Explosive Alliance (6 page)

Kirstie hiccupped. "How do you know it's not malaria?"

"You don't have a fever." She smoothed a second wipe over her daughter's cool forehead then along her hands.

"But I feel hot, really hot. How do you know for sure?"

"I'm the mama." She wadded up the wipes and pitched them in the trash—aw, hell, where her glasses were. "I know everything."

What a joke.

"But you said yesterday you don't know how one kid can go through five outfits in a day. So see? You might not know this, neither," she whispered. "I'm gonna hafta go to the doctor."

Patience, she reminded herself. As difficult as this was for her, it was worse for Kirstie. "I'll take your temperature when we get home.
I promise."

Hiccup.
"'Kay."

A lanky shadow stretched over them. Bo. Heat prickled up her neck until she longed to soothe a wet wipe over her skin, too.

"Wanna pass me one of those for my boots?"

She winced and gave him the whole travel container. "Oh, sure. I'm so sorry about this."

"No problem." He knelt, swiping a clean sheen back to black leather. "It wasn't like she could help it.

And this isn't the first time my boots have been thrown up on."

"You're only saying that to make me feel better."

"No way." He stood, tall, taller still until his shadow engulfed her. "I was in Guam a couple of years ago, and we had this great luau that left one of the flyers green the next morning."

Kirstie looked up from Paige's leg. "Did he have malaria?"

"No, Cupcake." He chucked her chin. "Bad swordfish."

Bo leaned past into the trash can, presenting a blurry-but-dog-gone-well-clear-enough image of long legs, lean hips and a perfect butt. Must be the flight suit. It
had
to be the flight suit making him so appealing. Surely he wouldn't look as incredible out of it.

Out of the flight suit? Now there was an image she did not need, since visions in her head were crystal clear.

He straightened, her shattered glasses dangling from between his fingers. "I hope you have a spare set with you."

She stared at her last pair of glasses. It would cost her a hundred bucks she couldn't afford to get new ones. "No spare set, here or at home."

He looked from her to the useless lenses and back to her again. "How blind are you without them?"

"As a bat." Even though she could see him close up, the rest of the flight-line activity faded to fuzzy until his face was
all
she could see. "I'll call my brother to come get us after he lands from his rounds—"

"I'll drive you," he interrupted. "Your brother can give me a ride back to base at his convenience."

An hour together in the truck? She could barely stem her starved hormones on a crowded flight line. An hour alone with him and she would be toast. "I thought you only had the afternoon off."

"I can wrangle more time. The loadmaster and I are good friends. He'll trade shifts for me to give tours of the plane tomorrow."

"Please, don't go to any more trouble." An unwelcome excitement stirred. She would just have to pray her daughter stayed awake in the truck. Fat chance. "I'm sure I'll find someone around here I know."

"Do you really want to drag malaria-girl all around the flight line until you find a ride?"

Did he have to be funny as well as drop-dead hot?

But he had a point. She needed to get Kirstie home. Being a parent meant putting her child's needs first.

And she couldn't shake the shivery fear of seeing her daughter talking with that stranger.

Truth be told, standing next to Bo Rokowsky with his overconfident smile wanned those chills of fear right off her for a blessed moment. She would be independent again in an hour. For now, Kirstie needed Bo Rokowsky.

Paige thrust her keys into his hand and tried to ignore tantalizing, oh-so-adult thoughts of all the different ways
she
could need him.

Bo gripped the steering wheel on the Ford F-250, speeding farther into Dakota farmland. He needed to get Paige and Kirstie settled back at her place before he returned to base and started digging deeper for info about Paige's life here in Minot.

He didn't like it one damned bit how fast that dude behind the moonwalk had faded into the crowd when confronted. Nothing overt, nothing concrete, but still...just wrong. Instincts were there for a reason.

Add in the fact that he was certain Kirstie's pouty-lip act had been covering up something, and he had concerns. After all those years at St. Elizabeth's, he knew kids and their maneuverings inside out.

Kirstie had a secret.

Said secretive kid was now tuckered out and snoozing in the back seat while her mama hugged the passenger door as far away from him as possible. The truck jarred in a pothole, rattling fishing poles in the racks across the back window and rocking Paige closer to the middle. For two seconds, before she scooted back.

How many times would she pretend to keep herself busy with shoving a strand of hair into her bandanna?

He wanted to kick Kurt Haugen's sorry ass all over again for making this woman so wary of men.

Maybe he could put her at ease with conversation. Bo hitched his elbow on the open window, breeze heavy with hints of fresh-mown hay and country hits from the radio.

His fingers tapped along the steering wheel in a tuneless match to the piano in the country ballad. "I'm glad she's okay."

"I hope so."

"Looks to me like she overdosed on hot dogs and fun."

Her hold on the door loosened. She studied him through slightly squinting eyes. "How does a bachelor get to be such an expert on kids?"

"I grew up in an orphanage."

"Oh, my. I'm sorry." A blond lock slithered free again, whipping across her face.

"It was better than home." He looked back to the road, not that he needed much attention keeping the truck lined up on the straight band of two-lane highway. "My parents are dead."

Of course, his father hadn't died until ten years after he'd dumped his burdensome son at St. Elizabeth's, but Paige didn't need to know that part.

"I lost my parents a couple of years ago, heart attack for Dad, stroke for Mom. They were older, since they had their kids later in life, but it still hurt losing them." Her hand inched across the bench seat as if flat out itching to offer him a sympathetic touch. "I can only imagine how tough it must have been for you so young. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. The nuns made great surrogate moms to all of us. And there sure were a lot of nuns. No one lacked for attention. The whole experience gives me some insight to where your kid's coming from though."

Enough of that. The conversation was getting heavier than he preferred, and he definitely did
not
want her looking at him with sympathy.

Staring through the windshield at the stretch of rocky farmland, he searched for a subject change. Not much to pick from, just rows of wheat beside bare fields of rock, grain towers, a couple of barns and endless telephone poles.

He'd have to go with the rocks. "What's up with those piles of stones?"

"Sodbusters pile them up as they plow the fields." Her pretty brown eyes went dreamy. "I used to spend weeks following my dad and brother out in the fields after school and in the summer."

"A hard life?"

Dreaminess fled. "A wholesome one I didn't appreciate near enough."

"Sure would be nice if we could learn those life lessons the easy way, but some of us have to be kicked in the head."

She smiled, a helluva lot better than sympathy.

A tousled blond strand caught on her damp lip. Paige finally gave up restraining her hair and reached behind her head to untie the small bandanna. She shook her blond hair free in a satiny curtain.

Blood slugged through his veins. His grip tightened on the wheel in sync with a tightening farther south.

Pure lust pumped through him. No dodging or denying.

He inhaled three deep breaths of barley-laden air.

She leaned against the door, hair streaming forward unfettered. "I'm sorry about Kirstie's fit back at the base. You didn't sign on for puke-and-tantrum duties with the tour guide gig"

Think about hurling kids. That would help. Right? "No big thing. Like I said before, I've seen worse fits.

Hell, I've pitched worse. And I've definitely hurled on a friend's shoes back in my misspent youth."

Her low laugh whispered over him in the fresh countryside air. "Like you're ancient now?"

So she was evaluating his age. Interesting. "Not any more 'ancient' than you."

"Think again." Her laugh turned to a snort. "I'm certain I have a good six or seven years on you. Besides, in here," she tapped her chest, "I'm over a hundred in life experiences."

Ditto, lady. A great big ditto.

Memories of the crash, capture, later discovering people from his own country had sold him out palled the humor if not the desire right out of him. "Then we're running even."

She glanced at his scarred hands holding the wheel. Still she didn't ask. Respectful of boundaries? Or just afraid he'd take it as an invitation to cross hers?

Her eyes skated away, fixing on the nothing-filled horizon that she undoubtedly couldn't see, anyway, without her glasses. "Kirstie's a smart kid, already reads at a third-grade level. She's been checking out library books on illnesses. She knows how Kurt died—the basics anyway. But she tells everyone he died of this or that disease. I'm taking her to the

school psychologist, who insists that other than an occasional case of the bubonic plague and self-denial, she's a perfectly normal kid."

"You're both handling some heavy crap."

She folded her hands in her lap, scarf bunched in her fists. "Please don't take this the wrong way. I appreciate that you're being nice in checking up on us. And I understand you probably have some 'heavy crap' of your own to deal with after what...my husband—" two hitched breaths later she continued "—

did to you. I wish I could reassure you, but honest to God I'm barely keeping my sanity here, and having you around is not helping."

"It's easier for you to run from me, then?"

"You're mighty judgmental for a man who hasn't walked in my shoes."

He plowed ahead with the conversation as well as the miles. "I'm going to be here for at least a couple of weeks with the broken plane."

Her eyes went wide, big pools of wary brown. "Bo—"

"I'd like to spend time with you and learn more about the treads life put on those shoes of yours."

"Because you're worried about Kirstie losing a parent?"

"Maybe I'm just attracted to you." Where had that come from? What a dumb-ass thing to say guaranteed to spook her. At least she couldn't jump out of the truck, since he had her kid in the back seat.

Her eyes went wider, damn near filling her face. "I'd rather you felt sorry for me."

Now didn't that smack him right down?

But he wasn't giving up. He steered along the narrowing road, her two-story white house breaking the monotony of flat road and fields. A speck appeared beyond and above. A small plane, a Cessna Skyhawk, also known as a Cessna 172. Four-person seating capacity, all-metal single-piston engine.

High-wing monoplane—one long wing over the top of the plane.

His fingers clutched the steering wheel, and he could all but feel the plane's yoke in his grip. His hands and feet yearned to pilot that craft to the ground and adjust the pilot's approach. God, he loved to fly.

Paige's sigh gusted through the track cab. "There's my brother and my house."

Conversation and day over. Yeah, he heard her.

She was that wary of being alone together? In a good or bad way? Before he could follow the thought through to a possibly sensual conclusion, his attention snagged on the tiny craft descending, too fast. The Cessna's nose flared up, too high too soon. Who the hell was flying the plane? A five-year-old?

Obviously some newbie looking to log hours for free. "That's your temporary pilot?"

"Yes." She crossed her arms defensively.

The nose gear hammered the landing strip. No damn surprise. His teeth ached in sympathy for the passenger. The plane bounced back up off the ground before nailing the asphalt twice more. Thank God the plane held together. This time. His determination to see more of Paige, to reassure himself, to find answers jelled into a simple answer that actually promised to be fun.

Purpose set, he threw the track into Park and his determination into overdrive. "You climb in the plane with him and you'll make your daughter an orphan before long."

"He has his license—"

"For a Moped maybe."

Hooking his arm over the steering wheel with a relaxed air, at odds with the anticipation knotting his gut, he shot a smile her way that had won over far tougher cookies than Paige Haugen. And he did
not
need to think about just how soft this tough cookie was, or he could forget about appearing casual. "I'm stuck here for at least two weeks baby-sitting the busted C-17 while they wait for replacement parts, then for Mako to complete the repairs. That will leave me with more than enough time."

Her hitched breath pushed her full breasts tighter against the pretty yellow fabric. "Enough time for what?"

"Time for
me
to be your temporary pilot."

"Whoa. Hold on just one minute. We already have a pilot, but thanks for the generous offer." Paige gripped the truck door in search of some control and steadiness. Bo Rokowsky couldn't actually be proposing he spend two weeks flying her around North Dakota?

"Calling that guy—" Bo stabbed a finger toward the blur of the plane fishtailing down the landing strip "—

a pilot constitutes aviation blasphemy."

"Well, he's licensed." She paused, picking at the frayed knee of her jeans. She glanced back up at the fuzzy image of the plane, the whole yard hazy, thanks to her broken glasses, the world narrowing in focus to just her and this man. "And he's, uh, reasonably priced."

"Nah? Really? I never would have guessed."

"No need to be snarky." She slumped back into her seat amid a symphony of hello-barks from the dogs in the boarding kennels.