Private Maneuvers (Wingmen Warriors 4)

Gross, but vengefully reassuring.

"Wow, Wren. If this Air Force gig doesn't work out for you, maybe you should consider a career as an exterminator."

"Probably pays better." Darcy forced the light-hearted answer.

"You okay?"

She examined the bite. Two tiny puncture marks. Red but not swollen, they seemed benign enough. "Positively zippy."

Darcy eased her boot off the spider.

She hated bugs. Truly hated them with a passion born of smothering fear. Not that she would ever admit such a wimpy feminine weakness to the rest of the aircrew. Survival training after flight school had been hellish with all the creepy-crawlies, but at least she'd steeled herself to expect them. Being caught unaware, however, sucked.

The headset crackled again. "Well, Crusty," Bronco called, "who do you have flying now, the loadmaster?''

Darcy depressed the interphone button. "Just a little upset in the cockpit thanks to a surprise stowaway."

"Little, my aunt Emmy Sue!" Crusty barked. "A nasty ol' Guam spider crawled out of Renshaw's bag and bit her."

"Spider?" Cutter interrupted from the other plane, his serious doctor tones overriding more easygoing pilot tones. "What kind?"

"A dead one." Darcy eyed the glob of spider pate by her boot. The latest of many she'd stomped in the past week. There'd obviously been some kind of insect infestation since she'd been here last, either that or she'd become a bug magnet.

"Damn it," Cutter clipped through the headset. "Quit playing around and describe the thing to me."

Fear tingled up her spine like an encore spider bite. Most of the bugs on the island weren't poisonous. Right?

Darcy whipped off her glove and swept up her cuff to examine the two puncture wounds more closely. "I was too busy shaking the thing off to do a scientific classification, but I guess it was about the size of a fifty-cent piece. Hairy. Kind of colorful, green and brown. A red stripe maybe."

Cutter's sigh drifted over the headset. "Okay, no sweat, that sounds like an Orb-Web spider."

"Which is good?"

"Yeah. Mean-looking fella with long fangs for a big-time bite, but harmless otherwise," he clipped through the prognosis. "Just to be on the safe side, though, let's scratch the touch-and-gos and do a full stop so I can take a look at that bite."

Relief soothed the sting to her nerves as well as her skin.

"Sure, whatever you think's best, Doc." Darcy kept her voice steady, sinking back in her seat while Crusty and Bronco called in the adjusted landing schedule to the flight tower.

Darcy willed away the residual hum of nerves. The spider was dead, and she wasn't a kid in a prison cell being taunted by her captors. Bugs and snakes may have immobilized her into silence then, but she wasn't thirteen anymore.

She forced herself to drag her boot over the dead spider again. No, she wasn't a child anymore. But she'd sure as hell been acting like some adolescent around Max Keagan. Time to take responsibility for her actions and clear the air.

Darcy staunchly shushed the little voice telling her she was only making excuses of another kind to see him because she was rattled and needed a distraction.

She stared out the windscreen, watching Max guide the boat along the shoreline. Talking to him would be the wise and mature thing to do. She might be drop-dead tired, but she had a feeling sleep wouldn't be peaceful tonight anyhow.

Once Cutter gave her the medical all-clear, she definitely saw a swim and an apology in her future.

Chapter 5

So much for the day's swim. Max steered the boat away from the dolphin pen, toward the secluded cove where he docked his boat. A school of fish streaked alongside in a rainbow stream of color. He'd already penned the restless dolphins early at the University of Guam facilities due to the incoming storm. Fruitless searches frustrated the animals as much as their trainer.

He reminded himself that eliminating locales could be considered progress. He'd accepted early on the search could take weeks. Yet somewhere between the briefing room in San Diego and the airstrip in Guam the wait had become unacceptable. He wanted to clear this case and clear his mind of a certain tempting lady pilot. Soon.

No matter how many times he told himself Darcy Renshaw wasn't his problem, he couldn't stop keeping tabs on her the past week. He didn't have a concrete reason for the niggling apprehension. Probably had more to do with testosterone than any threat.

Except he'd lived undercover too long to ignore the value of following his instincts. Even if Lurch hadn't reported anything suspicious, Max's instincts told him to watch out for Darcy until she got the hell off the island. Damn it, there was a traitor on the inside, all the more reason to rely on no one.