He didn't need three guesses as to who'd tracked him down. Steady ground shifted under him. Too much Monica in his present and Tina in his past cycled through his head when he was too dog-tired to fight it.
"Your wife?" Rodeo slid up like a bogey from his six o'clock and slugged him on the arm. The sore arm. "Knew you were holding out on me, Cobra."
Jack winced, massaged his bicep. "I'm not—"
"Who is it?" Rodeo lounged a shoulder against the wall, his flight suit creaseless in spite of the sweaty hours crammed in a crew compartment. Somehow the guy made even military issue shout Armani. "The chick at the registration desk? Or that hot lieutenant from the weather shop? Ah, hell, who cares? I'm just glad you're in the saddle again, man." Rodeo stared back with somber brown eyes as dark as his skin.
So much for the great wall of deception about his screwed-up relationship. "I'm fine. Just need to sleep. Alone." Understatement of the century. "But thanks. Once this crap's over with and we're in Charleston again, I owe ya that Braves' game."
Rodeo nodded, his fist swinging back for a farewell slug.
Jack held up a hand. "Lay off the arm, bud."
"Wimp."
"Ass." Jack grinned. "Catch ya later."
Rodeo cut into the milling crowd, booming, "Hey, Joker, ever been to the Rio?"
Jack's gaze homed in on his room number. For five seconds he even considered finding another place to sleep. Except his "wife" was here for a reason. And he needed her diverted and safely tucked away before he left.
Jack swiped his room card through, pushed open the door to find...Monica.
Yeah, that cleaning service woman was dead on target. Thanks to a drunken mistake in the Elvis Chapel of Love three and a half months ago, Jack was once again a married man, this time to Major Monica "Hippocrates" Hyatt.
And his wife waited in his bed, long legs folded and silky caramel hair calling a man to bury his face deep as he buried his body deeper.
"Hello, Jack."
Two words, spoken in a sandpaper drawl packed with perpetual hints of morning bedroom voice, and his body went on high alert. What the hell was it about her? Seven months hadn't given him the answer, and still he couldn't stop asking himself the question, a damned fine excuse to stare at her.
Not delicately pretty like Tina, or bombshell-knockout like some of the other women he'd dated, so much as...arresting. Full lips and the slash of strong, high cheekbones lent her an almost exotic air in spite of her all-American Texas twang.
And she was here. From the rare stillness in his normally restless new wife, he predicted trouble. He wanted to think it was screwed-up bad luck that had brought her to Nellis, but he didn't believe in coincidence.
Somehow she'd found out about the mission. Ah, hell.
"Jack?" She extended her legs in front of her, one at a damn time in a never-ending stretch.
His eyes locked on with radar precision while his Johnson twitched a howdy-do in response. Apparently all of him wasn't dog-tired. Of course, he'd have to be dead not to want her. Problem was, keeping people from ending up dead depended on him keeping his mind on his mission and his Johnson in his shorts.
Helmet bag dangling from his hand, Jack kicked the door closed behind him. "Hey, babe, enticing as it is to finally have my wife in my bed three and a half months after the wedding, the King's too damned tired to break into a chorus of 'Are You Lonesome Tonight.'"
Chapter 2
Ees too full of hot Jack Korba, Monica thought a verse of "Devil in Disguise'' might be more appropriate.
"Babe? Hey, babe?" She straightened, restrained the urge to throw a pillow at him, blinked back shock that he would spur her on purpose with a piggish remark. "God bless it, Jack, you know diminutives like that really piss me off."
The fact that she still wanted him pissed her off even more. But then emotions never came in measured doses around this man—or for him. He laughed, loved, argued, laughed again with a robustness reflected in his large-boned body.
Even his exhaustion came in full force. He shrugged, slinging his helmet bag onto the dresser. "Told you I was tired."
Her fingers itched to comb through his jet-black hair, thick even when cropped short with military precision. Sweat from wearing his helmet too long brought a hint of curl above his ears, along his brow.
A look much like during sex.
He never called her babe then, always groaning her name with an intensity that raised goose bumps even at the whispered memory. So why throw a match on gasoline with the babe comment now?