Munching on the delicious chicken dish, which had been well spiced, yet wasn’t hot enough to numb her mouth, Cam nodded. Just sitting quietly with Gus was healing her. She didn’t know why, but right now, Cam needed that safe haven he was automatically providing.
Gus handed her a white paper napkin from the box. “You’ve got sauce on the right corner of your mouth….” He fought the urge to lean over and wipe it off himself. He hadn’t realized how beautiful Cam’s mouth really was until now. Now that she was relaxed, he discovered that her mouth was really full and marvelously shaped—for kissing. For loving. Those thoughts hit him hard, and he felt his stomach clench for just a moment.
In the moonlight, her thick, slightly curled hair looked like a cloak about her graceful neck and proud shoulders. Gus squelched the urge to run his fingers in exploration through those strands, which gleamed in the watery moonlight. Her looks invited touching. That was disconcerting.
Cam took the napkin from him and quickly wiped away the offending sauce. She saw his mouth twist in a slight smile. The shadows emphasized the strength of Gus’s face, from his broad, unlined forehead and large, alert eyes, to the high cheekbones and hawklike nose he’d inherited from his Indian ancestors. And then there was his strong, full mouth…She felt incredibly drawn to Gus. Still, she checked her emotional response, quickly stuffing it back inside her.
“I’m glad you picked me as your X.O.,” Gus confided as he continued to enjoy his enchilada.
“Why? It’s a tough job with little thanks.” Cam wiped her mouth after the next bite. The food tasted good. More than good. She suddenly discovered she was famished.
“You know my dad runs an Apache squadron?”
“Yes, that’s what you said earlier.”
“He’s over in Afghanistan right now on a covert ops.”
Hearing the concern in his voice, Cam said, “You wish you were with him?”
“Yeah, I do, but the army isn’t going to put a son and father together in the same squadron.”
“No, they won’t.”
“Besides, I don’t have the degree of training I need to do that kind of work. I’m still a baby learning the building blocks.” Gus chuckled indulgently.
“I like your attitude,” Cam said sincerely. She caught and held his glance and gave him a slight, one-cornered smile. “You’ll do well in the future with it.”
“I don’t like the other choice,” he stated, then chuckled sardonically. “The attitude Luis and Antonio wear like a bad friend isn’t my style.”
Cam groaned. She hesitated before taking another bite.
Gus saw her face turn dark with worry. “Sorry,” he murmured, “let’s talk about happier, more positive things.” Instantly, he saw her expression change from consternation and pain to one of hope. How readable Cam was! But then, Gus realized that she was allowing him to see her emotional side right now, and not that C.O.’s poker face she’d put on earlier today.
“I was sayin’ that my dad runs an Apache squadron. When I was in my late teens, I remember him getting his first assignment as X.O. for a helo squad. He was always the type of father who would sit down with you and tell you the good and bad, the ins and outs of his day. I used to sit with him at the dinner table, over dessert my mom had made, and he’d share with us all this stuff that went on in the squadron.” Gus gave her a measured look. “I learned what being an X.O. meant, through his eyes and experience, and that’s what I wanted to share with you. I think I can be a good assistant to you, Cam. At least, I’ll try.”
Heat moved into her cheeks as his husky voice reached her, an invisible, supporting caress. “It’s good to hear that. You probably have a lot more education on being an X.O. than I do on being a C.O., if you want the truth.”
Gus heard the pain, the self-doubt in her voice. “You were a pilot in the BJS before you came here, right?”
“Yes. Just a pilot. I didn’t have any management training for leadership stuff like this….” She waved her hand toward the brightly lit barracks in the distance.
“You got thrown to the wolves then,” Gus murmured in concern. “I don’t know that I could do half as good a job as you did on your first day as C.O. You held your own against two men who were really challenging your authority.” He gave her a slight nod. “You handled them well. I would have decked them.”
Words of praise were exactly what Cam needed. “Coming from you, that’s music to my ears. Thanks.”
Gus wiped his hands then his mouth, and stuffed the used napkin back into the empty food carton. “Speaking of music…” He grinned at her as he picked up his guitar and settled it like a lover against his body, strumming the strings quietly. Gradually, the music began to ease the worry he saw in Cam’s darkened eyes.
Sighing, Cam finished her enchilada and tidied up. Then she folded her arms and sat there, allowing the melodic notes to wash her clean of all her angst. Closing her eyes, she absorbed the heat and energy of Gus, sitting so close to her. His quiet demeanor, his insight, seemed like a huge gift to Cam, for she desperately needed what he offered as a man and as a friend. For the next ten minutes Gus played, and she allowed herself to become lost in the sounds as his fingers stroked the strings and brought them to life.
When he finally stopped playing, Gus turned and looked at Cam. She was sitting there with her elbows on her knees, her profile sharp and clean, outlined in moonlight. Her mouth, once grim, was now parted and relaxed. The wrinkles in her brow were gone. Her eyes were closed, and he noticed how thick and long her lashes were against her freckled cheeks.
In that moment, Gus had the powerful urge to put his guitar down, place his arms around Cam and draw her close, in an embrace that would protect her. Soothe her. Let her know that someone respected her, supported her and liked her. Frowning, Gus looked away. He couldn’t “like” Cam. Telling himself that over and over again, Gus resolved to keep her at arm’s length. She was so soft, so womanly, a powerful package in combination with her pilot’s confidence and courage. But then women who lived on the ragged edge of life and death always drew his interest.
Giving himself an internal shake, Gus sternly warned himself that he’d already lost the woman he loved because of her dangerous career. He couldn’t stand to do that again; his heart simply couldn’t take that kind of blow. No, somehow, he had to stop his blind, stupid heart from longing for Cam. It had to be all-business between them. Only business.
Chapter 6
It wasn’t working, Cam thought as she sat, hand pressed against her head, elbows resting on her desk, with the flight scores she was studying blurring in front of her eyes. For a week she’d been running a flight training program to bring Luis and Antonio into line. The statistics spoke for themselves: Gus had made a seventy percent improvement, while the other two pilots, who were purposely dragging their feet, had gained only ten and twenty percent, respectively.
It was nearly midnight, but lifting her head, Cam picked up the iridium phone, which she kept on the desk. Her heart was heavy and she felt like an utter failure. Sensing Maya would still be up even at this late hour, she punched in her number.
“Stevenson here.”
“Maya, it’s Cam. Am I calling too late?”
“Oh…no, that’s fine. You sound down. I’ve been checking in on you all week and haven’t been feeling very good about it. You okay? What’s goin’ on?”
Tears flooded Cam’s eyes. Just the way Maya spoke, in that warm, concerned tone, broke through her reserve. That was one of the many things Cam loved about her superior. Maya was tough, but fair. She was a steady guiding hand that Cam could always count on. The fact that Maya had been “checking on her” was part of the mystery surrounding this legendary woman. Cam knew what most of her colleagues knew of their illustrious leader: that she was a member of the fabled Jaguar Clan, a secret organization steeped in mystical tradition. Many times in the past, Cam could swear Maya had read her mind, because she’d speak about what Cam was thinking before Cam had utte
red a word.
Tonight, Cam was glad that Maya had that ESP or whatever it was. Sitting back in the chair, she blinked rapidly to clear her eyes of tears. “Maya, I’m feeling like a failure, but before you say anything, let me also say I have a fall-back plan that I created in case this first plan didn’t work.”
“Good!” Maya exclaimed warmly. “A leader always has plan B in case plan A goes to hell in a hand-basket.” She chuckled. “So, I’ve got a fresh cup of coffee in front of me and I’m sitting here at my desk, which is miraculously cleared of all paper, and I’m all-ears. What’s goin’ down?”
Laughing a little, her voice strained, Cam looked at her own desk. It was a mess, piled high with work. Some of it was done, much of it not. “I’ll cut to the chase.” She knew Maya wanted the bottom line. As a C.O., she didn’t have time for preambles. “My original plan, which was to fly with each of the pilots two hours a day, and put them through advanced flight training, hasn’t worked. It worked with one of the three pilots.”
“Morales, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good. At least you have one who’s handling his end of the deal. The other two dogging it?”
Cam hated to admit it. “Yes.”
“Okay, you’re outnumbered, so what do you do?”
Cam knew Maya wasn’t going to give her any easy answers. The way she taught was by asking people hard questions, and letting them search their own experience and intelligence and come up with a fix.
“You aren’t going to like it. And neither will Morgan.”
“Plan B, right?”
“That’s a roger.”
“I’m listenin’.”
Taking in a deep breath, Cam launched into her other idea. “I need a third Apache. And I need two women from the squadron, specifically Wild Woman and Snake. I can’t divide my time among three pilots, especially when two of them are playing around and not getting serious about their commitment to this mission. I need enough Apaches to set up a game plan, so that I’ve got an IP—inspector pilot—with each of the students. That way, it forces the two Mexican pilots to put up or shut up. I’d like to be able to tell Dominguez and Zaragoza that if they don’t start crunching the percentages and improving, they’ll be washed out and two new pilots will replace them.”
Cam frowned and went on. “Gus Morales is wonderful, Maya. He’s learning, he’s hungry and he’s committed. But the other two hate me because I’m a woman telling them what to do.”
“And they’re acting like petulant teenagers rebelling just because you are a woman.”
“You got it.”
“That’s your plan?”
She gave a sharp, sad laugh. “Yeah. I know it’s not a good one. I know that asking you to send two of your top pilots on TDY—temporary duty—up here, leaves you shorthanded. You run on the lean side with pilots at the best of times, I know. I’ve been beating my brains trying to come up with another solution, Maya. But I haven’t found one. There’s no one I can pull from Fort Rucker to stand in their stead. I need pilots with interdiction experience to pull this plan off.”
“Tell me more about what would happen if you got that third Apache and two of my pilots.”
Heartened, Cam launched into her plans for the next five weeks of training based upon having an extra bird and two IPs to help her bring it about. At the end of her explanation, she fell silent and waited for Maya’s reaction. The phone was quiet for a long time. Cam began to sweat in earnest.
“Of course, the other option here,” she added quietly, “is to pull me as C.O. and get someone else up here that you feel is better qualified, or who can force these two pilots to perform up to expectations. It could be me, Maya. A personality conflict. I’ve pulled every rabbit I know out of my hat, and nothing is working. Right now, as it stands, I’ll never make that projected deadline to get these three pilots up to interdiction duty standards.”
“A good leader assesses all possibilities,” Maya told her gently. “And yes, you have to look at yourself. You have to ask yourself what part do I play in this problem? How can I change myself? Is it my attitude hurting the people that work under me? You’ve asked those questions.”
“Yeah,” Cam said bitterly, “I have, and I see I come up wanting, but I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Sometimes a leader has to accept that there are going to be personality conflicts. The key is to try to dissolve them, to try to move on and motivate that individual, anyway. And sometimes,” Maya said, “there’s nothin’ you can do. That person or group of people are gonna hate you just because.”
“The core of this problem is gender prejudice.”
“Right. And you can’t change your gender, can you?”
Chuckling, Cam shook her head. “No, and I wouldn’t want to, either.”
“Okay, so you’ve assessed yourself and come up with the root of the problem. And it’s not something you can fix. So, that leaves you out of the equation. You don’t have to change. You don’t have to quit your command.”
Relief spread through Cam. “When I talk to you, Maya, everything seems so simple and clear.”
Laughing, Maya said, “With experience, leading gets easier, not harder. Okay, as to your two boys? I called Morgan a day after we first talked a week ago, and here’s the scoop on them. They had the lowest grades in their class in Apache school. Morgan made some phone calls to Fort Rucker and talked to one IP there who admitted privately to him, off the record, that he was pressured into giving Dominguez a passing grade simply because this was a political hot potato.”
“Political?”
“Yeah,” Maya growled. “Dominguez is the son of old money in Mexico. His father is allied closely with the president of Mexico, and is looking to run for mayor of Mexico City in two years. Pressure was put on the IP because the father doesn’t want his record besmirched by a son who is a playboy and isn’t really serious about much of anything. I had Morgan check into Dominguez’s past, and this guy behaves like a fourteen-year-old most of the time. He’s consistently shown a lack of responsibility and maturity no matter where he’s gone.”
“And Zaragoza?”
“New money, father is very rich and has spoiled Antonio completely. He floats through life with the same attitudes as his wealthy friend.”
“They’re a pair,” Cam said unhappily.
“Right, so here’s the bottom line. You’re stuck with them, and so is the army and the Mexican Air Force. They’re screw-ups, to put it bluntly, and no one wants to handle them because they have power, money and political influence behind them. These two good ole boys know it, too, so that’s why they’re not getting serious with you.”
“And I can’t get rid of them?” Cam’s voice rose in consternation. It would be hell on earth to keep these two in her command.
“Listen, you get some bad apples in every squadron, almost always. When it comes down to biting the bullet, you have to find something that will force these two pilots to want to do what you demand of them.”
“But,” Cam said helplessly, opening her hand in frustration, “if they can skate through Apache school, get their grades changed, and they still don’t care, what can I do to make them care?”
Maya chuckled. “What do they value, Cam?”
She snorted. “Oh, they can hardly wait to get out of here at night. They hit the party spots in Tijuana, dance and drink and woo the Señoritas until dawn. When I see them the next morning at muster, they’re hungover, their eyes are bloodshot and they look like death itself because of lack of sleep.”
“Okay, so you order them to stay on the base. They don’t get any liberty unless they produce. And they must produce up to the bar—standards you’ve set—with a minimum passing percentage.”
Nodding, Cam said, “Okay…” She could imagine how angry they’d be over her ordering them to stay on base twenty-four hours a day. “What else?”
“Well, what else do they value?”
“Dancing, drinking, smoking their
cigarettes…”
“Enforce a non-smoking rule. No smoking until off base.” She chuckled darkly. “You and I both know that smokers have to satisfy their addiction. If you cut them off, they’re really going to scream. But let them.”
“None of this will work unless they think they can be held to it,” Cam protested.
“What are you prepared to do if you find them smoking on base?”
Shrugging, Cam said, “I don’t know….”
“Have them wash the Apaches—inside and out. Or have them run five miles with fifty pound packs on their back. Put Morales out there to make sure they do it. He’s your X.O. He gets to do the dirty work.”
“And what about banning them from partying?”
“Well,” Maya said, “if they are stupid enough to go off base when you’ve ordered them to stay, then that’s a major offense, and they can be thrown out of the military. It’s called going AWOL. I don’t feel they’re willing to test the combined might of the U.S. Army and the Mexican Air Force on that one. And if they do, then you have them dead to rights and you can, at that point, get rid of them.”
“I see….”
“Yeah, always think about what someone isn’t willing to give up. That is where you work with them, Cam. That’s the ground you plow.”
“Okay…I can do that.”
“As to the other thing,” Maya said, murmuring more to herself than to Cam. “I’ll contact Morgan and see about gettin’ you a third Apache. Your plan makes a lot of sense.”
“But you can’t really afford to lose Snake and Wild Woman….” Cam said worriedly. There were no extra pilots to pick up the slack at Maya’s squadron if the two left, even for six weeks.
“There you go, mother hen,” Maya teased. “The problem is getting the army to let loose of one of their Apache Longbows for six weeks. I can get the women you want up there, no problem.”
“But—”
“Look at it this way,” Maya told her. “Dane and I will step in and make up the difference while they are gone, so it won’t be a problem.”
An Honorable Woman Page 7
