"How's your 'wife,' man?" Rodeo piped in from the copilot's seat on private interphone.
Jack's hand clenched around the stick. Damned lucky he didn't shoot them off course and more than lucky they were on the secured interphone so Monica couldn't hear them. Just in time, he remembered his buddy was only referring to the maid's reference. "You're a riot."
"Come on, Cobra. Details. I'm going through a dry spell. Your love life's all that's carrying me through."
"Then you're in hurting shape, my man."
"Ah-hh." Rodeo nodded, reaching into his flight bag, pulling out a shrink-wrapped deli package. "You're doing that honorable no-kiss-and-tell thing." He unwrapped the plastic from around his lunch, exposing a corner of a pita bulging with sprouts.
Sprouts? Pita? The guy liked gourmet, but in bulky, meaty helpings. "Nothing to tell. When did you start eating rabbit food?"
"Since Lilly at the Rio's cigar bar offered to make me some at her place." Grinning, he tore off a corner.
"Going through a dry spell, my ass."
Rodeo smirked.
"Lilly? Way to go hanging on to her name."
"Wrote it on my hand," he answered between bites.
Jack snorted, grateful for the shift into safer conversational territory.
Sun glinted off the windscreen, puffy clouds stroking the sky without a hint of murky threats. Perfect weather and atmosphere for flying. No challenge. Boring. He flicked on autopilot.
Rodeo chewed through half his pita. "Coulda knocked me flat when I saw Hyatt walk into the briefing room."
Damn. The guy had a radar lock on the subject. Jack shadowed the moving stick with his hand and stayed silent.
"I thought for sure that woman waiting for you would be someone else. I mean, hell, whatever happened in Vegas a few months ago seemed to end it. Could detonate bombs with the looks you two throw at each other the few times you actually stay in the same room together."
"Okay, okay. I get the picture." She couldn't stand the sight of him. Like he needed a reminder of that. Much more of this and he would be ready to surrender and sign the divorce papers now.
Jack's gaze drifted to the multifunction display. The formation of planes blipped a reminder of how he'd failed to keep her in the States. Good thing that while he could hear her voice on the open frequency, she couldn't hear the private interphone discussion. Even so, time to redirect Rodeo's mental radar. "Like who?"
"Who what?"
"Who did you think was waiting for me?"
Adjusting the five-point harness belting him to the seat, Rodeo settled in for his recounting. "Well, at first I decided she was probably military, because of where we were. Then I remembered how that stripper from Barcelona worked her way into your room last year."
"That was your room."
"Oh, yeah. What about the British kindergarten teacher, uh, what was her name?"
"Elizabeth."
"Yeah, her. Damn, you're good with names. Anyhow, she sure as shit wasn't waiting for me."
Jack couldn't even remember what she looked like anymore since Monica's full lips and green eyes congested his mind. "Haven't seen her in eleven months."
"Well, if Doc's back in the picture and tossing around that 'wife' word—" Rodeo swiped a stray sprout off his flight suit ''—guess somebody should tell the Elizabeths waiting around air shows looking for a flyboy that you're off the circuit for good. I'll have to hang with Joker, and hell, he's no fun. If he ever smiled, his face would crack."
Yet Joker seemed a damned laugh a minute talking to Monica.
Jack shrugged through tension kinks. Damn it, making her laugh was his role. Even if his humor was MIA these days. "You can hold off on corralling Joker to be your designated driver. Monica and I are not back together."
God, if she sniffed out the least hint he planned to use this time to get under her skin for a second chance, she'd run like hell. Figured when he finally opted to drop back into the world of serious relationships, he picked the most skittish woman in the free world.