He stood taller, drinking in this bold and daring Ivy-woman he’d never known existed. “I’m saying, you’re more than welcome to strip down and get a little refreshing water on your skin.” He winked. “Or keep your clothes on, whatever suits you.” He wiggled his eyebrows, lightening the moment that was starting to overpower his good sense.
“I just might.” She turned from him, ready to pull a shirt off over her head. He swallowed twice and shared a look with Omar, who was deliberately looking away like Colton should have been. But when Ivy tugged at her shirt, lifting it up over her head, she had a tank top underneath.
Colton exhaled, and some of the tension left him. Was it relief or disappointment? Or both? Relief, certainly.
She moved to the water and let some of the coolness drip down her front. He did look away as her shirt became wet through. And for the first time, he wondered if asking for Ivy to be on his team was such a great idea. He’d wanted to win her over, yes, but he hadn’t counted on this intense new attraction between them. She felt it too. How were they to work together with this distraction going on? Omar was going to notice too, and how did that look? Maybe he’d call Ace and see if he would swap assignments or something.
Colton shook his head. The guy was in Brazil, finishing up in the Amazon. Ridley had a team, and Amanda . . . maybe he could trade with Amanda. Mustang loved working with Ivy. They could woman it up together, and Colton could move safely across the world. He watched Ivy turn away and stretch her arms above her head, her firm biceps flexing as she did so. Ivy was a powerful woman, no doubt about it, and Colton . . . he wasn’t sure what to do about the power she was starting to hold over him.
After a brief rest and ten minutes of cajoling Omar back up onto his horse, they urged their horses forward again. Ivy sprang ahead. “Watch and learn,” she called back over her shoulder.
She led the horse to a low-lying fence, and Colton shook his head though no one could see him. She should not be jumping over fences or anything else with a horse she didn’t know well. She was being way too reckless, but there was nothing he could do about it. He gritted his teeth, clenching the reins like they would stop her in her tracks and winced as she approached the fence, but she just sailed right over as if it required no effort at all.
He let some of the tension leave, and he rotated his shoulders. “Don’t you be doing that,” Colton growled at Omar.
“Easy, boss. I have no plans to let this horse leave the ground. I leave that to man-made gadgets only.”
When Ivy circled back to them, all smiles, Colton’s frown deepened. “You’re out of line, Tenderfoot.”
She laughed into the air until she glanced back twice and must have seen his frown because then her eyes narrowed. “And just what was out of line, Flyboy?”
“You, riding an unfamiliar horse over a fence. You could have hurt yourself, and you could have hurt the horse.”
“You need to gain a little trust. I know what I’m doing.”
“If you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t have attempted such a thing without walking her through it, without knowing her background. Ivy, you could have fallen.” He looked away, unreasonably upset. But before he could blow off any more steam somewhere else, he turned back. “I don’t want you out here riding like that again.”
She sat taller in her saddle. “And just who is going to stop me?” Her eyes flashed at him in a brilliant sort of way that he might have enjoyed if he weren’t so flaming mad.
“I just did. And if you want to stay on this team, you better be paying attention.”
“You don’t own my free time. And coming from you, the most reckless pilot I’ve ever heard of, this is really rich.” She turned her horse, dug in her heels, and tore off across the pasture, back toward the house.
Omar whistled.
“Shut up, dude.”
“I didn’t say a thing.” He started walking back toward the house. “Not saying anything, but boss, you’ve gotta get a grip on your feelings for that woman.”
Colton’s eyes shot to Omar’s, and then he looked away. “Is it obvious?”
“To her? Obviously not. To everyone else within twenty feet of either of you? Painfully.”
Colton’s shoulders slumped. “It wasn’t even obvious to me until yesterday.”
“I was surprised you picked her for your team.”
“Yeah, she hates me. I was just trying to convince her to see things a little differently.”
“Oh, she feels things, that’s for sure, but she doesn’t hate you.”
“Did you just see that spitfire spewing things at me?”
“Yeah, I saw it.” Omar picked up his pace, and Colton wanted to order him around as well. What did he know? The man was about as emotionally in tune as a slice of steak. He flew off the handle at the slightest provocation.
But he caught up to him. “Are you saying you think Ivy has feelings for me?”
“I’m not saying anything. I’m just hoping I make it through these six months with the two of you.”
Colton grunted.
They rode the rest of the way back to the house in silence.
When they got there, Ivy was washing down her mare with one of the stable hands. Another came and took their horses and shooed them away back into the house. With one last look at Ivy, who was pointedly ignoring them both, Colton turned. “I’m gonna shower off this ride. Let’s go into town.”
“You got it, boss.”
Colton didn’t even bother to correct him that when off duty, he was not the boss, because that would have just made Omar laugh. And Colton was in the mood to punch people who laughed.
Chapter 8
Ivy let Omar and Colton go into town without her. It was time she started behaving like a professional. Colton might have suddenly morphed into a strong, capable, and even charming person, but the few hours she’d spent with him could not erase all the history she knew about him and that she’d seen with her own eyes.
Where did he get off calling her out for riding a horse the way she’d been trained? He didn’t know what he was talking about, and the guy who inverted his plane at the speeds he was reported to have flown had no business talking to her at all about reckless behavior. She shook her head. He was widely known as one of the most reckless, non-rule-following, goof-off pilots that had ever flown a jet. She jerked the clothes off the line in the washing hut behind the house.
“Now, now. At least he’s handsome.” Fatima laughed.
And when Ivy jerked a head in her direction, the woman laughed even harder. “Oh, come now. I love laundry to beat out some nonsense from a man as much as the next woman, but let’s go do something more pleasant, you and I. I pay people to take care of this for me.” Fatima rested a hand on Ivy’s back and led her back up to the house. Ivy tried not to think of her brother, but all this nonsense from Colton was starting to bring back some feelings she thought she’d gotten over years ago, a whole package of emotional stuff she thought she’d dealt with.
When the men came back from whatever they were doing, Fatima served dinner.
Ivy sat opposite Colton, which was annoying because she couldn’t avoid looking at him. At last, she did what she’d been doing for years in the military, and she switched into her professional we-have-a-job-to-do mode. “Were you able to contact the owners of the facility we are using?” Her voice sounded clipped even to her own ears.
“No, I figured we’d just show up at the door and bribe our way in.” Colton laughed. When Ivy didn’t, he cleared his throat. “We start tomorrow. I suppose we can start talking shop if you like. So, we have a hangar, an airstrip, and two planes. We have a classroom and fifteen pilots. And that’s it. But I brought the best of Top Flight with me, so I know we can turn these fifteen men and women into the best their country has to offer. We have six months to do it.”
Ivy nodded. “So, have you decided the schedule?”
“Yes. Your dockets will be arriving in your email this evening.” Colton clea
red his throat. “But if you would like to know now . . .” He pulled out his phone from his back pocket. “I’ve got an opening debriefing meeting with all fifteen. Then we begin classroom experience. Instead of separating out flying time from classroom time, we will pull out two pilots at a time to take their turn in the air. Whoever is not teaching the others will catch the two up on what they missed.” He eyed them both. “I have Omar and Ivy on the ground and me in the air for the first two weeks.”
Ivy bristled, but she didn’t say anything. “What are the classroom hours?”
“We’ll start at 0800 until we’re finished for the day.”
Ivy waited.
“Let’s just call it early afternoon. Does that work?” His expression turned stubborn, and Ivy didn’t want to push things. “That’s great.”
They finished their meal in a more subdued tone. When Fatima came in with the dessert, what looked like dulce de leche or caramel flan, Fatima looked around at the quiet room and clucked her tongue, but she just set their plates in front of them and left, mumbling under her breath.
The rest of the evening continued with Ivy trying to avoid Colton, and him looking at her with a guarded expression. Omar spent the rest of the day joking around with the staff. When the back pasture turned into a soccer field, Ivy slipped on her shoes to join them.
As she approached, the guys called out, but Omar shook his head. “I’d bet Tenderfoot here is a mean football player. Or at least a fierce competitor.” He winked at her.
“Does anyone mind if I play?”
The others smiled, most of them goofy, joking expressions, and then she joined Omar’s team.
The first time the ball came toward her, and she moved to pass it on, she knew she was playing against men who’d had a ball passing around between their feet since they could walk. They were fast, comfortable, and used tricks she never knew existed. But she laughed with them every time they stole the ball as though she’d passed it right in front of them. They were good-natured about the two Americans who were so obviously outmatched.
Ivy knew the moment Colton stepped out of the door. He came to stand at the side of their game, and her skin tingled with awareness. She cursed that awareness. After watching for a moment, he called out. “Anyone want to try their hand at American football?”
Omar’s grin started small and grew. He shrugged. “Maybe. They’ll probably whoop us at that too.” He kicked at the dirt.
And Ivy almost laughed. What were they up to? “I’m in.” She raised a hand. “Wait, are we tackling?”
“Nah, let’s just play touch.” Colton held up a football. “You guys want to give it a go?”
They divided up teams again, and pretty soon the game became the Omar and Colton show. The cool evening air helped, but everyone was sweating and running hard. Soon all shirts were off, and Ivy’s tank top was soaked through. She huddled with the guys. She and Omar were against Colton, but they had some really fast guys on their team. Omar nodded to Rogerio. “You’ve got this. You go left, fast, hard, all the way to the end. They can’t catch you.”
“Igiermo can catch me.” Rogerio pointed to the other scraggly looking skinny guy on the opposite team.
“I’ll take care of Igiermo.” Omar cracked his knuckles, and the guys laughed. He put his hand in the center of their huddle. “On three.” They chanted. “Win.”
Ivy was determined to win. Colton looked too satisfied over there, beating these Brazilians at his own game when he couldn’t win at theirs. It bugged her. She told herself it was all about cultural rights, but she knew it was really about beating Colton at something. She bent her knees and watched the ball. It went to Rogerio as planned, but she ran alongside him, off to the side, mostly ignored as Omar blocked Igiermo. Then Colton went for Rogerio. Ivy saw him coming before Rogerio noticed.
“Aqui! Over here,” she called in Portuguese. Rogerio looked at her in surprise, noticed Colton bearing down on him, and then tossed her the ball.
She snatched it, hugged it to her chest, and ran the rest of the way to the goal line without a problem.
Her team gathered around her and lifted her up on their shoulders. She yelped and steadied herself, laughing.
“Ivy! Ivy! Ivy!” they chanted. All these happy faces looking up into her own lifted some of her irritation. Was it really worth being so mad at Colton? She returned his smile and then held her hands high in the air in a large victory V.
The next morning, they rode together in Fatima’s old truck. One of the stable hands drove them. Ivy sat in the back, wedged between the broad shoulders and thick legs of Colton and Omar. She leaned forward for a little wiggle room. At her feet was her work satchel. She concentrated on the clipboard inside, her morning assignments, and the profiles of the pilots they were to work with today.
“I think we need to watch Fernando.”
“I agree. I put Omar on him.”
Ivy thought that a terrible idea, but she just hummed. Omar was the hot head that Fernando was reported to be. Would they egg each other on? Or butt heads? “I’d like to train the women.”
“As part of the larger group.” Colton nodded.
“Fine. I think I’ll take them to lunch, then.” There were five. And from Ivy’s experience, it was always better when the women stuck together.
They arrived at the hangar. It was surprisingly clean and new looking, standing out against the charm of the older stone and stucco homes. It sat on the edge of the ocean, the waves crashing wildly onshore in the wind, the deep blue with stark white caps looking more magnificent than inviting.
They parked and walked to the other side, away from the ocean toward what looked to be the door on a nondescript building. Land surrounded the structure, and an airstrip with a control tower marked the place as friendly to planes. Otherwise, Ivy would have thought it an unremarkable warehouse.
The door opened with the code they were given, and they stepped into the building. The sight of two beautiful planes tightened her throat. She always got emotional when seeing the jets she had been trained to fly. She approached and then ran her hand along the side. Out of pure rote habit, she began an inspection of the first plane. She jerked on the parts, poked and prodded from the wheels to the pilot’s seat. Completely unaware of anything else around her, her memories raced through her first time in a plane. She relived some of her engagements over Afghanistan. She closed her eyes, breathing in the smell of the fuel, and her fingers itched to take the plane up into the air as high as it would go.
“It never leaves you.” Colton’s voice, low and rumbly near her ear, didn’t startle her as much as it amped up every emotion.
She turned to him, his face close, his body almost intimately placed with one arm leaning on the plane, peering over into the cockpit next to her. “I’m dying to go up in one.” The words came out in a reverent hush. He would never understand just how much she valued even the ability to do so. No one who hadn’t ever been barred, or who hadn’t gone through some of the emotional baggage she’d had to overcome, would understand.
His eyes filled with understanding, and then his mouth quirked. “Me too.”
The look they shared could have made her forget all their past interactions. A sort of understanding, a power between them, settled inside and started wreaking havoc on her determination to remain a professional where he was concerned.
“Hey, Omar,” Colton said.
“Yeah, boss.”
“We’re gonna take up a plane. Hold down the fort until we get back.”
“Wait, what? Aren’t the pilots arriving soon?”
“Yep. And I know you can handle it. Do our standard introduction. Tenderfoot and I will fill in when we get back.”
Ivy’s heart hammered inside. Did she dare? Shouldn’t she be there to greet the students? Was Colton being irresponsible? A bold twinkle lit his expression, his eyes daring her to resist all claims of responsibility and answer the call to go up in this jet, to fly high and far and with Flyboy. She grinned
. “Omar, you’ll be just fine.”
She ignored his grumbling, and she and Flyboy went to suit up before she could change her mind. “We have to inspect the equipment, right? See if they really fly?” She laughed at her last-ditch effort to give their flight together a responsible purpose.
“We absolutely have to test the equipment. And you’re gonna be pilot.”
She pulled the helmet over her head. “Me?” Her smile grew.
“Yep, ’cause I’m supposed to do flying checks now and then on all our trainers as well.”
Something niggled inside her—a sort of unrest. His comment reminded her of their professional relationship. But she pushed all concerns aside, and she and Colton headed back to the plane. “Then, we’re actually following the rules to take a plane up?”
“Mostly.” He shrugged and then climbed up into the plane.
When she sat in her seat, the engine roaring beneath her, Flyboy behind, everything seemed to click one step closer to where things should be.
“You ready for this, Tenderfoot?” His eyes smiled at her on the screen from behind.
“You know, I still pinch myself that this is my actual job.” Their eyes met. “You do know I love my job, right?”
“Just not always your boss?” His sincerity warmed her. And for a moment, she almost opened up to him.
“My boss is growing on me.” Too bold? She held her breath. Perhaps. But she was feeling pretty daring.
“I’m glad to hear it. Now let’s get this bird up in the air.”
“Now you’re talking.”
They made their way to the stretch of runway, and then she gunned it. Colton’s voice, cheering from behind as they raced up into the air, made her laugh out loud, and soon she was cheering right along with him as they soared up into the sky.
Chapter 9
Colton watched Ivy’s face as they burst into the blue. Her face mask was open, her mouth twisted in an almost painful yearning, and her eyes alight. If joy was poignant, Ivy was the poster child for it.
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