Jump Start (Texas Hotzone 1)

“I think the point should really be—you need to feed me sometime soon,” she argued.

“Just like old times.” He laughed, remembering eating out with Jennifer at their favorite spots. The little Mexican place on Lamar Boulevard, the cafeteria on Research Avenue. The Chinese place next door to it. “I promise to feed you as soon as we get our tickets and our seats.”

“I’ll go grab us some food while you register, so we don’t miss the show,” she suggested.

He reached for his pocket to give her money. She sidled up to him, her hands on his hips, body pressed close. “I don’t want your money,” she said. “You buy the show tickets. I can cover the cost of the food.”

His hand slid up her back. “I invited you, Jen.”

“Save the macho routine for the bedroom,” she chided. “Or wherever else we might…enjoy one another. But if you try to give me your money, I reserve the right to punch you, and I most certainly will.”

“Wasn’t it ‘throw’ something at me?” he asked.

“If you prefer,” she said agreeably. She gave him a short, no less alluring, kiss, before turning on her heels, and then sashayed her cute little curvy ass toward the barbecue pits. Bobby’s gaze lingered on her a moment before he laughed and shook his head, heading into the building.

A shot of instant, cool air rushed over him as he stepped into the tiled lobby of the facility, a long, counter-style, built-in desk as the centerpiece. Behind it, several desks and file cabinets scattered an open bull-pen setting. A few last-minute ticket buyers crowded the thirty-something brunette behind the counter.

Bobby held back, watching and listening, patiently making use of the wait to evaluate the operation.

The phone rang and a man dressed in a burnt-orange flight suit appeared from somewhere in the back and snagged the line. A second later, the man shouted, “I need Rocky, Shari!”

The brunette eyed him over her shoulder. “Join the club,” she said. “And do I look like the man’s keeper?”

“There won’t be any show to sell tickets to if we don’t find him,” the man blasted back.

One of the customers piped up at that. “No show?!”

The brunette grimaced. “Ignore him,” she said. “He dramatizes when he wants attention.” Then over her shoulder again. “He’s in Zone 2 with Rick.”

“What?” the man said. “Rick should be in the air by now!”

The woman waved him off and handed a customer tickets. “Better get a seat. The show’s about to start.”

Bobby advanced farther into the lobby, his mind racing with options that would allow him to pursue the man in the flight suit to Zone 2 before he was out of sight, impossible to locate.

He slid money onto the counter. “I’ll take two tickets,” he said. “Don’t suppose there’s a restroom I can use?”

The woman snatched the money without looking up. “Outhouse is in the parking lot—”

“I have reservations tomorrow,” he said. “For four.”

Her gaze lifted and lingered on Bobby. “Far right corner behind me, but make it snappy.”

Bobby rounded the counter with a murmured “thank you,” in pursuit of Zone 2, when he should have been outside with Jennifer. Where he really wanted to be. Proof that it was all or nothing with Jennifer. He was in the Army, or he was out, in her life, or out. Considering he was leaving her to fend for herself, and was forbidden from explaining his mission to her, even if he wasn’t worried it would put her at risk, he had a feeling he was going to be out. Bobby was doing a good job of staying in the doghouse, instead of finding a way to make sure that Jennifer knew the Army wasn’t home—she was “home.”

12

BOBBY REACHED THE rear of the building and the door that said Men and kept walking straight to the exit sign. He slipped out the back. Nothing but unlit dirt landscape separated the two buildings and several airplane hangars.

The shadowy figure of the man he was following stalked toward the hangar Bobby assumed to be Zone 2. Bobby flattened himself against the wall, patiently waiting for the right time to pursue but avoid notice. The instant the man disappeared into the hangar, Bobby was on the move, closing the distance with practiced, stealthy speed.

Angry male voices lifted in the air as Bobby approached the open back doors. As he had before, he flattened himself against the wall, and then listened.

“Look, Rocky,” a familiar male voice said. Bobby recognized it as belonging to the man he was following.

“Look, my ass, Gavin,” Rocky growled, as Bobby inched around the corner to bring the two men, both in flight suits, into view. Rocky, who Bobby knew to be thirty-four and two years a civilian, was still in battleready physical condition, clean-shaven, his jaw set tight. He had something in his hand by his side, as he continued, “You adjusted the odometer on the plane. Why?”