Merry Christmas.
Happy Hanukkah.
Bah, humbug.
A grin twitched, cracking along his frozen face already dry and raw from days of exposure during training. Chuckles rumbled, drawing icy air into his lungs. He laughed, anyway. Long. Hard. Echoing through the pines. Why not? His personal life was so screwed up, there was nothing left to do but laugh.
Alicia unhooked her snowshoes from her gear and began fitting them to her mukluks. "Nice to know I amuse you."
"Well that's an egocentric thought. What makes you think I'm laughing at you?" He was too busy laughing at himself for panting after this woman until even sub-zero weather and an impending divorce couldn't cool him.
"Don't see anyone else around."
Like he needed reminding of that. Damn. He definitely wanted to bail out of more than an aircraft right now.
But this course was too important to half-ass. A military flyer's life consisted of constant refresher training, such as annual updates on his initial combat and water-survival classes. Compared to three weeks of eating bugs in the wilderness or being dumped alone in a shark-infested bay for a full day, this should be a piece of cake.
Keep it light. Easy. Pretend they hadn't ripped each other's hearts out.
Straightening, Alicia stomped her feet to test the fit of her snowshoes. "Let's not waste energy talking.
We need to focus on finding the pickup point before those clouds overhead unload. I just want to sleep, eat, wake up. Get home in time to call my family and wish them merry Christmas."
"No problem. You'll be in your own bed by tomorrow night, the twenty-third. Plenty of time." Hanukkah had already passed for him, spent unpacking in his new office before heading back to his solitary bed at the BOQ—bachelor officer's quarters.
Reaching inside his parka, he tugged his compass from his survival vest. "We'll take a heading of one five zero."
Her brow scrunched in a frown. "But the pickup point is one nine zero."
He set his teeth. "Are you arguing with a navigator?" "I thought you back seaters preferred to be called wizzos."
"Technicality." No matter what they called it, he enjoyed the hell out of his job as an F-15E wizzo—WSO, Weapons Systems Officer. Pilots rowed the boat while WSOs shot the ducks.
And he knew his stuff. "If Chris Columbus had me with him, he would have known he wasn't in India."
"Goody for you. But the pickup point at the river is still one nine zero." His pilot wife's huffing breaths grew whiter, faster, fuller.
Ah, hell. So much for keeping things light and easy. She was getting fired up, which would fire him up with neither of them standing a chance of finding an outlet. "You know you're arguing just to argue."
"Could be." She flicked her goggles up to her forehead, pinning him with coffee-brown eyes. "But how about you explain your reasoning to me, anyway."
He wasn't used to people questioning him. Hell, he was a freaking genius after all. Literally. Just ask
Mensa.
But Alicia always questioned him, something he actually respected most of the time. Today, the supply line ran short on patience. "The pickup point's on a river, right? If we navigate directly to one nine zero and step as much as one degree off, we'll miss the point. Problem is when we do hit the river, we won't know whether to turn left or right. But if we aim distinctly to the left of the pickup point, when we hit the river—"
"We'll know to turn right and follow the shore."
"Exactly." His irritation eased. Yeah, now he remembered why he didn't mind her questioning him. She always could follow his logic. She kept him on his toes, sharpened his thoughts, giving the world an edge he missed with others. "We'll walk a little farther my way, but we won't risk getting lost."
"Okay, Magellan, you've made your point." Bending, she tugged the bulky green pants over her mukluks, yanking the ankle zipper a final inch.
"Good." He stomped his snowshoes once, twice, testing the give of the ground. "Time to move out and we'll have you home in time for pumpkin pie."
He started toward the tree line, which would hopefully break the wind. When Alicia made those calls to her father, brother, sister, would she tell them about the breakup? He'd likely spend Christmas at the squadron, wading through stacks of paperwork in the silence. With tense crap shaking down in Cantou, he itched to be in his new office, anyway. Cantou might be a tiny-ass country over in Asia, but it har
bored numerous terrorist-training camps.