Love Me Before Dawn
Love Me Before Dawn
Lindsay McKenna
Tess Hamilton met Shep Ramsey under purely social circumstances, but it was a matter of national security that provided the real basis for their relationship. Tess was working on a prototype airplane, and Shep was the man chosen to test its wings.For months her work on the plane had obsessed her, but now Shep had entered her heart and she was facing one frightening fact: If there were even one mistake in the plane, the man she loved would forfeit his life.
LINDSAY McKENNA is proud to have served her country in the U.S. Navy as an aerographer’s mate third class—also known as a weather forecaster. She was a pioneer of the military romance subgenre and loves to combine heart-pounding action with soulful and poignant romance. True to her military roots, she is the originator of the long-running and reader-favorite Morgan’s Mercenaries series. She does extensive hands-on research, including flying in aircraft such as a P3-B Orion sub-hunter and a B-52 bomber. She was the first romance writer to sign her books in the Pentagon bookstore. Today, she has created a new military romantic suspense series, Shadow Warriors, which features romantic and action-packed tales about U.S. Navy SEALs. Visit her online at:
www.LindsayMcKenna.com (http://www.LindsayMcKenna.com)
www.twitter.com/lindsaymckenna (http://www.twitter.com/lindsaymckenna)
www.facebook.com/eileen.nauman (http://www.facebook.com/eileen.nauman)
“My Life Seems to Revolve Around Work.”
“Spoken like an over-responsible woman in a management position,” Shep drawled. “Don’t you see that because you’re a female in a male-dominated company you’re working twice as hard as any man? You’re trying to prove you’ve earned the right to be part of this project. You don’t need to prove a thing, Tess. Don’t look for approval in other people’s eyes, only in your own. Do the best you can and be content with how you feel. And don’t give your weekends to the company. Save them for yourself. Save them for me.”
Dear Reader:
There is an electricity between two people in love that makes everything they do magic, larger than life. This is what we bring you in SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS.
SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS are longer, more sensuous romance novels filled with adventure, suspense, glamor or melodrama. These books have an element no one else has tapped: excitement.
We are proud to present the very best romance has to offer from the very best romance writers. In the coming months look for some of your favorite authors such as Elizabeth Lowell, Nora Roberts, Erin St. Claire and Brooke Hastings.
SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS are for the woman who wants more than she has ever had before. These books are for you.
Karen Solem
Editor-in-Chief
Silhouette Books
Love Me Before Dawn
Lindsay McKenna
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Also available from Lindsay McKenna and HQN Books
Down Range
High Country Rebel
The Loner
The Defender
The Wrangler
The Last Cowboy
Deadly Silence
Deadly Identity
Shadows from the Past
Dangerous Prey
Heart of the Storm
Beyond the Limit
Silent Witness
Enemy Mine
Firstborn
Morgan’s Honor
Morgan’s Legacy
An Honorable Woman
Series Booklist:
Selected books by Lindsay McKenna
Mills & Boon Romantic Suspense
@ (#litres_trial_promo)His Duty to Protect #1691
@ (#litres_trial_promo)Beyond Valor #1739
Course of Action/“Out of Harm’s Way” #1775
Silhouette Romantic Suspense
Love Me Before Dawn #44
^ (#litres_trial_promo)Protecting His Own #1184
Mission: Christmas/“The Christmas Wild Bunch” #1535
@ (#litres_trial_promo)His Woman in Command #1599
@ (#litres_trial_promo)Operation: Forbidden #1647
Silhouette Nocturne
* (#litres_trial_promo)Unforgiven #1
* (#litres_trial_promo)Dark Truth #20
* (#litres_trial_promo)The Quest #33
Time Raiders: The Seeker #69
* (#litres_trial_promo)Reunion#85
* (#litres_trial_promo)The Adversary #87
* (#litres_trial_promo)Guardian#89
DEDICATED TO
Colonel William T. Cooper, U.S.A.F. Public Affairs B-1 Office, truly an officer and a gentleman…
and
Doug Benefield, chief test pilot, Rockwell International, one hell of a guy and one hell of a pilot…
and
Lt. Lowell “Brad” Peck, PA, K.I.
Sawyer AFB, Michigan—one of the finest when it comes to media relations—thank you!
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u34c219a4-5162-5f10-8481-f159be17ed1c)
Chapter 2 (#u8f2786f6-2a45-5d60-b7fa-4740a40504da)
Chapter 3 (#u44cccee3-ef1c-5b43-9a04-82fb25389b2f)
Chapter 4 (#uee096e3b-97ce-58ad-9693-122e07c8b848)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1
OCTOBER 15, 1973
I DON’T WANT TO GO, TESS THOUGHT. SHE STOPPED arranging the mass of dark auburn hair at the nape of her neck and studied her strained features in the antique mirror. Why can’t I be enthusiastic? Cy is excited about this party. She avoided her blue-eyed reflection, studying the ivory, high-necked gown instead. Reflexively her slender fingers tucked in the last strands, fashioning a chignon. With the hair pulled back from her square, high-cheekboned face, she looked older than her twenty-four years. As she raised her eyes she saw the anguish clearly written in them. Would he notice it? She sighed to herself. Not likely. As one of the chief design engineers at Rockwell International, Cy Hamilton had eyes only for the B-1 bomber blueprints.
“Darling? Are you about ready?” Cy sauntered into the large, tastefully decorated bedroom. He ran a hand through his graying hair, a paternal smile fixed on his mouth. He came over, giving her a perfunctory kiss upon her cheek. “You look lovely, as usual.”
Tess forced a smile for his benefit. “Thank you, Cy. I’m almost done.”
He stood behind her, his arms crossed against his chest, watching her critically in the mirror. “God couldn’t have created a more provocative creature. I swear, I fell in love with you the first time I saw you at Rockwell.” He smiled wryly. “You were quite a sight, you know. Your blue eyes sparkling with life and your lips,” he leaned over, lightly touching his lips to hers, “sweet temptation.”
Tess felt the heat of a blush rushing upward along her slender neck and into her face. She chided herself for still blushing at age twenty-four. Would she ever outgrow that embarrassing trait? “Really, Cy!”
He chuckled indulgently, retrieving her delicately wrought shawl of old Irish lace from the bed. Her grandmother had given it to her. It was a family tradition to pass the shawl to a deserving member of the clan. At first Cy had tried to discourage her from wearing it to social functions. He wanted her in modern, sophisticated clothes that befitted her position in the company. He smiled to himself: she was such a child yet. Perhaps being pushed three grades ahead in the first years of schooling had affected her emotionally. He arranged the ivory and pale pink shawl around her proud shoulders, giving her a pat on the arm. Looking at Tess with pride, he wondered if others besides himself saw the incredible intelligence behind that delicate Irish face.
Cy remained silent as they drove to the party. Tonight marked another important step in the B-1 bomber project. Right now, the tail section, wings and fuselage lay on the hangar floor. His brow furrowed in thought. “I think,” he began slowly, glancing over at Tess’s clean, delicate profile, “this party is going to be a political shakedown of sorts.”
“How well I know!” It was common knowledge that Senator Stockwell was going to publicly confront his nemesis, Senator Browning, at the party. Tess shook her head. “Cy, you never told me that being your administrative assistant was going to get me involved in so much political intrigue.” Tess had come to Rockwell International as part of the management team on the B-1 project. Although she lacked a degree in aeronautical engineering, her MBA gave her the necessary background to handle all accounting and finances for the drafting section that Cy supervised. Without her keen, creative input, his department would not have run so smoothly. Yes, she and Cy made an unbeatable team. They each thrived on challenges of different sorts. Cy had gathered together the top draftsmen and design engineers in the country to build the long-range bomber. She looked after all the details ranging from accounting to lab tests, making sure Cy was never burdened with minor but often important problems. She placed her hand against her breast. “I wish I was more sophisticated…more—”
“Tess, you’re learning beautifully. I’m very proud of your progress to date. Remember, you only received your MBA from Harvard two years ago. You can’t help it if you’ve been sequestered in school until recently. Education has honed your fine mind, and it’s only natural that your social expertise is less well developed.” He patted her hand, seeing her distress. “You’ll do fine,” he soothed.
“I worry about not saying the right thing the right way,” Tess protested softly. Already her throat was closing up from tension. Oh, God, why couldn’t it just be another chatty, boring cocktail party? Why did it have to be a sit-down dinner for one hundred and fifty of the most influential people involved with the innovative bomber? Not only would top Rockwell officials be there, but key political figures, lobbyists and aggressive, shrewd staffers. And then there was the Air Force. Actually, Tess felt the safest with them. The military and civilian test pilots were harmless in comparison to the politicos.
“Well,” she murmured throatily, “if you find that I’ve disappeared, you’ll know I’ve discovered a secluded balcony away from all the intrigue, Cy. I much prefer the landscape to the lobbying that’s going to go on.”
Cy chuckled indulgently at his young wife. At forty-nine he couldn’t have stumbled into a better living situation. He had been in search for an administrative assistant to help him juggle his load as chief engineer on the aeronautical design project. So impressed was he with Tess, he soon made her his wife as well as his team member. And the arrangement was working well. Tess was growing into her job and performing admirably despite the fact that she was one of the few women in top management within Rockwell. By the time he retired, Tess would be a perceptive, capable diplomat capable of standing on her own within the company.
“I do have matters to discuss with Senator Diane Browning from California,” he said in a by-the-way tone.
“At least it will be a friendly conversation.”
Cy chuckled. “Yes, she’s on our side. Thank God for hawk senators.”
Tess wrinkled her nose. “Going to speak to Senator Stockwell?”
“Of course. The cardinal rules of politics—smile, be polite, and be inoffensive.”
“I can smile, I can work at being polite. But inoffensive?” Tess groaned, throwing her head back and closing her eyes momentarily. “St. Patrick deliver me from this den of wolves I’m dining with tonight. Just don’t let me become their meal.”
“You won’t,” Cy said, laughing. One moment Tess could be so serious and adult. The next she would lapse into the naive candor he was trying to curb. “You’re much too small a fish in the political pond, so to speak. I think it would be a good idea if you acquainted yourself with the military tonight while I make the rounds. You’re familiar with the B-1 blueprints, but you haven’t made the effort to see the actual building of the plane or to acquaint yourself with the pilots who will test it.”
“I know, part of my education,” she mimicked gently. How like Cy to guide her into the next lesson in his plan. “Test pilots are far safer than politicians. I’ll welcome the change,” she returned fervently.
“They are ‘safe,’ as you say,” Cy nodded. “Most of them are fairly taciturn. They’re taught to test and observe. Chances are you’ll have to carry the conversation with them unless you get them talking on the B-1.”
“That’s fine with me.”
The California night was warm for October. Cy proudly escorted his tall, lissome wife into the lobby of the elegant hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Guiding her with a sureness born of his status and position in the company, he motioned Tess into the brass elevator.
Tess nervously hid her damp hands by burying them in the shawl against her breast. Inwardly she steeled herself, fighting back the panic that would fill her the instant the doors opened. Life had been so simple back on campus. The moment she married Cy, she had stepped into an unfamiliar, changing landscape. A landscape that she feared she would never be at home in.
* * *
Captain Shepherd Ramsey rested his lean, wiry body against the wall. With his back protected, he idly scanned the milling crowd of people. This was a black-tie dinner. A slight deprecating smile pulled at his well-chiseled lips. The blue of his Air Force uniform stood out against the black tuxedos of the civilians present. Black and blue, he thought wryly. A lot of bruises. Plenty of infighting between the Hill and us. He inhaled deeply and released his breath slowly, continuing to scan the crowd. It looked like a gathering of beautifully colored birds with the women present. He spotted gowns by Halston, Yves St. Laurent, Geoffrey Beene and others whose names he was sure his wife was memorizing. Raising one dark brown brow, he lifted his strong chin, searching the crowd for Allyson.
He caught sight of his wife carrying on an animated conversation with a staffer from Senator Diane Browning’s office. The staffer had probably been sent ahead to check out the atmosphere of the dinner since Browning was due to drop in unexpectedly on a courtesy visit sometime during the evening. Shep lifted his Scotch to his lips, sipping the smooth golden liquid. He didn’t know which he disliked more: staffers or the politicians themselves. But, they were a fact of life.
Major Tom Cunningham, another test pilot, ambled over. He matched Shep’s six-foot height, looking almost like a brother to the captain. The major’s light brown eyes darkened with silent laughter. He stood easily at Shep’s right arm. “Well, what do you think of this shindig?” he asked in his Arkansas drawl.
Shep shrugged his broad shoulders. “Boring as hell but necessary.”
“Kinda reminds me of the good ole days when chickens were pick’n’dough out of a bread pan. See how the less important ones are orbiting the staffers? God, the intrigue is so damn thick in here I could cut it with a knife.”
“Yes, and Allyson is in all her glory.”
Tom raised his head. “Don’t knock it, buddy. She probably helped get you into test pilot school with her manuevering. It doesn’t hurt to have a politically savvy Air Force wife.”
Shep frowned, not liking the thought that Allyson might have been responsible for his acceptance to the test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base. He also heard the wistful note in Tom’s voice and turned to his friend. Tom had lost his wife to cancer two years before. It had been hell on all of them. Shep had stood by his Air Force Academy brother through it all. Had that been the beginning of the end of his marriage with Allyson? She had complained mightily of his absence at parties when he stayed with Tom at the hospital.
He moved the ice cubes around in his scotch, lapsing into thought. Allyson. Beautiful, poised, cosmopolitan Allyson. At twenty-eight he found it difficult to explain why he had married her. Why couldn’t he have had a relationship like Tom and Marie’s? They had been devoted to each other. And he’d enjoyed being with them because of the warmth that flowed between them and out to all those around them. But Allyson always chafed at the bit when he wanted to go over to their home for dinner. It was all right to spend a certain amount of time with Tom, she informed him, because he was a major. And after all, Shep should be seen with higher ranking men, but there was no need to spend so much of their time with the other couple.
It was in the closing days of Marie’s illness that Shep realized he didn’t love Allyson. At least not in the way he had wanted to love his wife. Tom had remained at Marie’s side constantly, holding her hand, talking soothingly to her. It was Tom’s ability to reach out and touch, that same holding, touching, and sharing Shep valued and missed, but Allyson deemed it inconsequential.
After Marie’s death both he and Tom had gotten orders to test pilot school. Shep had breathed a deep sigh of relief, glad that Tom’s grief would be consumed in the demanding rigors of the schooling. It was their shared grief over Marie’s death and then the help they’d given each other during the grueling training course that welded them into an inseparable team.
Shep glanced over at his friend, an undisguised smile on his mouth. “They do look like a bunch of chickens don’t they? All scrambling around, clucking and squawking.”
Cunningham grinned wickedly. “For a city boy, you’re learnin’, son. We got a couple of big dawgs coming tonight. I’m kinda wait’n’ to see if Browning and Stockwell show up at the same time. Wouldn’t that be something? Prodefense woman senator meets anti-defense male chauvinist. Some feathers ought to fly over that confrontation.”
“Conflagration is more like it,” Shep growled. “Stockwell has his head up his—”
“Easy, son. Remember, we’re just measly ole test pilots. We don’t get asked our politics or party preferences.” He rubbed his hands together. “And frankly, I can hardly wait to get my hands on the stick of that B-1. Pure sex, son. Yes, sir, pure sex to fly that bomber.”
Shep laughed deeply. “You damn Arkansas hillbilly.”
“And you stand there with that bland look on your face and tell me you ain’t excited about gett’n’ in that bomber too? You might fool most people, Ramsey. But you don’t fool me. Beneath that cool Maine facade of yours beats a red-blooded heart and soul. Hell, it’s a good thing you have me around to knock down some of those walls you like to hide behind. Get you loosened up a little.”
“Look, people from Maine are supposed to be unreadable,” he argued in good-natured defense. “I can’t help it if you always seem to be able to read me anyway.”
Tom nodded his head sagely. “All I gotta do, boy, is look in them gray eyes of yours and I got you by the throat. Funny, Allyson can’t read you the way I can.”
That was true, Shep thought. Allyson spent all her time scheming over the future. She never wasted time on small but important moments in the present. How many times had he wanted to share the beauty of a pale apricot sunset or a silvered mass of clouds struck by the sun? Too many times, a voice admitted deep within him.
“Hey ...” Tom exclaimed, nudging Shep’s elbow. “Who is that delicious-look’n’ lady that just stepped through the doors? My God, I think I’m in love.”
Shep looked up toward the entrance. And for a frozen instant in time he felt as if someone had stolen the breath from his body. She was dressed in a long ivory gown delicately touched with lace. The high Victorian collar only accentuated the old-fashioned aura surrounding her. She was a complete contrast to the chic modern women here and the contrast struck him deeply. His eyes traveled from the slender lines of her gown, across her small, firm breasts, to her face.
“Damn,” Tom breathed. “Isn’t she—”
“Beautiful,” Shep finished, straightening up. Trained to observe, he noticed that every male in the place had turned and looked at the woman. Shep’s eyes narrowed as he detected a certain tenseness in her porcelain features. Her eyes, the incredible azure blue of the sky, were wide, almost child-like as she nervously glanced around. His body tightened with desire as he watched her mouth. Her lips were full, slightly parted, and incredibly expressive. Dark auburn tendrils curled at her temples, softening the severity of her simple hairdo. Why did she wear her hair like that? Shep had no trouble imagining that dark mass flowing freely across her shapely shoulders. He noticed she was gripping her husband’s arm tightly. Didn’t the man realize how frightened and uncomfortable she was? Shep frowned, squaring his shoulders. Compared to the sleekly dressed women here at the party she seemed to be out of place, part of another time.
“Darling…”
Shep tore his gaze from the woman and reluctantly turned toward his wife. Allyson smiled brightly. Her green eyes were narrowed and intent as she breathlessly glided up to Shep. She curled her lacquer-tipped fingers around his hand. “Look who’s here. Now that’s someone you need to know.” Allyson cast a brief, plastic smile at the major. “Hello, Tom.”
“Allyson. How are you tonight?”
She laughed gaily. “Fine. Just fine. Now Shep, you have to go over with me and I’ll introduce you. That’s Cyril Hamilton and his wife, Tess. He’s the chief engineer for the aeronautical portion of the B-1 and she’s his administrative assistant. Although,” Allyson drawled in her best whiskey voice for added dramatic effect, “everyone knows he’s grooming her to replace him someday in the Rockwell hierarchy.”
Shep glanced down at his black-haired wife. “Oh really? And how do you know that?”
Allyson shrugged her shoulders in a very eloquent fashion. Her emerald green gown fit her petite figure beautifully, bringing each luscious curve to full ripeness. Shep looked again at Tess Hamilton. The difference was frightening. Alluring.
“Darling, I make it my business to know who’s in and who’s out on this project. I’ve been dying to meet Cy! You’ll be working directly under him so you might as well come and let me introduce you.”
“Correction, Aly, he’s working for us, remember? This is an Air Force project and Rockwell is the contractor.”
She pouted. “But that doesn’t really matter. He’s a VIP and you want him on your side. You have to work together; that’s the bottom line.”
Shep slipped his hand beneath his wife’s elbow. She loved to irritate him by dodging certain facts. He turned to Tom. “See you a little later, buddy.”
Cunningham smiled politely, resuming his Air Force officer demeanor. “Later,” he agreed.
A staffer from the Hill came up, grabbing Cy’s large, fleshy hand and pumping it expertly. Tess remained at her husband’s side, keeping her eyes lowered most of the time, terribly unsure of herself. Sensing the approach of more strangers, Tess raised her head. Her heart pulsed erratically as her eyes met and locked with the smoky gray gaze of the man who stood before her. Bits and pieces of information whirled through her mind—the Air Force blue of his uniform, his gentle gray eyes assessing her with keen curiosity, his intense masculinity.
Her lips parted as she saw him smile down at her. It was a reassuring smile, telling her silently that she was safe with him. Tess was unable to tear her gaze from his face; she felt mesmerized by the gentle strength she saw there. His hair was a dark umber brown, neatly trimmed, with a few rebellious strands that refused to stay in place dipping down on his brow. He was a lone eagle, her imagination whispered. Indeed, he did look like an eagle with his gray eyes and black, penetrating pupils. His face was lean, like the rest of him, and oval, with a strong chin. His eyes were wide-set and alertly intelligent. His nose was aquiline, adding to his hawklike appearance. If it weren’t for the fact that his well-chiseled lips turned up at the corners, she would have been frightened of him initially. There was a calculating coolness in him that was softened by his smile.
She barely heard the introductions. The woman at the captain’s side had deftly maneuvered between her and Cy. Tess raised her hand automatically to greet the strangers. She was aware of the officer’s long, spare fingers wrapping around the damp coolness of her own. He murmured something, inclining his head forward, his eyes never leaving her flushed features.
“Tess, why don’t you spend some time with Captain Ramsey?”
Tess blinked once, tearing her gaze from the officer. “What?” she barely whispered, her throat constricted. Cy offered her a paternal smile as Allyson draped herself over his arm. “Why don’t you and Captain Ramsey talk about the B-1? I’m sure he’d like to know the progress on the defensive avionics system. That contract was just awarded and I’m sure he’d be interested in some of the details.” Her heart was pounding as Captain Ramsey placed her arm under his own. Immediately she sensed his controlled strength. Tess was intensely aware of his maleness. Why was he affecting her so strongly? Her mind gyrated out of control as she compared him to Cy. The love she and Cy shared was quiet, uneventful, and devoted. This officer was creating a firestorm within her suddenly aroused senses. And more than anything, Tess knew he was aware of the effect that he had upon her. She felt terribly unsure of herself as he led her adroitly through the milling crowd. Tess regretted her lack of experience with men. Why had she stuck her head in books all those years? Why hadn’t she developed outside relationships? Because you were scared, too afraid, she told herself. And now…now this officer was affecting her like some lost and forgotten aphrodisiac. Her body knew. But her mind refused to admit it.
Oddly, Tess felt safe with him. She didn’t know why. He seemed to intuitively know how to make her feel more secure in these surroundings. More secure around him.
He leaned down, his features mobile and readable. It surprised Tess because he had seemed distant an instant before. “Would you like a drink? Looks like you could use one.”
She responded immediately to the intimate, quiet quality of his husky voice. She managed a nervous smile. “I—yes. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to appear so flighty. It’s just that…” Tess saw him nod, his fingers briefly squeezing her arm.
“You don’t belong here,” was all he said. “Wait by the balcony doors. What do you drink?”
Her heart was skipping beats. Tess groaned inwardly as she blushed a second time. “Just wine.”
Shep stood there, drinking in the sight of her upturned, flushed face. She couldn’t be any more beautiful in that moment. Her blue eyes were wide and trusting, her lips were like rare, dark pink flower petals. She was looking to him for protection and that was something he wanted to give her. It would be easy to bestow it on her. He heard the uncertainty of her soft wispy voice. It sent an unnamed quiver through his taut body. “Red or white? What about champagne?”
Tess laughed softly. “Not champagne or I’m afraid you’ll find me under some table.”
He smiled. “Okay. We don’t need you under a table. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Tess watched him turn and walk away, her knees feeling weak. Was it the aura of power at this gathering or simply the presence of Captain Shepherd Ramsey that was making her feel like this? She had to get hold of herself, regardless. Gripping her small evening bag until her knuckles whitened, Tess tried to calm her nerves.
He was never out of sight, even though he had left her side. She was amazed at his calmness. He walked like a panther prowling disinterestedly through the clusters of people, head held high, aloof, unique. Were all test pilots like that? Such men had charisma, she knew. It was the glamor job of the Air Force, but Ramsey’s appeal went deeper than that.
She took a deep, steadying breath, realizing that she was glad to be in his care. With him, she could relax.
Chapter 2
“YOU KNOW, FOR A PARTY THIS SIZE, YOU’D THINK THEY’D have wine at the bar.” Shep apologetically handed her the glass of champagne and gave her a wry smile. “Guess we’ll have to make sure you don’t go under the table.”
Tess reached for the glass, her fingers making contact with his own. A pleasurable tingle went up her arm. Had he hesitated before pulling away? So much was happening that she was unable to be certain of anything where he was concerned. “That’s all right, Captain Ramsey,” she heard herself say, “I’ll just hold it. That way everyone will think I’m imbibing.”
“I see. Play the game, is that it?” He pushed open the balcony door, guiding her out onto the tile patio.
“I find game playing very taxing, Captain.”
He pulled her gently to a stop at the waist-high stone balustrade. As much as he wanted to keep holding her arm, he allowed his hand to drop to his side. He had read fear in her eyes upon first meeting her. Was she unsure of herself with men? Looking down at her youthful features, he knew the answer to that. “Call me Shep,” he urged. He turned and leaned against the still sun-warmed stone which overlooked the glittering valley of Los Angeles. “You couldn’t play a game if you tried,” he said, amusement tinging his voice. “Your eyes give you away.”
She took a gulp of the champagne, resting against the balcony, facing him. He was so close… “Cy has told me again and again to maintain a poker face.” She chewed on her lower lip, completely crushed by the fact that Shep could read her so easily.
Shep turned his head toward her. “Why?” he asked, perplexed. Why take away her natural spontaneity? He watched a variety of emotions flit across her features. Her skin was a flawless peach color, her nose and cheeks lightly sprinkled with freckles. He noted with pleasure that she wore little makeup; she made no attempt to hide those telltale freckles. He smiled to himself. Despite her uncertainty in these surroundings, she was not afraid to show her individuality.
Nervously, Tess took another gulp of champagne. “Administrative assistants are supposed to know how to deal effectively with every management situation. And with aplomb. Part of it is controlling your body language and facial expressions.”
Shep grinned. “Whoa ... if I don’t hear an MBA talking, I’ll eat my wings.”
Tess laughed liltingly. She liked his smile. It was devastating. “Are all test pilots as perceptive as you are, Shep?”
“You aren’t going to fall into the trap of stereotyping test pilots, are you? How long have you been with Rockwell and the B-1 program?”
She shrugged. “Two years. I joined the company after coming out of Harvard with my MBA.” She gave him a mischievous look. “See, you were right. I do have an MBA. And if it isn’t your perceptiveness that told you that, then you’re reading my mind.”
“I’m reading your mind,” he returned. “You’re easy to read.” God was she easy to read! He had to keep himself from becoming too familiar with her. It was too easy to let down all his shields and simply be himself. He found himself wanting to tease her playfully, to make her eyes glint with the laughter he had seen dancing in their depths moments earlier. “Can I get personal for a moment?” he asked.
She regarded him solemnly for a long second. Finally, she inclined her head forward. “Yes.”
“I was just wondering if your family was Irish.”
Tess gave a sigh of relief. He could have asked her anything, and she would have found herself giving the answer. Shep was someone whom she could easily confide in. “One hundred percent. My great-grandparents came from a small seacoast village in southern Ireland.”
“The land of fishermen and potato farmers?” he teased gently.
“And don’t forget, Ireland raises some of the finest Thoroughbreds in the world too. It’s a country with many faces.” Tess finished the champagne, placing the glass on the rail in front of her. The momentary silence lengthened between them as they both gazed out over the dark valley. “L.A. is so huge,” she murmured finally, almost to herself. “I wish we lived out in the country.”
“You’re a woman who would rather stick her toes into the warm earth instead of dressing elegantly for parties like this.”
She grimaced. “Tell me about it! Cy cringes every time I put my hair into braids.”
Shep turned, studying her. “Oh? Somehow I picture you being very comfortable in a pair of well-worn jeans instead of designer clothes.”
“That’s true.” She gave him a searching look. “How could you know that?”
He raised the glass of Scotch to his mouth and took a sip. “How old are you, Tess? Do you mind if I call you by your first name?”
She shivered in response to the sound of her name on his tongue. “No, I’d love it. I hate standing on formality. And to answer your question, I’m twenty-four.”
“I thought so,” he murmured.
That secretive grin of his got to her and she laughed. “What does that mean?”
“Hmm, just that you’ve probably spent all your adult life in the ivory towers of higher education. You haven’t had much of a chance to mingle with people on a purely social level. And the fact that you got your MBA when you were twenty-two implies that you jumped a couple of grades somewhere along the line”—he shook his head in a rueful gesture—”which means you probably didn’t get much time to grow up.”
Tess nodded. “Ever since I can remember, my parents had me in some sort of school. I guess they discovered I was bright when I was around two years old.” She shrugged her shoulders. “From then on, it was a matter of bringing out my gifts.”
“Don’t sound unhappy about it,” Shep soothed. “And certainly don’t apologize for your intelligence.” He grinned suddenly. “Even if you are a woman,” he taunted without rancor.
Tess placed a hand on her hip, lifting her chin in defiance. “You’re a chauvinist after all, Captain!”
Shep held up his hand. “No way, lady. We’ve got women in all phases of the Air Force, even flying planes. There’s talk that someday we’ll have women test pilots. No, I’m a believer in what women can do. Peace?”
Tess tried to stare him down and then burst out into laughter. “Fair enough.”
Shep warmed to her bell-like laughter. He took a deep breath, captivated by her unstudied loveliness. What was she doing here? She was like a flower on the desert, natural, unpretentious. Was her powerful, influential husband trying to mold her into someone like Allyson? The thought chilled him.
He observed her dispassionately for a moment, trying to be objective and finding it difficult.
He could not fault her on beauty or personality, and certainly she was very intelligent. Her only flaw was that she did not belong. But was it right to curb her naturalness? To rob her of that effortless laughter, the sparkle in the depths of her blue eyes, just so she would fit in? No, he told himself. No. A sense of despair settled over him. He looked at her again. There was nothing he could do. She was married. And so was he. He felt a knife twisting in his heart. Tess was the kind of woman he had hungered for all his life. The thought jolted him.
“Shep?”
He frowned. “Sorry,” he muttered, “I was thinking.”
“About what?”
He took a good stiff drink of the scotch, looking back over the scintillating night lights of L. A. When he didn’t answer, she moved closer, until mere inches separated them. Groaning inwardly, he wondered if she knew what she was doing to him. One look at her worried face, and he knew it was a guiless gesture on her part. There was a genuine concern registering in her eyes. She had seen his agony. Damn! He forced himself to adopt a mask of cool, calm composure.
Tess reached out, touching his arm momentarily. “I know, you’re thinking about the B-1! Are you worried about the flight date? That we won’t make the June 1974 commitment? I’ll bet you can hardly wait to fly the bomber.”
He gave her a tight smile, forcing himself not to react to her touch. It was as if a butterfly had briefly grazed his arm. His mind was running rampant, unchecked. What would it be like to kiss those full lips? To feel her response to him? She might be married, but he guessed that her husband had never fully brought out her ability to love. Angrily Shep cut off all thoughts of wanting her…needing her. It took every fiber of his being to do so. “I understand that the avionics contract was just awarded,” he answered, his voice carefully neutral, slightly strained.
“Yes, it was. But I would think you’d be more interested in the Preliminary Flight Rating Test which will take place in March.”
Shep put a tight leash on his emotions as he turned to drink in the sight of her upturned features. Her eyes…oh, God, he could lose himself in the depths of her warm blue eyes. “I am interested,” he agreed. “The PFRT is the last test before we actually place the engines in the bomber.” Did his voice sound like a monotone to her too? It sounded flat, uninterested. Hell, he wanted to discuss anything with her other than business. He wanted to know about her, her background, her likes and dislikes. His mind leaped from one question to another.
But before he could formulate any of them, they were interrupted by the waiter calling them to dinner. Shep slipped his arm around her small waist and led her slowly back to the opened doors. “Thanks for coming out here with me,” he said, meaning it.
She looked up at him. He was incredibly handsome in the dim light. The silver bars of his rank glimmered on his broad shoulders. The feel of his hand against her waist seemed so right. It had been natural to turn toward his body and fall in step beside him while they walked. His touch was firm, knowing. Her flesh tingled where his fingers rested, and Tess was incapable of stilling her singing heart. “I have a feeling we’re both the same,” she said. “You don’t like these parties any more than I do. You certainly appear to be more at ease here than I, but you strike me as a man who prefers the company of a few close friends and family.” Shep ushered her into the large, brightly lit room. Reluctantly he dropped his hand from her waist, keeping it on her elbow instead. “Are you sure you aren’t mind reading now?” he teased gently, meeting her gaze.
The intimate huskiness in his voice caused her to blush. She felt as if he had caressed her. What was happening? Again, that same sensation of confusion and heady excitement deluged her.
Shep was suddenly aware of an excitement that rippled through the gathering. He pulled Tess to a halt at the edge of the milling crowd, spotting Senator Diane Browning of California. She entered with a group of staffers, camera people and several other hangers-on. He leaned over and whispered intimately, “Here’s the gal who’s fighting for us in the Senate. Have you ever met Senator Browning?”
Tess stood on tiptoe to catch sight of the woman. She smiled up at Shep. “Cy talks about her all the time. I’ve never met her personally, just some of her staffers from time to time. She’s terribly attractive, isn’t she?”
He smiled to himself. Tess didn’t see the ramrod way Browning carried herself or the way the senator jutted out that strong chin of hers. She saw only the tasteful business suit the older woman wore and the golden hair knotted severely in a chignon. “She looks a little like you,” he confided to Tess.
“Now I know you’re flirting, captain.” Her blue eyes sparkled with merriment.
He grinned. “And I just paid you a compliment. A sincere one, I might add. Although you’re far more beautiful than she could ever be.”
Tess blushed fiercely, unable to hold his gray gaze. Intuitively she knew that Shep Ramsey didn’t go around flirting haphazardly. No, there was a quietness to him, a central core that many people did not reach. He was more introvert than extrovert although he had extended himself to make her comfortable. “I suppose the senator and I wear our hair in a chignon because it looks more businesslike. That way the men we have to work with deal with us on a professional level.”
“Did Harvard teach you that?” he drawled, a smile lifting one corner of his mouth.
It was her turn to give an impish grin. “No. I learned that the hard way.”
Shep looked at the reddish-gold highlights of her hair. The desire to loosen the carefully hidden pins and allow that fiery mass to tumble free was tempting. “A pity. Frankly I think you would look devastating with your hair down. There isn’t a man here who wouldn’t succumb to your beauty.”
She felt her heart soar. Something in his voice—the husky inference in it—made her deliciously aware of being a woman. Tess was confused. Cy had never made her feel so desirable, so…. She frowned. Shep Ramsey made her feel the power of her own femininity. That discovery frightened her badly. Taking a step away from him she murmured, “1 think it’s time I found Cy. It looks as though they’re going to begin seating all of us.”
Shep maintained his distance, realizing he had made her uncomfortable. “I think I see your husband and my wife. Come on, I’ll escort you over to them.”
As they approached, Allyson gave him a dazzling smile, her hand still draped casually on Cy Hamilton’s arm. “Darling! Cy and I have been having the most wonderful discussion.”
“I’m sure you have.” Shep nodded gravely in Hamilton’s direction. He watched through hooded eyes as Tess attached herself to her husband. The difference between them was a chasm. Hamilton looked fifty-five, not the forty-nine Shep knew him to be. His hair was prematurely gray, his face heavily lined with the responsibility he carried. And Tess was so young! Even younger emotionally than physically. She was just beginning to explore life. He found himself wanting to share those discoveries with her and quickly shoved the thought into a closed, secret compartment of his heart. Tess’s features had been glowing and alive when she had talked to him earlier. Shep watched as the natural spark in her subsided and she became once again a silent shadow of her aging husband.
“It appears you get the honors, Captain,” Hamilton said. “You’ll be seated next to Senator Stockwell.”
Shep pursed his mouth, glancing down at Allyson. “I didn’t want to eat very much anyway,” he answered dryly, not allowing the true extent of his feelings to be known. That was all he needed. Chad Stockwell had fought against the B-1 program since its inception. The congressman was obligated to attend the dinner because it was taking place in his home state. But that didn’t mean he would be gracious about it, especially when his opponent, Senator Browning, was in attendance as well.
“Are you sure there isn’t a seating mistake?” Tess asked.
Shep looked up at her, grateful for her concern. Allyson simply looked bored and disappointed. And Hamilton was obviously just glad that he didn’t have to sit next to Stockwell. But Tess was sensitive enough to realize the implications of putting a military officer beside a dove congressman. To make matters worse, it was an insult to Stockwell to place him next to a mere captain. He should have been seated beside one of the generals who were attending this affair. Shep didn’t like being used to snub the congressman. Who the hell was running this show? he wondered angrily. But he controlled his anger and smiled coolly. “I doubt if it was a mistake, Tess. Thanks for being concerned though.”
Hamilton eyed him appraisingly. “Apparently, Captain Ramsey, someone must think you have the ‘right stuff to take this kind of encounter.”
“Frankly, sir, I’d rather be behind the stick of an F-15 out of control in a graveyard spin.”
Hamilton smiled slightly. “Yes, I think I would too. Good luck, Captain. And by the way, I’m very impressed with your credentials. Your lovely wife has been filling me in on your career. I’m sure our test pilots from Rockwell are looking forward to working with you and your colleagues.”
For Shep, dinner was a long, drawn out affair during which he tried valiantly to converse with Senator Stockwell. Afterward everyone got up and drifted into small clusters to continue talking. Allyson started making her customary rounds of the different Air Force officers, making sure none were overlooked. He hid his surprise when Cy Hamilton headed in his direction with Tess at his side.
“Captain Ramsey?”
Shep gravely inclined his head. “Yes, sir?”
“Tess hasn’t seen the B-1 prototype yet over at our Palmdale plant. And as my administrative assistant, she needs to get out and start nosing around.” Cy glanced down at her warmly, patting her hand. “I wonder if you might have a few hours free next week to show Tess around? She’s seen blueprints until she can draw them in her sleep. Now she needs to see the actual bomber. How about it?”
“I’d consider it an honor and a pleasure, Mr. Hamilton.”
Cy smiled genially up at the officer. “Good, good. May I leave my lovely wife in your capable hands, Captain, for a few minutes? I must chat a moment with Senator Browning before she leaves. Tess, I’ll drop by after a while with your wrap and then we’ll leave.”
Tess opened her mouth to speak and then closed it. She felt vaguely disturbed by Shep’s presence. Even so, a smile touched her lips as Cy left.
“You look like the cat that ate the canary,” she noted drily.
“I am. I was just trying to figure out a way to see you one more time before you left this evening.” He slid his fingers beneath her elbow, guiding her toward the balcony. “Ready for some fresh air?”
Tess hesitated. “I—”
“What’s this? My Irish lass is frightened?” he teased. “Relax, I enjoy your company. I intend to remain in control of myself.” He smiled, watching her visibly relax. She moved forward at his coaxing.
“Not all women of Gaelic ancestory are fearless. Some of us get frightened. Cy says I get scared too easily.”
Shep opened the door, ushering her through it. “You’re lacking in confidence. But I don’t see you chickening out in an emergency situation.”
Tess tilted her head, trying to understand him. “Why do you say that?” she demanded, halting near him at the balustrade.
“The way you carry yourself. You have a proud, natural carriage. You walk with your shoulders back and chin up. A woman that’s afraid tends to round her shoulders, take a much smaller step, and is inclined to keep her eyes fixed on the ground or only a few feet ahead of her. You,” he murmured, losing himself in her widening blue eyes, “look ahead. Far ahead. I can see why your husband chose you to occupy such a powerful position in the company you work for. You have moxie, lady. Something very few women possess.”
She colored. “I don’t understand how so many people can see all that in me when I don’t feel it in myself.” She laughed. “Are you sure test pilots aren’t dyed-in-the-wool romantics, Shep?”
Grinning, he murmured, “In a sense, I think we are. We see ourselves as unique. We are able to take something new and untried and coax, cajole, or force it to meet its potential. There is something idealistic or romantic in being able to accomplish that. Or,” he said, becoming more serious, “in dying if you don’t succeed.”
Tess sobered considerably at that. What possessed men to risk their lives that way? Was it a death wish? A heroic, subconscious passion to leave the earth as someone who had shoved back the limits of the unknown? A sudden, inexplicable dread washed over Tess. Looking up into Shep’s confident, stalwart face, she could never imagine him dying in a fiery crash. There was something too special, too vibrant about him. She couldn’t bear the thought that he might die, like a good percentage of test pilots, behind the stick of an unmanageable aircraft.
She chided herself sternly for dropping into the mire of depression. Rallying herself, she forced a smile. “From what little 1 know or understand about your career, Shep, I gather that test pilots seem to enjoy the surprise of the unknown. I think you like to pit yourself against it. No matter how much time you spend with our engineers, planners, and mechanics there is still that missing piece from the puzzle. You don’t know how the B-1 will handle until she’s airborne. You can only calculate the fly-ability of the plane by the computer printouts on the models in the wind tunnel tests.”
He looked at her with surprise. She was talking his language now. And very easily. “I’m having a hard time reconciling your image with what’s coming out of your lovely mouth. On the one hand you sound like an engineer. On the other I see a very romantic-looking woman right out of old Ireland.”
She bowed her head, overwhelmed by the sincerity in his voice. “Please…” she whispered achingly.
Shep moved within inches of her, a troubled expression in his eyes. “You don’t even know how to take a compliment,” he whispered. “Hey…” he coaxed, placing his finger beneath her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes, “You can’t tell me other men haven’t complimented you, Tess. My God, you’re too lovely. Too…fresh and alive.” Her skin was velvety to his touch. He knew he ought to remove his hand but the feel of her skin sent waves of arousal through his body. Very gently Shep caressed her cheek.
Tess drew in a breath, acutely aware of time melting into nothingness as he slid his hand beneath her jaw, tilting her head up. Up to meet his descending mouth. A mixture of confusion mingled violently with molten desire inside her. He hesitated, a bare inch separating his mouth from her full, glistening lips. Her eyes had darkened to cobalt, flecked with bits of gold. Shep felt her tremble, caught the fleeting fear in her gaze. Cupping her face, he gently pulled her close to his body, wanting to erase the fear he saw.
His breath was warm against her face as she stared up into his eyes. Her heart beat heavily in her breast, her breath catching as he brought her against him. His mouth, so strong-looking, lightly brushed her lips, parting them gently. A quiver coursed through her at even that slight touch. A small cry lodged in her throat. This shouldn’t be happening, her mind screamed. Her heart thrilled to his masterful caress. Before she could pull away, his mouth fitted perfectly against her own, claiming her completely. Forever.
A shadowy figure remained frozen by the balcony doors, watching. Quietly, he reclosed the doors. A look of crafty pleasure registered on his features as he turned, moving back toward the knot of departing guests. This was exactly what he had been hunting for. He would use what he had stumbled upon at the right time and place. Yes, Cy Hamilton was practically in his pocket now. All that remained to be accomplished was the timing of his disclosure.
Chapter 3
“TESS, AREN’T YOU GOING TO MEET CAPTAIN RAMSEY today?” Cy inquired, looking at his watch. “You’d better get going if you’re going to make that luncheon date with him, you know.”
Tess stood in front of the large picture window, staring out over the smog-ridden form of Los Angeles in the midmorning light. It was Monday and the gears of the engineering department were turning in earnest at Rockwell. Cy had worked all Sunday at the office as usual, overseeing details on the B-1. She had remained at their posh Beverly Hills home thinking about the dinner party the night before. She had allowed Shep Ramsey to kiss her ... to steal the very breath from her starving, hungry soul. Her eyes clouded with pain and remorse. It shouldn’t have happened. She should never have allowed him to touch her. The war continued within her and her stomach felt as if it were twisted in knots.
‘Tess?”
“What? Oh, I’m sorry, Cy. I was thinking.”
He raised his head momentarily from the blueprints spread out on his large drafting board. “You seem nervous. Is everything all right? Last night you tossed and turned a great deal.”
Her heart contracted in anguish. Touching her forehead in a nervous gesture, Tess turned, forcing a smile for his benefit. “I haven’t been feeling well. Really Cy, I ought to cancel that engagement with Captain Ramsey. I—”
“You need some good desert sun. That’s what I get for taking you out of your natural environment of woods and meadows. I’ve worried what city living might do to you. I know you’re an outdoors girl. I think some fresh air, a walk in the sun will put the color back into your cheeks again.” He studied her. “You do look quite pale. Please, go. Besides, I’m booked with one meeting after another this afternoon and I won’t have time to discuss that contract you’re handling. Perhaps tonight we can go over it after dinner.”
Tess pursed her lips, walking back to his desk. “Cy, you’re working far too hard! You’re putting in eighty hours a week on this. It’s not necessary. Four or five hours of sleep a night just isn’t enough!” She reached out, gently massaging his stooped shoulders as he leaned over the blueprint. “Please, darling. Come with me. You show me the B-1. We’ll let Captain Ramsey be our guide.” Her voice grew desperate with pleading. “Darling, please…for me?”
Cy chuckled softly. “I love you so much, Tess.” He slid his arm around her waist, giving her a quick hug. “The offer is very tempting, but these meetings won’t run without me being there. Now you’d better hurry. It’s a two-hour drive up to Palmdale, and I very much want you to see that beautiful bomber. I’ll see you tonight when you get back.”
* * *
Her mouth was dry and her throat constricted as she walked into the restaurant at the Palmdale facility. Clutching her leather shoulder bag, Tess caught sight of him and froze. Shep came out of the shadows, the light playing across his face. He was a lone eagle, his gray eyes narrowed and intent as he closed the distance between them. Today he was in his regular Air Force uniform, looking masculine and lean. Her lips parted slightly as he halted a few feet from where she stood. Tess tried to decipher the unreadable quality of his facial features. What was he thinking? Feeling? Would he try to kiss her again? Her heart began to race in panic at that last thought. No, it mustn’t happen. Not ever again!
“Tess?” he murmured huskily.
She melted inwardly at the sound of his voice. She blinked back a sudden flood of tears that made her eyes look even more lustrous. “I didn’t want to come,” she blurted out unsteadily. “I was afraid. And guilty. I’m afraid of myself and what I’m feeling. It shouldn’t have happened, Shep ... I can’t live with myself knowing that I’ve cheated on Cy. I—”
He reached out, taking her elbow, guiding her into an adjoining room. “We have to talk,” he agreed. “Come on, let’s get you a chair and a drink to calm your nerves. You’re white as a sheet.”
She held the drink with both hands, seated away from most of the other luncheon guests. After taking two healthy gulps of the vodka gimlet, she felt a little calmer. Shep made no move to touch her or talk while she drank. Finally she raised her head, meeting those incredibly warm gray eyes. He was relaxed, the expressionless mask having dropped from his features. He offered her a slight smile.
“Better?”
Tess gave a nod of her head. “Better,” she agreed hoarsely.
“I owe you an apology, Tess,” he began. “I took advantage of the situation. I’m a gentleman, and it was my responsibility to control myself.” He shook his head, looking mystified. “There are things I want to say to you, but I can’t because you’re married.”
Her dark lashes framed widening eyes. “I am married. And I love my husband very much, Shep,” she said in a trembling voice. “I know I don’t have very much experience. And I can’t explain why I let you kiss me.” She dragged in a deep breath, hands pressed against her hot, flushed cheeks. “But please, for God’s sake, don’t do it again. I—I can barely live with myself now. If Cy knew—”
“No one saw us, Tess.” He leaned forward, a new urgency in his voice. “Look, one kiss doesn’t mean you’re having a full-blown affair. It’s not the end of the world. Put it into perspective.” His mouth thinned as he assessed her worriedly. “I’m sorry. Truly sorry for evoking this kind of pain in you. I never intended to do that, Tess, believe me. You didn’t do anything to deserve this kind of hurt.”
Tears slid down her cheeks and she brushed them away. Drawing a handkerchief from his back pocket, he placed it in her cool, damp fingers. Shakily she wiped the tears away. “All I want to do is see the B-1 and then leave, Shep.” How could she explain that her heart craved what Shep Ramsey had offered her? But her head was telling her that she was married to Cy.
“It’s not as simple as that,” he corrected gently. “You know well be seeing each other in the future because of the bomber. You can’t run away and hide from this, Tess. Neither of us can,” he concluded with more authority. “I promise not to make it any more awkward than it’s already become. But you’re going to have to put any guilt you feel over this into proper perspective and then lay it to rest. Otherwise you’ll only tear yourself apart.” He frowned, watching pain cross her mobile features. How could he have forgotten for one instant that emotionally she was a naive eighteen-year-old and not a mature woman of twenty-four? Agony slashed at his heart because he had selfishly inflicted this pain on her because of his own desire.
Shep idly sloshed the Scotch around in his glass, staring moodily at the ice cubes. He had done a great deal of thinking since kissing Tess. Most of his thoughts were centered on his disintegrating marriage. Allyson was a social climber. She lived for it. It hurt him to think that all she had seen in him when they married was a way to reach the top. But he knew she’d always dreamed of becoming a general’s wife. And God knew, he had the proper background to make him eligible in another twelve years. He took a sip of the Scotch, glancing over at Tess.
Her cheeks were tear-wet and flushed, her lashes thick and dark with tears. Instinctively, Shep knew Tess wasn’t concerned with the trappings of the material world. Hers was a world of emotional sensitivity. A world he had been craving to be a part of since he had been old enough to recognize it. And emotional sensitivity was something entirely foreign to Allyson.
“Come on, Tess. Finish your drink and I’ll take you to look at that bomber you’re building,” he said.
Tess raised her head, meeting his gray gaze. A new kind of warmth invaded her heart, soothing the ragged edges of the guilt. A tremulous smile touched her lips.
* * *
Shep escorted her inside a large, rectangular hangar. Inside sat the first two prototypes of the B-1 bomber. Workmen on tall, skeleton-like ladders swarmed over the two planes. Shep showed his security badge to the guard. Tess brought out her badge, too, and attached it to her camel hair coat.
“Compared to the B-52, the B-1 looks like a glamor girl,” Shep said, gesturing to the lean-looking bomber.
Tess nodded as her gaze traveled from the needlelike nose over the swept-back canopy of the cockpit to the sleek, aerodynamic shape of the main fuselage. “The B-1 looks more like the French Concorde,” she agreed, and then smiled. “Although, I think we have a better design.”
“The Concorde is designed for speeds of Mach 2. This bomber will hit subsonic speeds at low level.”
“Do you like the design, Shep?”
He turned, looking down at her. “As my friend Major Tom Cunningham put it, the plane is pure sex.”
She laughed with him. The B-1 was a Thoroughbred. It was a beautifully crafted plane and much smaller than the aging, eight-engined B-52. The B-1 could carry twice as many weapons, and once tested, it was hoped its overall performance would far surpass any existing bomber. “When you stop to think that there are over three thousand contractors and subcontractors working to put the B-1 together, it boggles your mind.”
Shep nodded, leading her around to the tricyclelike landing gear that raised the bomber twelve feet off the ground. A huge nacelle placed beneath each wing would hold two engines each.
“Speaking of contractors, I’d rather fly this thing than have to deal with them.” His slate-colored eyes sparkled with mirth. “Trying to handle the three thousand companies involved would be enough to give me gray hair long before my time.”
Tess sobered. “I know,” she answered, worry tinging her voice. “Cy deals directly with both the Air Force and the contractors. He works far too hard.”
Shep leaned against one of the thick white steel landing gear struts, studying her. “Your husband is in a very powerful and influential position at Rockwell. I’m sure he has to work hard to keep the whole thing moving. What’s the matter, don’t you like the prestige that goes with that position?” Shep was thinking that Allyson would revel in it.
Tess gave a vague shrug. “Money isn’t everything, Captain. Sure, it’s nice to have it but”—she smiled, her eyes crinkling with silent laughter—“sometimes, quite frankly, I’d rather be back in my jeans and pigtails.”
“And out walking in the woods. Right?”
She tilted her head, perplexed. “Now, how did you know that?”
“Anyone who has freckles is an outdoors girl,” Shep baited, grinning.
Tess blushed, avoiding his caressing gaze. Even with their truce, she still felt inexorably drawn to him, like a moth to a flame. Noticing his bronzed skin, Tess countered, “You’re a country boy yourself.”
“Oh? Does my Maine heritage show through that strongly?” he asked, continuing to wander beneath the carriage of the bomber.
Tess turned, smiling up at him. “So! That’s where you get your poker face. You’re so hard to read when you don’t want to be read!”
He pursed his mouth, giving her a sidelong glance. “Hmm. Tom teases me a lot about my stone face sometimes. He tells a lot of jokes to get me to loosen up.”
“Always too serious?” she ventured.
“Yes.”
“The New England sense of responsibility?”
“Right again. Sure you aren’t a mind reader?”
Tess shared his smile.
“No. Just putting two and two together. I met a few young men back at Harvard who had that same serious look. Most of them came from poor families. They were used to working their way up through the ranks.” She glanced up at him. “Did you?”
“What?”
Tess sensed his hesitancy to talk about his past. “I’m sorry, I’m prying,” she said.
Shep halted near the large tail and stabilizer section, which rose loftily above them. “No, you’re not prying.” He studied her upturned face. She was the exact opposite of Allyson. In Tess’s eyes there was only curiosity and genuine concern. But in Allyson’s he could always detect signs of an ulterior motive. He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I did come from a poor family, Tess. I was the oldest of six. My father was a potato farmer up in central Maine.” His brow wrinkled with memories. “Dad suffered a back injury when I was seven and I ended up doing most of the farm work. On top of that, Mom was never in good health. She was frail.” He smiled fondly. “I never could figure out how she had all six of us.”
“So you ended up not only with extra farm chores but helping to raise your other brothers and sisters?”
Shep nodded. “Yes. When Dad wasn’t around I ended up being like a second father to the younger ones. Mom expected me to keep them in line.”
“No wonder you don’t smile much,” Tess whispered, understanding the responsibility that had fallen on his shoulders as a youngster. “That must have been very tough on you.”
“It was, but it taught me discipline at an early age. I discovered I could do things I never thought I could.”
“Is that why you joined the Air Force?”
He halted, looking up at the hangar ceiling. “Let’s put it this way, Tess. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life fighting poor soil conditions and severe weather trying to plant potatoes. I saw what it did to my parents, I guess I wanted something better.”
In that instant, Tess saw Shep in a new light. He was a proud man. But his pride came from the knowledge that he had survived and gone on to be successful on his own terms. “I admire you, Shep. I really do,” she murmured, awed.
“Don’t be too impressed,” he answered gravely. “I really had no choice. I either worked or everybody starved.”
He slipped his hand beneath her elbow and led her out of the hangar. The Mojave winds were whipping tumbleweeds along the desert surface to their right. Opening the car door, he helped her in. Taking off his flight cap, he shut the door. Several strands of dark hair had dipped to his brow and he pushed them back with his long, tapered fingers. The interior of the car was warm from the sun and Tess leaned back.
“Why the Air Force? Why not industry? You certainly have the drive and motivation to do whatever you want.”
He rested his hands on the steering wheel, considering the question. “In the woods when I was waiting for a deer to come by, I’d sit quietly in a tree and watch the birds. There were several Bald Eagles that nested near my home and I used to watch them. I saw the freedom they had as they rose above everything, Tess.” He was quiet for nearly a minute. His voice grew softer as he continued. “I wanted to feel the wind tearing at me, to experience that sensation of soaring. I wanted their freedom to turn, wheel, dive, or glide thousands of feet on invisible air currents.” His voice became inaudible as he remembered his boyhood dream. Even now the thrill of flying was with him. He wanted to slip the grasp of the earth’s gravity and fling himself skyward, just as those magnificient eagles had done with such effortless grace. He glanced over at Tess, suddenly feeling shy. He had never shared his wishful childhood dream with anyone. Not even Allyson.
Shep turned from Tess to clear his throat and then continued in a more even voice, “I didn’t have the money to take private flying lessons. So, I put myself through college in five years and then joined the Air Force. I did very well in flight school and was assigned to fighters. Later on, I transferred to FB-111’s, a medium-range bomber and then to B-52’s just in time for the war over in Nam. I stayed with the Buffs until test pilot school came through for me. Next month I pin on my major’s leaf.”
She gazed at him admiringly. “And you have nowhere to go but up. You’re an inspiration to everyone, Shep.”
He shrugged, starting the car engine. “I wouldn’t know about that, lady. Don’t be so quick to put me up on a pedestal.”
“Why not? You certainly deserve to be there.”
“Every idol has feet of clay, just remember that, Tess,” he warned. He met her eyes. “And I’ve already shown you just how fallible I am with you. Come on, it’s almost four o’clock. Let’s get you back to the restaurant so you can pick up your car. I’m sure your husband will be wondering where you are.”
* * *
Derek Barton entered Cy Hamilton’s spacious, well-appointed office with a look of serious intent on his narrow face. The dark brown corduroy suit he wore seemed to accentuate the planes of his lean face and the darkness of his restless gaze. Hamilton looked up from his drafting table, a scowl already developing on his brow.
“I thought I told my secretary I wasn’t seeing anyone else today,” he growled, returning to the plans and ignoring Barton.
Barton halted at the desk, crossing his arms comfortably. “Everyone is gone for the day, Mr. Hamilton.” He gave Cy a plastic smile. “It’s nearly six o’clock. tow about taking a break and I’ll buy us some dinner over at—”
“No, thanks, Barton. What’s on your mind? Is it that subcontract of yours? I told you before, if you’ve got any problems with it, don’t bring them to me. It’s a performance contract. Your bearings meet our specifications or we don’t accept them. It’s as simple as that.” He glanced up at the contractor. “Now why don’t you leave?”
“Mmm, I don’t think you’ll want me to leave without talking to you first,” Barton hinted, a wolfish smile hovering around his almost lipless mouth. “No, this time it involves something I think you’ll be very interested in.”
Cy ignored him. Barton was one of the few subcontractors who could get under his skin. His bids were always late and incomplete. Then he whined until the Air Force accepted them even after the deadline. He was a wheedler, a conniver, and a weasel and Cy didn’t trust him or his company’s work. How many times had Tess gone to Rockwell’s lab to check the quality of the steel alloy that was used to make the bearings? Cy doubted that Barton’s work met the specs, but what was he going to do when low bid always got the job? He glared up at Barton. “I suggest you say your little spiel and then go.”
Barton shrugged. “Okay, Mr. Hamilton. Your wife has been over at our company offices a great deal lately—”
“I send her over there,” Hamilton growled. “As the specifying agent, Rockwell has the right to inspect your work, Barton. She’s done nothing wrong by going over there and picking up the lab reports on the bearings!”
“No—no, I agree,” Barton said slowly, barely able to hide the excitement he was feeling. “What I’m trying to say is that I recognize your wife when I see her.”
Cy raised his craggy head, staring at the contractor. “Meaning what?”
Barton hesitated, using the interim silence to build Cy’s curiosity. “Your wife’s very young and very attractive, Mr. Hamilton.” He didn’t want to come out and say, half your age. “It’s hard for a man not to take a long, appreciative glance at her. I’ve noticed that when she walks through our company’s various divisions. Every man stops work and looks up when she walks through the area.”
“What the hell are you getting at?”
Barton turned on his heel, ambling a few feet away before turning and facing Hamilton. He was enjoying Cy’s discomfort too much to rush. This was one way to get back at Hamilton for harassing him about the parts his company turned out for the bomber. The Rockwell engineer had interceded once and rejected a shipment of bearings after testing them. Barton remembered that day well. The general from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base had called, informing him that the bearings hadn’t met the specifications and his company would have to supply replacements. It had been a costly rejection. If it hadn’t been for Hamilton’s wife, he could have gotten away with the delivery. He’d almost saved sixty thousand dollars. And in the end, she had cost him half a million. That was what it had cost to replace the order with bearings satisfying Rockwell specifications.
“There’s been plenty of talk about your wife’s position in the industry.”
“She’s qualified in every way,” Cy snapped. “And I don’t give a damn if you good ole boys want to deal with a woman or not. As long as she knows what she’s doing, you’re just going to have to roll with the punches, Barton.”
“Looks like you’ll have to roll with a few punches yourself, Mr. Hamilton. I happen to know for a fact that your pretty little wife is having an affair.”
Hamilton’s eyes narrowed dangerously. He placed his pen on the desk, giving Barton his full, undivided attention. “You lying—”
The contractor’s face hardened. “Use your head, Hamilton. Why should I come in here with that kind of an accusation if it wasn’t true? I would have everything to lose and nothing to gain by such an accusation.”
There was some logic to that, Cy realized. Why would Barton come in stirring up unnecessary trouble when he’d been in hot water already? A pain began throbbing in his chest and he raised his hand, massaging the area absently. “All right. What do you know?”
“She’s seeing an Air Force officer. A test pilot.”
A coldness washed over Cy. Every fiber of his body experienced one sensation: fear. His voice sounded strangled. “Who?”
“Captain Shepherd Ramsey.”
“Where? When?”
Barton remained serious, delighting in the grayness now coming to Hamilton’s suddenly pale-looking features. “Saw ’em just the other night at that fancy party we all attended. They met out on the balcony. I’m surprised more people didn’t see them kissing each other. I just happened to walk out to grab a breath of fresh air when I stumbled on them.”
The dull, heavy feeling was spreading in Cy’s chest and he pressed his fist harder against his body. “Is that all?” he demanded hoarsely.
“I understand she went up to Palmdale today,” Barton continued slowly. He looked at his watch, making the gesture significant. “It’s six-thirty. Where is she? I called earlier today and her secretary said she was having lunch with the captain. Long lunch, ain’t it, Hamilton?”
* * *
It was almost nine-thirty when Cy heard the front door of their home open. He raised his head, remaining on the couch with the newspaper thrown nervously across his lap. He had been too upset to read it. Tess hurried into the living room, her eyes dark with apprehension.
“Oh, Cy! I’m sorry I’m late. I had a flat tire on the way back, and there was no phone nearby so that I could call you.” She shrugged off her coat, allowing it to hang over the back of the couch as she walked over to him. Pushing back several tendrils that had escaped from behind her ear, she sat down. As she looked at him, she realized something was dreadfully wrong. His face was ashen. Reaching out she gripped his hand. “Darling, what’s wrong? You look awful!”
“I haven’t been feeling well since about six tonight,” he admitted heavily. It was true, the heavy pressure in his chest had continued after Barton told him about the affair. He looked up into her beautiful flushed features. She appeared so damned innocent looking. So untouched…
Tess leaned over, caressing his cheek. “My poor darling. Have you eaten yet? Probably not. You get so busy you forget. I’m starved, Cy.” She started to rise but he gripped her hand.
“Stay a moment, Tess. There’s something we have to talk about.”
Her brows knitted worriedly. He sounded like a man who was lost, without hope. Chewing on her lower lip, she sat back down. “What’s wrong, Cy? Has something happened at work? You aren’t well.”
He took a deep, unsteady breath, gripping her hand tightly. “Derek Barton came in today with some very disturbing news.”
“Him!” Her voice took on a scathing tone. “Why doesn’t he leave you alone? The man is unbearable.”
“He didn’t come today with any problems concerning the contract.”
Tess tilted her head, puzzlement written in her face. “What then?”
Cy swallowed hard, finding it hard to breathe. He took two half breaths, forcing the words out. “You were seen in the arms of Captain Ramsey at the party, Tess. And I can’t help but wonder if you were late this evening because of him…”
Horror coursed through her, and Tess pulled her hand free, covering her lips. Her mouth went dry, her heart plummeting. Cy gasped, falling back against the couch, clutching at his chest. A small cry escaped her and she leaned forward, gripping his shoulder. “Cy! What’s wrong? Oh, my God. No!”
Chapter 4
MAY 24, 1974
CHAD STOCKWELL LOOKED UP AT HIS STAFFER, GARY Owens, who was following the B-1 program. The Senator tapped his short, square finger on the top of a pile of papers in front of him. “According to this, Rockwell is behind schedule in getting that bomber assembled and ready for flight, Gary. What’s the economic impact of such a lag?”
Owens, a Yale graduate, adjusted his conservatively colored tie. “Senator, I think I’d better give you a bit of background before answering that. The Air Force targeted the first engine test of the B-1 in March. It didn’t go down. They’re still hoping to make the first flight in June. Apparently more time is being spent on piecing the air frame together than had been anticipated. There’s a great deal of pressure being put on Rockwell by the Air Force to get the entire project back on schedule. If they keep going like this, it will probably be the end of 1974 before they test fly that monstrosity.”
Stockwell frowned, moving quickly through the figures. “What I’m really concerned about is if they’re going over the fiscal year budget allotted to them by Congress.”
Owens allowed himself a brief, pleased smile. He had done a great deal of digging, involving phone calls to the Pentagon, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and Rockwell to piece that answer together. “Yes, sir, they are. And any delay in the program tends to add to the price. What it comes down to, Senator, is this: one B-1 used to cost the American public forty-four million dollars. Now, with Rockwell lagging behind, the unit program cost has risen to fifty-four million.”
Stockwell pursed his fleshy lips, feeling anger and indignation over the entire situation. “Damn them. They were planning to order 241 B-1’s. Do you realize what the price tag on that will be?” He hit his intercom button, signaling his secretary.
“Yes, sir?”
“Betty, get me the engineer who’s running the show from Rockwell on the B-1.”
“That would be Mr. Daniel Williams, sir. I’ll ring his office right away.”
“Thank you.” Stockwell looked pleased. “Nothing like getting the full story from the source, Gary. Sit down. I want you in on this conversation with Williams.” He frowned, searching his memory. “I thought Cy Hamilton was the top dog at Rockwell?”
“Cy Hamilton was, sir, until he died of a sudden heart attack a few days after the B-1 party, Senator. Dan Williams was pushed into the slot to keep things on an even keel.”
“Didn’t work, did it?” he murmured, grinning.
“No, sir, I don’t think so.”
“Mrs. Hamilton?” Her secretary Ruth Caldwell poked her head around the opened office door.
Tess sat with her hand propped up against her wrinkled forehead. She looked up. “Yes, Ruth?”
“It’s Senator Stockwell’s secretary on the phone.” Ruth gave a grimace. “I told her Dan was out on business for the day. So he wants to talk to you.”
Tiredly Tess rubbed her face. Would she ever sleep soundly? She doubted it. Depression seemed to color her whole world black. “All right,” she answered softly, the exhaustion evident in her tone. “I’ll take the call.”
This was all she needed. Since Cy’s unexpected death, Tess had been asked to help Dan Williams take over the job as chief engineer. In a way, she was grateful for the twelve-to-fourteen-hour days. At least when she was working, she didn’t have to think. She didn’t have to feel that knife-twisting pain in her heart. Cy had died in her arms thinking that she had had an affair with Shep Ramsey. Her lips pursed into a familiar line of pain and guilt. Thank God for Dan Williams. He drove her mercilessly, not realizing he was doing her a favor. If her mind was occupied, she could ignore the anguish she carried in her heart. Expelling a long sigh, Tess picked up the white phone.
“Good morning, Senator Stockwell. This is Tess Hamilton. May I help you?”
“Mrs. Hamilton, I’m sorry to hear about your husband. Cy Hamilton and I go way back.”
A little warning signal went off immediately in Tess’s head. In the last seven months she had found out about the games politicians played. They would use anything they could to throw one off guard, so they could get some straight answers. Well, with Stockwell, she was going to be very cautious.”
“Thank you for your condolences, Senator.”
“A terrible loss, Tess. You don’t mind if I call you Tess, do you?”
Tess groaned inwardly. She didn’t want him to use her first name. She did not want to be familiar with Stockwell in any way. She hadn’t liked what she’d seen of him at the party, and his damaging press releases about Rockwell and the Air Force reinforced that dislike. “Yes, well, what can I do for you?”
“Just a few small, unimportant questions, Tess.”
I’ll bet, she thought, keeping her pen poised over a pad of paper to jot down his questions and then her answers. Her palms grew damp; she sensed Stockwell was after a great deal more than his lighthearted conversation indicated. “Go on,” she urged.
“I was just curious as to why the engine test of the first B-1 didn’t take place in March as originally scheduled.”
“We’ve been installing several systems, Senator. Delivery of some of the subassemblies such as valves, pumps and wiring has taken longer than originally anticipated. The engineers have tried to estimate the completion date of each task. Each of these individual activities, no matter how large or small, are then run through our scheduling computer. Some of the plumbing must be put in first before the wiring can be placed. Everything has to go in a prearranged order.”
“But Rockwell has people there who have scheduled large projects on complex aircraft before. They know the time involved on something of this size and complexity.”
Tess’s mouth thinned. “Senator, if you recall, the B-1 was originally designed in 1967, which means the plans are seven years old. As you well know, technology has rapidly advanced in those years. To be able to accurately project cash flows and time schedules on something that’s going to be built seven years in the future is nearly impossible. Extra time has been needed for design changes to continually update and modernize the B-1 changes that were not anticipated seven years ago. We’ve done the best we can under the circumstances.”
“And the cost estimate?” Stockwell asked.
“The rates are higher than anticipated. No one seven years ago could have predicted today’s skyrocketing costs.”
“Indeed. Each B-1 unit was supposed to cost forty-four million. Now, according to what my staff can figure out, it will be something like fifty-four million. That is extremely distressing, Mrs. Hamilton.”
Her stomach knotted as she heard the threat in his voice. Instinct told her he was going to take that information and run with it. She groaned inwardly: Stockwell knew how to manipulate the press to his full advantage. She could already see the glaring headlines now. Maintaining a neutral tone she murmured, “Senator, I’ve given you the reasons for the delays. We’re working our crews to maximum efficiency to adjust for the schedule changes. I realize that time means money. And with the present inflation rate, it means at least a six percent price hike.”
“My staff tells me it’s going to be a lot higher than that, Mrs. Hamilton.”
Tess gripped the phone receiver tightly. “I’ll talk to Mr. Williams when he comes in, Senator. I intend to document our conversation on paper. I think that when you take into account the seven-year delay between designing the plane and actually building it, you’ll understand why Rockwell is a few months behind schedule at this point.”
Tess sat immobile for a few moments after the Senator hung up. It was a lovely June day outside the windows of her large, airy office. Slowly getting to her feet, she shakily touched her brow, wandering over to the filmy blue curtains. Moving them aside, she gazed at the smog-ridden Los Angeles landscape. The main Rockwell office was located in El Segundo, a small suburb near the Pacific Ocean.
Her mind clicked with possibilities over Stockwell’s phone call. He would use the information. She could picture him gleefully calling a press conference and expounding on the cost estimate rise while conveniently omitting the reasons behind it. Damn inflation, she groused mentally. Damn everything. Closing her eyes, Tess shook her head.
Since Cy’s death, everything seemed to have gone wrong. The actual assembly of the B-1 had been slower than forecast. There were problems joining the tail structure which had in turn delayed installation of the fuselage, the center wing box and the pivotal fittings for the wing. Now the cockpit capsule was finally in place, the wiring complete for the most part. Dan had urged her to accompany him up to the Palmdale plant on several occasions, but she had found excuses not to go. Shep Ramsey might be there, and she didn’t want to risk running into him.
A new stab of pain went through her. Oh, God, Shep, she cried to herself. Tess wrapped her arms about her body. She experienced the agony of Cy’s death all over again, and the guilt she had felt when Shep Ramsey came to visit her the next day. No—no, she didn’t want to have to go through it again! She compressed her lips, closing her eyes, trying to shake loose the image of Cy’s death. How many times had she relived that night, and the events of the following morning? In the midst of all her anguish, it had been Shep Ramsey who had given her stability….
Tess had heard the doorbell ringing that morning. Dully, she had looked up, finally realizing that someone was at the front door and she had to answer it. Her mind was sluggish, numbed with shock as she rose and mechanically moved one foot in front of the other. After the ambulance had taken Cy’s body away the doctor gave her tranquilizers and sleeping pills to help her rest that first night. It was somewhere around eleven A.M. when she finally awoke from the drugged sleep and heard the doorbell ring. Still dressed in her dark burgundy silk robe from the night before, her long auburn hair unbound, she finally opened the door.
Tess blinked once, the impact of a blue Air Force uniform registering slowly on her consciousness. Raising her eyes, she gasped in stunned surprise. Automatically, her fingers went to her slender throat in reaction. “No ...” she whispered hoarsely, trying to shut the door.
“Tess! Let me in.” Shep effectively blocked the door. Her strength was no match for his. Fear mixed with anguish as he hurriedly scanned her ashen features. Her eyes were great pools of blue agony. Dark shadows lingered beneath them, the aftermath of too many tears. Her flawless peach-colored skin was pale, almost translucent. She looked dead. Her beautiful hair spilled across her slumping shoulders, framing her pain-ridden face, making her look even more pale, if that were possible. His heart squeezed as he slipped inside, quickly taking off his flight cap.
“I had to come, Tess,” he said huskily, shutting the door behind him. “I got word three hours ago.” He scowled, watching an incredible array of emotions move across her face. He groaned inwardly, realizing more than ever how much he cared about her. He reached out in an effort to comfort her. It had been an automatic reflex.
Tess shrunk away from his hand, gasping, “No!” Tears trickled down her drawn face as she backed away from him. “Go away! Oh, God, just leave me alone! Cy died because of me. Because of you! It’s my fault. I should never have let you kiss me!” She sobbed, fleeing to the safety of the living room.
Shep caught up with her, gripping her arm, spinning her around. “What are you talking about?” he breathed, forcing her to a stop. “Tess! Get hold of yourself! Tell me what happened.”
She sobbed, burying her face in her hands. “Someone saw us kissing on the balcony!” she wailed. Lifting her tear-stained face she choked out, “He told Cy! He told him I was having an affair with you!” She began to sob in earnest, trying to pull away from him. Guilt surged over her as she remained helplessly entrapped by his restraining hand.
Shep’s mind raced. One part of him wanted to take her into his arms, to hold her and keep her safe. More than anything, Shep wanted to protect her and take away the pain that seemed to radiate from every part of her being. But who had seen them? And why would he tell Cy? What kind of vindictive game was being played? Had the story caused Cy’s heart attack? Worriedly he studied Tess. She stood before him, trembling with fear and pain. “Dammit, Tess, come here,” he growled, and pulled her into his arms.
An anguished cry escaped from her as he crushed her against his body. He buried his head against the silken folds of her hair, holding her tightly. “Ssshh,” he crooned softly, “it’ll be all right, honey. Ssshh, that’s it, go ahead, cry. Get it out. I’m sorry. So sorry this has happened. You don’t deserve this. None of it.”
Huge, tearing sobs broke from her as she gave in, collapsing against the strength of his body. Tess buried her head on his chest, the backlog of fear, shock, and horror rushing out in strangled, gulping sounds. Just having Shep’s arms around her made her feel cared for, protected. She was barely cognizant of his soft, unintelligible words in her ear. His fingers gently stroked her head to soothe her, to take away the agony.
They were standing in the hall. Shep slipped his arms beneath her quivering body and picked her up. He carried her into the living room, halting near the couch, acutely aware of the warmth and pliancy of her body. She was in his arms, her hair like raw silk, the scent and touch of her skin a mingling of sandalwood with velvet. Shep didn’t want to let her go. She was alive. So incredibly alive. She was everything he had imagined. And more. Much, much more. He wanted to carry her into the bedroom and lay her down beside him. Shep knew he could assuage her pain, give her a momentary sanctuary of peace and strength through the act of loving her.
The night they first kissed, their union had completed each of them, and Shep instinctively realized that he could create the same harmony now. The same incredible sense of loving communion that had given both of them those precious, fleeting moments of wonder and peace.
He was torn between laying her down on the couch and carrying her into the bedroom despite her protests. Some indefinable emotion rose in him, nearly overwhelming his senses as he held Tess in his arms. He was aware of the arousal of his body, of his emotions as he felt the pliancy of her flesh against his hands. Reluctantly, Shep lowered Tess to the couch, then brought her back into the protective circle of his arms.
Shep had expected her to pull away, but to his surprise, she fell back into his embrace. His heart sang with silent joy at the simple gesture. Despite Tess’s words, there was still trust and an intangible bond of unnamed emotion between them, an emotion that allowed her to come to him for comfort.
Finally, after nearly half an hour, she quieted. Shep absently stroked her hair, feeling the rapid beat of her heart against his chest. He closed his eyes, resting his head against her hair. Her breasts were soft against the wall of his chest, her body fitting perfectly against the planes of his own. The urge to deepen the intimacy of his slow, stroking motions on her beautifully curved back was a continuing agony. She was so warm, her scent intoxicating his heightened senses. Leaning over, he placed a kiss on her temple, aware of the silken hair beneath his mouth and the yielding softness of her flesh. It would be so easy ... so easy to cup his hand beneath her chin, lift it upward, placing her tear-stained lips against his mouth. Desire pulsated through his tightly controlled body. Each beat of her heart was like a throbbing invitation, fanning the flames of hungry desire to roaring life within him. No woman had ever affected him on such a primal level.
Putting a rein on his needs, Shep closed his eyes, resting his head against her hair. It couldn’t be, he thought morosely. Not now…not like this. ... If I did make love to her, she would never forgive herself or me. I can’t risk that. He briefly opened his gray eyes, pain clearly written in their depths as he stared emptily off into space. Tess would hate herself and hate him. And Shep cared too deeply to let her be hurt any more. He thought too much of Tess to compound her problems. Gently, Shep ran his fingers through her hair, glorying in the sensation. Despite everything, he was determined to see Tess through this and try to reestablish a relationship with her at some point later on. A feeling of contentment washed over him, a warmth that he’d never experienced before. “Better?” he inquired, his voice barely above a whisper.
Tess nodded once. She pulled her hand from around his waist and tried to dry her thick, tear-wet lashes. He dug out his handkerchief, placing it into her fingers. “Seems like you’re always crying when we’re together,” he noted wryly, gazing down at her and recalling her tears at Palmdale.
Tess mutely agreed, pulling free of him. She stared at him gravely, aware that his left arm remained around her waist. There was a naturalness to their relationship. Why did she feel safe and stable when Shep was with her? She shouldn’t. Where had the horror of guilt gone? Right now she felt calm. As if she were in the eye of a hurricane. His gray eyes were dark and searching upon her face. There was worry coupled with anxiety in their depths. She swallowed against the lump that was forming in her throat, realizing how deeply he cared.
“Can you tell me what happened, Tess?” he coaxed gently.
She dropped her gaze to his handkerchief, twisting it between her fingers. “I—I was late getting home because my car had a flat tire.”
“A flat tire? Why didn’t you call me, Tess? I would have driven out and helped you.”
She shook her head. “I know you would have, Shep. I—I was afraid to.”
He watched her closely and understood what she wasn’t able to say—any time spent with him was a special, unfulfilled agony. He squeezed her arm. “It’s all right,” he soothed. “Go on.”
Tess gave him a helpless look. “When I finally got home, Cy was sitting here.” Her voice wobbled and she held her hand across her mouth. “He—he said someone had seen us on the balcony. And then”—she sobbed harder, fighting back the deluge of fresh tears— “he wondered why I was late coming back from Palmdale. He knew I was with you. ...”
Shep clenched his teeth, drawing in a deep breath while she cried. He gripped her arm. “Tess, who told him all this?” he demanded tightly. “Who?”
“Derek Barton! He’s a horrible little man! A subcontractor to Rockwell on the B-1 project.” She drew in a shaky breath, trying to get a hold on her rampant emotions.
Anger, more chilling than a glacier in the Arctic, flowed through him. “He lied,” he breathed softly. “The bastard lied.”
“And—and Cy’s dead because of that rotten, horrible lie! Oh, Shep—” she whispered painfully, “I can’t stand living with the pain of knowing I killed him.”
He gripped her by the arms, giving her a small shake. “Stop it,” he growled. “That’s not true. Cy was a dedicated man. You said yourself he was a workaholic. He’d been putting in too many long hours. A man of his age who’s working like that is prone to a heart attack, Tess. What have the doctors said?”
Shakily she wiped the tears away, looking up at him morosely. “They’re supposed to call this afternoon.”
His face softened. “And the funeral?”
Tess winced. “Two days from now.”
His grip tightened momentarily until he realized he was hurting her. Relaxing it he said, “Do you have anyone to help you with the details?”
She made a weak gesture with her hand. “Rockwell people. They’ve been very supportive.”
“I mean a friend? Someone close who can help pull you through all of this.”
Her mind fled over a list of the women she knew. The Rockwell secretaries hated her because of her position in the company. She had few outside friends. There was no other woman at her level, or even above her, whom she could confide in. She shook her head. “I—no, I don’t. It’s hard to explain. I spent my time either at the office with Cy or here at home with him.”
He pursed his lips, watching her closely. “Tess, let me be here for you. It’s the least I can do under the circumstances.”
Her eyes widened, broadcasting her anguish. “I can’t, Shep—Barton will be spreading rumors. I—” She halted, her voice growing hoarse. “No, you can’t. By now he’s probably spread it all over the aeronautics industry. If you’re around, there will be more ugly talk. I can’t bear it. I couldn’t take it,” she whispered, burying her face in her hands.
Frustration curled in his stomach, tightening it. His gray eyes flashed with checked anger. “I’ll get him if it’s the last thing I do,” he snarled softly.
She jerked her chin up, staring at him. The sudden change in his face frightened her. “Shep!”
He smiled coldly, gripping her cool hand. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill him. He deserves that, but I won’t do it. Someday we’ll meet and then….” He stopped, realizing he was upsetting Tess. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Forget it. I won’t do anything, Tess. Look,” he coaxed gently, “call me if you need me. I’ll come, no matter what time of day or night it is. Promise me that, Tess.”
She was aware of the strength of his hand around her own. Just his touch soothed the ragged edges of her composure and gave her stability. “But—your wife. What will she think? God, I don’t want to be responsible for any more problems, Shep. You’re going up for major. I don’t want to cause you any trouble. This gossip will spread to the Air Force community. It could jeopardize your chances for the rank.”
He gave her a self-deprecating smile, one corner of his mouth barely curving upward. “This can’t hurt my chances for major, Tess.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It must have been one hell of a party we attended last weekend. Yesterday Allyson told me she wanted a divorce. Seems she’s found herself a full colonel who’s going up for general in another year.” He looked away, suddenly bitter. “I should have expected it. Aly was always a social climber.”
Tess rubbed her forehead, trying to banish his words from her mind. That had all happened over seven months ago. She had barely reacted to the news of Shep’s pending divorce from Allyson. She had been in shock at the time, unable to feel anything as she murmured the proper words of sympathy. Her azure eyes grew dark now with remembrance of the gossip surrounding Cy’s death. It had started at the funeral and gathered tidal wave force during the months afterward. Even now, seven months after his death, the guilt and grief continued to shadow her waking hours and haunt her restless sleep.
Fortunately, Dan Williams made brooding almost impossible. To escape the guilt and pain that haunted her, Tess lived her entire life at the office, much as Cy had done. Was she really like him? she wondered dully. Tess watched the fleecy white cumulus clouds drifting over the valley toward the San Gabriel Mountains.
Because of the guilt she carried, Tess had decided to cut all communications with Shep Ramsey. She recalled the pain and disillusionment in his voice when he’d told her that Allyson was leaving him. She wondered how Shep was faring. Had the gossip cost him his promotion to major?
From time to time a memo would cross her desk with his name in it. He was currently undergoing further training in the flying simulator with the rest of the men who would eventually pilot the B-1. And every time she saw his name, her heart would wrench with newfound pain and longing.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/lindsay-mckenna/love-me-before-dawn-39784313/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Lindsay McKenna
Tess Hamilton met Shep Ramsey under purely social circumstances, but it was a matter of national security that provided the real basis for their relationship. Tess was working on a prototype airplane, and Shep was the man chosen to test its wings.For months her work on the plane had obsessed her, but now Shep had entered her heart and she was facing one frightening fact: If there were even one mistake in the plane, the man she loved would forfeit his life.
LINDSAY McKENNA is proud to have served her country in the U.S. Navy as an aerographer’s mate third class—also known as a weather forecaster. She was a pioneer of the military romance subgenre and loves to combine heart-pounding action with soulful and poignant romance. True to her military roots, she is the originator of the long-running and reader-favorite Morgan’s Mercenaries series. She does extensive hands-on research, including flying in aircraft such as a P3-B Orion sub-hunter and a B-52 bomber. She was the first romance writer to sign her books in the Pentagon bookstore. Today, she has created a new military romantic suspense series, Shadow Warriors, which features romantic and action-packed tales about U.S. Navy SEALs. Visit her online at:
www.LindsayMcKenna.com (http://www.LindsayMcKenna.com)
www.twitter.com/lindsaymckenna (http://www.twitter.com/lindsaymckenna)
www.facebook.com/eileen.nauman (http://www.facebook.com/eileen.nauman)
“My Life Seems to Revolve Around Work.”
“Spoken like an over-responsible woman in a management position,” Shep drawled. “Don’t you see that because you’re a female in a male-dominated company you’re working twice as hard as any man? You’re trying to prove you’ve earned the right to be part of this project. You don’t need to prove a thing, Tess. Don’t look for approval in other people’s eyes, only in your own. Do the best you can and be content with how you feel. And don’t give your weekends to the company. Save them for yourself. Save them for me.”
Dear Reader:
There is an electricity between two people in love that makes everything they do magic, larger than life. This is what we bring you in SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS.
SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS are longer, more sensuous romance novels filled with adventure, suspense, glamor or melodrama. These books have an element no one else has tapped: excitement.
We are proud to present the very best romance has to offer from the very best romance writers. In the coming months look for some of your favorite authors such as Elizabeth Lowell, Nora Roberts, Erin St. Claire and Brooke Hastings.
SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS are for the woman who wants more than she has ever had before. These books are for you.
Karen Solem
Editor-in-Chief
Silhouette Books
Love Me Before Dawn
Lindsay McKenna
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Also available from Lindsay McKenna and HQN Books
Down Range
High Country Rebel
The Loner
The Defender
The Wrangler
The Last Cowboy
Deadly Silence
Deadly Identity
Shadows from the Past
Dangerous Prey
Heart of the Storm
Beyond the Limit
Silent Witness
Enemy Mine
Firstborn
Morgan’s Honor
Morgan’s Legacy
An Honorable Woman
Series Booklist:
Selected books by Lindsay McKenna
Mills & Boon Romantic Suspense
@ (#litres_trial_promo)His Duty to Protect #1691
@ (#litres_trial_promo)Beyond Valor #1739
Course of Action/“Out of Harm’s Way” #1775
Silhouette Romantic Suspense
Love Me Before Dawn #44
^ (#litres_trial_promo)Protecting His Own #1184
Mission: Christmas/“The Christmas Wild Bunch” #1535
@ (#litres_trial_promo)His Woman in Command #1599
@ (#litres_trial_promo)Operation: Forbidden #1647
Silhouette Nocturne
* (#litres_trial_promo)Unforgiven #1
* (#litres_trial_promo)Dark Truth #20
* (#litres_trial_promo)The Quest #33
Time Raiders: The Seeker #69
* (#litres_trial_promo)Reunion#85
* (#litres_trial_promo)The Adversary #87
* (#litres_trial_promo)Guardian#89
DEDICATED TO
Colonel William T. Cooper, U.S.A.F. Public Affairs B-1 Office, truly an officer and a gentleman…
and
Doug Benefield, chief test pilot, Rockwell International, one hell of a guy and one hell of a pilot…
and
Lt. Lowell “Brad” Peck, PA, K.I.
Sawyer AFB, Michigan—one of the finest when it comes to media relations—thank you!
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u34c219a4-5162-5f10-8481-f159be17ed1c)
Chapter 2 (#u8f2786f6-2a45-5d60-b7fa-4740a40504da)
Chapter 3 (#u44cccee3-ef1c-5b43-9a04-82fb25389b2f)
Chapter 4 (#uee096e3b-97ce-58ad-9693-122e07c8b848)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1
OCTOBER 15, 1973
I DON’T WANT TO GO, TESS THOUGHT. SHE STOPPED arranging the mass of dark auburn hair at the nape of her neck and studied her strained features in the antique mirror. Why can’t I be enthusiastic? Cy is excited about this party. She avoided her blue-eyed reflection, studying the ivory, high-necked gown instead. Reflexively her slender fingers tucked in the last strands, fashioning a chignon. With the hair pulled back from her square, high-cheekboned face, she looked older than her twenty-four years. As she raised her eyes she saw the anguish clearly written in them. Would he notice it? She sighed to herself. Not likely. As one of the chief design engineers at Rockwell International, Cy Hamilton had eyes only for the B-1 bomber blueprints.
“Darling? Are you about ready?” Cy sauntered into the large, tastefully decorated bedroom. He ran a hand through his graying hair, a paternal smile fixed on his mouth. He came over, giving her a perfunctory kiss upon her cheek. “You look lovely, as usual.”
Tess forced a smile for his benefit. “Thank you, Cy. I’m almost done.”
He stood behind her, his arms crossed against his chest, watching her critically in the mirror. “God couldn’t have created a more provocative creature. I swear, I fell in love with you the first time I saw you at Rockwell.” He smiled wryly. “You were quite a sight, you know. Your blue eyes sparkling with life and your lips,” he leaned over, lightly touching his lips to hers, “sweet temptation.”
Tess felt the heat of a blush rushing upward along her slender neck and into her face. She chided herself for still blushing at age twenty-four. Would she ever outgrow that embarrassing trait? “Really, Cy!”
He chuckled indulgently, retrieving her delicately wrought shawl of old Irish lace from the bed. Her grandmother had given it to her. It was a family tradition to pass the shawl to a deserving member of the clan. At first Cy had tried to discourage her from wearing it to social functions. He wanted her in modern, sophisticated clothes that befitted her position in the company. He smiled to himself: she was such a child yet. Perhaps being pushed three grades ahead in the first years of schooling had affected her emotionally. He arranged the ivory and pale pink shawl around her proud shoulders, giving her a pat on the arm. Looking at Tess with pride, he wondered if others besides himself saw the incredible intelligence behind that delicate Irish face.
Cy remained silent as they drove to the party. Tonight marked another important step in the B-1 bomber project. Right now, the tail section, wings and fuselage lay on the hangar floor. His brow furrowed in thought. “I think,” he began slowly, glancing over at Tess’s clean, delicate profile, “this party is going to be a political shakedown of sorts.”
“How well I know!” It was common knowledge that Senator Stockwell was going to publicly confront his nemesis, Senator Browning, at the party. Tess shook her head. “Cy, you never told me that being your administrative assistant was going to get me involved in so much political intrigue.” Tess had come to Rockwell International as part of the management team on the B-1 project. Although she lacked a degree in aeronautical engineering, her MBA gave her the necessary background to handle all accounting and finances for the drafting section that Cy supervised. Without her keen, creative input, his department would not have run so smoothly. Yes, she and Cy made an unbeatable team. They each thrived on challenges of different sorts. Cy had gathered together the top draftsmen and design engineers in the country to build the long-range bomber. She looked after all the details ranging from accounting to lab tests, making sure Cy was never burdened with minor but often important problems. She placed her hand against her breast. “I wish I was more sophisticated…more—”
“Tess, you’re learning beautifully. I’m very proud of your progress to date. Remember, you only received your MBA from Harvard two years ago. You can’t help it if you’ve been sequestered in school until recently. Education has honed your fine mind, and it’s only natural that your social expertise is less well developed.” He patted her hand, seeing her distress. “You’ll do fine,” he soothed.
“I worry about not saying the right thing the right way,” Tess protested softly. Already her throat was closing up from tension. Oh, God, why couldn’t it just be another chatty, boring cocktail party? Why did it have to be a sit-down dinner for one hundred and fifty of the most influential people involved with the innovative bomber? Not only would top Rockwell officials be there, but key political figures, lobbyists and aggressive, shrewd staffers. And then there was the Air Force. Actually, Tess felt the safest with them. The military and civilian test pilots were harmless in comparison to the politicos.
“Well,” she murmured throatily, “if you find that I’ve disappeared, you’ll know I’ve discovered a secluded balcony away from all the intrigue, Cy. I much prefer the landscape to the lobbying that’s going to go on.”
Cy chuckled indulgently at his young wife. At forty-nine he couldn’t have stumbled into a better living situation. He had been in search for an administrative assistant to help him juggle his load as chief engineer on the aeronautical design project. So impressed was he with Tess, he soon made her his wife as well as his team member. And the arrangement was working well. Tess was growing into her job and performing admirably despite the fact that she was one of the few women in top management within Rockwell. By the time he retired, Tess would be a perceptive, capable diplomat capable of standing on her own within the company.
“I do have matters to discuss with Senator Diane Browning from California,” he said in a by-the-way tone.
“At least it will be a friendly conversation.”
Cy chuckled. “Yes, she’s on our side. Thank God for hawk senators.”
Tess wrinkled her nose. “Going to speak to Senator Stockwell?”
“Of course. The cardinal rules of politics—smile, be polite, and be inoffensive.”
“I can smile, I can work at being polite. But inoffensive?” Tess groaned, throwing her head back and closing her eyes momentarily. “St. Patrick deliver me from this den of wolves I’m dining with tonight. Just don’t let me become their meal.”
“You won’t,” Cy said, laughing. One moment Tess could be so serious and adult. The next she would lapse into the naive candor he was trying to curb. “You’re much too small a fish in the political pond, so to speak. I think it would be a good idea if you acquainted yourself with the military tonight while I make the rounds. You’re familiar with the B-1 blueprints, but you haven’t made the effort to see the actual building of the plane or to acquaint yourself with the pilots who will test it.”
“I know, part of my education,” she mimicked gently. How like Cy to guide her into the next lesson in his plan. “Test pilots are far safer than politicians. I’ll welcome the change,” she returned fervently.
“They are ‘safe,’ as you say,” Cy nodded. “Most of them are fairly taciturn. They’re taught to test and observe. Chances are you’ll have to carry the conversation with them unless you get them talking on the B-1.”
“That’s fine with me.”
The California night was warm for October. Cy proudly escorted his tall, lissome wife into the lobby of the elegant hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Guiding her with a sureness born of his status and position in the company, he motioned Tess into the brass elevator.
Tess nervously hid her damp hands by burying them in the shawl against her breast. Inwardly she steeled herself, fighting back the panic that would fill her the instant the doors opened. Life had been so simple back on campus. The moment she married Cy, she had stepped into an unfamiliar, changing landscape. A landscape that she feared she would never be at home in.
* * *
Captain Shepherd Ramsey rested his lean, wiry body against the wall. With his back protected, he idly scanned the milling crowd of people. This was a black-tie dinner. A slight deprecating smile pulled at his well-chiseled lips. The blue of his Air Force uniform stood out against the black tuxedos of the civilians present. Black and blue, he thought wryly. A lot of bruises. Plenty of infighting between the Hill and us. He inhaled deeply and released his breath slowly, continuing to scan the crowd. It looked like a gathering of beautifully colored birds with the women present. He spotted gowns by Halston, Yves St. Laurent, Geoffrey Beene and others whose names he was sure his wife was memorizing. Raising one dark brown brow, he lifted his strong chin, searching the crowd for Allyson.
He caught sight of his wife carrying on an animated conversation with a staffer from Senator Diane Browning’s office. The staffer had probably been sent ahead to check out the atmosphere of the dinner since Browning was due to drop in unexpectedly on a courtesy visit sometime during the evening. Shep lifted his Scotch to his lips, sipping the smooth golden liquid. He didn’t know which he disliked more: staffers or the politicians themselves. But, they were a fact of life.
Major Tom Cunningham, another test pilot, ambled over. He matched Shep’s six-foot height, looking almost like a brother to the captain. The major’s light brown eyes darkened with silent laughter. He stood easily at Shep’s right arm. “Well, what do you think of this shindig?” he asked in his Arkansas drawl.
Shep shrugged his broad shoulders. “Boring as hell but necessary.”
“Kinda reminds me of the good ole days when chickens were pick’n’dough out of a bread pan. See how the less important ones are orbiting the staffers? God, the intrigue is so damn thick in here I could cut it with a knife.”
“Yes, and Allyson is in all her glory.”
Tom raised his head. “Don’t knock it, buddy. She probably helped get you into test pilot school with her manuevering. It doesn’t hurt to have a politically savvy Air Force wife.”
Shep frowned, not liking the thought that Allyson might have been responsible for his acceptance to the test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base. He also heard the wistful note in Tom’s voice and turned to his friend. Tom had lost his wife to cancer two years before. It had been hell on all of them. Shep had stood by his Air Force Academy brother through it all. Had that been the beginning of the end of his marriage with Allyson? She had complained mightily of his absence at parties when he stayed with Tom at the hospital.
He moved the ice cubes around in his scotch, lapsing into thought. Allyson. Beautiful, poised, cosmopolitan Allyson. At twenty-eight he found it difficult to explain why he had married her. Why couldn’t he have had a relationship like Tom and Marie’s? They had been devoted to each other. And he’d enjoyed being with them because of the warmth that flowed between them and out to all those around them. But Allyson always chafed at the bit when he wanted to go over to their home for dinner. It was all right to spend a certain amount of time with Tom, she informed him, because he was a major. And after all, Shep should be seen with higher ranking men, but there was no need to spend so much of their time with the other couple.
It was in the closing days of Marie’s illness that Shep realized he didn’t love Allyson. At least not in the way he had wanted to love his wife. Tom had remained at Marie’s side constantly, holding her hand, talking soothingly to her. It was Tom’s ability to reach out and touch, that same holding, touching, and sharing Shep valued and missed, but Allyson deemed it inconsequential.
After Marie’s death both he and Tom had gotten orders to test pilot school. Shep had breathed a deep sigh of relief, glad that Tom’s grief would be consumed in the demanding rigors of the schooling. It was their shared grief over Marie’s death and then the help they’d given each other during the grueling training course that welded them into an inseparable team.
Shep glanced over at his friend, an undisguised smile on his mouth. “They do look like a bunch of chickens don’t they? All scrambling around, clucking and squawking.”
Cunningham grinned wickedly. “For a city boy, you’re learnin’, son. We got a couple of big dawgs coming tonight. I’m kinda wait’n’ to see if Browning and Stockwell show up at the same time. Wouldn’t that be something? Prodefense woman senator meets anti-defense male chauvinist. Some feathers ought to fly over that confrontation.”
“Conflagration is more like it,” Shep growled. “Stockwell has his head up his—”
“Easy, son. Remember, we’re just measly ole test pilots. We don’t get asked our politics or party preferences.” He rubbed his hands together. “And frankly, I can hardly wait to get my hands on the stick of that B-1. Pure sex, son. Yes, sir, pure sex to fly that bomber.”
Shep laughed deeply. “You damn Arkansas hillbilly.”
“And you stand there with that bland look on your face and tell me you ain’t excited about gett’n’ in that bomber too? You might fool most people, Ramsey. But you don’t fool me. Beneath that cool Maine facade of yours beats a red-blooded heart and soul. Hell, it’s a good thing you have me around to knock down some of those walls you like to hide behind. Get you loosened up a little.”
“Look, people from Maine are supposed to be unreadable,” he argued in good-natured defense. “I can’t help it if you always seem to be able to read me anyway.”
Tom nodded his head sagely. “All I gotta do, boy, is look in them gray eyes of yours and I got you by the throat. Funny, Allyson can’t read you the way I can.”
That was true, Shep thought. Allyson spent all her time scheming over the future. She never wasted time on small but important moments in the present. How many times had he wanted to share the beauty of a pale apricot sunset or a silvered mass of clouds struck by the sun? Too many times, a voice admitted deep within him.
“Hey ...” Tom exclaimed, nudging Shep’s elbow. “Who is that delicious-look’n’ lady that just stepped through the doors? My God, I think I’m in love.”
Shep looked up toward the entrance. And for a frozen instant in time he felt as if someone had stolen the breath from his body. She was dressed in a long ivory gown delicately touched with lace. The high Victorian collar only accentuated the old-fashioned aura surrounding her. She was a complete contrast to the chic modern women here and the contrast struck him deeply. His eyes traveled from the slender lines of her gown, across her small, firm breasts, to her face.
“Damn,” Tom breathed. “Isn’t she—”
“Beautiful,” Shep finished, straightening up. Trained to observe, he noticed that every male in the place had turned and looked at the woman. Shep’s eyes narrowed as he detected a certain tenseness in her porcelain features. Her eyes, the incredible azure blue of the sky, were wide, almost child-like as she nervously glanced around. His body tightened with desire as he watched her mouth. Her lips were full, slightly parted, and incredibly expressive. Dark auburn tendrils curled at her temples, softening the severity of her simple hairdo. Why did she wear her hair like that? Shep had no trouble imagining that dark mass flowing freely across her shapely shoulders. He noticed she was gripping her husband’s arm tightly. Didn’t the man realize how frightened and uncomfortable she was? Shep frowned, squaring his shoulders. Compared to the sleekly dressed women here at the party she seemed to be out of place, part of another time.
“Darling…”
Shep tore his gaze from the woman and reluctantly turned toward his wife. Allyson smiled brightly. Her green eyes were narrowed and intent as she breathlessly glided up to Shep. She curled her lacquer-tipped fingers around his hand. “Look who’s here. Now that’s someone you need to know.” Allyson cast a brief, plastic smile at the major. “Hello, Tom.”
“Allyson. How are you tonight?”
She laughed gaily. “Fine. Just fine. Now Shep, you have to go over with me and I’ll introduce you. That’s Cyril Hamilton and his wife, Tess. He’s the chief engineer for the aeronautical portion of the B-1 and she’s his administrative assistant. Although,” Allyson drawled in her best whiskey voice for added dramatic effect, “everyone knows he’s grooming her to replace him someday in the Rockwell hierarchy.”
Shep glanced down at his black-haired wife. “Oh really? And how do you know that?”
Allyson shrugged her shoulders in a very eloquent fashion. Her emerald green gown fit her petite figure beautifully, bringing each luscious curve to full ripeness. Shep looked again at Tess Hamilton. The difference was frightening. Alluring.
“Darling, I make it my business to know who’s in and who’s out on this project. I’ve been dying to meet Cy! You’ll be working directly under him so you might as well come and let me introduce you.”
“Correction, Aly, he’s working for us, remember? This is an Air Force project and Rockwell is the contractor.”
She pouted. “But that doesn’t really matter. He’s a VIP and you want him on your side. You have to work together; that’s the bottom line.”
Shep slipped his hand beneath his wife’s elbow. She loved to irritate him by dodging certain facts. He turned to Tom. “See you a little later, buddy.”
Cunningham smiled politely, resuming his Air Force officer demeanor. “Later,” he agreed.
A staffer from the Hill came up, grabbing Cy’s large, fleshy hand and pumping it expertly. Tess remained at her husband’s side, keeping her eyes lowered most of the time, terribly unsure of herself. Sensing the approach of more strangers, Tess raised her head. Her heart pulsed erratically as her eyes met and locked with the smoky gray gaze of the man who stood before her. Bits and pieces of information whirled through her mind—the Air Force blue of his uniform, his gentle gray eyes assessing her with keen curiosity, his intense masculinity.
Her lips parted as she saw him smile down at her. It was a reassuring smile, telling her silently that she was safe with him. Tess was unable to tear her gaze from his face; she felt mesmerized by the gentle strength she saw there. His hair was a dark umber brown, neatly trimmed, with a few rebellious strands that refused to stay in place dipping down on his brow. He was a lone eagle, her imagination whispered. Indeed, he did look like an eagle with his gray eyes and black, penetrating pupils. His face was lean, like the rest of him, and oval, with a strong chin. His eyes were wide-set and alertly intelligent. His nose was aquiline, adding to his hawklike appearance. If it weren’t for the fact that his well-chiseled lips turned up at the corners, she would have been frightened of him initially. There was a calculating coolness in him that was softened by his smile.
She barely heard the introductions. The woman at the captain’s side had deftly maneuvered between her and Cy. Tess raised her hand automatically to greet the strangers. She was aware of the officer’s long, spare fingers wrapping around the damp coolness of her own. He murmured something, inclining his head forward, his eyes never leaving her flushed features.
“Tess, why don’t you spend some time with Captain Ramsey?”
Tess blinked once, tearing her gaze from the officer. “What?” she barely whispered, her throat constricted. Cy offered her a paternal smile as Allyson draped herself over his arm. “Why don’t you and Captain Ramsey talk about the B-1? I’m sure he’d like to know the progress on the defensive avionics system. That contract was just awarded and I’m sure he’d be interested in some of the details.” Her heart was pounding as Captain Ramsey placed her arm under his own. Immediately she sensed his controlled strength. Tess was intensely aware of his maleness. Why was he affecting her so strongly? Her mind gyrated out of control as she compared him to Cy. The love she and Cy shared was quiet, uneventful, and devoted. This officer was creating a firestorm within her suddenly aroused senses. And more than anything, Tess knew he was aware of the effect that he had upon her. She felt terribly unsure of herself as he led her adroitly through the milling crowd. Tess regretted her lack of experience with men. Why had she stuck her head in books all those years? Why hadn’t she developed outside relationships? Because you were scared, too afraid, she told herself. And now…now this officer was affecting her like some lost and forgotten aphrodisiac. Her body knew. But her mind refused to admit it.
Oddly, Tess felt safe with him. She didn’t know why. He seemed to intuitively know how to make her feel more secure in these surroundings. More secure around him.
He leaned down, his features mobile and readable. It surprised Tess because he had seemed distant an instant before. “Would you like a drink? Looks like you could use one.”
She responded immediately to the intimate, quiet quality of his husky voice. She managed a nervous smile. “I—yes. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to appear so flighty. It’s just that…” Tess saw him nod, his fingers briefly squeezing her arm.
“You don’t belong here,” was all he said. “Wait by the balcony doors. What do you drink?”
Her heart was skipping beats. Tess groaned inwardly as she blushed a second time. “Just wine.”
Shep stood there, drinking in the sight of her upturned, flushed face. She couldn’t be any more beautiful in that moment. Her blue eyes were wide and trusting, her lips were like rare, dark pink flower petals. She was looking to him for protection and that was something he wanted to give her. It would be easy to bestow it on her. He heard the uncertainty of her soft wispy voice. It sent an unnamed quiver through his taut body. “Red or white? What about champagne?”
Tess laughed softly. “Not champagne or I’m afraid you’ll find me under some table.”
He smiled. “Okay. We don’t need you under a table. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Tess watched him turn and walk away, her knees feeling weak. Was it the aura of power at this gathering or simply the presence of Captain Shepherd Ramsey that was making her feel like this? She had to get hold of herself, regardless. Gripping her small evening bag until her knuckles whitened, Tess tried to calm her nerves.
He was never out of sight, even though he had left her side. She was amazed at his calmness. He walked like a panther prowling disinterestedly through the clusters of people, head held high, aloof, unique. Were all test pilots like that? Such men had charisma, she knew. It was the glamor job of the Air Force, but Ramsey’s appeal went deeper than that.
She took a deep, steadying breath, realizing that she was glad to be in his care. With him, she could relax.
Chapter 2
“YOU KNOW, FOR A PARTY THIS SIZE, YOU’D THINK THEY’D have wine at the bar.” Shep apologetically handed her the glass of champagne and gave her a wry smile. “Guess we’ll have to make sure you don’t go under the table.”
Tess reached for the glass, her fingers making contact with his own. A pleasurable tingle went up her arm. Had he hesitated before pulling away? So much was happening that she was unable to be certain of anything where he was concerned. “That’s all right, Captain Ramsey,” she heard herself say, “I’ll just hold it. That way everyone will think I’m imbibing.”
“I see. Play the game, is that it?” He pushed open the balcony door, guiding her out onto the tile patio.
“I find game playing very taxing, Captain.”
He pulled her gently to a stop at the waist-high stone balustrade. As much as he wanted to keep holding her arm, he allowed his hand to drop to his side. He had read fear in her eyes upon first meeting her. Was she unsure of herself with men? Looking down at her youthful features, he knew the answer to that. “Call me Shep,” he urged. He turned and leaned against the still sun-warmed stone which overlooked the glittering valley of Los Angeles. “You couldn’t play a game if you tried,” he said, amusement tinging his voice. “Your eyes give you away.”
She took a gulp of the champagne, resting against the balcony, facing him. He was so close… “Cy has told me again and again to maintain a poker face.” She chewed on her lower lip, completely crushed by the fact that Shep could read her so easily.
Shep turned his head toward her. “Why?” he asked, perplexed. Why take away her natural spontaneity? He watched a variety of emotions flit across her features. Her skin was a flawless peach color, her nose and cheeks lightly sprinkled with freckles. He noted with pleasure that she wore little makeup; she made no attempt to hide those telltale freckles. He smiled to himself. Despite her uncertainty in these surroundings, she was not afraid to show her individuality.
Nervously, Tess took another gulp of champagne. “Administrative assistants are supposed to know how to deal effectively with every management situation. And with aplomb. Part of it is controlling your body language and facial expressions.”
Shep grinned. “Whoa ... if I don’t hear an MBA talking, I’ll eat my wings.”
Tess laughed liltingly. She liked his smile. It was devastating. “Are all test pilots as perceptive as you are, Shep?”
“You aren’t going to fall into the trap of stereotyping test pilots, are you? How long have you been with Rockwell and the B-1 program?”
She shrugged. “Two years. I joined the company after coming out of Harvard with my MBA.” She gave him a mischievous look. “See, you were right. I do have an MBA. And if it isn’t your perceptiveness that told you that, then you’re reading my mind.”
“I’m reading your mind,” he returned. “You’re easy to read.” God was she easy to read! He had to keep himself from becoming too familiar with her. It was too easy to let down all his shields and simply be himself. He found himself wanting to tease her playfully, to make her eyes glint with the laughter he had seen dancing in their depths moments earlier. “Can I get personal for a moment?” he asked.
She regarded him solemnly for a long second. Finally, she inclined her head forward. “Yes.”
“I was just wondering if your family was Irish.”
Tess gave a sigh of relief. He could have asked her anything, and she would have found herself giving the answer. Shep was someone whom she could easily confide in. “One hundred percent. My great-grandparents came from a small seacoast village in southern Ireland.”
“The land of fishermen and potato farmers?” he teased gently.
“And don’t forget, Ireland raises some of the finest Thoroughbreds in the world too. It’s a country with many faces.” Tess finished the champagne, placing the glass on the rail in front of her. The momentary silence lengthened between them as they both gazed out over the dark valley. “L.A. is so huge,” she murmured finally, almost to herself. “I wish we lived out in the country.”
“You’re a woman who would rather stick her toes into the warm earth instead of dressing elegantly for parties like this.”
She grimaced. “Tell me about it! Cy cringes every time I put my hair into braids.”
Shep turned, studying her. “Oh? Somehow I picture you being very comfortable in a pair of well-worn jeans instead of designer clothes.”
“That’s true.” She gave him a searching look. “How could you know that?”
He raised the glass of Scotch to his mouth and took a sip. “How old are you, Tess? Do you mind if I call you by your first name?”
She shivered in response to the sound of her name on his tongue. “No, I’d love it. I hate standing on formality. And to answer your question, I’m twenty-four.”
“I thought so,” he murmured.
That secretive grin of his got to her and she laughed. “What does that mean?”
“Hmm, just that you’ve probably spent all your adult life in the ivory towers of higher education. You haven’t had much of a chance to mingle with people on a purely social level. And the fact that you got your MBA when you were twenty-two implies that you jumped a couple of grades somewhere along the line”—he shook his head in a rueful gesture—”which means you probably didn’t get much time to grow up.”
Tess nodded. “Ever since I can remember, my parents had me in some sort of school. I guess they discovered I was bright when I was around two years old.” She shrugged her shoulders. “From then on, it was a matter of bringing out my gifts.”
“Don’t sound unhappy about it,” Shep soothed. “And certainly don’t apologize for your intelligence.” He grinned suddenly. “Even if you are a woman,” he taunted without rancor.
Tess placed a hand on her hip, lifting her chin in defiance. “You’re a chauvinist after all, Captain!”
Shep held up his hand. “No way, lady. We’ve got women in all phases of the Air Force, even flying planes. There’s talk that someday we’ll have women test pilots. No, I’m a believer in what women can do. Peace?”
Tess tried to stare him down and then burst out into laughter. “Fair enough.”
Shep warmed to her bell-like laughter. He took a deep breath, captivated by her unstudied loveliness. What was she doing here? She was like a flower on the desert, natural, unpretentious. Was her powerful, influential husband trying to mold her into someone like Allyson? The thought chilled him.
He observed her dispassionately for a moment, trying to be objective and finding it difficult.
He could not fault her on beauty or personality, and certainly she was very intelligent. Her only flaw was that she did not belong. But was it right to curb her naturalness? To rob her of that effortless laughter, the sparkle in the depths of her blue eyes, just so she would fit in? No, he told himself. No. A sense of despair settled over him. He looked at her again. There was nothing he could do. She was married. And so was he. He felt a knife twisting in his heart. Tess was the kind of woman he had hungered for all his life. The thought jolted him.
“Shep?”
He frowned. “Sorry,” he muttered, “I was thinking.”
“About what?”
He took a good stiff drink of the scotch, looking back over the scintillating night lights of L. A. When he didn’t answer, she moved closer, until mere inches separated them. Groaning inwardly, he wondered if she knew what she was doing to him. One look at her worried face, and he knew it was a guiless gesture on her part. There was a genuine concern registering in her eyes. She had seen his agony. Damn! He forced himself to adopt a mask of cool, calm composure.
Tess reached out, touching his arm momentarily. “I know, you’re thinking about the B-1! Are you worried about the flight date? That we won’t make the June 1974 commitment? I’ll bet you can hardly wait to fly the bomber.”
He gave her a tight smile, forcing himself not to react to her touch. It was as if a butterfly had briefly grazed his arm. His mind was running rampant, unchecked. What would it be like to kiss those full lips? To feel her response to him? She might be married, but he guessed that her husband had never fully brought out her ability to love. Angrily Shep cut off all thoughts of wanting her…needing her. It took every fiber of his being to do so. “I understand that the avionics contract was just awarded,” he answered, his voice carefully neutral, slightly strained.
“Yes, it was. But I would think you’d be more interested in the Preliminary Flight Rating Test which will take place in March.”
Shep put a tight leash on his emotions as he turned to drink in the sight of her upturned features. Her eyes…oh, God, he could lose himself in the depths of her warm blue eyes. “I am interested,” he agreed. “The PFRT is the last test before we actually place the engines in the bomber.” Did his voice sound like a monotone to her too? It sounded flat, uninterested. Hell, he wanted to discuss anything with her other than business. He wanted to know about her, her background, her likes and dislikes. His mind leaped from one question to another.
But before he could formulate any of them, they were interrupted by the waiter calling them to dinner. Shep slipped his arm around her small waist and led her slowly back to the opened doors. “Thanks for coming out here with me,” he said, meaning it.
She looked up at him. He was incredibly handsome in the dim light. The silver bars of his rank glimmered on his broad shoulders. The feel of his hand against her waist seemed so right. It had been natural to turn toward his body and fall in step beside him while they walked. His touch was firm, knowing. Her flesh tingled where his fingers rested, and Tess was incapable of stilling her singing heart. “I have a feeling we’re both the same,” she said. “You don’t like these parties any more than I do. You certainly appear to be more at ease here than I, but you strike me as a man who prefers the company of a few close friends and family.” Shep ushered her into the large, brightly lit room. Reluctantly he dropped his hand from her waist, keeping it on her elbow instead. “Are you sure you aren’t mind reading now?” he teased gently, meeting her gaze.
The intimate huskiness in his voice caused her to blush. She felt as if he had caressed her. What was happening? Again, that same sensation of confusion and heady excitement deluged her.
Shep was suddenly aware of an excitement that rippled through the gathering. He pulled Tess to a halt at the edge of the milling crowd, spotting Senator Diane Browning of California. She entered with a group of staffers, camera people and several other hangers-on. He leaned over and whispered intimately, “Here’s the gal who’s fighting for us in the Senate. Have you ever met Senator Browning?”
Tess stood on tiptoe to catch sight of the woman. She smiled up at Shep. “Cy talks about her all the time. I’ve never met her personally, just some of her staffers from time to time. She’s terribly attractive, isn’t she?”
He smiled to himself. Tess didn’t see the ramrod way Browning carried herself or the way the senator jutted out that strong chin of hers. She saw only the tasteful business suit the older woman wore and the golden hair knotted severely in a chignon. “She looks a little like you,” he confided to Tess.
“Now I know you’re flirting, captain.” Her blue eyes sparkled with merriment.
He grinned. “And I just paid you a compliment. A sincere one, I might add. Although you’re far more beautiful than she could ever be.”
Tess blushed fiercely, unable to hold his gray gaze. Intuitively she knew that Shep Ramsey didn’t go around flirting haphazardly. No, there was a quietness to him, a central core that many people did not reach. He was more introvert than extrovert although he had extended himself to make her comfortable. “I suppose the senator and I wear our hair in a chignon because it looks more businesslike. That way the men we have to work with deal with us on a professional level.”
“Did Harvard teach you that?” he drawled, a smile lifting one corner of his mouth.
It was her turn to give an impish grin. “No. I learned that the hard way.”
Shep looked at the reddish-gold highlights of her hair. The desire to loosen the carefully hidden pins and allow that fiery mass to tumble free was tempting. “A pity. Frankly I think you would look devastating with your hair down. There isn’t a man here who wouldn’t succumb to your beauty.”
She felt her heart soar. Something in his voice—the husky inference in it—made her deliciously aware of being a woman. Tess was confused. Cy had never made her feel so desirable, so…. She frowned. Shep Ramsey made her feel the power of her own femininity. That discovery frightened her badly. Taking a step away from him she murmured, “1 think it’s time I found Cy. It looks as though they’re going to begin seating all of us.”
Shep maintained his distance, realizing he had made her uncomfortable. “I think I see your husband and my wife. Come on, I’ll escort you over to them.”
As they approached, Allyson gave him a dazzling smile, her hand still draped casually on Cy Hamilton’s arm. “Darling! Cy and I have been having the most wonderful discussion.”
“I’m sure you have.” Shep nodded gravely in Hamilton’s direction. He watched through hooded eyes as Tess attached herself to her husband. The difference between them was a chasm. Hamilton looked fifty-five, not the forty-nine Shep knew him to be. His hair was prematurely gray, his face heavily lined with the responsibility he carried. And Tess was so young! Even younger emotionally than physically. She was just beginning to explore life. He found himself wanting to share those discoveries with her and quickly shoved the thought into a closed, secret compartment of his heart. Tess’s features had been glowing and alive when she had talked to him earlier. Shep watched as the natural spark in her subsided and she became once again a silent shadow of her aging husband.
“It appears you get the honors, Captain,” Hamilton said. “You’ll be seated next to Senator Stockwell.”
Shep pursed his mouth, glancing down at Allyson. “I didn’t want to eat very much anyway,” he answered dryly, not allowing the true extent of his feelings to be known. That was all he needed. Chad Stockwell had fought against the B-1 program since its inception. The congressman was obligated to attend the dinner because it was taking place in his home state. But that didn’t mean he would be gracious about it, especially when his opponent, Senator Browning, was in attendance as well.
“Are you sure there isn’t a seating mistake?” Tess asked.
Shep looked up at her, grateful for her concern. Allyson simply looked bored and disappointed. And Hamilton was obviously just glad that he didn’t have to sit next to Stockwell. But Tess was sensitive enough to realize the implications of putting a military officer beside a dove congressman. To make matters worse, it was an insult to Stockwell to place him next to a mere captain. He should have been seated beside one of the generals who were attending this affair. Shep didn’t like being used to snub the congressman. Who the hell was running this show? he wondered angrily. But he controlled his anger and smiled coolly. “I doubt if it was a mistake, Tess. Thanks for being concerned though.”
Hamilton eyed him appraisingly. “Apparently, Captain Ramsey, someone must think you have the ‘right stuff to take this kind of encounter.”
“Frankly, sir, I’d rather be behind the stick of an F-15 out of control in a graveyard spin.”
Hamilton smiled slightly. “Yes, I think I would too. Good luck, Captain. And by the way, I’m very impressed with your credentials. Your lovely wife has been filling me in on your career. I’m sure our test pilots from Rockwell are looking forward to working with you and your colleagues.”
For Shep, dinner was a long, drawn out affair during which he tried valiantly to converse with Senator Stockwell. Afterward everyone got up and drifted into small clusters to continue talking. Allyson started making her customary rounds of the different Air Force officers, making sure none were overlooked. He hid his surprise when Cy Hamilton headed in his direction with Tess at his side.
“Captain Ramsey?”
Shep gravely inclined his head. “Yes, sir?”
“Tess hasn’t seen the B-1 prototype yet over at our Palmdale plant. And as my administrative assistant, she needs to get out and start nosing around.” Cy glanced down at her warmly, patting her hand. “I wonder if you might have a few hours free next week to show Tess around? She’s seen blueprints until she can draw them in her sleep. Now she needs to see the actual bomber. How about it?”
“I’d consider it an honor and a pleasure, Mr. Hamilton.”
Cy smiled genially up at the officer. “Good, good. May I leave my lovely wife in your capable hands, Captain, for a few minutes? I must chat a moment with Senator Browning before she leaves. Tess, I’ll drop by after a while with your wrap and then we’ll leave.”
Tess opened her mouth to speak and then closed it. She felt vaguely disturbed by Shep’s presence. Even so, a smile touched her lips as Cy left.
“You look like the cat that ate the canary,” she noted drily.
“I am. I was just trying to figure out a way to see you one more time before you left this evening.” He slid his fingers beneath her elbow, guiding her toward the balcony. “Ready for some fresh air?”
Tess hesitated. “I—”
“What’s this? My Irish lass is frightened?” he teased. “Relax, I enjoy your company. I intend to remain in control of myself.” He smiled, watching her visibly relax. She moved forward at his coaxing.
“Not all women of Gaelic ancestory are fearless. Some of us get frightened. Cy says I get scared too easily.”
Shep opened the door, ushering her through it. “You’re lacking in confidence. But I don’t see you chickening out in an emergency situation.”
Tess tilted her head, trying to understand him. “Why do you say that?” she demanded, halting near him at the balustrade.
“The way you carry yourself. You have a proud, natural carriage. You walk with your shoulders back and chin up. A woman that’s afraid tends to round her shoulders, take a much smaller step, and is inclined to keep her eyes fixed on the ground or only a few feet ahead of her. You,” he murmured, losing himself in her widening blue eyes, “look ahead. Far ahead. I can see why your husband chose you to occupy such a powerful position in the company you work for. You have moxie, lady. Something very few women possess.”
She colored. “I don’t understand how so many people can see all that in me when I don’t feel it in myself.” She laughed. “Are you sure test pilots aren’t dyed-in-the-wool romantics, Shep?”
Grinning, he murmured, “In a sense, I think we are. We see ourselves as unique. We are able to take something new and untried and coax, cajole, or force it to meet its potential. There is something idealistic or romantic in being able to accomplish that. Or,” he said, becoming more serious, “in dying if you don’t succeed.”
Tess sobered considerably at that. What possessed men to risk their lives that way? Was it a death wish? A heroic, subconscious passion to leave the earth as someone who had shoved back the limits of the unknown? A sudden, inexplicable dread washed over Tess. Looking up into Shep’s confident, stalwart face, she could never imagine him dying in a fiery crash. There was something too special, too vibrant about him. She couldn’t bear the thought that he might die, like a good percentage of test pilots, behind the stick of an unmanageable aircraft.
She chided herself sternly for dropping into the mire of depression. Rallying herself, she forced a smile. “From what little 1 know or understand about your career, Shep, I gather that test pilots seem to enjoy the surprise of the unknown. I think you like to pit yourself against it. No matter how much time you spend with our engineers, planners, and mechanics there is still that missing piece from the puzzle. You don’t know how the B-1 will handle until she’s airborne. You can only calculate the fly-ability of the plane by the computer printouts on the models in the wind tunnel tests.”
He looked at her with surprise. She was talking his language now. And very easily. “I’m having a hard time reconciling your image with what’s coming out of your lovely mouth. On the one hand you sound like an engineer. On the other I see a very romantic-looking woman right out of old Ireland.”
She bowed her head, overwhelmed by the sincerity in his voice. “Please…” she whispered achingly.
Shep moved within inches of her, a troubled expression in his eyes. “You don’t even know how to take a compliment,” he whispered. “Hey…” he coaxed, placing his finger beneath her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes, “You can’t tell me other men haven’t complimented you, Tess. My God, you’re too lovely. Too…fresh and alive.” Her skin was velvety to his touch. He knew he ought to remove his hand but the feel of her skin sent waves of arousal through his body. Very gently Shep caressed her cheek.
Tess drew in a breath, acutely aware of time melting into nothingness as he slid his hand beneath her jaw, tilting her head up. Up to meet his descending mouth. A mixture of confusion mingled violently with molten desire inside her. He hesitated, a bare inch separating his mouth from her full, glistening lips. Her eyes had darkened to cobalt, flecked with bits of gold. Shep felt her tremble, caught the fleeting fear in her gaze. Cupping her face, he gently pulled her close to his body, wanting to erase the fear he saw.
His breath was warm against her face as she stared up into his eyes. Her heart beat heavily in her breast, her breath catching as he brought her against him. His mouth, so strong-looking, lightly brushed her lips, parting them gently. A quiver coursed through her at even that slight touch. A small cry lodged in her throat. This shouldn’t be happening, her mind screamed. Her heart thrilled to his masterful caress. Before she could pull away, his mouth fitted perfectly against her own, claiming her completely. Forever.
A shadowy figure remained frozen by the balcony doors, watching. Quietly, he reclosed the doors. A look of crafty pleasure registered on his features as he turned, moving back toward the knot of departing guests. This was exactly what he had been hunting for. He would use what he had stumbled upon at the right time and place. Yes, Cy Hamilton was practically in his pocket now. All that remained to be accomplished was the timing of his disclosure.
Chapter 3
“TESS, AREN’T YOU GOING TO MEET CAPTAIN RAMSEY today?” Cy inquired, looking at his watch. “You’d better get going if you’re going to make that luncheon date with him, you know.”
Tess stood in front of the large picture window, staring out over the smog-ridden form of Los Angeles in the midmorning light. It was Monday and the gears of the engineering department were turning in earnest at Rockwell. Cy had worked all Sunday at the office as usual, overseeing details on the B-1. She had remained at their posh Beverly Hills home thinking about the dinner party the night before. She had allowed Shep Ramsey to kiss her ... to steal the very breath from her starving, hungry soul. Her eyes clouded with pain and remorse. It shouldn’t have happened. She should never have allowed him to touch her. The war continued within her and her stomach felt as if it were twisted in knots.
‘Tess?”
“What? Oh, I’m sorry, Cy. I was thinking.”
He raised his head momentarily from the blueprints spread out on his large drafting board. “You seem nervous. Is everything all right? Last night you tossed and turned a great deal.”
Her heart contracted in anguish. Touching her forehead in a nervous gesture, Tess turned, forcing a smile for his benefit. “I haven’t been feeling well. Really Cy, I ought to cancel that engagement with Captain Ramsey. I—”
“You need some good desert sun. That’s what I get for taking you out of your natural environment of woods and meadows. I’ve worried what city living might do to you. I know you’re an outdoors girl. I think some fresh air, a walk in the sun will put the color back into your cheeks again.” He studied her. “You do look quite pale. Please, go. Besides, I’m booked with one meeting after another this afternoon and I won’t have time to discuss that contract you’re handling. Perhaps tonight we can go over it after dinner.”
Tess pursed her lips, walking back to his desk. “Cy, you’re working far too hard! You’re putting in eighty hours a week on this. It’s not necessary. Four or five hours of sleep a night just isn’t enough!” She reached out, gently massaging his stooped shoulders as he leaned over the blueprint. “Please, darling. Come with me. You show me the B-1. We’ll let Captain Ramsey be our guide.” Her voice grew desperate with pleading. “Darling, please…for me?”
Cy chuckled softly. “I love you so much, Tess.” He slid his arm around her waist, giving her a quick hug. “The offer is very tempting, but these meetings won’t run without me being there. Now you’d better hurry. It’s a two-hour drive up to Palmdale, and I very much want you to see that beautiful bomber. I’ll see you tonight when you get back.”
* * *
Her mouth was dry and her throat constricted as she walked into the restaurant at the Palmdale facility. Clutching her leather shoulder bag, Tess caught sight of him and froze. Shep came out of the shadows, the light playing across his face. He was a lone eagle, his gray eyes narrowed and intent as he closed the distance between them. Today he was in his regular Air Force uniform, looking masculine and lean. Her lips parted slightly as he halted a few feet from where she stood. Tess tried to decipher the unreadable quality of his facial features. What was he thinking? Feeling? Would he try to kiss her again? Her heart began to race in panic at that last thought. No, it mustn’t happen. Not ever again!
“Tess?” he murmured huskily.
She melted inwardly at the sound of his voice. She blinked back a sudden flood of tears that made her eyes look even more lustrous. “I didn’t want to come,” she blurted out unsteadily. “I was afraid. And guilty. I’m afraid of myself and what I’m feeling. It shouldn’t have happened, Shep ... I can’t live with myself knowing that I’ve cheated on Cy. I—”
He reached out, taking her elbow, guiding her into an adjoining room. “We have to talk,” he agreed. “Come on, let’s get you a chair and a drink to calm your nerves. You’re white as a sheet.”
She held the drink with both hands, seated away from most of the other luncheon guests. After taking two healthy gulps of the vodka gimlet, she felt a little calmer. Shep made no move to touch her or talk while she drank. Finally she raised her head, meeting those incredibly warm gray eyes. He was relaxed, the expressionless mask having dropped from his features. He offered her a slight smile.
“Better?”
Tess gave a nod of her head. “Better,” she agreed hoarsely.
“I owe you an apology, Tess,” he began. “I took advantage of the situation. I’m a gentleman, and it was my responsibility to control myself.” He shook his head, looking mystified. “There are things I want to say to you, but I can’t because you’re married.”
Her dark lashes framed widening eyes. “I am married. And I love my husband very much, Shep,” she said in a trembling voice. “I know I don’t have very much experience. And I can’t explain why I let you kiss me.” She dragged in a deep breath, hands pressed against her hot, flushed cheeks. “But please, for God’s sake, don’t do it again. I—I can barely live with myself now. If Cy knew—”
“No one saw us, Tess.” He leaned forward, a new urgency in his voice. “Look, one kiss doesn’t mean you’re having a full-blown affair. It’s not the end of the world. Put it into perspective.” His mouth thinned as he assessed her worriedly. “I’m sorry. Truly sorry for evoking this kind of pain in you. I never intended to do that, Tess, believe me. You didn’t do anything to deserve this kind of hurt.”
Tears slid down her cheeks and she brushed them away. Drawing a handkerchief from his back pocket, he placed it in her cool, damp fingers. Shakily she wiped the tears away. “All I want to do is see the B-1 and then leave, Shep.” How could she explain that her heart craved what Shep Ramsey had offered her? But her head was telling her that she was married to Cy.
“It’s not as simple as that,” he corrected gently. “You know well be seeing each other in the future because of the bomber. You can’t run away and hide from this, Tess. Neither of us can,” he concluded with more authority. “I promise not to make it any more awkward than it’s already become. But you’re going to have to put any guilt you feel over this into proper perspective and then lay it to rest. Otherwise you’ll only tear yourself apart.” He frowned, watching pain cross her mobile features. How could he have forgotten for one instant that emotionally she was a naive eighteen-year-old and not a mature woman of twenty-four? Agony slashed at his heart because he had selfishly inflicted this pain on her because of his own desire.
Shep idly sloshed the Scotch around in his glass, staring moodily at the ice cubes. He had done a great deal of thinking since kissing Tess. Most of his thoughts were centered on his disintegrating marriage. Allyson was a social climber. She lived for it. It hurt him to think that all she had seen in him when they married was a way to reach the top. But he knew she’d always dreamed of becoming a general’s wife. And God knew, he had the proper background to make him eligible in another twelve years. He took a sip of the Scotch, glancing over at Tess.
Her cheeks were tear-wet and flushed, her lashes thick and dark with tears. Instinctively, Shep knew Tess wasn’t concerned with the trappings of the material world. Hers was a world of emotional sensitivity. A world he had been craving to be a part of since he had been old enough to recognize it. And emotional sensitivity was something entirely foreign to Allyson.
“Come on, Tess. Finish your drink and I’ll take you to look at that bomber you’re building,” he said.
Tess raised her head, meeting his gray gaze. A new kind of warmth invaded her heart, soothing the ragged edges of the guilt. A tremulous smile touched her lips.
* * *
Shep escorted her inside a large, rectangular hangar. Inside sat the first two prototypes of the B-1 bomber. Workmen on tall, skeleton-like ladders swarmed over the two planes. Shep showed his security badge to the guard. Tess brought out her badge, too, and attached it to her camel hair coat.
“Compared to the B-52, the B-1 looks like a glamor girl,” Shep said, gesturing to the lean-looking bomber.
Tess nodded as her gaze traveled from the needlelike nose over the swept-back canopy of the cockpit to the sleek, aerodynamic shape of the main fuselage. “The B-1 looks more like the French Concorde,” she agreed, and then smiled. “Although, I think we have a better design.”
“The Concorde is designed for speeds of Mach 2. This bomber will hit subsonic speeds at low level.”
“Do you like the design, Shep?”
He turned, looking down at her. “As my friend Major Tom Cunningham put it, the plane is pure sex.”
She laughed with him. The B-1 was a Thoroughbred. It was a beautifully crafted plane and much smaller than the aging, eight-engined B-52. The B-1 could carry twice as many weapons, and once tested, it was hoped its overall performance would far surpass any existing bomber. “When you stop to think that there are over three thousand contractors and subcontractors working to put the B-1 together, it boggles your mind.”
Shep nodded, leading her around to the tricyclelike landing gear that raised the bomber twelve feet off the ground. A huge nacelle placed beneath each wing would hold two engines each.
“Speaking of contractors, I’d rather fly this thing than have to deal with them.” His slate-colored eyes sparkled with mirth. “Trying to handle the three thousand companies involved would be enough to give me gray hair long before my time.”
Tess sobered. “I know,” she answered, worry tinging her voice. “Cy deals directly with both the Air Force and the contractors. He works far too hard.”
Shep leaned against one of the thick white steel landing gear struts, studying her. “Your husband is in a very powerful and influential position at Rockwell. I’m sure he has to work hard to keep the whole thing moving. What’s the matter, don’t you like the prestige that goes with that position?” Shep was thinking that Allyson would revel in it.
Tess gave a vague shrug. “Money isn’t everything, Captain. Sure, it’s nice to have it but”—she smiled, her eyes crinkling with silent laughter—“sometimes, quite frankly, I’d rather be back in my jeans and pigtails.”
“And out walking in the woods. Right?”
She tilted her head, perplexed. “Now, how did you know that?”
“Anyone who has freckles is an outdoors girl,” Shep baited, grinning.
Tess blushed, avoiding his caressing gaze. Even with their truce, she still felt inexorably drawn to him, like a moth to a flame. Noticing his bronzed skin, Tess countered, “You’re a country boy yourself.”
“Oh? Does my Maine heritage show through that strongly?” he asked, continuing to wander beneath the carriage of the bomber.
Tess turned, smiling up at him. “So! That’s where you get your poker face. You’re so hard to read when you don’t want to be read!”
He pursed his mouth, giving her a sidelong glance. “Hmm. Tom teases me a lot about my stone face sometimes. He tells a lot of jokes to get me to loosen up.”
“Always too serious?” she ventured.
“Yes.”
“The New England sense of responsibility?”
“Right again. Sure you aren’t a mind reader?”
Tess shared his smile.
“No. Just putting two and two together. I met a few young men back at Harvard who had that same serious look. Most of them came from poor families. They were used to working their way up through the ranks.” She glanced up at him. “Did you?”
“What?”
Tess sensed his hesitancy to talk about his past. “I’m sorry, I’m prying,” she said.
Shep halted near the large tail and stabilizer section, which rose loftily above them. “No, you’re not prying.” He studied her upturned face. She was the exact opposite of Allyson. In Tess’s eyes there was only curiosity and genuine concern. But in Allyson’s he could always detect signs of an ulterior motive. He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I did come from a poor family, Tess. I was the oldest of six. My father was a potato farmer up in central Maine.” His brow wrinkled with memories. “Dad suffered a back injury when I was seven and I ended up doing most of the farm work. On top of that, Mom was never in good health. She was frail.” He smiled fondly. “I never could figure out how she had all six of us.”
“So you ended up not only with extra farm chores but helping to raise your other brothers and sisters?”
Shep nodded. “Yes. When Dad wasn’t around I ended up being like a second father to the younger ones. Mom expected me to keep them in line.”
“No wonder you don’t smile much,” Tess whispered, understanding the responsibility that had fallen on his shoulders as a youngster. “That must have been very tough on you.”
“It was, but it taught me discipline at an early age. I discovered I could do things I never thought I could.”
“Is that why you joined the Air Force?”
He halted, looking up at the hangar ceiling. “Let’s put it this way, Tess. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life fighting poor soil conditions and severe weather trying to plant potatoes. I saw what it did to my parents, I guess I wanted something better.”
In that instant, Tess saw Shep in a new light. He was a proud man. But his pride came from the knowledge that he had survived and gone on to be successful on his own terms. “I admire you, Shep. I really do,” she murmured, awed.
“Don’t be too impressed,” he answered gravely. “I really had no choice. I either worked or everybody starved.”
He slipped his hand beneath her elbow and led her out of the hangar. The Mojave winds were whipping tumbleweeds along the desert surface to their right. Opening the car door, he helped her in. Taking off his flight cap, he shut the door. Several strands of dark hair had dipped to his brow and he pushed them back with his long, tapered fingers. The interior of the car was warm from the sun and Tess leaned back.
“Why the Air Force? Why not industry? You certainly have the drive and motivation to do whatever you want.”
He rested his hands on the steering wheel, considering the question. “In the woods when I was waiting for a deer to come by, I’d sit quietly in a tree and watch the birds. There were several Bald Eagles that nested near my home and I used to watch them. I saw the freedom they had as they rose above everything, Tess.” He was quiet for nearly a minute. His voice grew softer as he continued. “I wanted to feel the wind tearing at me, to experience that sensation of soaring. I wanted their freedom to turn, wheel, dive, or glide thousands of feet on invisible air currents.” His voice became inaudible as he remembered his boyhood dream. Even now the thrill of flying was with him. He wanted to slip the grasp of the earth’s gravity and fling himself skyward, just as those magnificient eagles had done with such effortless grace. He glanced over at Tess, suddenly feeling shy. He had never shared his wishful childhood dream with anyone. Not even Allyson.
Shep turned from Tess to clear his throat and then continued in a more even voice, “I didn’t have the money to take private flying lessons. So, I put myself through college in five years and then joined the Air Force. I did very well in flight school and was assigned to fighters. Later on, I transferred to FB-111’s, a medium-range bomber and then to B-52’s just in time for the war over in Nam. I stayed with the Buffs until test pilot school came through for me. Next month I pin on my major’s leaf.”
She gazed at him admiringly. “And you have nowhere to go but up. You’re an inspiration to everyone, Shep.”
He shrugged, starting the car engine. “I wouldn’t know about that, lady. Don’t be so quick to put me up on a pedestal.”
“Why not? You certainly deserve to be there.”
“Every idol has feet of clay, just remember that, Tess,” he warned. He met her eyes. “And I’ve already shown you just how fallible I am with you. Come on, it’s almost four o’clock. Let’s get you back to the restaurant so you can pick up your car. I’m sure your husband will be wondering where you are.”
* * *
Derek Barton entered Cy Hamilton’s spacious, well-appointed office with a look of serious intent on his narrow face. The dark brown corduroy suit he wore seemed to accentuate the planes of his lean face and the darkness of his restless gaze. Hamilton looked up from his drafting table, a scowl already developing on his brow.
“I thought I told my secretary I wasn’t seeing anyone else today,” he growled, returning to the plans and ignoring Barton.
Barton halted at the desk, crossing his arms comfortably. “Everyone is gone for the day, Mr. Hamilton.” He gave Cy a plastic smile. “It’s nearly six o’clock. tow about taking a break and I’ll buy us some dinner over at—”
“No, thanks, Barton. What’s on your mind? Is it that subcontract of yours? I told you before, if you’ve got any problems with it, don’t bring them to me. It’s a performance contract. Your bearings meet our specifications or we don’t accept them. It’s as simple as that.” He glanced up at the contractor. “Now why don’t you leave?”
“Mmm, I don’t think you’ll want me to leave without talking to you first,” Barton hinted, a wolfish smile hovering around his almost lipless mouth. “No, this time it involves something I think you’ll be very interested in.”
Cy ignored him. Barton was one of the few subcontractors who could get under his skin. His bids were always late and incomplete. Then he whined until the Air Force accepted them even after the deadline. He was a wheedler, a conniver, and a weasel and Cy didn’t trust him or his company’s work. How many times had Tess gone to Rockwell’s lab to check the quality of the steel alloy that was used to make the bearings? Cy doubted that Barton’s work met the specs, but what was he going to do when low bid always got the job? He glared up at Barton. “I suggest you say your little spiel and then go.”
Barton shrugged. “Okay, Mr. Hamilton. Your wife has been over at our company offices a great deal lately—”
“I send her over there,” Hamilton growled. “As the specifying agent, Rockwell has the right to inspect your work, Barton. She’s done nothing wrong by going over there and picking up the lab reports on the bearings!”
“No—no, I agree,” Barton said slowly, barely able to hide the excitement he was feeling. “What I’m trying to say is that I recognize your wife when I see her.”
Cy raised his craggy head, staring at the contractor. “Meaning what?”
Barton hesitated, using the interim silence to build Cy’s curiosity. “Your wife’s very young and very attractive, Mr. Hamilton.” He didn’t want to come out and say, half your age. “It’s hard for a man not to take a long, appreciative glance at her. I’ve noticed that when she walks through our company’s various divisions. Every man stops work and looks up when she walks through the area.”
“What the hell are you getting at?”
Barton turned on his heel, ambling a few feet away before turning and facing Hamilton. He was enjoying Cy’s discomfort too much to rush. This was one way to get back at Hamilton for harassing him about the parts his company turned out for the bomber. The Rockwell engineer had interceded once and rejected a shipment of bearings after testing them. Barton remembered that day well. The general from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base had called, informing him that the bearings hadn’t met the specifications and his company would have to supply replacements. It had been a costly rejection. If it hadn’t been for Hamilton’s wife, he could have gotten away with the delivery. He’d almost saved sixty thousand dollars. And in the end, she had cost him half a million. That was what it had cost to replace the order with bearings satisfying Rockwell specifications.
“There’s been plenty of talk about your wife’s position in the industry.”
“She’s qualified in every way,” Cy snapped. “And I don’t give a damn if you good ole boys want to deal with a woman or not. As long as she knows what she’s doing, you’re just going to have to roll with the punches, Barton.”
“Looks like you’ll have to roll with a few punches yourself, Mr. Hamilton. I happen to know for a fact that your pretty little wife is having an affair.”
Hamilton’s eyes narrowed dangerously. He placed his pen on the desk, giving Barton his full, undivided attention. “You lying—”
The contractor’s face hardened. “Use your head, Hamilton. Why should I come in here with that kind of an accusation if it wasn’t true? I would have everything to lose and nothing to gain by such an accusation.”
There was some logic to that, Cy realized. Why would Barton come in stirring up unnecessary trouble when he’d been in hot water already? A pain began throbbing in his chest and he raised his hand, massaging the area absently. “All right. What do you know?”
“She’s seeing an Air Force officer. A test pilot.”
A coldness washed over Cy. Every fiber of his body experienced one sensation: fear. His voice sounded strangled. “Who?”
“Captain Shepherd Ramsey.”
“Where? When?”
Barton remained serious, delighting in the grayness now coming to Hamilton’s suddenly pale-looking features. “Saw ’em just the other night at that fancy party we all attended. They met out on the balcony. I’m surprised more people didn’t see them kissing each other. I just happened to walk out to grab a breath of fresh air when I stumbled on them.”
The dull, heavy feeling was spreading in Cy’s chest and he pressed his fist harder against his body. “Is that all?” he demanded hoarsely.
“I understand she went up to Palmdale today,” Barton continued slowly. He looked at his watch, making the gesture significant. “It’s six-thirty. Where is she? I called earlier today and her secretary said she was having lunch with the captain. Long lunch, ain’t it, Hamilton?”
* * *
It was almost nine-thirty when Cy heard the front door of their home open. He raised his head, remaining on the couch with the newspaper thrown nervously across his lap. He had been too upset to read it. Tess hurried into the living room, her eyes dark with apprehension.
“Oh, Cy! I’m sorry I’m late. I had a flat tire on the way back, and there was no phone nearby so that I could call you.” She shrugged off her coat, allowing it to hang over the back of the couch as she walked over to him. Pushing back several tendrils that had escaped from behind her ear, she sat down. As she looked at him, she realized something was dreadfully wrong. His face was ashen. Reaching out she gripped his hand. “Darling, what’s wrong? You look awful!”
“I haven’t been feeling well since about six tonight,” he admitted heavily. It was true, the heavy pressure in his chest had continued after Barton told him about the affair. He looked up into her beautiful flushed features. She appeared so damned innocent looking. So untouched…
Tess leaned over, caressing his cheek. “My poor darling. Have you eaten yet? Probably not. You get so busy you forget. I’m starved, Cy.” She started to rise but he gripped her hand.
“Stay a moment, Tess. There’s something we have to talk about.”
Her brows knitted worriedly. He sounded like a man who was lost, without hope. Chewing on her lower lip, she sat back down. “What’s wrong, Cy? Has something happened at work? You aren’t well.”
He took a deep, unsteady breath, gripping her hand tightly. “Derek Barton came in today with some very disturbing news.”
“Him!” Her voice took on a scathing tone. “Why doesn’t he leave you alone? The man is unbearable.”
“He didn’t come today with any problems concerning the contract.”
Tess tilted her head, puzzlement written in her face. “What then?”
Cy swallowed hard, finding it hard to breathe. He took two half breaths, forcing the words out. “You were seen in the arms of Captain Ramsey at the party, Tess. And I can’t help but wonder if you were late this evening because of him…”
Horror coursed through her, and Tess pulled her hand free, covering her lips. Her mouth went dry, her heart plummeting. Cy gasped, falling back against the couch, clutching at his chest. A small cry escaped her and she leaned forward, gripping his shoulder. “Cy! What’s wrong? Oh, my God. No!”
Chapter 4
MAY 24, 1974
CHAD STOCKWELL LOOKED UP AT HIS STAFFER, GARY Owens, who was following the B-1 program. The Senator tapped his short, square finger on the top of a pile of papers in front of him. “According to this, Rockwell is behind schedule in getting that bomber assembled and ready for flight, Gary. What’s the economic impact of such a lag?”
Owens, a Yale graduate, adjusted his conservatively colored tie. “Senator, I think I’d better give you a bit of background before answering that. The Air Force targeted the first engine test of the B-1 in March. It didn’t go down. They’re still hoping to make the first flight in June. Apparently more time is being spent on piecing the air frame together than had been anticipated. There’s a great deal of pressure being put on Rockwell by the Air Force to get the entire project back on schedule. If they keep going like this, it will probably be the end of 1974 before they test fly that monstrosity.”
Stockwell frowned, moving quickly through the figures. “What I’m really concerned about is if they’re going over the fiscal year budget allotted to them by Congress.”
Owens allowed himself a brief, pleased smile. He had done a great deal of digging, involving phone calls to the Pentagon, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and Rockwell to piece that answer together. “Yes, sir, they are. And any delay in the program tends to add to the price. What it comes down to, Senator, is this: one B-1 used to cost the American public forty-four million dollars. Now, with Rockwell lagging behind, the unit program cost has risen to fifty-four million.”
Stockwell pursed his fleshy lips, feeling anger and indignation over the entire situation. “Damn them. They were planning to order 241 B-1’s. Do you realize what the price tag on that will be?” He hit his intercom button, signaling his secretary.
“Yes, sir?”
“Betty, get me the engineer who’s running the show from Rockwell on the B-1.”
“That would be Mr. Daniel Williams, sir. I’ll ring his office right away.”
“Thank you.” Stockwell looked pleased. “Nothing like getting the full story from the source, Gary. Sit down. I want you in on this conversation with Williams.” He frowned, searching his memory. “I thought Cy Hamilton was the top dog at Rockwell?”
“Cy Hamilton was, sir, until he died of a sudden heart attack a few days after the B-1 party, Senator. Dan Williams was pushed into the slot to keep things on an even keel.”
“Didn’t work, did it?” he murmured, grinning.
“No, sir, I don’t think so.”
“Mrs. Hamilton?” Her secretary Ruth Caldwell poked her head around the opened office door.
Tess sat with her hand propped up against her wrinkled forehead. She looked up. “Yes, Ruth?”
“It’s Senator Stockwell’s secretary on the phone.” Ruth gave a grimace. “I told her Dan was out on business for the day. So he wants to talk to you.”
Tiredly Tess rubbed her face. Would she ever sleep soundly? She doubted it. Depression seemed to color her whole world black. “All right,” she answered softly, the exhaustion evident in her tone. “I’ll take the call.”
This was all she needed. Since Cy’s unexpected death, Tess had been asked to help Dan Williams take over the job as chief engineer. In a way, she was grateful for the twelve-to-fourteen-hour days. At least when she was working, she didn’t have to think. She didn’t have to feel that knife-twisting pain in her heart. Cy had died in her arms thinking that she had had an affair with Shep Ramsey. Her lips pursed into a familiar line of pain and guilt. Thank God for Dan Williams. He drove her mercilessly, not realizing he was doing her a favor. If her mind was occupied, she could ignore the anguish she carried in her heart. Expelling a long sigh, Tess picked up the white phone.
“Good morning, Senator Stockwell. This is Tess Hamilton. May I help you?”
“Mrs. Hamilton, I’m sorry to hear about your husband. Cy Hamilton and I go way back.”
A little warning signal went off immediately in Tess’s head. In the last seven months she had found out about the games politicians played. They would use anything they could to throw one off guard, so they could get some straight answers. Well, with Stockwell, she was going to be very cautious.”
“Thank you for your condolences, Senator.”
“A terrible loss, Tess. You don’t mind if I call you Tess, do you?”
Tess groaned inwardly. She didn’t want him to use her first name. She did not want to be familiar with Stockwell in any way. She hadn’t liked what she’d seen of him at the party, and his damaging press releases about Rockwell and the Air Force reinforced that dislike. “Yes, well, what can I do for you?”
“Just a few small, unimportant questions, Tess.”
I’ll bet, she thought, keeping her pen poised over a pad of paper to jot down his questions and then her answers. Her palms grew damp; she sensed Stockwell was after a great deal more than his lighthearted conversation indicated. “Go on,” she urged.
“I was just curious as to why the engine test of the first B-1 didn’t take place in March as originally scheduled.”
“We’ve been installing several systems, Senator. Delivery of some of the subassemblies such as valves, pumps and wiring has taken longer than originally anticipated. The engineers have tried to estimate the completion date of each task. Each of these individual activities, no matter how large or small, are then run through our scheduling computer. Some of the plumbing must be put in first before the wiring can be placed. Everything has to go in a prearranged order.”
“But Rockwell has people there who have scheduled large projects on complex aircraft before. They know the time involved on something of this size and complexity.”
Tess’s mouth thinned. “Senator, if you recall, the B-1 was originally designed in 1967, which means the plans are seven years old. As you well know, technology has rapidly advanced in those years. To be able to accurately project cash flows and time schedules on something that’s going to be built seven years in the future is nearly impossible. Extra time has been needed for design changes to continually update and modernize the B-1 changes that were not anticipated seven years ago. We’ve done the best we can under the circumstances.”
“And the cost estimate?” Stockwell asked.
“The rates are higher than anticipated. No one seven years ago could have predicted today’s skyrocketing costs.”
“Indeed. Each B-1 unit was supposed to cost forty-four million. Now, according to what my staff can figure out, it will be something like fifty-four million. That is extremely distressing, Mrs. Hamilton.”
Her stomach knotted as she heard the threat in his voice. Instinct told her he was going to take that information and run with it. She groaned inwardly: Stockwell knew how to manipulate the press to his full advantage. She could already see the glaring headlines now. Maintaining a neutral tone she murmured, “Senator, I’ve given you the reasons for the delays. We’re working our crews to maximum efficiency to adjust for the schedule changes. I realize that time means money. And with the present inflation rate, it means at least a six percent price hike.”
“My staff tells me it’s going to be a lot higher than that, Mrs. Hamilton.”
Tess gripped the phone receiver tightly. “I’ll talk to Mr. Williams when he comes in, Senator. I intend to document our conversation on paper. I think that when you take into account the seven-year delay between designing the plane and actually building it, you’ll understand why Rockwell is a few months behind schedule at this point.”
Tess sat immobile for a few moments after the Senator hung up. It was a lovely June day outside the windows of her large, airy office. Slowly getting to her feet, she shakily touched her brow, wandering over to the filmy blue curtains. Moving them aside, she gazed at the smog-ridden Los Angeles landscape. The main Rockwell office was located in El Segundo, a small suburb near the Pacific Ocean.
Her mind clicked with possibilities over Stockwell’s phone call. He would use the information. She could picture him gleefully calling a press conference and expounding on the cost estimate rise while conveniently omitting the reasons behind it. Damn inflation, she groused mentally. Damn everything. Closing her eyes, Tess shook her head.
Since Cy’s death, everything seemed to have gone wrong. The actual assembly of the B-1 had been slower than forecast. There were problems joining the tail structure which had in turn delayed installation of the fuselage, the center wing box and the pivotal fittings for the wing. Now the cockpit capsule was finally in place, the wiring complete for the most part. Dan had urged her to accompany him up to the Palmdale plant on several occasions, but she had found excuses not to go. Shep Ramsey might be there, and she didn’t want to risk running into him.
A new stab of pain went through her. Oh, God, Shep, she cried to herself. Tess wrapped her arms about her body. She experienced the agony of Cy’s death all over again, and the guilt she had felt when Shep Ramsey came to visit her the next day. No—no, she didn’t want to have to go through it again! She compressed her lips, closing her eyes, trying to shake loose the image of Cy’s death. How many times had she relived that night, and the events of the following morning? In the midst of all her anguish, it had been Shep Ramsey who had given her stability….
Tess had heard the doorbell ringing that morning. Dully, she had looked up, finally realizing that someone was at the front door and she had to answer it. Her mind was sluggish, numbed with shock as she rose and mechanically moved one foot in front of the other. After the ambulance had taken Cy’s body away the doctor gave her tranquilizers and sleeping pills to help her rest that first night. It was somewhere around eleven A.M. when she finally awoke from the drugged sleep and heard the doorbell ring. Still dressed in her dark burgundy silk robe from the night before, her long auburn hair unbound, she finally opened the door.
Tess blinked once, the impact of a blue Air Force uniform registering slowly on her consciousness. Raising her eyes, she gasped in stunned surprise. Automatically, her fingers went to her slender throat in reaction. “No ...” she whispered hoarsely, trying to shut the door.
“Tess! Let me in.” Shep effectively blocked the door. Her strength was no match for his. Fear mixed with anguish as he hurriedly scanned her ashen features. Her eyes were great pools of blue agony. Dark shadows lingered beneath them, the aftermath of too many tears. Her flawless peach-colored skin was pale, almost translucent. She looked dead. Her beautiful hair spilled across her slumping shoulders, framing her pain-ridden face, making her look even more pale, if that were possible. His heart squeezed as he slipped inside, quickly taking off his flight cap.
“I had to come, Tess,” he said huskily, shutting the door behind him. “I got word three hours ago.” He scowled, watching an incredible array of emotions move across her face. He groaned inwardly, realizing more than ever how much he cared about her. He reached out in an effort to comfort her. It had been an automatic reflex.
Tess shrunk away from his hand, gasping, “No!” Tears trickled down her drawn face as she backed away from him. “Go away! Oh, God, just leave me alone! Cy died because of me. Because of you! It’s my fault. I should never have let you kiss me!” She sobbed, fleeing to the safety of the living room.
Shep caught up with her, gripping her arm, spinning her around. “What are you talking about?” he breathed, forcing her to a stop. “Tess! Get hold of yourself! Tell me what happened.”
She sobbed, burying her face in her hands. “Someone saw us kissing on the balcony!” she wailed. Lifting her tear-stained face she choked out, “He told Cy! He told him I was having an affair with you!” She began to sob in earnest, trying to pull away from him. Guilt surged over her as she remained helplessly entrapped by his restraining hand.
Shep’s mind raced. One part of him wanted to take her into his arms, to hold her and keep her safe. More than anything, Shep wanted to protect her and take away the pain that seemed to radiate from every part of her being. But who had seen them? And why would he tell Cy? What kind of vindictive game was being played? Had the story caused Cy’s heart attack? Worriedly he studied Tess. She stood before him, trembling with fear and pain. “Dammit, Tess, come here,” he growled, and pulled her into his arms.
An anguished cry escaped from her as he crushed her against his body. He buried his head against the silken folds of her hair, holding her tightly. “Ssshh,” he crooned softly, “it’ll be all right, honey. Ssshh, that’s it, go ahead, cry. Get it out. I’m sorry. So sorry this has happened. You don’t deserve this. None of it.”
Huge, tearing sobs broke from her as she gave in, collapsing against the strength of his body. Tess buried her head on his chest, the backlog of fear, shock, and horror rushing out in strangled, gulping sounds. Just having Shep’s arms around her made her feel cared for, protected. She was barely cognizant of his soft, unintelligible words in her ear. His fingers gently stroked her head to soothe her, to take away the agony.
They were standing in the hall. Shep slipped his arms beneath her quivering body and picked her up. He carried her into the living room, halting near the couch, acutely aware of the warmth and pliancy of her body. She was in his arms, her hair like raw silk, the scent and touch of her skin a mingling of sandalwood with velvet. Shep didn’t want to let her go. She was alive. So incredibly alive. She was everything he had imagined. And more. Much, much more. He wanted to carry her into the bedroom and lay her down beside him. Shep knew he could assuage her pain, give her a momentary sanctuary of peace and strength through the act of loving her.
The night they first kissed, their union had completed each of them, and Shep instinctively realized that he could create the same harmony now. The same incredible sense of loving communion that had given both of them those precious, fleeting moments of wonder and peace.
He was torn between laying her down on the couch and carrying her into the bedroom despite her protests. Some indefinable emotion rose in him, nearly overwhelming his senses as he held Tess in his arms. He was aware of the arousal of his body, of his emotions as he felt the pliancy of her flesh against his hands. Reluctantly, Shep lowered Tess to the couch, then brought her back into the protective circle of his arms.
Shep had expected her to pull away, but to his surprise, she fell back into his embrace. His heart sang with silent joy at the simple gesture. Despite Tess’s words, there was still trust and an intangible bond of unnamed emotion between them, an emotion that allowed her to come to him for comfort.
Finally, after nearly half an hour, she quieted. Shep absently stroked her hair, feeling the rapid beat of her heart against his chest. He closed his eyes, resting his head against her hair. Her breasts were soft against the wall of his chest, her body fitting perfectly against the planes of his own. The urge to deepen the intimacy of his slow, stroking motions on her beautifully curved back was a continuing agony. She was so warm, her scent intoxicating his heightened senses. Leaning over, he placed a kiss on her temple, aware of the silken hair beneath his mouth and the yielding softness of her flesh. It would be so easy ... so easy to cup his hand beneath her chin, lift it upward, placing her tear-stained lips against his mouth. Desire pulsated through his tightly controlled body. Each beat of her heart was like a throbbing invitation, fanning the flames of hungry desire to roaring life within him. No woman had ever affected him on such a primal level.
Putting a rein on his needs, Shep closed his eyes, resting his head against her hair. It couldn’t be, he thought morosely. Not now…not like this. ... If I did make love to her, she would never forgive herself or me. I can’t risk that. He briefly opened his gray eyes, pain clearly written in their depths as he stared emptily off into space. Tess would hate herself and hate him. And Shep cared too deeply to let her be hurt any more. He thought too much of Tess to compound her problems. Gently, Shep ran his fingers through her hair, glorying in the sensation. Despite everything, he was determined to see Tess through this and try to reestablish a relationship with her at some point later on. A feeling of contentment washed over him, a warmth that he’d never experienced before. “Better?” he inquired, his voice barely above a whisper.
Tess nodded once. She pulled her hand from around his waist and tried to dry her thick, tear-wet lashes. He dug out his handkerchief, placing it into her fingers. “Seems like you’re always crying when we’re together,” he noted wryly, gazing down at her and recalling her tears at Palmdale.
Tess mutely agreed, pulling free of him. She stared at him gravely, aware that his left arm remained around her waist. There was a naturalness to their relationship. Why did she feel safe and stable when Shep was with her? She shouldn’t. Where had the horror of guilt gone? Right now she felt calm. As if she were in the eye of a hurricane. His gray eyes were dark and searching upon her face. There was worry coupled with anxiety in their depths. She swallowed against the lump that was forming in her throat, realizing how deeply he cared.
“Can you tell me what happened, Tess?” he coaxed gently.
She dropped her gaze to his handkerchief, twisting it between her fingers. “I—I was late getting home because my car had a flat tire.”
“A flat tire? Why didn’t you call me, Tess? I would have driven out and helped you.”
She shook her head. “I know you would have, Shep. I—I was afraid to.”
He watched her closely and understood what she wasn’t able to say—any time spent with him was a special, unfulfilled agony. He squeezed her arm. “It’s all right,” he soothed. “Go on.”
Tess gave him a helpless look. “When I finally got home, Cy was sitting here.” Her voice wobbled and she held her hand across her mouth. “He—he said someone had seen us on the balcony. And then”—she sobbed harder, fighting back the deluge of fresh tears— “he wondered why I was late coming back from Palmdale. He knew I was with you. ...”
Shep clenched his teeth, drawing in a deep breath while she cried. He gripped her arm. “Tess, who told him all this?” he demanded tightly. “Who?”
“Derek Barton! He’s a horrible little man! A subcontractor to Rockwell on the B-1 project.” She drew in a shaky breath, trying to get a hold on her rampant emotions.
Anger, more chilling than a glacier in the Arctic, flowed through him. “He lied,” he breathed softly. “The bastard lied.”
“And—and Cy’s dead because of that rotten, horrible lie! Oh, Shep—” she whispered painfully, “I can’t stand living with the pain of knowing I killed him.”
He gripped her by the arms, giving her a small shake. “Stop it,” he growled. “That’s not true. Cy was a dedicated man. You said yourself he was a workaholic. He’d been putting in too many long hours. A man of his age who’s working like that is prone to a heart attack, Tess. What have the doctors said?”
Shakily she wiped the tears away, looking up at him morosely. “They’re supposed to call this afternoon.”
His face softened. “And the funeral?”
Tess winced. “Two days from now.”
His grip tightened momentarily until he realized he was hurting her. Relaxing it he said, “Do you have anyone to help you with the details?”
She made a weak gesture with her hand. “Rockwell people. They’ve been very supportive.”
“I mean a friend? Someone close who can help pull you through all of this.”
Her mind fled over a list of the women she knew. The Rockwell secretaries hated her because of her position in the company. She had few outside friends. There was no other woman at her level, or even above her, whom she could confide in. She shook her head. “I—no, I don’t. It’s hard to explain. I spent my time either at the office with Cy or here at home with him.”
He pursed his lips, watching her closely. “Tess, let me be here for you. It’s the least I can do under the circumstances.”
Her eyes widened, broadcasting her anguish. “I can’t, Shep—Barton will be spreading rumors. I—” She halted, her voice growing hoarse. “No, you can’t. By now he’s probably spread it all over the aeronautics industry. If you’re around, there will be more ugly talk. I can’t bear it. I couldn’t take it,” she whispered, burying her face in her hands.
Frustration curled in his stomach, tightening it. His gray eyes flashed with checked anger. “I’ll get him if it’s the last thing I do,” he snarled softly.
She jerked her chin up, staring at him. The sudden change in his face frightened her. “Shep!”
He smiled coldly, gripping her cool hand. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill him. He deserves that, but I won’t do it. Someday we’ll meet and then….” He stopped, realizing he was upsetting Tess. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Forget it. I won’t do anything, Tess. Look,” he coaxed gently, “call me if you need me. I’ll come, no matter what time of day or night it is. Promise me that, Tess.”
She was aware of the strength of his hand around her own. Just his touch soothed the ragged edges of her composure and gave her stability. “But—your wife. What will she think? God, I don’t want to be responsible for any more problems, Shep. You’re going up for major. I don’t want to cause you any trouble. This gossip will spread to the Air Force community. It could jeopardize your chances for the rank.”
He gave her a self-deprecating smile, one corner of his mouth barely curving upward. “This can’t hurt my chances for major, Tess.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It must have been one hell of a party we attended last weekend. Yesterday Allyson told me she wanted a divorce. Seems she’s found herself a full colonel who’s going up for general in another year.” He looked away, suddenly bitter. “I should have expected it. Aly was always a social climber.”
Tess rubbed her forehead, trying to banish his words from her mind. That had all happened over seven months ago. She had barely reacted to the news of Shep’s pending divorce from Allyson. She had been in shock at the time, unable to feel anything as she murmured the proper words of sympathy. Her azure eyes grew dark now with remembrance of the gossip surrounding Cy’s death. It had started at the funeral and gathered tidal wave force during the months afterward. Even now, seven months after his death, the guilt and grief continued to shadow her waking hours and haunt her restless sleep.
Fortunately, Dan Williams made brooding almost impossible. To escape the guilt and pain that haunted her, Tess lived her entire life at the office, much as Cy had done. Was she really like him? she wondered dully. Tess watched the fleecy white cumulus clouds drifting over the valley toward the San Gabriel Mountains.
Because of the guilt she carried, Tess had decided to cut all communications with Shep Ramsey. She recalled the pain and disillusionment in his voice when he’d told her that Allyson was leaving him. She wondered how Shep was faring. Had the gossip cost him his promotion to major?
From time to time a memo would cross her desk with his name in it. He was currently undergoing further training in the flying simulator with the rest of the men who would eventually pilot the B-1. And every time she saw his name, her heart would wrench with newfound pain and longing.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/lindsay-mckenna/love-me-before-dawn-39784313/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Lindsay McKenna
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
Отзывы: Пока нет Добавить отзыв
О книге: Tess Hamilton met Shep Ramsey under purely social circumstances, but it was a matter of national security that provided the real basis for their relationship. Tess was working on a prototype airplane, and Shep was the man chosen to test its wings.For months her work on the plane had obsessed her, but now Shep had entered her heart and she was facing one frightening fact: If there were even one mistake in the plane, the man she loved would forfeit his life.