light filtered through the oval window, glinting off the thin wire frames of her reading glasses. They gave her a schoolmarmish air that proved curiously sexy, like her standard tight braid.
Her hair.
Tanner slammed his book shut and rubbed his palms together as if that might dispel the lingering sensation of her hair sliding between his fingers. The lingering scent of her minty shampoo on his hands. Caving to the temptation to untangle her braid had been insane. But she’d looked so cute in her tourist getup. So unusually approachable.
Like now.
The window light sparked off her free-flowing hair. Threads of gold shimmered through the auburn. Kathleen retrieved another file from the stack, the nutcracker necklace swaying between her breasts. Settling back, she compared the columns of figures on one page with another.
She’d always been the studious type, a real curve buster who set a high bar for others to match, and heaven knew he enjoyed competition. Other than those glasses and the longer hair, she didn’t look much different from the Academy cadet who’d hunched over textbooks in the library.
The woman he’d kissed until they both couldn’t breathe.
Did she remember? The thought that she might have forgotten jolted a dangerous frustration through him.
Suddenly he had to know. He had to have an acknowledgmentof that moment, even if they never intended to repeat it. Maybe then they could defuse the attraction lurking between them.
“Do you ever think about Academy days?” The question fell from his mouth, and he didn’t have the slightest desire to recall it.
She didn’t answer, didn’t even twitch or move to acknowledge she’d heard him. But her gaze stopped scanning from side to side along the page. Slowly she slid her glasses off and turned to him, her eyes wary. “Sure.”
His stomach took another large bite out of itself. “Really?”
“Of course. I spent four years of my life there.”
“Yeah.” Not what he was looking for in the way of a response, but then O’Connell had never been easy. “I remember sharing a couple of them with you.”
“Uh-huh.” Cool professionalism plastered itself right over the wariness. Kathleen shoved her glasses back on her nose. She whipped a file from the bottom of the stack and dropped it in his lap. “Check out the crew’s training reports while I review their seventy-two-hour histories prior to the crash.”
“Okay.” He opened the file and thumbed through the pages. Determination kindled within him, fueling the same competitiveness that had carried him across the goal line more than once.
It was only the first down. Be patient. Hang tough. Wait for the opening.
He read through the contents of the thin manila folder, then thumped the stack of papers in front of him. “Training reports look good. The copilot busted a check ride two years ago, only hooked the test on something minor, though, nothing reckless enough to wave a major red flag about.”
“Isn’t the copilot kind of young?”
“Compared to me? Yeah. But I pulled time as a C-130 navigator first.” Which made him all the more anxious to speed through the upgrade from right-seat copilot to aircraft commander flying left seat. He had to establish an uncomplicated working relationship with her to prove his professionalism to the Squadron Commander.
Tanner stacked the training reports and slid them inside their folder. Time for his next play, a surprise sweep around to her blind side. “It’ll be good to see ol’ Crusty again once we get to California. Remember how he used to catch hell from you about his sloppy uniform?”
“Uh-huh.” She plopped another file in his lap. “Take a look at the pilot’s seventy-two-hour history. It says here Crusty only ate burgers and dill pickles for two days before the flight. That seems odd, like he’s forgotten something. Who eats nothing but burgers and pickles?”
Second down. Stopped short of the ten-yard gain. Damn it, he would make all the time in the world for the case, after he got one thing settled.
With her head bowed over the file on the seat between them, he could see a third color threading through her hair. A deeper shade of copper mixed in with the red and gold. She glanced up. Her blue eyes shone as clear as the sky whipping past that tiny window, taunting him with a small peek when he wanted the wide open expanse.
“Bennett? Burgers and pickles?”
He regained his footing before he lost critical yardage. “Oh, uh, yeah. Crusty’s a bachelor. That probably explains it.”
“If you say so.” She scribbled a note on the top corner and flipped the page as a mother and toddler eased out of the seat in front of them.
Tanner shifted his legs from the aisle to let a woman hurry her child toward the bathroom. Minimal privacy established, he stretched his legs again. “Back at the Academy, whenever Crusty saw you coming, he would untuck his shirt or scuff his shoes, anything to catch your attention. Sure enough, you would stop and chew him out. He really had a thing for you.”
“Apparently, he got over it.”
Time to press. “He had to get over it. The whole doolie-upperclassman taboo.”
Her hands faltered. The paper shuffling stopped, and he thought he had her. Finally she would say something about the night that should have gotten them both kicked out of school.
She glanced toward him, and it was all there for him to see. The memory of that kiss scorched her mind as much as it singed his. She stared back at him, drawing him into her sky-blue eyes filled with memories. Filled with hunger. With fire.
Twelve years ago the two of them had been brimming with need and seriously lacking in sense as they’d fed on each other. Mouths meeting, hands almost as frantic as her breathy moans, sweet sounds that had eased the roar of pain in his head.
Tanner canted forward, his hand reaching. Still he remembered the glide of her hair against his skin. He couldn’t resist her healing warmth now any more than he could then. “Kathleen—”
Her eyes shuttered like clouds in front of his windscreen blocking the sky. Without a word she returned to the open file on her knees.
But her eyes weren’t scanning. Her spine couldn’t have been any straighter if she’d snapped to attention.
He slumped back against his unforgiving cement-slab seat. The woman had defensive moves that would garner serious bucks in the big leagues. He wasn’t going to get anything out of her this way.
She’d obviously done a better job at putting aside the past than he had. As if he could ever forget any of it. Of course, that night had been…beyond hell, and she’d been there for him.
Forget a touchdown. Punt the ball and salvage what he could. “About that night. I never had a chance to say—”
She slapped her file closed. “Bennett.”
“What?”
“Save the apology.”
