One of the Boys

by Merline Lovelace

Although Maura had most of the analyses already programmed, she knew how much Pete resented being left out of this project. When he pleaded his case to their boss, Maura told Ed she could use the help. Once Pete joined the team, some of her pressure eased and she managed to steal a few evenings to meet Lisa at the cove.

  As the days passed, Lisa acquired a healthy tint to her creamy complexion and shed some of her quiet shyness. Maura’s lighthearted banter and enthusiasm for their now-shared hobby encouraged the girl’s emerging liveliness. More than once Jake found the two of them up to their knees in water, T-shirts sopping wet, sneakers full of mud, exclaiming over a treasured bit of clay.

  But it was the nights that seemed to color Maura’s existence. Whenever they weren’t working late and Lisa had some scheduled activity, Jake would proceed with another lesson in the art of making love.

  One night would be wild and hard and fast, another so slow and sensual, Maura thought she’d die before he lowered his body onto hers and brought them both to a shattering climax. Then there was the night they simply held hands and went wading in the moon-washed bay behind her cottage.

  At least, they started out holding hands. Once around the corner of the shoreline, out of sight of the other cottages, they held a lot more. Even now, the memory of making love with tiny waves rippling like silk along her naked body and Jake sliding in and out in an ancient, primitive water dance made her stomach clench.

  Lisa’s sixteenth birthday rolled around right in the middle of the hectic, busy weeks. In honor of the occasion, Maura had decided to do something she rarely did—cook. Unfortunately, she lost track of time and got home from work late.

  “Hello, cat.”

  Ruffling Bea’s fur, she dashed into the bedroom to change. She was scrambling into a tank top and shorts when the doorbell rang. Breathless, she caught it on the third ring.

  “Hi, guys! Happy birthday, Lisa.”

  “Thanks.”

  Holding the door open with one hand, Maura pushed her hair behind her ears with the other. “I’m running a little behind schedule,” she confessed. “You’ll have to help with kitchen duty.”

  “No problem,” Lisa replied. “Dad’s a great cook, you know. He’s been giving me lessons.”

  “No, I didn’t know.” She aimed a small, private smile at Jake. “But I bet he’s a great instructor.”

  “No complaints so far,” he said with a grin that was all smug male.

  Once in the kitchen, Maura pushed a stack of unopened mail and magazines to one end of the counter. “Okay, here’s the drill. Lisa, you do the salad, your dad can grill the amberjack and I’ll fix the spaghetti.”

  “Fish and spaghetti?” Lisa asked with a giggle.

  “Why not? You told me they were your favorite foods after pizza. This is your birthday dinner, and you ought to have exactly what you like.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Jake agreed as Maura retrieved the salad fixings from the fridge.

  This was the first time he’d ever seen her in a kitchen. He figured it would be an interesting experience.

  He was right. While he seasoned the white fillets, she opened an assortment of jars and dumped them into a heavy pot. If she had a recipe for her spaghetti sauce, she didn’t bother to use it. She just pulled whatever took her fancy out of the cupboard and added it to the bubbling concoction.

  Jake took the foil-wrapped fish out to the patio, only to discover the coals were still in their sack. He laid a neat pattern of briquettes in the rusted grill, fired the charcoal, then went back into the kitchen to warn them the fish might take a while.

  “Hmm.” Maura looked down at the pot of boiling water filled with noodles. “We might have to be a little flexible on the courses tonight. You don’t mind, do you, birthday girl?”

  Laughing, Lisa shook her head.

  Hours later, Jake polished off the last of the charbroiled amberjack. It was, he decided, a perfect ending to a perfect meal. So what if the spaghetti sauce tasted like a cross between West Texas chili and tomato stew? Who cared if the garlic bread was slightly charred around the edges? And who was he to protest when Maura brought out a five-layer cake ablaze with candles while the fish was still grilling?

  They’d laughed so much and pored over the glossy book of Indian pottery Maura gave Lisa for a birthday gift for so long, that they were hungry again by the time the amberjack was finally ready.

  Jake settled back in his chair and watched a light brown and a dark black head bent close together over the glossy edition. Absently his fingers stroked the fine grain on the antique dining table. Littering its polished surface was a huge pot of fresh flowers in a riot of colors, delicate Rosenthal stemware and a collection of heavy crystal candleholders, each one filled with a sputtering candle. These elegant touches accented mismatched china and placemats in varying shapes and sizes. Or maybe it was mix-matched china, Jake thought. He was getting so used to Maura’s own eclectic style of decorating that the cheerful patterns and glowing colors were beginning to take on their own cachet.

  Slowly his eyes roved over the small cottage. There were still a few boxes stacked in corners, but many had been cleared out. After Jake had banged his shins the second time on inconvenient obstructions during one of their more playful sessions, Maura had solemnly sworn to clear a path straight from the front door to the bedroom.

  A vision of his own home superimposed itself on this tiny, cheerful cottage. Jake had had it built to his own specifications and had it professionally decorated. He’d always considered it airy and spacious. Now the glass and chrome seemed sterile and the high ceilings echoed, even with Lisa’s welcome presence.

  His house, he decided as he stretched his long legs out under the table, could use just a little of Maura’s clutter. And he could use…

  A furious snarl interrupted his musing, causing all three diners to jump. Dipping down, Maura peeked under the table.

  “Oh, Jake, you must have accidentally kicked Bea.” Her head popped back up. “It was accidental, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” he drawled. “When that cat and I finally have it out, rest assured you’ll have a ringside seat.”

  Lisa giggled at his ferocious scowl. Her giggles turned to peals of laughter when she and Maura took Jake on in a three-sided game of Pictionary.

  Father and daughter departed an hour later. Clutching the glossy book, Lisa snuggled down in her seat.

  “This is the best birthday I’ve ever had.”

  Jake gave her a quick look in the darkness and felt his heart thump painfully in his chest. Whatever else he and Anne had done wrong, they’d somehow managed to produce a warm, bright, loving child. Reaching across the bucket seats, he gave Lisa’s hand a squeeze.

  “I’m glad, honey.”

  “Isn’t Maura fun? I really like her. You do, too, don’t you?”

  The question held a distinctly teasing tone. At fifteen, no, sixteen, Lisa probably had a good idea about those stops Jake made at Maura’s after work. She must have guessed they weren’t all strictly business.

  “Yes, I do. I like her a lot.”

  “How much? I mean, you spend a lot of time with her. Are you in love or something?”

  Jake took a deep breath. Was he in love? He sure as hell was in lust.

  “I don’t know, honey,” he answered truthfully. “I guess it’s ‘something’ at this point.”

  He struggled with the answer to Lisa’s question over the next week. He needed some time to sit back and assess just what he felt for the woman who filled his mind and hardened his body at the oddest moments. Unfortunately, the pace on the Stealth project picked up to such an intense, frenetic level that Jake had to settle for observing Maura across a conference table littered with drawings and computer runs and post-test analyses.

  Twice he managed to get her alone for a cup of coffee, if sitting in the crowded cafeteria under the watchful eyes of half his staff could be considered alone. Each time he found himself more bemused than ever by her analytical eng
ineer’s mind and sensuous, laughing femininity.

  The team racked up two spectacular successes. On the second test shot, the missile made a clean release and flew straight and sure to the target. Maura cheered with the crowd of onlookers when the concrete wall blossomed into a cloud of dust.

  A third test of the modified missile, this time armed with a conventional warhead, was just as deadly. After that success, the entire team threw themselves into the next critical phase. Now that they understood the characteristics of the missile on the F-15, a known, stable platform, they planned to test it on the Stealth itself.

  Sleek, black and shaped like a pointed boomerang, the Stealth flew into Eglin three days before the scheduled test. Working night and day, contractor and in-house personnel fit mounts in the fighter’s internal weapons bay to hold the modified missile. To her surprise, Maura learned that Jake himself would fly the first Stealth test.

  He was one of the few officers at Eglin qualified on the F-117 Nighthawk. She learned he’d commanded the first operational Stealth squadron. Jake had left that squadron to assume duties as deputy commander for operations at Eglin.

  As the day of the test approached, she viewed it with a growing mixture of excited anticipation and nervousness. Somehow the knowledge that Jake was going to be in the cockpit made it seem less of an adventure. More than ever before, she began to appreciate the deadly serious aspect of the test business. A good number of the test pilots who’d pushed their machines to the edge of the performance envelope, and then beyond, had died in the attempt.

  During all the years she’d spent in design, helping to produce the next generation of fighters, Maura had never felt the vulnerability of the man strapped into those supersonic designs as personally as she did now.

  She was a bundle of raw nerves when she and Pete grabbed seats in the viewing area the day of the test.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her for the third time. “Jake knows this plane. He can handle anything the Stealth has to offer.”

  They sat side by side in the darkened Central Control Facility, eyes glued to the screen. The chase plane’s wing-mounted camera clearly displayed the F-117 to the assembled crowd. With its distinctive boomerang shape, flat undercarriage and black radar-absorbing paint, the Nighthawk sat like a small thundercloud at the end of the runway. Its coated canopy windows reflected the sun’s rays, hiding any sign of the single pilot from Maura’s anxious eyes.

  Her nails dug into her palms as both planes taxied down the runway, then lifted off into the blazing noonday sun. Every second seemed to last a lifetime. She followed each terse exchange between pilot and tower, between lead and chase, between test controller and drop pilot. A tense, expectant silence filled the small gallery until Jake’s voice came over the speakers.

  “Two minutes to launch.”

  Afterward, Maura would shudder every time she recalled the next terrifying sequence of events. One moment, Jake was counting off the seconds to launch. In the next, she and the entire control facility watched, horrified, as the launcher descended through the bay doors and the missile detached.

  Lifting in a lethal arc, the modified Maverick slammed into the Stealth’s black-painted aluminum fuselage, then somersaulted along the length of the plane toward the tail.

  The watching crowd gave a collective gasp when a piece of the tail flew off into the blue sky. Maura felt her heart stop as the Stealth began to pitch and roll violently. The chase plane tried desperately to keep it in sight, but for long, terrifying seconds the TV screen showed only bright blue sky.

  The speakers crackled, but Maura couldn’t understand a word. Her ears filled with a jumble of Jake’s steady voice, the controller’s rapid responses and the roar of her own pounding terror. She thought she heard Jake say he had the plane under control, that he was circling over the bay to empty his fuel tanks. In the background of the tower speaker, a steady Klaxon sounded.

  Oh, God! The fire trucks and emergency-response vehicles were scrambling.

  Maura waited, her throat closed with fear, her eyes on the screen. The center monitor switched from a view of the target to the camera mounted on Eglin’s largest hangar. The camera zoomed in on a tiny black speck far off across the bay, streaking out of the clouds. The speck resolved itself into the Stealth’s distinctive triangular shape.

  “His wheels are down!” Pete shouted, thumping his fist on the chair arm. “He’s coming in.”

  Maura couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. She sat frozen until the plane touched down and the crowd around her broke into unrestrained cheers. Rescue vehicles converged on the plane in a whir of flashing lights before it even came to a complete stop. Two heavily suited firemen plopped a ladder against the fuselage and opened the canopy.

  When Jake climbed out of the cockpit, she gulped in her first full breath and fought the tears that burned in her eyes.

  Knowing it would be hours before Jake finished debriefing the safety and operations people on the accident, Maura let Pete drive her home. Her legs were still too shaky and her hands trembled too violently to manage her own car.

  With a muted word of thanks, Maura let herself into the house, dropped her purse on a chair and scooped up a sleeping Bea. Holding the cat close, she wandered aimlessly through the house. Finally she went outside and settled on the lounger. Eyes closed, she relived those heart-stopping moments in the control facility.

  She could hear Jake’s voice, cool and steady, even a few seconds from possible death. Shuddering, she gave a silent prayer of thanks for his iron control, knowing full well only nerves of steel and flying skills honed by years of experience could have brought him down safely.

  How could she have expected him, or wanted him, to be any different from the man his training and background had made him? And how could she have thought she couldn’t love him just as he was?

  Burying her face in Bea’s fur, Maura tried to reconstruct just how and when she’d fallen for a man she cordially disliked only a few short weeks ago. She wasn’t sure exactly when it happened, and at this point, she didn’t really care.

  “I knew it, Bea.”

  She hugged the protesting cat tighter.

  “I knew I wasn’t sophisticated enough to separate emotion from physical involvement. The man disapproves of my lifestyle, raises those sexy eyebrows at every piece of clothing I own, and he’d probably trade you in for a poodle if I let him. Am I crazy for loving him, or what?”

  Bea squeezed herself out of Maura’s grip and planted four heavy paws on her chest. She stared steadily at her agitated mistress, as if to indicate she couldn’t care less for a mere male’s opinion.

  “I know, I know,” Maura wailed. “But I can’t help it. I’ve fallen for the guy.”

  With a disgusted flick of her tail, Bea circled once or twice, plopped back down and closed her eyes.

  Chapter 6

  The debriefing room emptied slowly. Foam cups and scattered manuals littered the polished surface of the large rectangular table. Jake stayed in his seat long after the last uniformed officer left. He wanted to run the videotapes again.

  Although his hands were steady and his adrenaline had long since stopped surging, the near miss still occupied every corner of his mind. He was torn between exhilaration at having brought his aircraft back despite the odds, a wrenching disappointment that the test had failed and a nagging uncertainty over the cause of the failure.

  He’d been in the business long enough to know the risks associated with every test of a modified system. Still, after all they’d learned from the first attempts on the F-15, he’d been confident they’d get a clean release on the Stealth.

  Pressing the hand control that governed the projectors, Jake brought the room lights down and ran the tapes again. He didn’t move a muscle as he watched the missile take off part of his aircraft’s tail rudder, but the blood began to drum in his ears.

  He rewound the tape and played it again. This time the hand holding the controls began to shake. Sitting alone in
the darkness, staring down at his hand as if it belonged to someone else, Jake felt a cold sweat break out on his body. The flickering scenes of sky and swirling black plane blurred in front of his staring eyes. Abruptly he punched the controls and cut off the tape. Driven by a deep, overwhelming need, he left the operations center and headed for Maura’s cottage.

  A lone shrimper bobbed far out on the bay when he found her. He stood in the open patio doors for a few moments, surveying the two females sprawled in the lounge. Maura was sound asleep, her head at an awkward angle. Her miserable excuse for a pet covered most of her lap, and even from across the small patio Jake could hear Bea’s contented, deep-chested purr.

  He must have made some sound, some movement, because Bea jerked awake. Her sudden hiss woke Maura. Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she took in the man standing in the doorway.

  “Jake! I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Abandoning both her pet and the lounge chair, she crossed the patio. Her anxious gaze searched his face.

  “Are you all right?”

  Now he was.

  Almost.

  “I smell like something your cat dug out of a trash can, my hands are shaking in delayed reaction, and I want you with an ache so fierce, it’s doubling me over. Otherwise I’m fine.”

  A slow, sweet smile spread across her face. “Come with me, Colonel. I think I can fix all three of your problems.”

  Jake followed her through the cottage. Her tiny bathroom barely held the two of them. He stood still, absorbed by her frowning concentration as she knelt to unlace his boots, then loosened the Velcro tabs at his wrists and unzipped his flight suit.

  Slowly, tenderly, she peeled back the green fabric. Her hands stroked his chest and arms, then his waist, each of his legs. Jake leaned back against the wall and savored the featherlight touch of her hands on his body. He watched as she stepped back to strip off her own clothes. The only light came from the small, translucent window set high in one wall. The soft glow outlined her body perfectly for his hungry eyes.