“dr. rinehart.”
loren jumped at the command his voice issued. to date he had used a deeply sensual tone with her. the deep rumble that sounded down the hallway called up an urge to straighten her back. frank reacted like a new marine recruit. the doctor snapped to attention, his back ramrod straight.
“i trust you can deal with the fire department discreetly. we wouldn’t want a public panic.”
“no, of course not.”
“thank you.”
seeing this man in her hospital had robbed loren of her first impression of him. the second he dismissed the doctor his body executed that silent grace that she’d first noticed about him. a quick step and he’d grasped her biceps as he used the hold to propel her body toward the elevator. her feet stumbled to keep pace but if he noticed, 15
the information never gained a response. they were already inside the elevator before she managed a retort.
“this only goes to the landing pad on the roof.” his green eyes regarded her with amusement. the same kind a cat used when it was tormenting a mouse. fine! if the man wanted to waste his time, then she appeared
to have plenty to spare now as well.
the door opened and loren stepped out onto the roof. she was completely at home here. her feet traced a path that her body knew by heart. her stride faltered as she took
in the helicopter sitting on the pad. instead of one of the county’s medical units, this
thing was deepest black. the sleek lines screamed out a modern edge that her civilian aircraft lacked.
“you have style, mr. campbell. i’ll give you that.”
“major.”
and pride. an officer to boot. that really didn’t surprise her. the tone the man was capable of using was pure steel. dr. rinehart was one of the pickiest doctors in the hospital. watching him jump when told to was almost worth having to deal with major campbell.
but not quite.
“this is a panther.”
the words came out of her mouth as an afterthought. loren was too busy looking over the top-secret aircraft to pay her mouth any mind. nicknamed the red eye, these helicopters were cutting edge. they were equipped with the newest laser technology and primarily deployed for searching.
they also carried heavy artillery to allow them to complete their searches in friendly skies or not.
three of his men turned deadly eyes onto their guest. rourke watched her examine
his bird with suspicion as well. no civilian should even know the name of this aircraft, much less anything about it. that suspicion was rapidly growing as he watched loren run a critical eye over key areas of the helicopter. it would seem that she knew more about it than just the name.
“her roommate works for nasa.” sergeant gilmore glared at loren as he spoke. the ranger clearly didn’t like the familiar way loren looked at his aircraft.
her roommate’s career was over! rourke was going to see to that personally!
the woman was married, but she was a liar. sergeant gilmore would have stated it if the man was her husband. it would appear she also kept company with a man who didn’t understand just what classified meant. that kind of sloppiness got men like rourke killed.
his little lapse of sanity was spreading further. if loren lived with a man it was very likely he was contaminated as well.
“pick the guy up.”
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rourke really shouldn’t have been quite so disappointed but he was. climbing aboard his aircraft, he left loren to his junior officer. he would leave the woman to her adultery.
oh, this was priceless. loren found it nearly impossible to contain her amusement. major campbell was clearly annoyed with her. yes sir, the man had his boxers in a twist
for sure.
it was just the right sort of punishment for his ego. the man needed to be brought down a peg and loren was happy to help. men always thought that what was good for them was unacceptable for women. major campbell held no reservations about making
a pass at a complete stranger, but lord forbid she should have a boyfriend.
no, she was expected to be the pristine virgin just waiting for him to sweep her off her feet…
ha! not in the real world. loren very much doubted that he was a virgin and she hated the double standard the man harbored.
the rotors of the helicopter began their rotation as loren snapped her harness into place. she was going to enjoy this ride. the county didn’t operate anything quite so modern. feeling the power contained in the panther made her nerves zing with anticipation of the coming flight.
and then she was going to have the pleasure of watching major campbell eat his hat. loren didn’t need a boyfriend. after all, it was really much more satisfying to watch the men around her make complete asses of themselves.
rourke campbell was off to a wonderful start.
* * * * *
“i flew up here in a panther, mom! a red eye panther! you should see the laser targeting screens. i know the specs but when they are responding to the trigger sensors the precision is excellent!” her son launched into a complete technical explanation of the computer programming abilities of the helicopter that transported him. loren forced her mind to try and understand at least half of the information being carried in her son’s words.
at fourteen, toby had already surpassed loren in height and was well on his way
to becoming a giant. slim and reedy, her son reminded her of a colt—all legs and energy.
“you’re his mother?”
“why, yes. i’m quite certain i told you i am married. children sometimes come along in such relationships.” loren fluttered her eyelashes a few times before returning her attention to her son. oh yes. rourke campbell was entirely too much fun.
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that woman needed to be hauled off to bed. her husband sure as hell wasn’t taking care of her. if she were his, rourke would spend the rest of the night working that starch out of her tight little backside.
damn it!
she wasn’t a liar, which brought rourke back to finding her extremely intriguing. the sight of her son forced him to acknowledge the fact that she belonged to another man. even if the guy was foolish enough to stay away from her bed, she was still married.
that was a line that rourke wouldn’t cross.
but something was still off. there was no way a fourteen-year-old kid worked for nasa. rourke headed for his office to discover just where his field information was wrong. while he was at it, rourke intended to find the name of the man who was such an idiot as to abandon a woman like loren. maybe the guy didn’t like kids. she wouldn’t be the first wife to discover that flaw in her husband after the baby was born.
ahh, who was he kidding? rourke wanted to believe she was alone because he wanted her. the woman oozed sex appeal. his body was pulsing even now as he watched her follow her son around one of his helicopters.
she was one hell of a package. loren wasn’t slim. instead her body was tight and full-figured. sandy blonde hair was twisted on top of her head but the unruly strands refused to stay trapped and were catching the sunlight. a pair of light green eyes betrayed an irish heritage.
her position with a fire department spoke volumes about her personality. this woman was a livewire. that passion had attracted him on that beach and it was even more apparent now.
rourke shook his head as he resigned himself to disappointment. another man had noticed her much earlier in life. lucky bastard.
“you bitch!”
halfway across the landing pad, rourke turned back at a dead run. the violence expressed in those two words communicated itself down to his soul.
loren was the only female on the site. one of his men had taken major exception to her. rourke didn’t care what the reason was but the man was deadly furious and rourke needed to intercede.
“you said it was a girl!”
“the doctor told you that. maybe you should have waited around to make sure.” loren issued her words with precise pronunciation. it was a scene she’d often
considered having to endure but it was still a shock to come face to face with her
husband.
fourteen years wasn’t long enough. rage was boiling up inside her as red-hot as the day he’d deserted her.
chris had always turned to violence when words escaped him. today was no exception. despite the years of separation, loren clearly read the signs of her husband’s
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exploding temper. she watched the muscles of his chest tighten as he raised his fist to speak for him.
one thing had changed in fourteen years—loren wasn’t going to stand there cringing in fear while her husband hit her. she watched his arm as it swung at her face. her body responded with beautiful obedience to the hours of training she’d forced herself to endure.
chris never expected her to move and she took full advantage of his ignorance. raising her arm to block his strike, she raised a leg and executed a solid front snap kick that sent her husband flying into the dirt. chris raised a stunned face to her as his mouth issued another round of filthy language that loren remembered all too well.
“i am not sixteen anymore! the next time you hit me, i promise you i will make it the last!”
* * * * *
three hours later, loren was still staring at her husband. major campbell might have banished her to the front porch of his house but there was no way she was taking her eyes off of chris! but she really wanted to know just what rourke had said to him. night had fallen hours ago but her temper was keeping her plenty warm. chris appeared to have been given first watch and stood just off to the side of the landing pad with a semiautomatic rifle slung over his shoulder.
loren wasn’t a fool. she’d kept careful track of her husband’s whereabouts.
it was the only logical thing to do when the man had little compunction about trying to kill her with his fists. that was one of the main reasons she’d never divorced the man. the army had very clear rules about spouses.
being chris’ legal wife meant she was given information on just where her husband was.
“mom, your hands are turning blue.”
“toby, i am having a really bad day.”
“yeah, i sort of noticed that.”
her son’s offbeat humor was about the only thing that could slice through her anger. loren tilted her head to the side and looked up at her son. she really was lucky
to have such a great kid.
“there’s dinner inside. it’s worse than john’s cooking.” loren made a face in response. john phelps was the engineer at one of her local stations. the man was determined to become a chef and he had a long way to go. but since she’d landed her job with los angeles county five years ago, toby was eating at a lot of fire stations due to the twenty-four hour shifts she worked.
“all right, i will endeavor to get over myself.” 19
her son flashed her grin before he turned and loped into the house. loren took a last look at chris before she forced her body to follow. there was no point in standing there nursing her pride. she’d made the stupid mistake of marrying the man and there was nothing she could do to fix that now. too young to know better, she’d let her young heart lead her straight into the lion’s den.
“lavender rain?”
“mom hates her name.”
just her luck. having left one problem male outside, loren now had the privilege of facing down the second one. this quarantine was going to be very long.
“mom says it’s a side effect of having grandparents who attended woodstock.” toby picked up a dinner plate and began piling food onto it.
“you were born to a pair of flower children?”
“no, only my mother suffers from that disease.”
“so just where was your father while she was signing the birth certificate?”
loren considered ignoring rourke’s question. unless she missed her guess, the man knew the answer already. but you couldn’t prove it by the look on his face. his expression sat solid as granite and gave absolutely nothing away.
but she did have eyes in her head. top-secret aircraft, rangers patrolling the area—
if major rourke campbell didn’t have the means to pulling every last bit of personal information about her then she’d eat her shoes. the man was currently conducting an honesty test.
“my dad was chasing his stripes.”
“you mean he was serving his country.” the hard expression that crossed his eyes was a familiar one. loren had seen it on her father’s face too many times to count. it was a look that only men who’d shared the bitter experience of combat could wear.
there was a brotherhood relayed in the emotion.
seeing it cross rourke’s face sent a slight tingle down her spine. this man was completely untamed. he pushed his body to the limits of endurance because he relied
on his conditioning to stay alive.
“before you say it, your information is correct. toby does work for nasa.” the woman wasn’t a liar, but she was sure provocative. rourke considered her as she picked at a plate of food. she was also very perceptive—he was still waiting to hear back from the boy’s superior to confirm his employment. but florida was on the opposite side of the continent and rourke wouldn’t get that confirmation for another four hours when the sun came up at cape canaveral
moving his eyes over the boy in question, rourke assessed him.
the kid was working on his third plate. god only knew where he was putting all that food. there wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on the kid’s lanky frame. toby sent him a grin as he 20
stuffed another forkful of chicken into his mouth. the kid should be discussing the latest video game craze not the finer points of his panther.
the problem was the kid knew more about the aircraft than rourke did.
“my son is a genius.”
“a what?”
loren didn’t take offense as rourke almost snarled his question.
she was really quite used to disbelief in connection to her son’s intelligence level. she was still trying to get used to the idea herself.
“as in, top one percent of the population on the planet.”
“ah ha.”
loren simply tossed her head. there was no reason for her to wear her tongue out trying to convince this guy of anything. rourke campbell would still wait until he’d gained that confirmation from nasa.
laying her fork aside, she decided that it was a shame some poor chicken had died only to end up tasting so very similar to chalk.
loren’s acceptance of his disbelief wasn’t what rourke wanted. she was completely comfortable with letting the matter rest. no evidence laid out to sway his opinion, no heartfelt jumble aimed at polishing up her son’s image.
that left him with only one conclusion. the boy was some kind of genius.
“why aren’t you at m.i.t. earning multiple doctorates?” toby ran an arm across his mouth before he answered the question.
“they’ve got a problem with a project that they think i can solve. when that’s done
i get to go off to college.”
“ah ha.”
“mom, i’m
gonna go
check the
onboard
computer
for
discrepancies
in
programming translation to application.” her son was halfway out the door when loren dragged him to a halt. rourke didn’t even suspect the kid could move that fast, but his mother was used to his abrupt changes in focus.
“toby, these people don’t quite buy the whole security clearance thing yet.
do me a favor and don’t get shot. i’m off duty for a change.”
“ohh.” the kid’s disappointment didn’t last for long. his eyes shifted for a mere second before he chose another target to aim his attention on. another long-legged launch and he hauled his backpack from the tabletop and loped off into the family room.
“what is he up to?”
“he’s looking for a power outlet to set up his system.”
“and then what is he going to do?”
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loren slowly smiled. her son was a handful. she was going to enjoy watching the major here try and keep up with him. her smile faded as she considered just why they were both here.
“why don’t you enlighten me about this whole thing? i’d rather not have toby overhear the details.”
“you’re a paramedic, what more do you need to know?”
“let’s start with how certain you are of contamination.” his lips pulled back into a wide smile. “i was referring to your contamination, i remember mine.”
“good.”
dropping her plate, loren glared at her tormentor. propped against the kitchen counter, his lazy stance didn’t fool her one bit.
“i’m a married woman, so forget it.”
that got his attention. half a second and he was standing at his full height. one step and he’d closed the distance between their bodies to mere inches. her breath caught in her throat as she tipped her head back to get caught in his emerald stare. all playfulness was gone like it had never been. his face was etched in solid granite as he pegged her with a penetrating stare.
“i have a man down. preliminary blood work shows exposure to the virus.
seven days will show if he’s going to develop the disease.” he finished closing the gap ‘til his face was a split second from touching her own. his breath hit her lips as he stopped before completing the kiss. “and you need a divorce.”
the screen door slapped shut behind rourke as he left, letting loren collapse in relief into a chair. her entire body was shaking. it had to be impossible to be so very aware of a man. her nerve endings were screaming and he hadn’t laid a finger on her.
seven days might as well be seven years.
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