Max forced his breathing to stay even. "I liked old sitcoms as a kid. Lost in Space. Gilligan's Island. I Love Lucy." Enough about him. Time to turn it around. "What was your favorite show as a kid?''
"Hogan's Heroes, of course. While Dad was stationed overseas, we could only get old sitcoms on the base network." Her eyes clouded and she studied her boots until Lucy shooshed again. Darcy's head popped up, her ready smile crinkling her nose again. "But we're not talking about me. Come on. Don't stop now. Why did you settle on Lucy and Ethel rather than, oh, maybe Ginger and Mary Ann or Judy and Penny Robinson?"
Max considered shutting her down with a curt response but couldn't bring himself to douse the animated twinkle in her eyes.
What would it hurt to answer a question that had no bearing on his mission? She would be returning to her home base in days, anyway. "Lucy had this loud cry that made me think of those Lucy tears. You know, that wide-open-mouth cry." He palmed the fiberglass side. "She's temperamental, but she's affectionate. Ethel is the practical one."
He glanced down the belly of the plane where his assistant sprayed the other dolphin. Perry enjoyed disguises, the bow tie being his latest inspiration. Not a field agent, just CIA support personnel adding technical expertise, Perry helped with medical maintenance and setting up the physical environment for the dolphins.
A damned important job, especially with the dolphins' impending release after they completed the underwater search. Max pinched the bridge of his nose absently.
Darcy's eyes narrowed. "Hmm."
"Hmm what?"
"You're frowning."
"I'm concentrating." Or trying to, anyway.
"It's not that kind of frown."
"Frowns come in types?"
"Sure they do. You study nuances of communication, don't you?" Her body language left no room for misunderstanding as she twirled a lock of her hair. "Well, there are definite nuances to frowns. There's the mad frown. Furrows in the brow dropping low over the eyes. Mouth drawn tight."
Darcy demonstrated with an enticing dichotomy of naivete meets femme fatale. She circled her lips with her finger until Max ached to replace that finger with his own mouth.
Lowering her hand, Darcy pointed across the plane. "Tag over there's giving your assistant one of those frowns right now for almost bumping the load-ramp controls."
Uninterested in looking at Perry or Tag, Max folded his arms over his chest and let her talk. Not that he seemed to have much of a chance of stopping her, anyway. "Okay, I'll buy into that one. What about other frowns?"
"Then there's the megaworried frown. Long furrows on the brow. Jaw thrust forward just a bit." She scrunched her face into a scowl, this time forgoing the attention to her lips, thank God. "The frown my dad gave me this one particular time right before I headed out the door."
"Been there. Seen that one on my old man's face enough times during my teenage years."
"I was twenty-two."
"Hell, Lieutenant," Max said, welcoming the distraction from full lips and flight-suit zippers. "Where were you going? Mars?"
"Pilot training."
There was a story there, no doubt, and he didn't want to hear it. Hearing it would bring her closer, make her more real. Not smart, chump. "All right, we've got the mad frown." Max counted one and two with his fingers. "And the worried frown."
"There's another one."
His instincts blared a warning. Ambush ahead. "Another one?''
She nodded slowly, then hesitated until he thought she might not answer after all. Finally her eyes gleamed with a battlefield determination Max suspected she'd inherited from her old man.
"An interested frown," she continued. "The kind you give someone when you're checking them out but you're not quite sure what to think yet. The forehead still furrows, brows pull together. Head tilts to the side. The mouth isn't tight this time. It's more relaxed."
Darcy lifted a ringer to her lips, not quite touching, and swirled the air around them again. She wore that checking-out frown long after her hand fell away. Well beyond the time needed for a simple demonstration.
Max prayed for air. Breathing became a damned near impossible task. He might as well have been one of his dolphins, forced to regulate every pocket of oxygen entering and leaving his body.
He was totally turned on and she hadn't even touched him.
Then her face cleared, forehead smoothed, lips moved. He made himself listen.