Authors: M. L. Buchman
“Well, you certainly look good.”
She knew he was just teasing. Her white pants and short-sleeved blouse looked fine under a chef’s jacket, but without the jacket, left her feeling foolish here in the grandeur of the main staircase. Like a teenager who didn’t know how to dress for a date. At least the hot flush that had replaced the night air’s chill had cleared away all of the goose bumps.
“You look great.”
Stunning conversationalist, Emily.
She’d just told the most powerful man in the world that he was hot. But damn, he was. As a teen, he’d been good-looking. Newly elected and married, Senator at twenty-six, he’d rated handsome and dashing. Now… his dark hair was tousled as if he’d just run a hand through it, covering his ears, teasing around his neck. The longest hair of any President in the past few centuries, probably since graying ponytails went out with Andrew Jackson.
Even longer than Mark’s. On Peter, it looked refined; on Mark, it looked dangerous, especially with those gray eyes. Peter’s eyes were dark brown. Funny, for a moment, she’d imagined his eyes were the color of Mark’s. She tore her gaze away.
“It’s good to see you, sir.” Heat rushed to her face. She put her head down, sidestepped the President, and bolted past the blacksuits, down the stairs for safety.
When she’d regained the confines of her room, she closed the door and leaned against it. More out of breath than after a ten-kilometer run. With a pack. A full one.
Washing her face in cold water did little to relieve the heat burning her cheeks. In the mirror they looked as bright as after a day in the desert without sunscreen.
***
Peter watched her trot down the stairs, breezing by Vic and Frank as if they weren’t there. A year in office, and he still wasn’t accustomed to their constant presence. She didn’t even notice. So used to high security in her chosen career that she was oblivious to something as minor as three Secret Service agents.
Emily Beale. The precocious little girl of his memory overlapped only uncomfortably with the reality of the amazing woman he’d just encountered. Her sleeveless blouse had revealed well-toned arms and shoulders, and she’d apparently stopped biting her nails. Her body definitely trim. Shapely in all the right spots. And tall. Almost eye to eye with him. She’d always been such a short little thing as a kid. When did she get so pretty and powerful?
Stunningly powerful when she’d dropped Frank, easily twice her size, right here at his feet on the landing. That had been something to see. Funny, he hadn’t noticed her until she was already planting the agent on his face, but he’d never felt fear, never felt threatened, though she looked fiercely formidable. A missile aimed and on course, to steal a metaphor from her world.
It was odd, rather sad too, that there was a side of her he didn’t know. He remembered the day her parents had brought home the squalling little bundle. He’d been a part of every major event in the first dozen years of her life.
But in the last sixty seconds she’d become two different people. Did this one recall their thousand discussions as children? Or was he part of a past she’d forgotten? She’d come when he needed her, so there had to be some connection still.
He turned and continued up the Grand Staircase toward the residence with his agents in tow.
He could remember the last time he’d heard her voice. After not hearing it for nine years, he had still recognized her voice instantly. The girl grown into the woman’s voice. It had happened on his third trip to the Situation Room as Commander-in-Chief, only his second week in office.
Peter turned right at the head of the Grand Staircase, careful not to look to his left as he headed for the master living room. Katherine had made it clear that the third floor and the eastern stairs were her domain. He didn’t want to admit the relief when she’d declared the second floor his exclusive domain during his second day in office.
He dropped off the guys in the hall as he went into the living room that he’d converted into his office in the residence. He hadn’t bothered to mess with it, upsetting the White House decorator no end. Jim Bruckner, or his wife, had done a fine job with it during his tenure. Peter saw no reason to change the soft leather and wood decor.
He shut the door and they left him blessedly alone. He considered a beer, but they’d be waking him in four hours. He tossed his briefcase full of unread memos on the armchair and pulled an apple juice out of the fridge. He lay down on the sofa, knowing the moment he did so that he’d be spending another night sleeping there.
After kicking off his shoes, he let his mind drift back to that time he’d heard Emily’s voice when he’d been expecting to hear from a combat pilot. An operation to extract a North Korean nuclear scientist had gone south. Badly. Including the backup plan. Barely seconds from losing a whole SEAL team during his third week in office, a pair of SOAR helicopters that had been training nearby swooped in out of the dark and rescued everyone under heavy gunfire. It was a pure fluke that they’d been flying in the Sea of Japan and had saved the entire operation. No injuries except one SEAL shot in the leg. The scientist and his family were safe and very useful.
Then he heard her voice on the report in. No mistaking it; he knew none better. He’d staggered from the room in shock, finding it impossible that his simplest order had sent that little girl into harm’s way.
With memories of Emily Beale kicking around in his brain, he knew sleep would be elusive even at—he checked the mantel clock—1:15 in the morning. He got the best sleep aid he could find in his briefcase, a report on declining fishing off the Kamchatka Peninsula. If it didn’t put him to sleep, at least it would make him stop thinking about that little girl.
That little girl who had just flattened the most senior agent of his entire guard. Hard to believe.
He’d bet Agent Frank Adams had trouble believing it as well.
Mark crossed the carrier’s flight deck to her helicopter. Even here he couldn’t help being reminded of Emily Beale. There sat her bird, perched ever so neatly. All fueled and armed and nowhere to go. It even had her name still stenciled beside the door. He’d told Bronson his command was only temporary so no need to put his name on her bird.
He checked his watch. Ten fifteen in the morning, just after 1:15 a.m. her time. If she was on the East Coast. Her orders had said “stateside,” so that was as good a guess as any. And they’d be parked here for another hour.
He guessed that she was on a Black Ops assignment and would be back as soon as it was done. He hoped he was right. It happened, but this time felt different. He’d always been in the loop before, at least at some level.
You learned to read between the lines of your people’s orders on the rare occasions when you weren’t inside the loop. “Assigned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky,” meant special equipment or tactical training. “Assigned to Fort Rucker, Alabama,” meant extreme flight, probably with specialized night-flight training for a specific mission. “Nellis, Nevada,” put you near remote and unobserved gunnery ranges for practicing high-explosives missions. The mission could then extend to anywhere in the world, but at least you knew the nature of what your people were up to.
“Reassigned stateside, detached” didn’t mean squat. The unknown was killing him. If she’d crossed out of SOAR and into some other type of assignment, who knew if she’d ever make it back.
“And then you kissed her, you asshole.” He whispered it to her Black Hawk. The chance of losing her into that unknown really ate at him. So what had been his totally mature response? To nearly wreck his helicopter with her aboard, then put both of their careers at risk with potential fraternization charges in exchange for seven heart-stopping seconds. Real intelligent.
Then the next thought slammed in and he was glad he wasn’t standing any closer to the edge of the deck and the long fall to the ocean or he might be tempted to throw himself off.
He’d been afraid of what would happen if she didn’t come back? Far more important, what would happen if she did? He’d broken a barrier of trust that he’d spent an entire career crafting, refining, and building ever higher and stronger until a TOW missile couldn’t penetrate its armor.
He’d underestimated the ballistic power of a hurt woman in emotional pain. His mother’s tears had always made him frantic, leaving him madly trying to fix the problem somehow, no matter how far beyond his ability. Even without tears, Emily’s pain had scorched through his hard-won defenses as if they were no more than tissue paper.
“And then you kissed her, you asshole.”
Would she want to come back at the end of her assignment? Would she dare? She’d think he lurked in the shadows now, just waiting to take advantage of the only woman flying in the entire regiment. She’d ask to be reassigned elsewhere, anywhere, “except” with that sexual-harassing viper, Major Mark Henderson.
He shook his head, stopped in his tracks like a bulldog at bay. There had to be a better answer. She belonged here, 3rd Black Hawk Company, 5th Battalion, 160th SOAR. Her crew was here. Her Black Hawk.
And him.
He had to let her know it would be okay.
He couldn’t call her, who knew where she’d landed. But he could write her. Email. She wouldn’t get it right away, especially not if she was in the communications blackout that surrounded most Black Ops. But it would be waiting for her when she came out the other side.
He needed to borrow a computer. He turned his back on her name stenciled across the weapon of war awaiting her return and signaled a handler to get him back across the flight line.
***
Dear Emily, Sorry I kissed you. Your doofus commander.
Yea, that was gonna work great, especially sent from a shared military computer across a military network. Might as well publish it on a bulletin board for his court-martial hearing. Mark deleted the line and tried again.
Dear Emily Beale,
It would be easier if he felt more sorry.
Dear Captain Beale,
He regretted having done it. But he didn’t regret the kiss itself. Her lips had opened to his, blooming in slow welcome. Their mouths had flowed together as if meant for each other. As if designed to be the exact and perfect fit of—
He blinked and glared at the screen.
Captain Beale,
Now what? No clue. He looked around the public comm center. In cubicled rows, sailors on break surfed the Internet, video-chatted with family, watched movies. The guy next to him was trying to get a printout of Penelope Cruz in the surf at the end of Cussler’s
Sahara
.
“C’mon, Clive. Give an old boy a hand.”
Not a word.
Mark stared back at the laptop sitting on the desk. It was the same model she’d shot with such awe-inspiring speed and accuracy. The woman had a grip of iron to bull’s-eye the three shots one-handed and so close together. Like an Old West gunslinger. He was glad he’d glanced into the tent in time to see it.
I wish
He flexed his left hand, could still feel where she’d flipped him yesterday. Stung when he stretched for the
W
key.
I wish to assure you that events occurring prior to your departure were unfortunate, strictly accidental, and shall not be repeated.
There’d been no accident, and how unfortunate was it to have tasted her sweet, sweet mouth? Unfortunate in that it completely overwhelmed his senses even now. He checked his watch. He’d been sitting here for fifteen minutes already. He kept losing chunks of time even imagining her.
He tried once more.
I wish to assure you that the 3rd Company of the 5th Battalion of the 160th SOAR(A) will always honor and treat all of its members equally. I will uphold nonbiased treatment to the limits of my abilities.
Despite your testing those abilities and finding them so lacking.
You will be pleased to hear that the 3rd of the 5th stands ready to honor all men and women who meet the highest standards.
Even if I don’t.
I know that I speak for your crew and the entire 3rd Company when I say that we await your safe return where, as there never was before, there shall never again be any gender-based difference in treatment of the company’s personnel.
He read it again. It was lame. Nothing before or again, just that one royal screwup in the middle.
As before, I will personally ascertain that there will never be any threats to your career or position based on another’s actions.
That was it. The best he could do without spelling it out for everyone to see. When she came off her current operation, when she could once again check email, she’d see his apology and should be able to read his personal promise that he’d never touch her again.
Major Mark Henderson