To the Limit

by Jo Leigh

“But you need to see for yourself.”

  Emma raised both hands and said, “Exactly,” far too loudly. And enthusiastically.

  “Question.” Sharon adjusted her hair clip, then put on her serious face. “How long have you known about the procedure?”

  “Night before last. Before that, I had no idea a fix was even possible.”

  “Ah.” Sharon nodded too slowly for it to be anything but a dramatic effect.

  “What?”

  “Nothing...just, how do you feel about it?”

  “I want him to be healthy.”

  “Of course you do. We’re not talking about that right now, though. If the surgery works, I’m assuming he’ll be able to fly again,” she said, watching Emma closely as she nodded. “How do you feel about that?”

  “Fine.” Emma shrugged, not anxious to meet her friend’s eyes. “I know I said I was done with pilots,” she murmured quietly. “But if flying is what Sam wants to do, then I’m okay with that. I mean, there’s no guarantee that even if he does meet the regulations he can transfer. They need drone instructors a lot more than they need fighter pilots.”

  God help her, she sounded defensive and pitiful. Her stomach was the problem; it wouldn’t settle down. She glanced at her watch. Could time possibly drag by any slower?

  “You know what?” Sharon stood up. “Go home. None of that matters. Meet him at the door. Smooch the hell out of him.”

  “I can’t. I might have—”

  “The students can find you if they need to. Go. Home. Put on your favorite music. Wear something sexy.”

  “Sharon.”

  “I mean it,” she said, lowering her voice. “It’s going to be all right, Em.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah. Just drive carefully. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Emma got her purse, but she still kept her cell in her hand.

  * * *

  THE MUSIC SHE CHOSE was Prokofiev. Bouncy and happy and full of surprises. It lasted five minutes. Next, she decided to go for a classic instead. Thriller. Loud enough to piss off her neighbor, who wasn’t home, thank goodness, because she needed to be moonwalking across her kitchen floor and singing at the top of her lungs that Billie Jean wasn’t her lover as she prepared dinner.

  She’d chosen the meal based entirely on two things: Sam’s favorite food and what she had in the house. Sadly, since she didn’t have baby back ribs, pot roast, porterhouse steaks or homemade pizza, he was getting lasagna. Sort of.

  It was a shame she didn’t have time to make her special spaghetti sauce, but if she put the jar in the recycle bin, no one would know once she added a shot of cabernet sauvignon. Adding layers of semidefrosted beef ravioli, mozzarella cheese and a generous coating of parmigiano at the end, her wink-and-it’s-lasagna was in the oven ten minutes before Sam was scheduled to land at Holloman.

  She’d put candles on the table, used her good dishes and the linen napkins. By the time she started putting together a salad, her hands had begun shaking. Enough that she wondered if she should be handling a knife. It was crazy. He was fine. She knew that. She should be more concerned about having the vinaigrette dressing ready before he came home.

  As she’d done at the completion of each task, she checked her cell as she put the cruet on the table. No call. No word. Nothing.

  Foolish to worry now, though. Right? The surgery was long over. The doctor had released him to come home. And he’d have been back much later if he’d had to fly commercially from El Paso to the dinky airport in Alamo. She shouldn’t complain. Or make herself sick waiting.

  There was nothing left but to take a shower and get dressed. It would be her second of the day, but she didn’t mind. She could continue singing, for one thing, and she wanted to smell good. For Sam.

  As she turned on the water and stripped off her clothes, the music wasn’t loud enough to stop her from thinking about her answer to Sharon’s question.

  The truth was, although nothing mattered more to her than Sam being okay, his being a fighter pilot wasn’t her first choice. Or even her second.

  It would mean no more eight-to-five life. Having kids would become a very different proposition. Not that he wouldn’t want to be a good father...he would, but he wouldn’t be there a lot. Even if he didn’t go overseas, his schedule would be a nightmare, and she’d be on her own a lot of the time.

  She stepped under the spray and let it wash away at least some of her worries. There was no need to borrow trouble. She wanted him home. In her arms. Healthy with no complications. Nothing else mattered today. Tomorrow would take care of itself.

  The shower didn’t last long. She’d taken the precaution of putting the cell’s ringer on, and it was sitting within arm’s length, but there was no call.

  As for putting on something sexy, all she could decide on at the moment was the matching panties and thong he liked so much. In the end, she decided to ditch the underwear and go commando under a sundress. He was a guy. He’d love it.

  Then it was waiting. Again. The music stopped and she didn’t bother putting on anything else. The food filled the kitchen with the great scent of Italian spices, and her stomach was tied in knots. She sipped her way through half a glass of wine while staring at the clock. He should’ve landed already. So why hadn’t he called? Maybe he misunderstood that she wanted him to call as soon as he landed. She pressed speed dial.

  A key unlocked the front door. His key.

  Emma ran to meet him and he didn’t even have time to put down his duffel bag before she was in his arms. “Why didn’t you call me?” she asked, clinging to him, finding comfort in the feel of his warm flesh.

  He dropped his bag. “Honey, hold on, I’m here, I’m sorry. My battery ran down because I kept it on all night in case you called, but I’m fine. I swear, just give me a second.”

  She backed up, although letting go of him completely was out of the question. She needed the reassurance that he was right here and safe with her.

  A sudden realization slammed into her. Waiting had been hell. She rarely felt that level of anxiety, and it was only partly to do with the surgery. She’d been afraid he wouldn’t come home. Just like Danny hadn’t.

  A sob caught in her throat. Her reaction was so obvious. Why hadn’t she seen it? Sam apparently hadn’t, either, and he couldn’t know. He assumed this was about his eyes, and she had to keep it that way. “Those aren’t your sunglasses. What are they for? Are your eyes all right? May I see them?”

  Sam pulled off the big weird sunglasses, but there wasn’t much difference. Just a little redness.

  “Oh.” She managed a smile. “Not so bad.”

  He drew his thumb across her cheek, and she had the bad feeling a tear had slipped. “I hate that you worried so much. I honestly thought I’d explained sufficiently to avoid that. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m fine, really. It’s just...you know, I had to see for myself. That’s all.”

  “I do know.” He smiled at her. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

  That eased the tension. She moaned at the joke, then it occurred to her— “Are they sore?”

  “No. Not—” The kitchen timer went off. “It smells great in here. Is that dinner?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m starving. I’ve had two protein bars and some terrible coffee all day.”

  Grateful for the distraction, she left him to turn off the timer. She took a few seconds to slip on oven mitts while her pulse slowed. Sam was here. He was all right. She had nothing more to worry about. At least for tonight. She turned to get the casserole dish out of the oven, but his hand stopped her.

  “What I need far more than food is a kiss. And to tell you again that I’m so sorry I made you worry for a minute. It was an insane day, most of it spent waiting in inconvenient places. I did mean
to call you more. I simply couldn’t.”

  She went into his arms and did as he asked, so grateful to feel him hug her tight, to taste him, even smell the soft hint of airplane fuel that would need to be washed off before bed.

  “I’m glad to be home,” he said as he pulled back to look into her eyes. “I promise I’ll give you the whole lowdown. But know the doctor was thrilled. It really was a minor surgery, over in five minutes. It won’t take long at all to heal. I’ll have to go back in a week, but only for an afternoon. All indications are that it was a complete success.”

  “But...?”

  “I have to wear a weird-looking thing to bed. It’s a very lame eye guard held on by tape. Not very dashing.”

  “Well, thank goodness I was never with you for your looks.”

  “Hey,” he said, sounding wounded. But then he was kissing her again, and everything was perfect.

  Especially the sound he made when he ran his hand up under her sundress.

  * * *

  “OKAY, WE’VE GOT EYES ON,” Captain Miles said. The sensor operator at the simulator was completely focused on finding a particular white SUV in a huge parking lot that was filled with cars.

  “Copy that.” The drone pilot, Captain Zohan, seemed steady on the joystick, despite the fact that he and his teammate were the unlucky duo chosen to go through the challenge of not only finding that needle-in-a-haystack SUV, but doing it onstage in front of half their class in the big auditorium.

  Sam was undergoing his own test, of a sort. His left eye wasn’t at one hundred percent yet. It had only been three days since his surgery, and he was still sensitive to certain kinds of light, and had to keep up his regimen of eyedrops, but he’d told Colonel Stevens he was up to the task, and so far, so good.

  “When it gets to a vehicle chase, I want a crew that’s nonstop chatter,” he said, after too long a silence. “For example, as a sensor operator I might notice there’s a tiger-shaped infrared signature on the hood, so when it gets packed in a Baghdad traffic jam you’ll be able to spot it.”

  The sensor operator’s eyes narrowed and his shoulders visibly tensed.

  “I’m not saying there is an IR signature on the SUV we’re looking for. But there might be.”

  “I’ve got it,” Miles said. “No, no, I’ve lost the target.”

  “So what do you do to get it back?”

  “I’d zoom out and use my positive identification features.”

  Sam turned to his bigger audience. “Always work from big to small, big to small. We’ll freeze the frame here for a moment, gentlemen.”

  The overhead projections of the simulator screens stopped at the same time as the simulators themselves. There was a certain light over the classroom that tended to halo at him, so he moved until the glare was gone. “Detail is everything in unmanned aviation. It’s critical to hone your skills at the sweep and identify, even when you’re not sitting in a sim. Try it at supermarkets, at concerts, at the park, in traffic.

  “Your biggest opportunity for getting the skills you need is watching TV and movies. Look for inconsistencies and continuity mistakes. They’re in practically everything we see, but they’re usually small, like some man’s sleeves rolled up in one angle, and the next angle of the same scene, the sleeves are down. It’ll ruin your moviegoing experience, but it’s a small price to pay when your attention to detail could mean the difference between life and death to one of our airmen.”

  “Sir.” A lieutenant stood in the second row.

  “Question?”

  “With everything there on the screen, and with tracking down to the size of a pimple on some guy’s ass, is this training going to be a hindrance to my efforts to move up to manned aircraft?”

  Sam hadn’t been expecting that. But he should have. There’d been one hell of a controversial article floating around about that very issue. “First of all, there is no up or down. RAVs are critical, perhaps the most critical weapon in our current arsenal. The data we track and survey is saving lives each and every day of this war. It’s a new air force, a new kind of war, and we are on the cutting edge. The sooner we start looking at the bigger picture of where our duties lie, the better we all are. Without the man who tightens the screws, the machine is useless. We are airmen, and we are a singular force for freedom. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sam scanned the crowd, not surprised to see Colonel Stevens standing in the back. Sam wondered if he’d passed his test, and if his answer to that young pilot was his own truth.

  Turning back to the simulators, he returned to the tracking and marking of the SUV, more aware than he cared to be that he still couldn’t quite get past the idea that piloting his F-16 wasn’t better. There were few things on earth that compared to taking off in a fighter jet. But here, no one was at risk of equipment failure sending them spiraling to their deaths.

  He knew, though, that given the choice Danny would never, not in a million years, choose to pilot an RPA instead of a jet. He wouldn’t.

  And now that Sam was facing the choice himself, he knew he wouldn’t, either.

  * * *

  THE CLASSROOM EMPTIED quickly at lunch, but Sam made sure all the equipment was secured before leaving the stage area. He put a couple of drops in his left eye, then donned his sunglasses before he went out into the desert sun. Directly into the path of Colonel Stevens.

  “Captain.”

  Sam saluted. “Sir.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “We’ve got a lot of bright eager pilots. I think—”

  “I meant your eyes.”

  “Fine, sir. The operation is looking like a success. I’m scheduled to go back for a brief visit next week, but so far, all’s well.”

  “You’ll need to get checked out by our guys. I spoke to Dr. Emerson. He’s very interested in your procedure. Frankly, I didn’t follow the conversation after a certain point, but evidently, it could help a lot of airmen get qualified, even if they haven’t gone through the initial surgery.”

  “That’s my understanding, as well. I’ll make sure to schedule an appointment with him, specifically.”

  “Good. And good job in there.” The colonel nodded at the auditorium. “You’re a hell of an instructor, Captain. We need more like you.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Stevens veered to the right toward his office, and Sam went left toward his, though he stopped halfway there. The sound of jets taking off behind him made him turn and look up to watch the elegance and beauty of those war birds as they punched into the sky.

  There was nothing like it. Nothing.

  15

  SHARON’S HOUSE was in the Alamo Canyon area, not too far from where Emma lived, and she and Sam arrived with their cooler full of beer and burgers ten minutes late. It was sunset already, and only just after seven. She’d meant to come early to help set up, but somehow she’d gotten waylaid en route from the shower to the closet.

  “We don’t have to stay too late or anything,” she said as she closed the trunk of the Mustang. Sam held the cooler as if it didn’t have two cold twenty-packs inside, plus enough burgers to feed the block.

  “Don’t worry about me. I like barbecues, and it’ll be fun meeting more of your gang.”

  “My gang. Yeah, we’re a pretty rough bunch. We all carry red pens, and we’re not afraid to use them.”

  They walked up the path to the stucco one-story house. Emma didn’t bother to knock, which would have been useless anyway, as classic rock was blaring from the backyard.

  As usual, the house was neat as a pin but with decor that could only have come from the crazy twosome who owned it. Never let it be said that Sharon and Joe Keeler ever let good taste get in the way of a good time.

  Sam put the cooler down in the kitchen, but he had t
o do a full three-sixty turn to appreciate the wonder of Sharon’s interior design.

  It began with cartoon cow salt-and-pepper shakers, and continued with cow hot pads, curtains, picture frames, figurines, plant holders and even a cow wall clock. “That’s a lot of cows.”

  “Joe’s just as bad, but he collects Western memorabilia. Wait till you see his office.”

  “Did they grow up on farms or something?”

  “Sharon’s from Chicago and Joe’s from Cleveland. I doubt they’ve ever been on a ranch.”

  Sam nodded. “Joe does what at the base?”

  “He’s some sort of engineer.”

  Emma took Sam’s hand, and they got a glimpse of the party through the sliding glass doors. The backyard had a big covered patio, and although it was tough to keep up in the summer, their lawn was actually green. Their hosts had festooned the fence and trees with sparkling white lights, the centerpiece of which was a big old hand-painted sign across the back bricks that said So Long, Summer, You Hot Bastard!

  The very large gas barbecue was already smoking, and Emma’s friends and their plus-ones were busy drinking and chattering away. There were very few active-service members in the group, considering. Although she knew of four spouses who worked as civilian employees at Holloman.

  “There you are,” Sharon said, and Emma grinned to see her oh-so-colorful friend done up as if she’d stepped out of a ’50s film. Her dress was belted and big in the skirt, the better to show off her handmade country cow apron. Even her hair was pulled up in a ponytail. “Thought you two got lost.”

  She hugged Emma and then gave Sam the same treatment. “Glad you could make it, Captain. Come on back and have a beer. I’ll start you off with some introductions, but after three, you’re on your own.”

  “Sounds fair,” he said, grabbing on to Emma’s hand as he was led to a gathering of couples. Sam shook hands with Deanna and even remembered her name. She was with a tall guy Emma hadn’t met before. Max had a shock of blond hair that was most definitely not a military cut, and she wished she could see better because it appeared he had a nose ring.