the exact same jungle-green as Swish’s. The matching ball cap sported the same glittering black-and-gold-tiger stripes and caught her shoulder-length blond hair back into a ponytail. The perfect ensemble for tooling through a soft Arizona dawn, she decided.
Mere moments later she had the top down and the T-bird aimed for the on-ramp to I-10. Luke AFB was a good thirty miles west of Scottsdale. The prospect of a long drive didn’t faze her. Having learned her lesson from previous Bashes, she’d arranged to have the rest of the weekend off. She could cruise through the dim, still-cool dawn, hit her condo, shower off the residue of the night and crash.
But first, she realized after only about fifteen miles, she had to make a pit stop. She shouldn’t have downed that last cup of coffee, dammit. For another few miles she tried the bladder control exercises she’d resorted to while operating at remote sites with only the most primitive facilities.
But when she spotted a sign indicating a McDonald’s at the next exit, she gave up the struggle. Flipping on the directional signal, she took the ramp for Exit 134. The iconic golden arches gleamed a little more than a block from where she got off.
Unfortunately, a red light separated her from imminent relief. She braked to a stop and drummed her fingers on the wheel. She might’ve been tempted to run the light if not for the vehicle stopped across the deserted intersection. It was a pickup. One of those muscled-up jobbies favored by farmers and ranchers. Older than most, though. And vaguely familiar. Narrowing her eyes, she squinted and tried to see past the headlights spearing toward her in the slowly brightening dawn.
Suddenly, her heart lurched. Stopped dead. Kicked back to life with a painful jolt.
Locking her fists on the wheel, Swish gaped at the cartoon depicted on the pickup’s sloping hood. She recognized the needle-nosed insect dive-bombing an imaginary target. She should; she’d painted it herself.
Her gaze jerked from the hood to the cab. The headlights’ glare blurred the driver’s features. Not enough to completely obscure them, however.
Oh, God! That was Gabe. Her Gabe.
Fragments of the conversation with Cowboy rifled through her shock. California. A funeral. Gabe driving home. Visiting with Cowboy and his wife in Albuquerque.
Her precise, analytical engineer’s mind made the instant connection. Phoenix sat halfway between San Diego and Albuquerque. A logical place to stop for the night, grab some sleep, break up the long drive. The not-as-precise section of her brain remained so numb with surprise that she didn’t react when the light turned green. Her knuckles white, she gripped the wheel and kept her foot planted solidly on the brake.
The pickup didn’t move, either. With no other traffic transiting the isolated intersection, the two vehicles sat facing each other as the light turned yellow, then red again. The next time it once again showed green, the pickup crossed the short stretch of pavement and pulled up alongside her convertible.
The driver’s side window whirred down. A tanned elbow hooked on the sill. The deep baritone that used to belt out the hokiest ’50s-era honky-tonk tear-jerkers rumbled across the morning quiet.
“Hey, Suze.”
He’d never used her call sign in nonoperational situations. The military had consumed so much of their lives that Gabe wouldn’t let it take their names, too. That attitude, Swish reflected, was only one of the many reasons he’d left the Air Force and she hadn’t.
She craned her neck, squinting up from her low-slung sports car. “Hey yourself, Gabe.”
“I thought I was hallucinating there for a minute. What’re you doing in Phoenix?”
“I live here. I’m stationed at Luke.”
“Oh, yeah? Since when?”
The fact that he didn’t even know where she lived hurt. More than she would ever admit.
Swish, on the other hand, had subtly encouraged her mother to share bits of news about her former son-in-law’s life since he’d moved back to Oklahoma. Mary Jackson had passed on the news that the high school tennis team Gabe coached had won state honors. And she gushed over the fact that the voters of their small hometown elected him mayor by a landslide. Somehow, though, her mom had neglected to mention the fact that Cedar Creek’s mayor was getting married again.
“I’ve been at Luke a little over four months,” Swish answered with as much nonchalance as she could muster, then let her gaze roam the dusty, dented pickup. “I see you’re still driving Ole Blue.”
He unbent his elbow and patted the outside of his door. “I rebuilt the engine a last year. Spins like a top.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
The memories didn’t creep in this time. They hit like a sledgehammer.
Swish had surrendered her virginity in Ole Blue’s cab. Impatiently. Hungrily. Almost angrily. She’d teased and tormented Gabe until he finally toppled her backward on the cracked leather seat and yanked down her panties. Even then, as wild with hunger as they both were, he’d been gentle. For the first few thrusts. Once past the initial startled adjustment, Swish had picked up the rhythm and climaxed mere moments later, as though she’d only been waiting for his touch to ignite those white-hot sensations.
She’d still been floating back to earth when he pulled out of her and started swearing. At himself. At her. At the incredible stupidity of what they’d just done. What if her parents found out he’d violated their trust as well as their daughter? What if he’d let himself come and gotten her pregnant! What about her scholarship to OU? The bridges she wanted to build. The exotic lands they both wanted to travel to!
Still soaring on that sexual high, Swish had kissed and stroked and nipped the cords in his neck until he cursed again, shoved the key in the ignition and drove her home.
Other, less sensual memories involving Ole Blue swirled like a colorful kaleidoscope. The night they spread an air mattress in the truck bed and stretched out to watch a gazillion stars light up the sky. The times they’d pulled into a space at the only still-operating drive-in movie in the area to munch popcorn and watch the latest action flick. The load of manure they’d loaded and hauled to fertilize the garden belonging to a friend of his mother.
A flash of headlights in the rearview mirror yanked her from the past to the present. They were still blocking the intersection, with Ole Blue hunched like an oversize panther beside Swish’s red mouse of a car.
She glanced in the mirror, back at Gabe. “Well, I guess...”
“Why don’t we get a cup of coffee?” He hooked his thumb at the golden arches behind him. “I obviously need to catch up on your career moves.”
She opened her mouth to refuse. The memories she’d just flashed through were too raw, too painful. She’d be a fool to resurrect any more. Then again, she did have to make a pit stop. Like reeeeally bad now.
“Okay,” she heard herself say. “I’ll meet you inside...after I hit the head.”
She cornered into the parking lot, killed the engine and was out of the T-bird before Ole Blue had made a U-turn at the intersection. This early in the morning the ladies’ room was empty and clean as a whistle, with the pungent tang of disinfectant taking precedence over the scent of deep-fried hash browns and sausage coming from the kitchen.
