Nausea frothed from her stomach up her throat. Kathleen clapped a hand over her mouth just before hanging her head between her knees. "Ohmigosh."
"It's okay. We're okay." He gripped her shoulders with a firmness echoed in his tone. "The fuel tank must have sprung a leak when rocks from the lake bed ripped out the undercarriage."
Her breathing ragged, she rested the side of her head on her bent knee, eyes trained on the car. Flames licked toward the sky. Metal blackened to a skeletal mockery of their rental car.
She could have still been inside.
Kathleen raised her eyes to Tanner. "You pulled me out of there?"
He grunted, then shrugged. "No big deal. Just carried you away from the car when I smelled the gas."
Kathleen shuddered. If Tanner had been knocked out, as well, they both would have died. She blinked back team. A world without his broad shoulders seemed an empty place. Tears burned hotter, became tougher to control, but she would … after she stared at him for another ten seconds to reassure herself he was unharmed.
The vee of his shirt stretched open at his throat, displaying a patch of blond hair against his bronzed neck. What she wouldn't give to rest her head right in the crook for five minutes. Just five. And then she would be herself again. "Thank you."
His eyes collided with hers, and she saw a flash of something. Fear? For her? But of course he would have been worried. He was human after all, a decent man.
Why did she want to convince herself she saw something more?
Then it was gone. His lighthearted dimple kicked in with familiar predictability—along with the power to make her forget about her aching head for a full minute.
He rocked back on his heels. "Couldn't let anything happen to you. Who would I argue with?"
She gathered her tattered composure. She was an Air Force officer, after all. It was time to start acting like one, rather than becoming a basket case because she'd bumped her head. "Keeps you on your toes. Can't let everything in life come easy for you."
"This investigation hasn't been easy."
"You mean working with me."
He looked from the wreckage to his hands. His thumb massaged over a raw patch of skin on the other palm. "Like you said, vintage Keystone Cops."
Smoke-tinged air tickled Kathleen's nose as a sense of whimsy tickled her raw throat. They had actually blown up their rental car. That wouldn't play well with the Hertz folks at checkout.
A giggle sneaked free.
Tanner stared at her as if she'd left her brain back in the car. He thumbed one of her eyebrows and lifted. "Your pupils seem even. What else do I need to check for?"
Kathleen batted his hand aside and laughed harder. Every chuckle hammered her head, not that she could stop even when Tanner scowled at her.
"What the hell's so funny?"
She snorted on a laugh, choked back another before she could answer. "We blew up the car."
"Yes," he said, enunciating with extra precision. "We did."
"Just imagine the look on Colonel Dawson's face when we tell him" She lowered her voice, puffed out her chest. "Sir, we managed to work together on one thing."
Tanner's frown faded into skepticism, shifting to amazement before that dimple tucked in again. "Well, damn. We blew up the car."
A low rumble rolled from his chest, echoing out over the lonely desert. He hooked a forearm on his knee, shook his head and laughed harder.
He'd always had the most infectious laugh.
She let the laughs have their way with her. Who cared if each one carried a slightly hysterical edge? It was safer than crying all over Tanner's broad chest.
One last rogue giggle tripped into a snort. Kathleen pushed a hand to her aching head. "I imagine it's too much to hope for that you have your cell phone in your pocket."
He jerked a thumb toward the smoking car. "It was hooked up to the trickle charger in the lighter. And yours?"
"In my purse. We should have had some of your Lucky Charms for breakfast."
Tanner clasped his hands between his knees, massaging the scratch on his palm, eyes scanning the horizon. "I'm not so sure all this has anything to do with lousy luck."
She tried to sort through his cryptic statement, but couldn't think through the foggy ache. She needed to be checked out by a doctor. "Do you think we're closer to base? Or town?"
"Base, but we're still talking about a helluva haul. We might shave a few miles off if we made a direct path. All the same, I'd rather stick to the road. Maybe someone saw the explosion and has already called for help. If we stay with the roads, we may luck into a car before dark, or at least find one of those old missions we passed heading out. Either way, we've got to walk."
"I figured as much."
He feathered a blunt fingertip over her forehead. "Are you up to it?"
She willed her eyes not to drift shut at that skimming caress. "No choice is there? And don't even offer to carry me."
"Hey, plenty of soldiers carry wounded comrades off the battlefield. No shame in that. You're a hell of a lot lighter than Lance or Cutter." He smiled, but couldn't quite hide the sudden tension between them, a quiet intensity flickering like the lingering flames reflected in his eyes.
He could joke all he wanted, but he had to know she needed a trip to the E.R. Given his need for control, this would be a tough one for him to swallow. She needed to play it straight, because he would recognize a lie. "If I have a concussion, it's better for me to walk. It will keep me alert."
He stared into her eyes as if weighing her words or perhaps checking her pupils again. He must have been reassured by what he saw because he stood, extending a hand to help her.
She gripped his wrist. "Uh, is your back okay?"
"O'Connell…" he growled, his hold twitching around her wrist.
"It better be, because there's not a chance I can carry you out of here, hotshot." She gave him a gentle squeeze and stood.
"I'm fine." His eyes burned with a battlefield determination. "I'm going to get you out of here and to a hospital, Kathleen."
Her smile pulled tight. "How about we do it together?"
"Right." He grunted, dropping her hand. "May as well get started."
Her skin tingled as if she'd singed her palm in the fire. She skimmed a restless hand along her dusty jeans. "What a way to spend Christmas Eve."
"We're both alive. Santa's earned his cookies." The gruff edge to his response made her recall he'd had worse Christmases. His sister's death had to hit him hard this time of year.
Remembering she had a lot to be thankful for in spite of the hideous day, Kathleen nodded. "Good point."
The road stretched out ahead of her, long, narrow, fading into the horizon. Kathleen wished she had an extra pack of Oreos on hand for hitching a ride on Santa's sleigh.
With her luck so far, they wouldn't reach town until the new year. And the last thing she needed was the temptation of a night under the stars with Tanner.
A coyote howled as the sun inched its way into the horizon. Tanner eyed the crumbling adobe mission in the distance and knew they didn't stand a chance of reaching it until at least an hour after sunset.
The temperature already dipped below freezing. Kathleen's pale face had him ready to fling her over his shoulder and double-time it to the highway. She'd insisted she was fine every time he'd asked, but what else would she say?
Not a damn car in sight all day. Apparently no one else knew about Crusty's detour.
Kathleen trudged beside him. Dogged determination marked her face with an expression he hadn't seen since cross country rims at the Academy. They could have been transported back.
Except for the bruise on her brow.
Across her temple, the purplish stain had spread. The jagged edges of her cut pulled together, no longer oozing but still looking nasty as hell. All because of a simple flat tire.
His brain screamed warnings at him. Two flat tires. That wasn't right. Their string of bad luck went beyond stepping out of the wrong side of the plane or missing a sardine breakfast. Except he couldn't do anything about that now. Just concentrate on getting Kathleen to shelter for the night.
She skirted a creosote bush, her feet tangling as she sidestepped. A fresh fist of dread pummeled him. He had to keep her alert. Talking would help him gauge her state of mind. "What did you mean about wanting a keg party?"
"Huh?" Her eyes shifted from watching her feet to Tanner.
The sunset fingered explosions of vibrant reds behind her, the same awesome shade of Kathleen's hair. He reminded himself that the brightness was merely a by-product of some light refraction on airborne dust and sand. That didn't diminish the view in the least.
"When I tried to wake you after the accident, you kept saying you didn't want to be one of the seven dwarfs. You wanted a keg party. What did you mean about Snow White tapping a keg?"
"I must have hit my head harder than I thought. I have no idea what I meant." She planted one foot in front of the other with each huffing breath. "Did I say anything else?"
"Something about how you didn't want to be Doc, Grumpy or Sleepy, You wanted a keg party."
Confusion smoothed from her face. "Oh."
"What did you mean?"
Her brow furrowed again. With concentration? Pain? Or disorientation.
He tucked in beside her and looped a steadying arm around her waist. "O'Connell?"
"It's silly, really." She didn't look at him. But she didn't pull away.
"Silly is the last adjective I would ever use to describe you."
"Thanks, I think."
God, she felt good against his side, warm, soft … alive. "Talk and let me know you're all right or I'm carrying you. I'll end up back in the infirmary making both our lives a living hell."
"My name."
He waited for the rest, but she didn't offer up anything more. "You'll need to give me a little more to go on. You're still not making sense."
"Doc. My name. My call sign."
"And? Come on, Doc, spill it." He gave her waist a gentle squeeze, assuring himself he did it in the interest of keeping her conscious. Yeah, right. "Do I have to threaten to piggyback you through the desert?"
"I told you this was silly."
He positioned his other arm as if to scoop her from behind her knees.
"Okay! Okay!" She danced out of his grasp. Returning to her dogged solo march, she trudged two steps ahead of him before speaking. "I never got a real call sign like the other flight surgeons. You know, like Cutter or Hippocrates. I'm just plain ol' Doc. No keg party naming ceremony. Nothing special. Not really one of you."
Tanner took in the proud tilt of her chin when he knew her head had to feel ten pounds too heavy. So many times he'd seen her roll her eyes over what she called "flyer games." He'd never once considered she'd wanted to play along. How could he have missed it? "Kathleen, I—"
She held up a silencing hand. "Stupid, I know, since I set the boundaries in the first place. I'm a loner, and I prefer it that way, so I can't fault the rest of you for not including me. I certainly wouldn't have said anything about it if my brains hadn't been rattled around inside my skull." She pivoted to face him and walked backward. "And I'll deny it if you ever repeat a word of what I said."
He grasped her shoulders, halting her. "I wouldn't repeat something you told me in confidence." lie gave her shoulders a squeeze and tried to bring her smile back. "Especially when your brains have been rattled around."
It didn't work and the failure coldcocked him. When had he shifted from wanting to make her mad to needing to make her smile?