She opened her eyes and looked out at him from between her fingers. “No, Senior Chief, it’s worse than you think. There was no relationship.”
He took a sip of his coffee, his eyes narrowing slightly as he gazed at her from behind the steam. He waited for her to continue.
She forced herself to put her hand down and look at him squarely. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s ten times worse.” Her stomach churned but she made herself continue. “In fact, it’s about as bad as it can get. I picked him up in a bar. We had sex in the backseat of his car, in the bar parking lot. And no, I’d never done anything that stupid before, and I haven’t done it since. But I did it. Once. With Joel Hogan.”
There was no way the senior chief could know how much it cost her to tell him that. Her voice didn’t shake. She refused to let her eyes fill with tears. But inside she was dying.
But his expression didn’t change either. He’d blinked when she’d said the bit about the sex in the parking lot, but that was it.
Finally he smiled, then laughed very softly. Took a sip of coffee. Scratched his nose. Sighed.
And all the while his expression honestly didn’t change. He just kept on looking at her with kindness in his eyes.
“Nine years ago, you were . . . what?” he finally said. “Going to flight school? Just out of college?”
She nodded. “That’s no excuse.”
Neither was the fact that she’d stupidly assumed that having sex in the back of someone’s car would be a major building block for a future relationship. But there was no way she was going to start yammering about all the little painful details of that night—such as the way she’d cleaned herself up after and went back into the bar, only to find out from a friend that Joel Hogan was engaged to be married in two weeks’time. God, she’d gone from being on top of the world to wanting to die. Right then and there.
“Maybe not,” the senior chief said evenly, “but it’s a rational explanation for stupidity. What, were you twenty-two years old? Twenty-three?”
“Nineteen.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“I graduated high school early,” she explained.
“When you were fifteen?”
“Sixteen. I got my college degree in three years—in an accelerated program at MIT.”
“Whoa.” He was impressed. “A genius, huh?”
Teri snorted. “Obviously not.”
He laughed softly at that. “Come on, you were young. He was probably just as flashy and good-looking then as he is now. And, oh, let me guess. You’d been drinking, right?”
She nodded and he laughed again.
“Alcohol is the one guaranteed ingredient in ninety-nine percent of the tales of woe and stupidity that I’ve heard down through the years,” he told her. “And I’ve heard a lot of them, Teri. You’re not the only one who did something really stupid nearly a decade ago. I made some pretty lousy choices myself, ten, twenty years ago. Do what I do, and give yourself a break.”
“Easy for you to say,” she said. “You didn’t have sex with Joel Hogan.”
He laughed loudly, and God, maybe he was a miracle worker like everyone said, because for the first time ever, she could laugh about it, too.
She looked at him sitting there, with the deep blue late morning sky spreading out behind him, a gorgeous backdrop stretching all the way to the horizon where it met the sea.
Maybe this was what going to confession felt like. This sense of being absolved, of being forgiven. Of finally being safe because this awful secret had been shared. It wasn’t really a secret anymore because someone else knew.
Maybe she should tell him everything. . . .
“So what are we going to do about this?” the senior chief asked. “I take it that the reason you haven’t brought Hogan up on sexual harassment charges is because the details surrounding your previous relationship—and it was a relationship, it was just a really brief one—will become public. To your career and personal detriment.”
She nodded.
He went on. “Teri, I’ve got to be honest with you. The best way to handle this might be to come clean with your boyfriend. And then have him show up at the base. Have him pick you up, give you a ride home, meet you for lunch, I don’t know. Let Hogan see you with him. Maybe then he’ll back down and . . . No?”
She was shaking her head.
“You don’t want to tell him?” he asked.
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Ah.” She’d surprised him again. She suspected it wasn’t easy to surprise the senior chief.
“I’m not very good at relationships,” Teri admitted. “Men tend to avoid me.” Ice princess, Joel had called her, just a few days ago. It was true. She came off as cool and aloof. It was better than scared to death, but only marginally. “I mean, they’ll talk to me and flirt if they’re in a group, but . . .” She smiled wanly. “Maybe I should look on the bright side. If the news about the sex in the parking lot gets out, maybe I’ll finally get asked out on a date.”
She liked making him laugh. She’d always thought of her sense of humor as being too dark, so she usually kept her mouth shut and her thoughts to herself. But Stan Wolchonok seemed to find her genuinely funny. And now that she no longer felt so dreadfully alone in this situation, she could see that there was an awful lot about it that was pretty hideously humorous.
However, there was still a great deal of it that was not funny at all.
“My concerns have to do with my career,” she told Stan. “I’m between civilian jobs right now, and I’m considering taking a longer term OUTCONUS assignment after this one’s up.”
“OUTCONUS, huh?” he said. The acronym stood for outside the continental U.S. “You interested in traveling? In leaving California?”
She nodded. “Absolutely. I don’t have any real ties to this area—my mother’s back east. What I really want, Senior Chief, is to fly. No BS, no hassle, but . . .” She took another deep breath. “There’s more you need to know. About one of my last civilian jobs . . . ?”
He smiled. “Don’t look so worried. As long as you’re not going to tell me that you had sex with the company president in the parking lot of the corporate headquarters, I’m not going to yell at you.”
She laughed shakily, still amazed that she could laugh at all. “No, I did that only once.”
“Yeah, I noted that you mentioned that. And I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I really shouldn’t tease you about any of this.”
“No,” she said. “I like that you did. I like . . .” You. Oh, God, if she said that, he might think she’d come here for more than his help. “I don’t know how to thank you. You’ve been so . . . sweet.”
“Sweet?” That got laughter with a snort. “You can thank me by not repeating that in public. Please. My reputation will be shot to hell.”
He was blushing. She’d embarrassed him, and he was trying to cover it up with a joke. As she watched, he gave up pretending and looked her in the eye.
“I like you, too,” he said bluntly. “I like you as a pilot, I like you as a human being. I’m happy to be able to help you.”
“Thank you,” she said. She was happy, too. She was having an almost ridiculously severe case of the warm fuzzies. He liked her! She hadn’t felt this affected by those words since middle school.
“So let’s get all the facts out on the table here,” Stan continued. “There’s something you think I need to know about this civilian job . . . ?”
She took a deep breath and told him. “I left Harmony Airlines because it was an unpleasant place for a woman to work.” Understatement of the century. “The female employees were treated with disrespect. There was lots of sex talk and innuendo and just general ugliness. And I’m not talking about a bunch of guys sitting around occasionally joking about the size of their . . . of their—”
“Yeah,” he said. “I get it.”
“It was continuous, and it was meant to intimidate. It was mostly two individuals, and during my t
hree years with the company, I did everything I could to make sure I wasn’t scheduled with them. But it was a small airline and . . .”
It had been easier to leave, so she’d left.
“A few months after I handed in my resignation, I was approached by the lawyer of one of the other female pilots. She was suing them. For sexual harassment. I appeared as a witness. I testified in her behalf, she won, and the company offered me a settlement, too. I think they were afraid if they didn’t, I’d turn around and sue as well.” She took a deep breath. “If I make harassment charges against Joel Hogan, he’ll get a lawyer. And if that lawyer digs, he’ll find out about the settlement with Harmony. It was a completely different situation, but if it becomes public . . . Senior, I don’t want to be known as the woman who cries harassment every six months.”
He sat there nodding, his mouth slightly scrunched up in thought.
“But at the same time,” she added, “I cannot handle Joel Hogan touching me.” She needed Stan to understand how important it was to her that Joel be stopped. Somehow. “I don’t want his hands on me, I don’t want him . . .” Her voice shook.
Damn it, she’d been doing so well up to now.
“I’m scared I’m going to go home and he’s going to be inside my house, inside my bedroom,” she admitted, needing to say it but unable to speak louder than a whisper. “That bastard has made me scared to go home, scared to be home, and that’s going too damn far.”
The senior chief set his coffee mug down.
“Okay,” he said. Leaned forward slightly and looked her straight in the eye. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
“Don’t even think about it.”
The waiflike American girl in line at the World Airlines check-in counter was starting to cry, and Gina Vitagliano could feel Trent behind her, pushing her toward the gate.
“Come on, Gina, I’m serious,” he continued, looking at her over the tops of his sunglasses, his blue eyes bored.
How could Athens be boring? She wondered for the twentieth time that afternoon what she’d ever seen in him.
Yes, okay, all right. So he was gorgeous with blond curls that rivaled Ryan Phillippe’s. But it was only three days into this trip, and already, if she never saw him again—ever—it would be a hundred years too soon.
She’d tried to break up with him at lunch, but apparently he hadn’t realized she was dead serious.
Her fault—she was always joking and teasing. Why should anyone ever take her seriously?
“It’s just a con,” he said, Mr. Blasé Know-It-All. “She comes to the counter just as the flight starts to board and bursts into tears. Some American sucker—” He paused, and although he didn’t say like you, it was heavily implied. “—goes to help, and she tells them her credit card was stolen just this morning on the way to the airport. They buy her a ticket and she promises that her rich daddy will send them a check, paying them back, and of course he never does because he doesn’t exist. She’s probably flown all over Europe this way.”
“God, you are so jaded.” Gina looked back at the girl, who was still pleading with the World Airlines attendants, her mascara starting to run. “I bet you don’t believe in Santa Claus either, huh?”
But Casey was tugging on her sleeve now, too. With her face pinched and worried, she looked about twelve. “Please, Gina,” she said. “Let’s just get on the plane. I can’t wait to get out of here.”
Gina had to admit that this airport, with its history of violence and terrorist threats, wasn’t on her top ten list of favorite places to hang out.
Her father had been absolutely grim when she’d told him she was going to Europe with the university jazz band and that one of the tour cities was Athens. But she was twenty-one years old, and she’d earned the money for this trip herself. She’d weighed the potential risks in with the other pros and cons, and decided the opportunity was too good to pass up. There’d been no stopping her.
Ironically, one of the pros had been the chance of spending three weeks with dreamy Trent Engelman. Hah. Mr. Athens-is-so-dull, wake-me-when-the-bus-gets-to-the-airport Engelman.
What was wrong with him?
He was holding on to her by the waistband of her shorts, as if she were a dog on a leash, needing a firm hand to stay heeled. Maybe if he hadn’t held her like that she would have just gotten onto the plane.
Instead she pulled away from him and out of the line. “I’ll catch up.” She said it to Casey, not Trent.
Poor Casey looked as if she were going to have a stroke, and Gina gave her a reassuring smile, waving her boarding pass. “It’s not like I don’t have a seat.”
“There she goes again,” Trent said with a long-suffering sigh. “Off to save the world, one pathetic loser at a time. You know, Gina, I’m not waiting for you.”
He wasn’t waiting for her. Okay. And she, well, she was never having sex with him again.
Between the two of them—and as long as the topic of losers had come up—she suspected he was the one who was going to be the most disappointed.
She smiled at him, too, then. As sweetly as possible. Looked pointedly at the long line behind them. “It’s not like the plane’s going to leave before everyone gets on.”
Gina moved quickly away from them, before Casey could gulp at her again, before Trent could be any stupider.
Before she called him an asshole to his face.
Asshole.
“But my passport was stolen along with my boarding pass,” the girl at the counter was saying. She had a remarkably perfect nose. “If I don’t get on this plane—”
“I’m sorry, miss,” the woman behind the counter replied in her British-tinged English-as-a-second-language accent. “I’m not sure how you got to this gate without a boarding pass, but I can’t help. You have to go back to the ticket desk—”
“But I’ll miss this flight!” The girl started to tear up again.
Except she wasn’t a girl. Up close, Gina saw that she had to be a few years out of college. Older than Gina by at least two years. She merely looked seventeen, with long brown hair and delicate features that made her seem as if she came with a fragile—handle with care label sewn behind one of her perfect ears.
She looked a little bit like an anemic, thoroughbred version of Gina, with the same dark brown eyes and a faintly similar heart-shaped face.
They could’ve maybe been cousins.
It was possible this girl was what Gina would’ve looked like if she hadn’t been born in East Meadow, Long Island, with three older brothers who continuously pounded on her until she learned to pound back, a mother who force-fed five-course Italian meals to anyone within shouting distance, a father who was a die-hard Mets fan and permanently depressed because of it, and about forty-seven aunts, uncles, and close family friends who spent their free time mucking up the lives of those unlucky enough to have been born in Gina’s generation.
“I have no money at all,” the girl continued. “What am I going to do?”
The World Airlines clerk had already turned away.
Yeah, this girl really had an amazing nose. It was a living tribute to some high priced plastic surgeon. Man-oh-man.
“Hi,” Gina said. “I couldn’t help but overhear. . . . Got your purse snatched, huh?”
The girl wiped that perfect nose on her sleeve. “My pocket was picked,” she said tightly. “I wasn’t even carrying a purse because I’d heard . . .” She shook her head, miserable. “This sucks. My father is going to kill me. If I’m not on that plane . . .” Her voice wobbled even harder—very Mary Tyler Moore at her most stressed. “I’m supposed to meet my sister at some hotel in Vienna and I have no way of getting in touch with her. I can’t call the hotel collect and I’m not going to call my father!”
Gina could relate. Absolutely. “Write down your sister’s name and the hotel, too,” she suggested. “I’ll call and leave a message for her as soon as the plane gets in.”
Her long-lost half cousin’s eyes widened. �
��You’d do that?”
“Sure. We Americans have to stick together. Got a pen?” There was one on the counter. Gina reached over and took it, handing it to the girl, along with the paper that had her luggage tags attached. “Write it on this. Do me a favor and try not to get any snot on it, okay?”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry!”
“That was a joke. I was kidding.”
“It’s the Hotel Rathauspark—I have the phone number for her room,” the girl said. “If you could do this for me—”
“Consider it done,” Gina said, glancing at the paper. The sister’s name was Emily something and the hotel Ratsomething else but the number and extension were clear. “New York, right?”
The girl nodded.
“Me, too. I can always tell a fellow New Yorker. I’m Gina, by the way.”
“Karen.”
The line for boarding the plane was down to a businessman and a tired looking woman with a sleeping baby in a frontpack who’d come late to the gate.
Gina dug into her pocket. She had a single Greek bill there—10,000 drachmas. It was the equivalent of about twenty dollars, give or take a few.
She held it out to Karen. “Lookit, I’m not going to need this anymore. You might as well have it—buy yourself a hunk of whatever that crap is they try to pass off as hamburger. Save me the trouble of exchanging it.”
The girl started to cry again. “Oh, my God, thank you so much.”
“No problem. By the way, nice nose,” Gina said, and got onto the plane.
Three
Sam Starrett was fast asleep and dreaming that he was lying on the deck of John Nilsson’s boat. It was vivid, and for a moment he was uncertain. Was he awake or was he asleep?
It was afternoon, and Nils had cut the engine. The boat was drifting while he and WildCard Karmody fished and Sam lazed in the sun—a pleasant sensation.
But Sam knew he had to be dreaming when Alyssa Locke came out onto the deck carrying two piña coladas and wearing a smile.
And absolutely nothing else.
Jesus, she was beautiful. Part black, part white, part Hispanic, part God knows what, Alyssa had a face that combined the very best features from every single race of humans around the world. Her ocean green eyes had a slightly exotic slant, and her nose was exactly the right size and shape to complement those eyes. Her smile was wide, her lips lush and full, and she had the most gorgeous, smooth as silk, mocha-colored skin. Her hair was wavy, with reddish tints. Her arms and legs were long and gracefully shaped, her body slender and athletic, yet soft in all the right places. Her breasts weren’t large, but they were perfection. She was perfection.
Over the Edge Page 5
