the right, opening his eyes, studying her in the lulling silence.
There was a lack of tension around Chris as she worked in the kitchen. In her bare feet she looked positively beautiful, with a girlish quality to her. Her black hair flowed freely, brushing her proud shoulders. Normally her beautiful violet eyes were shadowed with weariness. Now they were clear, flecked with gold, which seemed to indicate she was happy. Had coming to see her tonight been responsible for that change? Dan didn’t know. A smile quirked one corner of his mouth as he rose and ambled into the kitchen. He would like to think he was responsible for part of this change.
“Smells good,” he commented, moving over to where Chris stood. He leaned over her, inhaling the freshly brewed tea.
Chris felt his shoulder lightly brush against hers for a moment. She smiled, removing the tea bags from the pot. “Let’s go sit in the living room. I need a break, too,” she confided.
Dan made himself comfortable on the couch. Chris sat on the floor near her textbooks, her arm resting against the sofa. She looked like a graceful cat curled up, her long legs drawn up beneath her body.
“You think I’m going to attack you if you sit up here with me?” Dan teased.
“Yes.” Chris smiled and took a sip of the tea.
“You’re probably right,” he responded, grinning.
Chris liked his honesty. “I was just kidding. I’m a floor person by nature.” She became more serious. “You look beat.”
“It’s common the first month of school,” he explained, balancing the mug on his right knee. “You’re holding up well under the circumstances,” he noted with satisfaction.
“I don’t know, Dan. After that run-in with Brodie today....”
“You hit him right between the running lights,” he said, trying not to smile.
Her violet eyes darkened. “He’s an eighteen-year-old kid instead of a mature man in his early thirties!”
“Brodie never grew up in some ways, Chris.”
She tilted her head, studying him in the softened light. “You sound as if you’ve known him for a while.”
“He was in my F-4 squadron a number of years ago.”
“And did he go around telling people to watch their six?” she asked, anger lowering her voice.
Dan studied her for a moment. “He said that to you?”
“Yes, in front of the whole class.”
“He must have said it in jest.”
To Dan, that particular phrase carried plenty of weight and feeling behind it. It was reserved for a confrontation that would set up a demarcation line never to be crossed by the other person.
Chris grimaced. “If we were living in the Middle Ages, it would have been akin to Brodie throwing his gauntlet and challenging me to a duel.”
After talking at length with Brodie, Dan had been convinced that the pilot was going to continue trying to get to Chris. This extra bit of information confirmed his original impression. Dan held the mug in both hands, looking down at her upturned face. Right now all he wanted to do was take Chris into his arms, to hold and kiss her. His body tightened with desire. How could she look so vulnerable and trusting now, and so professional and unreadable at the school? Would her background as an orphan have forced her to take on this chameleon-like quality? Dan pushed aside his personal feelings for a moment. “Look,” he began heavily, leaning forward, “I’ve dressed Brodie down for his actions, and he’s given his word it won’t happen again.”
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