Chapter 4
When Lance walked into the squadron meeting Monday morning, he was greeted by a sideways glance from his commander.
Lieutenant Colonel Santiago was a bull of a guy with thick muscles and thinning hair, relaxed until he had to be otherwise, and he’d kept a sharp eye on Lance since the wedding hadn’t happened.
“Morning, sir. Happy to be here today.” It was the same thing he had said every morning since he’d shown up for work when he should’ve been on his honeymoon.
But since he’d never had much urge to visit Scotland for any reason other than it being Allison’s dream vacation choice, missing the trip itself hadn’t been a burden.
If anything, he felt guilty at the sense of relief that had overtaken the pain at the loss of his fiancée.
Now, though the commander had put him back on flying duty, it was habit to tell the older man that he was fine.
“You hear we took home the pumpkin-chucking trophy this weekend?”
“Heard you beat a bunch of girls.”
His cheek twitched. He would’ve liked to shove the phrase a bunch of girls inside a pumpkin and chuck it over a cornfield like Dr. Kaci Boudreaux had done to those BCGs.
For Cheri’s sake, he told himself. His sister put up with more shit for being a female fighter pilot than he would ever understand. “Just barely, sir. Got lucky, honestly. They had a hell of a catapult.”
“Hell of a leader too,” Pony said.
Several of the guys snickered. And the murmurs of “crazy as fuck” and “hotter than hell” made his cheek twitch harder.
He ignored the banter and settled into one of the last open stiff plastic chairs facing the projector. The rest of the room was lined with photos of C-130s signed by crews on various deployments since the squadron had been stood up.
Beside him, Pony was flipping through his phone. The colonel stood and cleared his throat, and the guys quieted and focused their attention up front.
A slide flickered to life on the screen. Lance’s heart thunked down to his boots.
“Think you all heard,” Colonel Santiago said, “but in case you didn’t, our regular rotation has been delayed a month.”
“What the fuck?” Lance muttered to Pony. Nearly six months until he could get out of here? Dammit.
Pony grunted. He was supposed to leave in two weeks. Six weeks now, by the sounds of it.
“Shove it,” Flincher said on his other side while other groans and mutters went through the room.
Flincher was a ruddy guy with Irish roots who’d buy you a beer so he could show you pictures of his little girl, and he was right behind Pony in seniority in the squadron.
He fiddled with his platinum wedding band.
“My wife’s due when we were supposed to get back. ”
One of the hazards of military life.
Allison hadn’t filled in any more details on why she’d wanted out, but Lance was certain his uncertain lifestyle had been one of her issues. When push came to shove, she hadn’t been willing to get on the roller coaster.
The colonel cleared his throat again. “We’re switching up our normal missions this week to compensate for the change in schedule. Make sure you check the board to see when you’re flying.”
The colonel’s weekly briefing went like clockwork after that.
The usual messages from base leadership, a safety briefing about keeping your head out of your ass, quarterly award nomination packages were due soon, don’t push it on bottle-to-throttle time or crew rest. “One last thing,” the colonel said.
“Heard from the training squadron. They’re expecting a shortage of applicants for instructor pilot slots in the next two years.
Don’t want to lose any of you here, but I want smart pilots in my birds.
You think you’d be a good IP, come talk to me. ”
Figured.
Only job that could get him moved early, and it would take him half a mile down the road instead of across the country.
Be good for a guy like Flincher though. Keep him home with his family for a few years.
The colonel dismissed them. Everyone stood and stretched, moving about the room, but Lance nudged Flincher. “Want to switch?”
Flincher looked him up and down. “Switch?”
“Rotations. You’re delayed. I want to get the hell out of here. Can’t solve you leaving a newborn, but I can help you be here when the kid’s born.”
Flincher’s bushy red brows bunched. “You serious?”
“Be doing me a favor, man.” Get out of here in six weeks instead of six months? Hell yeah. “Might talk to Juice Box too. He’s on the third rotation. Could get you a few more months.”
“I’m due for orders by then.”
Twenty minutes later, the colonel had approved the idea, and the paperwork was in motion. When Lance settled down to his computer in the line of cubicles in the squadron room, he was actually whistling to himself.
He was flying this week, and he’d be getting the hell out of dodge in six weeks. “Weather good?” he asked Pony while he logged on to his email.
“Not raining beer,” Pony replied with a grunt. He was flipping through a webpage with kegs on it.
Lance’s fingers curled around his mouse.
His brain was heading back into not-smart territory.
Dr. Kaci Boudreaux had distraction written on every inch of every one of her curves and lingering in every undertone of that sassy voice. And it looked like he suddenly only had six weeks to kill before he was out of here.
Six weeks could be a long time.
Or six weeks could be interesting.
“How much are they?” he asked Pony with a nod to the screen.
“At least a hundred.”
A hundred bucks.
Huh.
He logged in, glanced at the weather, and then opened a blank document.
He wasn’t flying until this afternoon.
Which meant this morning, he could have some fun.
Kaci was wading through a stack of research papers Thursday afternoon when there was an authoritative knock at her office door. “Come on in,” she called.
She looked up, expecting to see one of her Physics Club students or one of her grad students or maybe a freshman with a question about today’s lecture on centrifugal force.
Instead, Ron Kelly stood framed in the doorway. “Got a minute?”
For the man who told her that if she didn’t have his babies, he’d divorce her, then followed her across the country to invade her new life?
Nope. “Office hours for students are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from nine to eleven, and otherwise by appointment. Office hours for ex-husbands are never.” She flicked a finger at the hallway. “Shut the door on your way out, sugar.”
He shut the door.
But he stayed inside the room.
Usually the eight-by-eight, white-walled space was big enough, especially with the window letting in natural light.
With Ron standing before her oak door with his legs wide, hands tucked behind his back in parade rest position, the whole stinking physics building wouldn’t have been large enough to put enough distance between them. “It’s been over two years, Kace. Can I please have ten minutes of your time?”
He was handsome in a distinguished way—dark hair threaded with the right amount of gray and subtle wrinkles that could’ve been mistaken for laugh lines about his blue eyes—but he’d put on a few pounds since his retirement and his suit coat didn’t fit just right.
“Don’t know that we’ve got ten minutes’ worth of talking in us,” Kaci said. “I can give you three, and that’s only on account of my momma raising me to have manners.”
“Being here the last few months has made me realize life’s been boring without you,” he said.
“Sorry to hear that. Don’t you have a lecture soon?”
“May I?” He gestured to the utilitarian blue plastic chair she kept in her office for students, then lowered himself into it without waiting for a response. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She assumed he probably hadn’t. Even her injured pride couldn’t work up the argument that Ron had ever been mean-spirited. Not to her, anyway. “But you still meant everything you said about me not being a good wife.”
“I didn’t say—”
“It’s neither here nor there, because I’m not your wife anymore.”
“I’ve been in counseling.”
Her chin slipped down. The Ronald Kelly she knew didn’t need counseling, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have admitted it.
“I blamed you for all of our problems, but I never took responsibility for my own shortcomings. It would mean a great deal to me if you would come to one of my sessions with me.”
The world had gone and turned itself inside out, and it was making Kaci’s stomach do the same. “I’m taking a break from men right now.”
“All I’m asking for is an hour.” He spread his hands, a plea the Ron Kelly she knew never would’ve made.
But she couldn’t tell if the hard set to his lips was a determination to put in what it took to get her back, or an order that she do what the great Colonel Kelly dictated. “It would be good for both of us.”
“Time’s up. Lovely to see you, Dr. Kelly. Don’t let that door hit you on the tuckus on your way out.”
“Kaci—”
“And don’t go pulling those prick stunts you did at the Academy with pop quizzes for material you haven’t covered. Kids are here to learn, not have heart attacks.”
“The real world doesn’t hand out lollipops for second best and weak efforts.”
Dear sweet Jehoshaphat, she’d married that. “Y’all have a good day. I got work to do.”
His jaw clamped shut, and he stood and reached for the door. “Think about it, Kaci.”
She’d think about it.
She’d think about it as long as it took her to think the word no.
She hadn’t been unhappy in her marriage, but she’d been no more or less unhappy since her divorce. To her way of thinking, that said something about their relationship.
And she didn’t entirely trust that his motives were purely personal.
He’d gotten his own bit of attention for a paper he’d written in corollary to the paper she’d written that had gotten her invited to Stuttgart, and she didn’t much like the idea of him riding her coattails on his way to getting tenure first because he was a man and she was a woman.