Prologue
Five Years Ago: Randolph Air Force Base, Texas
Lieutenant Nola Seabrook accepted that she could face death on Monday. But for the weekend, she intended to celebrate life to the fullest.
She gripped the door of the Officer’s Club bar, preparing herself to do something she’d never even considered before. She intended to find a man—a stranger—for a one-night stand.
Lucky for her, she was away from her home base, which gave her a wealth of unfamiliar faces to peruse. Country music and the clang of the bell over the bar swelled as she swung the door wider to reveal the Friday-night crowd.
No crying. No fear. She would forget herself with some stranger and lose herself in sensations she might never feel again.
Nola shouldered deeper into the press of bodies. The room reverberated with cheering. The place was packed, as she would expect on a Friday night, but the majority clustered in a circle to the side, was the source of the whoop, whoop, whoop. And “Go, Lurch! Go, Lurch!”
Lurch? Now there was a call sign for a guy worth investigating.
Curiosity nipped, sucking her feet sideways.
She angled toward the commotion. Sidestepping an amorous couple making tracks toward the door, she caught sight of a chalkboard mounted on an easel. A bartender stood beside with a stubby piece of chalk to scratch out numbers. Ah. Bets. But what for?
She sidled through to the inner circle. Her eyes homed in on the source of the noise. The focus of the cheering was…
A man.
Holy cow, what a man. On the floor pumping push-ups in BDU pants and a brown T-shirt, he clapped between counts—ninety-five at the moment. The number hit a hundred and still he didn’t stop or even hesitate. Must be his size that earned him the nickname “Lurch” because, holy cow, he was big.
Two men in similar uniforms split from the crowd carrying a fifty-some-odd-year-old waitress on their shoulders like Cleopatra. With ceremonial hoopla, they placed her on the man’s back. His arms strained against the T-shirt, muscles bulging, veins rippling along the stretch of tendons, but still he pushed.
Up. Down. Again and again.
Ohmigod, her own tummy did a flip of attraction. Arousal. And hadn’t she come here for just this reason?
Twenty-five years old and she didn’t have anyone else to turn to for comfort, which could really pitch her into a tailspin if she let herself think on it for too long.
Her elderly parents gone. Her marriage kaput because her ex-husband couldn’t take the stress of a wife who might not live to see thirty. Zero siblings. Her best friend deployed to Turkey. Her only other friends a bunch of rowdy Air Force crew dogs who spent as much time on the road as she did, and she really couldn’t see herself showing weakness by bawling her eyes out to any of them.
Charge ahead, girl.
She made a quick check of his left hand. No wedding band. No pale cheater mark along his tan ring finger. Sheesh, she wished she’d thought to change into something other than her flight suit.
Too late for regrets. She was here now, and if she left to change, the man in front of her might be gone by the time she returned. Besides, she didn’t want to miss a second of this display.
Sweat started to pop along his forehead and even a hint along his shoulders, but still he kept moving. The man was a poster boy for health and vitality.
Invincibility, perhaps? All things she so desperately wanted to soak up right now. She found herself clapping the count along with everyone else.
“One hundred forty-eight.”
He switched to one-handed push-ups. The crowd roared louder.
“One hundred forty-nine. One hundred-fifty.”
He reached behind to steady the waitress and jumped to his feet, easing the apron-clad lady to hers, as well. With all the showmanship of his single-handed display, he wrapped an arm around the waitress’s waist, dipped her and gave her a quick kiss before setting her free. “Thank you much, Delphine.”
“No problem for you, Captain Rick. Anytime you’re in town.”
Rick. She liked that name. Solid.
However if she didn’t get her butt in gear and make a move soon, he would be gone. Nola stepped forward. And thank you, Jesus, that’s all it took.