He could see the disaster, coming almost in slow motion, just like the night it had all turned to shit. That night he’d made a decision that had cost men and women their lives. He didn’t want that responsibility tonight. But the security and Secret Service wouldn’t play nice. Not with a man who’d drawn a gun in the President’s presence.
“Stop!”
His voice echoed through the room, amplified by the bank of microphones a half foot away from where he stood.
Everyone startled to a stop—Blankenship, the security personnel, even several people from the television crews who had begun to race closer to the action. There was no doubt, this would show up on CNN for sure. Just what the air force needed—a PR nightmare of momentous proportions. The President had been threatened on their watch.
He needed to calm Mr. Blankenship down, at least enough to get him to release the gun.
“You don’t deserve that medal!” The other man’s silence didn’t last long. The sound of his voice seemed to jump-start everyone else back into action.
“I know. Everyone stop!”
Chase kept his eyes trained solely on Blankenship, standing head and shoulders above everyone else. He didn’t look deranged. In fact, he looked hollow, his eyes desolate and sad and…hopeless.
Security was now close enough to clear the chairs around him but didn’t actually reach for him. The gun wavered at his side, erratic, with no specific target.
Chase fought the urge to search for Sabrina in the crowd, to make sure she was safe and out of harm’s way. Just seeing her, the calm, collected way she handled everything, might help give him the strength he needed to navigate this situation. But he couldn’t. Not without drawing unwanted attention to her.
“Why are you here, Donald? What do you want?”
“You killed my little girl.” The words were punctuated by a burst of spittle, and the blank eye of the gun jerked up to meet him.
A gasp of shock rippled through the crowd, the roar of people shoving and pushing for the doors getting louder.
Chase stayed calm. He had to if he wanted to maintain control. Slowly raising his hands, he inched as far behind the podium as he could. If the gun went off he wanted as much protection as possible. He just needed to keep that gun trained on him.
“Mr. Blankenship, I think we both know that isn’t true.”
“I don’t know anything of the sort. She died, on a mission serving her country. Because you called in the chopper to rescue the senator they didn’t get there in time to save my baby girl. You lived. She died. If you hadn’t been there she would have lived. You killed her.”
“No. I did what needed to be done for a civilian without the training your daughter had. She was a good soldier. From a fighting family. She knew how to take care of herself. But men and women die in war. She knew that. You know that. She would have died no matter what that night—her injuries were just too severe.”
The man’s face crumpled. Chase could see what little life had been left inside him simply slipping away. He wanted to reach out to the man. But Blankenship still held the gun trained on him. Steady and true.
Within seconds the fight returned to his eyes like the ebb and flow of the ocean across sand, eating away at his stability and sanity.
“No. That isn’t true. She would have made it, my baby, if they could have gotten to her. She died in the sand, in the dark, alone, cold and in pain, because they couldn’t get her out.”
Chase opened his mouth to calmly repeat what he’d said but before he could, Blankenship was yelling again, his face red and florid with anger and grief.
“Where’s your wife?”
Chase’s heart suddenly lurched against the walls of his chest. A warm gush of adrenaline entered his blood. “My wife. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Stall. It was the only thing he could think of while his brain raced in circles, hoping, praying someone had gotten Sabrina out of this room in the chaos.
But at the center of his being he knew his Sabrina too well for that, could feel her there, watching, waiting. She wouldn’t leave him.
“Don’t screw with me.” The gun jerked in his hand as the older man emphasized his point with the business end of the barrel.
“I don’t know where she is. But she has nothing to do with this.”
Blankenship straightened, hate gleaming maniacally in his eyes, mixed with a desperation that reached through the room to the podium.
“Oh yes, she does. She covered this whole thing up. She should have done the right thing, called this farce off. Instead she did nothing. She covered up. For you.
“Where is she? Captain McAllister, I know you’re here. Get up there with your husband.”
Blankenship looked around the room, at those spectators and news crews that hadn’t left, gathered at the edges in tight groups, hoping that there was safety and invisibility in numbers.
She shifted, in front of Chase and to his left. The smallest move from her and he’d immediately locked on. “Don’t you dare, Sabrina,” he said softly.
He kept his gaze trained completely on Blankenship, knowing she was close enough to hear him. But she was stubborn enough to ignore him, too.
She separated from a knot of people and walked slowly up the side stairs, onto the dais and crossed to stand next to him.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Whatever it takes to keep him from pulling that trigger.”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her behind him.
Blankenship lunged closer. From all directions, as if on command, the security who’d been circling and watching erupted. Someone, Chase couldn’t see who, knocked the gun from his hand. The thing went flying, clattering to the ground and skittering to a stop at the foot of a slack-mouthed journalist.
Men in suits swarmed them both, pushing and forcing them out of the room. He reached for her, for any part of her he could touch—her hand, her shoulder, her face. But he couldn’t get there. They were separated as they headed down the hallway even as he strained harder to see her. He called for her. The security force ignored him. Each step took him farther and farther away from her, more and more people crowding between them.
They bustled him into a small office where he was told to wait.
“What about Sabrina? Where’s my wife?”
“We’re taking care of her. She’s fine.”
“Wait! What?” The door slammed and he could hear several voices as men stood guard outside.
Chase jerked the door back open. He’d move every last man if he had to in order to get to her, to make sure she was safe.
Before he could start knocking heads the commander and General McAllister materialized before him.
“Major Carden, what the hell is going on?”
15
“RINA.”
The voice, her father’s, wasn’t the one she wanted to hear right now. What she wanted was Chase. What she needed was Chase.But even as the General walked into the vacant office they’d put her in—for her protection, they’d said—her body started to shake. It was a delayed reaction, she knew. Adrenaline and fear mixing together now that everything was okay. But she couldn’t seem to control the shivers that raced up and down her spine.
The walls of her chest seemed to contract around her organs. Her lungs cried out in protest. Her heart constricted, couldn’t seem to catch the right rhythm.
“I can’t breathe.”
Wrapping his arms tight around her, her father held her and waited for the worst of the response to subside.
“Are you okay?”
She shook her head. “Where’s Chase? Is he okay? Safe?”
“He’s fine. Safe. They have him guarded until they can transport Blankenship.”
She nodded again, trusting her father to tell her the truth. That was one thing she could always count on. With him it was the truth or nothing, even if the truth hurt.
Then she finally pulled in a full breath of air, her first since she’d seen th
e gun pointed at her husband, and reality seemed to come back into focus.
Chase was fine.
But they weren’t. Her mind began to whirl with the problems they both faced, the fears, the anger, the uncertainty. She didn’t relish the moments ahead, but she needed to pull herself together and face them. Rina McAllister tackled problems head-on. She didn’t cower in a room being coddled by her father—her father who never coddled.
Sensing her equilibrium was returning, her father let her go—slowly, reluctantly. Was it her imagination or had he held on tighter than was necessary, longer than was necessary?
Stepping back, his arms dropped to his sides. “Is it true?”
No. Still the same General, his face closed and blank.
“Yes.”
And then she saw the flash of pain, of disappointment. A flash that startled her almost as much as the events that had just happened.
“You’ve been married eleven, twelve months and never thought to tell me?” His voice caught on the words, a hesitation that told her just how much that hurt him.
She’d never meant to do that. Never wanted to do that. Rushing to reassure him, she said, “I was taking care of it. There was no need to tell you.”
“Taking care of it?”
He sank down into the chair across from her. When had she sat down?
“I’ve already filed for divorce. It was a mistake, a joke that went wrong.”
The General shook his head and narrowed his eyes as he gazed at her silently for several moments. Assessing.
This was all going so wrong.
“I watched you tonight, Rina. That didn’t look like a joke. You risked your life to save his. You love him. I can see it when you watch him. You couldn’t take your eyes from him tonight, willing him anything and everything you could give him in order to survive. Why would you want a divorce?”
Rina shook her head, tears and fear and relief clogging her throat. It was so complicated. “I don’t. But we’ve both lied to the air force. We could lose our positions in the Thunderbirds. Chase could lose his career. It was a mistake he didn’t even know about until a few weeks ago. He shouldn’t have to give up everything because I made a bad situation worse. If we get divorced then maybe, maybe, he can talk the commander into overlooking the small matter of fraud. It’s the only way I know to make this right.”
She had to make this right. Even though she couldn’t help feeling she was losing the one thing that made her right—made her whole, made her the person she was destined to be. But she loved Chase too much to do anything else. It was the only way she could protect him from the devastation of her mistake.
She looked at the General—her father—with stinging eyes. “I’m so sorry to disappoint you. I know how much my career in the air force means to you but…I think the best thing for me is to get out at the end of my assignment with the Thunderbirds. That is, if they let me stay that long.”
“Oh, Rina. I don’t care about your career in the air force. I won’t deny that I enjoyed knowing you’d found a career you enjoyed and excelled at in the air force—it’s been a good life for me and I wanted the same thing for you. But I don’t care what you do as long as you’re happy.”
Rina stared at her father, dumbfounded. That had not been the reaction she expected. She’d expected a fight. Anger. Something. In the past few minutes her life had turned to chaos, and in the last three seconds the foundation of that life had crumbled beneath her feet.
Rina dropped her head to her hands, her eyes squinting shut behind her pressing fingers, and let her mind whirl. She didn’t know which thought to settle on first. How could you choose when your entire life seemed suddenly…wrong.
She’d based her decisions about everything—her career, her marriage, her life’s choices—on assumptions and beliefs that weren’t true.
If she’d been wrong about this then what else had she been wrong about? Chase? What he needed and wanted? What she needed and wanted?
Suddenly, a weight fell from her shoulders, a burden she’d been carrying for a very long time. One she’d apparently put up there unnecessarily.
But that burden hadn’t been the only thing holding her back from taking that leap of faith with her husband. She’d barely been able to articulate the truth to herself, to admit the weakness she couldn’t seem to conquer. Saying it out loud, to her father, somehow made it even more real.
“It scares me so much. I grew up watching you take risks. I always resented you putting the air force first, leaving me alone at the drop of a hat because going was a good career move.”
“I never left you alone, Rina.”
“I know. But I didn’t want nannies or babysitters. I wanted my father. I’d already lost my mother…every time you left I was so worried I’d lose you too.”
“Oh, Rina, I never knew.”
“I know.” She hadn’t told him. She hadn’t wanted to disappoint him or become the miniature version of the complaining, nagging, unhappy woman who’d left them.
“I’ve watched him take risks.” A shudder ran through her body. “I thought my heart would stop when I heard about the crash in Iraq. I’m not sure I can live with that kind of fear again. I’m afraid.” She focused back on her father. “Afraid I won’t be able to handle it. Afraid I’ll be just like mother.”
He reached across the space between them and grabbed her hands. “Baby, you’re nothing like your mother.”
She pulled her hands from him, standing up and whirling away. She couldn’t stand the thoughts jumbled up inside her head. “I’m everything like her. Every day I look in the mirror and see her staring back. You have no idea how hard I’ve worked to kill the spontaneous, wild, impulsive part of her I have deep inside. And Chase…I can’t seem to keep it locked away with him. With him I get married by Elvis as a joke, I smack paint on his rear and roll around on plastic.”
She groaned at the back of her throat just remembering some of the carefree, idiotic things she’d done. But her father laughed, a precious sound she hadn’t heard enough in her life.
Standing up from his chair, he walked to her, the laughter gone, his face sad and serious. “You enjoy life. There’s nothing wrong with that. Rina, you have the best parts of your mother. Maybe I shut her out of our lives too much, took out the good memories, along with the bad ones I was trying to hide away. For that, I’m sorry.”
Rina opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out so she shut it again. He stared at her. His eyes were green shot through with gold just like her own, solemn, somber and filled with love.
“She wasn’t perfect. Neither am I. Neither are you. But your mother knew how to embrace life, how to find the joy in every situation. She was impulsive and fearless. Just like her little girl. If you want this, if you want him then you have to be willing to take that chance, Sabrina. The same chance your mother and I took. It didn’t work for us and I can’t guarantee it’ll work for you, either, but I do know one thing. I wouldn’t have traded the years I spent with your mother or the gift she gave me for anything in this world.
“You have the best parts of both of us. Now, all you have to do is decide what you want and use them to get it.”
Moving closer, the General said, “Your commander is waiting with Chase down the hall. When you’re ready the guard will take us there.”
Reaching for her hand, he squeezed it tight, leaned in and left a warm kiss on her forehead. “I love you, Rina.”
WHERE THE HELL was she? General McAllister had left at least twenty minutes ago to get her.
They wouldn’t let him out to find her. In fact, he was under strict orders from Commander Wright not to leave the room if he knew what was good for him. Not even that would have kept him in this box of a room except her father had promised to bring her back. Which had been fine with the commander since he wanted to talk to them both.But they’d been waiting in stony, tension-filled silence for so long his skull throbbed against the pressure. He’d resign right now if it w
ould get him access to Sabrina any sooner.
He was halfway to doing just that when the door opened and Sabrina walked in followed silently by the General.
“Captain McAllister, so nice of you to join us.” The sarcasm from the commander made Chase want to snarl.
“Oh, bristle down, Carden.” The General’s voice held a hint of amusement that he, frankly, didn’t have the patience to deal with right now. Nothing about this situation was funny.
Brushing past both of the other men, Chase wrapped his fingers around Sabrina’s arms and stared hard into her eyes for several moments before pulling her to him and whispering, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. We can talk in a few minutes, but right now I think we have some questions to answer.”
“You’re damn right you do. Get your hands off my public affairs officer, Major Carden.” Chase reluctantly let Sabrina go. “That had better be the last display of public affection I see from either of you for the next twelve months, do I make myself clear?”
Chase narrowed his eyes when Sabrina nodded her head in a short jerky motion beside him.
She asked, “Does that mean we’ll be continuing with the Thunderbirds, sir?”
“The least you both deserve is a formal letter of reprimand, especially after the damn stunt you pulled earlier this week with those notes, Major Carden. I do not take kindly to being made a fool of or being kept in the dark!”
“Sir, if it makes any difference to your decision, Chase—Major Carden knew nothing of our marriage until several weeks ago. I’m the one who kept the information from the air force. And I’ve recently filed for divorce so the situation should be taken care of in a matter of weeks.”
“You did what?” Chase rounded on Sabrina, not caring that he’d just turned his back on a higher ranking officer in the middle of reprimanding him for conduct unbecoming.
Afterburn Page 18
