"It's just a car, Joanna."
"Ha! Try convincing any other male over the age of ten of that."
She reached for her car door, only to have Alex stay her with a hand on her arm.
"Wait. Before we go, I want to give you your birthday present."
"You just did," she answered with a grin.
His face softened. His long, supple fingers caressed her arm through her sleeve.
"I haven't begun to show you how I feel about you, my darling."
There it was again, that low, seductive endearment. She might grow tired of it, she decided, in a couple thousand years or so.
"This belongs to you." Sliding a familiar maroon velvet box from his pocket, Alex clicked it open. "You wouldn't accept it before. I hope you will now."
Her sigh was one of complete surrender. She'd used up her supply of nobility when she'd turned down the jeweled helicopter the first time he offered it. No way she could refuse it again.
"Here, I'll pin it on for you."
"Alex! I can't wear diamonds to a picnic."
"Yes, you can," he countered, his knuckles warm on her skin as he worked the pin into the ribbed neck of her sweater.
"I might lose it," she worried. "What if the clasp comes loose?"
"Then I'll buy you another."
His lack of concern shouldn't have surprised her. Nor should she be disappointed by the realization that he didn't attach any particular sentiment to the exquisite piece.
It was a gift, she told herself as they drove the winding back roads to the base. A thoughtful, beautiful gift, one he wanted her to have. Of course it wouldn't mean as much to him as it did to her.
Only after they'd arrived at the picnic did she realize that his beautiful, thoughtful gift was also a brand.
Chapter Ten
Not five minutes after they arrived at the pine-edged recreation area known as Camp Springs Lake, Jo knew she should have listened to her gut instincts and scrubbed this whole idea.
The picnic proved a total disaster. Word of Alex's identity spread like wildfire. Heads turned as they wove their way through the noisy throng. The spouses who had begun to draw Jo into their friendly circles kept their distance. Crewmates who ordinarily would have popped a beer with her and joked about the latest absurdities coming from higher headquarters seemed to feel they had to watch their manners around the grandson of a President.
Seemingly relaxed, Alex didn't appear to notice the looks aimed his way. He even smiled and agreed to pose for the giggling preteens who asked if they could take a picture with him. To Jo's embarrassment, one photo op led to another and then another as kids went for parents, parents for their cameras, and a line formed.
"I'm sorry," she murmured between takes. "I promised you no photographers."
"I don't mind," he assured her graciously, although she could tell he was as relieved as she when the line finally dwindled. She could only hope that no one decided to sell their shots to the tabloids.
With the feeling of having run a gauntlet, Jo turned. The broad-shouldered figure coming toward them made her realize she had one more challenge yet to face. Her stomach sinking, she introduced Alex to Deke Elliott.
The pilot's eyes were cool, but he transferred his beer to his left hand, swiped the dew from his right on the leg of his jeans, and took Alex's hand in a friendly enough grip.
"Glad to see you didn't sustain any serious injury in that car wreck, Taylor."
"Thanks to Jo. She's quite something."
"Yes, she is." Deke's hazel eyes flicked to the pin adorning her sweater. "And so well-dressed, too. Nice piece, West."
"It is, isn't it? It's a birthday gift."
She didn't kid herself. She knew exactly what drove her prickly need to explain the sparkling diamonds. Deke had come so close, so dangerously close, to breaking through her self-imposed restrictions against getting involved with someone in her unit. If she'd taken him up on his offer of a video combat rematch, if she hadn't met Alex when she did...
Firmly, Jo pushed the traitorous thoughts aside. She wasn't the kind of woman to play two men against each other. She didn't have the inclination, the energy, or the skill for those kinds of games. Still, she couldn't suppress a little spurt of relief when Deke slipped into his usual, laid-back self.
"Which birthday is this, West? Thirty-one? Thirty-two?"
"Hey, let's not rub salt in the wound. I'm thirty and proud of it... not that you need to broadcast that information around the squadron."
"My lips are sealed," he promised with a glint in his eyes that suggested otherwise. "I offered Jo a trip to the south of France to celebrate the momentous occasion," Alex said, sliding an arm around her waist. "Unfortunately, her schedule isn't as flexible as mine."
Deke didn't miss the message conveyed by Alex's words or his casually possessive hold.
"I'm sure you'll work something out," he drawled, his Wyoming twang out in full force. Lifting his beer, he tipped the bottle toward a couple ensconced at a table in one of the pavilions.
"You'd better introduce your guest to the boss, Jo. He's been shooting glances this way."
"Yes, I guess I'd better."
"Maybe we'll get a chance to talk again, Taylor."
"Maybe."
Jo hadn't grown up surrounded by brothers without learning to recognize the signs of two males circling each other to determine just where one's territory ended and the other's began. The fur was up. The smiles had taken on the predatory edge of bared teeth.
Sure enough, Alex slanted her a narrow glance as they made their way to the pavilion.
"Am I poaching on Elliott's preserves?"
"Deke and I are just friends."
"Not by his choice."
It wasn't a question, but it deserved an answer.
"No, not by his choice."
"Good. That saves me having to take him out of the competition."
"You're not in a competition, Alex. Wherever we go from here is between us. Only us."
"Us, and the United States Air Force."
Since Colonel Marshall and his wife were within earshot, Jo chose not to respond to Alex's dry reminder that her job constraints kept getting in his way. Instead, she introduced him to the director of operations and his vivacious spouse.
If Marshall had any opinion about Jo's obvious involvement with the man who'd generated such a flurry of phone calls from higher headquarters, he didn't show it. He greeted Alex with the same careful politeness the others had displayed.
Jo bit back a sigh. Where the heck did she get the crazy idea that inviting Alex to this gathering would bridge some of the gap between their worlds? She might have come to regard him as a fascinating, complex individual, but the rest of the squadron saw him only as a VIP. They hauled the bigwigs where they needed to go, but didn't socialize with them. Jo had crossed an invisible line and felt it.
The colonel's wife, however, didn't seem worried about any lines. An economics professor at the University of Maryland, Eve Marshall proved no more immune to Alex's blue-eyed charm than Jo. He soon had Eve laughing at a highly unlikely explanation of how the university had chosen the terrapin as their mascot.
The 1st Helo Squadron's commander and his wife drifted over to join them some moments later, bringing along the brigadier general who commanded the 89th Wing. General Orr had stopped by the picnic as a show of support for the squadron, as he did for all the units under his command, but evidently decided to stay for a while. He was dressed casually in a knit shirt and slacks, his handheld radio squawking occasionally with the normal weekend business of the busy base. His greeting to Alex contained the confidence of a man used to welcoming the presidents and dignitaries who flew aboard Air Force One and the rest of the wing's aircraft.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Taylor. I had the honor of flying your grandfather some years ago. I was the pilot on the aircraft that flew him to India when he represented the United States at the funeral of the former Prime Minister."
"He was a gr
eat admirer of Mrs. Gandhi," Alex explained with a smile that charmed the women and put the men at ease. "Although he did his best to sway her from her stubborn neutrality toward the Soviet Union, he appreciated the problem of having the Soviet Bear for a neighbor."
"Didn't he help broker a truce between India and Bangladesh when war almost broke out over a border dispute a few years ago?" Eve Marshall put in. "I remember reading that he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize."
"The dispute was actually more of a religious one between the Hindus and Muslims than a territorial one, but J.T. managed to exert some behind-the-scenes pressure and put the lid on it before it flared into war."
"If only he could exert some behind-the-scenes pressure with Pakistan," General Orr commented.
With only a superficial understanding of the shifting political sands that now aligned the United States and India, often at odds in the past, Jo wisely kept silent. The conversation flowed around her, fast and fascinating, until a raucous cheer drew her attention away.
A flag football game had kicked off in the grassy area beside the lake, pitting maintenance against operations. Charlie Fairbanks, Jo's copilot on the memorable flight to Charlottesville a few weeks ago, streaked down the field with the football tucked tight under one arm and yellow streamers trailing from the waistband of his jeans. Evading pursuers decked with red streamers, Charlie made it halfway down the field before a petite, determined maintenance officer planted herself squarely in his path. Charlie whirled left, collided with another defender, and executed a wild lateral pass just before hitting the grass.
Deke Elliott leaped up and caught the football one-handed. With the agility of the first-string receiver he once was, he dodged one opponent, spun away from another, and shot across the goal line. His teammates followed, whooping, and piled on top of him in the exuberance that characterized the game.
Jo found herself grinning and wishing she was down there in that heap. She loved football. Like most Wisconsonites, she followed the Green Bay Packers with singled-minded devotion, although she'd developed a soft spot for the Redskins in recent months. And as she'd proved on previous occasions, she could more than hold her own in this freewheeling version of the game. Her brother Tom had taught her how to drill one hell of a pass before he abandoned football to enter med school.
Idly, she considered asking Alex if he wanted to join the fun. As quickly as the notion came, she dismissed it. She'd learned a valuable lesson this afternoon. Wealth and privilege didn't mix as readily as she'd hoped it would with rough and tumble.
"Is it true President Taylor's taken a turn for the worse?" Eve Marshall asked, pulling Jo's attention back to the ongoing conversation just in time to catch Alex's swift frown.
"I don't discuss my grandfather's health."
The terse response froze Eve Marshall's smile on her face.
Jo could understand where the curt reply had sprung from. Alex's feelings for his grandfather, like those for his wife, were rooted too deeply to discuss their loss with outsiders. That understanding didn't prevent her from wincing inwardly as Eve flushed with embarrassment.
"I'm sorry. They mentioned it on one of the talk shows recently. I didn't realize—"
"I hope you don't believe everything you hear on talk shows, Mrs. Marshall."
Eve's flush deepened. "No, of course not."
Distinctly uncomfortable, Jo stepped into the breach.
"My own recent brush with the media has given me a new appreciation of what Alex and his grandfather live with every day. I don't think I'll ever open my blinds again until I check to see if someone's looking in from the other side. And certainly not until I comb my hair and put on some lipstick."
Her attempt at humor raised a few polite chuckles, but the damage was done. Looping her arm through Alex's, Jo beat a hasty retreat.
"If you'll excuse us, I promised Alex a hot dog and a beer before we leave."
"Are we leaving?" he asked as they wove through the crowd to the two huge, black-barrelled grills that served the squadron for everything from pig roasts to soft shell crab boils.
"Yes." Jo forced a smile. "This wasn't one of my more brilliant ideas. I'm sorry about the kids and the cameras, Alex."
She couldn't bring herself to apologize for Eve Marshall, though. The woman hadn't deserved the terse response Alex had given her. He recognized that fact himself. There, in the midst of the crowded picnic grounds with the sound of kids screeching and the sizzle of hot dogs and hamburgers filling the September air, he opened a part of himself to her.
"I had to throw up barriers to protect myself after Katherine died, Joanna. The vultures who feasted on her death would have picked my bones clean, too, if I'd let them. They'll try to do the same when my grandfather dies."
"I know, Alex."
"No, you don't. You can't. I wish I could spare you that part of my life. I wish I could shut you away in an ivory tower and keep you safe from the Stroders of the world."
This wasn't the time or the place to tell him she had no desire to live in an ivory tower. Later, she vowed. They'd talk later.
"Why don't we skip the hot dogs?" she suggested. "I can pull a couple of steaks out of the freezer, zap them in the microwave, then fire up the grill at home to give them that genuine charcoal flavor."
"Sounds good to me. I do a mean Caesar salad, if you have the makings."
"Everything but anchovies."
The idea of Alex going to work in her tiny kitchen helped dispel a good bit of her disappointment over the picnic. They'd eat in the dining room, she decided. Or maybe on the living room floor in front of the fire. With no butlers, no maids, and no kids or parents with cameras to interrupt them.
Not until she'd climbed into the MG to drive them back to her place did Jo realize she'd already begun bricking in the walls of their solitary tower.
After the disaster of the afternoon, the evening promised pure magic.
It was four-thirty by the time they pulled into Jo's drive, and close to five when Alex polished off the glass of Merlot she poured him. Shedding his ball cap, he fashioned an apron out of a red-and-white checkered dish towel.
"Behold the master at work."
She dropped into a chair, one leg tucked under her, content to watch while he arranged the assembled ingredients to his satisfaction on the counter. He soon had her laughing helplessly as he wielded a long knife with the dramatic flourish of a Samurai warrior. The wooden chopping board rattled with each swipe. Romaine leaves flew into the air. Some even made it into the salad bowl.
"Aren't you supposed to rub the sides of the bowl with garlic before you add the greens?"
"Only if I want to ward off vampires, along with the woman I haven't kissed in the past three hours. Correction..." The knife paused long enough for him to check his ultrathin Swiss watch. "Three hours and seventeen minutes."
Chuckling, Jo sipped her Merlot. "It's been that long, huh?"
"Seems like a lifetime." The lettuce took another leap into the air. Alex batted it into the bowl with the skill of a major league pinch hitter. "So are you going to just sit there or come over here?"
"Well..."
Bringing her wineglass with her, she offered him a sip. He smiled at her over the rim. Jo thought she'd never get used to the way those dark-ringed eyes seemed to cut into her soul.
Or the way his mouth moved so hungrily over hers.
It always startled her, his swift transition from erudite sophisticate to pure male. As if he shed his outer layers with the contact and loosed the inner being. The kiss consumed her. Fired her. That she could ignite such swift, intense passion in him thrilled her.
Gasping, she pulled back. Alex held her for a long, shuddering moment, one hand buried in the hair at her nape and the other holding the knife disconcertingly close to her cheek.
Sliding his fingers free of her nape, he wrapped them around the stem of the glass she still clutched in her fist and tipped it to her mouth.
"Drink your wine, my
darling, while I fix the salad. Then we'll eat, stretch out before the fire, and continue what we've started here."
As if she could force anything down her throat now! She tried to tell him so, but he'd already turned back to his masterpiece.
He knew how to play the game to maximum effect, Jo soon realized. That soft promise acted as no aphrodisiac ever could. Anticipation sang in her blood all through dinner. Little licks of heat seared her skin and fanned a slow, steady flame. Each glance, each smile, each casual touch added another spark to the fire.
Yet even the most intense blaze would eventually burn itself out. Over a bowl of Ben and Jerry's double chocolate fudge, Jo's shivery anticipation took on an edge of impatience.
The candles she'd lit all around the living room gave even her little rented house a seductive atmosphere. The place might not compete with a villa in France in the long run, but for tonight it would do. More than do.
Shadows danced on the cream-colored walls. Eartha Kitt crooned her signature "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" from the CD player. It was time, Jo decided. Past time.
Sliding the ice cream bowl off its resting place on the flat plane of Alex's stomach, she replaced it with her hand. Her fingers slipped under his sweatshirt to tug at the knit shirt underneath. Before they found the warm flesh they sought, however, Alex surged up on one elbow and tumbled her onto the pillows.
"Oh, no, Joanna. I've been thinking about this for weeks. Planning every touch."
Impatience flicked through her once again. She was all for setting the scene, but there was something to be said for a little spontaneity, too. She buried the thought in a determination to enjoy the moment.
Smiling, he started on the buttons of her fuzzy purple sweater. The first button bared the hollow of her throat to his mouth. The second, the soft skin of her shoulders.
"You taste like white chocolate."
Her stomach quivered on a laugh. "I think that may be Ben and Jerry you're tasting."
Slowly, so slowly, he slid the rest of the buttons through the loops and peeled back the sweater. His lips left small brands. His teeth gently scraped her nerve endings. Under her scoop-necked bra, Jo's nipples hardened.
Lovelace, Merline Page 10
