Firstborn
Firstborn
Lindsay McKenna
Jason Trayhern wore his father's glorious military legacy like a thorny crown. Though a skilled fighter pilot himself, Jason's rebel tactics didn't sit well with his commanding officers.They expected more from Morgan Trayhern's son, which was why they gave Jason another chance. But that chance felt like a death sentence. For Jason was going into combat with a new partner. And she was all too…female.A handsome, arrogant daredevil was the last thing Annie Dazen needed in her cockpit. But once she saw the wounded heart beneath Jason's tough-guy facade, she longed to heal him. And once she discovered the passion in this brooding soldier's touch, she longed to hold him tight. Now the stakes were higher. Because if she hoped to see a future with her would-be hero, they needed to survive their dangerous mission first!
“This is a damn flight test, isn’t it?”
Jason’s words were thrown like a gauntlet.
“Yes, it is,” Annie replied, her voice cool and emotionless.
His stomach clenched. She was testing him like he was a damn rookie! What happened to the woman he’d met in the hangar? The woman he had found himself drawn to—rightly or wrongly.
“You’re out to flunk me, aren’t you?” he demanded now. “Orders from above?”
“Mr. Trayhern, you are paranoid. No one has it in for you here, except maybe yourself. Your past doesn’t count with me. Do you understand that?”
Jason closed his eyes. Her husky words flowed over him like a calming blanket. “Yeah, I hear you,” he replied. But could he trust her?
More importantly, could he trust himself with a woman he was so powerfully attracted to?
See why Romantic Times LOVES
LINDSAY MCKENNA
“Edge-of-the-seat romantic suspense…. Readers will be enthralled from the first page to the last.”
—on Valkyrie
“A truly remarkable love story of two courageous people.”
—on Morgan’s Marriage
“When it comes to action and romance, nobody does it better than McKenna.”
—on Destiny’s Woman
“McKenna weaves together enticing players, heart-stopping action and sparks aplenty to create a savory romantic concoction.”
—on Man with a Mission
“Full-bodied characters that shine amid a powerful backdrop of emotional change, desire and love.”
—on A Man Alone
“Talented Lindsay McKenna delivers excitement and romance in equal measure.”
—on Protecting His Own
“Another Lindsay McKenna romantic treasure.”
—on A Woman of Innocence
“Balanced characters, electrifying attraction, a smattering of military jargon and bracing danger. Readers can count this one a winner.”
—on Her Healing Touch
Firstborn
Lindsay McKenna
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 1
Trouble hunted him. And Chief Warrant Officer Jason Trayhern knew it had found him today. As he climbed the concrete steps of the Ops building at Fort Collins, Colorado, he began to sweat beneath his flight suit. Taking off his cap, he entered the swinging doors. As he did, he could hear the whapping sound of the Longknife Squadron Apache combat helicopters taking off and landing on the other side of the massive operations facility. How he wished he were up in the air now!
Mouth tightening, he nodded perfunctorily to the meteorology and air-control-desk personnel who stood on the other side of the tiled lobby. He knew both of them well. One didn’t fly without getting a meteorology report from the weather desk, or a flight plan from the air desk.
Locating Major Butler’s office, Jason girded himself internally for his meeting with his commanding officer. The passageway was clear of personnel for a moment, so he took a quick swipe at the perspiration on his brow before he entered the office. He didn’t want Major Butler to see him sweat. He wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction.
Jason knew the routine. This was the second time he’d been called in by his C.O. for the same damn reason. Mentally trying to barricade himself from his writhing feelings of fear, rage and frustration, Jason took a deep breath. Then he squared his shoulders, put his chin up and moved through the open door, displaying the cocky attitude he was known for.
Butler’s secretary, Mona Evans, a civilian in her fifties, looked up from her desk, her small, gold wire glasses halfway down her prominent Roman nose. “Ah, Chief Trayhern. Thank you for coming.”
Jason stood at attention in front of her desk. “Yes, ma’am. I’m here to see Major Butler, as ordered.” Of course this was an order. One didn’t just waltz into the C.O.’s office without a prior appointment.
“Right,” she murmured, putting her appointment book on the desk. “One moment…”
As he watched her get up, walk to Butler’s door, open it and disappear inside, his gut tightened. He’d rather be facing El Quaida, with a Stinger missile aimed at his Apache helicopter, than be here right now. What would his father think? Morgan Trayhern, USMC, was a living legend in the military. Everyone, no matter what their service affiliation, admired and respected him. Jason fought a surge of anger. He didn’t give a damn what his father thought. All his famous father cared about was his reputation—not his firstborn son. But his mother, Laura? Groaning inwardly, Jason momentarily closed his eyes and fought a wave of sadness at the thought of the disappointment she might feel to learn her oldest son had screwed up—again.
Jason loved his mother with his life. It hurt him every time he knew he’d disappointed her. What would she think now?
The door to Butler’s inner office opened.
Mona smiled gently and pushed her glasses back up her nose. “Major Butler will see you now, Chief Trayhern.” She stepped aside. “Go right in. He’s expecting you.”
I’ll bet he is…. “Yes, ma’am.” He kept his voice deep and unruffled, though he was anything but. He felt as if he had a hundred angry rattlesnakes writhing inside his gut.
Major Yancey Butler raised his head and pinned his narrowed gaze on Jason as he entered and snapped to attention.
“Shut the door,” Butler ordered, brusqueness in his tone.
“Yes, sir!” Jason turned and shut it, did an about-face and then snapped back to attention. Butler was lean as a hungry wolf, with short black hair and gray sideburns. His green eyes glittered, sending a frisson of terror through Jason. Butler wasn’t taking any prisoners today, judging from the thundercloud look on his face.
Sitting back in his burgundy leather chair, the man said, “At ease, Chief Trayhern.”
Jason swallowed, spreading his feet apart and placing his hands behind his back. His commanding officer’s pale face was speckled with copper freckles reminding Jason of a spotted Appaloosa horse. The thought made him want to laugh, though now was not the moment for humor. Today was not the day to flaunt cocky grins or shoot off smart remarks.
“Son, you’re like a cat,” Butler began silkily as he opened Jason’s service record in front of him.
“Sir?” Jason’s brow furrowed with confusion. Where was Butler going with this? Heart pounding in his chest, Jason felt his adrenaline surge as a bad feeling pervaded his system. He wanted out of here. Out of Butler’s office and out of the Longknife Apache squadron he’d been assigned to. It had been hell on him ever since he’d arrived at this base.
“You know a cat has nine lives, right?” Butler said finally.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, Chief Trayhern, you’ve used up, by my count, eight of your nine lives thus far.” Grimly, the major folded his hands on the desk. “You got tossed out of the Naval Academy in your third year after a drug scandal. Though the charges didn’t stick, your reputation was tainted. Then you came begging the Army aviation people to give you one more chance. We decided, since your record was clear, to take that chance on you.”
Jason stood very still. He’d heard this litany before.
“After your officer training, you went to Fort Rucker, Alabama, and learned to fly the Apache Longbow combat helicopter. But there was a problem with you there. You were arrogant, Trayhern. Hard to get along with. You never saw yourself as a team member. The colonel of the flight school kicked you out of his squadron and put you in mine. You’ve been here six months, and I can’t say it’s been a positive experience for any of us. Two times now I’ve had seasoned combat pilots ask to transfer you out of their cockpit because you couldn’t get along with them. With you, it’s your way or no way, and that’s not what Army aviation is all about, son. The Army is about teamwork. But you don’t want to be part of a team. You want to lead, and listen to no one but yourself. This is not an Army of one, Mr. Trayhern. It’s an Army where everyone works together.”
Tapping his finger on the maple desk, Butler said slowly, “When Chief Doughtery requested another pilot to fly with, and he told me why, I saw the handwriting on the wall. I have given you more chances than you deserve, Trayhern. I’ve asked you to fit in, to be a part of our team. And for some reason, you fight it. You rebel against the status quo for no good reason.” Shaking his head, he muttered, “I gave you all these chances because I know your father, Morgan Trayhern. He’s a hero to all of us. He’s a man who did the right thing, fought back, made things better for everyone around him. He’s a helluva role model in my opinion.”
Unlike his son. Jason filled in the rest of Butler’s sentence. Bile curdled in his throat. “Sir, with all due respect—”
“Just stand there and listen,” the major growled.
“Yes, sir!”
Grabbing a set of orders, Butler scribbled his name across the authorization line with barely contained ferocity. “Mr. Trayhern, you’re down to your ninth life. I’ve been in touch with Colonel Red Dugan, who commands the 2-101 Aviation Regiment of Apaches at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Presently, all squadrons there are undergoing qualification trials before they’re shipped overseas for duty in Afghanistan. He has agreed to put you into the Eagle Warrior Squadron under his command. If I didn’t have so much respect for your father’s name, I would be sending you to personnel to be processed out with a bad conduct discharge. Instead, you’re going to Screamin’ Eagle country, the 101st Airborne Division, air assault.”
Jason’s eyes widened slightly as shock slammed into him. His mouth dropped open. Quickly, he snapped it shut. Butler wanted to give him a BCD? Oh, God, no!
“That’s right, son. You heard me.” The major lifted his hand and held his thumb and index finger an inch apart. “You are this close to getting canned. Is that what you want?”
“No, sir!” Gulping, Jason wondered if his C.O. could hear his heart hammering against his ribs. It had been humiliating enough to be kicked out of Annapolis. Now he was in danger of a BCD. His head spun with questions. What had he done so wrong?
“I want you to know one thing,” Butler growled as he handed Jason his new orders. “Colonel Dugan is a friend of your father’s. I called him and talked over the fact that you’re a real problem for the Army. I asked if he thought he could straighten you out and avoid a BCD.” The officer nailed Jason with his gaze. “Son, you’d better hear this loud and clear. Colonel Dugan is your last chance. You screw up there, like you have with me and my squadrons, and you’re out, famous father or not. We don’t want to make headlines for Morgan. He doesn’t deserve this. And the press would have a field day with it. Your attitude could give the Army a black eye if you don’t shape up. You understand? You have one last chance to vindicate yourself, get your head screwed on straight and learn to work as a team member, not a rebellious loner.”
“Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”
Butler nodded. “One more thing, Chief Trayhern. Colonel Dugan is a warrior of the first order. He won’t take any shit from you. You got that? You had better head to the Eagle Warrior Squadron with a new attitude, because this time your father’s name is not going to save you….”
At 0530 the sun was starting to rise above the trees at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The 2nd Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment of AH-64D Longbow combat helicopters were surrounded by tall, stately maples, oaks, elms and ash trees, and Annie Dazen loved the sight. The deciduous trees reminded her of her home in the mountains at the White River Apache Reservation in Arizona, where scrub oak and slender ash trees mingled with thick stands of mighty Douglas firs. The military base stood at five hundred feet above sea level in the rolling countryside near the Tennessee state line. There were over ninety-three thousand acres of softly undulating Appalachian Mountains and valleys to fly over while she sharpened her skills as a combat pilot. The landscape was the only thing she liked about the base’s environment, though. Kentucky was a hot, sultry place during the summer and she preferred the dry desert climate of her home over the humid atmosphere of the base. No, she’d take the mountainous terrain of the reservation over the high humidity and tropical temperatures of Kentucky any day.
Every morning Annie went out in back of the hangar where her Apache helicopter was kept, her medicine necklace in her hands, to send a prayer to the rising sun. She was Apache, and in her tradition prayers were said at sunrise and sunset, the most powerful times of the day.
She stood alone in the morning quiet, an unusual state for the sprawling base of fifteen thousand people. At 0600, when helos from the various squadrons wound up for takeoff on another day of training, the place became a beehive of activity. Annie missed the great yawning silence of the reservation. There, one could hear the winds singing and sighing in the pines—the voices of the Tree Nation.
As she stepped away from the huge hangar and stood on the red clay, facing east, Annie gazed down fondly at the necklace in her hands. It had been in her family for hundreds of years, passed down to the eldest daughter of each successive generation. It was a medicine necklace, one with mysterious power, beauty and healing qualities.
Stringing the necklace between her hands, she lifted it breast high and closed her eyes. Annie grounded herself by imagining dark tree roots encircling her ankles and going down through her black leather flight boots deep into Mother Earth. Taking a deep breath, she whispered, “Father Sun, I honor you on this new day. Please guide me, help me to follow my heart and bless Mother Earth. Aho.”
The necklace in her hands grew very warm. Annie was used to feeling her fingers tingle as she recited the ancient prayer. The heat soon increased and she felt the energy flow gently up her arms. A familiar calming sensation moved into her chest and remained there, like a warm, fuzzy blanket from childhood, one her mother had tucked around her at night.
High above, Annie heard the shriek of a red-tailed hawk. Opening her eyes, she gazed into the pale blue sky, which was misted over by the high humidity of the July morning, and saw a mature red-tail circling. Its wings were outstretched and its rust-red tail fanned as it floated on an up-draft of warm air. Lips lifting into a smile, Annie called, “Ho, little brother, what message do you bring me?”
She knew that when an animal showed up after her morning prayer, it was a message from the Great Spirit. What exactly it meant, she didn’t know, but she always paid attention and tried to figure it out. Closing her eyes, she pictured the hawk in her third eye, located in the middle of her brow. An unsettling sensation blanketed her. Frowning, Annie opened her eyes. When she looked up again, the hawk was gone.
Odd. Annie didn’t like the feeling cloaking her. Was that the message the hawk had come to tell her? That she should be unsettled? Unsure? She felt as if lightning had struck nearby and shaken her up. Birds were always considered messengers, bringing a warning, good or bad, of things to come. Usually within hours of their appearance Annie knew she would receive word, either in person or through a phone call, a letter or e-mail, of something or someone coming into her life.
Unzipping the right thigh pocket to her dark green flight uniform, Annie pulled out a soft brown deerskin pouch. Lifting the necklace, she gently tucked it back into the pouch and returned it to her pocket. The first rays of Father Sun were streaking across the tips of the elms and maples. It was now 0600 and the day had begun in earnest. All flying was done early in the morning when the air was still cool, and therefore more stable, making for easier flight training.
Turning, Annie walked back to the hangar. Opening the aluminum door, she stepped inside onto the meticulously clean concrete floor. Her desert camouflage Apache Longbow was in for software upgrades and sat near the far opening of the hangar. Her crew, two men and a woman, were busy working on it. Usually they worked early and left in midafternoon, to avoid the blistering summer heat.
The welcoming smell of coffee wafted toward her. Flaring her nostrils and inhaling deeply, Annie made her way around two other helos in the hangar. The coffee dispenser was on the wall to the right of the open bay, and Annie headed straight to it. A day didn’t begin without coffee!
As she stirred in cream and sugar, she heard booted feet coming in her direction, mingling with the clink of tools and the hushed voices of crew members. She looked up as she took a sip of the brew. Sergeant Kat Lakey, her crew chief, was hurrying her way, dressed in a green T-shirt, cammos and black boots. At twenty-five, Kat was a year older than her. Annie was happy this woman took care of her bird, for Lakey was the best crew chief on the base, in her opinion.
“’Morning, Kat. You look like you’re on a mission. What’s up?” Annie grinned, looking pointedly at the watch on her right wrist.
Kat smiled and halted. “Yes, ma’am, I believe I am.” Hooking her thumb toward the operations building in the distance, she said, “While you were out just now, I received a call from Ops. From our squadron commander, Colonel Dugan. He wants to see you immediately. I saw you step back into the hangar and thought I’d tell you. He called about two minutes ago.”
Sipping more of the coffee to hide her surprise, Annie nodded. “Okay…Geez, it’s early for him to be up and moving around, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am, I think so.” Kat raised a brow. “But Colonel Dugan is famous for saying the early bird gets the worm.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that one.”
“You know what it’s about, ma’am?”
“Hmm? Me? No. Why? Do you? You’re good at knowin’ all the base gossip, Kat. What dirt have you heard lately?” Annie grinned at the sergeant. Kat had a mop of brown hair and a long, narrow face blanketed with freckles across her cheeks and nose. Her gray eyes twinkled with silent laughter.
“No, nothing new, ma’am. I know we’re going to start combat training flights tomorrow, though. With live ammo.” Kat rubbed her hands, grinning wolfishly. Live ammo wasn’t used often. It cost money for shells, so usually electronic laser shots were used in training. Everyone looked forward to having the Apaches’ considerable arsenal be “hot and live”—real rockets, missiles or bullets instead of a namby-pamby red beam of light to equate a kill.
Chuckling, Annie nodded. “Yeah, I can hardly wait. Okay, I’ll grab a ride over to Ops. You doin’ okay on the software checks? I want my bird in top shape for tomorrow’s live-fire exercises.”
“Goin’ fine, ma’am. She’s not a hangar queen.” Kat chuckled.
Annie smiled and said, “Thank goodness she’s not that! Okay, I’ll get back over here ASAP.”
“Ma’am…”
Annie hesitated. “Yes?”
“Do you think this might be about Chief Dailey’s leaving? You do need a new pilot to fly with you. Could the colonel be callin’ you over to let you know a new team member has been assigned to us?”
“That would be my thinking, Kat.” She lifted her hand. “I see the base bus that’ll give me a lift to Ops. You’ll be the first to know when I get back.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“At ease, Chief Dazen,” Colonel Dugan said. He pointed toward a brown leather chair set off to one side of his dark green metal desk. “Sit down, please.”
Annie smiled quickly and nodded. “Yes, sir.” She perched on the edge of the chair, hands on her thighs, and gazed at him expectantly. The look on Dugan’s oval, pockmarked face puzzled her. He was frowning, his short blond hair gleaming with reddish highlights beneath the fluorescent light above his desk. She knew he was in his mid-fifties, but he appeared far more youthful.
There were what appeared to be several personnel jackets scattered across his desk, and he was thumbing through them. Annie smiled slightly as she watched him. She liked her commanding officer. Red Dugan was a legend in his own time. He’d been one of the first to fly the lethal Boeing Apache combat helicopters, had helped create the curriculum to teach pilots how to fly it at Fort Rucker, and had a long, impressive combat record to boot. Annie had flown with him from time to time and had learned a lot from the highly decorated pilot.
“Annie, there’s no nice way to say this,” Red muttered as he lifted his head after moving the files around on his desk. “I have a problem, and I hope you can help me solve it.”
Ordinarily, her C.O. never addressed her by her first name. In fact, Annie could count on one hand the times he had done so in the year that she’d been with the Eagle Warrior Squadron. Something was definitely up. “Okay…sir. Sure, what can I do to help?”
He smiled a little. “That’s one of the reasons I’ve chosen you for this, uh, assignment.” Lifting out a file, he set it on top of the others. “Two days ago, I got a call from the C.O. of another Apache squadron who told me he had a problem pilot on his hands. This pilot, CWO3 Jason Trayhern, is now being reassigned to us.”
Frowning, Annie said, “Okay, sir.” She bit back any questions she might have. Although her curiosity was burning her alive at this point, one didn’t throw questions at a commanding officer. One waited for the C.O. to lay out the plan of action instead.
Opening the file, Dugan growled unhappily, “CWO3 Trayhern is a problem, Annie. But his father, Morgan Trayhern, is highly respected by all branches of the military. We try to take care of our own. Have you heard of Morgan Trayhern?”
“Yes, sir, I have. He was a Marine Corps officer in the closing days of the Vietnam War. His company got overrun and only two people survived, him and another guy.”
“Yes, and there was a cover-up by our government on this particular operation when the company was lost. They painted Captain Trayhern as a traitor to whitewash the debacle, which was really the fault of the commanders above him. He, in the meantime, had suffered a severe concussion and was taken to Japan to recuperate. It was then that the CIA got involved. Morgan had amnesia and didn’t remember who he was, so, with the approval of the French government, they invented a new name and history for him and sent him off to the French Foreign Legion after his recovery. Out of sight, out of mind, or so the government officials thought. Trayhern remained there many years until one day his memory came back, and when it did, he returned to the United States to clear his name.”
“His family has a long history of serving in the U.S. military,” Annie said.
“That’s right. Their service record stretches back two hundred years, a real role model for the military way of life in this country. Despite that, Morgan Trayhern had to go through a lot to clear his name and restore his family’s honor after he was branded a traitor.” Dugan smiled faintly. “The man did it. He investigated on his own and finally was able to identify the men who had colluded against him.” Waving his hand, the colonel said, “That’s history now. But since then Morgan started a supersecret agency known as Perseus, which works closely with the CIA. His expertise has been focused on helping people around the world when the country in question can’t or won’t handle the problem. Suffice it to say, Mr. Trayhern has worked with every U.S. military service, and continues to do so to this day. I’ve met the man myself, and he is a true hero. He’s someone the military does not want to let down if we can at all help it.”
Hearing the awe in Dugan’s voice, Annie was impressed. “And his son is coming here? He’s being assigned to us?”
Nodding, Dugan set his lips in a frown. “Yes.”
“Then, sir, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you looking so unhappy about all of this?” If the son was anything like the father, Annie thought, he’d be a real asset. A hero in the making.
“Because, Annie,” Dugan replied, looking at her across the desk, “the two Trayherns are nothing alike. Have you heard of Jason Trayhern?
“Uh, no, sir.”
“When he was a third-year cadet in the Naval Academy at Annapolis, he got enmeshed in a drug ring scandal. He was never found with drugs, but names of cadets who had purchased them were found on his laptop computer. The people who conducted the investigation at Annapolis think his roommate set up Trayhern to take the fall. Jason and his lawyer had said from the get-go that Trayhern was framed. But the cadets have this skewed honor code and they don’t rat on their brother or sister cadets. No one came forward in his defense, so they booted him out.”
“Ouch. What must his family have felt like?” Annie murmured. “Or him, if he was innocent? I’d be really angry about it.”
“Precisely. It was a black mark against the Trayhern military dynasty, a blemish of the worst sort.”
“And he talked to the investigation officials?”
“Yes, he did, but the ‘blue wall’ closed ranks—the cadets refused to give up the real culprits to clear Trayhern’s good name. If someone had come forward to vouch for him, more than likely Annapolis officials would have allowed him to stay, all things being equal.” Dugan opened his hands. “I know from talking with one of the admirals at the school that they really wanted to save the senior Trayhern from this kind of embarrassment. But his son was caught with the evidence on his laptop and couldn’t explain how it got there.”
Shaking her head, Annie said, “Well, sir, we don’t know all the details.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Running his hand through his short blond hair, he added, “And that’s why I’ve chosen you, Annie, to deal with Trayhern. I need the most astute, intelligent pilot I have in my squadron to handle this mess coming our way.”
Annie sat up straight. “The mess being Jason Trayhern?”
“That’s a roger. We’re getting him dropped on us because he’s a loner, Annie. He’s not a team player. He’s said to be rebellious, angry and arrogant, from what Major Butler has told me. Two pilots in his regiment petitioned Butler to have Trayhern replaced, because the man simply refuses to get along with anyone else in the cockpit.”
“Oh, sir…”
“Sorry, Annie. You don’t deserve this kind of partner, either. I’m sorry we had to give Chief Mike Dailey a medical discharge. No one wished more than me that his high blood pressure problem could be resolved. You two were my ace team in the squadron, and I really hated to see him go. But we can’t have a pilot at risk in the cockpit, either. And now you’re the only one in the squadron without a copilot.”
Annie thought back to earlier that morning, when the red-tailed hawk had screamed out for her attention. When she’d asked what message it brought, the exact feeling she had right now had blanketed her. She felt upset. In chaos.
“So you’re assigning Chief Trayhern to me?”
“Yes, I am, Annie.” Dugan shrugged. “Ordinarily, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, but the situation is unique. I know Morgan Trayhern personally. I’m sure that, as a father, he’s going through hell right now because his son has gotten booted out of two Apache squadrons in a year’s time. This boy of his is a real burr under the saddle—his and ours. I had a choice in whether or not to take Trayhern. I’m doing this as a favor to his father. We’re going to give Jason Trayhern one last chance.”
Chewing on her lower lip, Annie sat there digesting the problem. “Sir, we’re slated to go over to Afghanistan in a month.”
“I know that. And Annie, I know what you’re up against. If there’s anyone in my squadron who can turn this man around, it’s you. You’re the only woman pilot on base, and I know this sounds like gender prejudice, but maybe, just maybe, Trayhern won’t take the same arrogant tact he’s taken with other pilots he had to work with if he partners with a woman.”
“And if I can’t get him to be a team player, sir?”
“All you have to do is come to me and tell me.” Dugan shook his head. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. I don’t want to be the one to boot Morgan Trayhern’s son out of the military, and if that happens, no service will ever allow Jason to reenlist. He’d be out. Castigated. But if you come and tell me he’s not fitting in, then I will give him a bad conduct discharge without any qualms.”
Annie found she had a hundred questions racing through her mind. Time was so short—only one month before combat duty. She knew it took at least three months for two pilots to get used to each other. They sat in the Apache together, flew together, worked together, and their relationship was like a marriage of sorts.
“Sir? Has Chief Trayhern ever worked with a female pilot before?”
Dugan smiled grimly. “No. As you know, there are only three women in the U.S. military who have qualified for Apache training thus far. That’s not counting the Black Ops squadron in South America, of course, which is nearly all female. He’s flown only with men.”
“What makes you think he’s going to respond positively to me, then? If he’s never flown with a woman, how do we know how he’ll respond to me?”
“That’s a good question,” Dugan murmured. “And I don’t have an answer, Annie. But I’ll tell you one thing—your marks listed in your personnel jacket, in flying and training, are 4.0. You’re the best I’ve got. Your crew has won every trophy in and out of the squadron, and I know it’s because of you, your ability to lead, as well as your ability to be a team player. You don’t leave people out or behind, Annie, and that’s the mark not only of a good leader, but of a real people manager.”
She saw his hazel eyes brighten with hope. The praise was wonderful, but the assignment sucked. “I do try hard to make everyone feel a part of my tribe.” She grinned wryly.
“There’s a lot to say for you being Native American, Annie. I’ve learned a thing or two from you myself. I’m convinced that what you’ve learned from being brought up in your community can help us here in the Army, too. Teamwork is everything. I’ve seen you take people who felt disenfranchised and make them a valuable part of your squadron ‘family.’” He smiled again. “And if Jason Trayhern is to have a prayer of learning how to fit in, I can’t think of anyone better than you to be his teacher.”
The responsibility was nearly overwhelming. Annie felt the weight settle on her shoulders. It was bad enough that she had to train hard and rigorously herself for the next month, to get ready for Afghanistan, where her life would be on the line every single day. Her copilot had to be someone she trusted with her life. How was she going to manage to do all of this?
Looking up, she murmured, “Sir, this is an incredible challenge for me.”
“I know it is, Annie. And I’m sorry to lay it on you. But no one is better qualified to save this young man from himself. He’s a fine pilot, but he’s a loner. Do your best, okay? I don’t expect miracles, and if it doesn’t pan out, it’s not going to reflect poorly on your personnel record, believe me.”
“Okay, sir, I’ll give it a go.” She managed a lopsided grin. “But I don’t know who I feel worse for, him or me.”
Dugan chuckled. “I understand. Listen, stay in close touch with me on this. I want to know what’s going down with him.” Glancing at his watch, he continued, “Chief Trayhern will be arriving here at 1000 hours. He’s to come directly to me, and I’ll give him a talking to and a warning. Then he’ll go through personnel, and finally, he’ll be taken over to your hangar. At that point, he’s all yours. Because the regiment is going over to Afghanistan in a month, I’m assigning him temporary billeting at the B.O.Q., Bachelor Officers Quarters, here on base.”
“Yes, sir. It wouldn’t make any sense to try and find an apartment for only thirty days. By 1300, he should be through personnel paperwork?”
“Yes.”
Annie stood up and came to attention. “I’ll do what I can, Colonel Dugan.”
“Good enough, Chief Dazen. Thank you in advance. Dismissed.”
“Yes, sir!” Annie did a snappy about-face and left his office.
Once outside the three-story redbrick building, she decided to walk the mile back to the hangar area. She needed time to get over the shock of her new assignment and try to adjust to this bad news.
The sun was hazy, the humidity stifling, and she was already sweating heavily. The street was busy with traffic, both desert-brown Humvees and many civilian cars. People in uniform and flight suits walked here and there with crisp efficiency. The home of the Screamin’ Eagles was a workaholic’s paradise, Annie thought. People were proud of the 101st Airborne’s historical tradition and strived to make it the top aviation division in the Army as a result. Everyone who wore the screaming eagle patch on their uniform did so with pride.
The tall, spindly pines planted between large-leafed maples stood at attention along the concrete sidewalk as she walked across the bustling Army base. The main headquarters, painted white, lay in the center of a diamond-shaped expanse of lawn bracketed by asphalt highways. Green shrubs along the walls of the diamond were trimmed to military perfection. But Annie was unable to appreciate the manicured beauty that surrounded her. Her mind and heart were elsewhere.
One month. One month to tame a lone wolf who didn’t want to be part of anyone’s team. And this wasn’t just any lone wolf. No, this was a famous one with a jaded past. Annie’s brow knitted as she walked. Settling her cap more securely on her head, the bill drawn low to shade her eyes from the sun, she kept to the inside of the sidewalk. When she passed an officer, she saluted. Enlisted personnel who passed saluted her. Warrant officers were not quite officers, but they were treated with deference nonetheless.
Automatically, Annie unzipped her right thigh pocket and pulled out the deerskin pouch that held her medicine necklace. After she’d shifted the necklace to her left hand to leave her right one free to salute with, she instantly felt the object’s warmth, finding it comforting and soothing to her anxiety and concern. Annie didn’t understand exactly why the necklace reacted when she was upset, but it did, and she absorbed the calming energy from it.
A pair of raucous blue jays screamed as they flew from one elm tree to the next ahead of her. That wasn’t a good sign—birds fighting and squabbling with one another. In Annie’s world of mystery and miracles, she knew nature talked to her, about herself and what was to come, whenever she would listen. Well, those birds had her full attention now. Would she and Trayhern be just like the blue jays—squabbling, bickering and screaming at one another? In four hours, she’d find out.
Chapter 2
Four hours later, Annie was flat on her back beneath the carriage of the Apache along with Specialist 3 Lance DeLong, one of her mechanics. They were lying side by side, looking up into the area where the chain gun was situated. The cannon, which looked like a long-barrel machine gun suspended beneath the fuselage of the Apache, could spit out 30mm rounds, instantly destroying whatever it hit.
Annie was so intent on what Lance was saying about a piece of hardware within the mounting that she failed to hear the solid, confident stride of someone coming her way. Only when the highly polished black shoes came to a halt less than two feet from where she lay did she realize they didn’t belong to one of her crew.
Hands freezing momentarily on the gun mount, Annie turned to Lance. “The new pilot is here. Can you handle this repair alone?” She searched the twenty-year-old’s round face.
“Aw, shucks, sure I can, Ms. Dazen. Not a problem.” Lance grinned, showing his uneven teeth.
Annie nodded and grinned back. “Okeydokey.” She rolled out from beneath the fuselage, her heart skittering with dread at meeting this infamous pilot. The polished shoes backed up to give her plenty of room to roll to her hands and knees and then get to her feet.
Raising her head as she brushed herself off, Annie saw the man was dressed in his class A Army uniform and standing with his feet apart, like a boxer ready to be struck. As her gaze ranged quickly upward, she realized that Jason Trayhern was tall, at least six foot two inches. When she looked into his square face and met his frosty blue eyes, her heart contracted in fear. The narrowed look he was giving her was one she might give an enemy.
Dusting off her hands, she thrust one forward. “Mr. Trayhern? I’m Annie Dazen, pilot in charge of this girl here.” She hooked her thumb over her shoulder at the huge Apache helicopter behind her.
Jason scowled. Annie Dazen wasn’t anything like he’d expected. Standing at five foot nine inches tall, dressed in an olive-green T-shirt and cammo fatigues, she was curvy but clearly in top physical form. Her skin was a deep copper color and her thick black hair lay in one long braid down the middle of her back. But it was her eyes that drew him, melting the glacial reserve that usually protected him. They were a warm golden-brown, and they sparkled with life. The careless smile on her full lips told him she either didn’t know who he was or could put on a helluva good facade. As he gripped her hand, he found her long fingers strong and resilient. He tried to ignore the warmth radiating from her, and gave her hand a perfunctory shake.
“Yeah, I’m Jason Trayhern,” he said abruptly. He released her hand because it felt like fire itself, and saw her smile widen.
“Welcome to the Eagle Warrior Squadron. You’re now part of the 101st Screamin’ Eagle family, and that’s a proud heritage to carry.” Annie gestured around the huge hangar, which held four Apaches in for routine maintenance. “This is our home away from home. You’ll be spending a lot of time down here with us.”
Her voice was like smooth sipping whiskey, and it ruffled his icy armor. “I would expect to,” he said, biting off his words with official coolness. Her hair was coming loose from her braid, and her T-shirt was soaked with sweat. And no wonder. It was eighty-five degrees in here, and the humidity was just as high. He was sweating in his class A uniform, and envied her in the everyday clothing most people wore on the base. He desperately wanted to get out of his uniform.
“Well,” Annie said, “I assume you’ve already talked to Colonel Dugan? Been through the personnel game?” She tried to sound upbeat and glad to see him. Truth be told, Annie wanted to step away from this warrant officer, who was a grade below her in rank. That made her the commanding officer, and he had to follow her orders, not vice versa. Oh, it was true, he was ruggedly handsome, with that square, aggressive chin. She was sure most women would swivel their heads to look at this dude. He was definitely easy on the eyes. Yet Annie could feel his tension, and saw it reflected in his narrowed, darting gaze. A part of her felt sorry for Trayhern, because being new was always a pain in the butt. His mouth was thinned, too, telling her he wasn’t at ease in the situation. Seeing a film of sweat covering his brow just beneath the edge of his beret, she realized he must be very hot in the wool uniform.
“Yeah, I went through those volleys.”
Annie heard the repressed anger in his taut tone of voice. Though he held a black cowhide briefcase in his left hand, there was no question he was in a fighter’s stance. Why? There was no one here to make him feel that guarded or intimidated. Maybe that was the problem, Annie thought. He didn’t trust anyone.
Giving him her best official smile, Annie said, “Well, come with me. I’ll take you to the squadron locker room. We’ll get you squared away with a locker, and in the meantime enjoy the wonderful air-conditioning inside.”
“Sounds good to me.” Jason glanced around. He noticed that nearby crews, three to a helo, were all circumspectly looking at them. He was sure everyone knew that Dazen was getting a new pilot who’d just been transferred in. But did they know about him? The truth, that is? Had his black cloud of bad luck followed him here, too?
As he swung in behind Dazen and followed her across the spotlessly clean concrete floor toward the west flank of the hangar, he realized that this was a spit-and-polish operation. Not that the squadron he’d left hadn’t been, but Jason could spot little things that told the tale. He’d heard that the 101st was a top-notch unit, and now he believed it. The Screamin’ Eagles were the best. He was surprised that he’d been sent here, because normally only the cream of the aviation crop landed here. He hadn’t expected such a plum. When Butler had called him in for new orders, Jason had thought he was going to be relegated to some Army outpost—out of sight, out of mind.
Now he tried to ignore the gentle sway of Dazen’s hips as she walked in front of him. He didn’t want to be drawn to her as a woman. Colonel Dugan had read him the riot act, making it clear that if Jason screwed up here, he was out. Period. A BCD. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? More than anything, Jason wanted to avoid a bad conduct discharge. That black mark would haunt him the rest of his life, he knew. It was wretched enough that he’d been kicked out of Annapolis in his third year. He’d never live that down in a million years, given the military dynasty that was his family heritage.
Grimly, he forced himself to quit thinking about the sordid past. All it did was bring up pain, and that was something he was trying to avoid at all costs. He’d had enough of that to last for ten lifetimes.
Dazen opened a door, and when they stepped inside a narrow passageway, a delicious coolness hit him.
“Whew!” Annie said, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, “what I’d give to have air-conditioning out in that hangar. Southern weather sucks!” And she laughed.
He walked at her shoulder. “You aren’t from the South?”
“Me?” She looked up at him and grinned. “No. I’m a full-blooded Apache from the White River Reservation near Show Low, Arizona. Land of desert, high mountains, low humidity, lakes and thousands of pine trees.” She saw his eyes thaw ever so slightly. “Where do you come from?”
“Hell,” he answered abruptly.
Annie slowed her pace for a second. The passage was empty of people at this time of day. For a moment, she wondered if he was serious. “Is that a polite way of telling me to mind my own business?” She kept her tone light and slightly teasing as she watched him take off his beret and wipe his brow.
“No.” Jason settled the beret back on his head. He refused to be drawn into friendly banter with her. She was his boss. There was an invisible line of demarcation between a junior and senior officer. No matter how much he wanted to respond to her sunny personality, he couldn’t allow it.
“In there is the men’s locker room,” she said, leading him through. “Off-limits to women, but there’re plenty of open lockers available, from what the guys have told me. Just pick one and get the combination lock that’s hanging on it. The combo to open it is written on a piece of paper tied to the lock.”
“Okay.” He looked down at her expectantly. “After getting a locker, what’s next?”
Shrugging, Annie said, “They said they’re putting you up at the B.O.Q. until we ship to Afghanistan. Have you stopped over there to get a room assigned to you yet?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it. Room 202, in case you need to ring me for anything in the future.”
Annie nodded and mentally tucked the number into the back of her mind. “You got wheels?” Nashville, Tennessee, was only sixty miles away and he might have taken the bus down here. Unless he’d driven his car from his last base, in Colorado.
“Yeah, I’ve got wheels.”
“Okay, why don’t you get your locker and head back to the B.O.Q.? Once you change into your work uniform, come on back to the hangar. There’s plenty of indoctrination you need to get up to speed here. I’ll be out there with my crew, so just hunt me up when you return.”
“Yeah, fine. By the way, is there a phone around here I can use? I need to make a call. Maybe in your office?”
“Sure, let me show you where. We’ll be sharing the same office.” She gave him a measured look. “You’ll be spending a lot of time in it, for the next week anyway, familiarizing yourself with our manuals of operation.”
Jason followed her down the passageway. Reaching an intersection, she turned left toward a cluster of ten small offices, five on each side of the corridor. There was a hall window in each, with venetian blinds to keep out prying eyes if the warrants wanted privacy from passersby.
The first office on the left was hers. Annie unlocked it and entered, and when Jason followed, the heavenly coolness enveloped him even more strongly. Automatically, he gave a little sigh of relief as he shut the door behind him.
Annie walked around the metal desk, which was covered with neat piles of papers. She touched the black phone. “If you’re making a long-distance, nonmilitary call, just dial the operator and use a credit card.”
“Got it,” he said, setting his briefcase on the floor next to the desk. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” Annie opened a drawer and drew out a key. “Here, you might as well have this. It’s a key to the office. Just lock it up when you’re done?”
She saw him wrestle with his icy reserve, as if considering whether he could let down his guard. The iciness won out. She saw his eyes harden as he pulled out her chair, took off his garrison cap and sat down. “Yeah, no problem. Thanks, Ms. Dazen.”
She lifted her hand. “I’ll see you later, Mr. Trayhern. Welcome to the Screamin’ Eagles.”
He watched her push open the door and then disappear. Well, that hadn’t gone as badly as he’d thought it might. Maybe Dazen didn’t know of his jaded history. At least he hoped not. Frowning, Jason pulled a credit card from his wallet. It had been a week since his transfer, and he hadn’t called home for a week before that. He was sure his mother would be worried about him by this time. Normally, he called his mom once a week. And every time he did, he hoped his father wasn’t around so he wouldn’t have to speak to him. Jason tried to time his calls for just before lunch hour, knowing his mother would likely be there alone in his family home in Phillipsburg, Montana. His dad always drove home from the office in order to have lunch with her, so Jason tried to call before he arrived. Avoiding his father suited him just fine.
Picking up the phone, he punched in the numbers. Heart beating a little faster in expectation, he gripped the phone in hopes that his mother was there—and alone.
Laura Trayhern had just finished getting her two-year-old into her special kiddie seat at the kitchen table. Kamaria looked up at her now with wide blue-gray eyes and smiled. “Spoon, Mama?”
“Oh, you are such a cute little tyke,” Laura whispered, pressing a kiss to her adopted daughter’s soft black hair, which Laura had just brushed and braided. Reaching toward the counter, Laura retrieved one of the wooden utensils that sat in a yellow ceramic cup next to the range.
“Mama…” Kamaria held up her arms as she approached.
“You are irresistible!” Laura chuckled and gave the child the spoon before she tied a pink terry-cloth bib over her daughter’s purple Barney T-shirt. “There! Okay, wail away and do your musical renditions.” Kamaria liked to beat the spoon against the table in time to whatever music was playing on the small radio perched on top of the refrigerator.
Laura was heading for the fridge when the phone rang. Detouring, she looked back to make sure Kamaria was okay. Strapped in her chair, her fifth child sat quietly, looking around the cedar-paneled kitchen and waving the spoon like a flag. Sunlight poured through the windows, highlighting the gauzy white cotton curtains on either side of the sink.
“Hello? Laura here….”
“Mom?”
“Jason! Oh, I’m so glad you called! Is everything all right? We didn’t hear from you last week.”
“Yeah, I’m fine, Mom. I’m sorry I didn’t phone.”
“Are you all right?” She hastily wiped her hands on a kitchen towel, frowning at the note of trepidation she heard in her son’s voice. Leaning against the counter, she watched Kamaria, who was now beating the spoon against the table in time with a jaunty ragtime song.
“Uh, yeah…fine. Is…Father around?”
Sighing, Laura said, “No. He’s still at Perseus.”
“Oh…good.”
Pain flitted through Laura’s heart. “He loves to hear from you, too, Jason. I wish you’d stop avoiding him. I don’t like having to give him secondhand information from you all the time.”
“Yeah, I know, Mom. Sorry. Maybe someday…”
She knew better than to push her son. He took after her husband, Morgan, in so many ways. Both of them had a stubborn pride that made them unapproachable on certain issues, especially old, oozing wounds that had never healed. She moved to the sink, cradling the phone between her head and shoulder. Picking up a knife, she began to slice an apple for the Waldorf salad she was going to make for lunch. “Well, how goes it? Are you getting a lot of flying hours in? Last I heard, you were unhappy because you weren’t getting them.”
“Yeah…well, Mom, some things have changed. That’s why I didn’t call earlier.”
She held the knife suspended above the apple. “What do you mean, Jason? What’s changed?” The last time he’d used those words, he’d been abruptly transferred out of Fort Rucker to an Apache squadron in Fort Collins, Colorado. Heart sinking, Laura wondered what had happened now. Somehow, Jason’s life was dogged by bad luck. Not that he didn’t bring some of it on himself, she knew. Her son wasn’t perfect, no matter how Morgan wished he were.
“Well, Mom, I’m in a new squadron. The 101st Airborne. How about that? The Screamin’ Eagles. The cradle of Army aviation. I’ve been assigned to the Eagle Warrior Squadron here at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.”
“That’s unexpected, Jason. What happened?” Her voice was low and hesitant. In the back of her mind, Laura knew Morgan would be upset. Unless his military cronies had already called him about this transfer and Morgan hadn’t told her yet. He’d do that, too, because he knew she’d be worried about Jason. Ever since he’d been kicked out of Annapolis, his life had gone from bad to worse.
“I, uh…well, I demanded a transfer and got it.”
“But…you seemed happy with your old squadron.”
“I know….”
“Why, Jason? What happened?” Laura set the knife and apple aside. She turned to keep an eye on Kamaria, who was sucking contentedly on the spoon now that the song had ended.
“I just couldn’t get along with the pilot I was assigned to fly with.”
She heard the frustration in his voice. “But you didn’t get along with the first one, either. That’s two pilots, isn’t it? Jason, what is happening?” She tried to keep the worry out of her voice, but Laura knew it wasn’t working. Gnawing on her lower lip, she felt her heart breaking once more for her son. She was no newbie to the military system. In fact, Laura had been a military writer for decades, and continued to publish articles within high-command military circles. She knew the dope on transfers as well as anyone. And Jason hadn’t been at Fort Collins long enough to ask for—and receive—a transfer unless something had gone terribly wrong.
“I just didn’t get along with them, Mom. That’s all.”
Laura heard the steely defensiveness in her son’s deep voice. Once more he was putting up walls to keep her out. “And they let you transfer? Again?” Laura knew the service would not tolerate something like this for long. She was surprised he’d gotten a transfer at all. And she knew he wasn’t telling her the whole truth. Jason was hedging. He always did when the news wasn’t good.
“Yeah, they did. Things look good, though. You’ll never guess who I’ve been assigned to.”
Hearing the hope in his voice, Laura smiled softly. “Tell me.”
“I’ll be flying with a female pilot, Mom. CWO2 Annie Dazen is her name. She’s a full-blood Apache from Arizona. How about that? She’s one of a handful of women who have ever made it through Apache school, and she was at the top of her class, from what Colonel Dugan told me. He’s my C.O. now, by the way.”
“A woman. Well, maybe you can get along with her?” Laura chuckled, and she heard Jason give a strained laugh. Her heart lifted. Oh, how she wanted him to have good things happen!
“I’m going to try,” Jason said, becoming serious once more. “I’m assigned to the B.O.Q. right now. That’s temporary. I want to give you Dazen’s phone number, because her office is my office, in case you need to reach me. You got a paper and pen?”
Laura turned and pulled out a small plastic box that sat next to the wall phone. “Yeah, go ahead, honey.” Taking out an index card, she wrote down the number he gave her.
“I’ll be in touch, Mom. I’ll call you next week, okay?”
“Okay. You sound good, Jason. Better than I’ve heard you sound in the last year.”
“Maybe this new pilot will be good for me.”
“Do you like her?”
“I don’t dislike her. She was real friendly and warm toward me when we met.”
“Do you think she knows about your past?”
“I don’t know. If she does, she isn’t showing it. At least, not yet. But we just made intros, so I really don’t know.”
“What does she look like? Is she married? Have kids?” Nowadays, the Army was family. Back in the sixties, most people in the service had been single. Now it was made up of married couples and families—a huge change for the military to adjust to.
Jason laughed. “I haven’t a clue. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but in our business, we don’t wear jewelry when we fly.”
“Well, find out, okay?”
“Mom, you are so nosy sometimes!”
She laughed a little. Kamaria waved the spoon and Laura lifted her hand and waved back. “I’m a woman, dear, and those things are important to us. What does Ms. Dazen look like? You said she was Indian?”
“Yeah, she’s tall and well proportioned, from what I can see. She probably lifts weights. There’s no fat on her. But she isn’t a twig, either. There’s some meat to her bones.”
“Black hair? Copper skin?”
“Yeah, that, too. Nice eyes.”
Laura heard his tone of voice thaw a little. Her heart thumped with hope. Oh, please, God, let Jason get along with this woman. Let there be peace, not war between them.
“What color? Brown?”
“Golden color, really. I can see her pupils in them. She has large, alert eyes, Mom. In some ways, she reminds me of an owl. Not because of the shape of her eyes, but that gold-yellow color. Remember that great horned owl that used to nest in the pine trees on the east side of our home?”
“Oh, Miss Lucy. Sure.” Laura had named the huge brown-and-white owl that used to roost high above their two-story cedar home in the woods.
“Eyes like that. Pretty.”
“Sounds as if you like her already.”
“Well…I wouldn’t go that far, Mom. She’s okay. She’s friendly and seems to want to make me feel at home.”
“That’s a good sign.”
“Yeah, maybe. It will probably all change when she finds out about my infamous past.”
Laura hurt for her son. She knew that gossip followed everyone in the military like a curse. Sooner or later, Dazen would find out about Jason’s shameful history. Gripping the phone a little more tightly, she whispered, “Well, maybe Ms. Dazen isn’t going to hold it against you.”
Sighing, Jason said, “I’ll find out, that’s for sure.”
“Do you need anything, honey?”
“No, just to hear your voice. It reminds me of home.”
Laura closed her eyes. Jason loved being home. He loved living in Montana. He loved working with plants and animals. In high school, he’d excelled in biology. But Morgan had wanted him to go to a military academy to carry on the proud, two-hundred-year-plus tradition of the Trayhern family. Since Jason was the oldest male he was expected to go into the military. Laura knew he really hadn’t wanted to. Instead, he had wanted to become an ecologist and work outdoors, somewhere in nature. But that wasn’t to be.
“Well, you can come home on leave, son. Your bedroom is unchanged from the day you left it.” Laura knew Jason would never come home, not until he healed the rift with Morgan. Jason always spent his thirty days of leave overseas, instead. It had been nearly three years since Laura had even seen her son—not since the Five Days of Christmas party right after his first year in Annapolis.
“Yeah, I know, Mom. I should come home…but, well, you know how it is.”
“I know…”
“Listen, I gotta run. I’ll be in touch next week. Love you. Say hi to Pete and Kelly, and give little Kamaria a hug from me?”
Tears burned in Laura’s eyes. She cleared her throat and whispered, “I always do, honey.”
“And how’s Katy? What have you heard from her?”
Laura knew it hurt Jason that his younger sister, two years behind him in age, had taken up the family honor and volunteered to go to the Academy to represent them. Before Jason left, he’d been very close to Katy.
“She’s doing fine, honey. She’s flying Seahawk down in Columbia for the Black Ops stuff.”
“Just like Dad….”
Laura heard the grimness in Jason’s tone. Morgan had been a Marine. Jason was supposed to have taken the same route, but hadn’t, due to the scandal. “Yes, she’s following him into the Corps.”
“I see…. Well, I gotta go, Mom….”
“Take care of yourself? We love you….”
Just as Laura hung up, the front door opened and then quietly closed. That would be her husband, Morgan, coming home for lunch. She tucked the notecard with Jason’s office number on it into her apron pocket. Morgan came through the entryway, wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt and tan chinos, and still looking every inch a Marine with his military-short black hair, which had gone gray at the temples. Her husband was one of the most powerful men in the world when it came to espionage. His company worked beneath the auspices of the CIA, and Laura was proud of Morgan’s ability to help people around the world get out of trouble.
Today, though, she saw he was worried. His square face and gray eyes looked tight with tension. She walked up to him and placed a kiss on his cheek. “You look awful, darling. What’s wrong? Is a mission going bad?”
Morgan bussed his wife’s velvet cheek, inhaling the faint jasmine fragrance she wore. Placing his hand on her waist, he pressed her against him for a moment.
“No, not a mercenary mission,” he answered. Releasing her, he made his way to the table where Kamaria sat. The little girl twisted toward him, a smile of unabashed welcome on her face. Leaning over, Morgan placed a kiss on his daughter’s pink cheek.
“How’s our little musician doing?” he asked, turning to Laura as he rested his hand upon Kamaria’s tiny shoulders.
Laura pulled a turkey-and-cheese casserole out of the oven and placed it on a pot holder in the middle of the maple table. Immediately a delicious smell filled the air. “Beating along in rhythm with whatever comes on the radio. Her hair is long enough to braid now. With the temperature so warm today, I thought she might like to have it up off her neck. Do you like it? Come and sit down. Everything’s ready to eat.”
Morgan sat at the end of the table next to Kamaria. “Yeah, she looks cute in braids. Umm, that smells good. Turkey casserole?” He enjoyed being with his wife and daughter for lunch every day. Eyeing Laura, who was wearing jeans and a pink tank top, he admired her figure. His wife had carried four of their children. She was in her forties, and looked more beautiful to him than ever. Her waist was not as small as it used to be, but then, she was a mother. To him, she was still the special woman he’d met so many years earlier at an airport near Washington, D.C.
Kamaria thumped his arm with the spoon. He grinned and wiped her mouth and chin with his napkin, mopping up the drool that was soaking her T-shirt at the collar.
Laura placed the Waldorf salad in front of him, then put a portion of casserole on a plastic plate in front of their daughter.
When Laura sat down, Morgan gently placed the fork in the toddler’s small hand to show her how to hold it properly. The daily lessons were slowly having an impact. Kamaria waved the fork around before plunging it like an airplane into the casserole in front of her.
Laura finished serving and said, “Why are you looking so upset? I can see it in your eyes.”
Grimacing, Morgan said, “I can’t hide a thing from you anymore, can I?”
“Not after all these years of marriage, darling.”
“I’ll tell you after lunch. Let’s enjoy the time we have now.”
Nodding, Laura acquiesced, filling him with relief. Since the terror his family had suffered during a kidnapping by drug lords years ago, Morgan knew he couldn’t protect them from everything, and that ate at him. The kidnapping had been the druggies’ way of paying back Morgan for disrupting their cocaine trafficking out of the Caribbean and South America. He shuddered as he remembered how he, Laura and Jason had been taken to different parts of the world and held without ransom.
Morgan had felt so powerless. Once they’d been rescued and brought back together, Morgan had moved his family out of Washington, D.C., to the protective mountains of Montana.
Since then, he’d done everything in his power to keep his family safe. He had taken Perseus deep underground. To this day, no one except high-echelon members of the CIA and top-ranking military personnel knew the whereabouts of his supersecret organization. And since that time, Morgan valued and cherished moments with his family as never before. But whenever he was faced with a new trial, he couldn’t help but think of the emotional impact of the kidnapping on his family. Especially Jason, who had been six years old at the time. Jason didn’t trust anyone anymore, least of all his father, who had been unable to keep him safe in a world gone bad. And Morgan, no matter how he tried, could not repair that terrible rift that lay like the Grand Canyon between them. Over the years, it had driven them further and further apart, until Jason refused to talk to his father, even though Morgan tried often to reestablish connection with him.
As she ate her salad, Laura watched Morgan guide a spoonful of casserole into Kamaria’s bow-shaped mouth. Laura’s heart swelled with joy. Little Kamaria had been found in the rubble of a Southern California earthquake she herself had been caught in. While Laura was recovering in the hospital at Camp Reed, she had helped take care of Kamaria. When she’d discovered that the little girl had been orphaned by the quake, Morgan had agreed with her request to adopt her. Morgan liked the name of his sister and mother for the baby. Laura liked Kamaria. She ended up with a huge name of Rachel Alyssa Kamaria Trayhern.
Laura knew having a baby in the house again had been very healing, especially to Morgan, who had never had this kind of relationship with his two eldest children, Jason and Katy. Now he was devoting quality time to Pete and Kelly, their fraternal twins, and Kamaria. Laura knew he took parenting very seriously and was trying to make up for all the mistakes he believed he had made with their first two children.
Even now, as Morgan smiled at Kamaria, he turned to his wife and said, “I wish I knew then what I know now.” His voice was low with pain, and Laura felt for him. “What if I’d spent this kind of time with Jason? Would things be different now?”
Laura reached over, taking his hand to comfort him, all the while wondering if he already knew about Jason’s transfer, and if he didn’t, how he would react when he found out….
Chapter 3
After lunch, Morgan stood with Laura in the backyard, watching as Kamaria happily played in her sandbox with a red plastic pail and scoop. The dappled sunlight felt good, and he slid his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I didn’t want to spoil our lunch,” he began. His mouth flexed and in a lower tone he added, “I have some bad news about Jason.”
Knowing what was to come, Laura leaned against his tall, strong frame, studying the darkness in his gray eyes.
Sighing, Morgan closed his hand around her right shoulder. “You know Red Dugan? The C.O. of the Eagle Warrior Apache Squadron with the 101st Airborne? I think you met him at that military convention in D.C. last year. Anyway, I got a call from him today. He told me that Jason had been transferred to his squadron at Fort Campbell. Dugan told me on the q.t. that Jason literally got kicked out of his old squadron. He has a personality problem, Laura. Pilots on two different Apaches asked for him to be transferred to another team. That kid is causing nothing but trouble no matter where he goes.”
Trying to wrestle with his anger, frustration and shame over his son’s actions, Morgan continued, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this.”
Laura looked up at her husband. Although little Kamaria was only two years old and wouldn’t understand adult problems, Laura kept her voice low to protect her from the discussion that was to come.
“Synchronicity strikes again, Morgan. I was going to tell you once lunch was over that I just got a call from Jason.” She saw surprise flicker in his eyes before they narrowed with pain. Her heart ached for him. “I didn’t want to tell you earlier and ruin your lunch. I know how upsetting this is for you. Jason never wants to talk to you, and tries to time his calls to when you aren’t around.” She shrugged helplessly. “I was going to tell you now, but you beat me to it.”
Raking the fingers of his free hand through his hair, Morgan gave a jerky nod. He walked on across the wide green yard, with Laura at his side. “I swear that kid is hell-bent on self-destruction. I don’t know what to do to stop him.” He turned to his wife, who seemed so small next to him. She was petite, yet strong in ways he never would be. “Red told me in no uncertain terms that this is Jason’s last chance. If he can’t get along with the new pilot assigned to him now, then he’s out—with a bad conduct discharge.”
“Oh, God,” Laura whispered, pressing her fingers against her lips. “When he called earlier he never mentioned anything about that.”
“Of course he wouldn’t. He evades, Laura. He never tells either of us the whole story. We only get it piecemeal from my friends at the Pentagon. If not for them, we wouldn’t have a clue.”
“Well…he sounded good, Morgan. He really did. Even hopeful. And he was more open than usual. He’s been assigned to a female helo pilot—one of the few women currently flying the combat birds in the U.S. military. Jason said he likes her. Well, he didn’t go that far, but he sounded more hopeful than I’ve heard him sound since he joined the Army two years ago.” She reached out and slid her fingers down Morgan’s arm.
Feeling anguished, Morgan groped for Laura’s slender, warm fingers and gently wrapped his around them. Looking over her head, he saw Kamaria toddling around in the sand, waving the red scoop in her right hand, the pail in her left. One of their cats, a calico by the name of Tortie Girl, was walking in front of her, tail held high, as if to tease his daughter. The look of joy on Kamaria’s face as she gently reached out to touch Tortie Girl’s tail with the red shovel made him feel a little better. Kamaria smiled more than any of his other children. But then, Morgan reminded himself, she hadn’t suffered the strain of his parenting during the difficult times in his past. With a sigh, he hoped he was a changed man and that his youngest daughter would grow up without that stress affecting her.
“What else did he say?” Morgan murmured, looking at Laura once more. It hurt to know that Jason never wanted to talk with him. But why should he? They were icy cold with one another and the conversation always ended up with Morgan berating Jason. He knew he shouldn’t, but he didn’t know how else to handle his troubled son.
Laura slid her arm around her husband’s waist and leaned her head against his shoulder. The warm summer breeze was wonderful, the scent of the pines a balm for how she felt right now. She shared the rest of her conversation with Jason with Morgan, as she always did. Her heart ached when she saw the worry and frustration in his eyes as she stood with him at the far corner of the fenced yard.
“Did Red say anything about Chief Annie Dazen?” she asked when she was done. “That’s who Jason’s assigned to.”
Shaking his head, Morgan muttered, “No. He did say that he was giving Jason the very best chance he could by putting him with the top pilot in their squadron. And I owe Dugan for that.”
“He’s doing this because of you, Morgan. Everyone in the U.S. military respects you, no matter what service they’re in.”
“I guess so,” he mumbled, “Red told me that. And I thanked him.”
“A BCD? Oh, God, Morgan, I hope Jason turns around. He’s been in a downward spiral ever since being kicked out of Annapolis.”
“He’s angry.” Morgan’s mouth flattened as he looked sightlessly at the mountain that rose in front of them, hundreds of fragrant pine trees blanketed the slope, standing at attention like green guardians. “He’s angry at me. Probably doesn’t trust me after what happened when he was six. He’s carried that anger ever since the kidnapping. I know where it’s coming from.” Shaking his head, Morgan rasped unsteadily, “I screwed up so badly when he was young….”
“Shh,” Laura whispered. She turned and placed her hands on his upper arms, giving him a slight shake. “Listen to me, darling. You did the best you could. I was concerned about our high visibility in the Washington, D.C. community back then. And yes, we did talk about moving, or at least keeping our address secret. We just didn’t do it soon enough.”
Miserably, Morgan looked down at her. “I should have listened when you first suggested the move. So much bad came out of the kidnapping…for everyone….” He lifted a strand of her shoulder-length blond hair and gently placed it behind her ear. Laura had also been kidnapped, and raped repeatedly by the drug lord, who was trying to get even with Morgan for his efforts to disrupt his billion-dollar drug trade. His wife had spent years in therapy, climbing out of the hell that experience had left her in, and it had forever affected her—and him—as a result. Morgan now realized that when a woman was raped, a part of her was murdered, never to return. In an alarming way, the drug lords continued to get even with him to this day for his arrogant belief that no one would dare to harm his family. He had been so terribly wrong in his assessment of their safety back then.
“Jason is still paying a price for my bad judgment. My arrogance. I don’t blame him for being angry with me, Laura. I just wish like hell he’d quit rebelling against the world because of it. It’s me he wants to get at.”
Tears stung Laura’s eyes as she searched her husband’s gaze, which was filled with pain. She could see he wanted to cry, but Morgan never cried. He was a warrior from a dynasty of warriors who had served their country faithfully and fully. Tears were not an option for him, no matter what. If only Morgan could cry and release some of that pain that never left him. Laura always found release from crying. It was like a storm moving through her, cleansing her of ugly feelings. Afterward, she always felt lighter, cleaner, and relieved of the burdens that had made her weep.
“Listen to me, Morgan. Jason got the best psychiatric counseling we could give him. We did all we could to undo the damage done to him by that drug lord over in Hawaii.” Sliding her hand against his face, she whispered, “All we can do is love him and be there for him, darling. This is painful for everyone. We’re all hurting, and it hasn’t gotten any easier as he’s grown older.”
A groan broke from Morgan’s tight lips when he saw tears brimming in Laura’s eyes. Threading his fingers through her hair and taming the strands tossed by the breeze, he said, “Let’s hope that Annie Dazen is a guardian angel for him, because it’s Jason’s last stop on this downward spiral. If he gets a BCD…well, I don’t know what will happen to him. No corporation will want him. No one will hire him. It’s a black mark on him for life.”
Nodding, Laura said, “Yes, let’s hope Annie can pull a rabbit out of the hat for all of us.” Morgan himself had been marked as a traitor to his country, she reflected. And yet, in time, he had managed to clear his name. A BCD, however, was different. She hoped it didn’t happen—hoped her son’s life wouldn’t be marked forever.
“Let’s get to work, Mr. Trayhern,” Annie said when she saw her new copilot come through the door at the side of the hangar. Dressed in his flight uniform, he walked proudly, with his broad shoulders squared and his chin lifted almost arrogantly. At 1500, the temperature was nearing ninety and the humidity made the air feel like a soaked sponge. She had changed into her one-piece flight suit, and had her helmet sitting on the fuselage skirt.
“You look like you’re ready to go up.” Jason saw her slightly tilted eyes sparkle with mischief above her high cheekbones, her full mouth slightly curved in one corner.
“Yes, we are. You got your helmet with you?”
He halted before her in the busy hangar. “It’s in my locker. I, uh, didn’t think—”
“Go get it and meet me out on the apron.” Annie turned and called over to her crew chief to get the helo pushed out of the hangar so they could fly it. As she twisted to glance across her shoulder, she saw Trayhern stand uncertainly for a moment, a confused scowl on his features.
“Problems?” she demanded.
“No.” Jason studied her face, which was now dead serious. As nice as Ms. Dazen had been upon first meeting, she was all business now. Turning, he hurried back across the hangar toward the locker room.
A short while later, Annie stood beside the bird as her crew prepared it for takeoff. She looked up at the light blue sky, which was filling with cumulus clouds, and surmised that a storm could result around 1600. Sweat trickled down her rib cage and she turned to see Trayhern trotting out of the hangar.
She was pleased to see that he took her request that they fly now seriously. There was a guarded look on his face and that was fine with her. Colonel Dugan had said to test him immediately on his flight capabilities. The colonel wanted to know just how good—or bad—Jason Trayhern was behind the stick of a helo. And so did she.
As he came up, Annie introduced him to her three-person flight crew. To her relief, he shook hands and murmured words of greeting to each. At least he had some sense of civility.
When he moved to where she stood near the step on the side of the Apache fuselage, Annie pulled on her fire-retardant flight gloves. “You get the lower cockpit.” Since she was pilot in charge, she could choose to sit in either spot. She preferred the upper cockpit because it gave her more visibility.
“I need the upper one,” he replied. “I fly better in that position.”
Hearing the steel in his tone, she smiled crookedly. “Do you always get what you want, Mr. Trayhern?” He was trying to intimidate her. On purpose? Or was it just his warrior attitude?
“Usually.” He saw the challenging glint in her eyes as they narrowed speculatively upon him. Annie was three inches shorter, but with her proud carriage and bearing, he could swear she was his height. Maybe it was her cocky Apache pilot stance. No one flew this combat bird who wasn’t an aggressive type A personality, someone who lived for confrontation.
“Not today, Mr. Trayhern. Now, climb up.” As she motioned to the dark green metal shield that covered one of the wheels of the helo, she saw him frown. This was the first test: would he take orders from a woman? Standing relaxed, she watched what looked like anger move across his face. Did Trayhern know how easy he was to read? He put the helmet on his head and fastened the strap beneath his square chin. She saw a couple of small scars on his smoothly shaved jaw. Had someone picked a fight with this guy? More than likely.
She watched as he put one black flight boot onto the first rung and hoisted himself upward. The cockpit Plexiglas opened on one side only. Just above it, less than a foot away, were the four blades of the bird. She watched as he expertly slid in and squeezed himself into the narrow confines of the front, lower cockpit. Spec 2 Bobby Warner, one of the mechanics on her crew, climbed up and knelt beside him, quickly helping Trayhern with the array of harnesses that had to be put on and locked securely into place. Once Warner was done, he turned and grinned down at her.
“Ready for you, ma’am.” Then he stood up and moved to the end of the skirt so she could ascend.
“Excellent, Warner. Thanks.” Annie threw her helmet to him and then quickly climbed into the upper cockpit. This was home to her. She slid down onto the seat, the two HUDs—heads-up displays—in front of her. Each cockpit had the exact same equipment, so if one pilot was incapacitated the other could take over flying and get them home safely.
Warner handed her the helmet.
“Thanks,” Annie murmured. Within moments, she was strapped in and ready to go. Plugging the cord from her helmet into the radio receptacle, she switched to intercabin intercom.
“You read me, Mr. Trayhern? Over.”
“Read you loud and clear, Ms. Dazen.”
“Good.” Annie looked over and gave Warner a thumbs-up. Below, standing near the nose of the helo, where Annie could see her, was her crew chief. Kat stood with a pair of earphones on, the phone jack plugged into a side panel of the Apache. She would be responsible for starting of the bird.
“Okay, Kat, let’s get this show on the road,” Annie murmured. She nodded to Warner and gave him the signal to shut and lock each of the cockpits. Excitement thrummed through her. Flying was like breathing to Annie. Her adrenaline surged as soon as she felt the whine of the twin engines. Below, she saw her crew scurrying about efficiently. Kat gave a thumbs-up and Annie pressed the mike close to her lips.
“Okay, Mr. Trayhern, this flight is all yours. Power up.”
Annie pulled a clipboard from a side pocket of the cockpit and placed it across her knees. Before she had been assigned with the 101st, she’d been a flight trainer. The clipboard held a list of all the maneuvers she was going to put him through and grade him on. He didn’t know, of course, that she’d been an inspector pilot. Annie wanted him to be as relaxed as possible on this flight. There wasn’t a pilot alive that didn’t tense up and screw up when an IP was in the cockpit, grading him or her. Annie wanted to give Trayhern a chance.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She smiled to herself. Trayhern had clearly dropped the anger she had seen in him on the tarmac, and was all business now. That was good. She heard him communicate with Kat Lakey on the ground. The blessed flow of air-conditioning began just then and Annie sighed in relief, because the cockpit was like a sauna until the cool air got turned on. Sweat dribbled down her left temple and she swiped it away.
When the Apache’s first engine started, the familiar high, shrieking whine began. The second engine came on next, and Annie saw Kat pull out the intercom cord and lock the panel down. Then the crew chief backed off and lifted her arm straight up, twirling her fingers, which was a signal for Trayhern to engage the blades.
The shuddering started. Annie absorbed it like a lover. The Apache was the most feared combat helicopter in the world. To her, it was like a dinosaur, ugly as sin, but lethal. When the blades started slowly turning around and around, she felt lulled, like a child cradled by its mother. There was something comforting and soothing about the shaking that went on as the blades whirled faster and faster.
She heard Jason call into the tower at Ops for takeoff permission. Once it was granted, she saw Lakey duck beneath the carriage to remove the chocks from behind and in front of the wheels. Once the crew chief was clear, Annie heard Trayhern’s deep, unruffled voice in her headset. “Ready for liftoff, Ms. Dazen?”
“Yes, I am, Mr. Trayhern. Let’s fly….”
Annie held the pen in her right hand, the clipboard across her thighs as the Apache lifted smoothly from the ground. She talked him through the air corridors flight pattern that every helo had to follow when taking off from the base. Once they were out over the countryside, the flat plains of Kentucky changed to gentle, rolling hills, a landscape of green, as they flew across the state boundary into Tennessee. The massive Army base sprawled across the state line, part in Tennessee, but the bulk of it in Kentucky, where ninety-three thousand acres had been set aside for flight training and firing ranges.
At this time of day, flying was often rough, and Annie was jostled continuously as the helo hit air pocket after air pocket. As the summer sun beat down on the earth, thermals rising off the hills created unstable conditions that made flying a challenge.
“I remember this,” Jason said, feeling the collective and cyclic in his hands. It felt good to be flying again. They were at five thousand feet and heading to a restricted air space where they could fly maneuvers without hitting a civilian plane.
“What? The thermals?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. He’d been nervous, but the comforting shudder of the helo had taken his anxiety away. “We all went through Apache training school in Alabama. I remember I always got afternoon flights, when the humidity was at its highest. It wasn’t fun at first. My lunch was always comin’ up. Flying out of this base reminds me of afternoon flights at Fort Rucker.” Southern states in the U.S. always got high humidity coming in off the Gulf. At Fort Collins, Colorado, the air was much drier, making it easier to fly.
Chuckling, Annie looked around the sunny cockpit, then drew down the dark visor on her helmet. “Oh, yeah, bag time. How long ago did you last eat?”
He laughed shortly. “Bag time” meant throwing up during flight, into a red plastic bag that was stored in the right pocket of every cockpit. “Not to worry this time around. I learned a long time ago to eat lightly at lunch.”
“Fill a few, did you?”
“A couple. You?”
“Nah. Indians don’t get airsick.”
Smiling slightly, Jason found himself curious about her Native American background. “I see….”
“In all honesty,” Annie told him, “I had two hundred flight hours in helicopters before I came into the Army. And I was kidding about Indians not getting airsick. We’re human just like everyone else.”
“I’ve never flown with an Indian before. I guess it’s something I’ll have to get used to.” Well, that didn’t come out right, did it? He cringed over his spontaneous choice of words. It was one of his problems: foot-in-mouth disease.
“Now, should I take that comment as an insult or a compliment?”
Jason frowned, his gaze flying across the cockpit dials. “No, it’s me not thinking,” he said abruptly.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my brain.”
“Does it happen often?”
“Pretty much. And I apologize.”
She heard him almost choking on his words. Was it because he didn’t say he was sorry very often? Or was he genuinely trying to get along with her but fumbling it? Annie chose to believe the latter, not wanting to think that he was prejudiced on top of everything else. After all, this was his first day in a new squadron with a new air commander. He had to be nervous.
“You don’t know much about Native American culture, do you?”
“No…hardly anything. You’re the first person I’ve even run into that was Indian.”
“I see….” The helo jostled and dropped a good ten feet when it hit a huge air pocket. Annie smiled as she felt Trayhern adjust and stabilize the bird.
“We moved around a lot when I was a kid. I didn’t get to know anyone too well,” he told her.
“Typical military brat?”
“Yeah, kinda…”
“Not me. I was born on the White River Apache Reservation in Arizona and never left until I joined the Army after high school.”
“I’ve never been to Arizona.”
“It’s dry and hot. Not like this place. Fort Campbell reminds me of a sponge. I can hardly wait to get to Afghanistan. It’s hot and dry there like it is on my res. I’ll feel right at home in that desert environment.”
“Weather is the least of my problems.”
Annie thought it was an odd statement, but said nothing. “Okay, Cowboy, take this bird to ten thousand feet. Now.” She smiled at the nickname she’d spontaneously given him. He reminded her of an Old West cowboy—stoic, rough, a little rusty on social protocols, but heroic just the same. If he took umbrage with the new handle she’d given him, he didn’t say anything. All pilots had a nickname they were usually called by instead of their real name.
Jason powered up both engines, and the thumping of the Apache’s blades deepened. In seconds, the helo was clawing upward, the pressure of the climb pressing Annie against her seat. From ten thousand feet, the carpet of trees looked like lumpy green cottage cheese below them. They were safely within the restricted airspace, and she looked at her HUD to make sure no other aircraft was in the vicinity. Usually, at this time of day, few were flying because of the nasty up-and downdrafts created by the sun’s heating of the earth.
“Okay, nice going, Mr. Trayhern.” Annie leaned forward and shut off both engines. “You are now without power. Get this bird down in one piece.” She heard him gasp once, but that was all. Instantly, the Apache fell, nose first. Without his quick intercession, the bird would have continued to plummet. Trayhern clearly knew what to do. He stabilized the helicopter, using the flailing blades that still whirled above them despite the lack of engine power. An experienced pilot could use the air as a cushion, and the blades as helping hands, to get a chopper down in one piece. As they plummeted closer and closer to the earth, Annie was pleased to see Trayhern moving the wallowing helo toward a small meadow off to the right. That would be where he’d try an emergency landing.
Jason wrestled with the Apache. The last thing he’d ever thought he’d be doing was attempting a dead-stick landing. She’d cut the engines! Just like that! What the hell was she thinking? His anger surged, then receded as he jockeyed the sluggish bird toward the meadow, which was coming up very quickly.
Annie braced herself. At one thousand feet, Trayhern pointed the nose downward. The earth came rushing up fast. At five hundred feet he suddenly eased back on the stick, raising the nose abruptly. The whirling blades caught the cushion of air once more. At the last moment, he steadied the Apache. They hit the knoll with a thud and then rolled forward through the grass, finally coming to a stop.
Annie’s teeth unclenched. They were down, the blades spinning slowly around and around. As she relaxed her jaw, she heard Trayhern breathing hard in her earphones. Placing a checkmark in the emergency landing box, she said, “We’re in one piece. That’s good, Mr. Trayhern. Now take her up again.”
Jason suddenly realized she was testing him, and the fact made him angry and frightened. What if he had screwed up? Well, he hadn’t on the emergency landing. He flipped on the engine switches, the familiar hum and whine filling the cockpit once more. He busied himself with getting the bird airborne again. Once he had climbed to five thousand feet, he wiped the sweat off his brow. Pulling the dark visor down across his upper face, he pressed the microphone near his lips.
“Why didn’t you tell me this was a damn flight test?”
“Why should I?”
“Because I have a right to know.”
“No, you don’t. You’re my copilot, Mr. Trayhern. In thirty days, our collective ass will be on the line over in Afghanistan. I want to make very sure that I’m flying with someone I can trust. Now, get this bird up to ten thousand again. Please.”
Grinding his teeth, Jason did as she ordered. None of the other pilots he’d been assigned to had done this to him. It was automatically assumed he was good or he wouldn’t be in an Apache squadron.
“What’s this all about, Ms. Dazen? Why am I being tested like a rookie?”
“I test any pilot I fly with like this, so you’re not being singled out, Mr. Trayhern.”
“I don’t believe you. There’s more to it.” He looked around at the hazy afternoon sky, his mind clicking on possibilities. Then he tightened his hands around the collective and cyclic, his nostrils flaring. “I know why.”
Annie said nothing. She wanted to see how he handled himself when he was upset. Good pilots disconnected from their emotions when flying, Otherwise, when in combat, the spurt of adrenaline could kill them, caught up as they were in the life-and-death drama of war. And Annie wanted to know now whether he had the necessary detachment to think through the adrenaline rush and haze of fear. So far, so good.
Jason waited. She remained silent. Damn her. All of a sudden he wasn’t feeling very kindly at all toward Ms. Dazen. She might have a killer smile that made a man feel all warm and good inside, but that was only frosting.
“You know who I am,” he said through gritted teeth. “You know I got kicked out of Annapolis on drug charges. You also know that I’ve been booted out of my previous squadron into this one. And this is my last chance to make it or break it. You know everything about me. That’s why you’re testing me like this.”
“If you were in my seat, wouldn’t you do the same thing?”
Her voice was cool and without emotion.
Jason sat there, his gaze flicking across the dials. The Apache soothed some of his rage, some of his fear. But not all of it. “Yeah, maybe I would. If I got handed a black cloud of a pilot who could never say or do the right thing, or do whatever the hell else was expected, I’d be gun-shy, too.”
Heart twinging, Annie felt his pain. Oh, the anger, the rage was there, no doubt. He wasn’t going to be civil about this. At least, not up here in the cockpit.
“There’s a saying back where I come from,” she said quietly. “It’s better that a rattlesnake rattle its tail in warning than let you step on it and get bitten.”
Stymied, Jason took a deep breath. He was sweating big-time now, the armpits of his flight suit soaked. The air-conditioning cooled the cabin, but he was perspiring for other reasons. “And I suppose I’m a snake?” he rasped. He didn’t like mind games.
“You’re missing the point, Mr. Trayhern. I’d rather deal with someone up front, with or without diplomacy, than have them sneak around behind my back to bite me.”
Sitting there, Jason found his mind reeling. “You think I’m going to bite you?”
“Would you?”
“The last two pilots sneaked behind my back and bitched to the C.O. about me. They never faced me and told me they had a problem with me.”
“Well,” Annie said, “that won’t happen here.”
“You’re a damn IP, aren’t you?”
The words were thrown like a gauntlet. Annie lifted her head. From her position in the upper cockpit, she could see Jason Trayhern’s helmet and shoulders below her. She could see he was gripping the cyclic and collective hard, obviously upset.
“Yes, I am.”
His stomach clenched. His heart sank. This was a test—the whole damn flight. What had happened to that pleasant-looking woman he’d met in the hangar? Jason had found himself drawn to her, rightly or wrongly. Her golden eyes, slightly tilted, were so huge and beautiful that he’d imagined he could see sunlight dappling them, like light dancing across the rippled surface of a lake.
“And you’re out to flunk me, aren’t you? Orders from above? From Colonel Dugan? He doesn’t want Bad Luck Trayhern in his squadron, so he’s sent you to do his dirty work. Flunk me out on this flight, and that’s all the reason he needs to give me a BCD outta this man’s Army.”
Stunned by his accusations, Annie said nothing for a long moment. “Mr. Trayhern, you are paranoid. No one has it in for you here, except maybe yourself.”
“You know I got kicked out of Annapolis.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’ve already formed an opinion of me.”
“No, I haven’t, but you’re trying hard to make me do so now, and I don’t like it.”
Setting the cyclic and collective on autopilot, Jason shoved up the dark shield and shakily wiped the sweat off his brow again. Jerking the visor back down, he rested his left arm against the console and gripped the controls again. He flicked off the autopilot and took over flying once more.
“Are you saying you haven’t already formed an opinion of me, Ms. Dazen?” Jason found that very hard to believe. Trying to control his breathing, he waited for her answer.
“I have another saying, Mr. Trayhern. We don’t judge a person unless we’ve walked a mile in his or her moccasins. Now, I don’t know what went on at Annapolis. Frankly, I haven’t heard much about it. I do know you were caught in a drug ring, but that you were never formerly accused of doing drugs or selling them. I hope you aren’t doing drugs, because if you are, I’ll find out and you’re outta here, anyway.”
“I didn’t do drugs,” Jason snarled. “Now or then. So relax on that one, will you?”
“As I understand it, you can be asked for a urine sample at any time, Mr. Trayhern.”
“That’s right. I signed on in the Army with that agreement. They can test me until they’re blue in the face, and they won’t find me dirty. I’ve passed twenty tests in the last two years. But you probably know that already.”
Annie said, “I let a person walk their talk, Mr. Trayhern. That means that your daily interface with me and my crew is what counts. We’re rated top pilot and top crew here in the squadron. I want that to continue.”
“And you think by being saddled with me, you won’t be?”
“Dude, you are defensive! Did I say that? Did I say anything like that?” Annie chuckled. “I told you before, you will prove who and what you are on a daily basis around here. Your past doesn’t count with me, Trayhern. But your present sure as hell does. Do you understand?”
Jason closed his eyes for a moment. He heard her husky words flow over him like a calming blanket. “Yeah, I hear you.” But could he trust her to do that? Or was Annie Dazen like the other pilots who had screwed him? Just waiting to catch him making a mistake so they could run screaming to the C.O. and nail him? Only time would tell.
Chapter 4
“We need to talk—privately.” Annie kept her voice low and firm, brooking no argument from Trayhern, who only furrowed his broad brow, his eyebrows drawn down in a V.
Gripping his helmet, Jason nodded curtly, walking beside her toward their office in the hangar. Humiliated because he had felt the eyes of her crew on him as they got the bird’s blades tied down and chocks around the three wheels, he ground his teeth. For two hours she’d grilled him in the air, making him feel like a child. Jason wanted to dislike Annie. But he couldn’t and he didn’t know why. Had it been her whiskey-smooth voice in the earphones of his helmet? Her pointed questions about his ability to trust? The answer escaped him and he kept his silence, studying her profile. Her hair was in disarray now that she’d taken off her helmet, and flyaway black strands glinted with reddish highlights in the sun.
Once inside the air-conditioned office, Jason dropped his helmet into one of the two chairs that sat in front of the green metal desk. When he heard the door click shut, he rounded on her, his rage barely held in check. Her golden eyes were narrowed and assessing, and he was surprised at the strength that suddenly emanated from her as she stood toe-to-toe with him, her helmet still beneath her left arm.
“Okay, Cowboy, let’s have both barrels. You’re spoiling for a fight and this is the place to have it.” She jabbed a finger at the door. “This is where you and I tango. Never while in flight and never in front of our crew.”
Jason was taken aback momentarily at her use of the word our. When had any other pilot ever done that? Blinking a couple of times, he felt his mind spin. Yeah, he was angry, but suddenly he felt as if that wasn’t appropriate. Annie had said “our crew.” Our. She trusted him. She must. Why?
“Maybe,” he growled, “I’m just uptight because of the unexpected test you pulled on me.”
Giving him a taut smile, Annie turned and placed her helmet on a hook. She moved around the desk, smoothed her hair with her hands and sat down. The chair creaked.
“You have a right to feel stressed. I would, too.”
Dammit, she wasn’t like male pilots. When Jason challenged them the way he’d challenged her, he blasted them. Yet he didn’t feel an urge to fight back. Instead, he sat down and ran his fingers through his damp hair. “Why’d you do it?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Annie opened her hands. She saw the confusion in Jason’s eyes. Because she was highly intuitive, she could feel the range of emotions he was experiencing right now. Something told her that he wasn’t as much angry as he was worried that she wouldn’t accept him as a full partner in the cockpit and on the ground. “From where I sit, I’m pleased with how you handled the bird.” She pointed to her clipboard, which held the test scores he’d earned. “I’ll give you a copy of the results and we’ll talk about them. We’ll make strengths of any weaknesses I saw before we leave for Afghanistan. You don’t have the flight hours I feel you need, so we’re going to be doing a lot of flying between now and then to sharpen your reflexes and get more of your skills up to par.”
Jason digested her huskily spoken words. So much of him was drawn to her. What was it about her? He’d never been as fascinated by a woman as he was by Annie Dazen. Maybe it was her slightly tilted eyes that shone like warm, golden sunlight tinged with cinnamon? Or the way her full mouth turned soft with compassion. Or her openness toward him.
“I thought you wanted to get rid of me. That’s what the other pilots did,” he growled. “I thought you were pulling this test to find a reason to write me up and get me out of the squadron.”
Her heart gave a tug. Whether Jason knew it or not, in that moment, he looked like an abandoned little boy, not a twenty-four-year-old man. She had a gift of perception that she’d inherited from her mother. At times she could see beyond the normal range of human comprehension. As she looked across the desk at Jason, any defensiveness she may have felt toward him melted away. It was the look in his eyes; for a second, he seemed like a hunted, haunted animal on the run from…what? Who?
“I hope you don’t paint me with the same brush, Mr. Trayhern. I have no desire to set you up to fail. I want to get to Afghanistan and do a little damage to El Quaida. And whether I like it or not, you’re my new copilot.”
“Who would want me for a copilot with my track record? You probably see me as an instant liability to your hopes for promotion.” He knew a bad junior pilot could drag the best pilot’s career through the mud, and hurt his or her chances for advancement.
Shrugging, Annie sat up, placed her elbows on the desk and looked him squarely in the eyes. “Look, Mr. Trayhern, I have no ax to grind with you. If you do what you say you’ll do, I’ll have no problem with you.”
Blinking, Jason sat there and looked at her sincere, open features. Her hands were clasped in front of her, her voice low and warm. That warmth cascaded through him like heat against a glacier, melting a frozen part of him inside.
“Then…you’re giving me a chance?” A real one? Oh, God, how he wanted that! Wanted to halt the downward spiral of his career. Wanted to try and hold on to something, to pull himself up by his own bootstraps. Studying Annie’s features with something akin to amazement, Jason realized that she was his last hope. If he couldn’t turn his life around with her help, he really was done. And he couldn’t stand the shame that would place on his family, or himself. He’d finally hit bottom.
“You’ll be giving yourself that chance, if you want it,” Annie told him. “I’m going to work your butt off for the next thirty days.”
“That doesn’t bother me.”
“Then what does?”
“That you’ll sandbag me, Ms. Dazen. That you’re waiting in the weeds like those other two pilots I flew with, looking for a chance to nail me.”
“I’m not like that.” She sat up, then leaned back in the chair. “But you’ll find that out sooner or later. Right now, you need a shower and a change of clothes. When you’re done, come back to the office and we’ll discuss your test results.”
Jason stood up. “Okay, fair enough.”
“The showers are just off the locker room. There’re always towels, washcloths and soap available.” She looked at her watch. “Be back here in thirty minutes?”
Moving toward the door, he muttered, “Yeah, I’ll be back.”
Annie watched him pick up his helmet in his long fingers. He had the hands of a pilot, there was no doubt, even though his flight suit was stained with sweat.
When the door closed and she heard him walk away from her office, Annie blew out a long, unsteady breath. Relief washed through her. She didn’t like confrontations like that.
“Some days are more trying than others,” she muttered. “Why am I getting this guy, Shaida?” Shaida was the name of her spirit guide. Every Indian Annie knew of, especially one who came from a medicine family as she did, had a guide. Although Annie couldn’t see hers, she knew she was there. She’d grown up with her. As a child, she had often seen the lithe, two-hundred-fifty-pound black jaguar, who used to sit and watch her with large, golden eyes. Annie had always felt safe as a child when Shaida was with her. And the Great Spirit knew, she’d always been in some kind of trouble, needing protection. Shaida was her guardian angel, there was no doubt.
Annie rubbed her brow now and stood up. She nervously wiped her sweaty palms on the sides of her flight suit and went out into the hangar to talk with her crew. They’d brought the bird inside the hangar already and were working on maintenance. Pride in her crew swelled within her as she walked across the clean and shiny concrete floor. Well, it would be a pleasant half hour before she had to bang heads with Trayhern again.
“So that’s the bottom line on your test results, Mr. Trayhern.” Annie tossed the clipboard back on her desk after giving him a copy of the test and the percentages he’d earned on each of the flight functions she’d assessed. “Overall, not bad. I don’t think you got the air time you needed with the other pilots. I think these grades reflect your lack of flying time. That’s something we can quickly remedy around here.”
Jason took the papers and glanced at them. He felt a lot more comfortable sitting in front of her desk in a clean, dry flight suit. A shower had been just what he’d needed, for many reasons. Water was always soothing to him, a calming balm to any fractious state. It allowed him to relax and let go.
Looking at the test scores and then up at Annie, he said, “No, I didn’t get a lot flight time.” Mainly because he’d been squabbling so much with his copilots that they wanted to avoid him, so his flight hours dipped accordingly.
“Because?” Annie was bound and determined to find out what was eating Trayhern. He’d not only showered, but he’d shaved as well, which pleased her. He didn’t have to. It was near 1700, quitting time. He had taken extra pains, she hoped, to show her that he cared enough to try.
“Because,” Jason growled, “I wasn’t exactly pleasant with my command pilot.”
“Why?”
He eyed her. “You don’t mind asking hard questions, do you?”
Her mouth quirked. “Not when my life depends on it.”
Managing a sour grin, Jason said, “I was in his face because I was constantly questioning why he was doing something.”
“That implies a lack of trust in the command pilot.”
“Yes…I guess it does.” He dropped his head and stared at the test scores. Annie Dazen had given him relatively high marks on most of the flight maneuvers, which surprised him. His other command pilots had consistently rated him at the bottom, just above the seventy-five percentile passing mark. She, on the other hand, had given him scores in the eighties and nineties, which buoyed his sense of confidence in himself—and in her. It looked as if she really wasn’t out to get him.
“Why didn’t you trust your command pilot?”
The words were spoken so softly and gently that Jason felt the doors of his heart fly open. It shocked him. He sat there, staring down at the papers in his hand, as he mulled over his emotional response to her. Finally he forced himself to look up. When he did, he was once again surprised. Annie’s usual poker face was soft and readable. He saw a burning look in her golden eyes, as if she genuinely wanted to know the truth.
Sighing, he whispered, “Look, I’ve never talked about this to anyone before….”
“You have to give me some sign of trust, Jason.” Annie deliberately used his first name, and saw the impact that instantly had on him. There was such struggle evident in his eyes—between shame, anger, hope and something else she couldn’t decipher.
“Yeah…I hear you….” The papers fluttered nervously in his hand. “I expected you to fail me like the others did.”
“You aren’t a failure. You’re just rusty, is all. There’s a huge difference.” Annie’s heart bled for him. For an instant, she thought she’d seen tears in his eyes, but just as quickly, they were gone. His mouth was twisted in a tortured line. Her gut instinct was to get up, walk around the desk and slide her arms around his shoulders as he sat there. Clearly, he was suffering from some terrible past event that haunted his present. She didn’t dare reach out to him that way. But the very idea of doing so was startling to her.
“I can see that….”
“Then help me to help you,” she beseeched softly, leaning forward, her hands opening. “Tell me what’s behind your lack of trust. I need to know.”
Though he wanted to look down at his polished black leather flight boots, Jason forced himself to meet Annie’s gaze. Her expression was so open, so tender. Her lips were slightly parted. Beckoning…Damn, but he wanted to find out if her lips were as soft as he thought they might be.
Giving himself an internal shake, Jason realized that his life as an aviator hung in the balance, depending on whether or not he came clean with Annie. Somehow, in his deeply wounded heart, he knew she would be fair with him—but only if he was honest with her. He saw that in her eyes, in the way they glinted. She had such gentle, yet strong, power. Jason would trust her with his life in that cockpit because she radiated a kind of quiet confidence he’d looked for all his life, and never found—until now.
Clearing his throat, he looked at his watch. “It’s 1700. Quitting time.”
Shrugging, Annie said, “I have all night, if that’s what it takes.”
Relief flowed through him. His stomach muscles unclenched a little. “Yeah, okay…” Frowning, he looked around the office, trying to gather his thoughts. Finally, he looked back at her, after clearing his throat.
“When I was six years old, I was kidnapped by a drug lord. My father, Morgan Trayhern, ran a supersecret organization called Perseus.” Frowning, Jason muttered, “He still does.”
Annie looked at him in surprise. “You were kidnapped?”
Jason studied her face. There was such openness in her expression. It gave him the courage to go on. “Yeah. I was playing in my little sister Katy’s room when the bad guys broke in. They shot my mother and father with darts that knocked them out.”
“That’s terrible!” Annie searched his brooding features. “What did they do to you?”
“I remember them bursting into the room. They were dressed in civilian clothes and looked like anyone you’d see on the street. I remember getting up. I had heard the scuffle out in the front room, where my parents were. I felt scared. I knew the big guy coming toward me was going to hurt me. I was too scared to scream, but that’s what I wanted to do….”
Swallowing hard, Annie held his gaze. “What happened next?”
“The dude put a cloth over my face and I blacked out. I woke up, I don’t know how many hours later, on the island of Maui, Hawaii. I learned later they left Katy behind. They didn’t want her.”
“How awful.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“You have full memory of this?” Annie knew that many times, in trauma, the brain conveniently tucked away details of an experience because it was too terrible for a person to bear.
“Full memory,” Jason said.
“I’m so sorry.” Annie realized that his trust had been broken during that trauma. And she could easily understand that if a child’s trust was not healed, the adult he became would have a hard time trusting anyone. Which was why Jason hadn’t trusted the two other pilots he’d flown with. Maybe. She had to learn more in order to put this puzzle together. “Did both your parents survive the kidnapping?”
“Yeah, eventually.” Jason looked down at the floor. “My mother was drugged and raped repeatedly by a drug lord in the Caribbean. My father was taken to South America and tortured for months. In the end, other members of Perseus, my father’s agency, mounted a rescue effort and several elite mercenary teams found them and brought them home, back to the States.”
“And what about you?”
“They sent a team to find me. And they did.”
“How long were you a captive?”
Shrugging, Jason said, “A month or so…”
She saw the pain in his eyes. “Can you tell me what you remember of you captivity?”
Shifting uncomfortably in the chair, Jason said, “Yeah, I guess…”
Annie waited. She could feel the tension radiating from Jason, saw the way his shoulders hunched, as if to deflect a coming blow. Her questions must be like blows to him. She had so many questions she wanted to ask, but she had to be patient.
“The dude that took me was an old man. He hated my father for disrupting the worldwide drug trade. Every chance he got, he’d make sure I heard how bad my father was.”
“And did you talk back to him? Fight or resist?”
Mouth thinning, Jason said, “Yeah…at first. I used to yell at him that my father was a good man. Every time I did, he’d slap me.”
Wincing inwardly, Annie said, “I’m so sorry….”
Again, her soft words haunted him, touched his aching heart and soothed him in a way no one ever had. Jason stared at her wordless for several seconds before he continued. “I learned real fast not to stand up for my father. And when the old bastard kept brainwashing me on how bad my dad was, I would cry instead. I cried out of anger, because what I wanted to do was punch out the old man’s lights, but I knew he’d kill me if I tried. He always had two goons with guns hanging around the room when I was there. I knew they’d kill me.”
“So you cried? Out of fear and frustration?”
“Yes.”
“What else happened?” Annie dreaded asking this, but she had to in order to understand the man Jason was today.
“I got regular beatings from him when I cried. So I eventually learned to say and do nothing.”
“To swallow all your feelings. To say nothing and stay silent.”
“Exactly.” He gave her a level look. “You understand.”
“Yes…I do. Prisoners of war often experience the same thing you did.”
“I was a prisoner of a war. I learned to trust no one there. I was watched twenty-four–seven, and I got at least one beating a day from the old dude, or from one of my guards. They said it was for being Morgan Trayhern’s son. When they finally rescued me, I was black-and-blue, I had a broken nose—” he touched it with his finger “—and several cracked ribs.”
Closing her eyes, Annie placed her hand across them. Her heart swelled with anguish for Jason. No wonder he didn’t trust! Allowing her hand to fall away, she opened her eyes and stared at him. He sat there tensely, as if expecting a blow. “That’s really terrible. You were badly abused by them.”
He chuckled darkly. “You’ve said a mouthful, Ms. Dazen.”
“Did your parents get you therapy?”
“Oh, yeah…all kinds. The shrinks said I had PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder.” He flexed his fingers and chuckled again. “No surprise there.”
“And how did you do with the therapists?”
“Not well, I guess. I didn’t trust them.”
“Of course not. They were adults.”
“That’s right,” he said grimly.
“You probably felt abandoned by adults in your time of need. And the adult who held you prisoner hurt you badly.”
“Yep, that about sums it up.”
“And have you had problems trusting adult males since that time?”
“A little,” Jason muttered, looking away. “I’m not on good terms with my father, either.”
She hurt for him, because she saw undisguised pain over that admission not only in his narrowed blue eyes, but in the thinning of his full mouth. “I’m sure your father tried to regain your trust?”
“Oh, yeah. He did….”
“But?”
“It didn’t take. I was—I am—angry at him for what happened. He should have protected us, his family. Instead, he was arrogant and felt we were safe enough in Washington.”
Annie sighed. “What about your mom? How did she get through this mess?”
“She had a lot of years after the kidnapping when she wasn’t really available to us kids. I mean—” he opened his hands “—she was raped. I’m still angry over that. I see what it did to her…and how it’s affected all of us….”
“And now?”
“She’s pretty much worked through the worst of it, although I still see it in her from time to time. I’ve learned what rape does. It’s a terrible thing. It murders part of a person and you never get back that piece again.”
“It sounds like the drug lords got the revenge they wanted.”
“And then some.”
“Your father must have been affected by this, too? You said he was tortured?”
Jason nodded. “Yeah, nonstop. You can see the scars on his arms and legs when he’s in a bathing suit or a short-sleeved shirt.”
“And how has he recovered from the kidnapping?”
“Better than any of us, but then, he’d been wounded in the head during the Vietnam War, and had amnesia for years after that. The U.S. government screwed him, too. He didn’t know who he was, and eventually joined the French Foreign Legion. Several years after that, he suddenly got his memory back and went home to the U.S.
“From there, he met my mother, Laura, and they were finally able to find the men responsible for branding him as a traitor, and to get his named cleared. My dad is a hero to a lot of people.” Jason looked away. “So, my two cents’ worth is that because of his past experience, he was able to roll with the kidnapping better than my mother or myself. He seems the least affected by what happened.”
Annie nodded. “Thank you for telling me this. I promise it will go nowhere, but it helps me to understand you.”
She saw him lift his head and study her, and instantly, her heart flew open. The look in his eyes was one of relief and hope. There was no more anger or distrust there. How badly she wanted to get up and throw her arms around Jason. Annie sensed that being held was exactly what he needed—and that, since the kidnapping, he’d never let anyone beyond those armored walls he’d built up.
Somehow, Annie knew he’d let her in. And that realization was as startling as a lightning bolt.
Chapter 5
“Have you found out anything, Morgan?” Laura asked as she laid out china plates of a colorful floral pattern on the kitchen table. It had been two weeks since she’d talked to Jason, and she hadn’t heard a word from him since. She didn’t know who worried more about their son, her or Morgan.
Wiping her hands on her peach-colored apron, she moved back to the counter. Today, Kamaria was being watched by their baby-sitter, Crystal Harding, a local woman from Phillipsburg who dearly loved the little tyke. Crystal and Kamaria were in the toddler’s bedroom at the other end of the large, two-story home, having Kamaria’s favorite lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while watching reruns of Mister Rogers on television.
Scowling, Morgan went to the drain board and picked up the bowls of salad Laura had made for them. “I just got off the phone with Red Dugan,” he said as he placed the wooden bowls on the table.
“And?” Laura shot him a questioning look as she placed pink linen napkins and silverware next to the teak bowls. Morgan pulled out her chair and she sat down. One of the many things she loved about her husband was his gallantry. She knew it came from the fact that he’d been a Marine Corps officer, a throwback to another time, but she loved his sensitivity toward her in this way. Smiling to herself, she realized she was most likely a throwback, herself.
Watching as Morgan sat down at her left elbow, she waited impatiently to hear what he had to say about Jason. Because of her husband’s broad intelligence network, which spanned the world, and his contacts with the higher-ups in every military branch, it was easy for him to pick up a phone to check in on Jason or Katy without their knowledge.
Picking up a bottle of light Italian dressing, Laura un-screwed the cap. With the advent of menopause, she found she gained weight quickly, so was dieting to help keep herself in shape. As she squirted some dressing on the colorful salad, she felt a tad guilty about Morgan initiating this behind-the-scenes checking on their children. But in Jason’s case, Laura was glad he had the contacts. Jason usually called weekly, but that was it. He rarely wrote a letter. Then again, she didn’t know many military men who wrote letters to their parents. Phone calls usually had to do. Jason didn’t e-mail her, either….
Katy wrote e-mails all the time from her secret operating base down in Colombia, and Laura was always eager to hear from her. Laura worried about her daughter, who lived in constant peril while flying the Seahawk helicopter and delivering Marine Recon teams to key locations to help Colombian government soldiers fight the rebels. And soon Jason was going to be in Afghanistan. The idea made her stomach knot. She grimaced and passed the bottle to her husband.
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Lindsay McKenna
Jason Trayhern wore his father's glorious military legacy like a thorny crown. Though a skilled fighter pilot himself, Jason's rebel tactics didn't sit well with his commanding officers.They expected more from Morgan Trayhern's son, which was why they gave Jason another chance. But that chance felt like a death sentence. For Jason was going into combat with a new partner. And she was all too…female.A handsome, arrogant daredevil was the last thing Annie Dazen needed in her cockpit. But once she saw the wounded heart beneath Jason's tough-guy facade, she longed to heal him. And once she discovered the passion in this brooding soldier's touch, she longed to hold him tight. Now the stakes were higher. Because if she hoped to see a future with her would-be hero, they needed to survive their dangerous mission first!
“This is a damn flight test, isn’t it?”
Jason’s words were thrown like a gauntlet.
“Yes, it is,” Annie replied, her voice cool and emotionless.
His stomach clenched. She was testing him like he was a damn rookie! What happened to the woman he’d met in the hangar? The woman he had found himself drawn to—rightly or wrongly.
“You’re out to flunk me, aren’t you?” he demanded now. “Orders from above?”
“Mr. Trayhern, you are paranoid. No one has it in for you here, except maybe yourself. Your past doesn’t count with me. Do you understand that?”
Jason closed his eyes. Her husky words flowed over him like a calming blanket. “Yeah, I hear you,” he replied. But could he trust her?
More importantly, could he trust himself with a woman he was so powerfully attracted to?
See why Romantic Times LOVES
LINDSAY MCKENNA
“Edge-of-the-seat romantic suspense…. Readers will be enthralled from the first page to the last.”
—on Valkyrie
“A truly remarkable love story of two courageous people.”
—on Morgan’s Marriage
“When it comes to action and romance, nobody does it better than McKenna.”
—on Destiny’s Woman
“McKenna weaves together enticing players, heart-stopping action and sparks aplenty to create a savory romantic concoction.”
—on Man with a Mission
“Full-bodied characters that shine amid a powerful backdrop of emotional change, desire and love.”
—on A Man Alone
“Talented Lindsay McKenna delivers excitement and romance in equal measure.”
—on Protecting His Own
“Another Lindsay McKenna romantic treasure.”
—on A Woman of Innocence
“Balanced characters, electrifying attraction, a smattering of military jargon and bracing danger. Readers can count this one a winner.”
—on Her Healing Touch
Firstborn
Lindsay McKenna
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 1
Trouble hunted him. And Chief Warrant Officer Jason Trayhern knew it had found him today. As he climbed the concrete steps of the Ops building at Fort Collins, Colorado, he began to sweat beneath his flight suit. Taking off his cap, he entered the swinging doors. As he did, he could hear the whapping sound of the Longknife Squadron Apache combat helicopters taking off and landing on the other side of the massive operations facility. How he wished he were up in the air now!
Mouth tightening, he nodded perfunctorily to the meteorology and air-control-desk personnel who stood on the other side of the tiled lobby. He knew both of them well. One didn’t fly without getting a meteorology report from the weather desk, or a flight plan from the air desk.
Locating Major Butler’s office, Jason girded himself internally for his meeting with his commanding officer. The passageway was clear of personnel for a moment, so he took a quick swipe at the perspiration on his brow before he entered the office. He didn’t want Major Butler to see him sweat. He wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction.
Jason knew the routine. This was the second time he’d been called in by his C.O. for the same damn reason. Mentally trying to barricade himself from his writhing feelings of fear, rage and frustration, Jason took a deep breath. Then he squared his shoulders, put his chin up and moved through the open door, displaying the cocky attitude he was known for.
Butler’s secretary, Mona Evans, a civilian in her fifties, looked up from her desk, her small, gold wire glasses halfway down her prominent Roman nose. “Ah, Chief Trayhern. Thank you for coming.”
Jason stood at attention in front of her desk. “Yes, ma’am. I’m here to see Major Butler, as ordered.” Of course this was an order. One didn’t just waltz into the C.O.’s office without a prior appointment.
“Right,” she murmured, putting her appointment book on the desk. “One moment…”
As he watched her get up, walk to Butler’s door, open it and disappear inside, his gut tightened. He’d rather be facing El Quaida, with a Stinger missile aimed at his Apache helicopter, than be here right now. What would his father think? Morgan Trayhern, USMC, was a living legend in the military. Everyone, no matter what their service affiliation, admired and respected him. Jason fought a surge of anger. He didn’t give a damn what his father thought. All his famous father cared about was his reputation—not his firstborn son. But his mother, Laura? Groaning inwardly, Jason momentarily closed his eyes and fought a wave of sadness at the thought of the disappointment she might feel to learn her oldest son had screwed up—again.
Jason loved his mother with his life. It hurt him every time he knew he’d disappointed her. What would she think now?
The door to Butler’s inner office opened.
Mona smiled gently and pushed her glasses back up her nose. “Major Butler will see you now, Chief Trayhern.” She stepped aside. “Go right in. He’s expecting you.”
I’ll bet he is…. “Yes, ma’am.” He kept his voice deep and unruffled, though he was anything but. He felt as if he had a hundred angry rattlesnakes writhing inside his gut.
Major Yancey Butler raised his head and pinned his narrowed gaze on Jason as he entered and snapped to attention.
“Shut the door,” Butler ordered, brusqueness in his tone.
“Yes, sir!” Jason turned and shut it, did an about-face and then snapped back to attention. Butler was lean as a hungry wolf, with short black hair and gray sideburns. His green eyes glittered, sending a frisson of terror through Jason. Butler wasn’t taking any prisoners today, judging from the thundercloud look on his face.
Sitting back in his burgundy leather chair, the man said, “At ease, Chief Trayhern.”
Jason swallowed, spreading his feet apart and placing his hands behind his back. His commanding officer’s pale face was speckled with copper freckles reminding Jason of a spotted Appaloosa horse. The thought made him want to laugh, though now was not the moment for humor. Today was not the day to flaunt cocky grins or shoot off smart remarks.
“Son, you’re like a cat,” Butler began silkily as he opened Jason’s service record in front of him.
“Sir?” Jason’s brow furrowed with confusion. Where was Butler going with this? Heart pounding in his chest, Jason felt his adrenaline surge as a bad feeling pervaded his system. He wanted out of here. Out of Butler’s office and out of the Longknife Apache squadron he’d been assigned to. It had been hell on him ever since he’d arrived at this base.
“You know a cat has nine lives, right?” Butler said finally.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, Chief Trayhern, you’ve used up, by my count, eight of your nine lives thus far.” Grimly, the major folded his hands on the desk. “You got tossed out of the Naval Academy in your third year after a drug scandal. Though the charges didn’t stick, your reputation was tainted. Then you came begging the Army aviation people to give you one more chance. We decided, since your record was clear, to take that chance on you.”
Jason stood very still. He’d heard this litany before.
“After your officer training, you went to Fort Rucker, Alabama, and learned to fly the Apache Longbow combat helicopter. But there was a problem with you there. You were arrogant, Trayhern. Hard to get along with. You never saw yourself as a team member. The colonel of the flight school kicked you out of his squadron and put you in mine. You’ve been here six months, and I can’t say it’s been a positive experience for any of us. Two times now I’ve had seasoned combat pilots ask to transfer you out of their cockpit because you couldn’t get along with them. With you, it’s your way or no way, and that’s not what Army aviation is all about, son. The Army is about teamwork. But you don’t want to be part of a team. You want to lead, and listen to no one but yourself. This is not an Army of one, Mr. Trayhern. It’s an Army where everyone works together.”
Tapping his finger on the maple desk, Butler said slowly, “When Chief Doughtery requested another pilot to fly with, and he told me why, I saw the handwriting on the wall. I have given you more chances than you deserve, Trayhern. I’ve asked you to fit in, to be a part of our team. And for some reason, you fight it. You rebel against the status quo for no good reason.” Shaking his head, he muttered, “I gave you all these chances because I know your father, Morgan Trayhern. He’s a hero to all of us. He’s a man who did the right thing, fought back, made things better for everyone around him. He’s a helluva role model in my opinion.”
Unlike his son. Jason filled in the rest of Butler’s sentence. Bile curdled in his throat. “Sir, with all due respect—”
“Just stand there and listen,” the major growled.
“Yes, sir!”
Grabbing a set of orders, Butler scribbled his name across the authorization line with barely contained ferocity. “Mr. Trayhern, you’re down to your ninth life. I’ve been in touch with Colonel Red Dugan, who commands the 2-101 Aviation Regiment of Apaches at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Presently, all squadrons there are undergoing qualification trials before they’re shipped overseas for duty in Afghanistan. He has agreed to put you into the Eagle Warrior Squadron under his command. If I didn’t have so much respect for your father’s name, I would be sending you to personnel to be processed out with a bad conduct discharge. Instead, you’re going to Screamin’ Eagle country, the 101st Airborne Division, air assault.”
Jason’s eyes widened slightly as shock slammed into him. His mouth dropped open. Quickly, he snapped it shut. Butler wanted to give him a BCD? Oh, God, no!
“That’s right, son. You heard me.” The major lifted his hand and held his thumb and index finger an inch apart. “You are this close to getting canned. Is that what you want?”
“No, sir!” Gulping, Jason wondered if his C.O. could hear his heart hammering against his ribs. It had been humiliating enough to be kicked out of Annapolis. Now he was in danger of a BCD. His head spun with questions. What had he done so wrong?
“I want you to know one thing,” Butler growled as he handed Jason his new orders. “Colonel Dugan is a friend of your father’s. I called him and talked over the fact that you’re a real problem for the Army. I asked if he thought he could straighten you out and avoid a BCD.” The officer nailed Jason with his gaze. “Son, you’d better hear this loud and clear. Colonel Dugan is your last chance. You screw up there, like you have with me and my squadrons, and you’re out, famous father or not. We don’t want to make headlines for Morgan. He doesn’t deserve this. And the press would have a field day with it. Your attitude could give the Army a black eye if you don’t shape up. You understand? You have one last chance to vindicate yourself, get your head screwed on straight and learn to work as a team member, not a rebellious loner.”
“Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”
Butler nodded. “One more thing, Chief Trayhern. Colonel Dugan is a warrior of the first order. He won’t take any shit from you. You got that? You had better head to the Eagle Warrior Squadron with a new attitude, because this time your father’s name is not going to save you….”
At 0530 the sun was starting to rise above the trees at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The 2nd Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment of AH-64D Longbow combat helicopters were surrounded by tall, stately maples, oaks, elms and ash trees, and Annie Dazen loved the sight. The deciduous trees reminded her of her home in the mountains at the White River Apache Reservation in Arizona, where scrub oak and slender ash trees mingled with thick stands of mighty Douglas firs. The military base stood at five hundred feet above sea level in the rolling countryside near the Tennessee state line. There were over ninety-three thousand acres of softly undulating Appalachian Mountains and valleys to fly over while she sharpened her skills as a combat pilot. The landscape was the only thing she liked about the base’s environment, though. Kentucky was a hot, sultry place during the summer and she preferred the dry desert climate of her home over the humid atmosphere of the base. No, she’d take the mountainous terrain of the reservation over the high humidity and tropical temperatures of Kentucky any day.
Every morning Annie went out in back of the hangar where her Apache helicopter was kept, her medicine necklace in her hands, to send a prayer to the rising sun. She was Apache, and in her tradition prayers were said at sunrise and sunset, the most powerful times of the day.
She stood alone in the morning quiet, an unusual state for the sprawling base of fifteen thousand people. At 0600, when helos from the various squadrons wound up for takeoff on another day of training, the place became a beehive of activity. Annie missed the great yawning silence of the reservation. There, one could hear the winds singing and sighing in the pines—the voices of the Tree Nation.
As she stepped away from the huge hangar and stood on the red clay, facing east, Annie gazed down fondly at the necklace in her hands. It had been in her family for hundreds of years, passed down to the eldest daughter of each successive generation. It was a medicine necklace, one with mysterious power, beauty and healing qualities.
Stringing the necklace between her hands, she lifted it breast high and closed her eyes. Annie grounded herself by imagining dark tree roots encircling her ankles and going down through her black leather flight boots deep into Mother Earth. Taking a deep breath, she whispered, “Father Sun, I honor you on this new day. Please guide me, help me to follow my heart and bless Mother Earth. Aho.”
The necklace in her hands grew very warm. Annie was used to feeling her fingers tingle as she recited the ancient prayer. The heat soon increased and she felt the energy flow gently up her arms. A familiar calming sensation moved into her chest and remained there, like a warm, fuzzy blanket from childhood, one her mother had tucked around her at night.
High above, Annie heard the shriek of a red-tailed hawk. Opening her eyes, she gazed into the pale blue sky, which was misted over by the high humidity of the July morning, and saw a mature red-tail circling. Its wings were outstretched and its rust-red tail fanned as it floated on an up-draft of warm air. Lips lifting into a smile, Annie called, “Ho, little brother, what message do you bring me?”
She knew that when an animal showed up after her morning prayer, it was a message from the Great Spirit. What exactly it meant, she didn’t know, but she always paid attention and tried to figure it out. Closing her eyes, she pictured the hawk in her third eye, located in the middle of her brow. An unsettling sensation blanketed her. Frowning, Annie opened her eyes. When she looked up again, the hawk was gone.
Odd. Annie didn’t like the feeling cloaking her. Was that the message the hawk had come to tell her? That she should be unsettled? Unsure? She felt as if lightning had struck nearby and shaken her up. Birds were always considered messengers, bringing a warning, good or bad, of things to come. Usually within hours of their appearance Annie knew she would receive word, either in person or through a phone call, a letter or e-mail, of something or someone coming into her life.
Unzipping the right thigh pocket to her dark green flight uniform, Annie pulled out a soft brown deerskin pouch. Lifting the necklace, she gently tucked it back into the pouch and returned it to her pocket. The first rays of Father Sun were streaking across the tips of the elms and maples. It was now 0600 and the day had begun in earnest. All flying was done early in the morning when the air was still cool, and therefore more stable, making for easier flight training.
Turning, Annie walked back to the hangar. Opening the aluminum door, she stepped inside onto the meticulously clean concrete floor. Her desert camouflage Apache Longbow was in for software upgrades and sat near the far opening of the hangar. Her crew, two men and a woman, were busy working on it. Usually they worked early and left in midafternoon, to avoid the blistering summer heat.
The welcoming smell of coffee wafted toward her. Flaring her nostrils and inhaling deeply, Annie made her way around two other helos in the hangar. The coffee dispenser was on the wall to the right of the open bay, and Annie headed straight to it. A day didn’t begin without coffee!
As she stirred in cream and sugar, she heard booted feet coming in her direction, mingling with the clink of tools and the hushed voices of crew members. She looked up as she took a sip of the brew. Sergeant Kat Lakey, her crew chief, was hurrying her way, dressed in a green T-shirt, cammos and black boots. At twenty-five, Kat was a year older than her. Annie was happy this woman took care of her bird, for Lakey was the best crew chief on the base, in her opinion.
“’Morning, Kat. You look like you’re on a mission. What’s up?” Annie grinned, looking pointedly at the watch on her right wrist.
Kat smiled and halted. “Yes, ma’am, I believe I am.” Hooking her thumb toward the operations building in the distance, she said, “While you were out just now, I received a call from Ops. From our squadron commander, Colonel Dugan. He wants to see you immediately. I saw you step back into the hangar and thought I’d tell you. He called about two minutes ago.”
Sipping more of the coffee to hide her surprise, Annie nodded. “Okay…Geez, it’s early for him to be up and moving around, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am, I think so.” Kat raised a brow. “But Colonel Dugan is famous for saying the early bird gets the worm.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that one.”
“You know what it’s about, ma’am?”
“Hmm? Me? No. Why? Do you? You’re good at knowin’ all the base gossip, Kat. What dirt have you heard lately?” Annie grinned at the sergeant. Kat had a mop of brown hair and a long, narrow face blanketed with freckles across her cheeks and nose. Her gray eyes twinkled with silent laughter.
“No, nothing new, ma’am. I know we’re going to start combat training flights tomorrow, though. With live ammo.” Kat rubbed her hands, grinning wolfishly. Live ammo wasn’t used often. It cost money for shells, so usually electronic laser shots were used in training. Everyone looked forward to having the Apaches’ considerable arsenal be “hot and live”—real rockets, missiles or bullets instead of a namby-pamby red beam of light to equate a kill.
Chuckling, Annie nodded. “Yeah, I can hardly wait. Okay, I’ll grab a ride over to Ops. You doin’ okay on the software checks? I want my bird in top shape for tomorrow’s live-fire exercises.”
“Goin’ fine, ma’am. She’s not a hangar queen.” Kat chuckled.
Annie smiled and said, “Thank goodness she’s not that! Okay, I’ll get back over here ASAP.”
“Ma’am…”
Annie hesitated. “Yes?”
“Do you think this might be about Chief Dailey’s leaving? You do need a new pilot to fly with you. Could the colonel be callin’ you over to let you know a new team member has been assigned to us?”
“That would be my thinking, Kat.” She lifted her hand. “I see the base bus that’ll give me a lift to Ops. You’ll be the first to know when I get back.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“At ease, Chief Dazen,” Colonel Dugan said. He pointed toward a brown leather chair set off to one side of his dark green metal desk. “Sit down, please.”
Annie smiled quickly and nodded. “Yes, sir.” She perched on the edge of the chair, hands on her thighs, and gazed at him expectantly. The look on Dugan’s oval, pockmarked face puzzled her. He was frowning, his short blond hair gleaming with reddish highlights beneath the fluorescent light above his desk. She knew he was in his mid-fifties, but he appeared far more youthful.
There were what appeared to be several personnel jackets scattered across his desk, and he was thumbing through them. Annie smiled slightly as she watched him. She liked her commanding officer. Red Dugan was a legend in his own time. He’d been one of the first to fly the lethal Boeing Apache combat helicopters, had helped create the curriculum to teach pilots how to fly it at Fort Rucker, and had a long, impressive combat record to boot. Annie had flown with him from time to time and had learned a lot from the highly decorated pilot.
“Annie, there’s no nice way to say this,” Red muttered as he lifted his head after moving the files around on his desk. “I have a problem, and I hope you can help me solve it.”
Ordinarily, her C.O. never addressed her by her first name. In fact, Annie could count on one hand the times he had done so in the year that she’d been with the Eagle Warrior Squadron. Something was definitely up. “Okay…sir. Sure, what can I do to help?”
He smiled a little. “That’s one of the reasons I’ve chosen you for this, uh, assignment.” Lifting out a file, he set it on top of the others. “Two days ago, I got a call from the C.O. of another Apache squadron who told me he had a problem pilot on his hands. This pilot, CWO3 Jason Trayhern, is now being reassigned to us.”
Frowning, Annie said, “Okay, sir.” She bit back any questions she might have. Although her curiosity was burning her alive at this point, one didn’t throw questions at a commanding officer. One waited for the C.O. to lay out the plan of action instead.
Opening the file, Dugan growled unhappily, “CWO3 Trayhern is a problem, Annie. But his father, Morgan Trayhern, is highly respected by all branches of the military. We try to take care of our own. Have you heard of Morgan Trayhern?”
“Yes, sir, I have. He was a Marine Corps officer in the closing days of the Vietnam War. His company got overrun and only two people survived, him and another guy.”
“Yes, and there was a cover-up by our government on this particular operation when the company was lost. They painted Captain Trayhern as a traitor to whitewash the debacle, which was really the fault of the commanders above him. He, in the meantime, had suffered a severe concussion and was taken to Japan to recuperate. It was then that the CIA got involved. Morgan had amnesia and didn’t remember who he was, so, with the approval of the French government, they invented a new name and history for him and sent him off to the French Foreign Legion after his recovery. Out of sight, out of mind, or so the government officials thought. Trayhern remained there many years until one day his memory came back, and when it did, he returned to the United States to clear his name.”
“His family has a long history of serving in the U.S. military,” Annie said.
“That’s right. Their service record stretches back two hundred years, a real role model for the military way of life in this country. Despite that, Morgan Trayhern had to go through a lot to clear his name and restore his family’s honor after he was branded a traitor.” Dugan smiled faintly. “The man did it. He investigated on his own and finally was able to identify the men who had colluded against him.” Waving his hand, the colonel said, “That’s history now. But since then Morgan started a supersecret agency known as Perseus, which works closely with the CIA. His expertise has been focused on helping people around the world when the country in question can’t or won’t handle the problem. Suffice it to say, Mr. Trayhern has worked with every U.S. military service, and continues to do so to this day. I’ve met the man myself, and he is a true hero. He’s someone the military does not want to let down if we can at all help it.”
Hearing the awe in Dugan’s voice, Annie was impressed. “And his son is coming here? He’s being assigned to us?”
Nodding, Dugan set his lips in a frown. “Yes.”
“Then, sir, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you looking so unhappy about all of this?” If the son was anything like the father, Annie thought, he’d be a real asset. A hero in the making.
“Because, Annie,” Dugan replied, looking at her across the desk, “the two Trayherns are nothing alike. Have you heard of Jason Trayhern?
“Uh, no, sir.”
“When he was a third-year cadet in the Naval Academy at Annapolis, he got enmeshed in a drug ring scandal. He was never found with drugs, but names of cadets who had purchased them were found on his laptop computer. The people who conducted the investigation at Annapolis think his roommate set up Trayhern to take the fall. Jason and his lawyer had said from the get-go that Trayhern was framed. But the cadets have this skewed honor code and they don’t rat on their brother or sister cadets. No one came forward in his defense, so they booted him out.”
“Ouch. What must his family have felt like?” Annie murmured. “Or him, if he was innocent? I’d be really angry about it.”
“Precisely. It was a black mark against the Trayhern military dynasty, a blemish of the worst sort.”
“And he talked to the investigation officials?”
“Yes, he did, but the ‘blue wall’ closed ranks—the cadets refused to give up the real culprits to clear Trayhern’s good name. If someone had come forward to vouch for him, more than likely Annapolis officials would have allowed him to stay, all things being equal.” Dugan opened his hands. “I know from talking with one of the admirals at the school that they really wanted to save the senior Trayhern from this kind of embarrassment. But his son was caught with the evidence on his laptop and couldn’t explain how it got there.”
Shaking her head, Annie said, “Well, sir, we don’t know all the details.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Running his hand through his short blond hair, he added, “And that’s why I’ve chosen you, Annie, to deal with Trayhern. I need the most astute, intelligent pilot I have in my squadron to handle this mess coming our way.”
Annie sat up straight. “The mess being Jason Trayhern?”
“That’s a roger. We’re getting him dropped on us because he’s a loner, Annie. He’s not a team player. He’s said to be rebellious, angry and arrogant, from what Major Butler has told me. Two pilots in his regiment petitioned Butler to have Trayhern replaced, because the man simply refuses to get along with anyone else in the cockpit.”
“Oh, sir…”
“Sorry, Annie. You don’t deserve this kind of partner, either. I’m sorry we had to give Chief Mike Dailey a medical discharge. No one wished more than me that his high blood pressure problem could be resolved. You two were my ace team in the squadron, and I really hated to see him go. But we can’t have a pilot at risk in the cockpit, either. And now you’re the only one in the squadron without a copilot.”
Annie thought back to earlier that morning, when the red-tailed hawk had screamed out for her attention. When she’d asked what message it brought, the exact feeling she had right now had blanketed her. She felt upset. In chaos.
“So you’re assigning Chief Trayhern to me?”
“Yes, I am, Annie.” Dugan shrugged. “Ordinarily, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, but the situation is unique. I know Morgan Trayhern personally. I’m sure that, as a father, he’s going through hell right now because his son has gotten booted out of two Apache squadrons in a year’s time. This boy of his is a real burr under the saddle—his and ours. I had a choice in whether or not to take Trayhern. I’m doing this as a favor to his father. We’re going to give Jason Trayhern one last chance.”
Chewing on her lower lip, Annie sat there digesting the problem. “Sir, we’re slated to go over to Afghanistan in a month.”
“I know that. And Annie, I know what you’re up against. If there’s anyone in my squadron who can turn this man around, it’s you. You’re the only woman pilot on base, and I know this sounds like gender prejudice, but maybe, just maybe, Trayhern won’t take the same arrogant tact he’s taken with other pilots he had to work with if he partners with a woman.”
“And if I can’t get him to be a team player, sir?”
“All you have to do is come to me and tell me.” Dugan shook his head. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. I don’t want to be the one to boot Morgan Trayhern’s son out of the military, and if that happens, no service will ever allow Jason to reenlist. He’d be out. Castigated. But if you come and tell me he’s not fitting in, then I will give him a bad conduct discharge without any qualms.”
Annie found she had a hundred questions racing through her mind. Time was so short—only one month before combat duty. She knew it took at least three months for two pilots to get used to each other. They sat in the Apache together, flew together, worked together, and their relationship was like a marriage of sorts.
“Sir? Has Chief Trayhern ever worked with a female pilot before?”
Dugan smiled grimly. “No. As you know, there are only three women in the U.S. military who have qualified for Apache training thus far. That’s not counting the Black Ops squadron in South America, of course, which is nearly all female. He’s flown only with men.”
“What makes you think he’s going to respond positively to me, then? If he’s never flown with a woman, how do we know how he’ll respond to me?”
“That’s a good question,” Dugan murmured. “And I don’t have an answer, Annie. But I’ll tell you one thing—your marks listed in your personnel jacket, in flying and training, are 4.0. You’re the best I’ve got. Your crew has won every trophy in and out of the squadron, and I know it’s because of you, your ability to lead, as well as your ability to be a team player. You don’t leave people out or behind, Annie, and that’s the mark not only of a good leader, but of a real people manager.”
She saw his hazel eyes brighten with hope. The praise was wonderful, but the assignment sucked. “I do try hard to make everyone feel a part of my tribe.” She grinned wryly.
“There’s a lot to say for you being Native American, Annie. I’ve learned a thing or two from you myself. I’m convinced that what you’ve learned from being brought up in your community can help us here in the Army, too. Teamwork is everything. I’ve seen you take people who felt disenfranchised and make them a valuable part of your squadron ‘family.’” He smiled again. “And if Jason Trayhern is to have a prayer of learning how to fit in, I can’t think of anyone better than you to be his teacher.”
The responsibility was nearly overwhelming. Annie felt the weight settle on her shoulders. It was bad enough that she had to train hard and rigorously herself for the next month, to get ready for Afghanistan, where her life would be on the line every single day. Her copilot had to be someone she trusted with her life. How was she going to manage to do all of this?
Looking up, she murmured, “Sir, this is an incredible challenge for me.”
“I know it is, Annie. And I’m sorry to lay it on you. But no one is better qualified to save this young man from himself. He’s a fine pilot, but he’s a loner. Do your best, okay? I don’t expect miracles, and if it doesn’t pan out, it’s not going to reflect poorly on your personnel record, believe me.”
“Okay, sir, I’ll give it a go.” She managed a lopsided grin. “But I don’t know who I feel worse for, him or me.”
Dugan chuckled. “I understand. Listen, stay in close touch with me on this. I want to know what’s going down with him.” Glancing at his watch, he continued, “Chief Trayhern will be arriving here at 1000 hours. He’s to come directly to me, and I’ll give him a talking to and a warning. Then he’ll go through personnel, and finally, he’ll be taken over to your hangar. At that point, he’s all yours. Because the regiment is going over to Afghanistan in a month, I’m assigning him temporary billeting at the B.O.Q., Bachelor Officers Quarters, here on base.”
“Yes, sir. It wouldn’t make any sense to try and find an apartment for only thirty days. By 1300, he should be through personnel paperwork?”
“Yes.”
Annie stood up and came to attention. “I’ll do what I can, Colonel Dugan.”
“Good enough, Chief Dazen. Thank you in advance. Dismissed.”
“Yes, sir!” Annie did a snappy about-face and left his office.
Once outside the three-story redbrick building, she decided to walk the mile back to the hangar area. She needed time to get over the shock of her new assignment and try to adjust to this bad news.
The sun was hazy, the humidity stifling, and she was already sweating heavily. The street was busy with traffic, both desert-brown Humvees and many civilian cars. People in uniform and flight suits walked here and there with crisp efficiency. The home of the Screamin’ Eagles was a workaholic’s paradise, Annie thought. People were proud of the 101st Airborne’s historical tradition and strived to make it the top aviation division in the Army as a result. Everyone who wore the screaming eagle patch on their uniform did so with pride.
The tall, spindly pines planted between large-leafed maples stood at attention along the concrete sidewalk as she walked across the bustling Army base. The main headquarters, painted white, lay in the center of a diamond-shaped expanse of lawn bracketed by asphalt highways. Green shrubs along the walls of the diamond were trimmed to military perfection. But Annie was unable to appreciate the manicured beauty that surrounded her. Her mind and heart were elsewhere.
One month. One month to tame a lone wolf who didn’t want to be part of anyone’s team. And this wasn’t just any lone wolf. No, this was a famous one with a jaded past. Annie’s brow knitted as she walked. Settling her cap more securely on her head, the bill drawn low to shade her eyes from the sun, she kept to the inside of the sidewalk. When she passed an officer, she saluted. Enlisted personnel who passed saluted her. Warrant officers were not quite officers, but they were treated with deference nonetheless.
Automatically, Annie unzipped her right thigh pocket and pulled out the deerskin pouch that held her medicine necklace. After she’d shifted the necklace to her left hand to leave her right one free to salute with, she instantly felt the object’s warmth, finding it comforting and soothing to her anxiety and concern. Annie didn’t understand exactly why the necklace reacted when she was upset, but it did, and she absorbed the calming energy from it.
A pair of raucous blue jays screamed as they flew from one elm tree to the next ahead of her. That wasn’t a good sign—birds fighting and squabbling with one another. In Annie’s world of mystery and miracles, she knew nature talked to her, about herself and what was to come, whenever she would listen. Well, those birds had her full attention now. Would she and Trayhern be just like the blue jays—squabbling, bickering and screaming at one another? In four hours, she’d find out.
Chapter 2
Four hours later, Annie was flat on her back beneath the carriage of the Apache along with Specialist 3 Lance DeLong, one of her mechanics. They were lying side by side, looking up into the area where the chain gun was situated. The cannon, which looked like a long-barrel machine gun suspended beneath the fuselage of the Apache, could spit out 30mm rounds, instantly destroying whatever it hit.
Annie was so intent on what Lance was saying about a piece of hardware within the mounting that she failed to hear the solid, confident stride of someone coming her way. Only when the highly polished black shoes came to a halt less than two feet from where she lay did she realize they didn’t belong to one of her crew.
Hands freezing momentarily on the gun mount, Annie turned to Lance. “The new pilot is here. Can you handle this repair alone?” She searched the twenty-year-old’s round face.
“Aw, shucks, sure I can, Ms. Dazen. Not a problem.” Lance grinned, showing his uneven teeth.
Annie nodded and grinned back. “Okeydokey.” She rolled out from beneath the fuselage, her heart skittering with dread at meeting this infamous pilot. The polished shoes backed up to give her plenty of room to roll to her hands and knees and then get to her feet.
Raising her head as she brushed herself off, Annie saw the man was dressed in his class A Army uniform and standing with his feet apart, like a boxer ready to be struck. As her gaze ranged quickly upward, she realized that Jason Trayhern was tall, at least six foot two inches. When she looked into his square face and met his frosty blue eyes, her heart contracted in fear. The narrowed look he was giving her was one she might give an enemy.
Dusting off her hands, she thrust one forward. “Mr. Trayhern? I’m Annie Dazen, pilot in charge of this girl here.” She hooked her thumb over her shoulder at the huge Apache helicopter behind her.
Jason scowled. Annie Dazen wasn’t anything like he’d expected. Standing at five foot nine inches tall, dressed in an olive-green T-shirt and cammo fatigues, she was curvy but clearly in top physical form. Her skin was a deep copper color and her thick black hair lay in one long braid down the middle of her back. But it was her eyes that drew him, melting the glacial reserve that usually protected him. They were a warm golden-brown, and they sparkled with life. The careless smile on her full lips told him she either didn’t know who he was or could put on a helluva good facade. As he gripped her hand, he found her long fingers strong and resilient. He tried to ignore the warmth radiating from her, and gave her hand a perfunctory shake.
“Yeah, I’m Jason Trayhern,” he said abruptly. He released her hand because it felt like fire itself, and saw her smile widen.
“Welcome to the Eagle Warrior Squadron. You’re now part of the 101st Screamin’ Eagle family, and that’s a proud heritage to carry.” Annie gestured around the huge hangar, which held four Apaches in for routine maintenance. “This is our home away from home. You’ll be spending a lot of time down here with us.”
Her voice was like smooth sipping whiskey, and it ruffled his icy armor. “I would expect to,” he said, biting off his words with official coolness. Her hair was coming loose from her braid, and her T-shirt was soaked with sweat. And no wonder. It was eighty-five degrees in here, and the humidity was just as high. He was sweating in his class A uniform, and envied her in the everyday clothing most people wore on the base. He desperately wanted to get out of his uniform.
“Well,” Annie said, “I assume you’ve already talked to Colonel Dugan? Been through the personnel game?” She tried to sound upbeat and glad to see him. Truth be told, Annie wanted to step away from this warrant officer, who was a grade below her in rank. That made her the commanding officer, and he had to follow her orders, not vice versa. Oh, it was true, he was ruggedly handsome, with that square, aggressive chin. She was sure most women would swivel their heads to look at this dude. He was definitely easy on the eyes. Yet Annie could feel his tension, and saw it reflected in his narrowed, darting gaze. A part of her felt sorry for Trayhern, because being new was always a pain in the butt. His mouth was thinned, too, telling her he wasn’t at ease in the situation. Seeing a film of sweat covering his brow just beneath the edge of his beret, she realized he must be very hot in the wool uniform.
“Yeah, I went through those volleys.”
Annie heard the repressed anger in his taut tone of voice. Though he held a black cowhide briefcase in his left hand, there was no question he was in a fighter’s stance. Why? There was no one here to make him feel that guarded or intimidated. Maybe that was the problem, Annie thought. He didn’t trust anyone.
Giving him her best official smile, Annie said, “Well, come with me. I’ll take you to the squadron locker room. We’ll get you squared away with a locker, and in the meantime enjoy the wonderful air-conditioning inside.”
“Sounds good to me.” Jason glanced around. He noticed that nearby crews, three to a helo, were all circumspectly looking at them. He was sure everyone knew that Dazen was getting a new pilot who’d just been transferred in. But did they know about him? The truth, that is? Had his black cloud of bad luck followed him here, too?
As he swung in behind Dazen and followed her across the spotlessly clean concrete floor toward the west flank of the hangar, he realized that this was a spit-and-polish operation. Not that the squadron he’d left hadn’t been, but Jason could spot little things that told the tale. He’d heard that the 101st was a top-notch unit, and now he believed it. The Screamin’ Eagles were the best. He was surprised that he’d been sent here, because normally only the cream of the aviation crop landed here. He hadn’t expected such a plum. When Butler had called him in for new orders, Jason had thought he was going to be relegated to some Army outpost—out of sight, out of mind.
Now he tried to ignore the gentle sway of Dazen’s hips as she walked in front of him. He didn’t want to be drawn to her as a woman. Colonel Dugan had read him the riot act, making it clear that if Jason screwed up here, he was out. Period. A BCD. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? More than anything, Jason wanted to avoid a bad conduct discharge. That black mark would haunt him the rest of his life, he knew. It was wretched enough that he’d been kicked out of Annapolis in his third year. He’d never live that down in a million years, given the military dynasty that was his family heritage.
Grimly, he forced himself to quit thinking about the sordid past. All it did was bring up pain, and that was something he was trying to avoid at all costs. He’d had enough of that to last for ten lifetimes.
Dazen opened a door, and when they stepped inside a narrow passageway, a delicious coolness hit him.
“Whew!” Annie said, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, “what I’d give to have air-conditioning out in that hangar. Southern weather sucks!” And she laughed.
He walked at her shoulder. “You aren’t from the South?”
“Me?” She looked up at him and grinned. “No. I’m a full-blooded Apache from the White River Reservation near Show Low, Arizona. Land of desert, high mountains, low humidity, lakes and thousands of pine trees.” She saw his eyes thaw ever so slightly. “Where do you come from?”
“Hell,” he answered abruptly.
Annie slowed her pace for a second. The passage was empty of people at this time of day. For a moment, she wondered if he was serious. “Is that a polite way of telling me to mind my own business?” She kept her tone light and slightly teasing as she watched him take off his beret and wipe his brow.
“No.” Jason settled the beret back on his head. He refused to be drawn into friendly banter with her. She was his boss. There was an invisible line of demarcation between a junior and senior officer. No matter how much he wanted to respond to her sunny personality, he couldn’t allow it.
“In there is the men’s locker room,” she said, leading him through. “Off-limits to women, but there’re plenty of open lockers available, from what the guys have told me. Just pick one and get the combination lock that’s hanging on it. The combo to open it is written on a piece of paper tied to the lock.”
“Okay.” He looked down at her expectantly. “After getting a locker, what’s next?”
Shrugging, Annie said, “They said they’re putting you up at the B.O.Q. until we ship to Afghanistan. Have you stopped over there to get a room assigned to you yet?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it. Room 202, in case you need to ring me for anything in the future.”
Annie nodded and mentally tucked the number into the back of her mind. “You got wheels?” Nashville, Tennessee, was only sixty miles away and he might have taken the bus down here. Unless he’d driven his car from his last base, in Colorado.
“Yeah, I’ve got wheels.”
“Okay, why don’t you get your locker and head back to the B.O.Q.? Once you change into your work uniform, come on back to the hangar. There’s plenty of indoctrination you need to get up to speed here. I’ll be out there with my crew, so just hunt me up when you return.”
“Yeah, fine. By the way, is there a phone around here I can use? I need to make a call. Maybe in your office?”
“Sure, let me show you where. We’ll be sharing the same office.” She gave him a measured look. “You’ll be spending a lot of time in it, for the next week anyway, familiarizing yourself with our manuals of operation.”
Jason followed her down the passageway. Reaching an intersection, she turned left toward a cluster of ten small offices, five on each side of the corridor. There was a hall window in each, with venetian blinds to keep out prying eyes if the warrants wanted privacy from passersby.
The first office on the left was hers. Annie unlocked it and entered, and when Jason followed, the heavenly coolness enveloped him even more strongly. Automatically, he gave a little sigh of relief as he shut the door behind him.
Annie walked around the metal desk, which was covered with neat piles of papers. She touched the black phone. “If you’re making a long-distance, nonmilitary call, just dial the operator and use a credit card.”
“Got it,” he said, setting his briefcase on the floor next to the desk. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” Annie opened a drawer and drew out a key. “Here, you might as well have this. It’s a key to the office. Just lock it up when you’re done?”
She saw him wrestle with his icy reserve, as if considering whether he could let down his guard. The iciness won out. She saw his eyes harden as he pulled out her chair, took off his garrison cap and sat down. “Yeah, no problem. Thanks, Ms. Dazen.”
She lifted her hand. “I’ll see you later, Mr. Trayhern. Welcome to the Screamin’ Eagles.”
He watched her push open the door and then disappear. Well, that hadn’t gone as badly as he’d thought it might. Maybe Dazen didn’t know of his jaded history. At least he hoped not. Frowning, Jason pulled a credit card from his wallet. It had been a week since his transfer, and he hadn’t called home for a week before that. He was sure his mother would be worried about him by this time. Normally, he called his mom once a week. And every time he did, he hoped his father wasn’t around so he wouldn’t have to speak to him. Jason tried to time his calls for just before lunch hour, knowing his mother would likely be there alone in his family home in Phillipsburg, Montana. His dad always drove home from the office in order to have lunch with her, so Jason tried to call before he arrived. Avoiding his father suited him just fine.
Picking up the phone, he punched in the numbers. Heart beating a little faster in expectation, he gripped the phone in hopes that his mother was there—and alone.
Laura Trayhern had just finished getting her two-year-old into her special kiddie seat at the kitchen table. Kamaria looked up at her now with wide blue-gray eyes and smiled. “Spoon, Mama?”
“Oh, you are such a cute little tyke,” Laura whispered, pressing a kiss to her adopted daughter’s soft black hair, which Laura had just brushed and braided. Reaching toward the counter, Laura retrieved one of the wooden utensils that sat in a yellow ceramic cup next to the range.
“Mama…” Kamaria held up her arms as she approached.
“You are irresistible!” Laura chuckled and gave the child the spoon before she tied a pink terry-cloth bib over her daughter’s purple Barney T-shirt. “There! Okay, wail away and do your musical renditions.” Kamaria liked to beat the spoon against the table in time to whatever music was playing on the small radio perched on top of the refrigerator.
Laura was heading for the fridge when the phone rang. Detouring, she looked back to make sure Kamaria was okay. Strapped in her chair, her fifth child sat quietly, looking around the cedar-paneled kitchen and waving the spoon like a flag. Sunlight poured through the windows, highlighting the gauzy white cotton curtains on either side of the sink.
“Hello? Laura here….”
“Mom?”
“Jason! Oh, I’m so glad you called! Is everything all right? We didn’t hear from you last week.”
“Yeah, I’m fine, Mom. I’m sorry I didn’t phone.”
“Are you all right?” She hastily wiped her hands on a kitchen towel, frowning at the note of trepidation she heard in her son’s voice. Leaning against the counter, she watched Kamaria, who was now beating the spoon against the table in time with a jaunty ragtime song.
“Uh, yeah…fine. Is…Father around?”
Sighing, Laura said, “No. He’s still at Perseus.”
“Oh…good.”
Pain flitted through Laura’s heart. “He loves to hear from you, too, Jason. I wish you’d stop avoiding him. I don’t like having to give him secondhand information from you all the time.”
“Yeah, I know, Mom. Sorry. Maybe someday…”
She knew better than to push her son. He took after her husband, Morgan, in so many ways. Both of them had a stubborn pride that made them unapproachable on certain issues, especially old, oozing wounds that had never healed. She moved to the sink, cradling the phone between her head and shoulder. Picking up a knife, she began to slice an apple for the Waldorf salad she was going to make for lunch. “Well, how goes it? Are you getting a lot of flying hours in? Last I heard, you were unhappy because you weren’t getting them.”
“Yeah…well, Mom, some things have changed. That’s why I didn’t call earlier.”
She held the knife suspended above the apple. “What do you mean, Jason? What’s changed?” The last time he’d used those words, he’d been abruptly transferred out of Fort Rucker to an Apache squadron in Fort Collins, Colorado. Heart sinking, Laura wondered what had happened now. Somehow, Jason’s life was dogged by bad luck. Not that he didn’t bring some of it on himself, she knew. Her son wasn’t perfect, no matter how Morgan wished he were.
“Well, Mom, I’m in a new squadron. The 101st Airborne. How about that? The Screamin’ Eagles. The cradle of Army aviation. I’ve been assigned to the Eagle Warrior Squadron here at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.”
“That’s unexpected, Jason. What happened?” Her voice was low and hesitant. In the back of her mind, Laura knew Morgan would be upset. Unless his military cronies had already called him about this transfer and Morgan hadn’t told her yet. He’d do that, too, because he knew she’d be worried about Jason. Ever since he’d been kicked out of Annapolis, his life had gone from bad to worse.
“I, uh…well, I demanded a transfer and got it.”
“But…you seemed happy with your old squadron.”
“I know….”
“Why, Jason? What happened?” Laura set the knife and apple aside. She turned to keep an eye on Kamaria, who was sucking contentedly on the spoon now that the song had ended.
“I just couldn’t get along with the pilot I was assigned to fly with.”
She heard the frustration in his voice. “But you didn’t get along with the first one, either. That’s two pilots, isn’t it? Jason, what is happening?” She tried to keep the worry out of her voice, but Laura knew it wasn’t working. Gnawing on her lower lip, she felt her heart breaking once more for her son. She was no newbie to the military system. In fact, Laura had been a military writer for decades, and continued to publish articles within high-command military circles. She knew the dope on transfers as well as anyone. And Jason hadn’t been at Fort Collins long enough to ask for—and receive—a transfer unless something had gone terribly wrong.
“I just didn’t get along with them, Mom. That’s all.”
Laura heard the steely defensiveness in her son’s deep voice. Once more he was putting up walls to keep her out. “And they let you transfer? Again?” Laura knew the service would not tolerate something like this for long. She was surprised he’d gotten a transfer at all. And she knew he wasn’t telling her the whole truth. Jason was hedging. He always did when the news wasn’t good.
“Yeah, they did. Things look good, though. You’ll never guess who I’ve been assigned to.”
Hearing the hope in his voice, Laura smiled softly. “Tell me.”
“I’ll be flying with a female pilot, Mom. CWO2 Annie Dazen is her name. She’s a full-blood Apache from Arizona. How about that? She’s one of a handful of women who have ever made it through Apache school, and she was at the top of her class, from what Colonel Dugan told me. He’s my C.O. now, by the way.”
“A woman. Well, maybe you can get along with her?” Laura chuckled, and she heard Jason give a strained laugh. Her heart lifted. Oh, how she wanted him to have good things happen!
“I’m going to try,” Jason said, becoming serious once more. “I’m assigned to the B.O.Q. right now. That’s temporary. I want to give you Dazen’s phone number, because her office is my office, in case you need to reach me. You got a paper and pen?”
Laura turned and pulled out a small plastic box that sat next to the wall phone. “Yeah, go ahead, honey.” Taking out an index card, she wrote down the number he gave her.
“I’ll be in touch, Mom. I’ll call you next week, okay?”
“Okay. You sound good, Jason. Better than I’ve heard you sound in the last year.”
“Maybe this new pilot will be good for me.”
“Do you like her?”
“I don’t dislike her. She was real friendly and warm toward me when we met.”
“Do you think she knows about your past?”
“I don’t know. If she does, she isn’t showing it. At least, not yet. But we just made intros, so I really don’t know.”
“What does she look like? Is she married? Have kids?” Nowadays, the Army was family. Back in the sixties, most people in the service had been single. Now it was made up of married couples and families—a huge change for the military to adjust to.
Jason laughed. “I haven’t a clue. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but in our business, we don’t wear jewelry when we fly.”
“Well, find out, okay?”
“Mom, you are so nosy sometimes!”
She laughed a little. Kamaria waved the spoon and Laura lifted her hand and waved back. “I’m a woman, dear, and those things are important to us. What does Ms. Dazen look like? You said she was Indian?”
“Yeah, she’s tall and well proportioned, from what I can see. She probably lifts weights. There’s no fat on her. But she isn’t a twig, either. There’s some meat to her bones.”
“Black hair? Copper skin?”
“Yeah, that, too. Nice eyes.”
Laura heard his tone of voice thaw a little. Her heart thumped with hope. Oh, please, God, let Jason get along with this woman. Let there be peace, not war between them.
“What color? Brown?”
“Golden color, really. I can see her pupils in them. She has large, alert eyes, Mom. In some ways, she reminds me of an owl. Not because of the shape of her eyes, but that gold-yellow color. Remember that great horned owl that used to nest in the pine trees on the east side of our home?”
“Oh, Miss Lucy. Sure.” Laura had named the huge brown-and-white owl that used to roost high above their two-story cedar home in the woods.
“Eyes like that. Pretty.”
“Sounds as if you like her already.”
“Well…I wouldn’t go that far, Mom. She’s okay. She’s friendly and seems to want to make me feel at home.”
“That’s a good sign.”
“Yeah, maybe. It will probably all change when she finds out about my infamous past.”
Laura hurt for her son. She knew that gossip followed everyone in the military like a curse. Sooner or later, Dazen would find out about Jason’s shameful history. Gripping the phone a little more tightly, she whispered, “Well, maybe Ms. Dazen isn’t going to hold it against you.”
Sighing, Jason said, “I’ll find out, that’s for sure.”
“Do you need anything, honey?”
“No, just to hear your voice. It reminds me of home.”
Laura closed her eyes. Jason loved being home. He loved living in Montana. He loved working with plants and animals. In high school, he’d excelled in biology. But Morgan had wanted him to go to a military academy to carry on the proud, two-hundred-year-plus tradition of the Trayhern family. Since Jason was the oldest male he was expected to go into the military. Laura knew he really hadn’t wanted to. Instead, he had wanted to become an ecologist and work outdoors, somewhere in nature. But that wasn’t to be.
“Well, you can come home on leave, son. Your bedroom is unchanged from the day you left it.” Laura knew Jason would never come home, not until he healed the rift with Morgan. Jason always spent his thirty days of leave overseas, instead. It had been nearly three years since Laura had even seen her son—not since the Five Days of Christmas party right after his first year in Annapolis.
“Yeah, I know, Mom. I should come home…but, well, you know how it is.”
“I know…”
“Listen, I gotta run. I’ll be in touch next week. Love you. Say hi to Pete and Kelly, and give little Kamaria a hug from me?”
Tears burned in Laura’s eyes. She cleared her throat and whispered, “I always do, honey.”
“And how’s Katy? What have you heard from her?”
Laura knew it hurt Jason that his younger sister, two years behind him in age, had taken up the family honor and volunteered to go to the Academy to represent them. Before Jason left, he’d been very close to Katy.
“She’s doing fine, honey. She’s flying Seahawk down in Columbia for the Black Ops stuff.”
“Just like Dad….”
Laura heard the grimness in Jason’s tone. Morgan had been a Marine. Jason was supposed to have taken the same route, but hadn’t, due to the scandal. “Yes, she’s following him into the Corps.”
“I see…. Well, I gotta go, Mom….”
“Take care of yourself? We love you….”
Just as Laura hung up, the front door opened and then quietly closed. That would be her husband, Morgan, coming home for lunch. She tucked the notecard with Jason’s office number on it into her apron pocket. Morgan came through the entryway, wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt and tan chinos, and still looking every inch a Marine with his military-short black hair, which had gone gray at the temples. Her husband was one of the most powerful men in the world when it came to espionage. His company worked beneath the auspices of the CIA, and Laura was proud of Morgan’s ability to help people around the world get out of trouble.
Today, though, she saw he was worried. His square face and gray eyes looked tight with tension. She walked up to him and placed a kiss on his cheek. “You look awful, darling. What’s wrong? Is a mission going bad?”
Morgan bussed his wife’s velvet cheek, inhaling the faint jasmine fragrance she wore. Placing his hand on her waist, he pressed her against him for a moment.
“No, not a mercenary mission,” he answered. Releasing her, he made his way to the table where Kamaria sat. The little girl twisted toward him, a smile of unabashed welcome on her face. Leaning over, Morgan placed a kiss on his daughter’s pink cheek.
“How’s our little musician doing?” he asked, turning to Laura as he rested his hand upon Kamaria’s tiny shoulders.
Laura pulled a turkey-and-cheese casserole out of the oven and placed it on a pot holder in the middle of the maple table. Immediately a delicious smell filled the air. “Beating along in rhythm with whatever comes on the radio. Her hair is long enough to braid now. With the temperature so warm today, I thought she might like to have it up off her neck. Do you like it? Come and sit down. Everything’s ready to eat.”
Morgan sat at the end of the table next to Kamaria. “Yeah, she looks cute in braids. Umm, that smells good. Turkey casserole?” He enjoyed being with his wife and daughter for lunch every day. Eyeing Laura, who was wearing jeans and a pink tank top, he admired her figure. His wife had carried four of their children. She was in her forties, and looked more beautiful to him than ever. Her waist was not as small as it used to be, but then, she was a mother. To him, she was still the special woman he’d met so many years earlier at an airport near Washington, D.C.
Kamaria thumped his arm with the spoon. He grinned and wiped her mouth and chin with his napkin, mopping up the drool that was soaking her T-shirt at the collar.
Laura placed the Waldorf salad in front of him, then put a portion of casserole on a plastic plate in front of their daughter.
When Laura sat down, Morgan gently placed the fork in the toddler’s small hand to show her how to hold it properly. The daily lessons were slowly having an impact. Kamaria waved the fork around before plunging it like an airplane into the casserole in front of her.
Laura finished serving and said, “Why are you looking so upset? I can see it in your eyes.”
Grimacing, Morgan said, “I can’t hide a thing from you anymore, can I?”
“Not after all these years of marriage, darling.”
“I’ll tell you after lunch. Let’s enjoy the time we have now.”
Nodding, Laura acquiesced, filling him with relief. Since the terror his family had suffered during a kidnapping by drug lords years ago, Morgan knew he couldn’t protect them from everything, and that ate at him. The kidnapping had been the druggies’ way of paying back Morgan for disrupting their cocaine trafficking out of the Caribbean and South America. He shuddered as he remembered how he, Laura and Jason had been taken to different parts of the world and held without ransom.
Morgan had felt so powerless. Once they’d been rescued and brought back together, Morgan had moved his family out of Washington, D.C., to the protective mountains of Montana.
Since then, he’d done everything in his power to keep his family safe. He had taken Perseus deep underground. To this day, no one except high-echelon members of the CIA and top-ranking military personnel knew the whereabouts of his supersecret organization. And since that time, Morgan valued and cherished moments with his family as never before. But whenever he was faced with a new trial, he couldn’t help but think of the emotional impact of the kidnapping on his family. Especially Jason, who had been six years old at the time. Jason didn’t trust anyone anymore, least of all his father, who had been unable to keep him safe in a world gone bad. And Morgan, no matter how he tried, could not repair that terrible rift that lay like the Grand Canyon between them. Over the years, it had driven them further and further apart, until Jason refused to talk to his father, even though Morgan tried often to reestablish connection with him.
As she ate her salad, Laura watched Morgan guide a spoonful of casserole into Kamaria’s bow-shaped mouth. Laura’s heart swelled with joy. Little Kamaria had been found in the rubble of a Southern California earthquake she herself had been caught in. While Laura was recovering in the hospital at Camp Reed, she had helped take care of Kamaria. When she’d discovered that the little girl had been orphaned by the quake, Morgan had agreed with her request to adopt her. Morgan liked the name of his sister and mother for the baby. Laura liked Kamaria. She ended up with a huge name of Rachel Alyssa Kamaria Trayhern.
Laura knew having a baby in the house again had been very healing, especially to Morgan, who had never had this kind of relationship with his two eldest children, Jason and Katy. Now he was devoting quality time to Pete and Kelly, their fraternal twins, and Kamaria. Laura knew he took parenting very seriously and was trying to make up for all the mistakes he believed he had made with their first two children.
Even now, as Morgan smiled at Kamaria, he turned to his wife and said, “I wish I knew then what I know now.” His voice was low with pain, and Laura felt for him. “What if I’d spent this kind of time with Jason? Would things be different now?”
Laura reached over, taking his hand to comfort him, all the while wondering if he already knew about Jason’s transfer, and if he didn’t, how he would react when he found out….
Chapter 3
After lunch, Morgan stood with Laura in the backyard, watching as Kamaria happily played in her sandbox with a red plastic pail and scoop. The dappled sunlight felt good, and he slid his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I didn’t want to spoil our lunch,” he began. His mouth flexed and in a lower tone he added, “I have some bad news about Jason.”
Knowing what was to come, Laura leaned against his tall, strong frame, studying the darkness in his gray eyes.
Sighing, Morgan closed his hand around her right shoulder. “You know Red Dugan? The C.O. of the Eagle Warrior Apache Squadron with the 101st Airborne? I think you met him at that military convention in D.C. last year. Anyway, I got a call from him today. He told me that Jason had been transferred to his squadron at Fort Campbell. Dugan told me on the q.t. that Jason literally got kicked out of his old squadron. He has a personality problem, Laura. Pilots on two different Apaches asked for him to be transferred to another team. That kid is causing nothing but trouble no matter where he goes.”
Trying to wrestle with his anger, frustration and shame over his son’s actions, Morgan continued, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this.”
Laura looked up at her husband. Although little Kamaria was only two years old and wouldn’t understand adult problems, Laura kept her voice low to protect her from the discussion that was to come.
“Synchronicity strikes again, Morgan. I was going to tell you once lunch was over that I just got a call from Jason.” She saw surprise flicker in his eyes before they narrowed with pain. Her heart ached for him. “I didn’t want to tell you earlier and ruin your lunch. I know how upsetting this is for you. Jason never wants to talk to you, and tries to time his calls to when you aren’t around.” She shrugged helplessly. “I was going to tell you now, but you beat me to it.”
Raking the fingers of his free hand through his hair, Morgan gave a jerky nod. He walked on across the wide green yard, with Laura at his side. “I swear that kid is hell-bent on self-destruction. I don’t know what to do to stop him.” He turned to his wife, who seemed so small next to him. She was petite, yet strong in ways he never would be. “Red told me in no uncertain terms that this is Jason’s last chance. If he can’t get along with the new pilot assigned to him now, then he’s out—with a bad conduct discharge.”
“Oh, God,” Laura whispered, pressing her fingers against her lips. “When he called earlier he never mentioned anything about that.”
“Of course he wouldn’t. He evades, Laura. He never tells either of us the whole story. We only get it piecemeal from my friends at the Pentagon. If not for them, we wouldn’t have a clue.”
“Well…he sounded good, Morgan. He really did. Even hopeful. And he was more open than usual. He’s been assigned to a female helo pilot—one of the few women currently flying the combat birds in the U.S. military. Jason said he likes her. Well, he didn’t go that far, but he sounded more hopeful than I’ve heard him sound since he joined the Army two years ago.” She reached out and slid her fingers down Morgan’s arm.
Feeling anguished, Morgan groped for Laura’s slender, warm fingers and gently wrapped his around them. Looking over her head, he saw Kamaria toddling around in the sand, waving the red scoop in her right hand, the pail in her left. One of their cats, a calico by the name of Tortie Girl, was walking in front of her, tail held high, as if to tease his daughter. The look of joy on Kamaria’s face as she gently reached out to touch Tortie Girl’s tail with the red shovel made him feel a little better. Kamaria smiled more than any of his other children. But then, Morgan reminded himself, she hadn’t suffered the strain of his parenting during the difficult times in his past. With a sigh, he hoped he was a changed man and that his youngest daughter would grow up without that stress affecting her.
“What else did he say?” Morgan murmured, looking at Laura once more. It hurt to know that Jason never wanted to talk with him. But why should he? They were icy cold with one another and the conversation always ended up with Morgan berating Jason. He knew he shouldn’t, but he didn’t know how else to handle his troubled son.
Laura slid her arm around her husband’s waist and leaned her head against his shoulder. The warm summer breeze was wonderful, the scent of the pines a balm for how she felt right now. She shared the rest of her conversation with Jason with Morgan, as she always did. Her heart ached when she saw the worry and frustration in his eyes as she stood with him at the far corner of the fenced yard.
“Did Red say anything about Chief Annie Dazen?” she asked when she was done. “That’s who Jason’s assigned to.”
Shaking his head, Morgan muttered, “No. He did say that he was giving Jason the very best chance he could by putting him with the top pilot in their squadron. And I owe Dugan for that.”
“He’s doing this because of you, Morgan. Everyone in the U.S. military respects you, no matter what service they’re in.”
“I guess so,” he mumbled, “Red told me that. And I thanked him.”
“A BCD? Oh, God, Morgan, I hope Jason turns around. He’s been in a downward spiral ever since being kicked out of Annapolis.”
“He’s angry.” Morgan’s mouth flattened as he looked sightlessly at the mountain that rose in front of them, hundreds of fragrant pine trees blanketed the slope, standing at attention like green guardians. “He’s angry at me. Probably doesn’t trust me after what happened when he was six. He’s carried that anger ever since the kidnapping. I know where it’s coming from.” Shaking his head, Morgan rasped unsteadily, “I screwed up so badly when he was young….”
“Shh,” Laura whispered. She turned and placed her hands on his upper arms, giving him a slight shake. “Listen to me, darling. You did the best you could. I was concerned about our high visibility in the Washington, D.C. community back then. And yes, we did talk about moving, or at least keeping our address secret. We just didn’t do it soon enough.”
Miserably, Morgan looked down at her. “I should have listened when you first suggested the move. So much bad came out of the kidnapping…for everyone….” He lifted a strand of her shoulder-length blond hair and gently placed it behind her ear. Laura had also been kidnapped, and raped repeatedly by the drug lord, who was trying to get even with Morgan for his efforts to disrupt his billion-dollar drug trade. His wife had spent years in therapy, climbing out of the hell that experience had left her in, and it had forever affected her—and him—as a result. Morgan now realized that when a woman was raped, a part of her was murdered, never to return. In an alarming way, the drug lords continued to get even with him to this day for his arrogant belief that no one would dare to harm his family. He had been so terribly wrong in his assessment of their safety back then.
“Jason is still paying a price for my bad judgment. My arrogance. I don’t blame him for being angry with me, Laura. I just wish like hell he’d quit rebelling against the world because of it. It’s me he wants to get at.”
Tears stung Laura’s eyes as she searched her husband’s gaze, which was filled with pain. She could see he wanted to cry, but Morgan never cried. He was a warrior from a dynasty of warriors who had served their country faithfully and fully. Tears were not an option for him, no matter what. If only Morgan could cry and release some of that pain that never left him. Laura always found release from crying. It was like a storm moving through her, cleansing her of ugly feelings. Afterward, she always felt lighter, cleaner, and relieved of the burdens that had made her weep.
“Listen to me, Morgan. Jason got the best psychiatric counseling we could give him. We did all we could to undo the damage done to him by that drug lord over in Hawaii.” Sliding her hand against his face, she whispered, “All we can do is love him and be there for him, darling. This is painful for everyone. We’re all hurting, and it hasn’t gotten any easier as he’s grown older.”
A groan broke from Morgan’s tight lips when he saw tears brimming in Laura’s eyes. Threading his fingers through her hair and taming the strands tossed by the breeze, he said, “Let’s hope that Annie Dazen is a guardian angel for him, because it’s Jason’s last stop on this downward spiral. If he gets a BCD…well, I don’t know what will happen to him. No corporation will want him. No one will hire him. It’s a black mark on him for life.”
Nodding, Laura said, “Yes, let’s hope Annie can pull a rabbit out of the hat for all of us.” Morgan himself had been marked as a traitor to his country, she reflected. And yet, in time, he had managed to clear his name. A BCD, however, was different. She hoped it didn’t happen—hoped her son’s life wouldn’t be marked forever.
“Let’s get to work, Mr. Trayhern,” Annie said when she saw her new copilot come through the door at the side of the hangar. Dressed in his flight uniform, he walked proudly, with his broad shoulders squared and his chin lifted almost arrogantly. At 1500, the temperature was nearing ninety and the humidity made the air feel like a soaked sponge. She had changed into her one-piece flight suit, and had her helmet sitting on the fuselage skirt.
“You look like you’re ready to go up.” Jason saw her slightly tilted eyes sparkle with mischief above her high cheekbones, her full mouth slightly curved in one corner.
“Yes, we are. You got your helmet with you?”
He halted before her in the busy hangar. “It’s in my locker. I, uh, didn’t think—”
“Go get it and meet me out on the apron.” Annie turned and called over to her crew chief to get the helo pushed out of the hangar so they could fly it. As she twisted to glance across her shoulder, she saw Trayhern stand uncertainly for a moment, a confused scowl on his features.
“Problems?” she demanded.
“No.” Jason studied her face, which was now dead serious. As nice as Ms. Dazen had been upon first meeting, she was all business now. Turning, he hurried back across the hangar toward the locker room.
A short while later, Annie stood beside the bird as her crew prepared it for takeoff. She looked up at the light blue sky, which was filling with cumulus clouds, and surmised that a storm could result around 1600. Sweat trickled down her rib cage and she turned to see Trayhern trotting out of the hangar.
She was pleased to see that he took her request that they fly now seriously. There was a guarded look on his face and that was fine with her. Colonel Dugan had said to test him immediately on his flight capabilities. The colonel wanted to know just how good—or bad—Jason Trayhern was behind the stick of a helo. And so did she.
As he came up, Annie introduced him to her three-person flight crew. To her relief, he shook hands and murmured words of greeting to each. At least he had some sense of civility.
When he moved to where she stood near the step on the side of the Apache fuselage, Annie pulled on her fire-retardant flight gloves. “You get the lower cockpit.” Since she was pilot in charge, she could choose to sit in either spot. She preferred the upper cockpit because it gave her more visibility.
“I need the upper one,” he replied. “I fly better in that position.”
Hearing the steel in his tone, she smiled crookedly. “Do you always get what you want, Mr. Trayhern?” He was trying to intimidate her. On purpose? Or was it just his warrior attitude?
“Usually.” He saw the challenging glint in her eyes as they narrowed speculatively upon him. Annie was three inches shorter, but with her proud carriage and bearing, he could swear she was his height. Maybe it was her cocky Apache pilot stance. No one flew this combat bird who wasn’t an aggressive type A personality, someone who lived for confrontation.
“Not today, Mr. Trayhern. Now, climb up.” As she motioned to the dark green metal shield that covered one of the wheels of the helo, she saw him frown. This was the first test: would he take orders from a woman? Standing relaxed, she watched what looked like anger move across his face. Did Trayhern know how easy he was to read? He put the helmet on his head and fastened the strap beneath his square chin. She saw a couple of small scars on his smoothly shaved jaw. Had someone picked a fight with this guy? More than likely.
She watched as he put one black flight boot onto the first rung and hoisted himself upward. The cockpit Plexiglas opened on one side only. Just above it, less than a foot away, were the four blades of the bird. She watched as he expertly slid in and squeezed himself into the narrow confines of the front, lower cockpit. Spec 2 Bobby Warner, one of the mechanics on her crew, climbed up and knelt beside him, quickly helping Trayhern with the array of harnesses that had to be put on and locked securely into place. Once Warner was done, he turned and grinned down at her.
“Ready for you, ma’am.” Then he stood up and moved to the end of the skirt so she could ascend.
“Excellent, Warner. Thanks.” Annie threw her helmet to him and then quickly climbed into the upper cockpit. This was home to her. She slid down onto the seat, the two HUDs—heads-up displays—in front of her. Each cockpit had the exact same equipment, so if one pilot was incapacitated the other could take over flying and get them home safely.
Warner handed her the helmet.
“Thanks,” Annie murmured. Within moments, she was strapped in and ready to go. Plugging the cord from her helmet into the radio receptacle, she switched to intercabin intercom.
“You read me, Mr. Trayhern? Over.”
“Read you loud and clear, Ms. Dazen.”
“Good.” Annie looked over and gave Warner a thumbs-up. Below, standing near the nose of the helo, where Annie could see her, was her crew chief. Kat stood with a pair of earphones on, the phone jack plugged into a side panel of the Apache. She would be responsible for starting of the bird.
“Okay, Kat, let’s get this show on the road,” Annie murmured. She nodded to Warner and gave him the signal to shut and lock each of the cockpits. Excitement thrummed through her. Flying was like breathing to Annie. Her adrenaline surged as soon as she felt the whine of the twin engines. Below, she saw her crew scurrying about efficiently. Kat gave a thumbs-up and Annie pressed the mike close to her lips.
“Okay, Mr. Trayhern, this flight is all yours. Power up.”
Annie pulled a clipboard from a side pocket of the cockpit and placed it across her knees. Before she had been assigned with the 101st, she’d been a flight trainer. The clipboard held a list of all the maneuvers she was going to put him through and grade him on. He didn’t know, of course, that she’d been an inspector pilot. Annie wanted him to be as relaxed as possible on this flight. There wasn’t a pilot alive that didn’t tense up and screw up when an IP was in the cockpit, grading him or her. Annie wanted to give Trayhern a chance.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She smiled to herself. Trayhern had clearly dropped the anger she had seen in him on the tarmac, and was all business now. That was good. She heard him communicate with Kat Lakey on the ground. The blessed flow of air-conditioning began just then and Annie sighed in relief, because the cockpit was like a sauna until the cool air got turned on. Sweat dribbled down her left temple and she swiped it away.
When the Apache’s first engine started, the familiar high, shrieking whine began. The second engine came on next, and Annie saw Kat pull out the intercom cord and lock the panel down. Then the crew chief backed off and lifted her arm straight up, twirling her fingers, which was a signal for Trayhern to engage the blades.
The shuddering started. Annie absorbed it like a lover. The Apache was the most feared combat helicopter in the world. To her, it was like a dinosaur, ugly as sin, but lethal. When the blades started slowly turning around and around, she felt lulled, like a child cradled by its mother. There was something comforting and soothing about the shaking that went on as the blades whirled faster and faster.
She heard Jason call into the tower at Ops for takeoff permission. Once it was granted, she saw Lakey duck beneath the carriage to remove the chocks from behind and in front of the wheels. Once the crew chief was clear, Annie heard Trayhern’s deep, unruffled voice in her headset. “Ready for liftoff, Ms. Dazen?”
“Yes, I am, Mr. Trayhern. Let’s fly….”
Annie held the pen in her right hand, the clipboard across her thighs as the Apache lifted smoothly from the ground. She talked him through the air corridors flight pattern that every helo had to follow when taking off from the base. Once they were out over the countryside, the flat plains of Kentucky changed to gentle, rolling hills, a landscape of green, as they flew across the state boundary into Tennessee. The massive Army base sprawled across the state line, part in Tennessee, but the bulk of it in Kentucky, where ninety-three thousand acres had been set aside for flight training and firing ranges.
At this time of day, flying was often rough, and Annie was jostled continuously as the helo hit air pocket after air pocket. As the summer sun beat down on the earth, thermals rising off the hills created unstable conditions that made flying a challenge.
“I remember this,” Jason said, feeling the collective and cyclic in his hands. It felt good to be flying again. They were at five thousand feet and heading to a restricted air space where they could fly maneuvers without hitting a civilian plane.
“What? The thermals?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. He’d been nervous, but the comforting shudder of the helo had taken his anxiety away. “We all went through Apache training school in Alabama. I remember I always got afternoon flights, when the humidity was at its highest. It wasn’t fun at first. My lunch was always comin’ up. Flying out of this base reminds me of afternoon flights at Fort Rucker.” Southern states in the U.S. always got high humidity coming in off the Gulf. At Fort Collins, Colorado, the air was much drier, making it easier to fly.
Chuckling, Annie looked around the sunny cockpit, then drew down the dark visor on her helmet. “Oh, yeah, bag time. How long ago did you last eat?”
He laughed shortly. “Bag time” meant throwing up during flight, into a red plastic bag that was stored in the right pocket of every cockpit. “Not to worry this time around. I learned a long time ago to eat lightly at lunch.”
“Fill a few, did you?”
“A couple. You?”
“Nah. Indians don’t get airsick.”
Smiling slightly, Jason found himself curious about her Native American background. “I see….”
“In all honesty,” Annie told him, “I had two hundred flight hours in helicopters before I came into the Army. And I was kidding about Indians not getting airsick. We’re human just like everyone else.”
“I’ve never flown with an Indian before. I guess it’s something I’ll have to get used to.” Well, that didn’t come out right, did it? He cringed over his spontaneous choice of words. It was one of his problems: foot-in-mouth disease.
“Now, should I take that comment as an insult or a compliment?”
Jason frowned, his gaze flying across the cockpit dials. “No, it’s me not thinking,” he said abruptly.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my brain.”
“Does it happen often?”
“Pretty much. And I apologize.”
She heard him almost choking on his words. Was it because he didn’t say he was sorry very often? Or was he genuinely trying to get along with her but fumbling it? Annie chose to believe the latter, not wanting to think that he was prejudiced on top of everything else. After all, this was his first day in a new squadron with a new air commander. He had to be nervous.
“You don’t know much about Native American culture, do you?”
“No…hardly anything. You’re the first person I’ve even run into that was Indian.”
“I see….” The helo jostled and dropped a good ten feet when it hit a huge air pocket. Annie smiled as she felt Trayhern adjust and stabilize the bird.
“We moved around a lot when I was a kid. I didn’t get to know anyone too well,” he told her.
“Typical military brat?”
“Yeah, kinda…”
“Not me. I was born on the White River Apache Reservation in Arizona and never left until I joined the Army after high school.”
“I’ve never been to Arizona.”
“It’s dry and hot. Not like this place. Fort Campbell reminds me of a sponge. I can hardly wait to get to Afghanistan. It’s hot and dry there like it is on my res. I’ll feel right at home in that desert environment.”
“Weather is the least of my problems.”
Annie thought it was an odd statement, but said nothing. “Okay, Cowboy, take this bird to ten thousand feet. Now.” She smiled at the nickname she’d spontaneously given him. He reminded her of an Old West cowboy—stoic, rough, a little rusty on social protocols, but heroic just the same. If he took umbrage with the new handle she’d given him, he didn’t say anything. All pilots had a nickname they were usually called by instead of their real name.
Jason powered up both engines, and the thumping of the Apache’s blades deepened. In seconds, the helo was clawing upward, the pressure of the climb pressing Annie against her seat. From ten thousand feet, the carpet of trees looked like lumpy green cottage cheese below them. They were safely within the restricted airspace, and she looked at her HUD to make sure no other aircraft was in the vicinity. Usually, at this time of day, few were flying because of the nasty up-and downdrafts created by the sun’s heating of the earth.
“Okay, nice going, Mr. Trayhern.” Annie leaned forward and shut off both engines. “You are now without power. Get this bird down in one piece.” She heard him gasp once, but that was all. Instantly, the Apache fell, nose first. Without his quick intercession, the bird would have continued to plummet. Trayhern clearly knew what to do. He stabilized the helicopter, using the flailing blades that still whirled above them despite the lack of engine power. An experienced pilot could use the air as a cushion, and the blades as helping hands, to get a chopper down in one piece. As they plummeted closer and closer to the earth, Annie was pleased to see Trayhern moving the wallowing helo toward a small meadow off to the right. That would be where he’d try an emergency landing.
Jason wrestled with the Apache. The last thing he’d ever thought he’d be doing was attempting a dead-stick landing. She’d cut the engines! Just like that! What the hell was she thinking? His anger surged, then receded as he jockeyed the sluggish bird toward the meadow, which was coming up very quickly.
Annie braced herself. At one thousand feet, Trayhern pointed the nose downward. The earth came rushing up fast. At five hundred feet he suddenly eased back on the stick, raising the nose abruptly. The whirling blades caught the cushion of air once more. At the last moment, he steadied the Apache. They hit the knoll with a thud and then rolled forward through the grass, finally coming to a stop.
Annie’s teeth unclenched. They were down, the blades spinning slowly around and around. As she relaxed her jaw, she heard Trayhern breathing hard in her earphones. Placing a checkmark in the emergency landing box, she said, “We’re in one piece. That’s good, Mr. Trayhern. Now take her up again.”
Jason suddenly realized she was testing him, and the fact made him angry and frightened. What if he had screwed up? Well, he hadn’t on the emergency landing. He flipped on the engine switches, the familiar hum and whine filling the cockpit once more. He busied himself with getting the bird airborne again. Once he had climbed to five thousand feet, he wiped the sweat off his brow. Pulling the dark visor down across his upper face, he pressed the microphone near his lips.
“Why didn’t you tell me this was a damn flight test?”
“Why should I?”
“Because I have a right to know.”
“No, you don’t. You’re my copilot, Mr. Trayhern. In thirty days, our collective ass will be on the line over in Afghanistan. I want to make very sure that I’m flying with someone I can trust. Now, get this bird up to ten thousand again. Please.”
Grinding his teeth, Jason did as she ordered. None of the other pilots he’d been assigned to had done this to him. It was automatically assumed he was good or he wouldn’t be in an Apache squadron.
“What’s this all about, Ms. Dazen? Why am I being tested like a rookie?”
“I test any pilot I fly with like this, so you’re not being singled out, Mr. Trayhern.”
“I don’t believe you. There’s more to it.” He looked around at the hazy afternoon sky, his mind clicking on possibilities. Then he tightened his hands around the collective and cyclic, his nostrils flaring. “I know why.”
Annie said nothing. She wanted to see how he handled himself when he was upset. Good pilots disconnected from their emotions when flying, Otherwise, when in combat, the spurt of adrenaline could kill them, caught up as they were in the life-and-death drama of war. And Annie wanted to know now whether he had the necessary detachment to think through the adrenaline rush and haze of fear. So far, so good.
Jason waited. She remained silent. Damn her. All of a sudden he wasn’t feeling very kindly at all toward Ms. Dazen. She might have a killer smile that made a man feel all warm and good inside, but that was only frosting.
“You know who I am,” he said through gritted teeth. “You know I got kicked out of Annapolis on drug charges. You also know that I’ve been booted out of my previous squadron into this one. And this is my last chance to make it or break it. You know everything about me. That’s why you’re testing me like this.”
“If you were in my seat, wouldn’t you do the same thing?”
Her voice was cool and without emotion.
Jason sat there, his gaze flicking across the dials. The Apache soothed some of his rage, some of his fear. But not all of it. “Yeah, maybe I would. If I got handed a black cloud of a pilot who could never say or do the right thing, or do whatever the hell else was expected, I’d be gun-shy, too.”
Heart twinging, Annie felt his pain. Oh, the anger, the rage was there, no doubt. He wasn’t going to be civil about this. At least, not up here in the cockpit.
“There’s a saying back where I come from,” she said quietly. “It’s better that a rattlesnake rattle its tail in warning than let you step on it and get bitten.”
Stymied, Jason took a deep breath. He was sweating big-time now, the armpits of his flight suit soaked. The air-conditioning cooled the cabin, but he was perspiring for other reasons. “And I suppose I’m a snake?” he rasped. He didn’t like mind games.
“You’re missing the point, Mr. Trayhern. I’d rather deal with someone up front, with or without diplomacy, than have them sneak around behind my back to bite me.”
Sitting there, Jason found his mind reeling. “You think I’m going to bite you?”
“Would you?”
“The last two pilots sneaked behind my back and bitched to the C.O. about me. They never faced me and told me they had a problem with me.”
“Well,” Annie said, “that won’t happen here.”
“You’re a damn IP, aren’t you?”
The words were thrown like a gauntlet. Annie lifted her head. From her position in the upper cockpit, she could see Jason Trayhern’s helmet and shoulders below her. She could see he was gripping the cyclic and collective hard, obviously upset.
“Yes, I am.”
His stomach clenched. His heart sank. This was a test—the whole damn flight. What had happened to that pleasant-looking woman he’d met in the hangar? Jason had found himself drawn to her, rightly or wrongly. Her golden eyes, slightly tilted, were so huge and beautiful that he’d imagined he could see sunlight dappling them, like light dancing across the rippled surface of a lake.
“And you’re out to flunk me, aren’t you? Orders from above? From Colonel Dugan? He doesn’t want Bad Luck Trayhern in his squadron, so he’s sent you to do his dirty work. Flunk me out on this flight, and that’s all the reason he needs to give me a BCD outta this man’s Army.”
Stunned by his accusations, Annie said nothing for a long moment. “Mr. Trayhern, you are paranoid. No one has it in for you here, except maybe yourself.”
“You know I got kicked out of Annapolis.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’ve already formed an opinion of me.”
“No, I haven’t, but you’re trying hard to make me do so now, and I don’t like it.”
Setting the cyclic and collective on autopilot, Jason shoved up the dark shield and shakily wiped the sweat off his brow again. Jerking the visor back down, he rested his left arm against the console and gripped the controls again. He flicked off the autopilot and took over flying once more.
“Are you saying you haven’t already formed an opinion of me, Ms. Dazen?” Jason found that very hard to believe. Trying to control his breathing, he waited for her answer.
“I have another saying, Mr. Trayhern. We don’t judge a person unless we’ve walked a mile in his or her moccasins. Now, I don’t know what went on at Annapolis. Frankly, I haven’t heard much about it. I do know you were caught in a drug ring, but that you were never formerly accused of doing drugs or selling them. I hope you aren’t doing drugs, because if you are, I’ll find out and you’re outta here, anyway.”
“I didn’t do drugs,” Jason snarled. “Now or then. So relax on that one, will you?”
“As I understand it, you can be asked for a urine sample at any time, Mr. Trayhern.”
“That’s right. I signed on in the Army with that agreement. They can test me until they’re blue in the face, and they won’t find me dirty. I’ve passed twenty tests in the last two years. But you probably know that already.”
Annie said, “I let a person walk their talk, Mr. Trayhern. That means that your daily interface with me and my crew is what counts. We’re rated top pilot and top crew here in the squadron. I want that to continue.”
“And you think by being saddled with me, you won’t be?”
“Dude, you are defensive! Did I say that? Did I say anything like that?” Annie chuckled. “I told you before, you will prove who and what you are on a daily basis around here. Your past doesn’t count with me, Trayhern. But your present sure as hell does. Do you understand?”
Jason closed his eyes for a moment. He heard her husky words flow over him like a calming blanket. “Yeah, I hear you.” But could he trust her to do that? Or was Annie Dazen like the other pilots who had screwed him? Just waiting to catch him making a mistake so they could run screaming to the C.O. and nail him? Only time would tell.
Chapter 4
“We need to talk—privately.” Annie kept her voice low and firm, brooking no argument from Trayhern, who only furrowed his broad brow, his eyebrows drawn down in a V.
Gripping his helmet, Jason nodded curtly, walking beside her toward their office in the hangar. Humiliated because he had felt the eyes of her crew on him as they got the bird’s blades tied down and chocks around the three wheels, he ground his teeth. For two hours she’d grilled him in the air, making him feel like a child. Jason wanted to dislike Annie. But he couldn’t and he didn’t know why. Had it been her whiskey-smooth voice in the earphones of his helmet? Her pointed questions about his ability to trust? The answer escaped him and he kept his silence, studying her profile. Her hair was in disarray now that she’d taken off her helmet, and flyaway black strands glinted with reddish highlights in the sun.
Once inside the air-conditioned office, Jason dropped his helmet into one of the two chairs that sat in front of the green metal desk. When he heard the door click shut, he rounded on her, his rage barely held in check. Her golden eyes were narrowed and assessing, and he was surprised at the strength that suddenly emanated from her as she stood toe-to-toe with him, her helmet still beneath her left arm.
“Okay, Cowboy, let’s have both barrels. You’re spoiling for a fight and this is the place to have it.” She jabbed a finger at the door. “This is where you and I tango. Never while in flight and never in front of our crew.”
Jason was taken aback momentarily at her use of the word our. When had any other pilot ever done that? Blinking a couple of times, he felt his mind spin. Yeah, he was angry, but suddenly he felt as if that wasn’t appropriate. Annie had said “our crew.” Our. She trusted him. She must. Why?
“Maybe,” he growled, “I’m just uptight because of the unexpected test you pulled on me.”
Giving him a taut smile, Annie turned and placed her helmet on a hook. She moved around the desk, smoothed her hair with her hands and sat down. The chair creaked.
“You have a right to feel stressed. I would, too.”
Dammit, she wasn’t like male pilots. When Jason challenged them the way he’d challenged her, he blasted them. Yet he didn’t feel an urge to fight back. Instead, he sat down and ran his fingers through his damp hair. “Why’d you do it?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Annie opened her hands. She saw the confusion in Jason’s eyes. Because she was highly intuitive, she could feel the range of emotions he was experiencing right now. Something told her that he wasn’t as much angry as he was worried that she wouldn’t accept him as a full partner in the cockpit and on the ground. “From where I sit, I’m pleased with how you handled the bird.” She pointed to her clipboard, which held the test scores he’d earned. “I’ll give you a copy of the results and we’ll talk about them. We’ll make strengths of any weaknesses I saw before we leave for Afghanistan. You don’t have the flight hours I feel you need, so we’re going to be doing a lot of flying between now and then to sharpen your reflexes and get more of your skills up to par.”
Jason digested her huskily spoken words. So much of him was drawn to her. What was it about her? He’d never been as fascinated by a woman as he was by Annie Dazen. Maybe it was her slightly tilted eyes that shone like warm, golden sunlight tinged with cinnamon? Or the way her full mouth turned soft with compassion. Or her openness toward him.
“I thought you wanted to get rid of me. That’s what the other pilots did,” he growled. “I thought you were pulling this test to find a reason to write me up and get me out of the squadron.”
Her heart gave a tug. Whether Jason knew it or not, in that moment, he looked like an abandoned little boy, not a twenty-four-year-old man. She had a gift of perception that she’d inherited from her mother. At times she could see beyond the normal range of human comprehension. As she looked across the desk at Jason, any defensiveness she may have felt toward him melted away. It was the look in his eyes; for a second, he seemed like a hunted, haunted animal on the run from…what? Who?
“I hope you don’t paint me with the same brush, Mr. Trayhern. I have no desire to set you up to fail. I want to get to Afghanistan and do a little damage to El Quaida. And whether I like it or not, you’re my new copilot.”
“Who would want me for a copilot with my track record? You probably see me as an instant liability to your hopes for promotion.” He knew a bad junior pilot could drag the best pilot’s career through the mud, and hurt his or her chances for advancement.
Shrugging, Annie sat up, placed her elbows on the desk and looked him squarely in the eyes. “Look, Mr. Trayhern, I have no ax to grind with you. If you do what you say you’ll do, I’ll have no problem with you.”
Blinking, Jason sat there and looked at her sincere, open features. Her hands were clasped in front of her, her voice low and warm. That warmth cascaded through him like heat against a glacier, melting a frozen part of him inside.
“Then…you’re giving me a chance?” A real one? Oh, God, how he wanted that! Wanted to halt the downward spiral of his career. Wanted to try and hold on to something, to pull himself up by his own bootstraps. Studying Annie’s features with something akin to amazement, Jason realized that she was his last hope. If he couldn’t turn his life around with her help, he really was done. And he couldn’t stand the shame that would place on his family, or himself. He’d finally hit bottom.
“You’ll be giving yourself that chance, if you want it,” Annie told him. “I’m going to work your butt off for the next thirty days.”
“That doesn’t bother me.”
“Then what does?”
“That you’ll sandbag me, Ms. Dazen. That you’re waiting in the weeds like those other two pilots I flew with, looking for a chance to nail me.”
“I’m not like that.” She sat up, then leaned back in the chair. “But you’ll find that out sooner or later. Right now, you need a shower and a change of clothes. When you’re done, come back to the office and we’ll discuss your test results.”
Jason stood up. “Okay, fair enough.”
“The showers are just off the locker room. There’re always towels, washcloths and soap available.” She looked at her watch. “Be back here in thirty minutes?”
Moving toward the door, he muttered, “Yeah, I’ll be back.”
Annie watched him pick up his helmet in his long fingers. He had the hands of a pilot, there was no doubt, even though his flight suit was stained with sweat.
When the door closed and she heard him walk away from her office, Annie blew out a long, unsteady breath. Relief washed through her. She didn’t like confrontations like that.
“Some days are more trying than others,” she muttered. “Why am I getting this guy, Shaida?” Shaida was the name of her spirit guide. Every Indian Annie knew of, especially one who came from a medicine family as she did, had a guide. Although Annie couldn’t see hers, she knew she was there. She’d grown up with her. As a child, she had often seen the lithe, two-hundred-fifty-pound black jaguar, who used to sit and watch her with large, golden eyes. Annie had always felt safe as a child when Shaida was with her. And the Great Spirit knew, she’d always been in some kind of trouble, needing protection. Shaida was her guardian angel, there was no doubt.
Annie rubbed her brow now and stood up. She nervously wiped her sweaty palms on the sides of her flight suit and went out into the hangar to talk with her crew. They’d brought the bird inside the hangar already and were working on maintenance. Pride in her crew swelled within her as she walked across the clean and shiny concrete floor. Well, it would be a pleasant half hour before she had to bang heads with Trayhern again.
“So that’s the bottom line on your test results, Mr. Trayhern.” Annie tossed the clipboard back on her desk after giving him a copy of the test and the percentages he’d earned on each of the flight functions she’d assessed. “Overall, not bad. I don’t think you got the air time you needed with the other pilots. I think these grades reflect your lack of flying time. That’s something we can quickly remedy around here.”
Jason took the papers and glanced at them. He felt a lot more comfortable sitting in front of her desk in a clean, dry flight suit. A shower had been just what he’d needed, for many reasons. Water was always soothing to him, a calming balm to any fractious state. It allowed him to relax and let go.
Looking at the test scores and then up at Annie, he said, “No, I didn’t get a lot flight time.” Mainly because he’d been squabbling so much with his copilots that they wanted to avoid him, so his flight hours dipped accordingly.
“Because?” Annie was bound and determined to find out what was eating Trayhern. He’d not only showered, but he’d shaved as well, which pleased her. He didn’t have to. It was near 1700, quitting time. He had taken extra pains, she hoped, to show her that he cared enough to try.
“Because,” Jason growled, “I wasn’t exactly pleasant with my command pilot.”
“Why?”
He eyed her. “You don’t mind asking hard questions, do you?”
Her mouth quirked. “Not when my life depends on it.”
Managing a sour grin, Jason said, “I was in his face because I was constantly questioning why he was doing something.”
“That implies a lack of trust in the command pilot.”
“Yes…I guess it does.” He dropped his head and stared at the test scores. Annie Dazen had given him relatively high marks on most of the flight maneuvers, which surprised him. His other command pilots had consistently rated him at the bottom, just above the seventy-five percentile passing mark. She, on the other hand, had given him scores in the eighties and nineties, which buoyed his sense of confidence in himself—and in her. It looked as if she really wasn’t out to get him.
“Why didn’t you trust your command pilot?”
The words were spoken so softly and gently that Jason felt the doors of his heart fly open. It shocked him. He sat there, staring down at the papers in his hand, as he mulled over his emotional response to her. Finally he forced himself to look up. When he did, he was once again surprised. Annie’s usual poker face was soft and readable. He saw a burning look in her golden eyes, as if she genuinely wanted to know the truth.
Sighing, he whispered, “Look, I’ve never talked about this to anyone before….”
“You have to give me some sign of trust, Jason.” Annie deliberately used his first name, and saw the impact that instantly had on him. There was such struggle evident in his eyes—between shame, anger, hope and something else she couldn’t decipher.
“Yeah…I hear you….” The papers fluttered nervously in his hand. “I expected you to fail me like the others did.”
“You aren’t a failure. You’re just rusty, is all. There’s a huge difference.” Annie’s heart bled for him. For an instant, she thought she’d seen tears in his eyes, but just as quickly, they were gone. His mouth was twisted in a tortured line. Her gut instinct was to get up, walk around the desk and slide her arms around his shoulders as he sat there. Clearly, he was suffering from some terrible past event that haunted his present. She didn’t dare reach out to him that way. But the very idea of doing so was startling to her.
“I can see that….”
“Then help me to help you,” she beseeched softly, leaning forward, her hands opening. “Tell me what’s behind your lack of trust. I need to know.”
Though he wanted to look down at his polished black leather flight boots, Jason forced himself to meet Annie’s gaze. Her expression was so open, so tender. Her lips were slightly parted. Beckoning…Damn, but he wanted to find out if her lips were as soft as he thought they might be.
Giving himself an internal shake, Jason realized that his life as an aviator hung in the balance, depending on whether or not he came clean with Annie. Somehow, in his deeply wounded heart, he knew she would be fair with him—but only if he was honest with her. He saw that in her eyes, in the way they glinted. She had such gentle, yet strong, power. Jason would trust her with his life in that cockpit because she radiated a kind of quiet confidence he’d looked for all his life, and never found—until now.
Clearing his throat, he looked at his watch. “It’s 1700. Quitting time.”
Shrugging, Annie said, “I have all night, if that’s what it takes.”
Relief flowed through him. His stomach muscles unclenched a little. “Yeah, okay…” Frowning, he looked around the office, trying to gather his thoughts. Finally, he looked back at her, after clearing his throat.
“When I was six years old, I was kidnapped by a drug lord. My father, Morgan Trayhern, ran a supersecret organization called Perseus.” Frowning, Jason muttered, “He still does.”
Annie looked at him in surprise. “You were kidnapped?”
Jason studied her face. There was such openness in her expression. It gave him the courage to go on. “Yeah. I was playing in my little sister Katy’s room when the bad guys broke in. They shot my mother and father with darts that knocked them out.”
“That’s terrible!” Annie searched his brooding features. “What did they do to you?”
“I remember them bursting into the room. They were dressed in civilian clothes and looked like anyone you’d see on the street. I remember getting up. I had heard the scuffle out in the front room, where my parents were. I felt scared. I knew the big guy coming toward me was going to hurt me. I was too scared to scream, but that’s what I wanted to do….”
Swallowing hard, Annie held his gaze. “What happened next?”
“The dude put a cloth over my face and I blacked out. I woke up, I don’t know how many hours later, on the island of Maui, Hawaii. I learned later they left Katy behind. They didn’t want her.”
“How awful.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“You have full memory of this?” Annie knew that many times, in trauma, the brain conveniently tucked away details of an experience because it was too terrible for a person to bear.
“Full memory,” Jason said.
“I’m so sorry.” Annie realized that his trust had been broken during that trauma. And she could easily understand that if a child’s trust was not healed, the adult he became would have a hard time trusting anyone. Which was why Jason hadn’t trusted the two other pilots he’d flown with. Maybe. She had to learn more in order to put this puzzle together. “Did both your parents survive the kidnapping?”
“Yeah, eventually.” Jason looked down at the floor. “My mother was drugged and raped repeatedly by a drug lord in the Caribbean. My father was taken to South America and tortured for months. In the end, other members of Perseus, my father’s agency, mounted a rescue effort and several elite mercenary teams found them and brought them home, back to the States.”
“And what about you?”
“They sent a team to find me. And they did.”
“How long were you a captive?”
Shrugging, Jason said, “A month or so…”
She saw the pain in his eyes. “Can you tell me what you remember of you captivity?”
Shifting uncomfortably in the chair, Jason said, “Yeah, I guess…”
Annie waited. She could feel the tension radiating from Jason, saw the way his shoulders hunched, as if to deflect a coming blow. Her questions must be like blows to him. She had so many questions she wanted to ask, but she had to be patient.
“The dude that took me was an old man. He hated my father for disrupting the worldwide drug trade. Every chance he got, he’d make sure I heard how bad my father was.”
“And did you talk back to him? Fight or resist?”
Mouth thinning, Jason said, “Yeah…at first. I used to yell at him that my father was a good man. Every time I did, he’d slap me.”
Wincing inwardly, Annie said, “I’m so sorry….”
Again, her soft words haunted him, touched his aching heart and soothed him in a way no one ever had. Jason stared at her wordless for several seconds before he continued. “I learned real fast not to stand up for my father. And when the old bastard kept brainwashing me on how bad my dad was, I would cry instead. I cried out of anger, because what I wanted to do was punch out the old man’s lights, but I knew he’d kill me if I tried. He always had two goons with guns hanging around the room when I was there. I knew they’d kill me.”
“So you cried? Out of fear and frustration?”
“Yes.”
“What else happened?” Annie dreaded asking this, but she had to in order to understand the man Jason was today.
“I got regular beatings from him when I cried. So I eventually learned to say and do nothing.”
“To swallow all your feelings. To say nothing and stay silent.”
“Exactly.” He gave her a level look. “You understand.”
“Yes…I do. Prisoners of war often experience the same thing you did.”
“I was a prisoner of a war. I learned to trust no one there. I was watched twenty-four–seven, and I got at least one beating a day from the old dude, or from one of my guards. They said it was for being Morgan Trayhern’s son. When they finally rescued me, I was black-and-blue, I had a broken nose—” he touched it with his finger “—and several cracked ribs.”
Closing her eyes, Annie placed her hand across them. Her heart swelled with anguish for Jason. No wonder he didn’t trust! Allowing her hand to fall away, she opened her eyes and stared at him. He sat there tensely, as if expecting a blow. “That’s really terrible. You were badly abused by them.”
He chuckled darkly. “You’ve said a mouthful, Ms. Dazen.”
“Did your parents get you therapy?”
“Oh, yeah…all kinds. The shrinks said I had PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder.” He flexed his fingers and chuckled again. “No surprise there.”
“And how did you do with the therapists?”
“Not well, I guess. I didn’t trust them.”
“Of course not. They were adults.”
“That’s right,” he said grimly.
“You probably felt abandoned by adults in your time of need. And the adult who held you prisoner hurt you badly.”
“Yep, that about sums it up.”
“And have you had problems trusting adult males since that time?”
“A little,” Jason muttered, looking away. “I’m not on good terms with my father, either.”
She hurt for him, because she saw undisguised pain over that admission not only in his narrowed blue eyes, but in the thinning of his full mouth. “I’m sure your father tried to regain your trust?”
“Oh, yeah. He did….”
“But?”
“It didn’t take. I was—I am—angry at him for what happened. He should have protected us, his family. Instead, he was arrogant and felt we were safe enough in Washington.”
Annie sighed. “What about your mom? How did she get through this mess?”
“She had a lot of years after the kidnapping when she wasn’t really available to us kids. I mean—” he opened his hands “—she was raped. I’m still angry over that. I see what it did to her…and how it’s affected all of us….”
“And now?”
“She’s pretty much worked through the worst of it, although I still see it in her from time to time. I’ve learned what rape does. It’s a terrible thing. It murders part of a person and you never get back that piece again.”
“It sounds like the drug lords got the revenge they wanted.”
“And then some.”
“Your father must have been affected by this, too? You said he was tortured?”
Jason nodded. “Yeah, nonstop. You can see the scars on his arms and legs when he’s in a bathing suit or a short-sleeved shirt.”
“And how has he recovered from the kidnapping?”
“Better than any of us, but then, he’d been wounded in the head during the Vietnam War, and had amnesia for years after that. The U.S. government screwed him, too. He didn’t know who he was, and eventually joined the French Foreign Legion. Several years after that, he suddenly got his memory back and went home to the U.S.
“From there, he met my mother, Laura, and they were finally able to find the men responsible for branding him as a traitor, and to get his named cleared. My dad is a hero to a lot of people.” Jason looked away. “So, my two cents’ worth is that because of his past experience, he was able to roll with the kidnapping better than my mother or myself. He seems the least affected by what happened.”
Annie nodded. “Thank you for telling me this. I promise it will go nowhere, but it helps me to understand you.”
She saw him lift his head and study her, and instantly, her heart flew open. The look in his eyes was one of relief and hope. There was no more anger or distrust there. How badly she wanted to get up and throw her arms around Jason. Annie sensed that being held was exactly what he needed—and that, since the kidnapping, he’d never let anyone beyond those armored walls he’d built up.
Somehow, Annie knew he’d let her in. And that realization was as startling as a lightning bolt.
Chapter 5
“Have you found out anything, Morgan?” Laura asked as she laid out china plates of a colorful floral pattern on the kitchen table. It had been two weeks since she’d talked to Jason, and she hadn’t heard a word from him since. She didn’t know who worried more about their son, her or Morgan.
Wiping her hands on her peach-colored apron, she moved back to the counter. Today, Kamaria was being watched by their baby-sitter, Crystal Harding, a local woman from Phillipsburg who dearly loved the little tyke. Crystal and Kamaria were in the toddler’s bedroom at the other end of the large, two-story home, having Kamaria’s favorite lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while watching reruns of Mister Rogers on television.
Scowling, Morgan went to the drain board and picked up the bowls of salad Laura had made for them. “I just got off the phone with Red Dugan,” he said as he placed the wooden bowls on the table.
“And?” Laura shot him a questioning look as she placed pink linen napkins and silverware next to the teak bowls. Morgan pulled out her chair and she sat down. One of the many things she loved about her husband was his gallantry. She knew it came from the fact that he’d been a Marine Corps officer, a throwback to another time, but she loved his sensitivity toward her in this way. Smiling to herself, she realized she was most likely a throwback, herself.
Watching as Morgan sat down at her left elbow, she waited impatiently to hear what he had to say about Jason. Because of her husband’s broad intelligence network, which spanned the world, and his contacts with the higher-ups in every military branch, it was easy for him to pick up a phone to check in on Jason or Katy without their knowledge.
Picking up a bottle of light Italian dressing, Laura un-screwed the cap. With the advent of menopause, she found she gained weight quickly, so was dieting to help keep herself in shape. As she squirted some dressing on the colorful salad, she felt a tad guilty about Morgan initiating this behind-the-scenes checking on their children. But in Jason’s case, Laura was glad he had the contacts. Jason usually called weekly, but that was it. He rarely wrote a letter. Then again, she didn’t know many military men who wrote letters to their parents. Phone calls usually had to do. Jason didn’t e-mail her, either….
Katy wrote e-mails all the time from her secret operating base down in Colombia, and Laura was always eager to hear from her. Laura worried about her daughter, who lived in constant peril while flying the Seahawk helicopter and delivering Marine Recon teams to key locations to help Colombian government soldiers fight the rebels. And soon Jason was going to be in Afghanistan. The idea made her stomach knot. She grimaced and passed the bottle to her husband.
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Lindsay McKenna
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Jason Trayhern wore his father′s glorious military legacy like a thorny crown. Though a skilled fighter pilot himself, Jason′s rebel tactics didn′t sit well with his commanding officers.They expected more from Morgan Trayhern′s son, which was why they gave Jason another chance. But that chance felt like a death sentence. For Jason was going into combat with a new partner. And she was all too…female.A handsome, arrogant daredevil was the last thing Annie Dazen needed in her cockpit. But once she saw the wounded heart beneath Jason′s tough-guy facade, she longed to heal him. And once she discovered the passion in this brooding soldier′s touch, she longed to hold him tight. Now the stakes were higher. Because if she hoped to see a future with her would-be hero, they needed to survive their dangerous mission first!