Scared. Afraid she couldn't feed her daughter. Terrified one of her husband's connections would come after them. She was also mortified. Decimated.
Lonely. And really, really enjoying the hot strength of this man's touch against her elbow.
Ah, geez, was he actually leaning closer, his nostrils flaring as if catching her scent like a stallion choosing a mate?
No problem, then, unless he got worked up over the smell of Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen.
She eased her arm free. "We're building a new life. I appreciate your taking the time to say hello—" Now wasn't that a whopper lie? "But my daughter and I are about to eat lunch."
"Cupcakes," Kirstie whispered from around Paige's leg.
Resting his guitar on the cement, he lowered to one knee in front of Kirstie. "Sounds like my kind of meal."
Was he angling for an invitation? For what possible reason? She hated being suspicious, but when someone you loved betrayed you so totally, trusting strangers was all but impossible.
"Well, goodbye, Captain, we need to get mov—"
Kirstie released her death grip on Paige's thigh and inched forward. "Will you show me the airplanes? I'll give you half my cupcake."
"Kirstie," Paige shushed low. "Captain Rokowsky probably has—"
"Bo." He tapped the name tag on his flight suit. "My name's Bo."
"He has other things to do."
Bo glanced over at the three men and then back. "I'm afraid your mom's right."
Kirstie's disappointed sigh huffed up to rustle sweaty bangs. Then her spine straightened with her old spunk. "What if I gave you my whole cupcake? It's chocolate with sprinkles."
"Sprinkles, huh?" He scratched his square jaw. "That's a tempting offer, but my boss is going to come looking for me soon, and he gets cranky when we're not on time. I just wanted to say hello before debrief."
"De-what?" Kirstie's curiosity about all things flying overtook her shyness. As much as Paige wanted to run, she couldn't bear to stomp on the spark returning to her daughter.
"Debrief. That's when we talk about the flight so we can learn how to do things better the next time," he explained with surprising patience for a young bachelor with "player"
stamped all over his godlike body and confident strut.
"Oh, kinda like how I hafta go to school."
"Exactly. But are you coming back tomorrow? I could work around those other things to spend an afternoon with two pretty ladies. If it's okay with your mama, of course."
He grinned up with unrepentant mischief, as if he knew darn well he'd maneuvered her by offering in front of Kirstie. Yet why offer at all? Didn't he have better things to do? It wasn't that deserted in Minot.
"Are you always this accommodating?" And full of bull, she silently added.
"I aim to please." His smile kicked up a notch, his perfect face somehow enhanced all the more by his ever-so-slightly crooked teeth. "What do you say, ladies? Are you going to stand me up tomorrow?"
"No way." Kirstie's curls bounced with her shaking head. "You betcha boots we're coming back. Mama promised."
Whoa. Somebody stop the Mack truck force of this guy and her daughter. "Hello? I'm here, too."
"Mama always keeps her promise." Kirstie rolled right on. '"Course sometimes she says
'maybe,' but that means she's not sure and she never promises 'less she knows for sure,
'cause it's important not to lie."
"She's right." Bo nodded sagely. "Sounds like you've got a good mama, Cupcake."
"Kirstie. My name's Kirstie Adella Haugen and my mama's name is Paige."
"Well Miss Kirstie Adella Haugen..." Scooping up his guitar, he stood, killer grin rising in wattage along with him. "I'll meet you and your mama at noon tomorrow over by the Thunderbirds' booth. All right, Paige?"
Her stomach flipped like one of those planes in flight. She wanted to say no, no and hell, no.
But Kirstie smiled.
Paige sighed, defeated by a hip-high six-year-old, no less. "Yes, thank you."
Kirstie's squeal was ample reward. "I'll see you tomorrow, Captain Bo."
"Looking forward to it, Cupcake." Winking, he pivoted away, swinging his guitar back over his shoulder.
Watching him swagger off, a glint of sunlight dancing through the hint of curl in his hair, Paige reminded herself that the veneer of charm dulled all too quickly without substance beneath. And since she had no intention of going deep with this man, she would be able to keep her daughter safe for the span of one afternoon outing.
As he tossed a wave over his shoulder, and flashed her a perfect smile with charmingly imperfect teeth, she couldn't help but wonder who would protect her from the likes of him?
Chapter 2
He hadn't packed protection for this TDY.
Protection?
Bo almost startled back a step on the tarmac at the unexpected thought. Still, he kept right on watching the soft sway of Paige Haugen's even softer looking h*ps as she hunted down a bench for the cupcake lunch with her kid.
Why was he worrying about condoms today? The emergency landing must have rattled his brain. He'd known full well when leaving Charleston this morning that he wouldn't need birth control since he would only be seeing Paige Haugen. She was the last woman he would choose to sleep with, given the mess a year ago, and no doubt he would be last place on her list.
Now didn't that sting more than it should while at the same time firing up testosterone at the challenge?
Like he needed more firing up. The singsong melody of her Dakota accent still strummed his raw senses. Her tangy sunscreen scent clung to the dry air. And damned if sunscreen didn't smell like coconut oil and tropical fantasies.
Her shoulder-length locks offered an enticing bonus of softness. His hands itched to discover just how silky her hair might be gliding through his fingers. And suddenly he thought of another Minot saying to go along with Mako and Tag's "tree" discussion.
Why not Minot? Freezin 's the reason.
Yeah, she'd given him the cold shoulder all right when he was near burning after a glimpse of her generous br**sts straining against her 4-H T-shirt. He could have been standing in a winter snowdrift and melted that sucker in five seconds flat.
Gusting wind whipped the eighty-degree May weather around him along with rat-size mosquitoes, itching him out of his sensual haze. The pesky insects bred and hatched in the piles of melting snow, thriving, big like everything else in this wide-open landscape.
He slapped his neck. Paige Haugen would certainly rather swim n**ed through a pool of these monster mosquitoes swarming the flight line than spend more time with him.
Paige Haugen.
Naked.
The image threatened to take root with a tenacity he knew better than to allow. She was an attractive woman—smelled damned good. But his goal here was to get her out of his head, not plant her more firmly in his thoughts.
She and her daughter emerged from the other side of the small crowd, making their way toward a metal bench. She swung the insulated sack between them and started doling out food. His mouth watered at the thought of tasting a cupcake, followed by a patch of Paige's skin.
As if she felt his gaze, she glanced over—and away just as quickly. He couldn't blame her for wanting to avoid him after the way things had shaken down with her husband's murder in prison. Reminders of that had to suck, regardless of whether or not she'd loved the dirtbag.
And speaking of another Jackass Dirtbag, he knew from his mother that love wasn't logical.
"Rokowsky?" The commanding tone of Quade's voice rode the wind and prickled at him like those mutant mosquitoes.
"Yes, sir?"
Bo turned to his squadron commander, prepping himself for the butt ripping undoubtedly on its way for something or other. Some days, proving his boss wrong was all that kept him in the service.
Lean and lethal, Quade stopped nose-to-nose, cold anger icing the air between them.
"What the hell were you thinking wasting time to pick up your guitar?"
That if I got myself blown up you would celebrate over being short a smart-ass captain?
Bo kept his yap shut and let the commander have his say. Open defiance never won the day, a lesson he'd learned well overseas in Rubistan.
"When I order you to abandon the aircraft, you damn well haul out. Is that understood, Captain?"
"Yes, sir." Definitely understood, but he would do the same again in a heartbeat.
Bo hitched his guitar up on his shoulder. The six-string acoustic had been a gift from Sister Mary Nic when he'd graduated from high school. Purchased with a nun's poverty-level salary, the guitar was golden in his eyes. He would die before losing it.
The commander's rigid stance relaxed minutely. "I guess we can call this day a wash since you saved our bacon by spotting the bird strike and pulling up in time. That was an excellent job of maintaining focus in the face of distraction. Well done, Captain."
Quade rarely dispensed praise, so it always stunned the fight right out of a guy's gut.
"Thank you, sir."
"Close your slack jaw, Captain." Aloof steely eyes assessed. "You think I'm being a hard-ass because it's fun? I'm not here to be your friend. I'm here to make sure that at the end of my tour, we have as many airplanes and aircrew as when I started."
And they both knew that was already impossible. Their unit had lost two planes to man portable missiles, but, thank God, with no fatalities. Barely. A year ago when Bo's plane had been shot down over the Middle East, his crew had been captured by warlords before the Rubistanian government intervened with a rescue.
Bo's fingers flexed inside his flight gloves. He'd been so full of himself and confidence.
Open defiance. He'd ended up with two broken hands, totally useless to his crew, marking the beginning of his doubts.
He wasn't afraid of dying. He wasn't even afraid of another beating, no more than a normal fear. But he was scared as hell of someone dying because of him.
Knowing he wasn't directly at fault for his mother's suicide didn't squelch the notion that he should have done something. And in the middle of his doubts had fallen this woman with her haunted eyes behind funky, black-framed retro glasses.
His gaze cruised back to Paige on the bench with her daughter. Kirstie licked the top off her cupcake. The mother mirrored her daughter, clearing half the frosting with one swirl of her tongue. Paige's lashes fluttered closed in ecstasy, flaming visceral heat to life while his defenses were down. A shadow fell ahead of him as Quade shifted closer. "Someone has to stay with Mako and the plane for the next couple of weeks until it's repaired.
Obviously I can't be that someone because of my duties back at the squadron."
Bo straightened as the implication—and prospect—sunk in. Any other time he might have chafed at what promised to be two, even three weeks of inactivity. But fate had just thrown open his window of opportunity with Paige Haugen.
"I'm the logical choice to stay, sir." Gaze magnet-stuck, Bo watched Paige thumb chocolate frosting off the corner of her mouth.
"Strange running into her here today, and you two talking," the boss noted quietly.
"Yes, Colonel, it is." Could Quade see inside his head? Probably. The man was everywhere, all the time.
He wanted to like the commander, certainly respected his airmanship. But Quade went out of his way to be unlikable.
Quade cleared his throat and backed up a step. "Well, Captain? Don't you have some paperwork to file before these damn mosquitoes make lunch out of us both?"
Before Bo could answer, Quade pivoted toward Tag and Mako a few yards away. "And you two, what are you gabbing about? The flight's not over until the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, even if we had to make an emergency landing."