Full Throttle & Wrong Bride, Right Groom Page 8

  “You got ’em.”

  Dave was just finishing at the pump when she stepped outside.

  “I brought you some coffee,” Kate said, proud of her nonchalance

  “Thanks.” He took the cup she offered and downed a cautious sip. “Sure you don’t want to grab something to eat?”

  And have Alma wait on them? Hardly!

  “We’d better get back to the site. Last time I talked to Jill, they had an ETA of twenty-one-hundred for Captain Westfall. If we push it, we can beat him back.”

  Taking care not to splash the hot coffee, Kate reclaimed her seat. Dave did the same.

  “Jill didn’t indicate the old man wanted to brief us tonight, did she?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s the hurry? We’ve still got our toothbrushes and a few emergency supplies.”

  The crooked grin didn’t work this time. If anything, it grated on Kate’s nerves like fingernails scraping down a blackboard.

  “There’s a motel down the road a bit,” Dave added while she fought to hang on to her temper. “Nothing special like the Inn of the Mountain Gods, but clean and handy.”

  She just bet it was. No doubt Dave and Alma had made good use of it. Somehow, Kate managed to infuse her voice with just the right touch of amusement.

  “Look, cowboy. This was fun, but playtime is over. It’s time to get back to work.”

  “Fun?”

  “Hey,” she tossed off with a shrug, “fun is a big step up from nice. Let’s go, Scott. It’s getting late, I’m tired, and we both need to log in a good night’s sleep before the flight tomorrow.”

  His eyes narrowed, but Kate was past caring. Her nonchalance meter had pegged out. Thankfully, he dropped the sexy, bantering tone and shoved the key in the ignition.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She wasn’t up for any more talk. Reaching out, she flicked the switch on the CD player.

  They passed through the last checkpoint a little before 9:00 p.m. Kate shoved her ID back in her pocket and waited impatiently until Dave pulled up outside her quarters. The squat, square modular unit had never looked so good. She reached for the handle and was out of the pickup before Dave had killed the engine.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. “Thanks for…for everything.”

  That was lame. Really lame. But the best she could do at the moment.

  Evidently Dave shared the same opinion. His door slammed shut a half second after hers. Stalking around the front of the truck, he intercepted her straight path to her quarters.

  “What the hell’s going on here?”

  She had her answer ready. She’d been working on it all the way in from Chorro.

  “Nothing’s going on here. Nothing will go on here. We’re back on-site. We declared this a no-fly zone, remember?”

  “Sure felt like we made some changes to the rules last night.”

  “Last night we were off base,” Kate said stubbornly. “We’d been ordered to relax, relieve some stress. We’re back now and—”

  “Relieve some stress!” he interrupted, his eyebrows snapping into a scowl. “Is that what you thought we were doing?”

  His apparent anger surprised her. She would have guessed Dave Scott would be the first to argue that sex was the perfect antidote for everything. She couldn’t resist getting a little of her own back.

  “Come on, Scott. You have to admit you’re a whole lot looser than when you left yesterday.”

  “I was,” he retorted. “That looseness seems to have dissipated in the last half hour or so.”

  Feeling considerably better than when she’d walked out of the Cactus Café, Kate smiled. “Sounds like you’ve got a problem, cowboy. See you tomorrow.”

  Dave had a problem, all right. It was sashaying away from him at the moment. Folding his arms, he propped his hips against the fender of his pickup and tried to figure out what the heck just happened.

  Kate couldn’t be serious about this “not-on-site” stuff. Not after last night. Not to mention this morning. The mere memory of her smooth, slick skin and smoky taste had his throat going tight.

  He was as serious about the mission as the next guy. More so. He was the one who’d put his life on the line when Pegasus lifted off, for Pete’s sake. So where did Kate get off suggesting he was such a jerk he couldn’t concentrate on her and on the mission at the same time?

  And why did he want to?

  That last thought brought him up short. Frowning, he stared at the door Kate had just disappeared through. Okay, they’d had some great sex. Better than great. He got a hitch in his breath just thinking about it. But the lady had made her druthers clear and Dave didn’t usually push so hard or so long after being waved off.

  Still frowning, he shoved away from the fender and headed for his own quarters.

  “Please tell me it was awful,” Cari begged as Kate dropped onto the sofa. “I’ve already wormed a report out of Jill and I’m not sure I can take being the only sex-starved female officer on-site. Tell me Scott’s only so-so in bed.”

  “Scott is excellent in bed. He’s also a total jerk. No, that’s not right. I’m the jerk.”

  Obviously that wasn’t the answer Cari expected. Blinking, the Coast Guard officer laid aside her dog-eared paperback. “What happened?”

  Kate blew out a long breath. “We drove up to Ruidoso, played some golf, hit the sack.”

  “And the problem with that sequence of events is…?”

  “There wasn’t any problem,” Kate admitted wryly, “until we stopped for gas on the way back and I bumped into Dave’s little bit of ‘personal business.’ The one who caused him to call in and delay his arrival on-site,” she added at Cari’s puzzled look.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Right. Uh-oh.”

  The brunette bit her lip. She knew Kate had good reason to be wary of too-handsome, love-’em-and-leave-’em types like Dave Scott. Still, anyone standing within fifty yards of the weather officer and the sky jock had felt the heat from the sparks they’d been striking off each other since the first day Scott appeared on the scene.

  “In all fairness,” she pointed out, “Dave obviously met that little bit of personal business, as you term her, before he met you.”

  “True.”

  “And he hasn’t been off-site since he got here—except with you.”

  “Also true.”

  “So why do you think you’re a jerk for having a nice steamy weekend fling with the guy?”

  When her roommate didn’t answer right away, Cari’s eyes widened. “We are talking just a weekend fling, aren’t we?”

  “Of course we are. I guess.”

  “Kate!”

  “I know, I know! It’s just… Well, for a crazy moment or two I was starting to think it might be something more. Stupid, huh?”

  “Not necessarily,” Cari countered, recovering from her surprise.

  “Yes, it was. Very stupid. We’ll only be here for another month at most, after which we’ll all return to our respective units.”

  “So you go back to MacDill and Dave returns to Hurlburt. The two bases are both in the Florida panhandle, not more than a hundred or so miles apart.”

  “A hundred miles is a hundred miles,” Kate said doggedly. “I learned the hard way that long-distance relationships don’t work. Not for me, anyway. Besides which,” she added with a shrug, “Dave made it clear his first or second day on-site he’s not in the market for anything long term.”

  “He did?”

  “He did.”

  Kate’s ready sense of humor inched its way through the funk that had gripped her since her encounter with Alma.

  “We got in one heck of a round of golf, though. I have to admit the man has a great swing.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Oh, and we stopped at the National Solar Observatory on the way back.”

  “Golf, sex and the National Solar Observatory.” Cari rolled her eyes. “What more could a girl ask for?”

&n
bsp; Her amusement disappeared when Kate related the news about possible solar-flare activity. Having spent most of her career on the water, the Coast Guard officer had learned to pay serious attention to any unusual weather activity.

  They were still discussing the potential impact on the Pegasus test program when Jill returned from one of the perimeter checks she ran at random times.

  “Hey, you finally made it back,” she said to Kate. “How was your, uh, golf game?”

  “Terrific. How was yours?”

  “Terrific,” Jill replied, laughing. Tossing aside her fatigue cap, she raked her fingers through her blunt-cut collar-length hair. “So? What’s the scoop? Is Dave Scott as good with his hands out of the simulator as he is in it?”

  “Better. As I was just telling Cari.”

  Kate lifted her arms in a lazy stretch. She was fine now, over her brief spate of lunacy. She’d let down her guard for a few hours and Alma had jerked it back up. She owed the woman for that.

  “And as I told Dave a few minutes ago,” she continued, “the weekend was fun. But now it’s over and we both need to concentrate on more important matters.”

  Jill’s eyebrows soared. “Fun? You told him it was fun? How did our hotshot pilot take that?”

  Not as well as Kate had expected, surprisingly. She supposed she could have phrased things a little more politely, but she’d been in no mood to stroke the man’s ego at that point.

  “He took it,” she said dismissively, and deliberately changed the subject. “Did Captain Westfall get back?”

  “He’s twenty minutes out,” Jill confirmed. “Rattlesnake Control just notified me. They also relayed a message from the boss. He wants the senior test-cadre personnel to convene at his quarters as soon as he touches down.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “Not a clue. I’ve already notified Russ McIver. He’ll pass the word to Dave. Consider this your official notification.”

  Kate surged off the couch. “I better scrub away some of this road dust and get into my uniform.”

  Cari was right behind her. They took turns in the tiny, closet-size bathroom and bumped elbows squeezing past each other in the narrow hall. Brushed, buffed and uniformed, they were ready when Rattlesnake Control confirmed the captain had returned to the site.

  The three women walked the short distance to the captain’s quarters. Dave and Russ were already there, along with the senior civilian test engineers. Kate gave the men a friendly smile, Dave included. He returned it, but a crease formed between his eyebrows and stayed there until Captain Westfall called the impromptu meeting to order.

  “The good news is that the Joint Chiefs are pleased with the way we’ve gotten the Pegasus test schedule back on track. I told General Bates that was due in large part to your skill, Captain Scott.”

  Dave took the news that Captain Westfall and the air force’s top-ranking four-star general had discussed his abilities with a nod.

  “General Bates suggested our progress probably had more to do with your tenacity than your expertise,” Westfall added, his gray eyes glinting. “He had a few words to say about your insistence on doing a task again and again until it gets done right.”

  “I was in the left seat when he took the Osprey up for the first time,” Dave explained with a grin. “I failed him—on that check ride and the next.”

  “So he indicated.”

  Sobering, Westfall glanced around the group. They’d formed a tight bond, officers and civilians alike. Some tighter than others, he suspected. Normally he wouldn’t tolerate fraternization within the ranks, but this small test cadre represented a unique set of circumstances. Although the six uniformed officers had chopped to him for the duration of the Pegasus project, they still reported to their respective services. More to the point, they were all experts in their fields. Each of them was vital to a project that had just jumped the tracks from fast to urgent.

  “The bad news is that all hell is about to break loose in Caribe.”

  “Again?” Russ McIver shook his head. “The island has gone through three coups in two years, each one bloodier than the last. I thought the U.S. had poured enough money and troops into the area to keep this president in office for more than a few months.”

  “That’s the problem. We poured in too many troops, some of whom are now needed on the other side of the globe. The Pentagon intends to withdraw elements of the 101st and the 2nd Marine MAF. They also want to speed up the air and sea trials of Pegasus. The thinking is that Pegasus would make a perfect insertion vehicle if it becomes necessary to go back into Caribe in a hurry.”

  “No problem with the sea trials, sir,” Caroline said firmly. “I’ll take a look at the test schedule and see what runs we can shave off.”

  “Good. Captain Scott?”

  “Pegasus is ready to fly, sir. So am I. We’ll test our wings tomorrow.”

  Chapter 8

  Pegasus took to the sky like the mythical winged steed it was named for.

  Two chase vehicles accompanied it. The first was the site’s helo. Painted in desert colors, the chopper hovered like an anxious brown hen while Pegasus rose slowly from the desert floor. Russ McIver viewed the prototype’s ascent from the chopper’s cockpit.

  “We’ve got you at fifty feet, Pegasus One. Seventy. One hundred.”

  “Confirming one hundred feet, Chase One.”

  His hands and feet working the controls, Dave held the hover. Sand blew up from the rotors’ downwash and obliterated any view outside the cockpit windows, but he kept his gaze locked on the instruments and ignored the whirlwind.

  Like the tilt-winged Osprey that was its predecessor, Pegasus was designed to lift off from small, unimproved patches of dirt, fly long and hard, and drop down in another small patch. Dave maintained the hover for a good ten minutes before taking the craft back down. Foot by foot, inch by inch, with the desert sand whirling in a mad vortex until the wide track tires just kissed the dirt.

  After three more touch and go’s, he was ready to switch to cruise mode. He brought the vehicle back up to a hundred feet, retracted the wheels into the belly of the craft, and ran through a mental checklist before sucking in a deep breath.

  “Pegasus One, preparing to tilt rotors.”

  “Roger, One.”

  At ten degrees tilt, the test vehicle still handled like a helicopter. Dave nosed it forward, added speed and increased the tilt. The craft bucked a bit at thirty degrees, then the blades on the two engines began slicing air horizontally instead of vertically. Dave pushed the throttles forward and Pegasus took the bit. Within moments he had gained both altitude and airspeed.

  Chase One kept up with them for the first few miles. Chase Two took over as the chopper fell behind.

  “Pegasus One, this is Chase Two. We’ve got you in sight. You’re lookin’ good.”

  The C-130 Hercules and its crew were detached from the 46th Test Operations Group at Holloman AFB, New Mexico. The highly instrumented aircraft had been designed for just this purpose—observing and testing the latest in sophisticated weaponry. Kate and a team of evaluators were on board to serve as observers for the long-distance portion of the flight. Straining against her shoulder harness, she peered over the flight engineer’s shoulder at the sleek white vehicle streaking through the sky. The Herc’s pilot kept Pegasus just off his left wing.

  “Look at that baby move,” she heard him comment to his copilot. “He’s approaching a hundred and fifty knots and still piling on the airspeed.”

  Kate’s heart stayed firmly lodged in her throat as Dave pushed Pegasus to perform at maximum capacity. Both the test vehicle and its chase plane reached two hundred knots, with the desert sliding by below them in a blur of silver and tan. Two-twenty. Two-thirty.

  “Control, this is Pegasus One.”

  Dave’s voice came through Kate’s headset, cool and calm above the background static.

  “I’m feeling a vibration in the right aft stabilizer area.”

  Test Control c
ame on immediately. “Are you showing any system malfunction or warning lights?”

  “Negative, Control.”

  “Is the vibration such that it could affect the structural integrity of the tail section?”

  Kate held her breath. That was a judgment call, pure and simple. An educated guess based on the pilot’s expertise and familiarity with his craft. A sick feeling gripped her as she remembered that one of the first two prototypes had gone down after a structural stress fracture almost took off a wing. She could hardly hear Dave’s reply through the pounding of her heart.

  “Negative, Control. He’s giving me a bumpy ride, but not trying to buck me off.”

  “Copy that, Pegasus One. We recommend you decrease your airspeed to two hundred knots. Let us know if the vibration continues.”

  “Roger.”

  Kate strained forward. Her harness straps cut into her shoulders. A vein throbbed in her left temple. She counted the seconds until Dave came on again.

  “Airspeed now at two hundred knots and I’m not feeling the tail shudder.”

  The controller didn’t try to disguise his relief. “Roger that, Pegasus One. Recommend you keep the airspeed below two hundred for the duration of this flight.”

  “Will do.”

  Gulping, Kate tore her gaze from the vehicle across a stretch of blue sky and checked the Doppler radar screen. It showed clear, no sign of weather within the projected flight pattern, but she used the satellite frequency assigned to her to call for regular updates throughout Pegasus’s first flight.

  It lasted for one hour and seventeen seconds. Dave took the craft in a wide circle over the New Mexico desert, testing the flight-control systems at various altitudes. By the time he slowed the vehicle, rotated the engines from horizontal to vertical and set down in the same patch of dirt he’d lifted off from, Kate was a puddle of sweat inside her flight suit.

  The C-130 landed at an airstrip bulldozed out of the desert specifically for the Pegasus tests. The crew piled out as soon as the pilot shut down his craft, then boarded the waiting shuttle to take them back to Test Operations for the mission debrief. There they congratulated a sweaty, grinning Dave Scott.