The dump truck rolled to a stop, jerked, shifted into reverse and repositioned until it idled, butt facing the pit. Gardner's insistent questions gained speed while an airman stalled with excuses of interrupted satellite feed.
Jack couldn't escape the cold sense of kinship with Gardner, since he knew too well the nightmare of being helpless while the woman he loved died. Even if this wasn't Sydney, there would still be an endless wait until the Predator could pick up fresh footage of her or the SEALs risked slipping in to check.
As much as he tried to tell himself that Tina had been fragile and Monica was the strongest woman he'd ever met, the current situation unfolding in front of his eyes reminded him everyone was vulnerable sometime.
And women were most especially vulnerable here. >Crusty's smile fled. The bag crumpled in his hand. Brown eyes hardened to a lethal flatness of a predatory male who would kill to protect his own. "Yes."
His protective urges were admirable. Once he and his wife had babies of their own, they would never be left vulnerable.
Of course his territorial manner was dangerous for her at the moment. There were many things she would consider doing to protect herself, but endangering a child did not number among those alternatives. Of course he did not know that and she would have to reassure him if she expected any further conversation. "I know Monica and her major told you about my midnight walks. I heard you on the phone."
His stance relaxed slightly, but not totally. "With the time change, it's easier on my wife if I call during the night here. I don't like to disturb her sleep."
"That is very thoughtful of you." Not all men were as sensitive to a woman's comfort. Was his wife ill? Or was he genuinely that considerate a husband? She continued to stroll in an effort to give her questions a less obvious air. "And your boys would be awake then, too. Children can be so grumpy when their schedules are disrupted."
As she had well learned during her annual childhood flights to America. Just when she lost the foggy feeling, she found herself on the return flight to Rubistan.
Crusty swept a palm branch out of the way for her to pass. "Do you have children?''
"No." A fact she mourned would never happen, but did not want a husband that would come with the baby.
Since Crusty did not seem likely to budge on his tight-lipped protective stance in talking about his family, she shifted her attention from the rumpled pilot to her spiky-haired escort from the OSI.
"What about you? Do you have someone at home to call?"
At her question, Max Keagan jerked, his sea-green eyes widening. Like a man being stalked, he stepped back from the perceived predator.
A giggle bubbled, but she suppressed it. "No need to worry." She angled closer. "I do not have designs on your neon-green shirt."
No, sir. Her attention gravitated toward desert camouflage these days. Surely only in her imagination could she distinguish his deep rumble from the collective swell of masculine voices drifting from a hundred yards away.
"I have a fiancee."
"Congratulations." She sagged back against a palm tree trunk. "When is the wedding?"
"No firm date, yet."
Not a chatty man, and she could not hide from the fact she wanted an excuse to stay out here where she could see the Colonel.
Crusty stepped into the conversational hole. "His fiancee is also in the military." He offered bare essentials. "Scheduling is hell. My guess is we'll all get about ten minutes notice that they're ready to get hitched."
Crusty's comment elicited the first grin from the spiky-haired man. "There are plenty of folks who would pay good money to see me in a tux. Wonder if they make pineapple-patterned cummerbunds?"
Yasmine laughed, couldn't help herself after so long of holding back from any kind of emotion. With restraints lowering, thoughts of opposites blending filled her mind, uniform and unconventional, different worlds coexisting.
Silk scarves and starched uniforms mingling.
A shiver tickled through her at the sensual image. And for a moment in the middle of a stark airfield, she let herself dream and laugh.
Drew planted his boots to prep himself as more of Yasmine's laughter drifted in the gritty wind. Sure as shit, that tinkling sound slammed into him with all the force of a grenade.
Watching her flirt with the two younger men while he tried to listen to a captain detailing a duty roster, Drew told himself he didn't give a damn. He reminded himself this should be exactly what he wanted, hell, had even asked for since telling her to take her scarves and all-out smile elsewhere.
She hadn't stopped turning up anywhere he found himself, but she no longer spoke to him. A whole twenty-four hours and he was already pouting like a kid.
He closed his eyes, pressed his forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. If only he could stop seeing a rose silk scarf in his head.
Rose? The sun must be cooking his brain, a common enough occurrence around this woman.