Trained together at the Athena Academy, these six women vowed to help each other when in need. Now one of their own has been murdered, and it is up to them to find the killer—before they become the next victims….

Alex Forsythe:

This forensic scientist can uncover clues others fail to see.

PROOF, by Justine Davis

Darcy Allen Steele:

A master of disguise, Darcy can sneak into any crime scene.

ALIAS, by Amy J. Fetzer

Tory Patton:

Used to uncovering scandals, this investigative reporter will get to the bottom of any story—especially murder.

EXPOSED, by Katherine Garbera

Samantha St. John:

Though she’s the youngest, this lightning-fast secret agent can take down men twice her size.

DOUBLE-CROSS, by Meredith Fletcher

Josie Lockworth:

A little danger won’t stop this daredevil air force pilot from uncovering the truth.

PURSUED, by Catherine Mann

Kayla Ryan:

The police lieutenant won’t rest until the real killer is brought to justice, even if it makes her the next target!

JUSTICE, by Debra Webb

ATHENA FORCE:

They were the best, the brightest, the strongest—women who shared a bond like no other….

Pursued
Catherine Mann

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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CATHERINE MANN

Bestselling author Catherine Mann writes contemporary military romances, a natural fit since she’s married to her very own air force flyboy. Prior to publication, Catherine graduated with a B.A. in Fine Arts: Theater from the College of Charleston and received her master’s degree in theater from UNC-Greensboro. Now a RITA® Award winner, Catherine finds that following her aviator husband around the world with four children, a beagle and a tabby in tow offers her endless inspiration for new, action-packed plots. Learn more about her work, as well as her adventures in military life, by visiting her Web site, http://catherinemann.com.

To my daughter Maggie, a kick-butt kid with an indomitable spirit, sharp mind and tender heart—truly a Bombshell heroine in the making. I love you, kiddo!

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 1

“Negative G forces coming. Hold on to your lunch.”

Captain Josie Lockworth, USAF, upped the throttle and pushed forward on the stick of her T-38 supersonic jet. Out of courtesy only, she offered the warning to reporter Shannon Conner strapped into the back seat.

Not that she had anything against reporters. Hell, she’d flown with top-notch embedded journalists in the Middle East. Her best friend was even a television correspondent.

This reporter, however, could only be called a hack. Her news network soaked up scandal like a thirsty rag. Josie couldn’t afford bad press derailing her multimillion-dollar military test project. Forget the money, actually small change as far as the government was concerned.

Her mother’s honor had been held hostage long enough.

The T-38 pierced a low-lying cloud. Blood rushed up to her head with negative G forces, the reverse of positive Gs that pushed blood down. The body tolerated fewer negative Gs before passing out. One negative G. Two. Three. Spots danced in front of her eyes on the mountainous horizon of the California desert.

Adrenaline sang through her veins. Sweat popped along her back through her T-shirt. Her flight suit clung like a second skin. But then the uniform was already as much a part of her as any epidermal layer.

She pulled back on the stick, glancing up at the mirror to check her passenger. Shannon was awake but slumped in her seat in the tight cockpit, one strand of blond hair sneaking out of her helmet to stick to her pale face.

No hurling yet. A twinge of respect trickled through Josie’s steady focus, even a bit of sympathy.

But she did need to keep the reporter busy and disoriented. How better than nonstop acrobatics in a supersonic and nimble airplane? Shannon had insisted on the full-out flying experience. And Josie always delivered one hundred percent.

Tucking sideways, she slipped through a mountain pass. Through her clear top canopy, she watched the sandy landscape scroll past.

Josie forced oxygen in and out. Her huffed exhales echoed through the headset Darth Vader style. Near silence swallowed the cockpit, the only sound the rasp and drag of breathing through the oxygen mask since they’d left noise behind with speed.

As always, she flattened her frustration with the familiar routine of flying. The trainer jet zipped along over a range near Edwards Air Force Base, approximately one hundred miles northeast of Los Angeles. Not much time left in this flight until she landed where she worked in a military detachment at the nearby Palmdale testing facility, also known as Air Force Plant 42. For a test pilot, steely nerves were mandatory, leaving no room for cranky emotions jangling her at a critical second. And during test missions, any second could be critical.

Okay, so this wasn’t a test and she was pissed.

That someone like Shannon had been allowed access to Josie’s current test project just proved higher-ups were only paying lip service to endorsing her work. Someone wanted this resurrected project that had once been her mother’s to fail. Damaging press could facilitate their cause.

And yeah, yeah, she mentally rolled her eyes at her annoying voice of reason. Part of her still resented Shannon from their prep-school days at the Athena Academy for the Advancement of Women.

Advancement? Shannon had tried to advance Josie right out the front gates on a trumped-up charge of stealing.

Good God, as if.

Her stomach, which held strong against negative Gs, grew downright queasy over the notion of taking so much as a post office pen. But back then, Shannon had convinced everyone Josie was off her rocker, like her washed-up military mama. Who could expect reasonable behavior from a Lockworth lady?

Anger fired hotter than an afterburner, jangling the singing adrenaline off-key. Her combat boots braced on the rudders. She kept her right hand loose on the stick, her left on the two throttles, flicking up to adjust dials then landing back on the stick. Not a HOTAS—hands on throttle and stick, with all the buttons attached. In the T-38 she had to take her hands off the stick and throttle to work the controls. But for Shannon, she’d give a new spin to the HOTAS—Hands On Tummy and Sickbag.

She ran the stick fore and aft, gliding the T-38 through the sky in a porpoise-style swim along the rolling mountain range. Push for a hint of a negative G at the top of the sine wave. Pull for the kiss of a positive G at the bottom of sine wave. Push, pull. Push, pull.

“Uh, Josie?” Shannon’s thready voice echoed over the headset. “Where’s the eject button again?”

Crap. She’d gone too far, something she never did anymore. She steadied the stick. “Just a little PIO—pilot induced oscillation. My fault, and nothing to worry about. I’ve got it back under control.”

Time to get herself under control, as well. She needed to tamp down the old impulsive Josie in favor of her more structured self she’d cultivated after her mother’s breakdown. “We’re on the straight and narrow now. As long as you keep your eyes forward, all will be normal.”

Unlike looking to the side, where everything blurred with speed.

She hugged the terrain with skill and calm. No one would ever have reason to accuse her of weakness or emotional instability. She knew how hard she would have to fight even a whisper of that label, since her mother had been locked away after “the incident.” But with this test project, Josie hoped to clear her mother’s name and shake free of that dark legacy.

“Doing okay back there?” Josie’s gaze flicked up to the mirror again.

“Just fine,” the ever-prideful Shannon replied, brown eyes wide, makeup still impeccable.

Pride, Josie could understand. She had her fair share of that. Sad thing was, Shannon really packed a genius brain under all that uptight pettiness. Given the right direction, she could have been an incredible asset to the Athena Academy alumni list—if she’d made it to the twelfth grade instead of being punted out on an honor violation.

All a moot point since, more important, that genius brain could twist things against Josie in a heartbeat if the intellect wasn’t otherwise occupied. And if her navigational calculations were correct, they were seconds away from a guaranteed distraction.

Bingo. Right on target, there it was, a nifty distraction for any brain. “Bet you wouldn’t expect to see that out here.”

“See what?”

“A nudist colony.” She hoped her words didn’t convey the grin she couldn’t stifle.

Silence echoed over the headset, then, “You’re making that up to get me to look over to the side where it’s tougher to keep oriented with the motion. You just want to freak me out again.”

“I’m only playing tour guide.” Oh, yeah, completely in control again. “Not that I have anything against nudist colonies, but I can’t help wondering. Why have one in the desert? I mean think about it. Wouldn’t the sunscreen sting in sensitive places? And sitting on a metal lawn chair, a guy would really have to watch his butt and be careful of his, uh, well, hoo-hah hanging out there.”

“And this helps me with my story how?” Broadcaster-neutral tones livened up with an extra touch of bitchiness.

“I’m trying to show you some of the local scenery. But if you don’t think it will work, no problem. Besides, hoo-hah might be too technical a term for your viewers.”

“You’re so not funny.”

This whole damned flight wasn’t funny. And the threat Shannon posed to her career was downright terrifying, but Josie had to find moments of levity where she could. “You’re right. I totally understand if you don’t want to look. It’s much easier to keep your lunch down if you’re focusing forward.” Now wasn’t there a nifty life lesson there? “Watching out the side is only for folks with steely nerves.”

She’d tossed down a gauntlet and Shannon would undoubtedly accept the challenge. Wait. Wait for it…

“Oh my God.” Shannon’s face went waxy in the mirror. She jerked back around front, gaze fixed on the horizon.

“Been that long since you saw a hoo-hah, huh?”

Shannon’s growl echoed through the headset.

Josie concurred on a number of levels. Sadly, it had likely been even longer for her, since she didn’t have time for a man lately, much less his hoo-hah.

Not that she would admit that to Shannon.

The woman resented her, always had. Right from their early teenage years at Athena Academy, Shannon had envied Josie’s connections through her grandfather, past CIA director Joseph Lockworth. Poppy had been directly responsible for starting the prestigious all-girls prep school designed to empower women, many of them going on to government security jobs. With only two hundred students from grades seven through twelve, the bonds forged among students were tight and lifelong.

She still sweated bullets over how Shannon’s little stunt had almost cost Josie her dream. Luckily, her best friend Tory Patton had worked her own investigative skills and proved Shannon was responsible for stealing the class’s petty-cash fund and setting up Josie.

Josie’s hands fisted tighter. She should just get over it. Besides, she had the Athena diploma. She could afford to be magnanimous. Adult.

Easing back the stick, Josie skimmed a more scenic route along California’s desert valleys cut by the ridges of the Sierra Nevadas with the Kern River running through. She cranked an east turn away from the river valley, out of the Sierras back over flat land of dry lake beds and creosote bushes, closer to her Palmdale testing facility near Edwards AFB and closer to dropping off Shannon.

Josie continued a tour-guide litany while her passenger stayed silent for once. Thank God.

A road splitting the desert stretched straight and long ahead of her, marred only by the dust kicked up from a motorcycle bearing down toward the test facility. She lined up along the lone band of road, pacing, gaining ground on the rider. And why not? Everything in an aviator’s life was a chance for competition.

Fringe rippled from the arms of the biker’s leather jacket giving off a Mad Max air that fit well with the scattered miners, desert rats in rusted trailers. Wild and untamed, like the old Josie who was no longer allowed free rein. The taboo element entranced her all the more for being forbidden. Even while she rambled her scenic explanations to Shannon, Josie couldn’t look away from a sight and yearning that held her attention beyond any hoo-hah.

Her headset crackled with a cleared throat. Shannon’s interruption yanked Josie’s attention back to the cockpit.

“Too bad you couldn’t get Tory to cover your dog-and-pony show. No doubt she would have televised anything you wanted. That loyalty among classmates is something else. You two even covered for a pregnant friend once—what happened to Kayla and her kid anyway? Did she ever find a man to marry her?”

Okay, that ripped it. The old Josie still humming just below the surface kicked her adrenaline level up into a freaking aria. “For a smart woman, you sure do say some mighty unwise things at times.”

She could put up with someone smacking at her. But her innate sense of justice, which had once earned her the label “Josephine, the Tattletale Queen,” really balked at letting an injustice go unavenged.

Nobody messed with her friends.

“You know, Shannon, I don’t think I’m lined up just right. We need to go around.” She clicked on the radio. “Palmdale Tower, Bat two-zero on the go.”

Josie popped the jet into afterburners, dumping raw gas into the exhaust stream like a pilot light on a stove igniting, pumping up the speed. Thwump. The plane jolted from the swift kick in the ass. Exhilaration trilled within her like the final high note exploding free to reverberate through an auditorium.

Her eyes flicked to the mirror. Shannon’s face had turned cucumber.

“Ah, hell, Shannon—” she couldn’t quite suppress the sarcasm “—I probably should have told you I was going to do that.”

Shannon grappled at the face mask. Her throat worked, then cranked down in a swallow. Impressive move, holding back the volcano of vomit that would have spewed up through the mask.

Enough payback for one day. Point made. The last echoes of justice faded, leaving an emptiness inside her that grew increasingly difficult to ignore.

Josie leveled off at five hundred feet above the runway. “Palmdale Tower, Bat two-zero requesting left closed.”

“Left closed approved. Repeat base.”

“Bat two-zero, left base with gear.”

The control tower responded, “Bat two-zero, clear to land. No traffic.”

Coming in. Landing. One hundred and fifty miles per hour at impact, the tires screeched in protest of the brakes. She kept the nose up to bleed off speed, as well until…poof, the plane’s nose tilted down and kissed asphalt. The plane taxied down the runway at a sedate pace.

Hand easing back on the throttle, she slowed, pulling off onto the hammerhead toward Shannon’s waiting television cameraman. “Palmdale, Bat two-zero clear the active. Going to ground control.” She switched frequencies. “Palmdale ground, Bat two-zero. Clear the active. Request parking.”

“Bat two-zero, taxi via Alpha,” ground control responded. “Back to spot sixteen. Caution construction. Right-hand side of Alpha at Bravo.”

A blue pickup truck slid in front of her with a “follow me” sign in back to lead her onto the tarmac. The sun’s rays baked through the clear canopy, desert temps still notching in November. Her flight suit stuck to her back against the leather seat as she followed the truck past the guy waving wand flashlights toward the parking spot—

And toward a uniformed man, the major, her boss, standing and waiting.

Not good. The murky cloud over her day went opaque.

Major Mike Bridges had no doubt made the trip out to the flight line to coincide with her landing for a reason. Since he stood by the hangar housing her two modified test models of the Predator unmanned spy drone, he must be here for her. A problem? If so, she needed scoop-hungry Shannon Conner out of the way before any discussion.

Josie whipped off her helmet and deplaned. Wind tore across the treeless expanse, lifting her short hair, drying the sweat on her body with gritty gusts. Her combat boots smacked steamy asphalt three steps behind Shannon, who was staggering toward the nearest trash can. Shannon gripped the metal edges and leaned, her borrowed flight suit stretching across her heaving back. Wonder if the cameraman will document that part?

Her boss frowned. Josie cringed, then braced. He’d only assumed command a month ago, so she still wasn’t sure where she stood in regard to his approval and respect. Still, she’d followed orders today—show the reporter around and pull out all the stops. Okay, so she’d worked in a little revenge for her friend along with it.

And at a totally sucky time.

She needed to lay low after the fallout from her helicopter diversionary stunt she’d pulled to help one of her Athena grad friends with a mission a few months ago. Another wrong she’d leaped in to avenge and damn the consequences. She’d never quite understood why being right wasn’t always the right thing.

Regardless, her flight and fun were over.

A rumble from behind the hangar interrupted her thoughts seconds before a Harley rolled into view. The same low-rider cruiser she’d seen from her plane roared up with the guy wearing black leather.

The motorcycle jerked to a stop by the fence gate. The fringe on the man’s arms rippled. The growling engine shushed.

One boot slammed the cement. A muscled thigh in faded blue jeans and black chaps swung over. The second boot pounded pavement. He tugged off the helmet, shaking free coal-dark hair longer than any military regs allowed. The thick mane hit his shoulders.

Definitely not military.

He smacked along his leather-clad thighs, dusting, the action and chaps drawing attention to a hoo-hah package that—

Nope. Not gonna go there even in her mind. Too much talk of hoo-hahs must have her hormones on overload.

Her P.C. call sign might have started out as a Josie and the Pussy Cats reference, but she’d quickly redirected it to Politically Correct. She had rights and wrongs down pat. Checking out a man’s hoo-hah was as disrespectful as an ass-check from him.

Even if this guy didn’t have a problem with women who flew jets and shot the big guns like other men she’d seen outside the workplace, she didn’t have time for a relationship. Hell, she barely had time to do her laundry.

Once she cleared her mother’s name, her life would be different. Then she could shake off the ghosts of her past and not worry so much about the repercussions of letting the occasional emotion slip free.

She turned her attention back to the upchucking reporter, reaching into her thigh pocket for a pack of tissues and a peppermint. Silently she passed Shannon the candy and tissues.

Blond hair straggling forward, Shannon snatched the offerings and started restoring order for a camera appearance. “My feature about you is going to suck, you know.”

“We both know it was going to anyway.” Josie popped a peppermint into her mouth, as well, and clicked it to the side against her teeth.

Life might not always be right or fair, but people were predictable for the most part. There was something comforting about that, even when it brought negative garbage her way. At least she could see it coming and strategize.

After her mother’s breakdown and discharge from the air force, Josie had submerged all impulsiveness, clinging to clear-cut reason and stability. Except for a brief lapse today with shaking up Shannon, she’d stuck to her plan. Emotionalism, injustice, any upset in the cosmos launched jitters in Josie’s tummy that left her HOTAS.

Her wayward eyes skipped right over to the biker making his way toward her commander. What the hell were the two of them plotting? Her instincts screamed ambush ahead.

Chapter 2

Fifteen minutes later, Josie watched the dark blue military truck depart, Shannon Conner, her cameraman and personal agendas safely on their way off government property.

Time to turn her attention to whatever had brought her boss out to the flight line. Biker Boy had his back to her now as he faced her boss in deep conversation. What a contrast they made—Major Mike Bridges with his cropped brown hair and military precision next to the man with wild hair and dusty gear.

Bridges’s easygoing smile smoothed the edges of authority. He’d become a well-liked leader in the short time since he’d transferred to California and assumed command of the detachment at the military’s Palmdale testing facility. Josie didn’t need to see the other man’s face to know he was far removed from easygoing. The set to his shoulders, the tightly leashed energy in his loose-hipped stance all lent a dangerous air.

Not good.

Her ambush alert and jitters double-timed. As if the flight with Shannon hadn’t already shown her too well how easily unruly emotionalism could slither in to affect her actions. Unacceptable, especially now.

Over twenty years ago her mother had been a young captain in the air force, as well, a test engineer working to improve stealth on aircraft. Her dreams had tanked in a horrible crash that killed the pilot and resulted in an investigation resulting in the blame falling on Josie’s mother. Zoe Lockworth had resigned her commission and suffered a mental breakdown.

Josie was stronger than that, damn it. And thanks to an air force now more open to having female pilots, she would fly the riskier test missions for this project herself.

Shoulders squared with military precision, she approached her detachment commander beside the looming hangar. Bridges’s gaze zipped up from the conversation. Smoky eyes met hers with a steam quickly banked by professionalism.

Damn. She almost stumbled at the impact. She knew her boss was attracted to her—not that he’d ever made an overt move—and she wasn’t stupid enough to cross that line, either. No hoo-hah was worth risking her career, and apparently he concurred.

But if he wasn’t her superior? What if their paths crossed later, once she’d made major and moved on to another position? Maybe. There was much to respect about Bridges, his drive, his humor. She’d even been attracted to him the first time she’d seen him days before his command assignment had been announced.

All moot now because he was her superior and she did have a job to complete. Besides, she didn’t date guys she worked with. She’d seen firsthand with her parents’ dual military marriage how tough joint service relationships could be.

She would just continue to ignore his good looks—and the quickly disguised appreciation in his eyes. “Good afternoon, Major.”

“Captain Lockworth,” Major Bridges called, voice carrying on the tearing desert wind. “Come speak with us for a moment.”

“Yes, sir.” She closed the distance between herself and the pair.

The biker pivoted on his boot heel toward her and nailed her with brooding brown eyes that bordered on black. She didn’t stumble. She downright stopped for two seconds before regaining her balance and plowing forward.

All right, she was an adult woman with a normal sex drive, but she wouldn’t let it or anything else control her. She blinked away the haze and found the hard features in front of her niggled at her brain with familiarity.

Bridges nodded, no exchange of salutes required on the runway. “Good flight, Captain?”

“The reporter got her money’s worth.”

Chuckles rumbled from her boss. Brooding brown eyes from their guest even twinkled for a flash. Where had she seen him before?

She stared, trying to place…

He quirked a brow at her.

Josie willed away a blush too juvenile for a seasoned combat vet and thrust out her hand. “Captain Josie Lockworth.”

His hand enfolded hers in calluses and heat.

“Diego Morel. Pleasure to meet you.”

His husky drawl stirred the taste of Southern Comfort on her tongue. A strange notion for a woman who never risked the loss of control brought on by alcohol. And an unwelcome notion.

Realization clicked into a radar lock. Awe stilled her.

No wonder he seemed familiar. She’d seen him around from a distance since she’d begun working at Palmdale, even if their paths had never crossed for her projects. Diego Morel—or Cruiser, as he’d once been known—was considered a god in the testing community. A former military test pilot, he’d flown with dazzling grace, the plane such a part of him it seemed to respond to his mere thoughts.

He’d been expected to take his place in aviation history alongside Chuck Yeager, until a simple undetected sinus infection had caused his eardrums to rupture during a grueling mission that cost the life of his wingman. All was normal for him on the ground, but he suffered vertigo in the air.

The winged god was now earthbound for life.

Sympathy whispered through her like clouds dusting her windscreen. His eyes hardened.

Damn. She needed to hide her emotions better. She’d hated those pitying looks after her mother’s problems came to light.

Josie withdrew the hand she hadn’t even realized was still clasped in his. “It’s an honor to meet you in person. I flew your full-hydraulic-failure, engine-control-only approach profile in test-pilot school. That was pioneering work you did back in the day.”

Would he accept her olive branch?

His weathered features smoothed into a smile. “Yeah, ‘back in the day’ this old Mississippi dog could hunt.”

Bridges cleared his throat. “I imagine you’re wondering why we’re here.”

Josie gathered her composure. “It crossed my mind, sir.”

“I wanted to be the first to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” And why was Morel on hand to hear it?

Curious eyes bored into her back. From whom? So many people populated the runway—maintenance, security, other pilots doing a walk-around check of a plane.

Bridges frowned at the activity, then waved toward the hangar door. “Let’s step inside where we can speak privately.”

Crap. This didn’t sound good. “Sure.”

She punched in the cipher lock code and pushed through the side door, leaving the two men to follow. Silence blanketed the metal cavern, disturbed as their footsteps bounced an echo up into the rafters and down again. Her pair of modified Predators sprawled immobile, the dimmed security lights high overhead casting a night-lamp glow on the white-and-gray sleeping crafts. Not overly large, each craft measured 320.4 inches long and 580.8 inches wide from tip to tip, or approximately twenty-six by forty-eight feet.

The UAV—unmanned aerial vehicles—were medium altitude, long range. Flown by a pilot from remote control, they could be guided from countries away, data transmitted instantly through a satellite. Test models were also equipped with an outboard seat for a pilot to ride along wearing a parachute. An override set of controls had been installed, as well, so that the ride-along pilot could assume command and save the craft if the remote control went to hell during testing. Since the Predator didn’t have a traditional cockpit, the pilot perched on a saddlelike seat with a high back, straddling the fuselage. With no clear canopy covering, such as on small jets, he or she flew out there in the open, as flyers had done in the old days.

Prior to entering test-pilot school, Josie had flown the U-2 Dragon Lady spy plane. She’d donned her space suit and popped above ninety-five percent of the earth’s atmosphere, penetrating enemy air space to gather intel. And while she would do it again in a heartbeat if called in defense of her country, the Predator’s intelligence-gathering methods didn’t risk lives.

Except the pretty baby was damn noisy. Actually only a whisper of propeller engines, but still enough to announce its arrival if the heat of battle didn’t mask the sound.

That flaw made it the perfect craft for continuing her mother’s theories, since her mother had been part of the early work on improving stealth for bomber aircraft. Other testers had taken another scientific path after the fatal failure, and a different form of improved stealth was added to the inventory.

Zoe Lockworth’s input was no longer needed in the bomber world. But here with the Predator, Josie could use a piece of her mother’s idea involving acoustic stealth. If proven, it would be invaluable to the nation’s defense.

Josie stroked a hand along the Predator’s sleek white side. Clearing her mother’s name wouldn’t give Zoe Lockworth back her ruined military career. It wouldn’t give her two daughters back the lost years with their mom as she’d drifted deeper into depression over the loss of her life’s dream.

But it was the only present Josie could offer a mama who’d been too medicated to enjoy the gift of a clay handprint from art class. Her mother had recovered her mind. Now Josie intended to give her back her pride.

Morel cast a threatening shadow across her Predator.

Josie stepped between him and the plane before turning to her boss. “Sir? What is it you want to tell me and why here?”

Bridges drew up alongside. “I thought if we’re going to have a scene, it’s better that we should have it in here, away from everyone else.”

She prepped herself for the worst. “There won’t be a scene, Major, but could we cut to the chase, please?”

“Your test program went under congressional oversight this week.”

Her program had not been scratched. Relief almost staggered her back a step. Then the subtle crosswinds of his words whipped over her along with suspicions. Her program was still in danger.

Why? This project wasn’t near big enough to be under congressional oversight, a safeguard usually reserved for programs budgeted over one point three billion dollars. Her project ranked more in the twenty-five-million range.

That her little budget had landed on congressional radar didn’t bode well. “And Morel’s reason for being included in this meeting?”

“You may or may not know that Morel consults for contractors and the government. He’s been tapped to report back to a congressional committee on how the program is really going without any sugarcoating by the air force. Nothing will change in how you do business. You’ll just have someone walking behind you while you do it.”

“A contractor spy.” She softened her words with a smile. No scene, but even an idiot would know this sort of news would piss off any tester. These two men weren’t idiots.

“That’s not the label I would choose,” Bridges quibbled.

“A baby-sitter then?”

Her boss shrugged, his classically handsome face neutral. “Whichever label makes you less uncomfortable.”

Both sucked.

Although “spy” seemed more appropriate, since she’d never had a baby-sitter who looked like that.

Morel lounged against a support beam. “Listen, little lady—”

“Little lady?” She struggled to keep her voice steady and soft. “I’m the program manager for this test, not some Powerpuff Girl.”

He studied her with hooded eyes before a slow grin creased his face. “Lockworth, you might want to be careful about selling short those Powerpuff Girls. If I understand my Powerpuff lore correctly, Blossom’s a commander with a bright future and Buttercup is one helluva fighter, like you.”

What a hoo-hah. “Well, I’m still not a Buttercup.”

His smile turned as hard as his eyes. “And I’m not a spy. Furthermore, I’m sure as hell not the baby-sitter sort. I’m just here to help out where I can and tell it like it is. A test program that fails before it gets off the ground is still a success because it means a faulty program wasn’t launched for somebody to die in the air. Remember that.”

Damn. Already he was talking about nixing her program, not to mention the veiled reference to her mother.

Josie pressed her lips together to hold back a torrent of frustrated words. This man held her future in his hands. More important, he held her mother’s past. “Of course. My apologies for the spy comment. I was just caught off guard. I’m sure you understand the frustrations of this side of the testing fence. Scheduling is tight enough without extra paperwork. But we’ll just plug in an extra coffeepot.”

“Coffee? Lifeblood in a flying community.” Morel cranked his lazy smile up a notch. “We’re gonna get along just fine, Buttercup.”

Buttercup? She cringed.

He might be an ass, but at least he’d let her off the hook easily. She had to appreciate that they were back on even footing, playing the diplomacy game. She would bury him in paperwork, data and reports. God knows she was good at details.

Starting now. “Which would you rather do first? A walk around the aircraft? Or should we head straight over to my office for a prelim brief on our progress to date?”

“We can do that tomorrow. How about you bring me up to speed over a beer?”

A beer? She didn’t drink and she rarely socialized. She didn’t have time to waste shooting the breeze in a bar, especially during duty hours. Probably why she’d never met this man face-to-face, if that’s how he preferred to spend his after-work hours.

Bridges gave her a pointed look. Play the game.

Fair enough. She understood the rules of this boys’ club and knew how to play them her own way on her own terms. “We can talk just as well over drinks as we can in the office. I’d be honored to hear a legend’s take on the merits of computer simulations replacing actual flight tests.”

Legend, my butt.

Grinding her teeth in frustration, Josie forced herself to lounge against the quarter panel of her Mustang outside the Wing and a Prayer Bar while she waited. And waited. And waited longer while Diego Morel took his sweet time parking his bike, stowing his helmet, making sure his Harley was parked just so under the security light.

Holy crap, she’d be ready for retirement by the time they made it inside.

He’d chosen the locale, deep in the California desert, a flyer hangout with an airplane tail sticking out of the roof. Music vibrated through the walls, rowdy voices swelling from the back porch and over. She would have preferred somewhere quieter where he could have his draft and she could order a grilled chicken salad while they talked. But he was calling the shots. And as long as they discussed business, she would be content.

Finally he finished playing nursemaid to his Harley and started across the gravel lot toward the door without a glance in her direction.

Hello? Did the guy not even remember she was here?

Josie shoved away from the car. “Well sure, I’d love to join you. Right this way.”

He shot a quick glance her way. “Did you say something, Buttercup?”

Buttercup. She forced herself not to roll her eyes. “Nope. Just tagging along with you. You’re calling the shots tonight.”

There, that sounded nice, didn’t it?

“Hmm. Somehow I doubt that.” He swept open the door with a near-mocking flourish.

Josie stepped into the doorway, pausing half in, half out to give herself time to adjust to the blasting cacophony of clanking glasses, blaring music and conversations shouted to rise over it all.

“Great place, huh?” He drank in the atmosphere like a favored microbrew.

“Great.” And entirely too packed.

He crowded her space until she had to continue inside. At least now they would get down to business. She scanned the room. The din of voices blended with the never-ending blare of old military movies. Airplane parts loaded most of the walls. He ambled inside, his eyes gravitating to the back door leading to the porch. The wall out there sported hundreds of signatures from test pilots, hers included. She’d scrawled her “Jane” Hancock during the one and only other time she’d been here—a mandatory appearance to celebrate her first test flight.

Through the press of bodies, she spotted a couple pushing back their chairs to leave. “Looks like there’s an empty table there in the corner—”

Josie glanced over her shoulder. No Morel. Great. She searched and found him settling on a bar stool in front of one of the airplane “sticks” for drunks to “fly.” Talk about frequent flyer miles. This guy must have racked up more than his fair share, given how everyone knew him.

Patience, she reminded herself. And no unruly emotions.

By the time his beer and her water arrived, someone recognized him, which led to another beer with a couple of C-17 pilots in California on a TDY—temporary duty—from South Carolina. Three drinks later, he asked, “Want another water?”

“No thanks. My eyeballs are floating.” Enough already. She could be polite while still drawing boundaries. “If you don’t want to talk about my project, that’s cool. But could you please let me know so I can return to work?”

“No need to head back just yet.”

“What does any of this have to do with my test?”

“We’re building a working relationship. I’m watching how you operate, getting into your head. Understanding the way you see things will help me interpret your data.”

“Sounds to me like an excuse to knock back beers with your pals. But however you want to play the game.”

The duo of C-17 pilots stood with apologies and calls of “Catch ya later, dude, gotta find some food.”

Morel sighed. “Listen up, Buttercup—”

Josie propped a boot on the lowest rung of his bar stool in an aggressive move forward he couldn’t mistake. “That’s Captain Buttercup, thank you very much.”

“To Captain Buttercup.” He toasted her with a pull off his bottle before slamming it back down on the scarred wood of the bar. “Those guys actually had some damned interesting insights on the Predator’s performance during a hostage rescue mission overseas. You might not be so pissed if you’d actually bothered to listen.”

Damn it, he had a point. Her innate sense of justice was a real pain in the butt sometimes. “Score one for you. But in the interest of fair play—” and she was always fair “—it would help if you included me in these conversations, Major.”

“For the record, I’m plain old mister these days. I’m not in the air force anymore.” His fist twitched around the flight stick mounted on the bar, thumb absently stroking.

Contrition nipped. Hard. He was an ass, no question, but God, he’d lost so much. She couldn’t imagine having her feet nailed to the ground. Like her mother, he’d had his dream taken away. Her mother had gone mad. Had this man perhaps simply gotten mad? Her boot dropped back to the floor. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I didn’t die. I’m still working tests, just from the other end. I’m lucky and I know it.” He motioned to the bartender for another round.

“Okay then.” She hitched up onto the bar stool next to him. “I’m sorry for the air force’s loss of your flying talent.”

His eyes narrowed as he lifted the new bottle toward his mouth. “Watch it Buttercup. That was damn near a compliment.”

“Your skill in the air is a matter of record. I’ve made it more than clear how much I respect your work.” Her attention shifted to a crowd back by the pool table. “And speaking of work, finally—” She waved to one of her workmates striding toward the pool table and gestured him over. “Hey Craig, come meet the newest member of our team.”

The pilot loped closer, red hair, freckles and boyish even nearing thirty. Josie smiled a greeting. “Diego Morel, this is Craig Wagner. He’s one of the pilots assigned to my team and a great asset to the program.”

“A pleasure to meet you.” Wagner pumped the handshake. “While Josie and I were in test-pilot school together, instructors used your quick look reports as models, sir.”

“Thanks. But drop the sir. Diego’s fine. All this sir stuff is starting to make me feel ancient.”

Ancient? Josie studied Morel for the first time beyond just a threat to her program and considered him as a person. A man. Maybe ten years her senior, but still a hundred percent in his prime—even half drunk on his ass.

Craig saluted Morel with a lift of his beer. “You earned the sir label early.”

“Ah, you’re more diplomatic than your boss, Wagner.”

Wagner’s boss? Josie frowned. She didn’t really think of herself as his boss, although technically she was. He was just a guy whose work she respected. One of the best fliers out there and she needed that. Sure they were the same age and had gone through test training together, but they were friends, too. She hated that Morel was making her question if Craig might be harboring resentments.

Josie dunked another lemon in her water. “Morel is on loan to us from the subcontractor. He’ll be offering feedback on our procedures.” She would fill Craig in on the rest later.

“Excellent. I look forward to working with you.”

“Same here.”

Wagner pivoted on his boot heels toward Josie, creating a pseudo privacy wall blocking her from Diego. “See you for dinner after I get back from the Red Flag exercise?”

Morel’s eyes bored into her back. Was he taking notes even now? She couldn’t afford to discount his influence just because he’d knocked back a few drinks. “The Friday after you return, at seven, right? I may be a little late but I’ll be there.”

“Cool, I’ll have the grill fired up and ready.” Wagner pivoted back to Morel. “Great meeting you, sir. I look forward to working together.”

Sir.

Morel winced. “Same here.”

As Wagner threaded through the crowd back to his table, Morel motioned for another beer. “Do you and he have a thing going?”

Damn. She didn’t need this. “God, no. He’s a friend from test-pilot school. Besides, he’s married with a kid and another on the way.”

She was adamant about no relationships with fellow service members, a big part of why she’d decided to ignore the initial spark of attraction she’d felt for Bridges.

“You’re having dinner together.”

“At his house. With his wife and their daughter,” she paused, then rushed to add, “once they get back from visiting her mother, in case you’re wondering why he’s here without her on a Friday night.”

His skeptical snort did little to alleviate her concerns.

“Marriage doesn’t always stop some folks from hooking up, Buttercup.”

This guy was beyond jaded, which didn’t bode well for her. “Well, it most definitely stops me.”

“Good.” He didn’t bother halting his assessing smile.

She glanced down at his ring finger. Bare. No cheater lines. “With all due respect, are you hitting on me?”

“With all due respect, if I was hitting on you, you wouldn’t need to ask.”

“Fair enough.” She reached to loop her hair behind one ear, her hand pausing mid-motion at the flirty gesture. Subconscious no doubt, but enough to stir the air like raw fuel dumped on engines to kick a plane into afterburners.

Her hand jerked into motion again, completing the hair smoothing with a defiant sweep. “And if you were hitting on me, sleeping with someone in my chain of command isn’t allowed.”

Damn. Damn. Damn. Now he had her thinking about sex. Was he messing with her mind? Setting her up by seeing if she would take the bait?

“Technically, Captain Buttercup, I’m not in your chain of command. It might not be wise for us to screw around while we’re working together. But there’s no rule that says we can’t.” He held up his bottle to forestall her interruption. “Just to be clear on the technicalities.”

Either way, setup or not, time to put this guy in his professional place. “Thanks for the clarification. Not that it’s a problem here anyway since you aren’t hitting on me.”

“Of course. Because like I said, you would know.” He pulled another slow drag off his beer before thunking it down on the bar. “And for the record, don’t get your G-suit in a knot about whether or not I can do my job. I’ve got more time at the urinal in tests than you have in the air force.”

“Lovely,” she muttered. “What a hoo-hah.”

“Pardon me?”

“Uh, wah-hoo. Like a cheer. Or a toast.” She lifted her water glass. “Here’s to the success of my test project and all the, uh, experience you’re bringing to table. Wah-hoo.”

Josie clinked her glass to his bottle. The guy’s losses might tug at the sympathy strings, and she understood full well she had to be patient and play nice. But if his incompetence threatened her program, she wouldn’t hesitate to bring him down.

Chapter 3

Her head was ready to explode with frustration.

Josie made tracks through the parking lot toward her Mustang convertible. Alone. Luckily, legends were able to nab plenty of designated-driver offers after a few too many beers.

They hadn’t once discussed her test. Although, maybe his slack attitude could work well for her program. She could feed him positive data, downplay trouble spots. She would work through any bugs given time, and she needed to pass this investigation in order to have that time.

Winding her way through haphazardly parked cars, she stayed alert for drunks or any other possible threats. The survival knife in her boot pressed a steely reassurance against her calf.

Across the lot, she noticed a vehicle parking beside hers, even though there were plenty of other closer spots. Excellent night vision clearly identified a familiar red SUV with a “1 Pilot” license plate.

Number One Pilot. She suppressed a groan.

Bridges? Waiting for her again?

After dark.

Damn it. He was a professional, as was she, but she hated this itchy feeling of unease. He likely didn’t mean a thing with the parking spot and she wouldn’t think twice about it if they were the same gender. However, gossip was hell and with her mother’s history she was hypersensitive about negative press.

Just when she’d decided to haul butt back inside, three other figures stepped from the SUV and erased suspicion. A general rounded to the back bumper along with two colonels. Bridges was hanging with the big dogs tonight.

Continuing toward her car, Josie snapped a salute to the senior officers. “Good evening, sirs.”

Bridges slammed his door and nodded. “Good evening, Captain. Hold on if you have a minute. I’d like you to meet our guests.”

Bridges made the introductions to the general and two colonels who’d flown into Palmdale on an unplanned visit. “I was filling General Quincy in on the kick-ass flight you gave the network reporter this afternoon. Folks up in the control tower said that was some fine flying, Lockworth.”

“Thank you, sir. Just doing my job.” She might wonder about Bridges at times personally, but professionally, he was a good boss when it came to giving positive face-time for those under his command.

General Quincy’s stars winked in the lamplight. “Let’s hope positive media coverage comes our way. We could use some additional congressional funding next fiscal year.”

Josie struggled not to flinch. “Let’s hope, sir.”

“I’ll be on the lookout for the feature piece.” Quincy’s attention skated to the bar, thank God. “We just finished dinner at the Officer’s Club and I wanted to see if this place has changed since I did some work at Palmdale and Edwards back in the Dark Ages. Do they still have the signature wall?”

“Yes, sir, right out on the back porch. It would be a crime to paint over it.”

“Outstanding. I’ll bet it’s full now.” He turned to Bridges. “What do you say we check it out, gentlemen?”

As Josie watched them leave, warning lights blazed in her mind. What was up with their unscheduled visit? There were too many upsets crashing down in one day for her liking.

First the flight with a reporter who hated her guts. Then a congressional oversight appointee who didn’t give a crap about anything but shooting the breeze with flyers over a beer. And now the general directly in her chain of command showing up out of the blue on the same day—and talking about her.

Coincidence? It didn’t feel that way.

She shook off the paranoia. Wouldn’t they have a field day if she expressed her concerns? It was already going to hit the fan anyway when Shannon’s story came out if something wasn’t done to counterbalance that report.

Starting now. She’d never been one to wait around for fate to stab her in the back.

Fishing out her keys, Josie thumbed the unlock button. She hadn’t stood a chance with Shannon’s interview anyway. The dazzling flight plan was her only hope of showing higher-ups she’d at least tried to give the reporter her money’s worth—even if she’d also taken some personal satisfaction in shaking up Shannon.

Josie slid into her car, locked herself inside and tugged her e-mail pager from her flight suit thigh pocket. Sure she could e-mail at home in twenty minutes, but she hated the solitariness of her place. Probably came from spending years in a jam-packed boarding-school environment.

She needed to send out feelers to her network of contacts and discover what was going on with the congressional investigation. Athena Academy grads watched each other’s backs. Nobody messed with their friends and got away with it.

And Athena afforded her some hefty contacts. Only the best were invited to attend.

Their high-powered professions around the world made group reunions in person damn near impossible, so instead Athena alumni relied on the Internet and their government-secure alumni Web site for communication in their high-octane lives. She hadn’t even been able to make the recent funeral for one of her older classmates and a personal friend, Rainy Miller.

How unfair and unbelievable to think of Rainy as gone. Nothing about her death made sense.

Josie sagged back against her seat, feeling too mortal. She’d tried to think through everything on her project. But then so had her mother, and still someone had died.

Rainy had also died in a suspicious car accident only days after calling an emergency meeting with Josie and their five closest friends from Athena Academy. Rainy had died on the way to the meeting. Now they were all seeking answers, and the questions were piling up even faster. Most recently, Samantha St. John had tracked down the man responsible for killing Rainy, an assassin known as the Cipher. Unfortunately, Sam had killed him without learning who had sent him to murder Rainy.

God, she was getting morbid and that wasn’t her style. She preferred action. She clutched the e-mailer in her hand and scanned through her inbox, which was packed with everything from questions about the Cipher to details of Tory Patton’s latest date with the new man in her life.

A reply to Tory would be a good place to start in diffusing Shannon. Josie tapped through a message to her old classmate and closest friend Tory, who worked for Shannon’s rival network. Tory would be more than glad to one-up Shannon, since she’d recently caught the traitorous witch buck naked in bed with Tory’s former producer and now ex-boyfriend. Things had worked out for the best, though. Tory had hooked up with Ben Forsythe, a man worthy of her. Ben was the brother of another member of the group, Alexandra. Or Alex, as she preferred to be called.

Josie hit Send on her e-mail, then started a second note to her sister, who’d graduated a few classes behind her at Athena Academy. Damn, but Diana had been young when Dad had shipped them both off to the boarding school.

Her fingers paused midway through the message.

She and Diana hardly ever talked anymore, the rift between them widening over the years. Rainy’s death should remind them all to reach out more.

Josie fished in her leg pocket for her cell phone. Her fingers closed around her lip gloss. She pitched it in her lap before tugging free the phone and dialing Diana’s number. The fact that her baby sister worked in army intelligence out in Arizona would offer enough of an excuse to call that Diana wouldn’t go into shock over hearing her voice.

If she even recognized it.

While the phone rang, Josie defiantly swiped on a coating of lip gloss. She’d wear orange tryst if she wanted, and it had nothing to do with questionable looks from Diego Morel or Mike Bridges.

The extension picked up. “Hello?”

“Hey, Diehard.” Josie pumped cheer into her voice and worked to recall happier times of horseback races, her little sister’s blond pigtails streaking behind her. “It’s me. Your bossy big sister. I’ve got a favor to ask, if you have time to talk for a minute.”

The five-count silence was deafening.

“Uh, sure, Josie. What can I do for you?”

Stunned or resentful? Who could tell anymore with Diana?

Josie tucked down into her leather seat for a more comfy chat, her eyes locked on the neon spotlight showcasing the plane tail sticking out of the top of the bar’s roof.

“I was wondering if you could track down some insider scoop on a retired air force test pilot, Major Diego Morel.”

Through the air conditioner-fogged bar window, he watched Josie Lockworth’s silver-gray Mustang, the car the same color as her arrogant eyes.

The bitch had to be stopped.

“Birddog,” as he was called these days, nursed his bottle of beer while others at the table discussed her project and her future, how lucky she’d been to have this chance to resurrect her mother’s work. Of course, some made their own luck. He savored the taste of hops and success. His eyes stayed focused on the window, on Lockworth. He kept silent. Listened. Planned while his thumb cleaned condensation from his bottle.

Her test data would be proved eventually. He didn’t doubt that. But with Lockworth out of the picture, he could make his own modifications. The success would be deemed his.

He could not allow her to assume the credit—her or her mother. By the time they split all the accolades, there’d be little left to go around. Tough enough to accept defeat if another man assumed the glory, but how unacceptable to be beaten by a woman.

Ego? Sure. But ego was damned important for fliers. The godlike feeling in the air had enabled him to hurtle his body through the clouds in nothing more than a tin can.

And walk away victorious.

It was all about the victory.

He’d been willing to share the fame at one time, until the subtle rejections started from her. Never anything overt, but the back off was clear all the same. The Lockworth bitch barely noticed his existence.

But he’d sure as hell noticed her.

His eyes lasered in on the Mustang convertible, where a feminine shadow moved inside. Images reeled through his mind of womanly flesh. Lithe, soft.

Naked.

He flexed his fingers along the scarred wood table to capture the imagined sensation of sliding his hand through silky brown hair. Tighter he gripped as if to tug her closer, pulling harder while he pounded deeper. The mere fantasy left him shaking. What he wouldn’t give for the reality of having her under him.

Definitely under.

“Birddog, are you with us?”

Hearing his call sign brought him back to the present. Lust still pounded through him, painful, unrelenting and with no hope of relief. Not with the kind he wanted, anyway.

He forced his fingers to relax, his thoughts to clear and flicked away stray pretzels from the table. “Absolutely. How about another round? This one’s on me.”

Cheers lifted, blending with the camaraderie of the bar. Birddog instructed the waitress to keep his tab open while he assessed his drinking partners. Nobody suspected a thing. And they never would, because he had control of every detail.

He would simply keep closer watch now. The opportunity to stall her project would present itself. He only needed to be patient. Then he would bring Josie Lockworth down fast in a ball of flames.

The conversation with her sister was spiraling downward.

Fast.

Josie tucked the cell phone to her ear with one hand and pitched a Beanie Baby puppy up and down in her other while watching car after car pull out of the bar parking lot. She and her sister had covered work, Athena news and exhausted every superficial conversational topic on the planet. Neither sister wanted to be the one to say they really had nothing important to discuss, nothing important to share, sister style.

And if they dared try broaching a deeper topic, they could very well end up arguing about their parents. Diana defensive of their father and disdainful of their mother. Josie protective of their mother and pissed at their father’s emotional abandonment. How ironic that their parents were still together, but the discord between the sisters had never fully healed.

So she continued to pitch the toy basset hound and keep the conversation light, an odd turnabout when she’d never been a quitter or a coward. Why back off in a relationship that should be special?

The whole mortality deal swamped over her again.

Okay. She’d take a shot at communicating with her sister while staying off dangerous territory about their parents.

“How’s life treating you, kid?” She mentally kicked herself for the kid comment. What a way to sabotage reaching out from the get-go.

Diana had prickly down to a fine art when it came to being the younger sister wanting to outdo her older sibling. But sometimes it was hard to imagine Diana as anything other than a dimple-cheeked kid with no front teeth.

“I’m fine. Busy at work, but fine, Josephine.”

Josephine. Josie stifled a wince at her sister’s apparent payback for the kid comment.

What a name to be saddled with for life. God, she’d hated the first day of any new school year when the “official” roll was called. Josephine Lockworth. Those early days at Athena seemed so long ago, the initial days when the Cassandra group had formed under Rainy’s senior leadership. Sam, with her huge chip on her shoulder. Tory, the motor-mouth attention hog. Darcy, the kiss-ass. Serious Kayla, with no sense of humor. Alex the snob. And, of course, Josephine, the Tattletale Queen.

A smile flickered. It was a wonder they hadn’t blown apart the school with their arguments in the early days. But slowly, surely, an unbreakable bond had formed as a group of hardheaded leaders figured out how to combine their strengths into an unbeatable team. Rainy, a senior, had been their group leader. Before she’d graduated, they’d all made a vow. If one called for help, the others would rally. No questions asked. They called it their Cassandra promise—a promise invoked by Rainy’s call just before her fatal accident.

Another car grumbled past the bar’s front window. “I’m glad to hear work’s going well.”

Gotta love those deep and intense answers.

Your turn, kiddo. Josie waited.

And waited.

The thickening air damn near smothered her. Unease prickled with the sense of eyes boring into her forehead. Josie scanned the parking lot, rechecked that her doors were locked. She found nothing. Sheesh. She really was paranoid tonight. But then talking to her sister always left her on edge.

Fine. Diana didn’t want to talk. Better to hang up and try again lat—

“So what are you doing calling me on a Friday night?” Diana asked. “No hot date with some pilot pal of yours?”

Hot pilot? Her mind immediately winged to both Morel and Bridges. Two hot men in so very different ways.

And both a serious pain in her side right now. So, yeah, She was seriously hot under the collar about Diego Morel and Mike Bridges, and the threat this congressional investigation posed to her project. “I just finished up a late business-dinner meeting after a flight. What about you?”

“Only me all alone with my big bowl of macaroni and cheese.”

“Ah. Comfort food.” Some people turned to ice cream or chocolate. She and her sister always dug into a bowl of cheesy starch to fill the emptiness when life got them down. A boxing match between them afterward worked off the calories and steam. “I gotta confess, after my luck with men lately, I wish I had a bowl for myself right about now.”

“Mac and cheese beats the hell out of most guys any day of the month. It lasts longer anyway.”

A laugh trucked up and out so hard Josie missed catching the Beanie Baby. She adored her little sister’s sense of humor, even if occasionally it turned to prickly sarcasm directed at her. She also envied Diana’s ability to find the humor in life.

Josie lifted the Beanie puppy from her lap and tucked him into the drink holder, paws over the edge, basset hound eyes sadly pleading from between two floppy ears. “I guess I’ll have to wait until I get home to make a batch.”

“I wish I could have some of yours.” The clink of a spoon against pottery echoed. “How come when you cook the boxed stuff it tastes good and mine tastes like soupy crap?”

“Secret ingredient.” Just a slice of processed cheese dropped in, not that she intended to share that her single claim to culinary brilliance could be attributed to peeling off a plastic wrapper.

“Remember the time Dad tried to cook us macaroni and cheese like Mom always did?” Diana’s words slipped through the earpiece and past Josie’s defenses.

Her throat closed up like she’d tried to swallow down too much at once. Which was a damn good thing since it choked back the urge to snap at Diana’s transparent bid for their father.

Diana was always trying to make her remember better days with their father before he gave up and shipped them off to boarding school rather than be bothered with parenting. Just as she was always trying to help Diana remember the happier days with their mom before she checked out mentally.

Josie forced a lighthearted answer. “Yeah, the noodles were so hard my loose tooth popped out.”

“He stomped around the kitchen cursing about how the directions must be wrong because somehow he’d overcooked the stuff until it was too tough.”

“I remember.” And it hurt, thinking of that time. Her father’s abandonment afterward hurt even more. At least her mother had illness as an excuse for leaving her kids. “I figured I’d better learn to make mac and cheese or we’d be toothless by Christmas.”

“We sure needed comfort starch in those days.”

Could that be a concession on Diana’s part? “That we did, Diehard.”

Silence ticked by with cyber wave crackles. Josie reached to the coffee holder and flipped a doggie ear backward on the Beanie puppy. She rubbed the fuzzy softness between two fingers until finally she surrendered and asked, “Talked to Dad lately?”

“Just last week.” Diana’s voice gentled with a sympathy Josie wasn’t sure she wanted.

Her eyes gravitated to the puppy, the latest in the Beanie Baby collection her mother had started for her. “And what’s the news?”

“He and Mom just got back from a cruise. They’re enjoying his retirement dollars.”

They should have had a double retirement fund at the end of two fruitful military careers. Her mother had been robbed of her career as well as her dreams.

The parking-lot lights dimmed. Or was it only her gloomy mood? Josie glanced over as the lot brightened and dimmed again with the intrusion of passing people finding their way back to their cars. “Yeah, I got an e-mail from their stopover in—”

Thud.

The noise echoed overhead from her convertible roof.

Josie jolted, stared up at the soft top, pathetic protection against a determined intruder. Her free hand snaking down toward her survival knife in her boot, she turned—and looked straight into cold, dark eyes peering through her window.

“Uh, Diana.” Josie kept her eyes trained on the man standing beside her car. “I gotta go.”

Chapter 4

“Jesus, Morel!” Josie slid her knife back into her boot, phone dropping to her lap. She lowered the window. “What the hell were you thinking, scaring the crap out of me like that?”

Her heart pounded over how close she’d come to drawing a weapon because of some whoo-hoo feeling that somebody was watching her. She was becoming paranoid, and that scared her more than any threat from the outside world.

Diego slumped back against the car parked beside her. “You can quit looking at me like I’m roadkill. I’m not some freaking Peeping Tom.”

“Then why are you here?”

He shrugged. “I was watching you through the window. Saw you hadn’t left. Got worried something might be wrong.”

Her senses itched again, leaving her longing for the security of her knife in her hand. Cars growled and crunched out of the lot, disguising other sounds, while streetlights cast shadows for hiding.

“You came out to check up on me?”

“Sure, why not?”

That was actually kind of…thoughtful. Even if she could defend herself.

Definitely thoughtful…even nice. Both making her more uncomfortable than the pissed off feeling this man usually engendered. “Thank you.”

“Sorry to cut your conversation short.”

“We were through talking anyway.” She tossed her cell phone into the cup holder with a small stuffed dog. “Time for me to head home.”

“I need a ride.”

So much for him being nice. Now his real agenda rolled out. “I thought you already had one or I wouldn’t have left.”

“I did. But he hooked up with a waitress. Suffice it to say that for a guy, a willing babe in the sack beats talking with a legend any day.”

Definitely roadkill. Just when she’d thought she might have an amicable working relationship with this guy. “How lovely.”

“This’ll shock you I’m sure, but we men can be pigs sometimes. Not much I can say in our defense.” His gaze hitched on the strap of her seat belt tucked between her breasts. He looked back up. “So? Give me a ride back to my place?”

She considered booting him on his butt. Was he sober enough to remember in the morning? “I could call you a cab.”

“You could. But I’m not sure they even come out this way, and I’d have to wait at least an hour if they do. Maybe more. Then I’ll be dragging ass all weekend, which will probably set back my whole week. For the good of your test project, you really should give me a ride home so I can get more shut-eye.”

Her eyes closed with resignation. “Climb in.”

“Thanks, even if it is for the good of your project.” He settled into the bucket seat beside her and sighed. “Ah, nothing like a fine-performance machine.”

Finally, common ground. “This might not be a jet or even a Harley, but a Mustang Cobra with a three-twenty horsepower V-eight engine can come mighty damn close to flying. So where to?”

He recited the address.

She smacked her steering wheel. “Good God, Morel. That’s an hour away.”

“Do you have somewhere to be?”

“No.”

“How about we do the ride topless?”

Anger spiked. “Damn it, Morel—”

“The car top. Down. So we can see the night sky full of a half moon and stars.” Grinning, he draped a hand over her gearshift. “What else would you think I meant?”

She knocked his hand off. “I think you meant to rile me and it’s working.”

“Sorry, Buttercup. Just can’t resist.” He hooked his elbow on his open window. “Getting a rise out of you is the most fun I’ve had since I performed a lomcevak maneuver in test-pilot school.”

She gasped, interest snagged against her will and better judgment. “A lomcevak? You actually pulled off 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 considered what to do with himself if he survived.

“Morel?”

“Yeah, I’m with ya, Buttercup.” He looked at her and her uniform, her idealistic eyes reminding him of how many years’ experience separated them.

And still he wanted Josie Lockworth.

The intensity of that desire blindsided him like a bogey from his six o’clock. Sure he’d been turned on by her at first look, even though she was a prickly priss. But he hadn’t expected to get hard over just the thought of skimming aside the hair streaking across her face.

What the hell was up with that?

His head fell back against the rest. The sky beckoned. He closed his eyes. “Keep talking.”

He focused on the clipped tones of Josie reciting facts, letting dry data served up with whiskey-warm tones intoxicate hungry senses that ached to fly.

Josie gripped the steering wheel and lost herself in the intoxicating oblivion of routine. Reliable facts would never betray her. “Stealth is comprised of five elements—electro-optical, radio transmissions, visual, acoustics and RF.”

Diego folded his hands over his chest, his head still reclined, eyes closed. Late-day beard darkened features already weathered by the sun, wind, years of hard living.

Of loss.

Sympathy hit her. A dangerous emotion. God, she needed to remember her mother’s lost career. Josie studied the stretch of road, so straight she could likely drive for hours without looking.

She lifted one finger off the steering wheel. “RF covers the more popular element of eluding radar frequency. The Predator already kicks ass on that one.”

A second finger lifted. “Next, the electro-optical tricks the infrared camera and low-light optical trackers. Again, got it licked.

“Third element.” Only her thumb and pinky stayed on the wheel along with her other hand. “For the visual with the good old eyeball check, the craft still holds up well.”

She waggled her pinky. “Radio transmissions aren’t a problem, either, because our data-link control signals are so low power they have a lesser probability of intercept.”

Josie wrapped her hand around the steering wheel again. “The Predator’s only weakness comes from the fifth element—its acoustics. Enemy listening posts can pick up the propeller motor sounds in low-level flights. But the lower the flight, the better quality on the intel.”

“Uh-huh,” he grunted, shifting his legs to swing one booted foot over his knee without once opening his eyes, as if she barely warranted his whole attention. “And since much of your mother’s work focused on the acoustics of stealth, you decided the Predator is the perfect craft to use for resurrecting her theories.”

She didn’t answer or even blink for the passing of four telephone poles while pain from her mother’s breakdown roared as loudly as the ever-constant desert wind. “Way to lay it all out there on the table.”

“Does it bother you to talk about her?”

“The facts are public record. It’s not like I can hide from them.” She peeled a strand of hair that had stuck to her lip gloss. “Actually, I appreciate your honesty. At least I don’t have to wonder if you’re whispering behind my back.”

“I’m an ass, but I’m a straight-up ass.”

She didn’t want to like him. But just when she longed to punt his arrogant butt, he surprised her with his self-awareness. “Since I believe in my mother’s core concept, yes, if it works, the Predator will be a more efficient asset to the reconnaissance community.”

Her methodology was sound. She knew that. She hoped her developmental testing would be equally so—because she could talk higher air force benefits all she wanted, but eventually it wouldn’t escape anyone’s notice that this was personal for her. The career fall from failure would be far and fatal.

Then there would be nothing left for her but to burrow out in the California desert in one of these geodesic domes, single-wide trailers or old ranch-style houses that infrequently broke the monotony of space and quiet. “What else would you like to know?”

“What will I be looking at when we get to the paperwork?”

“Our first round of testing involved active noise cancellation. For example, if the acoustic signature of the aircraft was a sine wave with a magnitude of one-hundred-ninety decibels at fifty hertz, we would create a sine wave of equal but opposite magnitude to conceal the noise.” She glanced over at the leather lug barely moving in the seat next to her. “You used to fly bombers, right?”

He grunted again.

“Basically we employed the same technology that’s used in noise-canceling headsets worn by bomber crew members to weed out the engine sound so they can hear each other talking.”

The graded road roughened. She downshifted to third gear, her knuckles grazing his knee. Chaps warmed from his body heat launched a shower of tingles up her arm and straight to her breasts. And he didn’t even flinch, damn him.

Work. Think work. “Once the active noise was addressed, we moved on to passive ways to decrease sound, such as making the engine vibrate less. Our main source of concern with the Predator has been modifying the propeller. It makes too much noise when the tips break mach. In this stage of the testing, we’re improving the flight propeller balancing….”

The road evened out. She reached for the gearshift again, bracing herself for the feel of heated leather against her skin. Still he didn’t move.

“Are you asleep?”

Diego turned his head along the rest, lashes lifting to unveil eyes hotter than the leather against his skin. “Was I snoring?”

“No.” Her hand clenched.

“Then I wasn’t asleep.” Straightening, he pointed left to the narrow one-lane road. “Turn here.”

She slowed, her car still undulating. The rearview mirror reflected nothing but a cloud of sandy dust kicking up behind them. Out of the pitch night, one of the old ranch-style homes appeared, dark wood scarred by wind and time. The sturdy, functional structure sprawled, surrounded by eucalyptus trees. Sweet perfume rode the wind along with a distant coyote howl.

The front porch stirred with motion, two dogs leaping to life and bolting down the steps. A shaved retriever and a mutt of indeterminate origin scampered in a dangerous dance in front of her car, forcing her to slow.

At a near-crawl pace, she pulled her shuddering Mustang closer to the deserted yard, past patchy brush, cacti, a crappy lawn chair beside what looked to be about an eight-hundred-dollar grill.

She braked to a stop, engine still humming. Kangaroo rats scampered away from the headlights. “Here we are.”

“Thanks for the ride.” His booted foot slid to the floorboards. “I owe you a new set of shocks and a car wash for this one.”

“I might take you up on that, Morel,” she offered noncommittally. Safely.

He seemed in no hurry to get out of her car now. The man never hurried, period. Even as that trait annoyed her, she couldn’t help but be intrigued by someone so unfettered by life. “How are you going to get back to base?”

He gestured toward the prefabricated metal garage set back from the house. “I have a truck, too.”

“And what about your Harley?”

“You could stay over and give me a ride in the morning.”

She blinked hard. Twice. Then covered with an overly polite smile. “I don’t think so.”

“That no-sex-with-workmates rule of yours again?”

Self-preservation was more like it, if just a simple brush against him could burn her. “Perhaps I’m not interested in going to bed with a drunk who snores.”

His half smile tucked a dimple into one cheek. “I like you, Lockworth.”

Whoa. Like? That was a whole different matter than just sexy leather chaps and lust. “Uh, thanks.”

“Not that you’re particularly likable.”

She scooped the puppy from the drink holder, something soft to ease the sting of echoing old taunts of Josephine the Tattletale Queen. “Charm doesn’t seem to be your strong suit, either.”

A rusty laugh rolled out in a lomcevak tumble. “Exactly what I like about you.”

“I’m not following.”

“You don’t kiss my ass just because once upon a time I flew some pretty missions.”

His answer made sense and confused her all at once. “I respect the work you accomplished.”

“But not who I am now.”

The scent of leather and eucalyptus swirled inside her. She needed to leave. Now. “Who you are doesn’t matter to me. How you work does. And I’ve yet to see any work accomplished to judge.”

Draping his elbow on the back of his seat, he gripped the edge of hers with one hand while plucking the dog from her other. “Yeah, I like your take-no-shit attitude. And I like the fact that you’re straight up with me. Makes me trust you more and that’s a good thing. But honest to God, you need to wash some starch out of your spine.”

She bristled, more Josephine-prickly than that cactus patch by his garage. Who the hell did he think he was? And she couldn’t afford to say squat back.

He dropped the Beanie Baby back in the cup holder. “I know this mission is important to you, and I’m not diminishing what you do. But even with my feet nailed to the ground like they are, I could wade through your paperwork on this test halfway to snoring. Or half-drunk.”

She couldn’t stop her Josephine sniff.

“That’s right, Buttercup. I’m a rude, washed-up test pilot who drinks too much and doesn’t shave enough. And, yeah, I snore, since my eardrums and sinuses blew out on that last flight.” He stopped short, his hard weathered face freezing. “Ah, shit. Forget it. I’m outta here.”

Diego reached for the door handle. Remorse, empathy and something else she didn’t want to examine stirred.

“Wait!” She grabbed his arm.

He could have shaken her off easily. But he stopped, staying in the seat.

“I really didn’t mean to come off all judgmental. I haven’t walked in your shoes so I’ve got no room to—”

Diego shushed her with a pointed look down at her hand on his arm.

Her fingers slid away.

He canted closer, hand returning to the back of her seat, a whisper away from her neck. “I meant it when I said I like your straight talk. You can feel free to tell me to go to hell when I get out of line and it won’t affect my report.”

He grazed one knuckle along the vulnerable curve of her neck, slowly, deliberately, his skin every bit as hot as she’d imagined. “But don’t ever, ever flash that damn little pity look my way again. Because if you do, I guarantee I’ll be kissing it off your face so thoroughly you won’t be able to think about anything except getting naked together. Understand?”

The fire in his skin and eyes dried her mouth until she could only nod.

Silently, he backed away and out of the car. He slammed the door shut, holding on to the open window for one final shot. “And in case you were wondering, I was definitely hitting on you that time. Next move’s yours, Buttercup.”

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