Explosive Alliance (Wingmen Warriors 9) - Page 9

"They're as healthy as Waffles's new litter of puppies. See how fast they're running?"

The three men, all her age or maybe slightly older, kept a steady pace away from the craft. She exhaled relief.

Fire trucks circled the plane as a fourth man filled the hatch. The aviator, younger than the others, thundered down the steps and made up the distance in seconds, overtaking, passing.

With a guitar case slung over his shoulder?

How incongruous, yet it broadened her smile and sprinkled relief over her fried nerves. If he'd stopped to retrieve the instrument, then surely this wasn't a real emergency situation.

Her gaze tracked the sprinting man abandoning the scene with heart-pounding athleticism.

"It's probably a part of the air-show demonstration, punkin. Or maybe they're practicing for when something really goes wrong." Too bad life didn't offer practice runs. Paige smoothed back her daughter's sweaty blond curls from her forehead. "But if you're scared, we could go look at something else."

"No, please. You promised we could see the planes. You promised. What if it rains tomorrow and we can't come back? Then you gotta work Sunday cause Uncle Vic's working Saturday and Uncle Seth hurt his ankle." Kirstie tucked her glasses back up for a better view. "And 'sides, I wanna make sure those men are okay."

"If you're sure." Easy enough to acquiesce when the small crowd blocked the exit, anyway.

"Totally sure." Kirstie stared back with wide eyes devoid of laughter.

Damn Kurt Haugen.

Damn him for dying. Damn him for the many lives he'd destroyed. Damn him most of all for stealing Kirstie's childhood joy. And while she was at it, Paige figured she deserved a good swift kick for believing in him right up to the point they'd locked his traitorous butt in jail.

A toxic mix of acid and horror scoured what little of her stomach lining remained. How could he have sold out his country by smuggling terrorist-supplied opium in his restaurant's shrimp trawlers? And how could she have missed that she and her husband were living far better than an up-and-coming restaurateur should?

Paige popped a Tums and bolstered her resolve. She was through being a gullible idiot when it came to charming men. Her daughter needed a strong mama with a good head on her shoulders, straighter than her perpetually crooked glasses.

The four men slowed, gathered, studied their aircraft, chests pumping for air. The oldest, a lumbering man, bent to brace his hands on his knees. Two others swiped their brows with a forearm.

Her gaze skipped last to the lanky guitar-carrying aviator who still stood tall, barely winded in comparison. His coal black hair reflected the sun's rays, some of the beams lingering to catch along the hint of curl in his close-cropped cut. Why couldn't she look away from him? She definitely wasn't in the market for a man now, if ever again. Kurt had singed her but good.

She frowned. Did the guy look familiar? Maybe that was what snagged her attention.

Except, she couldn't tell for certain from so far away. Maybe they all looked alike in those green flight suits.

Heaven help her if she actually knew him. It was bad enough that her husband had cultivated a couple of young service members with deep debts to help him track military-drug-surveillance flights. But then, he'd threatened others who wouldn't help him.

Coming to an Air Force base and facing so many reminders of her husband's deceit left her longing to dig deep in her purse for the whole roll of antacids. But there was precious little excitement around here to entice her child's playfulness back. The annual air show marked major goings-on in the area, right up there alongside the yearly State Fair and Rodeo.

Not that she was complaining anymore. Unlike during her teenage years, she now embraced the starkness of her home state. Nothing was hidden here. There wasn't even a respectable tree in sight for a good old-fashioned game of hide-and-seek. Definitely different from the verdant marshes of the South that had cloaked so much.

The guitar guy chose that vulnerable moment to glance her way. Dry lightning crackled overhead. Or at least she thought it did because her skin prickled, fine hairs rising with a warning that nature was about to unleash a storm.

What a ridiculously fanciful notion—and a dangerous one. Still her hand sneaked up to check the stretchy band holding back her own hair as blond as Kirstie's.

Her hand fell away. Damn it, she didn't have time for vanity, much less men.

Without breaking eye contact, the guy angled to speak with a grumpy-looking fella next to him, boots already moving forward. Toward her. Ah, geez.

Paige hitched the insulated lunch sack from the ground up onto her shoulder, her heart thumping like thunder answering lightning. "Come on, punkin, let's find somewhere to sit." Far away from here. "We can watch the planes land while we eat."

Kirstie stared up with eyes enlarged by the lenses of tiny kid glasses. "I want to go inside the airplanes."

"And we will. Tomorrow when the show officially starts. Okay? Today the planes are just arriving."

The man ambled closer.

Time was running out. She resorted to desperate measures. "We'll eat cupcakes for lunch."

Tags: Catherine Mann Wingmen Warriors Romance
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