One of the Boys

by Merline Lovelace

  Maggie seated herself at the conference table and laid the folder with her notes aside. She’d done some quick reading since the call had come to report to her boss’s office. She had her facts down cold.

  “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has already issued a statement of concern over your test’s threat to endangered species. Even if I wanted to override their objections, which I don’t, Eglin would be slapped with a notice of violation. Not only would the Wildlife folks have scrubbed this test, but they might hold all our other tests hostage while we negotiated with them. This base is too important a test facility to the Department of Defense to allow a poorly planned, inadequately researched project like this to close it down, even temporarily.”

  Mac MacRae leveled a hard stare at the young woman across the conference table. She must have ordered her Ph.D. through the mail, he thought. With her mass of golden curls that tumbled wildly over her shoulders, she looked about eighteen. Only when he noticed the fine lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes did he revise his estimate of her age, if not her capabilities. Maybe she was old enough, but surely not experienced enough to make the kind of judgment she had.

  His lips settled into a grim line, and he gave her his full attention. By the time she was halfway through her succinct review of the situation, he’d stopped seeing her curly hair and sensuous lips. Instead, he focused on clear green eyes that looked at him with distinct challenge and more than a hint of disapproval. He listened in silence, then sat back in his chair to consider the facts she’d laid before him.

  Maggie refused to let MacRae’s silence disconcert her. She held his gaze steadily and used the pause to take a mental inventory of the man facing her. Those penetrating blue eyes seemed out of place in a tanned face with a nose that looked like someone had taken a fist to it more than once. Or a shoulder, Maggie thought, in keeping with his linebacker appearance. She noted with some satisfaction the silver that liberally laced his dark hair. He wasn’t as young as he looked at first glance, she thought, unknowingly mirroring MacRae’s assessment of her. Although why that thought should give her satisfaction, she had no idea. She was so absorbed in her private review that she jumped at the deep gravelly voice.

  “I apologize, Dr. Wescott. You’ve obviously put more effort into studying this project than I realized. I’ll have my people redefine the test parameters. I’d appreciate it if you’d work with us closely so we can modify the test to satisfy all environmental concerns.”

  His response surprised Maggie. She’d had her hackles up and was ready for a long argument. Hard experience had taught her that some men were congenitally unable to give in gracefully to a woman. She would’ve bet her last dollar this hulking male was one of them. His reasonableness left her feeling slightly deflated.

  Before she could frame a coherent reply, MacRae got to his feet and shook Ed Stockton’s hand. He turned to take Maggie’s hand again, and her pulse seemed to jump at the hard warmth that enveloped her palm. She was sure she only imagined that he held her hand longer than he had the first time. Tugging her fingers loose as nonchalantly as possible, Maggie used the excuse of gathering up her papers to put some distance between them. For some reason, this man disturbed her. Maybe it was his size. He was a veritable mountain, for heaven’s sake. By the time she’d stuffed the report haphazardly into a file, he was gone.

  “Just who was that masked man?” she asked her boss.

  Ed Stockton laughed at her rueful grimace. “I’ve known MacRae a long time, Maggie. There isn’t a more brilliant physicist or better commander in the air force.”

  “He looks more like a football player than a scientist,” Maggie commented.

  “You aren’t exactly the stereotypical Ph.D., either,” Ed responded blandly. “Actually I think Mac did play football at the Air Force Academy. Now he’s a test pilot, but one of the weird ones. He actually finds the science of what makes those tubes of steel fly more fascinating than the flying itself. He’s brilliant, but when he has a hot project in the works, he’s like a bulldog. The man’s made my life miserable more times than I can count with his demands for range support for his propulsion tests. It did the old heart good to see him put in his place for once.”

  Maggie knew her boss well enough by now not to take him seriously. A senior colonel, Ed Stockton could give as good as he got and then some. His gruff voice hid a sharp precise mind and a total dedication to the air force. He needed both to command the nine-hundred-plus civil engineers, military and civilian, who were responsible for maintaining Eglin Air Force Base. The largest air base in the world, Eglin covered a land area of more than half a million acres and ate up most of the western half of Florida’s panhandle. It boasted thousands of miles of roads and hundreds of buildings and test facilities.

  Maggie was just beginning to appreciate the vast size of the base, as well as the scope of her job. As chief of Environmental Engineering, her responsibilities included anything and everything that might have an impact on the environment on that half-million acres. When she’d first arrived, she’d outlined a schedule to visit every hazardous-material site, fuel-storage area and restricted-test area on base. It would take her six months to cover them all.

  Maggie had responded on impulse to the ad for an environmental engineer at Eglin. She’d worked for the government before on some classified projects in Washington and knew enough about the test business to win an immediate job interview. Unlikely as it seemed at first to either of them, she and Ed Stockton had hit it off from the first few minutes of the interview.

  Maggie knew that her extensive credentials and her high-powered industry job she gave up to come to Florida had impressed Stockton. He’d asked her why she wanted to come to “redneck country,” as he put, after working at corporate level for a major oil conglomerate in Houston. She’d responded that she needed a change and wanted to get back to field-level work. At Stockton’s quizzical look, she added gently that she had personal reasons, as well, which were none of his business.

  Maggie considered her private life her own affair. If the crusty colonel interviewing her wasn’t satisfied with her professional credentials, she knew there were plenty of others who would be. Stockton was more than happy—with both her credentials and her feisty spirit, so like his own. He’d hired her on the spot and had enjoyed the reactions of the conservative local populace ever since she’d arrived. Just as he’d enjoyed MacRae’s narrow-eyed appraisal of her. Ed leaned back in his swivel chair and regarded his newest employee.

  “Work with MacRae on this test, Maggie. He’s right about its importance. If there’s a way to do it safely, let’s find it.”

  “I’ll give it my best, Ed, although I doubt I’ll have much to do with the big man himself. He’ll probably assign the task of convincing me to some lowly engineer.”

  “Possibly,” Ed agreed. “Just don’t be surprised if you find him taking a personal interest in this project. It’s a big one.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Maggie’s next encounter with “the mountain,” as she’d privately dubbed him, came sooner than either she or Ed Stockton had imagined. She ran into him, literally, the next evening.

  She’d been invited by the chief of Natural Resources to join a nighttime expedition to one of the base’s protected beaches. Natural Resources was responsible for wildlife and timber management on the sprawling Eglin complex. The chief of that division went about his work with a contagious enthusiasm. With Ed Stockton’s support, he’d enlisted a local school to help with the annual turtle-hatching. Maggie listened with smiling skepticism as he explained how she could help.

  “Really, Maggie, half the squadron turns out, as much to help supervise the kids as work the turtles. Most of the fun is watching the youngsters see nature at work.”

  “Come on, Pete, don’t the folks in this corner of Florida have anything better to do on Friday night? Do you really expect me to believe you’ve got several hundred adults and as many kids coming out to watch turtles hatch?”<
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  Pete smiled through his bushy beard. Now here was a man who fit his biologist image, Maggie thought. Unlike a certain hulking scientist.

  “Not just watch,” Pete protested. “We have to work them. The loggerhead sea turtles are one of the endangered species that are protected by law. But mama loggerhead isn’t a very responsible parent, and that makes our job difficult. She deposits her eggs on Eglin’s beaches, then swims off into the gulf. My people have spent the past few months building wire cages to protect the nests from predators.”

  Pete’s earnestness won Maggie’s interest, and she leaned forward to peer over his shoulder at the map showing the various nesting sites.

  “The eggs are just now starting to hatch. Unfortunately, on cloudy nights like tonight, the baby turtles can’t see the moon’s reflection on water to guide them to the sea. They get disoriented, lose their way and die.”

  “I would think a couple of hundred inquisitive schoolkids would only add to the poor baby turtles’ confusion,” Maggie joked.

  “Come out to Site 15 tonight with me and see. Trust me,” Pete said, placing a hairy paw on his plaid-covered chest. “It’ll be one of the adventures of your life.”

  Later that night, as the moon darted in and out of dark clouds, Maggie stood a short distance apart from a milling group of adults and preteens that Pete was organizing. She’d driven out with him and listened to his detailed explanation of the night’s activities, but still felt a bit foolish among a bunch of strangers baby-sitting turtles of all things. She shivered slightly in her lightweight jacket. So much for balmy Florida nights and swaying palm trees, she thought.

  Even the cool May night air, however, couldn’t dampen her natural ebullience for long. She stood on a slight rise and caught her breath as the moon peeked around the edge of a cloud, bathing the beach with soft light. White sand, undulating dunes and the iridescent ripple of the waves washing in combined to make a magical seascape. Maggie drank in the serene beauty of the night, disturbed only by the excited noise of a dozen children trying to be quiet.

  She turned toward the nest area, noticing that the kids had formed a line from the dunes to the shore. When they switched on their flashlights, a wave of high-pitched giggles and muted adult exclamations drifted across the night air. Despite herself, Maggie felt a thrill as she saw hundreds of tiny dark forms begin to make their squiggly way to the sea. She started to run down to join the line, but crashed headlong into a very large dark form coming from the side.

  Hard hands gripped one arm and one breast, trying to keep her from falling. The hand on her breast shifted almost immediately to her other arm, but not before Maggie’s startled glance had looked up, way up, into equally startled eyes.

  Maggie’s ready sense of humor overcame her momentary embarrassment. “I know you wanted us to work closely, Colonel, but isn’t this above and beyond the call of duty?”

  “Dr. Wescott, I’d have recognized you anywhere.”

  At Maggie’s indignant gasp, MacRae added, “From the moonlight glinting on that wild head of hair.”

  His wicked smile told Maggie that he knew very well she’d thought he was referring to his quick but very thorough exploration of her breast. The thought of his hand on it brought an unexpected tingle to the very area he had pressed so briefly. She stepped back quickly out of his hold.

  “What are you doing here, Colonel? Scouting out the next site to blow up with one of your super ray guns?”

  Mac smiled down at her. “You’ve been listening to that old goat Stockton too much. I don’t blow up every part of his precious range. Only the selected portions he grudgingly allows the rest of us to use. Actually I’m here in my other official capacity tonight. Those are my two boys over there, trying not to stomp too many turtles to death as they help ‘save’ them.”

  He waved in the general direction of the line of children. Maggie saw a couple of flashlights dance wildly in response. Even in the darkness, she guessed, his kids could pick out their giant of a father. She firmly suppressed a surprising twinge of disappointment at the thought of his having children. Of course he had kids, and he probably had a dainty demure little wife, as well. Maggie took a step away from him.

  “I better get over there and help, too, or I’ll lose my environmentalist badge.”

  Mac fell in beside her as she headed toward the line. Inexplicably, some of the adventure of the night had dimmed for Maggie.

  “Dad, Dad, can me and Danny spend the night at Joey’s?”

  A sand-covered shadow ran full tilt toward them out of the darkness. Maggie barely avoided her second collision of the night, but Mac wasn’t as lucky. He caught the youngster, who appeared to be about nine, under his arms and swirled him around in a shower of sand, wet jeans and giggles.

  “Mind your manners, Davey. Say hello to Dr. Wescott. She works at the base, too.”

  Davey extended a damp sandy hand to Maggie. His grin, as he introduced himself, was a miniature duplicate of one she had seen smiling down at her just a few moments ago. Heavens, there were three of these males loose on society!

  “Please, Dad. Joey’s mom promised to make fudge tonight. Can we go?”

  “Let me talk to her first, son, and make sure it’s all right.”

  As the child dashed back to his place in line, Mac excused himself. “I need to catch Joey’s mom before they overwhelm her. I’m not sure she knows what she’s getting into with those twins of mine. They’ve been through half a dozen full-time housekeepers in the past few years. The latest has worked out only because she used to be a warden in a woman’s prison.”

  He started to walk away, then turned back. “What the heck’s your first name, anyway? I feel like we’ve passed the Dr. Wescott stage.”

  “I’ll tell you, if you’ll tell me what goes in front of the ‘Mac’ in MacRae.”

  For the first time, Maggie saw the big man slightly discomposed.

  “It’s Alastair, after my Scottish grandfather. Most of the folks who know me have managed to forget that. Mac’ll do just fine. Your turn.”

  “Maggie, short for Marguerite. After my French grandmother.”

  He left Maggie with a smile. She wandered toward the line, thinking of their brief conversation. After their initial meeting, Maggie never would have imagined enjoying herself with the incredible hunk so much. She had just reached the point of wondering about the string of housekeepers when he was back.

  “All clear. The boys are set, and I have an unexpected free evening. Do you want to go hatch turtles with me?”

  The moon came out from behind a scudding cloud, lighting the beach and Maggie’s night. She resisted an almost overwhelming urge to put her hand in the one he was holding out to her.

  “Wouldn’t Mrs. Colonel MacRae mind you going off to hatch turtles with another woman?”

  Maggie was nothing if not direct. She had learned to succeed in a field still dominated by men.

  Mac was equally direct. “My wife died in a car crash six years ago. It’s just the boys and me.” He looked out at the sea briefly, then deliberately lightened the somber mood. “Danny and Davey have been trying to marry me off for years to any woman who can cook. You don’t have a diploma from a gourmet-cooking school tucked away with all your other degrees, do you?”

  “Nope, you’re safe.”

  “Good, come on, then. There’s another nest a little way down the beach, minus kids. Pete told me about it. Incidentally he mentioned that he’d be here late. I told him I’d take you home if you want to leave before he does.”

  Maggie stared at him in wry amusement. The man sure moved fast for someone his size.

  They spent the next hour alternately escorting hatchlings to the sea and sitting next to a small fire set in the protection of the dunes. Mac provided a thermos of hot coffee laced with rum. Obviously he’d done turtle duty before.

  She found the man beside her fascinating. He laughed and joked easily with the other members of the small group. In between dashes to the s
ea, he kept Maggie amused with a light running commentary on the joys of parenting twin boys.

  For his part, Mac couldn’t keep his eyes off her mobile expressive face with those green eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Nor off her long legs and the firm tush outlined to perfection by her tight jeans. She had a light and laughing personality that attracted Mac even more than her trim figure. When the last hatchlings finally made their way to the surf, he took Maggie’s arm and led her away from the small fire toward a Jeep parked at the edge of the dunes.

  “Mac, I’m cold,” Maggie protested, looking back longingly at the fire and the thermos of doctored coffee Mac had left with the remaining group.

  “Me, too. We’ll get warm in the car. My jeans are wet clear up to my thighs.”

  “That’s a lot of wet,” Maggie said, her voice solemn.

  He grinned and helped her into the Jeep. Joining her, he turned on the ignition and the heater. Welcome warmth began to fill the cab, along with the soft strains of a country-and-western ballad from the radio.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Mmm, much.”

  Maggie propped her knees up against the dash and leaned back in the seat, drinking in the sight of shadowed moonlight dancing on the sea and her tingling awareness of the man beside her. Idly she wondered if she’d have a chance to see Mac again once she started working with his people on the test project. She certainly hoped so.

  Mac’s low voice cut through the stillness. “I was impressed with your grasp of the issues on our propulsion test. For someone so new to the base, you’ve certainly picked up on our business quickly.”

  “I may be new to Eglin, but I’m not new to testing,” she told him. “I worked in Research and Development on the Air Staff for a while before I moved to private industry.”