She shrugged. "I'm airborne qualified. So what if I like to keep my skills from getting rusty? It's not like you haven't trained for it, too."
"To learn how to get my butt on the ground if the plane won't put me there. Certainly not for kicks." A guy had to have some corner of peace in his life. It couldn't always be about the battle. "This job is dangerous enough, thank you very much. There's nothing wrong with tossing the ball around or sharing a beer with friends in your spare time."
Kathleen stomped ahead. He sure had her talking. Not surprising he'd managed to fire her up in the process. Of course, that was easier than a routine landing.
He pinched the bridge of his nose along the twice-set crook and forced himself to think rather than just react, to remember that his impulsiveness had lead to those breaks.
How could she not know how much the flyers respected her? Yeah, she was prickly, but everyone liked her. She was the one who turned down invitations to join the "flyer games." But damn it, the invitations were there.
Yet she wanted a name.
He'd wondered before how she relaxed, how she let down from the job stress, and now he understood. She didn't, not really. Asking her wasn't enough. She needed a shove to join the fun.
"You know this puts a real crimp in any holiday plans we may have had. Even if we luck into a ride, we're still not going to get home by Christmas." At this rate, they would be lucky to get out of the desert at all, but he wouldn't share that cheery thought with her. "What do you say we do something together? What did you do for Christmas last year?"
"Signed my divorce papers." She continued to pound the sand with her determined steps.
Tanner flinched. He'd landed his size-fourteen foot soundly on a land mine with that one. "That sucks."
"Not as bad as having your husband walk out at Christmastime the year before."
More than a lone land mine, he'd uncovered a whole minefield. Shoulder to shoulder, he walked beside her toward the crumbling adobe church. Silently. What could he say to fix it, anyway?
And why couldn't he just leave it alone? It wasn't his problem to fix.
Except he knew too well how a loss during the Christmas season killed the holiday spirit for years to come. He didn't make a big mourning deal out of it, but the pail hung there all the same.
He'd been relieved when his mom had finally married a few years ago. She'd found a good man who took her away for the holidays. No cookies-by-the-fireplace family traditions, they'd started a fresh slate of memories that didn't evoke those of the past.
Maybe that's what Kathleen needed, a change of holiday pace to set her life on a new course.
She'd always been a loner, but there was an aloofness to her now, more so than during their Academy days. He'd wondered why, finally concluding she'd just grown more uptight over the years. Now he wondered if he'd been wrong.
Kathleen wasn't aloof so much as wary. A cheating husband would do that to a woman, no doubt. Especially one who put as high a price on honor as Kathleen did. Yeah, that ex of hers had done a real number on her.
Of course, a person only had the power to hurt someone if she cared about him. A lot That Kathleen might still be hung up on her ex shouldn't bother him. But it did.
What was he thinking, anyway? How did he expect to give her some Christmas to remember in the middle of the freaking desert? A fitting setting, no doubt, for a couple of Scrooges hoping to escape the Ghost of Christmas Past
If the cold and coyotes didn't get them first.
Chapter 11
Darkness hugged her like an indigo blanket, pain thickening the texture to more of suffocating wool. Kathleen trudged the last few feet toward the crumbling mission. Silhouetted by the moon and a dome of desert stars, the russet stucco church would provide them with shelter for the night.
Thank goodness Tanner had given up trying to make her talk an hour ago. Silently he strode beside her. She didn't have the energy to devote to anything other than keeping pace with the steps he set. Steps she knew he'd adjusted for her, and man did that gall her.
For once, however, she didn't have the will to argue. It was damned embarrassing to he this wasted from what should have been a simple day's hike.
Her head throbbed from the accident. She didn't know about the rest of her, because she couldn't think about anything other than her aching temples. Too bad there wasn't likely to be a bottle of Motrin stored away inside the abandoned building.
A small portion of her brain still operated as a doctor. That little corner of reason told her she should have stopped an hour ago. Not that she really had a choice. She couldn't lie down and sleep on the desert floor while the night cold and coyotes tore at her.
She definitely wouldn't ask Tanner to carry her. Even if she didn't have his back to consider, pride wouldn't let her.
Rather like a thickheaded pilot on the flight line a couple of weeks ago.
Oh, great. Now that little corner of her brain was insisting on being reasonable, as well.