“Right where she is.”
“She’s going to bunk with you?” Baker barked in disbelief.
Brad frowned. “Yeah. You got a problem with that?”
“You’re the one who’s going to have a problem with it, Hawk,” Baker said, frowning back. “Hell, man, you might as well be sleeping with the enemy.”
Brad stared at the man who had been his closest friend since they were in boot camp together. They’d seen their share of good times over the years. Chased the ladies together. Held fast in their belief that the Air Force did and always would come first in their lives. But this was the first time Baker had ever voiced a concern that Brad couldn’t hold his own where a woman was concerned.
“What are you saying? That you don’t think I can be confined with a woman and keep my pants zipped?”
“It’s not your zipper I’m worried about, Hawk. There are ladies you play around with and ladies you don’t. This lady is your worst nightmare. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up chasing her right up until the time she catches you.”
Brad laughed. “That isn’t going to happen and you know it.”
Baker didn’t seem convinced. “Trust me about this, Hawk. Get this woman under your skin and the next thing you know, you’ll be back in civilian clothes and hurrying home every night so you can help out with the kids.”
Brad really had a good laugh that time. Him? Running home to a wife and kids? Not a chance. He’d made himself a promise when he joined the Air Force that he’d never make the same mistake his father did. Brad knew first hand how devastated he and his mother had been when his father was killed. His mother never really recovered. The doctors claimed her heart was weak, but Brad knew better. Her heart had been broken. And rather than hand down that same legacy himself, a wife and a family would never have any place in his future.
Jabbing a finger in the big man’s chest, Brad said, “Stop worrying about me and keep our prisoner confined while I go check on the Black Ghost. No one knows she’s here but you, me and Gibbons, and we need to keep it that way. But she’s determined to get out of here, Baker. Don’t let that happen. Got it?”
Baker sent another worried look toward the door. “Why don’t I go check on the Black Ghost, and you stay here?”
Brad laughed. “What’s the matter? Afraid you’ll fall under the professor’s spell?”
“Hell, no,” Baker grumbled. “But you weren’t the one trying to hold her down earlier. She’s stronger than she looks.”
“You have at least one hundred and thirty pounds on her,” Brad scoffed. “I think you can handle it.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Baker argued. “I’m telling you, Hawk, she’s a real handful.”
Believe me, she’s more than a handful, Brad thought with a frown, remembering the feel of her ample bosom pressed against his chest. He hated to admit it, but Baker was right about the danger he’d be facing over the next few days. Especially if he stuck to his plan to keep her off balance by coming on to her. There was always the possibility a plan like that one could backfire. But he assured himself he could handle the situation. “Stop stalling and get back inside. Someone might get suspicious if you’re guarding my door.”
Baker groaned, but finally nodded in agreement.
Brad gave him a playful salute and headed down the hallway. “Have fun,” he tossed back over his shoulder with a wink.
4
SLUMPED ON THE LOVE SEAT, munching from a bag of popcorn Baker had brought back from the mess hall, Maddie ignored the big gorilla who was again standing guard in front of the door. She was still stewing over the disastrous little tête-à-tête that had occurred earlier with the Hawk, though Maddie mainly blamed herself for letting her guard down. Which she positively wouldn’t do again, thank you very much!
Liar! the little voice inside her head yelled out with a snicker.
Okay. So maybe she wasn’t as strong as she thought she was. Maybe it would take everything she had to keep from clucking her silly head off when Mr. Let’s-Play-House walked back into the room. She was, after all, just a normal, healthy, still on the back side of thirty female.
Normal?
Okay. So maybe she wasn’t exactly your typical twenty-something female. She could admit that. She was dedicated to a fault. Focused more on her career than she was on life in general. But she still dated occasionally. She had to earn some points for dating.
Occasionally?
Okay. So maybe rarely was a better word. But she did date. And she did like men. She did! She just never had any time to fit them into her life.
What about the next three days?
Maddie pushed that question to the back of her mind, and continued to channel surf through a multitude of cable stations. She jumped to her feet when Headline News flashed her faculty picture, taken straight from the McCray-Hadley annual on the screen.
All Maddie could do was stare in horror.
She wasn’t sure if her terror was because they had chosen to display her absolutely most dreadful and unflattering picture of all time, or because Mary Beth’s idiocy had now been picked up by national television news.
“An all-points bulletin has now been issued for Dr. Madeline Morgan, a professor of entomology at McCray-Hadley College, one of the most acclaimed private colleges in the South,” the pretty news-woman said with a serious look when the camera switched from Maddie’s horrid picture back to her. “As reported earlier, Dr. Morgan was allegedly abducted earlier today by an unidentified aircraft near Roswell, New Mexico. Anyone with any valid information on the whereabouts of Dr. Morgan is urged to contact their local police authorities….”
“Can you believe this insanity?” Maddie cried out, prompting only a sheepish look from her bodyguard.
“And joining us now direct from a fraternity house near the McCray-Hadley campus is our own reporter….”
“Dear God,” Maddie moaned as a live shot of the Alpha Beta Pi fraternity house came into view.
“We’re here in Morgan City, Georgia, tonight,” the handsome reporter told the world, “but so far we’ve been unsuccessful in getting any statement from the dean of McCray-Hadley, or from Dr. Melvin Fielding, noted entomologist and current Department Chair, who is also Dr. Morgan’s immediate supervisor.”
“Of course, they don’t have time to make a statement, you idiot!” Maddie yelled at the screen. “They’re too busy trying to figure out how they’re gracefully going to fire me.”
“But we have been fortunate to locate several of Dr. Morgan’s students,” he added and the camera panned to a group of grinning students waving madly at the camera. One boy mouthed “Hi Mom” before the reporter extended the microphone in his direction.
“Are you a student of Dr. Morgan’s?”
