Once the door clicked behind him, she allowed herself to move. To breathe.
Swaying from side to side to soothe her baby and perhaps steal a little of that comfort for herself, Julia listened to Zach's truck growl out of her driveway. A part of her grieved over ordering him to leave. Another part of her realized that grief and separation would be short-lived.
"Well, Patrick," she whispered in his tiny shell ear. "I may not have known he climbed oil rigs as a kid. But I've learned more than a little about Zach Dawson during the past eight months."
As good as the man was at giving orders, he could be really rotten at following them.
* * *
"That's an order, Lieutenant," Zach barked over the headset to the copilot, his hand steady as he flew the C-17, in spite of his irritation. Not anger, he reassured himself. Just irritation. Six weeks worth of pent-up irritation building since he'd left Julia's house.
Miles of ocean and sky stretched in front of his windscreen as he piloted the plane back from a two-week training deployment to Guam. He needed to get home to his kids before the sitter lost her mind—and to check on Julia before his head exploded from frustration over her self-imposed exile. "Do you copy, Renshaw? Over."
"Roger, Colonel," answered First Lieutenant Darcy "Wren" Renshaw, the newest addition to his squadron, currently sitting beside him in the cockpit. "But I can pull another hour in the co's seat, no problem."
"I'm sure you can, Renshaw, but you don't have to. An eighteen-hour mission makes for plenty of flight time to go around." His hand tightened around the stick. No yoke steering for the C-17 Globemaster III. The mammoth cargo aircraft possessed the same stick and grace as the A-10 he used to fly. "Head on back to the bunk and sleep. Bronco will relieve you."
Captain Tanner "Bronco" Bennett piped onto the headset from the seat behind Renshaw.
"Hey, Wren, quit grousing and take your turn in the rack so I can have mine next. I'm an old expectant father and I need my beauty sleep."
Renshaw snorted. "I don't think this mission's long enough to help you on that one, Bronco."
"Ouch! Mortal blow to the ego!"
"Yeah, yeah, my heart bleeds for you." She unbuckled and stood. "All yours, Bronco."
Zach waited until Renshaw disappeared through the bulkhead and Bronco strapped his linebacker-sized body into the copilot's seat before pushing the private interphone button.
"How's Wren doing?"
"Good, Colonel. Real good. Makes my job as aircraft commander a cakewalk. She's a damn fine copilot, fits right in with the rest of the crewdogs. If anything, she tries too hard. Probably feels the need to live up to that impressive Air Force pedigree of hers."
"Could be."
Renshaw's father had called to check on his "little girl" just last week, tossing those general's stars around to make sure his baby was being careful in Guam. Zach cared more about his people than stars. Renshaw didn't need cosseting. She deserved the chance to prove herself and advance her career.
Julia's voice echoed in his mind with her insistence she didn't need his help.
Zach shrugged off the thought. Different matter altogether. "Glad to hear she's working out."
Settling into the comfort of routine and silence broken only by the occasional radio call buzzing over the headset, Zach flew. Just flew. Nothing like it—him, his plane and miles of sky.
Flying across the Pacific provided an extra thrill of isolation. With Atlantic flights, a landing site could always be found within two hours. Other planes crowded the Atlantic airways. Not so over the broader Pacific. The wide expanse of ocean offered complete freedom from the rest of the world.
Zach inched the stick left, nipping the plane closer to the clouds flicking past. Tighter, he slipped alongside a cloud.
Hugging a cloud allowed him to gauge visually how fast he flew, optimizing the awesome effect of hurtling through the sky. One of his favorite flying games.
God, he loved his plane. Not many people had a hundred-and-twenty-five-million-dollar toy to take for a spin, complete with all the latest bells and whistles. He'd come a long way from his teenage years scavenging rides off anything with wings to log flight hours.
Gliders. Crop dusters. Even hiring out to make runs for the local coroner.
Anything to touch the clouds.
Closer. Closer. Closer he inched until his wingtip disappeared into the nimbus.
"Colonel." Bronco's voice slid through the headset and Zach's concentration. "Could we switch back to private interphone?"