He'd enjoyed the hell out of building a fence for Tiffani's watchdog. Stepping in to coach Candi's son's T-ball team had been a blast.
Then the relationships fizzled when there wasn't a project to hold them together. No problem to fix.
And when the investigation ended, there would be nothing left to tie him to Kathleen.
His fist closed around the keys. If she knew he was secretly keeping an eye out on her, he suspected she might hang him with the few remaining ties they had left.
Maybe if she tied him up…
Walking into the hangar, she stifled a laugh at the very un-Kathleen thought.
Maybe she could just gag him. The guy wouldn't stop talking about the investigation, planning their time together down to the microsecond.
The Air Force had received enough of her efforts for one day. Tomorrow would bring work soon enough.
Putting off work for some kind of social life made for another un-Kathleen thought. Of course an airplane hangar with halogen lights wasn't the traditional nightlife seduction setting, but their rooms back at the Edwards Inn seemed too cliché.
She stifled her inner voice insisting she'd chosen the hangar as a safer, less intimate location.
No, dammit! They both wanted this. Tanner had made his desire very clear at the adobe mission. And heaven help her, she wanted him too—only him—so very much.
Tanner tucked his hands into his back pockets. "Where do you want to start?"
God, she didn't know. So much for being in control of her actions. It had been so long since she'd done this. Not since her divorce, and only once before she'd met Andrew.
Kathleen shoved thoughts of her ex firmly away. He had no place in her life, in her decisions, or in this moment. "Let's sit up front in the cockpit, talk through the case and what we've come up with so far."
"You're calling the shots tonight."
Yes, sir, she was. Kathleen charged through the belly of the plane into the narrow stairwell leading up to the cockpit. Climbing the ladder, she was too aware of the view she presented Tanner. If she was this nervous about him just looking at her, the night wasn't going to play out well at all.
Kathleen scurried up the ladder and plopped into the right-hand seat. Dipping his head, Tanner tucked his shoulders sideways as he cleared the bulkhead, but didn't sit. "That's the copilot's seat. You're in my place."
"Hmmm, so I am." She pointed to the aircraft commander's seat on the left. "That one will be yours in a few weeks. Might as well break it in."
Would he think of her, of this night, when he climbed into that seat for real? The thought brought a heady rush of power. He'd held such sway over her thoughts for so long. How odd to think she could do the same for him.
Settling into the bucket seat, he exhaled, long and slow. His hands skimmed over the control panel with reverence. His fingers wrapped around the stick, muscles in his arm flexing as he began his pseudo flight ritual she'd come to recognize.
"Do you know that you go through the motions of flying even when you're not in the plane? Like when we're in the car or sitting in a restaurant."
He shot her a smile even as his feet gravitated to the rudders. "It's called chair flying. Sort of like air guitar."
"Really? I thought it was something you did unconsciously."
"Sometimes. Other times it's deliberate. Before every flight I sit in a chair, usually at my kitchen table. I spread the chart out in front of me and fly through every step, every radio call. Hands and feet. Stick and rudders. I go through the motions."
"What about lately, when you don't have a flight scheduled?"
"I relive old ones, think through them and analyze for ways I could have tightened the mission." Staring straight ahead, he extended both legs until his feet rested firmly on the rudders.
What did he see in his mind's eye? He continued to fly, almost as if in defiance of the forces that grounded him.
"Where are you flying now?"
Stopped midflight, he pulled his hand from the stick, palm up and studied it as if he'd even caught himself unaware. "Last summer. In Sentavo. The mission to airlift the war orphans out."
"That was one helluva save. Word has it the whole crew's been put in for Distinguished Flying Crosses."