Kathleen inched forward, mentally kicking herself for thoughts that bordered on petty. Tanner wasn't a bar hound collecting a different bimbo every week like some crew dogs, such as her ex-husband or Lance Sinclair before he married. Gossip and her own observations revealed Tanner had a relationship pattern.
She didn't want to ponder overlong on why she'd bothered to listen to gossip about his love life.
All stories ran the same path. He held steady for six months to a year. Then one of them broke it off for any number of lame reasons.
Another common thread ran through it all. The Brandi, Tansi, Candi types were all needi—needy. And no doubt about it, Tanner was a man who thrived on watching out for people. His protectiveness in the German airport had only been a sampling.
Kathleen had been born taking care of herself. She'd never needed rescuing, except for two brief moments. Once when she'd fallen out of a tree as a kid and sprained her wrist, and later in a rock climbing accident that had left her with a broken ankle. Both times the helplessness had been hell.
Much like Tanner must have felt in the infirmary.
The thought blindsided her, tangling her feet for a startled moment. Who would have expected she could find a common bond with Tanner Bennett?
They approached the cheery flight attendant by the cockpit. The woman bestowed an extra bright smile with her "bye-bye" for Tanner.
He ducked to clear the airplane doorway, barely disguising his wince. Kathleen resisted the urge to stroke a comforting hand over his broad back. He would likely accuse her of plotting another hospital stay.
So what if her name didn't end with a sweet and softening i? That didn't mean she couldn't offer a little compassion when someone deserved it.>She didn't answer, didn't even twitch or move to acknowledge she'd heard him. But her gaze stopped scanning from side to side along the page. Slowly she slid her glasses off and turned to him, her eyes wary. "Sure."
His stomach took another large bite out of itself. "Really?"
"Of course. I spent four years of my life there."
"Yeah." Not what he was looking for in the way of a response, but then O'Connell had never been easy. "I remember sharing a couple of them with you."
"Uh-huh." Cool professionalism plastered itself right over the wariness. Kathleen shoved her glasses back on her nose. She whipped a file from the bottom of the stack and dropped it in his lap. "Check out the crew's training reports while I review their seventy-two-hour histories prior to the crash."
"Okay." He opened the file and thumbed through the pages. Determination kindled within him, fueling the same competitiveness that had carried him across the goal line more than once.
It was only the first down. Be patient. Hang tough. Wait for the opening.
He read through the contents of the thin manila folder, then thumped the stack of papers in front of him. "Training reports look good. The copilot busted a check ride two years ago, only hooked the test on something minor, though, nothing reckless enough to wave a major red flag about."
"Isn't the copilot kind of young?"
"Compared to me? Yeah. But I pulled time as a C-130 navigator first." Which made him all the more anxious to speed through the upgrade from right-seat copilot to aircraft commander flying left seat. He had to establish an uncomplicated working relationship with her to prove his professionalism to the Squadron Commander.
Tanner stacked the training reports and slid them inside their folder. Time for his next play, a surprise sweep around to her blind side. "It'll be good to see ol' Crusty again once we get to California. Remember how he used to catch hell from you about his sloppy uniform?"
"Uh-huh." She plopped another file in his lap. "Take a look at the pilot's seventy-two-hour history. It says here Crusty only ate burgers and dill pickles for two days before the flight. That seems odd, like he's forgotten something. Who eats nothing but burgers and pickles?"
Second down. Stopped short of the ten-yard gain. Damn it, he would make all the time in the world for the case, after he got one thing settled.
With her head bowed over the file on the seat between them, he could see a third color threading through her hair. A deeper shade of copper mixed in with the red and gold. She glanced up. Her blue eyes shone as clear as the sky whipping past that tiny window, taunting him with a small peek when he wanted the wide open expanse.
"Bennett? Burgers and pickles?"
He regained his footing before he lost critical yardage. "Oh, uh, yeah. Crusty's a bachelor. That probably explains it."
"If you say so." She scribbled a note on the top corner and flipped the page as a mother and toddler eased out of the seat in front of them.
Tanner shifted his legs from the aisle to let a woman hurry her child toward the bathroom. Minimal privacy established, he stretched his legs again. "Back at the Academy, whenever Crusty saw you coming, he would untuck his shirt or scuff his shoes, anything to catch your attention. Sure enough, you would stop and chew him out. He really had a thing for you."
"Apparently, he got over it."
Time to press. "He had to get over it. The whole doolie-upperclassman taboo."
Her hands faltered. The paper shuffling stopped, and he thought he had her. Finally she would say something about the night that should have gotten them both kicked out of school.