He pressed back into his pillow. "Doc!"
"What?"
Tanner imprisoned her wrist. "I don't think you want to go there."
"Huh?"
"I don't have anything on."
His bare chest suddenly looked all the more exposed, sporting nothing more than his dog tags and a medal nestled in a dusting of golden hair.
"Nothing?" Her wrist screamed with awareness of skin-to-skin contact.
"'Fraid not."
Kathleen tugged her arm free and smoothed her braid, willing her composure to follow suit. "Oh. Well, I'm a doctor, your doctor. It's nothing I haven't seen before in your flight physical."
"Not like this you haven't."
Her hand paused along the back of her head. "Pardon me?"
"Doc. I'm a man. It's morning."
She could feel the color drain from her face until she, as well, no doubt now matched the sheets. "Oh."
"Yeah, oh."
Kathleen looked at the television, the minifridge, the cinderblock walls, anything to keep her gaze from gravitating to where it had no business going. Finally she simply spun on her heel before gravity had its way and her gaze fell straight down.
"Okay, Bennett. Let's find you some sweats." She faced the dresser, rather than the man with a chest as broad as one. "Which drawer?"
"Top shelf of the closet."
Kathleen yanked open the wardrobe door. The musky scent of leather and cedar wafted straight out and into her before she could untangle her thoughts enough to ignore it. His flight suit and jacket dangled from a hook inside the door like a ghostly shadow of the man. Her hand drifted to caress the butter-soft jacket, well-worn and carrying perhaps the slightest hint of his warmth.
What was it about Tanner Bennett? With any other flyer, she would have shrugged the whole thing off while helping him into his boxers.
Not with Bennett. All she could think about was his big, n**ed body under that blanket, and her lack of professionalism infuriated her.
She couldn't have thoughts like this.
Yanking her hand away, she arched up on her toes to reach, searching by touch since she couldn't see into the top shelf. She would pull it together, damn it, get him dressed and turn his case over to Cutter.
And if Cutter let Tanner slide?
Her hands hesitated in their quest. What if Tanner played the friendship card, enabling him to plow back out into combat before he was ready? Her fingers clutched a pair of sweatpants.
Rashes of the battle damage from Tanner's aircraft flashed through her mind—twisted metal. Her medical as well as safety training had stockpiled too many graphic images of wreckage.
Her ex-husband had expected strings pulled. Being married to a flight surgeon entitled him to special treatment, didn't it? Her ex had played that trump card with one of her workmates, and it had almost cost him his life. Thank God, he'd flown an ejection-seat aircraft.
Kathleen knew what she had to do. She understood her job, and no hormonal insanity on her part would interfere with performing her duty for the flyer entrusted into her care.
She yanked free a pair of oversize gray sweatpants and shook them out in front of her as she spun to face Tanner. "Okay, hotshot. Let's get you suited up."
One hundred forty-two.
There were one hundred forty-two ceiling tiles in his sparse infirmary room. Tanner squinted. Or were there a hundred forty-three? The walls wobbled through his mellow haze of drugs.