Guardian (2 page)

She refused to consider that Berg might be right. Not that she doubted his honesty. His pristine reputation at Nellis Air Force Base was highly respected. Well, as much of a reputation as anyone could garner working in the top secret field of dark ops testing. He was known as a by-the-book aviator with nerves of steel. Still, he must have missed something or been misled by those who worked for him. Maybe he had to cut a corner in the testing process that led to Captain Tate making this tragic—and too damn high-profile—military accident.

“Major Berg, do you acknowledge that there was immense pressure in the month leading up to the incident in question?”

“Stress is standard ops in the test world.”

“And why might the pressure be higher during wartime?”

“Troops in the field need the technology we develop.”

“And in times of stress, you agree that sleep can be difficult?”

Sophie neared the raised wooden stand. Berg radiated such raw strength, she doubted any amount of months on the job would lay him low.

Banked embers within her were suddenly fanned to life.

Her steps faltered.

Heat?

The slumbering numbness that had invaded her emotions for the past year eased awake with a burning tingle. An almost painful warmth spread through her, begging to be fed by…

Major David Berg? David? Ice? No frickin’ way!

What could have snagged her attention now, after she’d known him for at least a year and a half? Something about him today seemed different.

His
mustache
, she realized abruptly. He’d shaved his mustache, unveiling a full, sensuous…

Sophie blinked once, twice. Had he noticed her lapse? A honking-big, unprofessional lapse.

She cleared her throat along with her thoughts. “Did Captain Tate receive the full eight hours of crew rest?”

“Twelve hours, ma’am,” Berg answered smoothly. “Regulations state crew rest is twelve hours long, something I know, my crews know, and I’m sure you know as well.”

“Of course, twelve hours.” Well, it had been worth a try to trip him up and create a reasonable doubt. Moving on to plan B.

Sophie closed the last two feet between them, stopping just in front of Berg. Air-conditioning gusted from the vents above, working overtime to combat the Nevada summer heat. Her uniform clung to her back, the blue service coat about as thick and stifling as a flak jacket right now.

Her nerves must be frazzled from the insane year of restructuring her life as a single mother. She needed to
concentrate on her job, not…him. Since Lowell’s death, she didn’t have the time or energy for anything other than caring for her son and paying off the mountain of bills her husband had left behind.

She pressed ahead, placing an evidence bag with a scheduling log inside on the witness stand. “If it’s twelve hours, then I’m confused how you fit in the missions and required rest without a single minute being off.”

He picked up the schedule, scanned it, and placed it back on the stand. “The numbers are tight, but they work. Yes, we were on a deadline. A tight one with no wriggle room, not even a minute. That’s what we do, year in and year out. When has the military not been overworked and undermanned?” Berg’s drawl snapped with the first twinges of impatience. “So in essence, the crazy-ass schedule we work is actually standard.”

Trained to watch for the least sign of weakening in her witness, Sophie rejoiced over the almost imperceptible clench of his jaw. Berg’s pulse throbbed faster above his uniform collar, the reaction so subtle, she felt certain only she noticed. She ignored her own quickening heart.

Time to press the advantage, if she dared.

A quick glance at the judge’s bench reassured her. The jowly presider looked in need of some crew rest himself. She had to move fast.

“Major, you can’t be with your testers twenty-four/seven. So it’s actually impossible for you to say with complete certainty that Captain Tate received the required amount of rest prior to his mission. I mean really, did you walk with him every step of the way?” Her words fell free with a soft intensity that curled through their pocket of space. “Eat with him? Follow him to the bathroom?”

If she could just piss off Berg enough, she sensed he
would snap and slip, say one little thing wrong that would enable her to secure a conviction. It wasn’t like he would go to jail—although somehow she knew he would rather take the punishment on himself than see anyone in his command suffer the shame of a court-martial.

“Ma’am, I’m not required to watch my testers sleep. Although I did see Captain Tate drive away, in the direction of his home, after dinner—which I did watch him eat.” His steely eyes glinted like the flecks of silver dusting his brown hair. “However, I didn’t follow him into the bathroom, since we’re not a couple of junior high girls.”

Sophie snapped back a step.

Chuckles drifted from the jury and the handful of observers in flight suits sitting behind Tate. Even her boss, observing from the very back, brought a hand to his mouth to cover his grin. Damn it. Of course Berg played well to a crowd. In a military proceeding, the accused could choose between a judge or jury trial, and just her luck, they’d gotten a jury.

“Order!” The judge’s jowly cheeks shook like a basset hound’s. His gavel resounded through the military courtroom.

Part of being a successful attorney involved knowing when to retreat with grace, recouping for the next advance. Having foolishly depended on her husband for so many years, after his death, she now struggled with the concept of relinquishing control, of not delivering the last shot.

“Thank you, Major, for that…enlightening…information about the personal-hygiene habits of your unit. I only wish you could be so forthcoming with the rest of your testimony.” Sophie turned to the bench. “Withdrawn.”

The judge darted a censorious glare her way. The jury and Berg’s fellow flyboys laughed again, but this time she didn’t mind.

He moved forward, his shoulders and chest seeming to enlarge, filling the witness stand with his muscular chest full of military ribbons—a Distinguished Flying Cross, a Bronze Star, and almost too many air medals to count. Each oak-leaf cluster signified ten more combat missions. He didn’t just put his ass on the line testing the newest equipment in the inventory. Berg served overseas, sometimes the first to use those new systems outside the test world.

Rumor had it he’d received that Distinguished Flying Cross in Afghanistan. As the fire control officer in an AC-130 gunship, he’d held off hundreds of Taliban fighters attempting to capture a pinned-down SEAL team. His plane had circled and circled, with Berg staying in the fight well past daylight, dangerous for the aircraft. He’d shot so precisely, so effectively, his ammo had lasted until a helicopter could arrive with pararescuemen to scoop up the injured SEALs.

She accepted the inevitable. Any shot she could deliver here today wasn’t going to rattle a man who’d spent hours flying over hundreds of Taliban fighters lobbing potshots and aiming rocket launchers his way.

“Nothing further.” Sophie affected her most efficient walk, heels tapping back to the table. Her boss, Lieutenant Colonel Vaughn, nodded approvingly from the back. She pivoted on the toes of her low pumps to face the judge again. “We reserve the option of recalling this witness.”

After two hours of cross-examination, she’d scored more than a few points.

At what cost?

She and Berg had run into each other during early depositions. And even before that, they’d first met in a past investigation, but she’d still been married then. He’d been in the middle of a messy divorce. She hadn’t looked at him—hadn’t really seen him—the way she did today.

Regardless, stakes were too high for her to worry about David Berg. If she won the court-martial proceeding, that cleared the way for the young boy injured in the accident to move forward with a civil suit.

The judge rested his fist on his jowly cheek. “You may step down, Major Berg.”

Sophie averted her gaze from the witness, pretending to jot notes. With an hour left until court recessed, she didn’t want to risk jack. No doubt when she saw Berg next the unexpected attraction would have left as abruptly as it had arrived.

Annnd
, she looked at him anyway.
Damn.

Her nerves sizzled.

Tucking his wheel cap under his arm, the major circled to the front of the stand. His uniform fit his lanky body perfectly, accentuating each athletic stride.

She studied him from a more personal perspective. Sexy, with brown hair, but not handsome per se, she decided. Not in the conventional sense. His angular features defied so mundane a label.

Deep creases fanned from the corners of his silvery blue eyes, attesting to a combination of years in the sun and ready laughter. His skin was a hint lighter where his mustache had been, drawing her attention back to his mouth. He wasn’t smiling now.

Berg exuded the confidence of a man comfortable in his skin, his appeal making her distinctly uncomfortable in her own.

Sophie resisted the urge to tuck her thumb in the waistband of her skirt. Already snug, her uniform tightened as he narrowed the distance between them. She resolved, yet again, to eliminate midnight ice-cream sprees until she could afford to buy a larger size. He probably didn’t even know how to count fat grams.

The hungry heat returned…and she didn’t crave a pint of rocky road.

The last thing she wanted was some obstinate aviator cluttering her mind. She finally had her life on track, and she didn’t intend to risk her hard-won independence simply because of a fleeting bout of hormonal insanity.

Level with her, Berg hesitated. His six feet four inches dwarfed her five feet three. Five four if she added the minimal lift of her shoes.

Even when not in uniform, she’d always disdained high heels, maintaining they gave her the look of a child playing dress-up. At that moment, she would have plea-bargained two
gallons
of rocky road for a pair of Tina Turner spikes.

Steel-blue eyes pinned her for one slow blink before Berg shoved through the swinging wooden rail and out of the courtroom.

*    *    *

Major David “Ice” Berg cared about two things above all else: his daughter and his job.

Steamed by more than the Nevada sun, David leaned against the exterior wall by the front entrance of the courthouse. At least Haley Rose was settled with his sister for the afternoon.

Five minutes alone with Major Sophie Campbell to straighten the facts, and his world would be in order. With
one of his tester’s careers in the balance, he couldn’t just walk away.

A hand clapped him on the back. He jolted, hard and fast.

Two buds from his test squadron stood behind him—Jimmy Gage and Vince Deluca. Last week, both had returned from a six-month rotation overseas taking the test unit’s newest modifications to the spy drone fleet. So they weren’t a part of the test project in question; however, they’d both come over to lend their support in court.

Vince grinned. “Need help going to the bathroom?”

The bulky, tattooed biker looked scary as hell, even in his flight suit, but was the biggest marshmallow in the unit. However, his humor wasn’t welcome at the moment.

“Shit, not funny, Deluca.”

“If you’re you, maybe, but for us?” Vince punched Jimmy Gage on the arm. “Funny as hell.”

Jimmy was the unit’s all-around good guy, the kind of bud who could be counted on to back you up in a bar fight. “I see a call-sign change in your future. Instead of ‘Ice,’ you could be ‘Charmin.’”

“Or ‘John.’”

“What about ‘Whizzer,’ like ‘Wizard’?”

Vince snorted. “There’s a reason we always send you to buy the keg while the rest of us choose the names.”

“Jackass,” Jimmy muttered.

Vince thumped his chest, right over his heart. “I feel the love.”

David wished he could be as easygoing about this, but his thoughts just stayed with the kid that had been injured from the accident. This couldn’t be a random accident, because then it could too easily happen again. He needed a cause and he needed for that cause not to be one of his
people. “Thanks, dudes, I appreciate your support in there today.”

“We’ll be celebrating the end of this nightmare soon. We’ll have a big party to welcome Tater back on flying status.”

“Roger that,” David said. “Beer’s on me.”

Jimmy adjusted his hat. “Sounds like a plan.” He turned to Vince. “Let’s catch up with Tate over there before I head out.”

Caleb “Tater” Tate stood under a palm tree with his lawyers, military and civilian. The young captain hung his head, listening to whatever his dream team was telling him.

Vince glanced at David. “Wanna come along?”

“Can’t, but thanks,” David answered. “I need to finish up some business here, then I need to get home to the munchkin. Catch you later.”

He watched his two crew-dog buddies cross the parking lot to Captain Tate. Even when they cleared his name—and they would—the fallout from this would follow him. Somehow, the test process had to have gone wrong. But God, a test project often took years to complete. The boss had tapped Berg to step in to oversee the project four months ago, only a month before the accident happened. And yeah, he’d been sent in because the program wasn’t moving along as quickly as higher-ups wanted.

Sophie Campbell had been right on that point. But she was wrong in believing he would condone any corner cutting. And he’d been working his ass off reviewing every old record on the test to find any error—be it from the civilian contractors or military testers.

Which meant more late hours when he already didn’t see his kid enough.

He brought home any paperwork and files that weren’t classified. But there just weren’t enough hours in the day.

He glanced at his watch, impatient from waiting in the heat, drier than his South Carolina home state’s humidity, but a scorcher of a day all the same. He still had to pick up Haley Rose from his sister’s. Single parenthood left him with little time to waste.

What’s taking the lady JAG so long?

Jumbled voices swelled through the opening doors. Masses poured out and divided, easing down the courthouse stairs like the gush from an emptying aqueduct. Bluebirds feeding on the patchy lawn scattered, clearing a path. No sign of her.