Chapter 33
Halfway down the side of the hangar, Abby stumbled to a halt.
She lay her shoulder, then her head against the corrugated steel.
The cold did nothing to ease the heat of…
hurt, rage, embarrassment? She didn’t even know.
Could it be all of them at once? She could certainly identify with each individually.
And they each were plenty painful in their own right.
Closing her eyes didn’t help. All it did was focus her attention on the sound of impact wrenches extracting bolts, forklifts running fast errands, and a soft laugh from the Delta team transmitted straight through the metal.
Opening her eyes was even worse. Directly in front of her, Derek Kylie leaned against the same siding, facing her.
“What part of go away… Never mind.” She closed her eyes again.
“This morning…night…whatever you Night Stalkers call the middle of the day when you’re supposed to be sleeping, I wasn’t walking out on you.”
She opened one eye enough to glare at him.
“Okay, I was. But not because I didn’t want to stay beside you.”
She opened the other eye. But if it was a lie, she couldn’t see it.
Of course she’d never been good at that.
Her personal style included falling for every straight line that came her way.
If it was a joke, she could always follow what was going on.
When it involved her emotions, none of it made any sense.
“Look, this,” he waved a hand around, “Fort Campbell. This is your home. Your world. I didn’t want everyone to think that I came in and took advantage of their top Chinook pilot.”
“So, you were going to sneak out without saying a word.” If she barfed up her pain on his boots, would he leave her alone? Too bad she hadn’t stopped for a midday meal—her midnight—before hurrying out to prep her helo for transport. Not much in her system right now worth throwing up.
“I was going to leave a note.” He grimaced. “Okay, I like to think that I’d have thought to leave a note once I was clear of the bedroom without waking you.”
“I’m guessing that you’re not big on that after you slide away from a woman’s bed.”
His grimace, shifting to a look of pain, answered that well enough.
“But…” She didn’t know why she prompted him. Maybe to see how deep a hole he could dig.
“This is your home. I wanted to give you the option of how you dealt with things. Last night was great.” His shift to a happy smile came close to earning him severely barked shins.
“Okay, now I’m lying. It was better than that.
But if you wanted to treat it as a single night of fun and keep it just between us, I was willing to support that. I wanted it to be your choice.”
Last night hadn’t been great, it had been the best time she’d had in way, way too long—like ever.
One soldier to another… No, one warrior to another, had made it even better than that.
There were a hundred things that required no explanation.
No need to explain why she served. Being a D-boy and a Night Stalker, especially after a pair of highly successful missions together, there’d been no need to explain anything about internal drive to be the best—both of their motivations were built that way.
No need to explain the sidearm they’d each dropped on the nightstands rather than hiding under a pillow.
Not even why she had plenty of protection beside the bed.
Not that she’d used it recently—having to break the seal on the box had demonstrated that—but she would, of course, be prepared.
And once committed to action, there’d been no holdback or acting by either of them.
It was the freest she’d ever felt in a man’s arms.
His words slowly sank in. What if he was telling the truth?
Had he been trying to protect her reputation or had he been slinking away like an asshole who didn’t want to wake up with a woman once he’d screwed her?
The latter thought hurt like hell but the former made more sense.
In their two nights of operations together, Derek had run dead clean.
Even the way he worked with his team didn’t have a single fault she could pick out.
Protecting her made more sense. She closed her eyes and began thumping the side of her head against the metal siding.
He slipped his hand between her head and the metal, so she whacked it hard one more time and he jerked his fingers away.
“What?” He asked as he shook his hand out.
“Think there’s a single person on either of our teams who doesn’t now know we were together last night?”
He glanced over her shoulder, then shook his head. Shook his head and smiled—on the verge of an outright laugh.
She got the joke but wasn’t feeling it. “My team likely has you labeled as a persona non grata. And I could go ya twenty bucks easy that your team has tagged me as a notional bitch.”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Is a notional bitch like a national-level tier of bitchdom? If so, I don’t think you qualify, sorry.”
“You are from away. If you go Downeast, notional means stubborn.”
“Was that an invitation to meet your folks?”
“Speaking of stubborn. No. Ma died when I was three.” And why did she feel it was necessary to throw that in?
Derek reached out to tap the Desert Storm patch on her jacket. “If your Pop is still around, I’ll go ya that twenty that he’s right proud of you.”
“He’s about. Back on the boats after doing his twenty years.
” And how happy would he be at how she’d handled this whole situation?
She’d always been a Daddy’s girl, didn’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter with a single male parent.
In turn, his idea of parental protection had to do with her being untouched by mere mortal men—ever.
Even her rare good boyfriends had left him bewildered about how to react, not that he talked about anything other than helos and lobster, but she could see it in his face.
She thumped her head a couple more times against the metal siding.
“What?” Derek looked concerned.
“Once, just once, I’d like to handle a situation with a man without messing it all up.”
“Personally, I think that last night we handled each other just fine. And it wasn’t you who messed up this morning. I should have stuck and explained myself rather than leaving when you told me to go.”
“I doubt I would have listened.” Abby knew that too was true.
“Notional much?” Derek grinned.
He had no idea. Though maybe he did. To make the grade for the Night Stalkers required an exceptional supply of stubborn tenacity. It probably took much the same to be a Delta operator.
Now if she only knew whether that made them a good match or one doomed before they really began.