"You haven't let me go anywhere alone except the bathroom since we stepped out of the cab."
He shuffled, paused to look around, then faced her with narrowed eyes. "An international airport is a dangerous place for any military person. Might as well paint a bull's-eye on our backs for terrorists."
Reinforcing Tanner's warning, cops lined the walls, nothing unusual for the airport, but it still gave Kathleen pause even understanding the risks. Armed police forces in green uniforms and jackboots carried machine guns over their shoulder. Guns with the paint worn off as if they'd been used. Often.
"You've been protecting me from unknown terrorists?" She couldn't decide whether to be irritated, amused … or oddly touched.
He shrugged, almost masking a slight wince. The movement knocked his jacket askew, leaving his left lapel flipped up. She knew she should just tell him.
Should.
Instead, her hand crept up and smoothed the coarse, warm fabric. A slow swallow slid down his neck. "Kathleen…?"
"Your, uh, lapel."
"Yeah, right. Thanks."
She resented like hell the nervous twitters buzzing through her. "It's just strange seeing you like this, I mean not in a flight suit."
Tanner ran a finger along his shirt collar. "Gotta admit, I prefer the bag myself. But this is safer."
"Safer? Ah, a businessman disguise. I guess I never thought about it in that much detail."
"Too many deployments for me not to think about it. I can't do much about the haircut, but I make changes where I can." His palm fell to rest over her fingers that still gripped his jacket.
Heat crawled up Kathleen's face. Oh, God. Had she really left her hand there all that time? "Thanks for worrying. But I'll be fine."
He didn't move.
"I don't need a baby-sitter." She yanked her hand from beneath his, her wrist still tingling from a touch no longer there.
Tanner eyed a passing couple in trench coats. Muscles rippled with tension beneath his coat until the couple passed—a baby gurgling and waving from the man's backpack kiddie seat. Kathleen sagged against the wall with relief, then stiffened.>Tanner frowned, sweeping a hand over his face to clear away the Demerol fog. "Sir?"
"Morale is the glue that bonds a unit. And when there's a problem in that department, say infighting among my officers, especially in front of my enlisted folks, it needs to be addressed."
Their flight line incident. Cutter had said it was the story of the day, apparently for everyone. Icy prickles started up Tanner's back that had nothing to do with pinched nerves.
The commander pinned Tanner with his deceptively easygoing stare. "Bennett, what's the first thing I do when I've got dissenting fliers who need to establish camaraderie?"
Those icy prickles turned into a veritable shower. He knew where this was headed, and it didn't bode well for either of them.
"Well, Captain?"
Tanner voiced the inevitable. "You send them TDY as a group."
Dawson shot him a thumbs-up worthy of Caesar at gladiator games. "Exactly. A little temporary duty together is just the ticket."
Kathleen's light gasp tugged Tanner's gaze. Every last drop of color drained from her already pale face until freckles he'd never noticed popped along her pert nose.
Lt. Col. Dawson continued as if Kathleen's telling gasp hadn't slipped free. "Get away from the rest of the squadron. Work together. Ride together. Eat together. Play together. Spend every waking hour with each other until things settle out."
It wasn't the waking hours that worried Tanner. "And what will be our official function during this TDY?"
"I'm sending you two to check out a C-17 accident. Put all that money spent sending you to safety school to good use."
"Crash? I heard something about one on the news earlier. No details released though." Tanner shed his own concerns, nothing in comparison to a crash in their small and tight flyer community. Any accident was personal. "Did anyone die?"
"No fatalities."