Explosive Alliance (Wingmen Warriors 9)

As if she felt his gaze, she glanced over—and away just as quickly. He couldn't blame her for wanting to avoid him after the way things had shaken down with her husband's murder in prison. Reminders of that had to suck, regardless of whether or not she'd loved the dirtbag.

And speaking of another Jackass Dirtbag, he knew from his mother that love wasn't logical.

"Rokowsky?" The commanding tone of Quade's voice rode the wind and prickled at him like those mutant mosquitoes.

"Yes, sir?"

Bo turned to his squadron commander, prepping himself for the butt ripping undoubtedly on its way for something or other. Some days, proving his boss wrong was all that kept him in the service.

Lean and lethal, Quade stopped nose-to-nose, cold anger icing the air between them.

"What the hell were you thinking wasting time to pick up your guitar?"

That if I got myself blown up you would celebrate over being short a smart-ass captain?

Bo kept his yap shut and let the commander have his say. Open defiance never won the day, a lesson he'd learned well overseas in Rubistan.

"When I order you to abandon the aircraft, you damn well haul out. Is that understood, Captain?"

"Yes, sir." Definitely understood, but he would do the same again in a heartbeat.

Bo hitched his guitar up on his shoulder. The six-string acoustic had been a gift from Sister Mary Nic when he'd graduated from high school. Purchased with a nun's poverty-level salary, the guitar was golden in his eyes. He would die before losing it.

The commander's rigid stance relaxed minutely. "I guess we can call this day a wash since you saved our bacon by spotting the bird strike and pulling up in time. That was an excellent job of maintaining focus in the face of distraction. Well done, Captain."

Quade rarely dispensed praise, so it always stunned the fight right out of a guy's gut.

"Thank you, sir."

"Close your slack jaw, Captain." Aloof steely eyes assessed. "You think I'm being a hard-ass because it's fun? I'm not here to be your friend. I'm here to make sure that at the end of my tour, we have as many airplanes and aircrew as when I started."

And they both knew that was already impossible. Their unit had lost two planes to man portable missiles, but, thank God, with no fatalities. Barely. A year ago when Bo's plane had been shot down over the Middle East, his crew had been captured by warlords before the Rubistanian government intervened with a rescue.

Bo's fingers flexed inside his flight gloves. He'd been so full of himself and confidence.

Open defiance. He'd ended up with two broken hands, totally useless to his crew, marking the beginning of his doubts.

He wasn't afraid of dying. He wasn't even afraid of another beating, no more than a normal fear. But he was scared as hell of someone dying because of him.

Knowing he wasn't directly at fault for his mother's suicide didn't squelch the notion that he should have done something. And in the middle of his doubts had fallen this woman with her haunted eyes behind funky, black-framed retro glasses.

His gaze cruised back to Paige on the bench with her daughter. Kirstie licked the top off her cupcake. The mother mirrored her daughter, clearing half the frosting with one swirl of her tongue. Paige's lashes fluttered closed in ecstasy, flaming visceral heat to life while his defenses were down. A shadow fell ahead of him as Quade shifted closer. "Someone has to stay with Mako and the plane for the next couple of weeks until it's repaired.

Obviously I can't be that someone because of my duties back at the squadron."

Bo straightened as the implication—and prospect—sunk in. Any other time he might have chafed at what promised to be two, even three weeks of inactivity. But fate had just thrown open his window of opportunity with Paige Haugen.

"I'm the logical choice to stay, sir." Gaze magnet-stuck, Bo watched Paige thumb chocolate frosting off the corner of her mouth.

"Strange running into her here today, and you two talking," the boss noted quietly.

"Yes, Colonel, it is." Could Quade see inside his head? Probably. The man was everywhere, all the time.

He wanted to like the commander, certainly respected his airmanship. But Quade went out of his way to be unlikable.

Quade cleared his throat and backed up a step. "Well, Captain? Don't you have some paperwork to file before these damn mosquitoes make lunch out of us both?"

Before Bo could answer, Quade pivoted toward Tag and Mako a few yards away. "And you two, what are you gabbing about? The flight's not over until the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, even if we had to make an emergency landing."