Double Down (21 page)

Ryan rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. Being the focus of so much attention was uncomfortable. He had to admit that seeing them all grin was kind of fun. Instantaneous acceptance.

Just…weird.

The next couple hours were much more enjoyable than he’d expected. After the Indy pre-race interviews wrapped up, Keith grilled steaks and hot dogs, politely but firmly refusing Ryan’s offer of help. They ate while gathered around a glass-topped patio table under a green umbrella. By the time they all devoured seconds—and thirds for Emily—barely a dent had been made in the piles of food.

Keith pushed his chair back and patted his belly. “I tell you what, this is why a man’s got to own his own business. To be with his family on the best day of the year.”

Cassandra curled her hand around Ryan’s knee. “Dad, what about Christmas?”

“Christmas is good too.”

“Honey,” Betsy said, “we’re so proud of your event. We’re all going to be there.”

Ryan glanced at Cassandra out of the corner of his eye. She still hadn’t invited him. He’d assumed at first it wasn’t a family-and-friends sort of thing.

She squeezed his thigh, perhaps sensing his discomfort. “Later,” she whispered. In a louder voice she said, “Mom, it’s an exhibit.”

“Yes, that.” She beamed. “Will it be those flower pictures? Like Monet? I like those.”

“Um, not…exactly.”

At the other end of the table, Emily and her husband were whispering. Ryan caught a quick, “Not now,” from Emily, but her husband stood anyway.

Robert held up his bottle of Bud. “Everyone, we’ve got a bit of an announcement.” Emily blushed and ducked her chin.

Claire jumped up and down in her seat. “I’m going to be a big sister.”

“Oh, honey!” Betsy squealed and clapped her hands. “Is it true?”

Emily grinned. “In December.”

The entire family broke into happy chatter. Betsy and Cassandra leapt up and swallowed Emily in hugs. Keith and Robert exchanged several rounds of backslapping. Even Ryan got dragged into the excitement, hugged by both Betsy and Claire, who spent most of her time dancing around the table chanting, “Big sister! Big sister!”

By the time the noise died down, they’d shifted back into the glorious living room. Everyone staked out positions on the couch, apparently in it for the duration. Cassandra slipped off her sandals and eased against Ryan’s chest. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, trailing his fingers up and down her bare arm. The whole scene was just so damn homey.

He found himself drawn into the NASCAR race on the huge television. Planes were his big adrenaline rush, so he hadn’t thought stock cars would hold any appeal. Keith had been right—the speed was, as always, intoxicating. Drivers only zoomed around in circles for hundreds of miles, but with the surround sound it was almost like being there.

After the fiftieth lap, Cassandra left to get a drink from the kitchen but took forever to come back. Ryan went looking for her.

She was in the kitchen all right, but her mom had caught her in a whispered conversation. He hung back.

“Cass, we’re going to need you more this summer. Probably the fall too.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I can.”

Betsy’s eyes widened. “Your sister can’t do tours in the heat when she’s pregnant.”

“I know, Mom, but I’m working more than full-time at the gallery. That means working weekends. They don’t pay me enough to be picky and make my own work schedules.”

“If you’re worried about the money, your dad and I will help. We can put you on at full-time. Give you the best routes so you get good tips.”

“I don’t know, Mom…” Her voice trailed off in a way Ryan hadn’t heard before. Hesitant. Even scared.

He didn’t like it. At all.

He stepped fully over the threshold. “Cassandra, can you come explain what’s going on? Your dad keeps cheering for wrecks. That’s not something we generally do on base.” He held out a hand.

The laugh she dredged up sounded strained. She slipped her small hand into his. “That sounds like him.”

They never made it back to the living room. In the hallway she pulled him to a stop with a playful tug. “Hey, are you ready to get out of here?”

He curled his hands around her shoulders, then trailed up to brush his thumb along her jaw. “You sure?”

Other than catching her mom gently strong-arming Cassandra, he’d been having a pretty good time. He and his friends created makeshift families at their various duty stations—to have somewhere to go for holidays, if nothing else—but that wasn’t the same as being smack in the middle of a real one.

She looped her index fingers through his belt. “Yeah, I’m positive. I’ve had enough for one day.”

Ryan kissed her softly. Although he’d sworn he was going to keep things strictly PG while in her parents’ house, his body didn’t want to listen. He needed to pull back. “Then of course we can go. Anywhere you want.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Cass really liked riding in the passenger seat of Ryan’s giant Ford. The truck made her feel tall and solid, so unlike her low, cramped Honda. The early evening air was still warm, but not oppressive. They’d left off the A/C and opened the windows. Wind tossed her hair back from her face as she stretched and snuggled into the leather bucket seat. She didn’t even know where they were going, having simply asked Ryan to drive.

Emily pregnant. Tours all summer and fall. That wasn’t how she’d wanted the rest of this year to be—this year when she might actually get unstuck. Her stomach knotted around all that rich barbeque. Not good.

She wasn’t surprised when they arrived at Nellis. After flashing his ID at a security guard, he drove her back beyond the hangar where she’d seen him chewing out those pilots. Rows of jet planes lined up like overgrown toys or movie props. He parked, then reached in the backseat for his leather flight jacket and credentials. They didn’t say a word. He only smiled before coming around to open her door.

Wow, but he looked absolutely amazing. His neatly pressed forest button-down brought out the green in his eyes. Wranglers hugged his thick thighs, flaring to drape over polished brown cowboy boots. After helping Cass down, he shrugged into his flight jacket and adjusted the collar. She swallowed tightly as he ran a hand through his hair, which was dark with shadows. Against the backdrop of those planes, he was a man in his prime and in the place he belonged.

Crazy to think she might belong with him.

She looped her arms around his neck and kissed him. No warning. No explanation. She needed to.

However, she ended the embrace before she was ready. Ryan’s easy grace had stiffened. He was in his element. Apparently that meant he had a certain professional distance.

“This way,” he said, taking her hand.

He walked her down the line of planes before stopping in front of one in particular.
Maj. Ryan Haverty
was stenciled just below the seam sealing the cockpit.

She smiled, reaching out to touch the machine. “You have your own plane.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I don’t know. I thought maybe you shared them.” She mock glared at him. “Don’t laugh! What I know about the military could fit in a shot glass.”

“Okay. Air Combat Command 101. We have our own planes. That’s Tin Tin’s,” he said pointing, “and that one is for the Princess herself. They’re all the same F-16s, but none of them flies exactly the same. The smallest variations can make a big difference in the air.”

She eyed his friends’ fighters. “Who’s the better pilot?”

“I’m not a major for nothing.”

“I’m serious.”

“Leah,” he said, sobering. “By far. She’s…gifted. Jon’s a genius. He never makes technical mistakes, but he still has something to prove.”

Cass liked these frank assessments. They revealed so much about not only Jon and Leah, but about Ryan’s capacities as a leader. “What about you?”

His sober expression turned almost sad, although she couldn’t say why. “I just work harder than anyone.”

“
Just?
That’s huge.”

He shrugged. “That’s what I bring to the table.”

Apparently changing the subject, he moved on to some of the technical aspects of the plane. Cass had to hide her grin. He likely wore the same glazed-over feeling when she talked art, but his enthusiasm was catching. Cannons and hardpoints, g-force and dogfights. The unfamiliar terms blended together.

“Sorry,” he said, chuckling. “I know I can go on. I just love this damned thing.” As if realizing what he’d revealed, he cleared his throat. “I’d let you see inside, but the ladders are back in the hangar.”

“Some other time,” she said, dazed enough by what he’d already shown her. The idea that he sat in that cockpit every day, as routinely as she drove her dinky Civic, and flew a thousand miles an hour was overwhelming. His day job.

He was just so…
cool
. There wasn’t another word for it, although a few choice adjectives came to mind. Impressive. Potent. Sexy.

They jumped back into his truck and drove to the outskirts of the base. He kept a blanket in the back of the cab. They lay on the lowered tailgate, her head pillowed by his chest. The desert evening closed in around them, illuminated by the lights from the base and the runway.

“This is my favorite spot,” he said.

It was a simple, almost throwaway sentence, but Cass took it for what it was: an invitation into his head. Maybe even into his heart. No matter what they’d shared so far, those invitations had been few and far between.

“A good thinking spot.” Voice neutral. No gushing girly stuff. She was proud of herself.

He made an affirmative grunt, petting her waist. “Your family’s great. I had a good time.”

“I’m glad.”

“That’s big news, about your sister.”

“They’ve been trying for a long time. They never intended Claire to be an only child. I’d almost given up thinking about it. Just resigned, you know?”

“It’ll make your parents’ business trickier, though.”

“I’m sure they won’t mind.” Cass sighed. “We all help out. That’s family.”

He angled up on his elbow, looking down at her face. “I heard you and your mom in the kitchen. About you taking more tours.”

Her skin went cold. “Oh.”

“Is it what you want?”

“You know it’s not. What choice do I have?”

“Tell them no. They can hire other tour guides, I’m sure.”

Cass pushed to a sitting position. She shivered. Without a word, Ryan slipped out of his flight jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. The leather still held his scent, his heat. “You don’t understand how things have been lately, with the economy. Vegas is all…shriveled. My folks keep cutting costs, but there just aren’t as many tourists.” She choked back a surprising sob. “They need me.”

Ryan leaned forward, cupping her cheek. “
You
have needs too. Their job was to raise you up to be your own person. Your own interests.
Your
future.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said with a wobbling smile. “Sometimes I think they’d rather I was more like Emily. She’s always loved the business. If they could build a big Kennedy-style compound and have us all live together, they would.”

He cocked a sexy grin. “I’m not down with that.”

“Me neither, goosey. But maybe you can see why it’s been so difficult for me. I’d love to just go for it—do what I want, when I want.”

“Yeah, but now I’ve been in the mancave, overcome by a food coma. That would blunt anyone’s ambitions.”

“Even yours?”

“Hell, I wanted to stay and finish the race.”

His humor, as always, eased her back from the cliff of her nerves. She took a deep breath and asked what she’d been putting off. “Would you like to come to the exhibit opening?”

“I’d love to. I’d begun to wonder if you were going to ask me.”

“I wasn’t sure if it would be your kind of thing. Sort of tame.” She pressed her cheek against his chest.

“Baby, anywhere you’re at is my sort of thing.”

Cass giggled. She went to tickle him on that special spot above his ribs, but the flight jacket made a crinkling noise she hadn’t expected.

Feeling inside the warm leather, she found a stiff place in the lining. “What’s this?”

“Blood chit.”

“A what?”

“It’s a message in a bunch of languages. That way if I’m ever shot down, the locals will know to return me to the nearest US outpost.”

She zipped right on past the idea of him being shot down. That was forbidden territory. “Does that work?”

“Who knows. It goes back to WWII when it was in French and Russian. Now it’s Pashto, Persian, Arabic.”

“You were in combat.”

“Four tours in Afghanistan and three in Iraq.” Mentioned so blithely, he summed up his whole wartime experience in a few words. Cass could only make the attempt to wrap her head around that gut-wrenching information. He squinted toward the desert stars. “Seems like a helluva long way from here.”

The whining roar of an aircraft engine fired to life.

“Oh, nice,” Ryan said. “A C-130. I hadn’t expected anything to take off tonight.”

“Are we okay here?”

He nuzzled behind her ear. “No, baby, I’ve put you in terrible danger.”

As the engine noise grew steadily louder, Cass couldn’t help her sense of anticipation. They were right under the flight path. The huge transport was, relatively, a small speck in the distance, but soon it’d be flying right over their heads.

“You want earplugs? I think I’ve got some in my glove box.”

“Will I need them?”

Ryan broke open a wide smile. “Either that or cover your ears.”

Minutes passed. She felt jumpy and jittery, like a kid waiting for Santa Claus. Finally the C-130 began its long journey down the runway. They were still seated on the truck’s tailgate, but Cass felt the vibrations shaking into her butt and crossed legs. A heavy bass rumble messed with the rhythm of her heart. She held Ryan’s hand until the sound became too powerful. With her palms pressed against her ears, she watched in mute wonder as the transport’s front wheel lifted from the ground.

It didn’t seem possible. It was too big.

The gigantic engines overcame gravity. The rear wheels lifted. Like a huge bloated metal bird, the C-130 thrust through the air, growling directly overhead. Cass couldn’t breathe. Her whole body shook. A hot wash of air that stunk of gasoline followed in its wake.