Athena Force: Books 1-6

by Justine Davis, Amy J. Fetzer, Katherine Garbera, Meredith Fletcher, Catherine Mann

  Josie forced a lighthearted answer. “Yeah, the noodles were so hard my loose tooth popped out.”

  “He stomped around the kitchen cursing about how the directions must be wrong because somehow he’d overcooked the stuff until it was too tough.”

  “I remember.” And it hurt, thinking of that time. Her father’s abandonment afterward hurt even more. At least her mother had illness as an excuse for leaving her kids. “I figured I’d better learn to make mac and cheese or we’d be toothless by Christmas.”

  “We sure needed comfort starch in those days.”

  Could that be a concession on Diana’s part? “That we did, Diehard.”

  Silence ticked by with cyber wave crackles. Josie reached to the coffee holder and flipped a doggie ear backward on the Beanie puppy. She rubbed the fuzzy softness between two fingers until finally she surrendered and asked, “Talked to Dad lately?”

  “Just last week.” Diana’s voice gentled with a sympathy Josie wasn’t sure she wanted.

  Her eyes gravitated to the puppy, the latest in the Beanie Baby collection her mother had started for her. “And what’s the news?”

  “He and Mom just got back from a cruise. They’re enjoying his retirement dollars.”

  They should have had a double retirement fund at the end of two fruitful military careers. Her mother had been robbed of her career as well as her dreams.

  The parking-lot lights dimmed. Or was it only her gloomy mood? Josie glanced over as the lot brightened and dimmed again with the intrusion of passing people finding their way back to their cars. “Yeah, I got an e-mail from their stopover in—”

  Thud.

  The noise echoed overhead from her convertible roof.

  Josie jolted, stared up at the soft top, pathetic protection against a determined intruder. Her free hand snaking down toward her survival knife in her boot, she turned—and looked straight into cold, dark eyes peering through her window.

  “Uh, Diana.” Josie kept her eyes trained on the man standing beside her car. “I gotta go.”

  Chapter 4

  “Jesus, Morel!” Josie slid her knife back into her boot, phone dropping to her lap. She lowered the window. “What the hell were you thinking, scaring the crap out of me like that?”

  Her heart pounded over how close she’d come to drawing a weapon because of some whoo-hoo feeling that somebody was watching her. She was becoming paranoid, and that scared her more than any threat from the outside world.

  Diego slumped back against the car parked beside her. “You can quit looking at me like I’m roadkill. I’m not some freaking Peeping Tom.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  He shrugged. “I was watching you through the window. Saw you hadn’t left. Got worried something might be wrong.”

  Her senses itched again, leaving her longing for the security of her knife in her hand. Cars growled and crunched out of the lot, disguising other sounds, while streetlights cast shadows for hiding.

  “You came out to check up on me?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  That was actually kind of…thoughtful. Even if she could defend herself.

  Definitely thoughtful…even nice. Both making her more uncomfortable than the pissed off feeling this man usually engendered. “Thank you.”

  “Sorry to cut your conversation short.”

  “We were through talking anyway.” She tossed her cell phone into the cup holder with a small stuffed dog. “Time for me to head home.”

  “I need a ride.”

  So much for him being nice. Now his real agenda rolled out. “I thought you already had one or I wouldn’t have left.”

  “I did. But he hooked up with a waitress. Suffice it to say that for a guy, a willing babe in the sack beats talking with a legend any day.”

  Definitely roadkill. Just when she’d thought she might have an amicable working relationship with this guy. “How lovely.”

  “This’ll shock you I’m sure, but we men can be pigs sometimes. Not much I can say in our defense.” His gaze hitched on the strap of her seat belt tucked between her breasts. He looked back up. “So? Give me a ride back to my place?”

  She considered booting him on his butt. Was he sober enough to remember in the morning? “I could call you a cab.”

  “You could. But I’m not sure they even come out this way, and I’d have to wait at least an hour if they do. Maybe more. Then I’ll be dragging ass all weekend, which will probably set back my whole week. For the good of your test project, you really should give me a ride home so I can get more shut-eye.”

  Her eyes closed with resignation. “Climb in.”

  “Thanks, even if it is for the good of your project.” He settled into the bucket seat beside her and sighed. “Ah, nothing like a fine-performance machine.”

  Finally, common ground. “This might not be a jet or even a Harley, but a Mustang Cobra with a three-twenty horsepower V-eight engine can come mighty damn close to flying. So where to?”

  He recited the address.

  She smacked her steering wheel. “Good God, Morel. That’s an hour away.”

  “Do you have somewhere to be?”

  “No.”

  “How about we do the ride topless?”

  Anger spiked. “Damn it, Morel—”

  “The car top. Down. So we can see the night sky full of a half moon and stars.” Grinning, he draped a hand over her gearshift. “What else would you think I meant?”

  She knocked his hand off. “I think you meant to rile me and it’s working.”

  “Sorry, Buttercup. Just can’t resist.” He hooked his elbow on his open window. “Getting a rise out of you is the most fun I’ve had since I performed a lomcevak maneuver in test-pilot school.”

  She gasped, interest snagged against her will and better judgment. “A lomcevak? You actually pulled off that tumbling insanity on purpose? In what airplane?”

  “A Christian Eagle biplane. And did I do it on purpose? As far as you know.”

  “Amazing.” She shook her head, hair tickling her chin. “And a stupid risk.”

  “No arguments from me on that. Do I still get the ride?”

  “Yes,” she sighed her surrender. She would just have to keep her mouth shut until she dropped him off. “But only if you promise to tell me the rest of that lomcevak story someday.”

  “Done deal.”

  She pressed the controls to roll away the roof, then backed out of her parking spot. “You’re lucky I’ve got a full tank of gas and a crummy social life.”

  Josie shifted gears with smooth force, her knuckle brushing his leather-covered thigh. Hot. Diana’s words from earlier came back to haunt her.

  Holy crap. This guy was hot, in more ways than one. And she had no desire to get burned.

  The sooner she got him home the better. She had a pile of her mother’s old test-data printouts waiting at the apartment to keep her plenty busy.

  Josie nailed the gas, gravel spewing from the tires on her way out of the lot.

  Sprawled in Josie’s Mustang, Diego stared up at the stars speckling the purple-black sky overhead planetarium style, the desert night clear. A perfect night sky for flying.

  If he hadn’t nailed his feet to the ground three years ago.

  Electric poles whipped past with increasing speed on the desolate two-lane road. Creosote bushes and Joshua trees dotted the inky horizon for mile after mile.

  Already he anticipated another beer to rid himself of the bitter aftertaste of the hangar meeting earlier. He was a washed-up test pilot. His life was in the crapper along with his career. This job only proved it.

  Baby-sitter, spy, paper pusher, and for a low-budget project at that.

  This assignment only proved how far down on the food chain he dwelled these days. The subcontractor he freelanced for kept him around to trot out a legend and his medals. Apparently his surliness was starting to chafe, if this job was any indication.

  He worked because he had bills to pay. Fo
r putting his feet on the floor and getting dressed each morning, he rewarded himself with a race across a dry lake bed on his Harley, the only thing other than his dogs that he’d kept when his ex-wife walked after the accident. For making it through another workday—a necessity if he wanted to keep the bike and feed the dogs—he rewarded himself with a beer.

  Long-neck. Budweiser, like any self-respecting Mississippi native.

  And with any luck, the bottle was thrust his way in the hands of a hot woman who for some reason didn’t know he was a washed-up test pilot who’d killed his best friend.

  Bailout. Bailout. Bailout.

  Even now, he could hear his own hoarse shouts. His wingman, flying alongside, had ignored the order during that last test, vowing he could recover, the instrumentation reading agreed. The poor bastard had flown right into the ground trusting his data.

  Data Diego himself had supplied prior to take off.

  Shit. Screw thinking about that. Rewind back to the image of a hot blond waitress thrusting a beer his way along with her bountiful breasts. Except his brain kept overlaying the image of a buxom blonde with a smart-mouthed brunette, one with minimal curves and maximum moxie.

  Josie Lockworth might not be his type, but no question about it, she was hot. Self-assurance echoed from her, whether she was gliding on long legs into a bar or steering her Mustang convertible along rural desert roads.

  He remembered well the idealistic days when he’d expected his work to change the world. These days, he preferred to think about beer…and breasts.

  The ones beside him, to be exact.

  The green flight suit hugged her slim body. High, pert breasts thrust a subtle invitation increased by the cooling blasts of night wind. Velcro straps cinched at her sides, accenting a hint of hips—

  Whoa. Stop. He geared down his thoughts.

  The woman who was ready to kick his ass over a simple “little lady” comment would fillet his liver if she could step inside his brain right now.

  But the loss of his uniform had stripped away mental inhibitions, as well, leaving his world and expectations as off-kilter as his vertigo-stricken senses. He’d been a boundary pusher in the air, but understood the rules of convention implicit in his officer commission on the ground. He’d always kept protocol in place with female officers.

  No such rules applied now, because he wasn’t an officer anymore.

  “You should be nice to me.” He held up a hand. “And before you get your politically correct G-suit in a twist, I’m not implying a damned thing of a sexual nature. Yeah, I know I’m a bit of an ass. Okay, a lot of an ass. But if you’d pay attention, I talk like this to everyone. I’m just curious as to why you’re huffy and defensive when it would serve you well to be kissing up. So to speak.”

  Her shoulders lowered, captain rank on her flight suit glowing luminescent blue in the dashboard lights. “Sorry. Instinct, I guess.”

  “Been hit on a few too many times?” Idiotic protective instincts fired up, much like the ones that had chewed his hide when he’d been sitting in the bar shooting the breeze with Birddog and the others.

  “I’ve just learned it’s better to keep things superficial.” Wind-whipped coffee-colored hair around her face in a rare disorder from this overly composed woman. “People at work look hard enough for your vulnerabilities on their own. No need to give out private information for free.”

  What hints of vulnerabilities could be found in her pristine car, a place more personal than her office? He scooped her beanbag puppy from the drink holder.

  “Could you put down the Beanie Baby, please?”

  “Your favorite?”

  “It’s a gift for Craig Wagner’s daughter when I go to dinner. I don’t want it to look all rucked up when I give it to her.”

  “Sure. Sorry.” He fit the toy basset hound back into the cup holder. “I’ll get the kid a new one.”

  “Don’t bother. You didn’t do any harm—yet.”

  He heard her loud and clear. Get his mitts off her stuff and thereby off her. Somehow, he’d stepped too close. “So tell me about this test of yours.”

  Her white-knuckled fingers loosened around the steering wheel. “What do you want to know?”

  “How about start with the basics. Assume I know nothing.”

  She would think he was an out of touch idiot who needed to review fundamentals. Not that he cared much as long as she didn’t throw another one of those sympathetic looks his way like she’d done when he’d talked about not flying anymore.

  Yeah, let her do the talking before he shoved his boot in his yap again. Captain Buttercup probably wouldn’t even realize how much he could interpret about her core methodology from the way she presented foundation elements. “Talk to me.”

  And damned if he didn’t enjoy the sound of her uptight, precise voice with its hint of huskiness begging to be encouraged.

  “Our mission with this project is to improve the stealth element on the Predator unmanned spy drone. It has served the air force well in the past, but we’ve learned a lot about ways it could perform better, and thus keep more pilots and ground-intelligence forces out of harm’s way.”

  He tried not to think much about his active-duty days, flying bombers then gaining admission to test-pilot school. He’d accepted the possibility of dying in battle or during a test. He’d never considered what to do with himself if he survived.

  “Morel?”

  “Yeah, I’m with ya, Buttercup.” He looked at her and her uniform, her idealistic eyes reminding him of how many years’ experience separated them.

  And still he wanted Josie Lockworth.

  The intensity of that desire blindsided him like a bogey from his six o’clock. Sure he’d been turned on by her at first look, even though she was a prickly priss. But he hadn’t expected to get hard over just the thought of skimming aside the hair streaking across her face.

  What the hell was up with that?

  His head fell back against the rest. The sky beckoned. He closed his eyes. “Keep talking.”

  He focused on the clipped tones of Josie reciting facts, letting dry data served up with whiskey-warm tones intoxicate hungry senses that ached to fly.

  Josie gripped the steering wheel and lost herself in the intoxicating oblivion of routine. Reliable facts would never betray her. “Stealth is comprised of five elements—electro-optical, radio transmissions, visual, acoustics and RF.”

  Diego folded his hands over his chest, his head still reclined, eyes closed. Late-day beard darkened features already weathered by the sun, wind, years of hard living.

  Of loss.

  Sympathy hit her. A dangerous emotion. God, she needed to remember her mother’s lost career. Josie studied the stretch of road, so straight she could likely drive for hours without looking.

  She lifted one finger off the steering wheel. “RF covers the more popular element of eluding radar frequency. The Predator already kicks ass on that one.”

  A second finger lifted. “Next, the electro-optical tricks the infrared camera and low-light optical trackers. Again, got it licked.

  “Third element.” Only her thumb and pinky stayed on the wheel along with her other hand. “For the visual with the good old eyeball check, the craft still holds up well.”

  She waggled her pinky. “Radio transmissions aren’t a problem, either, because our data-link control signals are so low power they have a lesser probability of intercept.”

  Josie wrapped her hand around the steering wheel again. “The Predator’s only weakness comes from the fifth element—its acoustics. Enemy listening posts can pick up the propeller motor sounds in low-level flights. But the lower the flight, the better quality on the intel.”

  “Uh-huh,” he grunted, shifting his legs to swing one booted foot over his knee without once opening his eyes, as if she barely warranted his whole attention. “And since much of your mother’s work focused on the acoustics of stealth, you decided the Predator is the perfect craft to use for resurre
cting her theories.”

  She didn’t answer or even blink for the passing of four telephone poles while pain from her mother’s breakdown roared as loudly as the ever-constant desert wind. “Way to lay it all out there on the table.”

  “Does it bother you to talk about her?”

  “The facts are public record. It’s not like I can hide from them.” She peeled a strand of hair that had stuck to her lip gloss. “Actually, I appreciate your honesty. At least I don’t have to wonder if you’re whispering behind my back.”

  “I’m an ass, but I’m a straight-up ass.”

  She didn’t want to like him. But just when she longed to punt his arrogant butt, he surprised her with his self-awareness. “Since I believe in my mother’s core concept, yes, if it works, the Predator will be a more efficient asset to the reconnaissance community.”

  Her methodology was sound. She knew that. She hoped her developmental testing would be equally so—because she could talk higher air force benefits all she wanted, but eventually it wouldn’t escape anyone’s notice that this was personal for her. The career fall from failure would be far and fatal.

  Then there would be nothing left for her but to burrow out in the California desert in one of these geodesic domes, single-wide trailers or old ranch-style houses that infrequently broke the monotony of space and quiet. “What else would you like to know?”

  “What will I be looking at when we get to the paperwork?”

  “Our first round of testing involved active noise cancellation. For example, if the acoustic signature of the aircraft was a sine wave with a magnitude of one-hundred-ninety decibels at fifty hertz, we would create a sine wave of equal but opposite magnitude to conceal the noise.” She glanced over at the leather lug barely moving in the seat next to her. “You used to fly bombers, right?”

  He grunted again.

  “Basically we employed the same technology that’s used in noise-canceling headsets worn by bomber crew members to weed out the engine sound so they can hear each other talking.”