“Merry Christmas, Dallas!” Nike Alexander called as she entered the ops shack. “BJS rides again, only in disguise here in Nogales. How are you?” She grinned widely at her old X.O., who had been working behind the ops desk.
“Nike!” Dallas jumped up and quickly rounded the desk, throwing her arms about the Greek woman. “Hey, you’re two days early!” She stepped back and beamed at the black-haired, brown-eyed helicopter pilot. Cut short with a few wispy bangs across her broad forehead, Nike’s hair shone like a raven’s wing.
“Yeah, I couldn’t stand all that time off,” she griped good-naturedly, tossing her helmet bag on the desk. “I’m a trauma junkie. All BJSers are. We live to fight. Fight to survive. You know that. I just came off a thirty-day leave ten days early. I loved going home to Athens. My parents and big brothers and their wives threw me all kinds of parties—drinking, dancing, feasting…. They all wanted me to stay through Christmas. But I started to pine away for some ass-kicking action.” She laughed and gripped Dallas’s upper arm. “It’s so good to see you again! I really didn’t want to leave BJS, you know?”
“No one does,” Dallas said, smiling at the pilot. “Coffee?” She had decorated the ops office for the holidays, draping silver tinsel across the two windows, hanging plastic mistletoe above the counter. She made sure some upbeat Christmas music played on their CD player. The crews really appreciated a woman’s touch.
“Well, it isn’t Greek coffee, but I’m hoping since you’re X.O. here you at least got good South American espresso?” She peered hopefully toward the coffee station behind the ops desk.
Chuckling, Dallas poured them some of the freshly made brew. “Oh, you can count on that, Nike.” She handed her a cup. “Great Brazilian coffee, no less.”
“Thanks. Hey, I just met Bob and Jake over in the hangar. They’re getting ready for this morning’s mission.” She squinted. “What’s this about you getting wounded? You look fine to me.”
Sipping her coffee, Dallas sat down at her desk. “It was nothing. Just a graze from a druggie’s bullet. He and I were firing at each other at pretty much point-blank range.” She touched her temple. “This happened two weeks ago. It’s all healed up and I’m fine, so no worries.”
“Whew!” Nike said. She leaned against the counter, holding the cup between her small, delicate-looking hands. “So, I heard some scuttlebutt down at BJS just before I left. Is it true? Are the boys at the Pentagon giving serious consideration to the formation of a second BJS unit? And are you slated to be its C.O.? Please, please, tell me it’s true because…” she looked around the cramped office and lowered her voice “…as much as I appreciate coming here and flying a fixed wing, I’d much rather have an Apache helo strapped to my butt, doing real combat.”
“Yes, it’s true, but keep that top secret between you and me.”
Raising her finely shaped black brows, Nike flashed a wide smile. “You know us BJS women—we live together, we die together. We’re tight. No worries. So, am I on your short list to go with you?”
“You’re on the list,” Dallas murmured with a smile. “Again, top secret info at this point.”
“Gotcha. Hey, your friend Major Kat Wallace is doing special duty right now over in Virsland. Sounds like there’s some hot action going on over there.” Nike rubbed her hands together. “You think the Pentagon will put the second BJS squadron in Europe somewhere? I’m itching to put my hand back on a Gatling gun and missiles, to fire at the baddies. I’m so addicted to stress.”
Holding up her palm, Dallas said, “I just got a call from someone in the Pentagon who’s in on the planning. He told me yesterday that it’s looking good to have BJS in Europe or Afghanistan for the first of next year. That’s all he told me.”
“I sure hope it’s in the Baltic region.”
Dallas grinned sourly over her officer’s enthusiasm; Apache pilots were known for their fierce, assertive attitudes. “My unnamed source told me that some of the women who are graduating soon from Apache school are slated to be assigned to me and the new BJS unit. They are military pilots from various countries, just like our first BJS unit was. A little United Nations of sorts, which makes me happy.”
“How cool!” Nike did a little dance, waving her arms above her head. Coming back to the desk, she grew more serious. “Okay, so between now and the first of the year, we play in Mexico’s backyard, chasing the baddies in our putt-putt Cessnas, right?”
“Something like that.” Dallas smiled. “Your new partner, Captain Charlie Steinway, has already arrived. I’m pairing you up with him. He’s the father of two cute girls, and his wife is an accountant who just got a job in a Nogales legal firm. I think you’ll like him. He’s easygoing.”
“Don’t tell me he’s a throwback Neanderthal.”
“Nope, he’s a progressive male, Nike. He won’t be prejudiced against you or your experience. Charlie is open to women doing it all.”
“My kind of guy.” And then she blew air out between her lips. “Speaking of guys. Damned if I can find a good one to have a long-term relationship with, Dallas. You know those Latino men down in Peru are to die for, but they aren’t about to leave their huge extended families and become globetrotters with the woman they profess to love.”
“Don’t I know that one.” Dallas remembered all the pain over her old lover and his angst about leaving his family to follow her on her career path outside Peru.
“Those Latin studs were great for dancing and partying, but forget the rest,” Nike griped. “I’m twenty-eight. I keep having dreams about finding a dude who loves me as I am and will follow me to the ends of the earth, no questions asked.”
“Oh,” Dallas said with a laugh, “that is the problem. Men haven’t come that far yet, from what I can see.” She thought about Murdoch. Her heart wanted him. Her body wanted him. She even dreamed about making love with him. Would Mike follow her to her next assignment, somewhere in Europe or wherever the Pentagon eventually placed the new BJS squadron? Dallas wasn’t sure he would, which was why she was putting the brakes on their relationship.
Christmas was only two days away. Her heart sped up in anticipation. No question, she wanted to go to bed with Murdoch.
In a few short months, he had turned from caveman and frog into a handsome prince before her very eyes. He was everything she’d ever wanted in a man. But the great question was did he love her? Enough to leave his job with the Border Patrol and follow her to her next military assignment? That, she wasn’t at all sure of.
“Are you flying on Christmas Day?” Nike asked.
“Not planning on it. As X.O., I make out the mission plans, and I persuaded the C.O. to give everyone the day off. We’ve been at this 24-7, Nike. Everyone is tired.”
“Getting replacements will help ease that situation, though,” her friend pointed out, sipping her coffee with relish.
“Right on. I still want to give the guys time off for the major holidays if I can.”
“You know Navarro, though,” Nike warned, setting her white mug down on the counter. “He knows the norte americano penchant for being softies on big holidays. That’s when he usually mounts a huge air campaign to get drugs out of a country or move them from one place to another. You do recall that?”
“Yes, I do,” Dallas said, worriedly looking through some of her paperwork. “If I get a call from the federales that their radar is picking up a lot of Cessnas in the air on Christmas Day, well, I’m going to have to change gears and ask everyone to come in and fly. I don’t want to, though.”
“Navarro doesn’t know you’re up here at the other end of the line, making chess moves on him, I’ll bet.”
“He may or may not. But druggies have eyes and ears everywhere. If he knows I’m here, he’ll expect we’ll interdict him on holidays. I’m hoping Navarro will remember past experience in Peru and stay on the ground all through Christmas.”
“It’s a feint strategy,” Nike said, nodding her head. “A good one.”
Holding up her crossed fingers, Dallas said, “Definitely. But if Navarro doesn’t know I’m at the helm up here on the border, he’s going to throw every Cessna he owns into the air on the twenty-fifth.”
“Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?” Nike said, finishing off her coffee.
* * *
“This sucks,” Murdoch muttered. He was commander that day, and a cold front in the area was making the air bumpy. They were flying over the Sierra Madres, where rain and snow had been forecasted for the entire region. It was a lousy day, with gray, low-hanging clouds wreathing the mountaintops, fog blanketing canyons and valleys below. The Cessna bucked even in his skilled hands. “I make a fabulous Christmas dinner with the best stuffing in the world, and you call us all back to work.” He slanted a humorous glance toward Dallas who was scanning the terrain through the binoculars. “What are you? A sadist?” he teased.
Sighing, Dallas lowered the field glasses and glanced over at him. She couldn’t get enough of being in Murdoch’s presence, and yet when he was this close, her pulse went crazy. Her body ached with need, and her heart skittered with each heated look they exchanged. “Navarro launched ten Cessnas from the Hermosillo area. What was I to do when the federales called me at 0500 this morning? Navarro thinks we’re grounded and eating turkey or ham today. That’s why he launched this major move.”
“Yeah,” Mike said, “I know, I know. It’s not your fault, Dallas. It’s just that I spent hours over the last couple of days preparing our meal. The wine’s chilled. Everything’s ready to pop in the oven….” He had visions of taking Dallas to bed as dessert. For her and him. Now, it was blown all to hell. Murdoch wanted to wrap his hands around Navarro’s neck and throttle the son of a bitch for ruining his romantic plans. He couldn’t figure out why Dallas was so hesitant. He saw desire in her eyes. Why wasn’t she giving him the signal to come and get her?
Dallas squeezed Mike’s forearm, the muscles of which leaped and hardened beneath her touch. How she wanted to explore the rest of him. Murdoch was in top shape. Since he’d stopped drinking, he ran five miles every morning, long before the sun rose. The Nogales office had a weight lifting room and he used it religiously. “There will come a time when we’ll be able to stand down. Just have patience.”
Curling his lip in a sneer, Murdoch swiveled around to see if he could spot drug planes hip-hopping through the rugged canyons and valleys. Rain began to splatter the cockpit windshield. He was hoping if the visual dropped below allowable conditions dictated in the Instrument Flight Rules, they’d get to go home, and maybe his Christmas plans wouldn’t be ruined, after all. Right now, despite the increasing rain, they had a good three miles of visibility, and that wouldn’t send them home early. “Patience, my ass. I feel like a hungry vulture with a meal sitting down below, but I can’t get at it.”
Laughing, Dallas went back to hunting for smugglers with her binoculars. “You’re incorrigible, Murdoch.” She felt the Cessna bucking from the strong winds. At higher altitudes, the mountains were swathed in thick blankets of snow.
“Yeah, but I know you love me anyway.”
Dallas prickled beneath his teasing. “Love? First time you’ve used that word with me, Murdoch. You aren’t just throwing it around, are you? Men sometimes do that. They say, ‘Oh, I love you,’ just to get a woman to bed.”
Banking the aircraft to the left, Murdoch slid a thousand feet lower. The mighty Sierra Madres bracketed them as they moved into a long, narrow canyon. The winds increased and the aircraft became harder to handle. It would shoot upward fifty feet when it hit an air pocket, and he’d have to stabilize it. “I don’t use that word like it was popcorn at a movie, Ms. Dallas.”
Dallas chuckled. “Okay…”
“Love is a commitment.”
“It certainly is.”
“What does love mean to you?” Murdoch asked her curiously. He noted how her lips tensed as she peered through the binoculars.
“Love means a forever thing to me, Murdoch, through good and bad times. It means you follow your loved one no matter where they go in the world.”
“That’s an interesting definition.”
“My mother followed my father when he worked as a spy in a number of European countries. She did so because she loved him.”
“I see.” Frowning, Mike rubbed his nose and then placed his hand back on the yoke. “And did he ever follow her on an assignment? You said they’re still in the Mossad.”
“Yep, my father followed my mother when she was assigned to the Baltic region of Europe. Their love was such that they didn’t care where they were in the world so long as they were together.”
“That’s important to you?” he asked soberly, expecting an honest answer from her.
Her smile disappeared. “It’s everything.”
“Well,” Murdoch said blithely, “you’re here and so am I. I’m not going anywhere and neither are you. So it’s a perfect situation to think about a relationship. Don’t you agree?”
Inwardly, Dallas grimaced at his lightly spoken words. She was under orders from the Pentagon to say nothing of the top secret move to place a second BJS squadron somewhere in the world. “Yes, it’s perfect,” she said without enthusiasm.
Murdoch’s intuition niggled at him. Though he wanted to pursue the topic, he got back to the business of flying. With the changing wind conditions, the ragged spires of the rocky canyon they were flying through could rip a plane apart if a pilot wasn’t paying attention. The rain increased and visibility lessened, perhaps to a mile now. And if that wasn’t all, the weather, which had been ugly to begin with, turned threatening. Raindrops continued to splatter across the Plexiglas windshield. Secretly, he hoped they would turn to ice crystals. If they did, he and Dallas would have to fly lower to stop ice from gathering on their wings, and head straight home. The Cessna did not have heaters in the wings, and that meant the danger of crashing if ice began to build up on them.
Mentally, Murdoch crossed his fingers. Black clouds from the west were rolling toward them in a large, churning bank. Maybe the temperature would drop even more. He noted the outside temperature was hanging at forty-five degrees Fahrenheit.
“What a rotten day,” he growled unhappily. “Instead of being in my nice, warm apartment, with the turkey roasting in the oven, sending that wonderful smell throughout the place, we’re here in some of the nastiest smuggling country in Mexico. We could be hanging the decorations right now on the tree I just bought. Christmas music would be playing in the background. I’d ply you with a great wine. We’d kiss under the mistletoe and then enjoy a tasty dinner. Afterward, well…”
“You’re such a dreamer, Murdoch.” Dallas gave him a tender look. She saw his eyes smolder with intensity. There was no question he wanted her—in every way. And didn’t she want him, too? Oh, yes. Far too much for her own good. But her future was about to change, and she wasn’t at all convinced Murdoch and their fragile new relationship would survive it.
“You know, you’re always in my dreams,” he confided to her in a serious tone. Her gold eyes widened and then grew soft. Aching to kiss her, he reached out and skimmed her strong jaw with his fingers. “You are my dream come true, Dallas. You have to know that by now.”
Pleasant tingles radiated from where he’d stroked her. Unconsciously, Dallas touched the area and then settled the binoculars in her lap. “Maybe we need to talk, Mike. Serious talk. Not teasing like usual, okay?”
Shrugging, he said, “I’m all ears, Dallas. What do you want to talk about? Us, I hope?”
Dallas was about to speak when suddenly, the engine sputtered nastily. Tensing, she saw smoke leaking from beneath the cowling.
“Damn,” Murdoch snarled, quickly moving into emergency landing procedures. “Call base. Tell them we’ve got serious engine problems….”