Finish the Course (The Barnes Family Book 1) (15 page)

Chung threw something at the man’s back, “Mind your own business.”

Slater ignored both of them and pulled his running shorts from his locker, “I’m going to play some basketball.”

“There was quite a game going on down there about an hour ago,” Harrison, the new guy, piped up. “Some Air Force officer was shooting some hoops and a couple sergeants came in and hit on her. She politely suggested they leave her alone, but they sat and watched. Finally, she challenged them to a game. She beat one of them by ten points and the second by eight.”

Hall laughed at that, “Nothing like having your backside handed you by the woman you want to impress.”

Harrison agreed, “No joke. They went away saying they had gone easy on her, but that was about the time some of her friends showed up.”

“So she played them again?” Porter was in on the conversation now.

“Nah,” Harrison waved it off, “there was another group coming in for some training. She went outside and played horse with them though – won that hands down. The girl can shoot from anywhere.”

Slater’s attention turned to the man.

Harrison seemed to enjoy the added attention, “She only got an ‘H.’”

“If she can hit anything, how’d she get that?” Chung was as reasonable as ever.

“The guy did a layup and she missed it.”

Slater knew it was not possible that Anna was here on base with him. In the first place, she would have called. She wouldn’t have been that unkind. If she were stateside, she would have at least called. In the second, there was no reason for her to be back in the States so soon after her deployment.

Chung glanced at Slater a moment before the senior officer looked down to tie his shoes.

“Hey,” Chung spoke up, “what did this woman look like?”

Slater wasn’t going to ask, but he was glad Chung did.

“Tall, slim build, great legs, brown hair. Pretty.”

Slater frowned. That could have been any number of women.

“She was wearing hot pink shorts and a t-shirt with a restaurant logo.”

Slater felt like he had been sucker-punched, “A Big Benny’s shirt?”

Harrison looked at him, “Yeah. How’d you know?”

She had worn the same outfit most days at Langley.

Slater finished getting ready, now needing to burn energy even more than before.

The gym was empty when he arrived. He began by shooting baskets, continuing with some exercises he had learned from his high school basketball coach.

He had worked up a sweat by the time Chung arrived.

“You don’t know it’s her,” the man stole the ball and drove for the basket.

“Yeah, I do,” Slater took it back, catching Chung’s gut with an elbow in the process.

“Maybe she was going to call you when things calmed down,” Chung watched Slater dribble.

Slater darted quickly to the left, escaping the other man and scoring a neat basket, “When? After her game?”

Chung had nothing to say to that, so he shut up and played.

Anna stood by the door and watched them play. She admired the quickness of Slater’s feet as he faked right before spinning to go around Chung to the left. She watched his perfectly executed layup, jealous – not only of the ability to do such a thing – but also of the obvious friendship between the two men.

She knew she had lost the ability to be Slater’s friend when she fell in love with him. If there were still a possibility of more, she would have enjoyed that stage of their relationship. But when Slater told her he couldn’t take the distraction, Anna felt she had to distance herself as much as possible.

One thing Slater would be glad to hear, she had spent more time in Scriptures. He had given her a lot to think about, and she knew the answers could only be found in the Word. She was surprised how many things made more sense now that she was searching in earnest. The questions she did have, she took to Esther.

“I don’t have all the answers, sweetheart. Nobody does. But you might find it helpful to start attending a church.”

So, Anna did that. Then she found a ladies’ Bible study on base. She was falling more in love with her Savior every day.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and Anna darted from the gym.

“Hi, Dad,” she spoke quietly since she was still too near the men to be sure she wouldn’t be heard.

“What happened with Slater?”

Her father didn’t believe in leading up to a subject.

“I don’t really want to talk about this with you, Dad.”

“Who do you want to talk about it with? Your mother?”

She sighed, and turned toward home, “Nobody.”

“Did something happen that I should know about?”

“Such as?”

“Did he do something that made you uncomfortable?”

At his tone, Anna nearly tripped over her own feet, “What? No, Dad. He wouldn’t do something like that.”

The general snorted, “He’s a man, Annie. I’m guessing he’d do something exactly like that if given the chance.”

“Not Slater,” she was fully indignant at the thought. “He has too much integrity for that.”

She looked up and saw someone coming her way. She really shouldn’t be talking on the phone while walking on base.

“I gotta go, Dad.”

He must have recognized the urgency in her tone because he didn’t argue.

The sergeant saluted her.

She returned it and was about to go around him, but he stopped her.

“’Um, Captain, was that you I saw playing ball earlier today?”

She shrugged, “I don’t know. I was playing ball today, but I couldn’t say that you were watching.”

He laughed, “You played one sergeant and then the other, beating them both. It was pretty hot stuff to watch.”

She grinned, “It felt pretty good to do it too.”

He nodded toward the gym, “You wanna play a game now?”

She raised her eyebrow at the man who topped her height by at least ten inches, “Against you?”

He nodded, “Or we could see if there’s anybody in there who would like to play against the two of us.”

Anna needed to get out the vicinity of the gym right away. The very idea of going in and playing against Slater and Chung made her knees go week.

“Maybe another time, Sergeant.”

“Harrison,” he offered his hand.

“Barnes,” she returned his introduction with one of her own. “I’ll keep you in mind if I ever want a game.”

“Thanks, Captain,” he saluted again and left.

Anna hurried home, hoping Harrison wouldn’t mention her to the men playing in the gym. Then she laughed at herself. It was pretty vain to assume he was in there talking about her.

“Hey, Reed,” Harrison came into the gym as the men were beginning a new game of Horse, “I just saw that captain who beat the two guys this afternoon.”

Slater looked up at the younger man, “Captain Barnes?”

He didn’t mean to admit to the acquaintance.

Harrison’s brow wrinkled, “Yeah – Barnes. How’d you know?” he smiled, “Oh, she was in here playing ball with the two of you.”

Slater shook his head dumbly.

Harrison thumbed at the door, “I saw her coming out of here before we talked. I thought maybe she was in here with you guys.”

Slater clenched his jaw, “She was in here – in the gym? Just now?”

Harrison looked thoroughly confused, “Yeah. “

Chung was watching Slater when he spoke, “You sure she came from here?”

Harrison nodded, “Very. I asked her if she wanted to come shoot a few with me, but she said she’d catch me later.”

“Catch,” Slater whispered.

“Don’t do it, man,” Chung advised.

Slater considered the wisdom of those words for exactly one second before turning and running from the building.

Hamilton yelled after him, “She went north!”

Slater mentally thanked the man and headed in the direction indicated. He was a good runner, but she had gotten a head start.  He ran for six blocks and realized he was not going to find her. He slowed to a walk and glanced around.

He was surrounded by townhomes. Slater could have lived in one of these, but he preferred rooming with his men. It built better bonds. Of course, he didn’t begrudge his married members living with their wives, but the single ones stayed together.

He turned and headed back toward the barracks. Chung was right. He shouldn’t have chased after her. Not only was it bad for his own pride, it gave away his position to Harrison.

He picked up the pace to jog.

He didn’t realize a certain young woman was just taking her shoes off in one of those townhomes, wondering if she should have stayed to talk to him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Captain Barnes,” Major Charleston called her into his office, “I’ve decided you will give the lecture on soldier drops.”

“Sir,” Anna stood tall, “with all due respect, I had a pretty bad experience with one a few months ago. I think you have better qualified people available.”

“In the first place, I’ve seen you teach, so I know you can keep people’s attention. Better than any of the other instructors. In the second place, your landing saved the lives of the men in your aircraft.”

Anna did not sigh, “Yes, sir.”

She didn’t sigh, but she wanted to. Actually, she wanted to hide in a hole. How was she going to tell pilots how to deal with being shot at when she was so unsure she had done the right thing?

              Two weeks later, she stood in front of the class, as ready as she would ever be. The room was packed. It was designed for twenty people and was now holding almost twice that.

              She began with the technical aspect of being shot at. She explained how the chopper would react as well as some common emotions of the pilots and passengers. Normally, Anna interspersed humor throughout her lectures, but she was having a tough time doing so this time.

              “You don’t have a lot of time to make these decisions,” she warned as she was wrapping up. “It happens so quickly, and you have to be able to process all your information rapidly. After you land, you have to trust that you have done your best to get your team and your passengers back home safely.”

              She paused, “Any questions?”

              A hand shot up in the back.

              “Yes?”

              “Do you feel you did your best to get everyone home safely,
Captain
?”

              Anna’s throat constricted at the sound of Porter’s voice.

              “Yes, Sergeant,” she began gathering her things together, “I have to believe that. I have to believe that the decision I made saved lives.”

              A young pilot in the front row raised her hand, “Why was the landing so much rougher than you thought it would be?”

              “We had lost our landing gear.”

              Another hand shot up, “Was there any way you could have known that ahead of time?”

              Anna cringed at the sound of Hall’s voice, “No. A lot of our equipment was damaged in the gun fire. Even if we had known, though, it may not have made any difference. We still needed to get out of the area; we still needed to go down in a hilly terrain.”

              “Do you think the men you carried blame you for the loss of their team?” DeWitt’s question was not preceded by the raising of his hand.

              Anna wondered if the whole team was there. She was pretty certain Slater wasn’t, but she hadn’t noticed those three either.

              “I doubt they blame me for
that
,” she couldn’t resist answering their childishness.

              She answered a few more questions and then wrapped it up.

              Anna knew it was pointless to try to escape the room before the men joined her.

              Chung was also with them.

              “I suppose you have something to say,” she sat down at the desk.

              “What’s your phone number?” Porter began.

              She raised her eyebrows, “You want my number? You came and listened to a lecture for pilots to get my number?”

              “We’d just like to keep in touch, Barnes,” Hall didn’t even try to pretend he wasn’t lying. His voice held an edge of steel.

              “We all know that he could have found my number anytime he wanted.”

              DeWitt shook his head, “It was a game? See how far he’d chase you?”

              “Don’t be stupid,” she snapped. “The point is not that he didn’t try to get in touch with me. The point is that giving him my number isn’t going to make him want to call me.”

              Hall rose from his place, “How long before he left did you realize you were headed to the same place?”

              She hated to admit her ignorance, but she wanted these guys off her back, “The day before.”

              He looked surprised.

              Anna turned away, remembering how happy she had been – so briefly.

              “So you got scared and ran,” DeWitt’s disapproval irked her.

              “No,” she stood up. “I did not get scared and run. It wasn’t me.”

              Their expressions of disbelief were so similar it looked like they had practiced them.

              She threw up her hands, “Apparently you guys are having little gossip sessions back at your ‘boys only’ fort, but you should know it wasn’t me. Slater was the one who ran away.”

              She grabbed her briefcase and stormed out of the room, nearly running over the colonel in the process.

              “In a hurry, Captain?” he asked as his hands came out to steady her.

              “I’m sorry, sir,” she pulled away.

              “You may go,” he stepped back. “I’ll get a report on the class later.”

              She thanked him and hurried out the door. She wasn’t scheduled for anything more for the rest of the afternoon. What she really wanted was to go home and cry, but she was not going to allow herself the pleasure of the act. She put on shorts and a t-shirt and ran to the gym, hoping it was empty.

              It wasn’t.

              “Hi, Captain Barnes,” Harrison greeted her, “you up for a little one-on-one?”

              She nodded, “But I think you should take a handicap. I’m guessing you played in school.”

              He dribbled the ball in front of her, “Like you never did.”

              She eyed him, “But I’m a girl.”

              “I’ve seen you play. You’re not going to play the sissy card.”

              Anna dove for the ball, gained it, advanced aggressively toward the basket and made a beautiful shot before Harrison even knew what hit him.

              “Cheating,” he teased.

              “One to zee-ro,” she taunted.

              They both played hard, but Harrison was bigger, stronger, and better. He won 18 to 16.

              So they played three games of horse and she won all of them.

              “I’ve never seen a girl who played like you,” he admitted as they sat with their backs against the wall.

              She laughed, “You know you’re supposed to call us ‘females,’ don’t you, Harrison?”

              “That sounds like an animal,” he took a swig from his water bottle.

              She laughed again and closed her eyes. It had been a long day and this was just what she needed.

              “What happened between you and Reed?”

              Anna felt her spine stiffen at the innocent question, but she kept her eyes shut, “What makes you think something happened? How you do you even know I know him?”

              “Two things: one, he chased after you the night you were watching him in the gym, and two, he’s glaring at me like I’ve just been caught in bed with his wife.”

              Anna’s eyes shot open. Slater really was standing there across the gym. He looked good – no, great. And angry.

              “Hey,” Harrison nudged her, “let’s challenge them to two on two.”

              She stayed where she was, “Not a chance. He and Hall will slaughter us.”

              Harrison ignored her and called across the gym, “You guys want to play us?”

              Hall didn’t answer. He just looked at Slater.

              Slater shook his head and began to walk off, but then he turned back and walked toward the court, “Full court.”

              Anna knew she didn’t have the same endurance that these men did, and she had just played one competitive game, but she took the challenge anyway.

              “Here come Chung and Porter,” Harrison noted.

              Anna nearly groaned. Neither of them was going to want to play on her team.

              “You guys playing?” Porter looked at Slater, “I’m with Barnes.”

              Anna looked at the man in surprise. He seemed too competitive to throw his team’s game.

              Slater’s men took the ball first. He drove toward the basket, but Anna managed to scoot around him to capture the ball and turn it around. She knew better than to dribble away from him, so she stopped and faked to her left where Harrison was waiting. Without pausing to think, she spun instead to her right and threw the ball to Porter.

There was no time like the present to see if that man was going to back her up. He took the ball and pressed hard toward their basket while Anna ducked under Slater’s arm and ran away from him.

Porter passed it back to her and she took the shot from behind the three point line.

Harrison and Porter cheered as it slipped neatly through the net.

This time Chung took the ball. Porter stood at ready to guard him. He dribbled about ten feet before moving to pass it to Slater. Anna jumped to intercept the throw, but Slater managed to gain it anyway.

Anna gritted her teeth and followed after him. She managed to get between him and Chung, but he passed it to Hall who took the shot. Harrison used his long legs to their advantage and stopped the ball mid-flight. He threw a long pass to Porter who took it so smoothly it seemed the move had been choreographed.

Chung swore when he realized his guy had escaped him.

“Why are you back in the States?” Slater finally spoke to her as they danced around each other.

“I never left,” she grabbed at the ball that Porter sent her way.

He reached his long arms around her, not touching her.

Anna had played against guys before, though. She knew even the most aggressive of them still had a tendency to avoid contact with women while they played. Still dribbling, she pressed backward.

He moved away from her backside, arms still ready to catch the ball, “What do you mean you never left?”

“I’ve been stationed here since the get-go,” knowing she wasn’t going to get a good shot, she passed to Harrison.

“So you lied to me,” Slater straightened.

“Nope. I just didn’t realize you were stationed here until that last game we played.”

She ran off to catch the ball from Porter and make another shot.

Slater was glaring at her by the time he got back to her, “And you didn’t think it was necessary to tell me?”

She tried to maneuver around him so she could get to the ball, but he had his forearm against her chest. It was a move most men wouldn’t consider against a woman.

“I didn’t want to be a distraction,” she shoved his arm away and ran for the ball.

She was too late, though. Porter had not been able to stop Chung from dropping the ball in.

Porter took the ball and headed back toward his basket.

Slater stood still.

Anna glanced at him but decided she would take advantage of his absence to double team Chung.

“Reed!” the man called out, “a little help here.”

Slater snapped back to attention, but not in time. Porter shot the ball to Harrison who made another shot.

“Sorry,” he spoke to his teammates as he returned to flank Anna.

Chung and Porter were having a battle of wills midway down the court.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Slater whispered over his shoulder while she looked for the best way to dart around him.

“You told me I was only a distraction,” she was angry enough to move away from him now.

She ran away from him and caught the ball from Porter who had tired of his game with Chung. She then raced back to her own basket, but she ran into a solid wall.

Having effectively stopped her with his chest, Slater took the ball and threw it to Hall, “I never said that. I said you distracted me.”

She rubbed her sore nose, “Same thing.”

“It is not,” he reached for her upper arms when she would have pulled away to go chase the game. “I’m sorry I did such a crappy job of communicating, but I was just trying to tell you how much I would miss you.”

She folded her arms across her chest, “By telling me it was a good thing we would be apart?”

“Anna,” he gave her a little shake, “a woman like you has a man thinking of things like how soon his enlistment is up,” he waited a moment, “or going AWOL.”

She blew out a noise of disbelief.

His voice softened, “I thought you were going to write.”

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

“If you hadn’t shut off your phone, you would have known how much it mattered.”

“I didn’t want to talk to you.”

“I guessed.”