Hold 'Em: Vegas Top Guns, Book 3 (34 page)

She ducked around him and claimed an open patch of floor at the foot of the bed. “My motives don’t matter. Just the results.”

Leaning against the bathroom counter, he crossed his arms. The laid-back chill she liked so much was gone, replaced by a severe distance she never would’ve imagined. His fierce eyes were the pale blue of the sky before snow.

“I think I deserve to hear everything. Why else are we here?”

“I don’t need this shit,” she spat. Because yeah, that was fear and insecurity colliding in a sickly knot in her stomach. Her hands shook as she did up the buttons on her shirt.

His jaw worked, as if trying to hold back the rest of his words. Yet he’d always been braver. “I used to think my parents had the right idea. You remember me telling you about them, years ago? Mom at home. Dad off to work. How it
should
be—not women flying planes. But what the hell did I know?”

He shoved into the bedroom, prowling like an angered lion. “When I was in Florida, I saw things differently. My brother and his wife have something special. A life I admire. I actually envied their give-and-take, how they share the good stuff and clothesline everything else—together. What I thought was right for a man and woman…” A grimace twisted his mouth. “It was crap, Leah. Completely bastard crap. It was easier to be a chauvinist than stand up for women like you. Frankly, back then I was probably jealous of your ambition. It wasn’t in me to fight as hard as you did.”

She needed to sit. It wasn’t a graceful movement, but she wound up on the bed.

“You’re the best damn pilot I’ve ever flown with. Whatever impression I’ve given that you weren’t good enough—that was
my
shit talking.” He made fists so hard that his knuckles cracked. “Are you hearing me at all?”

An absent nod was her reply, but what he said barely made sense. She had been trying to give him an out.
Run away. Fast as you can.
Mike had other ideas. His words were a balm she hadn’t realized she craved. Acceptance.
His
acceptance and respect.

He gave it to her
now
? When she stank of tequila and wore the sad remains of her uniform?

“I don’t want some lopsided relationship that can’t weather the worst,” he said quietly. “Top, bottom, sideways—no matter how we do things.”

“But see, this is how I do things.” She made a grand gesture toward the hellhole motel room.

“Nice to know. The only partner you want is one who’ll help you wallow and hide and get off. Why the hell are you doing this? Are you so fucking scared of us? I would treat you like a princess for the rest of my life. You
know
that.”

Leah’s blood ran cold. The hot, angry knot in her stomach was gone, replaced by chills that spread over her skin. “I don’t want to be anyone’s princess. Least of all yours.”

He shut down. Immediately. Just blanked out, and not in that sublimely relaxed way she’d managed to evoke. He looked every bit the Air Force asshole she’d once thought him, no matter his honest admission.

His shoulders bulked higher. “Message received, Captain.”

“What?”

“I knew you were competitive. I just didn’t know you’d rather drive us into a ditch than back down.”

She scooped up her jacket. With her uniform half-assed pieced together and her hair still a mess, she looked like a recruiter’s what-not-to-do poster. Didn’t matter.

She stopped with her hand on the doorknob. Her mouth worked over so much she’d like to say. At the chapel, she’d been sure he would take her hand if she offered it. The ice in his eyes said that chance was long gone.

He was right. She’d won the round.

And she was breaking them in two.

“Michael…”

“
Mike
.” He punched the TV’s off button with one finger. “Call me Mike. Or Templeton. Or asshat. I don’t give a shit. I better not hear
Michael
come out of your mouth again. I can’t be held responsible for what I’d say in return.”

She shriveled up and died inside. Flat out. Nothing left. “Just…take care of yourself.”

A sarcastic twist folded his mouth and angled his eyebrows. “Oh, don’t you worry about me,
Princess
. I’m going to be just fine. You worry about how you can keep your shit together when you obviously think so little of yourself.”

By the time the next live ordnance exercise rolled around, keeping her shit together was the least of Leah’s problems.

She’d lost her mind. Full-out zombified.

Yeah, she went through the motions of her day. Did the PT she needed to, showed up to work on time, gave Fang and Tin Tin hell every chance she got. She’d caught them watching her when they thought she wasn’t looking.

Not that she managed to catch them that often. She was too busy trying not to watch Michael. Mike.

Correcting herself, even in her own head, had been harder than she’d imagined.

Two weeks after that horrible morning in the motel, she made the mistake of ducking into the common room to grab a bottle of water from the bar. He was there, and he’d stripped off his T-shirt. So much smooth golden skin. Unmarked.

She hovered. Stayed near the open door. Her throat was dry and she bit her bottom lip. Not hers anymore. Her hands clenched on the need to touch and grab and pinch what he’d once offered so willingly. His back was two thick sweeps of muscles, decorated with the dip and play of little ligaments. Normally unkind fluorescent lights skimmed over his skin like a lover’s touch, just as she wished she could touch him. His spine was a shallow divot in the center of his back, calling for her tongue to lick up the length.

It had been bad enough seeing him in briefings. In the office. Even across the food court. This was a cruel sort of punishment, to see so much of him and be allowed to touch nothing.

She’d known better than to get involved with anyone in the squadron again. The first few days after their breakup, she’d been so scared that she flinched every time they passed each other in the halls. As if he would stop and point at her and tell everyone within earshot that they’d been in a relationship.

Except Michael was a better man than that. No, not Michael.

He was Templeton now.

Something hot and stinging burned at the back of her eyes. The ache hadn’t eased. Nothing she did, waking or sleeping, detracted from one simple, terrible fact. She had let him go.

The moment he spotted her was obvious enough. His hands froze in the act of shaking out a new shirt. Beautiful blue eyes went cold and his mouth flattened. He shoved his head through the shirt and yanked his flight suit back up with short, sharp moves. Not even a word of greeting—nothing to signal that they were squad mates, let alone former lovers.

Just strangers.

She ran. Again. Ducked right back out the door without grabbing a water and hoofed it back to her office. Thank God it was empty because she really didn’t want to deal with Jon being all full-on Tin Tin. It took everything she had to gather her mental shit and get ready to take to the air two hours later.

As her plane cranked up over ten thousand feet, she knew it was for the best. She could have hurt him. Like, for real and for keeps. Obviously she couldn’t be trusted the way he needed to trust a mistress. A
partner
.

Yet she clamped the throttle at the thought of him kneeling before anyone else. Or his eyes turning deep blue for another woman. Even the idea of him making jet-fuel coffee while he and a new girlfriend laughed together in his tiny little kitchen was enough to make her shake.

She choked it down. Pushed it away. This wasn’t the time or place to be so perfectly aware that it was his fucking plane on her right wing. She knew that dogged, head-down way he flew. He’d die before letting down the other members of the squadron.

They had a mission. Take out Jon’s team of three. Be the bad guys.

Leah had that one down to a science.

Even while flying, she couldn’t keep her head in the game. That ought to tell her something.

She’d screwed up but hard. Despite that, she couldn’t help wondering if he’d take her back. She’d need to suck up her pride and spend an awful long time making it up to him. Maybe she’d start by proving she could handle the real stuff, that she wouldn’t duck her head in the sand when she got scared. Because that’s what she’d done. She was scared of having something so real that she’d have to fight for it. For them both.

Jon, Fang and Kisser were three clicks ahead, flying like Israelis today. Their target.

Eyes on the prize, goddammit. Before she lost her shit entirely.

Nothing went right. Not in her head, and not with Mike.

They’d just crested the mountains, bearing down on Jon, when Mike’s plane jerked in the air. A white plume of smoke streaked from his F-16’s only engine.

The radio exploded into chatter. Leah’s throat choked down. Adrenaline jacked her pulse into a fierce throb. Her fingertips went tingly numb on fear.

A free fall. Flat spin. Mike’s jet spun like a leaf toward the desert floor. Smoke trailed spirals in his wake.

His voice came cold and harsh over the airwaves. After the hours on hours they’d spent in the flight simulator, Leah knew that tone. He was pissed at himself. Frustrated. That was when he made mistakes—compounding, fatal mistakes.

The truth hit Leah with a crushing force, right against her chest. Against her heart, really.

The man she loved was going to die.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

A black haze had swept over Mike’s eyes. The dead weight of his hands meant clumsy responses as he jerked the throttle. His thinking brain realized it was panic. Moments became nightmare slow as the spin’s G-force controlled his body.

Game over.

No.

No way.

He pushed past his body’s cloying shutdown and forced his senses to cooperate. Sight came back first, as he watched dials spin like roulette wheels. The tips of his fingers were icy and his legs numb from the knee down, but he held his body steady.

His hearing… That came back in the form of some sick delusion.

“Michael!”

He jerked. It wasn’t a delusion. The panic in Leah’s scream was unbelievable.

The whine of sirens drowned her out. He was glad. One thing at a time. That meant shoving
any
fear into a faraway corner.

Warning buzzers and blinking lights were furious now. Each needed his attention. Hours of training in the simulator eased over him like a double shot of whiskey. He was going to puke into his lap any second now, but he’d do it with a clear mind.

He wasn’t going to die. Plain as that. Physics could take a fucking leap.

His flight gloves felt overly large so he stripped them off with his teeth. After wiping off the sweat, he found a better grip on the throttle. Stronger. Already doing the impossible, he was six steps ahead of his thinking brain. Reflex and muscle memory took the helm.

Radio chatter dimmed to flight control. Just one voice. That faceless man relayed trajectory data for Mike to compare to his plane’s faulty readings. Thoughts bounced at lightning speed. Dials, readings, information up the ass. The whole time, his body wrestled with a dying fighter jet.

Until something shifted.

He wrested a modicum of control from the floundering jet. It slugged more forward than down. Mike fought for each degree. Level out. Regain control.

Altitude was dangerously low. He’d have to make a decision. Quickly. Keep trying to pull out of the spin or eject.

“Strap Happy, respond. Do you have control of the aircraft?”

“Negative, Control.”

A gust caught his wing, which would normally be a challenge. At that moment, it was just enough to change the game. The throttle jumped in his hands. He managed a sharp bank to the left. Instead of flipping the aircraft, he spiraled rather than fell.

A mantra struck up behind his brow.
Keep it steady.

The spiral widened and became more shallow. The heartbeat in his ears was a monotonous thrum, but he pushed past it to keep the flow of information coming.

“Strap Happy, respond,” came the voice again. “Do you have control of the aircraft?”

“Still losing altitude, Control. Slowing the rate of descent. Requesting instructions for landing.”

“Blue Force barracks runway. Emergency crews standing by.”

The Earth’s pull dragged and sucked at his fighter. He was flying straight, but he was too low. He blinked past a stream of sweat.

Screw gravity. He was landing in one piece.
Fact.

The Blue Force runway was miles into the desert, where they trained well away from the city. Less chance of harming other people. It loomed ahead of him like a ditch waiting to be dug.
Nope.
That deadly scenario wasn’t worth a thought. Instead, a gift of precision and logic processed everything clearly. Layers of frustration and streaks of fear thinned to wisps.

Leah and the others had peeled away to circle and land behind him. The control tower’s lone voice became the center of his world. Trajectory. Wind speed. Distance. He was riding on pure gut instinct. Unconscious data aligned as naturally as when he took a smooth corner on his BMW.