Cory, in a voice like the echoes of doom. “She’s the Top Gun’s daughter.”
Chapter 2
“I met her in the White House rose garden,” Cory said, following a gleefully profane exclamation from Tony.
He could still smile, remembering that day, but carefully, tentatively, with great care not to jostle the memories too hard. The turbulence of seeing her again had shifted and tumbled them—and the feelings that went with them—inside the compartment he’d stuffed them into years ago, and right now he feared if he opened that door too wide and too suddenly they might tumble out and bury him.
He spoke rapidly to get past the danger.
“There was a reception for us—for him, really—Lieutenant Bauer—I was more or less an afterthought. The guy was a genuine hero, and you know what the media does with heroes.”
“Aren’t you the media?”
“That’s why I get to bad-mouth—it’s like family. Anyway, you’re not the media when you’re part of the story.”
“But you wrote those stories.”
“Yeah, mainly to get through it. Get past it. I wonder, sometimes, how it would’ve been if I hadn’t had that outlet. I know Tristan had a tough time of it—of course he’d been gone a lot longer than I was. They only had me a few months. Him they’d had for eight years.”
“Hard to imagine. Impossible, maybe.”
Cory nodded, the knots in his belly relaxing a little. He was always more comfortable concentrating on someone else’s story. “It was tough on his family. They’d assumed all along he was dead. Jessie—his wife—hadn’t remarried, though, which was one good thing. What a mess that would’ve been. Still, it was hard—they had a lot of readjusting to do. But it was hardest, I think, on Sammi—on Samantha. She was just a kid, a ten-year-old tomboy when she lost her dad. That’s how he remembered her—how he described her to me, when we were together in that Iraqi prison. He talked about her all the time. A tomboy with ponytails. With bandages on her knees from playing soccer.” A smile fluttered like a leaf on the gust of his exhalation. “Let me tell you, that’s not what he came back to.”
Not even close.
Oblivious to nuances, Tony whistled. “I guess not. She’d have been what, then—eighteen?”
“Yeah. In college. A grown-up woman, the way she saw it.”
“Still just a kid, though,” Tony said in a musing tone, then threw Cory a quick frown as it finally hit him. “What, you’re telling me you had something going with her? I never figured you for a cradle robber, man. You must have, what, ten or twelve years on her?”
“It wasn’t my intention,” Cory said, putting his head back with a sigh. “Believe me. Well—” the smile this time was brief and wry “—not at first, anyway. Not that I didn’t fall for her. That happened probably the first minute I laid eyes on her.” He threw Tony a look and shifted uncomfortably. “Well, you’ve seen her.” He glanced toward the window and his heart gave a jolt as he saw the tall wavery figure in khakis and a baseball cap striding toward them across the scorched grass.
Alerted by what he saw in Cory’s face, Tony, too, turned to look out the window. After a long moment he said in a reverent tone, “I can see how she’d get your attention, yeah. Even dressed like that I can see it.”
“It wasn’t about her looks, though.” Cory waggled his shoulders, uncomfortable even with the thought. Blond hair, brown eyes, long legs…great legs…okay, sure, she’d had all that. So had any number of other women he’d met in his lifetime and over the course of his career, in one variation or another. But Sammi June—Samantha—there’d just been something about her. So much…more.
“So, you had it bad for the college kid,” Tony said. “So, what happened?”
“About what you’d expect, I guess. Didn’t work out.” Cory lifted one shoulder and closed his eyes, hoping maybe Tony would take the hint and let it drop.
Naturally, he didn’t. “Didn’t work out? That’s all you have to say?” His voice rose in pitch as it lowered in volume. “Look, man, I know you. You’ll make a story out of a trip to the 7-Eleven.” With his eyes shut Cory felt the voice come nearer, and drop to a conspirator’s mutter. “Hey—I saw your face when you recognized that woman out there a while ago. Like you’d been whacked upside the head with a plank.” There was another pause while Tony settled back in his seat again.
After a moment he exhaled in an exasperated way. “Look. Three years ago I stood by your side and handed you the ring while you got married to a woman who just happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to this pilot of ours—don’t think I didn’t notice that—and I gave up my couch when you divorced that same woman barely a year later—not that I minded. I never liked her that much, anyway. Now, I may be crazy, but I’m getting the idea there’s a connection there somewhere. So trust me, ‘didn’t work out’ ain’t gonna cut it.”
“What do you want me to do? I can’t very well get into it now,” Cory threw back at him in an exasperated whisper. “She’s gonna be back in here in a minute.”
“Yeah, well…don’t think I’m letting you off the hook on this one, pal. First thing when we get to Zamboanga—okay the second, but once we’ve got a couple of cold brewskies in front of us, I want the whole story. I’m not kiddin’, man.”
Cory let out his breath in a gusty sigh.
Of all things to happen, he thought. On this, of all assignments. It had to be the mother of all coincidences.
Or maybe just fate, catching up with him.
Outside on the steps, Sam paused with one hand braced on each side of the door as if she were preparing to withstand a gale-force wind. Which she supposed she was in a way, or at least the emotional equivalent. And so far she wasn’t pleased with the way she’d held up in the face of it. No excuses, she’d had plenty of time to prepare. She should have had her emotions battened down a whole lot better than this.
One thing, one small triumph she could cling to: the look on Cory’s face when he’d realized who his pilot was. Hah—complete and total shock. His face had gone ash-white. You might be able to control your expressions and voice, Pearse, but there’s not much you can do about your blood vessels.
He’d had absolutely no clue, she was sure of it. And his reaction to seeing her again told her one thing: The man still had some feelings for her.
Okay, so she was probably never going to know exactly what those feelings were, but at least she knew he wasn’t indifferent.
A little buzz of something—excitement? Triumph?—zinged through her and a smile curved her lips. Indifferent? Not by a long shot.
The smile stayed put while she got the steps pulled up and stowed away and the door secured. The smile was still in place, feeling as if it had been molded out of clay and drying fast, as she started up the aisle, nodding at Tony Whitehall, who had turned to look at her with an expression of unabashed curiosity, and a glint in his exotic golden eyes.
She wondered what Cory’d been telling him; she knew Tony had to have asked about her
