“Man, it’s quiet around here today,” Harvard said as he came into the decaying Quonset hut that housed Alpha Squad’s office.
Lucky was the only one around, and he looked up from one of the computers. “Hey, H.,” he said with a cheerful smile. “Where’ve you been?”
“There was a meeting with the base commander that I absolutely couldn’t miss.” Harvard rolled his eyes. “It was vital that I go with the captain to listen to more complaints about having the squad temporarily stationed here. This base is regular Navy, and SEALs don’t follow rules. We don’t salute enough. We drive too fast. We make too much noise at the firing range. We don’t cut our hair.” He slid his hand over his cleanly shaved head. “Or we cut our hair too short. I tell you, there’s no pleasing some folks. Every week it’s the same, and every week we sit there, and I take notes, and the captain nods seriously and explains that the noise at the firing range occurs when we discharge our weapons and he’s sorry for the inconvenience, but one of the reasons Alpha Squad has the success record it does is that each and every one of us takes target practice each day, every day, and that’s not going to change. And then the supply officer steps forward and informs us that the next time we want another box of pencils, we’ve got to get ’em from Office Max. We appear to have used up our allotted supply.” He shook his head. “We got lectured on that for ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes? On pencils?”
Harvard grinned. “That’s right.” He turned toward his office. “Joe’s right behind me. He should be back soon—unless he gets cornered into sticking around for lunch.”
Lucky made a face. “Poor Cat.”
“This is what you have to look forward to, O’Donlon,” Harvard said with another grin. “It’s only a matter of time before you make an oh-six pay grade and get your own command. And then you’ll be rationing pencils, too.” He laughed “It’s not just a job—it’s an adventure.”
“Gee, thanks, H. I’m all aquiver with anticipation.”
Harvard pushed open his office door. “Do me a favor and dial the captain’s pager number. Give him an emergency code. Let’s get him out of there.”
Lucky picked up the phone and quickly punched in a series of numbers. He dropped the receiver into the cradle with a clatter.
“So where’s everyone this afternoon?” Harvard called as he took off his jacket and hung it over the chair at his desk. “I stopped by the classroom on my way over, but it was empty. They’re not all still at lunch, are they?”
“No, they’re at the airfield. I’m heading over there myself in about ten minutes.” Lucky raised his voice to be heard through the open door.
Harvard stopped rifling through the files on his desk. “They’re where?”
“At the field. It’s jump day,” Lucky told him.
“Today?” Harvard moved to the door to stare at the younger SEAL. “No way. That wasn’t scheduled until next week.”
“Yeah, everything got shifted around, remember? We had to move the jump up a full week.”
Harvard shook his head. “No. No, I don’t remember that.”
Lucky swore. “It must’ve been the day you went to Boston. Yeah, I remember you weren’t around, so Wes took care of it. He said he wrote a memo about it. He said he left it on your desk.”
Harvard’s desk was piled high with files and papers, but he knew exactly what was in each file and where each file was in each pile. It may have looked disorganized, but it wasn’t. He’d cleared his In basket at least ten times since he’d taken that day of personal leave. He’d caught up on everything he’d missed. There was no memo from Wesley Skelly on that desk.
Or was there?
Underneath the coffee mug with a broken handle that held his pens and some of those very pencils the base supply officer had been in a snit about, Harvard could see a flash of yellow paper. He lifted the mug and turned the scrap of paper over.
This was it.
Wes had written an official memo on the inside of an M&M’s wrapper. It was documentation of the rescheduled jump date, scribbled in barely legible pencil.
“I’m going to kill him,” Harvard said calmly. “I’m going to find him, and I’m going to kill him.”
“You don’t have to look far to find him,” Lucky said. “He’s with the finks in the classroom at the main hangar. He’s helping Blue teach ’em the basics of skydiving.”
Harvard shook his head. “If I’d known the jump was today, I would’ve made arrangements to skip this morning’s meeting. I wanted to be here to make it clear to the finks that participating in this exercise is optional.” He looked sharply at O’Donlon. “Were you there when Blue gave his speech? Do they understand they don’t have to do this?”
Lucky shrugged. “Yeah. They’re all up for it, though. It’s no big deal.”
But it was a big deal. Harvard knew that for P.J. it had to be a very, very big deal.
When he’d figured out yesterday that she was afraid of heights, he’d known about the skydiving jump, but he’d thought it was a week away. If he’d known otherwise, he would’ve warned her then and there. He could’ve told her that choosing not to participate didn’t matter one bit in the big picture.
The purpose of the exercise was not to teach the finks to be expert skydivers. There was no way they could do that with only one day and only one jump. When they’d set up the program, the captain had thought a lesson in skydiving would give the agents perspective on the kind of skills the SEALs needed to succeed as a counterterrorist team.
It was supposed to underscore the message of the entire program—let the SEALs do what they do best without outside interference.
Harvard looked at his watch. It was just past noon. “O’Donlon, is the jump still scheduled for thirteen-thirty?”
“It is,” Lucky told him. “I’m going over to help out. You know me, I never turn down an opportunity to jump.”
Harvard took a deep breath. More than an hour. Good. He still had time. He could relax and take this calmly. He could change out of this blasted dress uniform instead of screaming over to the airfield in a panic.
The phone rang. It had to be Joe Cat, answering his page.
Harvard picked it up. “Rescue squad.”
Joe covered a laugh by coughing. “Sit rep, please.” The captain was using his officer’s voice, and Harvard knew that wherever he was, he wasn’t alone.
“We’re having a severe pencil shortage, Captain,” Harvard said rapidly, in his best imitation of a battle-stressed officer straight from Hollywood’s Central Casting. “I think you better get down here right away to take care of it.”
Joe coughed again, longer and louder this time. “I see.”
“So sorry to interrupt your lunch, sir, but the men are in tears. I’m sure the commander will understand.”
Joe’s voice sounded strangled. “I appreciate your calling.”
“Of course, if you’d prefer to stay and dine with the—”
“No, no. No, I’m on my way. Thank you very much, Senior Chief.”
“I love you, too, Captain,” Harvard said and hung up the phone.
Lucky was on the floor, laughing. Harvard nudged him with his toe and spoke in his regular voice. “I’m changing out of this ice-cream suit. Don’t you dare leave for the airfield without me.”
* * *
The half of a chicken-salad sandwich P.J. had forced down during lunch was rolling in her stomach.
Lieutenant Blue McCoy stood in front of the group of SEALs and FInCOM agents, briefing them on the afternoon’s exercise.
P.J. tried to pay attention as he recited the name of the aircraft that would take them to an altitude from which they’d jump out of the plane.
Jump out of the plane.
P.J. took a deep breath. She could do this. She knew she could do this. She was going to hate it, but just like going to the dentist, time would keep ticking, and the entire ordeal would eventually be over and done with.
“We’ll be going out of the aircraft in teams of two,” Blue said in his thick Southern drawl. “You will stay with your jump buddy for the course of the exercise. If you become separated during landing, you must find each other immediately upon disposing of your chute. Remember, we’ll be timing you from the moment you step out of that plane to the moment you check in at the assigned extraction point. If you reach the extraction point without your partner, you’re automatically disqualified. Does everyone understand?”
P.J. nodded. Her mouth was too dry to murmur a reply.
The door opened at the back of the room, and Blue paused and smiled a greeting. “About time you boys got here.”
P.J. turned to see Harvard closing the door behind him. He was wearing camouflage pants tucked securely into black boots and a snugly fitting dark green T-shirt. He was looking directly at her from under the brim of his cap. He nodded just once, then turned his attention to McCoy.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said. It wasn’t until he moved toward the front of the room that P.J. noticed Lucky had been standing beside him. “Have you worked up the teams yet, Lieutenant?”
Blue nodded. “I have the list right here, Senior Chief.”
“Mind doing some quick revising so I can get in on the action?”
“’Course not,” Blue replied. He looked at the room. “Why don’t y’all take a five-minute break?”
P.J. wasn’t the only one in the room who was nervous. Greg Greene went to the men’s room for the fourth time in half an hour. The other men stood and stretched their legs. She sat there, wishing she could close her eyes and go to sleep, wishing that when she woke up it would be tomorrow morning and this day would be behind her, most of all wishing Harvard had given her some kind of warning that today’s challenge would involve jumping out of an airplane thousands of feet above the earth.
As she watched, Harvard leaned against the table to look at the list. He supported himself with his arms, and his muscles stood out in sharp relief. For once, she let herself look at him, hoping for a little distraction.
The man was sheer perfection. And speaking of distractions, his shirt wasn’t the only thing that fit him snugly. His camouflage pants hugged the curve of his rear end sinfully well. Why on earth anyone would want to camouflage that piece of art was beyond her.
He was deep in discussion with Blue, then both men paused to glance at her, and she quickly looked away. What was Harvard telling the lieutenant? It was clear they were talking about her. Was Harvard telling McCoy all she’d let slip yesterday at the beach? Were they considering the possibility that she might freeze with fear and end up putting more than just herself in danger? Were they going to refuse to let her make the jump?
She glanced at them, and Harvard was still watching her, no doubt taking in the cold sweat that was dampening her shirt and beading on her upper lip. She knew she could keep her fear from showing in her eyes and on her face, but she couldn’t keep from perspiring, and she couldn’t stop her heart from pounding and causing her hands to shake.
She was scared to death, but she was damned if she was going to let anyone tell her she couldn’t make this jump.
As she watched, Harvard spoke again to Blue. Blue nodded, took out a pen and began writing on the paper.
Harvard came down the center aisle and paused next to her chair.
“You okay?” he asked quietly enough so that no one else could hear.
She was unable to hold his gaze. He was close enough to smell her fear and to see that she was, in fact, anything but okay. She didn’t bother to lie. “I can do this.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do. It’s part of this program.”
“This jump is optional.”
“Not for me, it’s not.”
He was silent for a moment. “There’s nothing I can say to talk you out of this, is there?”
P.J. met his gaze. “No, Senior Chief, there’s not.”
He nodded. “I didn’t think so.” He gave her another long look, then moved to the back of the room.
P.J. closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath. She wanted to get this over with. The waiting was killing her.
“Okay,” Blue said. “Listen up. Here’re the teams. Schneider’s with Greene, Farber’s with me. Bobby’s with Wes, and Crash is with Lucky. Richards, you’re with Senior Chief Becker.”
P.J. turned to look at Harvard. He was gazing at her, and she knew this was his doing. If he couldn’t talk her out of the jump, he was going to go with her, to baby-sit her on the way down.
“Out in the other room, you’ll find a jumpsuit, a helmet and a belt pack with various supplies,” Blue continued. “Including a length of rope.”
Farber raised his hand. “What’s the rope for?”
Blue smiled. “Just one of those things that might come in handy,” he said. “Any other questions?”
The room was silent.
“Let’s get our gear and get to the plane,” Blue said.
* * *
Harvard sat next to P.J. and fastened his seat belt as the plane carrying the team went wheels up.
Sure enough, P.J. was a white-knuckle flyer. She clung to the armrests as if they were her only salvation. But her head was against the seat, and her eyes were closed. To the casual observer, she was totally relaxed and calm.
She’d glanced at him briefly as he sat down, then went back to studying the insides of her eyelids.
Harvard took the opportunity to look at her. She was pretty, but he’d had his share of pretty women before, many of them much more exotic-looking than P.J.
It was funny. He was used to gorgeous women throwing themselves at his feet, delivering themselves up to him like some gourmet meal on a silver platter. They were always the ones in pursuit. All he’d ever had to do was sit back and wait for them to approach him.
But P.J. was different. With P.J., he was clearly the one doing the chasing. And every time he moved closer, she backed away.
It was annoying—and as intriguing as hell.
As the transport plane finally leveled off, she opened her eyes and looked at him.
“You want to review the jump procedure again?” he asked her quietly.
She shook her head. “There’s not much to remember. I lift my feet and jump out of the plane. The static line opens the chute automatically.”
“If your chute tangles or doesn’t open right,” Harvard reminded her, “if something goes wrong, break free and make sure you’re totally clear before you pull the second rip cord. And when you land—”
“We went over all this in the classroom,” P.J. interrupted. “I know how to land.”
“Talking about it isn’t the same as doing it.”
She lowered her voice. “Daryl, I don’t need you holding my hand.”
Daryl. She’d called him Daryl again. She’d called him that yesterday, too. He lowered his voice. “Aren’t you just even a little bit glad I’m here?”
“No.” She held his gaze steadily. “Not when I know the only reason you’re here is you don’t think I can do this on my own.”
Harvard shifted in his seat to face her. “But that’s what working in a team is all about. You don’t have to do it on your own. You’ve got an issue with this particular exercise. That’s cool. We can do a buddy jump—double harness, single chute. I’ll do most of the work—I’ll get us to the ground. You just have to close your eyes and hold on.”
“No. Thank you, but no. A woman in this business can’t afford to have it look as if she needs help,” she told him.
He shook his head impatiently. “This isn’t about being a woman. This is about being human. Everybody’s got something they can’t do as easily or as comfortably as the next man—person. So you’ve got a problem with heights—”
“Shh,” she said, looking around to see if anyone was listening. No one was.
“When you’re working in a team,” Harvard continued, speaking more softly, “it doesn’t do anybody any good for you to conceal your weaknesses. I sure as hell haven’t kept mine hidden.”
P.J.’s eyes widened slightly. “You don’t expect me to believe—”
“Everybody’s got something,” he said again. “When you have to, you work through it, you ignore it, you suck it up and get the job done. But if you’ve got a team of seven or eight men and you need two men to scale the outside of a twenty-story building and set up recon on the roof, you pick the two guys who are most comfortable with climbing instead of the two who can do the job but have to expend a lot of energy focusing on not looking down. Of course, it’s not always so simple. There are lots of other things to factor in in any given situation.”
“So what’s yours?” P.J. asked. “What’s your weakness?” From the tone of her voice and the disbelief in her eyes, she clearly didn’t think he had one.
Harvard had to smile. “Why don’t you ask Wes or O’Donlon? Or Blue?” He leaned past P.J. and called to the other men, “Hey, Skelly. Hey, Bob. What do I hate more than anything?”
“Idiots,” Wes supplied.
“Idiots with rank,” Bobby added.
“Being put on hold, traffic jams and cold coffee,” Lucky listed.
“No, no, no,” Harvard said. “I mean, yeah, you’re right, but I’m talking about the teams. What gives me the cold sweats when we’re out on an op in the real world?”
“SDVs,” Blue said without hesitation. At P.J.’s questioning look, he explained. “Swimmer Delivery Vehicles. We sometimes use one when a team is being deployed from a nuclear sub. It’s like a miniature submarine. Harvard pretty much despises them.”
“Getting into one is kind of like climbing into a coffin,” Harvard told her. “That image has never sat really well with me.”
“The Senior Chief doesn’t do too well in tight places,” Lucky said.
“I’m slightly claustrophobic,” Harvard admitted.
“Locking out of a sub through the escape trunk with him is also a barrel of laughs,” Wes said with a snort. “We all climb from the sub into this little chamber—and I mean little, right, H.?”
Harvard nodded. “Very little.”
“And we stand there, packed together like clowns in a Volkswagen, and the room slowly fills with water,” Wes continued. “Anyone who’s even a little bit funny about space tends to do some serious teeth grinding.”
“We just put Harvard in the middle,” Blue told P.J., “and let him close his eyes. When it’s time to get going, when the outer lock finally opens, whoever’s next to him gives him a little push—”
“Or grabs his belt and hauls him along if his meditation mumbo jumbo worked a little too well,” Wes added.
“Some people are so claustrophobic they’re bothered by the sensation of water surrounding them, and they have trouble scuba diving,” Harvard told her. “But I don’t have that issue. Once I’m in the water, I’m okay. As long as I can move my arms, I’m fine. But if I’m in tight quarters with the walls pressing in on me…” He shook his head. “I really don’t like the sensation of having my arms pinned or trapped against my body. When that happens, I get a little tense.”
Lucky snickered. “A little? Remember that time—”
“We don’t need to go into that, thank you very much,” Harvard interrupted. “Let’s just say, I don’t do much spelunking in my spare time.”
P.J. laughed. “I never would have thought,” she said. “I mean, you come across as Superman’s bigger brother.”
He smiled into her eyes. “Even old Supe had to deal with kryptonite.”
“Ten minutes,” Wes announced, and the mood in the plane instantly changed. The men of Alpha Squad all became professionals, readying and double-checking the gear.
Harvard could feel P.J. tighten. Her smile faded as she braced herself.
He leaned toward her, lowering his voice so no one else could hear. “It’s not too late to back out.”
“Yes, it is.”
“How often does your job require you to skydive?” he argued. “Never. This is a fluke—”
“Not never,” she corrected him. “Once. At least once. This once. I can do this. I know I can. Tell me, how many times have you had to lock out of a sub?”
“Too many times.”
Somehow she managed a smile. “I only have to do this once.”
“Okay, you’re determined to jump. I can understand why you want to do it. But let’s at least make this a single-chute buddy jump—”
“No.” P.J. took a deep breath. “I know you want to help. But even though you think that might help me in the short term, I know it’ll harm me in the long run. I don’t want people looking at me and thinking, ‘She didn’t have the guts to do it alone.’ Hell, I don’t want you looking at me and thinking that.”
“I won’t—”
“Yes, you will. You already think that. Just because I’m a woman, you think I’m not as strong, not as capable. You think I need to be protected.” Her eyes sparked. “Greg Greene’s sitting over there looking like he’s about to have a heart attack. But you’re not trying to talk him out of making this jump.”
Harvard couldn’t deny that.
“I’m making this jump alone,” P.J. told him firmly, despite the fact that her hands were shaking. “And since we’re being timed for this exercise, do me a favor. Once we hit the ground, try to keep up.”
* * *
P.J. couldn’t look down.
She stared at the chute instead, at the pure white of the fabric against the piercing blueness of the sky.
She was moving toward the ground faster than she’d imagined.
She knew she had to look down to pinpoint the landing zone—the LZ—and to mark in her mind the spot where Harvard hit the ground. She had little doubt he would come within a few dozen yards of the LZ, despite the strong wind coming from the west.
Her stomach churned, and she felt green with nausea and dizziness as she gritted her teeth and forced herself to watch the little toy fields and trees beneath her.
It took countless dizzying minutes—far longer than she would have thought—for her to locate the open area that had been marked as their targeted landing zone. And it had been marked. There was a huge bull’s-eye blazed in white on the brownish green of the cut grass in the field. It was ludicrously blatant, and despite that, it had been absorbed by the pattern of fields and woods, and she nearly hadn’t seen it.
What would it be like to try to find an unmarked target? When the SEALs went on missions, their landing areas weren’t marked. And they nearly always made their jumps at night. What would it be like to be up here in the darkness, floating down into hostile territory, vulnerable and exposed?
She felt vulnerable enough as it was, and no one on the ground wanted to kill her.
The parachute was impossible for her to control. P.J. attempted to steer for the bull’s-eye, but her arms felt boneless, and the wind was determined to send her to another field across the road.
The trees were bigger now, and the ground was rushing up at her—at her and past her as a gust caught in the chute’s cells and took her aloft instead of toward the ground.
A line of very solid-looking trees and underbrush was approaching much too fast, but there was nothing P.J. could do. She was being blown like a leaf in the wind. She closed her eyes and braced herself for impact and…jerked to a stop.
P.J. opened her eyes—and closed them fast. Dear, dear sweet Lord Jesus! Her chute had been caught by the branches of an enormous tree, and she was dangling thirty feet above the ground.
She forced herself to breathe, forced herself to inhale and exhale until the initial roar of panic began to subside. As she slowly opened her eyes again, she looked into the branches above her. How badly was her chute tangled? If she tried to move around, would she shake herself free? She definitely didn’t want to do that. That ground was too far away. A fall from this distance could break her legs—or her neck.
She felt the panic return and closed her eyes, breathing again. Only breathing. A deep breath in, a long breath out. Over and over and over.
When her pulse was finally down to ninety or a hundred, she looked into the tree again. There were big branches with leaves blocking most of her view of the chute, but what she could see seemed securely entangled.
Sweat was dripping from her forehead, from underneath her helmet, and she wiped at it futilely.
There were quick-release hooks that would instantly cut her free from the chute. They were right above her shoulders, and she reached above them, tugging first gently, then harder on the straps.
She was securely lodged in the tree. She hoped.
Still looking away from the ground, she brought one hand to her belt pack, to the length of lightweight rope that was coiled against her thigh. The rope was thin, but strong. And she knew why she had it with her. Without, she would have to dangle here until help arrived or risk almost certain injury by making the thirty-foot leap to the ground.
She uncoiled part of the rope, careful to tie one end securely to her belt. This rope wouldn’t do her a whole hell of a lot of good if she went and dropped it.
She craned her neck to study the straps above her head. Her hands were shaking and her stomach was churning, but she told herself over and over again—as if it were a mantra—that she would be okay as long as she didn’t look down.
“Are you all right?”
The voice was Harvard’s, but P.J. didn’t dare look at him. She felt a rush of relief, and it nearly pushed her over an emotional cliff. She took several deep, steadying breaths, forcing back the waves of emotion. God, she couldn’t lose it. Not yet. And especially not in front of this man.
“I’m dandy,” she said with much more bravado than she felt when she finally could speak. “In fact I’m thinking about having a party up here.”
“Damn, I thought for once you’d honestly be glad to see me.”
She was. She was thrilled to hear his voice, if not to actually see him. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. “I suppose as long as you’re here, you might as well help me figure out a way to get down to the ground.” Her voice shook despite her efforts to keep it steady, giving her away.
Somehow he knew to stop teasing her. Somehow he knew that she was way worse off than her shaking voice had revealed.
“Tie one end of the rope around your harness,” he told her calmly, his velvet voice soothing and confident. “And toss the rest of the rope up and over that big branch near you. I’ll grab the end of the rope, anchoring you. Then you can release your harness from the chute and I’ll lower you to the ground.”
P.J. was silent, still looking at the white parachute trapped in the tree.
“You’ve just got to be sure you tie that rope to your harness securely. Can you do that for me, P.J.?”
She was nauseous, she was shaking, but she could still tie a knot. She hoped. “Yes.” But there was more here that had to be removed from the tree than just herself. “What about the chute?” she asked.
“The chute’s just fine,” he told her. “Your priority—and my priority—is to get you down out of that tree safely.”
“I’m supposed to hide my chute. I don’t think leaving it here in this tree like a big white banner fits Lieutenant McCoy’s definition of hide.”
“P.J., it’s only an exercise—”
“Throw your rope up to me.”
He was silent. P.J. had to go on faith that he was still standing there. She couldn’t risk a look in his direction.
“Throw me your rope,” she said again. “Please? I can tie your rope around the chute, and then once I’m on the ground, we can try to pull it free.”
“You’re going to have to look at me if you want to catch it.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“Tie your rope around your harness first,” he told her. “I want to get you secure before we start playing catch.”
“Fair enough.”
P.J.’s hands were shaking so badly she could barely tie a knot. But she did it. She tied three different knots, and just as Harvard had told her, she tossed the coil of the rope over a very sturdy-looking branch.
“That’s good,” Harvard said, approval heating his already warm voice. “You’re doing really well.”
“Throw me your rope now. Please.”
“You ready for me?”
She had to look at him. She lowered her gaze, and the movement of her head made her swing slightly. The ground, the underbrush, the rocks and leaves and Harvard seemed a terrifyingly dizzying distance away. She closed her eyes. “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God…”
“P.J., listen to me.” Harvard’s voice cut through. “You’re safe, do you understand? I’m tying the end of your rope around my waist. I’ve got you. I will not let you fall.”
“These knots I tied—they could slip.”
“If they do, I swear, I’ll catch you.”
P.J. was silent, trying desperately to steady her breathing and slow her racing heart. Her stomach churned.
“Did you hear me?” Harvard asked.
“You’ll catch me,” she repeated faintly. “I know. I know that.”
“Unhook your harness from the chute and let me get you down from there.”
God, she wanted that. She wanted that so badly. “But I need your rope first.”
Harvard laughed in exasperation. “Damn, woman, you’re stubborn! This exercise is not that important. It’s not that big a deal.”
“Maybe not to you, but it is to me.”
As Harvard gazed at her, the solution suddenly seemed so obvious. “P.J., you don’t have to catch my rope. You don’t have to look down. You don’t even have to open your eyes. I can tie mine onto the end of yours, and you can just pull it up.”
She laughed. It was a thin, scratchy, hugely stressed-out laugh, but it was laughter just the same. “Well, duh,” she said. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“It’ll only work if you feel secure enough up there without me holding on to my end of your rope.”
“Do it,” she said. “Just do it, so I can get down from here.”
Harvard quickly tied the coiled length of his rope to the end of P.J.’s. “Okay,” he called. “Pull it up.”
He shaded his eyes, watching as P.J. tugged on the rope that was tied to her harness. She wrapped her rope around her arm between her elbow and her wrist as she took up the slack. He had to admire her control—she was able to think pretty clearly for someone who had been close to panic mere moments before.
She worked quickly and soon tossed the ends of both ropes to the ground.
Harvard looped the rope tied to her harness around his waist and tugged on it, testing the strength of the branch that would support P.J.’s weight.
“Okay, I’m ready for you,” he called to her.
This wasn’t going to be easy for her. She was going to have to release herself from the chute. She had to have absolute faith that he wouldn’t let her fall.
She didn’t move, didn’t speak. He wasn’t sure she was breathing.
“P.J., you’ve got to trust me,” he said quietly, his voice carrying in the stillness of the afternoon.
She nodded. And reached up and unfastened the hooks.
P.J. weighed practically nothing, even with all her gear. He lowered her smoothly, effortlessly, gently, but when her feet hit the ground, her knees gave out and she crumpled, for a moment pressing the front of her helmet to the earth.
He moved quickly toward her as she pushed herself onto her knees. She looked at him as she took off her helmet, and the relief and emotion in her eyes were so profound, Harvard couldn’t stop himself. He reached for her, pulling her into his arms and holding her close.
She clung to him, and he could feel her heart still racing, hear her ragged breathing, feel her trembling.
Harvard felt a welling of indescribable emotion. It was an odd mix of tenderness and admiration and sheer, bittersweet longing. This woman fit too damn well in his arms.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her face pressed against his shoulder. “Thank you.”
“Hey,” he said, pulling back slightly and tipping her chin so she had to meet his eyes. “Don’t thank me. You did most of that yourself. You did the hard part.”
P.J. didn’t say anything. She just looked at him with those gigantic brown eyes.
Harvard couldn’t help himself. He lowered his mouth the last few inches that separated them and he kissed her.
He heard her sigh as his lips covered hers, and it was that little breathless sound that shattered the very last of his resistance. He deepened the kiss, knowing he shouldn’t, but no longer giving a damn.
Her lips were so soft, her mouth so sweet, he felt his control melt like butter in a hot frying pan. He felt his knees grow weak with desire—desire and something else. Something big and frighteningly powerful. He closed his eyes against it, unable to analyze, unable to do anything but kiss her again and again.
He kissed her hungrily now, and P.J. kissed him back so passionately he nearly laughed aloud.
She was like a bolt of lightning in his arms—electrifying to hold. Her body was everything he’d imagined and then some. She was tiny but so perfect, a dizzying mix of firm muscles and soft flesh. He could cover one of her breasts completely with the palm of his hand—he could, and he did.
And she pulled back, away from him, in shock.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed, staring at him, eyes wide, breaking free from his arms, moving away from him, scuttling back in the soft dirt on her rear end.
Harvard sat on the ground. “I guess you were a little glad to see me after all, huh?” He meant to sound teasing, his words a pathetic attempt at a joke, but he could do little more than whisper.
“We’re late,” P.J. said, turning away from him. “We have to hurry. I really screwed up our time.”
She pushed herself to her feet, her fingers fumbling as she unbuckled the harness and stepped out of the jumpsuit she wore over her fatigues and T-shirt. As Harvard watched, she took the rope attached to the chute and tried to finesse the snagged fabric and lines out of the tree.
Luck combined with the fact that her body weight was no longer keeping the chute hooked in the branches, and it slid cooperatively down to the ground, covering P.J. completely.
By the time Harvard stood to help her, she’d wrestled the parachute silk into a relatively small bundle and secured both it and her flight suit beneath a particularly thick growth of brambles.
She swayed slightly as she consulted the tiny compass on her wristwatch. “This way,” she said, pointing to the east.
Harvard couldn’t keep his exasperation from sounding in his voice. Exasperation and frustration. “You don’t really think you’re going to walk all the way to the extraction site.”
“No,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly. “I’m not going to walk, I’m going to run.”
* * *
P.J. stared at the list of times each of the pairs of SEALs and FInCOM agents had clocked during the afternoon’s exercise.
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Schneider said with a nonchalant shrug.
P.J. gave him an incredulous look. “Crash and Lucky took fourteen and a half minutes to check in at the extraction site—fourteen and a half minutes from the time they stepped out of the airplane to the time they arrived at the final destination. Bobby and Wes took a few seconds longer. You don’t see the big difference between those times and the sixty-nine big, fat minutes you and Greene took? Or how about the forty-four minutes it took Lieutenant McCoy because he was saddled with Tim Farber? Or my score—forty-eight embarrassingly long minutes, even though I was working with the Senior Chief? Don’t you see a pattern here?”
Farber cleared his throat. “Lieutenant McCoy was not saddled with me—”
“No?” P.J. was hot and tired and dizzy and feeling as if she might throw up. Again. She’d had to take a forced time-out during the run from the LZ to the check-in point. Her chicken-salad sandwich had had the final say in their ongoing argument, and she’d surrendered to its unconditional demands right there in the woods. Harvard had gotten out his radio and had been ready to call for medical assistance, but she’d staggered to her feet and told him to put the damn thing away. No way was she going to quit—not after she’d come so far. Something in her eyes must have convinced him she was dead serious, because he’d done as she’d ordered.
She’d made it all the way back—forty-eight minutes after she’d stepped out of that plane.
“Look at the numbers again, Tim,” she told Farber. “I know for a fact that if the Senior Chief had been paired with Lieutenant McCoy, they would have a time of about fifteen minutes. Instead, their time was not just doubled but tripled because they were saddled with inexperienced teammates.”
“That was the first time I’ve ever jumped out of a plane,” Greg Greene protested. “We can’t be expected to perform like the SEALs without the same extensive training.”
“But that’s exactly the point,” P.J. argued. “There’s no way FInCOM can provide us with the kind of training the Navy gives the SEAL teams. It’s insane for them to think something like this Combined SEAL/FInCOM team could work with any efficiency. These numbers are proof. Alpha Squad can get the job done better and faster—not just twice as fast but three times faster—without our so-called help.”
“I’m sure with a little practice—” Tim Farber started.
“We might only slow them down half as much?” P.J. interjected. She looked up to see Harvard leaning against a tree watching her. She quickly looked away, afraid he would somehow see the heat that instantly flamed in her cheeks.
She’d lost her mind this afternoon, and she’d let him kiss her.
No, correction—she hadn’t merely let him kiss her. She’d kissed him just as enthusiastically. She could still feel the impossibly intimate sensation of his hand curved around her breast.
Dear Lord, she hadn’t known something as simple as a touch could feel so good.
As Farber and the twin idiots wandered away, clearly not interested in hearing any more of her observations, Harvard pushed himself up and away from the tree. He took his time to approach her, a small smile lifting the corners of his lips. “You up for a ride to your hotel, or do you intend to run back?”
Her lips were dry, and when she moistened them with the tip of her tongue, Harvard’s gaze dropped to her mouth and lingered there. When he looked into her eyes, she could see an echo of the flames they’d ignited earlier that day. His smile was gone, and the look on his face was pure predator.
She didn’t stand a chance against this man.
The thought popped into her head, but she pushed it far away. That was ridiculous. Of course she stood a chance. She’d been approached and hit on and propositioned and pursued by all types of men. Harvard was no different.
So what if he was taller and stronger and ten times more dangerously handsome than any man she’d ever met? So what if a keen intelligence sparkled in his eyes? So what if his voice was like velvet and his smile like a sunrise? And so what if he’d totally redefined the word kiss—not to mention given new meaning to other words she’d ignored in the past, words like desire and want.
Part of her wanted him to kiss her again. But the part of her that wanted that was the same part that had urged her, at age eleven, to let fourteen-year-old Jackson Porter steal a kiss in the alley alongside the corner market. It was the same part of her that could so easily have followed her mother’s not quite full-grown footsteps. But P.J. had successfully stomped that impractical, romantically, childishly foolish side of her down before. Lord knows she could do it again.
She wasn’t sure she was ready yet to risk her freedom—not even for a chance to be with a man like Daryl Becker.
“Come on.” Harvard took her arm and led her toward the road. “I confiscated a jeep. You look as if you could use about twelve straight hours with your eyes shut.”
“My car’s at the base.”
“You can pick it up tomorrow morning. I’ll give you a lift back.”
P.J. glanced at him, wondering if she’d imagined the implication of his suggestion—that he would still be with her come morning.
He opened the door of the jeep and would probably have lifted her onto the seat if she hadn’t climbed in. She closed the door before he could do that for her.
He smiled, acknowledging her feminist stance, and she had to look away.
As Harvard climbed into the jeep and turned the key in the ignition, he glanced at her again. P.J. braced herself, waiting for him to say something, waiting for him to bring up the subject of that incredible, fantastic and absolutely inappropriate kiss.
But he was silent. He didn’t say a word the entire way to the hotel. And when he reached the driveway, he didn’t park. He pulled up front, beneath the hotel overhang, to drop her off.
P.J. used her best poker face to keep her surprise from showing. “Thanks for the ride, Senior Chief.”
“How about I pick you up at 0730 tomorrow?”
She shook her head. “It’s out of your way. I can arrange to get to the base with Schneider or Greene.”
He nodded, squinting in the late afternoon sunlight as he gazed out the front windshield. “It’s not that big a deal, and I’d like to pick you up. So I’ll be here at 0730.” He turned to look at her. “What I’d really like is to still be here at 0730.” He smiled slightly. “It’s not too late to invite me in.”
P.J. had to look away, her heart pounding almost as hard as it had been when she was hanging in that tree. “I can’t do that.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, surprising herself by saying it aloud. She unlatched the door. She had to get out of there. God knows what else she might say.
“I’ll see you at 0730,” he said. “Right here.”
P.J. nodded. She didn’t want to give in, but it seemed the easiest way to get him to take his bedroom eyes and those too-tempting lips and drive away. “All right.”
She pulled her aching body from the jeep.
“I was really proud to know you today, Richards,” Harvard said softly. “You proved to me that you can handle damn near anything. There’re very few men—except for those in the teams—I can say that about.”
She looked at him in surprise, but he didn’t stop. “You’ve done one hell of a good job consistently from day one,” Harvard continued. “I have to admit, I didn’t think a woman could cut it, but I’m glad you’re part of the CSF team.”
P.J. snorted, then laughed. Then laughed even harder. “Wow,” she said when she caught her breath. “You must really want to sleep with me.”
A flurry of emotions crossed his face. For the briefest of moments, he looked affronted. But then he smiled, shaking his head in amused resignation. “Yeah, I haven’t given you much to work with here, have I? There’s no real reason you should believe me.” But he caught and held her gaze, his eyes nearly piercing in their intensity. “But I meant what I said. It wasn’t some kind of line. I was really proud of you today, P.J.”
“And naturally, whenever you’re proud of one of your teammates, you French kiss ’em.”
Harvard laughed at her bluntness. “No, ma’am. That was the first time I’ve ever had that experience while on an op.”
“Hmm,” she said.
“Yeah, what’s that supposed to mean? Hmm?”
“It means maybe you should think about what it would be like to be in my shoes. You just told me you think I’m more capable than most of the men you know, didn’t you?”
He held her gaze steadily. “That’s right.”
“Yet you can’t deal with me as an equal. You’re impressed with me as a person, but that doesn’t fit with what you know about the world. So you do the only thing you can do. You bring sex into the picture. You try to dominate and control. You may well be proud of me, brother, but you don’t want those feelings to last. You want to put me back in my nice, safe place. You want to slide me into a role you can deal with—a role like lover, that you understand. So hmm means you should think about the way that might make me feel.” P.J. closed the door to the jeep.
She didn’t give him time to comment. She turned and walked into the hotel.
She didn’t look back, but she felt his eyes on her, watching her, until she was completely out of his line of sight.
And even then, she felt the lingering power of Harvard’s eyes.