noticed the women pilots covertly watching Gifford. She saw the looks on their faces and grinned to herself. He was good-looking, in a rough kind of way. Well, it never hurt to look, did it? Sitting down, she poured cream and sugar into her cup. When Gifford sat down opposite her, her pulse raced momentarily.
“Smells real good. Better than regular army chow,” he said with a grin. Picking up his fork, he dived into the scrambled eggs.
Angel ate delicately, studying Burke between bites. He ate like a hungry wolf. She liked his short, neatly cut hair. His ears were large and flared away from his skull slightly. All the better to hear with, she was sure. He had a large Adam’s apple and his neck was thick and strong. His broad shoulders made Angel think that this man could carry a lot of responsibility very easily.
She decided that she needed to take the lead, because he was basically a guest on the base. Over the course of the meal, she shared with him why he was here: to be her hands when she needed them. Blushing a bit as she told him how she’d injured her shoulder, she saw him smile fully for the first time. It was a boyish smile, relaxed and unguarded, and as Gifford’s icy expression melted away, she was privy to the man beneath the facade. The enormity of the change surprised her, and again she felt confused by the array of feelings just looking at him produced in her heart.
“I’ve never had tendonitis,” Burke said with sympathy, slathering strawberry jam over one of the pieces of toast on his tray. “Broke my ankle in a parachute jump, though.”
“I broke my ankle once, too,” Angel said, “though not in a chute jump. I can tell you the pain in a tendon is worse than a break.”
Nodding, Burke said, “I’ve treated my share of them off and on through the years, and every guy that had it told me the pain was enough to make you pass out.”
“It is,” Angel murmured, “and I did.” She was finished with breakfast and pushed her tray aside, then picked up her coffee cup. “I sure don’t like being down one arm. It cramps my high-flyin’ style.”
Burke liked her rank sense of humor. He’d never met a paramedic who didn’t have a blistering, sardonic wit. “You don’t strike me as a woman who takes kindly to being in prison.”
Giving him a skeptical look, Angel studied him. Gifford had a soft Southern drawl. “Man or woman, no one likes prison, don’t you think?”
“I guess I didn’t say that right,” he stated, taking a second piece of toast and slathering it with jam. “You strike me as the kind of person who likes her freedom and bucks any boundaries or fences folks might try to put around her.”
Nodding, Angel said, “I see. Yeah, I’m like that, I guess.” Burke had a disturbing ability to see right through her. That made her antsy.
“I don’t know about the Peruvian army, but in the U.S. Army it’s nice having the freedom to do what you’re best at.”
Sipping the coffee, Angel said, “Well, it’s a little different down here if a woman wants to join the male military organization.”
“A lot of prejudice against you, gender-wise?”
“Tons of it.”
Burke studied her. He saw that her eyes were hooded, guarded against him. Sensing that she was feeling him out, that she really wasn’t comfortable around him yet, he asked, “Does it bother you that I’m a man walkin’ in on your turf?”
“Excuse me?”
He lifted his hand. “This is a women’s black ops. I didn’t see too many men as I came through the complex. There must be a reason for it.”
Frowning, Angel growled, “I don’t know how much you know about the Black Jaguar Squadron, but yes, it was created because of gender prejudice, for sure. By the trouble some female officers had with the white boys up there at Fort Rucker. Major Stevenson was in the first all-women Apache pilot training program there. The women pilots suffered a lot at the hands of the men. Captain York, the chief instructor, washed out a number of good student pilots because he didn’t want women in Apaches. He didn’t feel they had the goods to handle the job.” Derision filled Angel’s tone as she glared across the table at Gifford. “Well, Lieutenant Stevenson didn’t take the gender prejudice crap lying down. She fought back within the student program as well as afterward. Luckily, her father is a general in the army. When she came to him with her proposal for this black ops you have the privilege of sitting in right now, Sergeant, he made it happen. Maya Stevenson was not going to let the survivors of that hell on earth at Fort Rucker be destroyed by male prejudice.”
Angel looked around, anger in her tone, her words tight and biting. “She had a vision. She wanted a place where women could be fostered and nurtured to bring out their best. She wanted an unprejudiced environment for all, so we could perform at our best. She gathered women from many military branches from many different countries, including Peru, which is how I got transferred here to BJS. When the squadron moved down here, a lot of army brass laughed behind their backs. But that was okay, because Maya knew we could do it. There were plenty of bets placed on all sides that we’d fail. But we didn’t. We not only survived, we’ve thrived. Now, nearly four years later, Major Stevenson has proved herself and her program. Now the U.S. Army is standing in line to get its male pilots, ground crews and people like you down here to take advantage of our hard-won knowledge.” Nostrils flaring, Angel eyed him sharply. “So yeah, we’re a little prickly about men comin’ down here. It’s not that we don’t like them, it’s that they tend to see us as the weaker sex, incapable of doing the same things they do—as well or better.” She spat out the last two words.
“I didn’t mean to suggest there should be more men here….”
“Really? Coulda fooled me, Sergeant.” Her voice was cool. Grinding.
“I just didn’t know how the Black Jaguar Squadron came into existence.”
She saw the pained look on Burke’s face as he held up his large, square hands—a sign of truce. She sipped her coffee, which was scaldingly hot and matched her anger. Setting the cup down with finality, she growled, “Do me a favor, Sergeant? I really don’t like having you dog my heels. It’s not my thing to have someone hanging around me like a ball and chain. You have a job to do—you’re my hands. When I need your help, I’ll ask. Otherwise, take the position of listening and learning. Got it?”
Surprised at the anger in her voice, Burke sat there calmly, adjusting to the unexpected attack. Obviously, he’d hit a sore point with Paredes. But he realized he’d better clean up his language and the way he said things or he was going to be in hot water more times than not. And not only with her. This was a woman-commanded facility, for the most part.
“Yeah, I got it, Sergeant Paredes. I meant no disrespect.”
“No man ever does. It just happens.”
Feeling like an outsider, or as if he were an alien male come to an all-female world, Burke sat there in silence. He had six weeks here. All of a sudden, the assignment felt like a prison to him. The exotic-looking Angel Paredes seemed more like an avenging angel right now. In his heart, he was saddened by how things were turning out. She was incredibly beautiful, in such an arresting way, that Burke was having a helluva time keeping his heart out of this chaotic equation.
“I think,” he told her in a low and apologetic tone, “that I can learn a lot about prejudice from you in the next six weeks. It’s something the army is trying to rectify daily with classes,
