Soldier's Christmas (Wingmen Warriors 8)

Except he was only her husband for a short time longer, which made her joke fall flatter than the abandoned snowball.

A holiday miracle sometime soon sure would be nice. But he'd given up counting on miraculous rescues when he was fifteen years old watching people bleed out all around him.

These days, he knew if there was any saving to be done, he could only count on himself.

She was in trouble.

Alicia battled to stay awake. Walk. One foot in front of the other. She would hold her own. She absolutely would not slow Josh down, but she felt pretty much like an ice sculpture from an Alaskan snow festival they'd once discussed attending.

They'd stopped twice already to build a quick fire and drink. Thank heaven for his Bic lighter, faster than her flint, but probably running low on butane.

Pretty much like her energy supply.

He'd offered to drag her along, dogsled style. She'd told him to eat his shorts. She wasn't quitting. Surely they would stumble on something soon. Meanwhile, think happy thoughts.

Flying always made her happy, in control of her craft and her fate. Kicking ass and taking names. Saving lives and making a difference while following a calling to serve that hummed through her veins in a legacy passed down from generations of Renshaw warriors. The drive to serve called to her aviator sister and brother as well.

Her fingers twitched convulsively as if around the stick in her F-15E Strike Eagle. Exhaustion lured her mind back to that life-changing mission, the day she'd earned her Silver Star.

Asleep on her feet, she dreamed of the first time she'd flown with Josh...

Sweat flowed freely in the F-15E. The two-seater cockpit was overheated from stress, raising damp spots on her flight gloves. Alicia kept her hold loose, light, her thumb poised over the control buttons.

She would stay calm—even though more perspiration plastered her hair to her head under her helmet as clouds whipped past her windscreen.

She drew measured hits off her oxygen mask, microphone embedded to pick up her every word, even their breaths. Her WSO's exhalations echoed through the headset Darth Vader-style in an alternating rhythm with her own.

They'd been on their way to attack an ammunition depot when the call for emergency close air support came mid-flight. Enemy fire had downed a CH-47 Chinook helicopter full of Army Rangers. They needed close air support ASAP until a rescue force arrived.

Her first real combat engagement.

She'd been deployed for Afghanistan and Iraq, but mostly Southern Watch patrolling missions. Never had she waded into the hairy action or needed evasive maneuvers on those sorties.

Which explained why they'd paired her—a young captain—with a combat-seasoned weapons system officer for her early missions in Cantou.

Major Joshua Rosen sat strapped in the WSO's seat behind her—the fella who'd hit on her in the O' Club bar. Nothing inappropriate, just genuine interest from Major Tall, Dark and Hunky who happened to have a kick-butt sense of humor.

She'd dissuaded far pushier in the past. Yet still, something told her this magnetic man wouldn't be as easy to keep at a distance as the others.

None of which she could afford to think about now.

Easing the stick forward, she pointed the nose down, rolled in and out of the clouds. Asian jungle sprawled ahead of her, puffs of smoke rising from the trees. Little sound invaded the cockpit, just the minor whispering of air. The roar of engines filtered away behind them. The plane hauled full out, bringing them down, near.

Radar wouldn't do crap for them now. Bad guys looked pretty much the same as good guys on the screen. Visuals combined with talk-on from the ground would guide them.

Close air support was scary stuff. Any mistake could make the difference between taking out the threat —or their own people. Bud Rosen in back would be helping her scan visually with the aid of binoculars when necessary.

Her focus wired in on the stick in her hand, the voices in her headset, the five multifunction display screens in front of her.

Her headset crackled with calls from the ground. Gunfire and explosions popped and crashed through the airwaves. "Hound twenty-one, we need these guys taken out. We can't hold 'em off much longer. I need some fire on the top of the east to west ridge, north of the downed helicopter."

"Roger." Josh's response clipped through. "I think I've got it visual. Are you talking about the guys two hundred meters west of the rock cropping?"

"That's affirmative, Hound twenty-one."

More clipped instructions and questions batted back and forth through her headset as the commander on the ground talked them onto the target. Her control panel blazed like red-and-green Christmas lights.

"Where are the friendlies?" Josh asked.