Aly didn’t dare mention Clay’s crash. She saw the rawness in his eyes, and the terror from the past. There was no way she was going to wound Clay with that memory. Fumbling with the elastic strap around her leg, she managed to fit the small board on top of her thigh where she could flip through the plastic-coated pages in rapid succession. The silence was stilted and she muttered, “I don’t like roses anyway.”
“Oh?”
“I love irises. They’re my favorite flower….” Aly’s voice trailed off into a whisper. What was she saying? Clay didn’t care what she liked or didn’t like. He had to put up with her. “Never mind, I talk too much,” she muttered.
Irises. Clay stole a glance over at Aly. Her cheeks were flushed bright red, almost matching her hair. Somehow, he had to help her settle down. Right now she was so damn tautly strung, she was ready to explode. Get a hold on yourself, Cantrell. For once, don’t jump down her throat.
“Iris would look good with your hair color,” he pointed out awkwardly, trying to establish some neutral ground with her.
Blinking once, Aly risked a look in Clay’s direction. Had she heard right, or was she making up this conversation? Struck by the fact that all the darkness had disappeared from his gray eyes, Aly was thrown completely off guard. Clay’s mouth had softened. There was so much happening so quickly. Aly avoided his penetrating gaze and tried to focus on the checklist. One moment he could be a bastard, the next, his voice was unhinging her, touching her aching heart with soothing reassurance. That same look of warmth lingered in his eyes—just as it had at their first meeting on the Bayshore.
Taking a shaky breath, Aly said, “I’m ready to start preflight procedures if you are, Mr. Cantrell.”
Brusque and efficient. Good. Clay released a held breath, thankful to be on familiar territory once again. “Roger. Okay, let’s walk through each page of the checklist. I’ll do it slowly, and if you have any questions, stop me and we’ll discuss them. Okay?” He drilled her with a look that demanded an answer.
Aly nodded. “Yes, sir.” And then she cringed. Now she was behaving like a frightened student pilot with an inspector pilot back at Pensacola. She saw a slight grin ease Clay’s set mouth.
“You can drop the ‘yes, sir.’ Call me by my last name.”
Aly wanted to die of embarrassment. What must he think of her? That she was a silly, addled-brained woman so flustered that her emotions were getting in the way of the business at hand? Aly had no defense against him. Clay affected her so profoundly on so many new, awakening levels that she completely lost her usual composure every time she got around him. Forcing a slight smile, she nodded. “I’m ready to start, Mr. Cantrell.”
Clay brought down the hood, locking it in place. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.”
Two hours later, the hood latch was sprung and opened. Aly took a deep breath of fresh air, relieved to be released from the stuffy, smelly Link. She had sweated like a student pilot at Pensacola, the underarms of her flight suit wringing wet. Wrinkling her nose, she was sure Clay couldn’t have helped but notice. There was no end to the humiliation she felt around him. First the rose debacle, and now her less than glorious performance under the hood.
Clay sat scribbling a number of notes on the clipboard resting against his thigh. The tension in the Link for the past two hours had been distressing. To both of them. Each time a green pilot trained in the Link, the IP had to assess and grade his or her performance. Aly had been strained, making the same mistakes over and over again. His conscience railed at him. Let’s face it, Cantrell, you weren’t a good IP, either. All you did was snap at her for two hours straight.
Whipped, her legs feeling weak, Aly climbed out of the cockpit. The feathery bangs across her brow were damp, sticking to her flesh. She had performed terribly. And judging from Clay’s closed face, he was going to grade her without remorse. This was worse than the awful pressure applied to the fledgling student pilots at Pensacola. She’d had IPs who had screamed in her ear while she was flying the right-hand seat in the trainers. She’d had them badger her, taunt her, and she had stood up to them and graduated, despite their tactics to try to wash her out of the program.
Wiping her sweaty brow, Aly glanced toward the computer room. Chief Random gave her a game smile and a thumbs-up. That rallied her plummeting spirits, if only minimally. The chief would grade her performance, too. Maybe Random would be more understanding and lenient in his grade analysis than Clay would be.
God, if I keep screwing up like this, I’ll never get approved to copilot. The thought tore deeply through Aly. She had fought for five years to get here. And today she’d been the worst she could ever remember behind the controls.
“Trayhern?”
Aly turned toward Clay, trying to shore up her shredded defenses to face his evaluation. Forcing herself to meet shore up her shredded defenses to face his evaluation. Forcing herself to meet his eyes, she stood, waiting for the guillotine to drop. “Yes?”
Clay leaned across the cockpit, handing her the clipboard so that she could read his comments and grading. He tried to take the harshness out his voice, noting how pale she’d become as she took the board. “If you’ve got any disagreement with my analysis, let’s talk it over now, before I sign it off.”
Taking the board in both hands, Aly tried to focus on his almost illegible scribble. What she cared about most were the four areas that she was graded upon. Her heart pounded once to underscore her disbelief. Clay had given her seventy-five percent in all categories! Aly gasped, looking up at him.
“Well?” he goaded. “You got a problem with that, Trayhern?”
Elation leaked through her terror. Aly knew from being graded for a year at Pensacola that Clay was being generous with her. Very generous. She should have dragged a sixty percent, which was a failing grade. Instead he’d given her barely passing marks. Trying to read his scrawl and assessment, there was no indication of personal feelings being involved with his analysis of her abilities today.
“I—no, I don’t,” she whispered unsteadily.
Clay saw the life come back to her sky-blue eyes as she handed him the clipboard. Color had rushed back to her cheeks. She was excruciatingly vulnerable in that moment, and he had to stop himself from reaching out to caress her cheek. There was gratefulness in her luminous eyes. And that made his heart soar with an incredible sense of elation. And then he saw his dead mother’s face waver before him, and he smashed all those fragile new emotions.
Clay glanced down at his watch. “You’ve been assigned to Commander Winger’s office for collateral duty. He’s expecting you any moment. You’d better get going.”
Aly nodded, holding her manual tightly against her breasts. “I—right.” She wanted to thank him for not failing her. But one look into those sharp gray eyes, and Aly swallowed her thanks.
Watching her go over to a chair to pick up her purse and garrison cap, Clay called, “Be here at 0800 tomorrow morning, Trayhern.”
“Yes, sir—” Aly halted and gave him an apologetic shrug for slipping back into student-pilot vernacular. “I mean, I’ll be here, Mr. Cantrell.”
Grimly, Clay watched her leave. He packed up his manual and clipboard and climbed out of the Link. In the control room, Random handed him his grading sheet. The chief had given her seventy-five percent, too.
“Miss Trayhern was a little nervous,” Random told him, as if to defend the percentile grade. “Typical of a young pilot just coming out of Pensacola, wouldn’t you say?”
“Typical,” Clay agreed, signing off both sheets and handing them back to the chief.
“She’s sharp, though,” Random continued. “I think once she settles down and realizes no one’s out to sink her, she’ll catch on fast.”
Clay grunted, putting his manual into the briefcase he always carried.
“You want the trainer set up for her tomorrow morning, Mr. Cantrell?”
Placing the garrison cap on his head, Clay nodded. “Yes, I do.” He w
alked to the door and opened it. “Oh, one more thing, chief.”
“Yes, sir?”
“I want you to schedule Lieutenant Trayhern into an hour of cockpit training in a P3. Choose any one that’s on the line that won’t be flown that day. Assign AE Ballard to work with her. He’s qualified on preflight, start-up and shutdown procedures. This week, starting Tuesday, have Ballard drill preflight procedures with her.”
Random nodded. “She one of those people who do better in the real thing?” he guessed. Some pilots never got used to a Link trainer. And yet in the cockpit of the actual aircraft, those same people performed flawlessly.
“I think so. I’ll see you at 1400, chief.”
Random nodded. The next student, a green lieutenant just out of Pensacola, was scheduled for that afternoon. “Yes, sir.”
Where had the week flown? Clay wondered as he moved up the ladder of P3 number 7, where he knew Aly and Ballard were practicing in the cockpit. It was already Friday afternoon. He slowed his step as he entered the sub hunter parked out in the revetment area. Ballard was in the pilot’s seat. Aly was in the copilot’s seat. He stood listening to their bantering exchanges, watching her hands fly with knowing ease across the instrument panel. She’d flip a switch here, turn a dial there as Ballard called out each step. After a lousy start earlier in the week, Aly was now moving with typical Navy pilot confidence, her voice firm and sure.
Cantrell almost smiled, settling his hands on his hips, watching and listening. With the morning Link sessions and Ballard working with her every afternoon, Aly was becoming well acquainted with the P3. His heart blossomed with powerful feelings of pride toward her. And just as quickly, Clay tried to push them back down inside himself. Aly invited familiarity. He found himself longing to see her smile. Once, midweek, he’d heard in his office her beautiful laughter pealing down the hallway. It had sent a shaft of hot need through him. Would she ever laugh or smile like that for him?
He doubted it. Clay shoved his hands into his pockets, continuing to watch Ballard and Aly. There was excellent camaraderie between them. They kidded each other between maneuvers. Her laughter was breathy and light, lifting the darkness that haunted Clay. She was sunlight, he decided morosely. Sister of a murderer or not, she reminded him of anything but death.
“Not bad, Miss Trayhern,” Dan congratulated Aly. “You know preflight blindfolded.”
Aly flushed over his compliment and sat back, relaxing. The P3’s windows were large and she could see the blue sky outside. The sun was bright, making the cockpit hot. “Thanks, Dan. You’ve been a wonderful teacher.” She tipped her head in his direction, her eyes twinkling. “I couldn’t have done it without you. I still haven’t thanked you for asking Mr. Cantrell to let you help me every afternoon.”
Dan’s red eyebrows arched. “I didn’t do anything, Miss Trayhern. That was Mr. Cantrell’s idea in the first place.”
Stunned, Aly sat up. “It was?”
Dan grinned, closing the large manual that sat on the throttle casing. “Yes, ma’am. I think he realized you relax in the real thing. A lot of pilots do poorly in those trainers. There’s just something about them….”
Aly sat there, digesting Dan’s answer. So Clay had been responsible for this. Mixed emotions threaded through her. He was so damn cold and distant with her in the Link. She would never have thought he had the sensitivity, much less the insight, to know that she trained better here. Again, he hid so much of his real self that Aly could never hope to understand him. Cantrell didn’t want anyone to know anything about him.
“You know,” Dan said, breaking into her thoughts, “I’ll bet next week Mr. Cantrell might let you fly with us. We’ve got a training mission coming up next Wednesday. Maybe, if we can get you familiar on start-up and shutdown procedures, he’ll give you that opportunity.”
Aly rallied. “You think so?” Hope rang strong in her voice, and she didn’t try to disguise her enthusiasm.
Dan collected the other manuals, leaning back to relax for a minute. “Don’t see why not. Ol’ number 7 here is ready to fly again.”
“Number 7,” Aly murmured softly. She reached over, affectionately patting the top of the instrument panel. “How can you call her that? She’s so sleek and beautiful.”
Scratching his head, Dan said, “Dunno. I guess you’re right. Number 7 sounds pretty detached, doesn’t it?”
“I’ve already given her a name,” Aly admitted, watching Dan. He was almost like a big brother to her, and she enjoyed spending time with him.
“Yeah? What?”
“Promise you won’t breath a word of it to anyone else, Dan?”
With a grin, he nodded. “Won’t say a word, ma’am. Now what kind of name have you christened this gal with?”
Reaching over, Aly ran her fingers across the smooth yoke in front of her. “I call her Gray Lady, because she reminds me of an elegant swan ready to take off in flight.”
Dan pursed his lips, giving the name some thought. “I like it, Miss Trayhern.” And then he grinned, catching and holding her gaze. “See? I told you that having a woman on board would change things for the better.”
Embarrassed because she’d divulged a piece of herself to Dan, Aly muttered, “Oh, I don’t know about that. I still haven’t met the rest of Mr. Cantrell’s crew.”
“You will shortly, Miss Trayhern.”
Aly gasped, whirling around in the seat. Her eyes moved up…up into the shadowed face of Clay, who stood, his hands on his hips. Instead of finding the dark anger that usually hung in his eyes or in the set of his mouth, Aly saw momentary warmth there instead.
“H-how long have you been here?” she blurted.
Clay moved his gaze to Ballard, who nodded a greeting, unaffected by Clay’s unexpected appearance. He returned his attention to Aly. She looked so damned enticing every time she blushed.
“Long enough,” he answered.
She didn’t dare ask what “long enough” meant. Had he heard her name for the P3? He’d probably use it against her in the future, or ruthlessly spread it around the squadron. Gathering her strewn thoughts, Aly got up. “We’re done here, Mr. Cantrell. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll—”
Clay remained in her path so she couldn’t move by him. “Have a seat, Miss Trayhern, we’re not quite finished yet.”
She didn’t like the silky tone in his voice. This was something new. Aly gave Dan a quick look, and he appeared just as mystified.
“Dan, how about giving me my seat?”
“Yes, sir!”
Oh, no! Aly shut her eyes. Clay was going to quiz her!
When she reopened her eyes, she noticed a ground crew pulling up in a vehicle outside the aircraft. What was going on?
Clay strapped himself in and barely glanced at her. “Miss Trayhern, I suggest you strap yourself back in.”
Dan grinned broadly and knelt behind the throttles. “We going for a ride, sir?” There was enthusiasm in his voice.
“I think Miss Trayhern’s ready for her first flight, don’t you, Dan?”
Happily, he nodded. “She’s an ace at preflight check, sir.”
Clay glanced over, positioning the board on his knee. “Let’s find out. Okay, Miss Trayhern, you ready to preflight this bird?”
They were going to taxi! Joy leaped through Aly. Learning how to fly a plane consisted of start-up, taxi and, finally, a first flight. Just getting the chance to taxi the P3 was more than Aly dared expect so soon in her training. She stared at Clay, disbelief, she was sure, written all over her face.
“Well?” he drawled.
“I—yes…oh, yes, I’m ready, Mr. Cantrell.”
Ignoring the tremble of happiness in her voice, Clay nodded and briskly returned to the business at hand. Why should he feel light and pleased at her reaction? Her blue eyes literally danced. Getting to see her smile for the first time since their fated meeting made Clay realize just how unhappy Aly had been the past week. And just how much he longed to see that smile again.
Aly held her breath as his Nomex-gloved fingers depressed the start button on engine number three. The whirling whine of the prop began. She felt a shiver run through Gray Lady as the engine caught and moved smoothly to life. Clay repeated the procedure, starting engine number two, on her side of the aircraft.
“Okay, you start the last two,” he ordered.
Eagerly, Aly repeated his steps. A thrill moved through her as all four of the P3’s engines moved in rpm unison. A smile curved her lips, and she looked over at Clay.
“She feels good. Solid.”
Clay understood what Aly meant. The P3 was a reliable plane with heart. “Ready to taxi?”
Aly nodded. Her heart was in her throat as Cantrell waved the ground crew off to one side.
“Use throttle two and three in the center there, to taxi her. Bring up power slow, and watch your rpm gauges.”
Placing her gloved hand over the two center throttles, Aly looked to her right and then left. “Clear to taxi?”
“Roger, clear,” Clay confirmed. He felt Aly’s unbridled excitement and it lifted his gloom. Her face was flushed with delight, her eyes shining with life. God, but she was excruciatingly beautiful. He tore his gaze from her profile, keeping his booted feet near the rudders.
Aly gently applied right rudder, inching the throttles forward, increasing rpm just a bit. Come on, Gray Lady, work with me. Give yourself to me…please….
The P3 rolled smoothly out of its revetment berth, moving slowly down the concrete ramp, the turboprop engines whining.
“You’re doing fine,” Clay assured her.
Another thrill went through Aly and she nodded, keeping her attention focused between the ramp and the engine instruments.
As they neared the end of the taxi area, Aly began to ease back on the throttles and apply rudder brakes to slow down the aircraft.
No Surrender Page 7
