Her Rebel Heart Page 4

In a wink, she put the sass back in sassy. “Hush your tongue. Does your momma know you talk like that?”

  Any other place, any other time, with any other woman, he might’ve offered an I’m sorry. For running away that night. For kissing her in the first place.

  But this woman?

  This woman made him crazy. He’d talked to her for a grand total of ten minutes in his entire life, but it was enough to make his skin twitch and his muscles clench.

  And to think he’d considered apologizing when he’d first recognized her this afternoon. “Does your momma know you’re operating a pumpkin chucker without a license? In the dark? And aiming at a fucking fire?”

  “Lordy goodness, you’re fixin’ to get your tongue washed down with a bar of Ivory, aren’t you? And there’s no such thing as a pumpkin-chucker license. Though if there were, I’d get one long before you and your ragamuffin crew.”

  Her eyes were large and dark tonight, and her chest rose and fell rapidly. Because she was afraid she’d gotten caught? Because she was afraid someone was hurt? Because she’d been running?

  This woman running—dear God. His groin tightened.

  That’d be a sight.

  “Of the two of us,” Lance said, “I’m not the one with a second-place trophy. Nor am I the one flinging pumpkins in the dark.”

  He couldn’t be sure, but it almost looked like she was blushing.

  “Well, so long as no one was hurt—”

  “Someone got hurt.”

  That blush he’d thought he saw receded until her skin glowed paler than the moonlight. “S-someone’s hurt?”

  “Mildred.” Lance couldn’t help himself. Baiting her was too much fun. “She’s dead.”

  “I killed someone’s grandmother?” She punctuated her sentence with a squeak, and she swayed on her feet. “Have you tried CPR? Called 911? Are the cops on their way? The fire trucks? An ambulance? What are we doing just standing here? My momma was right. I should’ve given this all up after the pig incident, but I—why are you smiling?”

  Was he smiling?

  Well, damn.

  He was.

  He switched it to a scowl. “I’m gonna need to hear more about this pig incident.”

  “Who’s Mildred?”

  “Criminals first.”

  “Excuse you, Lieutenant Bossypants, I am not a criminal. Who in the Sam Hill is Mildred?”

  “Captain,” Lance said.

  “Mildred is a captain?”

  “No, I’m a captain. Captain Wheeler. And you are?”

  “I’m standing here having some light dawn on me, that’s who I am. Mildred ain’t anybody’s granny. She’s probably your damn mascot, isn’t she?”

  “No, that’s Gertrude. Mildred’s on private property, though. And you blew her to bits. Pony’s about to have a cow.”

  She thrust her fingers through her hair and turned in a slow circle, muttering something to herself about arrogant flyers and military clubs.

  “Hope you’ve got an after-school job to pay for the damage,” he added.

  He was certain she wasn’t a college kid, but if she wanted to call him an LT and suggest Juice Box was the boss, he’d happily question her maturity too.

  Huh. Maybe meeting her wasn’t about getting laid and getting over Allison. Maybe it was about finding some fun in life again.

  “What is that god-awful smell?” She paused and stepped closer to him, sniffing. “It’s you. You’re drunk as a skunk. Raise my hand to sweet baby Jesus, if you’re this obnoxious drunk, I’m glad I never got to know you sober.”

  “You killed a keg, a good keg, with good beer in it, and you think I’m the one not worth knowing tonight?”

  “Mildred is a keg? Who names a keg? No, wait. Never mind. Suppose every man wants his girlfriend to have a name.”

  “Want ’em to be sane too. You must be lonely.”

  “You keep talking, I’m gonna start thinking you must be lookin’ to have a pumpkin aimed up somewhere the sun don’t shine.”

  Had Allison ever been this hot over anything? He couldn’t remember. But he knew one thing—he was having a damn hard time stifling a grin. “Lady, you’ve got problems.”

  “Sure do. And most of ’em are penis-carrying members of the military. Tell you what, Captain Wheeler, you go on and send me a bill for that keg of beer. Dr. Kaci Boudreaux, James Robert College, Physics Department. And leave the pumpkin-chucking to us professionals.”

  She was a piece of work. A pompous, overeducated piece of work with the ripest breasts and the hottest mouth this side of the Mason-Dixon Line. “Where I come from, the rednecks are more qualified to chuck pumpkins than the professors.”

  “Ah. You must be from Alabama.”

  “If by from Alabama, you mean where smart, sane people come from, then yes, I’m from Alabama. Proudly.”

  “Nothing sane about rednecks, but I got both redneck, smart, and sane covered, sugar. If no human beings were injured, then excuse me. My apologies to your sweet Mildred. And have no fear—I’m picking a different cornfield next time.”

  She turned and swung those sweet hips, marching away in her shitkickers, and he had a crazy urge to follow her and kiss the priss right out of her.

  But unlike her, he still had his sanity, so he turned his back on her and jogged back to the guys.

  The keg had stopped bubbling over. His friends were squatting around the pumpkin slop.

  But instead of mourning, they looked downright intrigued.

  “That’s the weirdest shit I’ve ever seen,” one of the guys said.

  “Not the weirdest, but up there,” Pony agreed.

  “What?” Lance asked.

  They all burst out laughing.

  Juice Box pointed to the slimy mess and shone a flashlight into the middle of it.

  A cracked and bent pair of BCGs were nestled in the center.

  Lance glanced back toward where Dr. Kaci Boudreaux had marched off.

  That girl truly did have issues.

  And he had a masochistic desire to dig into them.

  That blonde was a bad idea.

  But he’d spent most of his life chasing good ideas. Maybe a bad idea was exactly what he needed.

  * * *

  Kaci pushed into her apartment with Tara at close to midnight. She had an emotional hangover battling with a raging case of hormones.

  That man needed a warning label.

  He was so—so—

  Sinfully delicious.

  Ugh.

  Irritating. He was irritating and pompous and a fricking flyer.

  And surprisingly intellectually stimulating.

  Probably because it had been too long since she’d had a good argument with anyone other than herself.

  And she’d not only failed to apologize for calling him a cheater, she owed him an apology for killing his keg with a pumpkin.

  She could’ve seriously hurt him or one of his friends too. And that, more than anything, had her heart in her throat still.

  Tara paused outside her room. “It’ll be okay, Kaci. Don’t let him get to you. He’s just a man.”

  Just a man.

  Just a man with a voice she could still feel in her bones and a way of looking at her as though he could show her how to get to the moon.

  Tara disappeared into her bedroom and shut the door with a click.

  “Mmmrrraaaa?” Miss Higgs said. Kaci’s ancient white Persian cat blended in with the chenille lap blanket tossed all cockamamie over the couch.

  She dumped her bag, then plopped down and gingerly pulled the elderly cat onto her lap. “Miss Higgs, I had a man try to convince me I killed his grandmomma tonight. And then he had the nerve to laugh at me. And he probably wouldn’t even believe me if I did tell him I was sorry.”

  The cat lolled her head back and peered up through milky blue eyes as though she knew the real issue was that the man was sexier than basic physics principles, and he probably wouldn’t be interested in kissing her again.

 
; Which she shouldn’t have been interested in either, but her basic biological instincts were obviously working double time to betray her tonight.

  “Don’t you give me that look,” she said to the cat. “He didn’t even have the decency to appreciate how far Ichabod must’ve flung that last pumpkin tonight. And I swear I was another mile down the road when we pulled over with that catapult.”

  Miss Higgs flicked her tail, which at her age meant the tip moved a centimeter.

  Probably the cat was right. Kaci had a horrible sense of direction. She shouldn’t be left unsupervised.

  Or perhaps she needed to get back to concentrating on what was truly important—her job, her girls, and the conference in Germany.

  She shivered. “I screw up everything I touch, Miss Higgs.”

  Apparently her story was boring, because the cat struggled to her feet and gave her the pitiful look of please don’t make me jump. Kaci gingerly set her on the tan-and-white Pottery Barn rug Momma had sent. Miss Higgs paused on the rug before continuing her stiff-gaited walk to the bedroom.

  She’d been a prissy, nose-in-the-air doubting Thomasina for nearly eighteen years, but she’d been there. Through high school and college, grad school, marriage, divorce. Across the country and back. Every night, she curled up next to Kaci’s head and purred herself to sleep, though Kaci had to lift her onto the bed these days, and she kept a towel on the pillow to compensate for Miss Higgs’s increasingly frequent accidents.

  One day soon, probably too soon, she would miss that cat.

  Miss Higgs flicked a look back at her, as if to say you coming?

  “Go on, you pretty little hairball.” She stood and shooed the cat toward the bedroom. “I’m coming.”

  She probably wouldn’t sleep—not when she couldn’t shake the sound of a certain captain’s voice out of her head—but she’d try.

  Chapter 4

  When Lance walked into the squadron meeting Monday morning, he was greeted by a sideways glance from his commander. Lieutenant Colonel Santiago was a bull of a guy with thick muscles and thinning hair, relaxed until he had to be otherwise, and he’d kept a sharp eye on Lance since the wedding hadn’t happened.

  “Morning, sir. Happy to be here today.” It was the same thing he had said every morning since he’d shown up for work when he should’ve been on his honeymoon. But since he’d never had much urge to visit Scotland for any reason other than it being Allison’s dream vacation choice, missing the trip itself hadn’t been a burden. If anything, he felt guilty at the sense of relief that had overtaken the pain at the loss of his fiancée. Now, though the commander had put him back on flying duty, it was habit to tell the older man that he was fine. “You hear we took home the pumpkin-chucking trophy this weekend?”

  “Heard you beat a bunch of girls.”

  His cheek twitched. He would’ve liked to shove the phrase a bunch of girls inside a pumpkin and chuck it over a cornfield like Dr. Kaci Boudreaux had done to those BCGs.

  For Cheri’s sake, he told himself. His sister put up with more shit for being a female fighter pilot than he would ever understand. “Just barely, sir. Got lucky, honestly. They had a hell of a catapult.”

  “Hell of a leader too,” Pony said.

  Several of the guys snickered. And the murmurs of “crazy as fuck” and “hotter than hell” made his cheek twitch harder.

  He ignored the banter and settled into one of the last open stiff plastic chairs facing the projector. The rest of the room was lined with photos of C-130s signed by crews on various deployments since the squadron had been stood up.

  Beside him, Pony was flipping through his phone. The colonel stood and cleared his throat, and the guys quieted and focused their attention up front.

  A slide flickered to life on the screen. Lance’s heart thunked down to his boots.

  “Think you all heard,” Colonel Santiago said, “but in case you didn’t, our regular rotation has been delayed a month.”

  “What the fuck?” Lance muttered to Pony. Nearly six months until he could get out of here? Dammit.

  Pony grunted. He was supposed to leave in two weeks. Six weeks now, by the sounds of it.

  “Shove it,” Flincher said on his other side while other groans and mutters went through the room. Flincher was a ruddy guy with Irish roots who’d buy you a beer so he could show you pictures of his little girl, and he was right behind Pony in seniority in the squadron. He fiddled with his platinum wedding band. “My wife’s due when we were supposed to get back.”

  One of the hazards of military life.

  Allison hadn’t filled in any more details on why she’d wanted out, but Lance was certain his uncertain lifestyle had been one of her issues. When push came to shove, she hadn’t been willing to get on the roller coaster.

  The colonel cleared his throat again. “We’re switching up our normal missions this week to compensate for the change in schedule. Make sure you check the board to see when you’re flying.”

  The colonel’s weekly briefing went like clockwork after that. The usual messages from base leadership, a safety briefing about keeping your head out of your ass, quarterly award nomination packages were due soon, don’t push it on bottle-to-throttle time or crew rest. “One last thing,” the colonel said. “Heard from the training squadron. They’re expecting a shortage of applicants for instructor pilot slots in the next two years. Don’t want to lose any of you here, but I want smart pilots in my birds. You think you’d be a good IP, come talk to me.”

  Figured.

  Only job that could get him moved early, and it would take him half a mile down the road instead of across the country.

  Be good for a guy like Flincher though. Keep him home with his family for a few years.

  The colonel dismissed them. Everyone stood and stretched, moving about the room, but Lance nudged Flincher. “Want to switch?”

  Flincher looked him up and down. “Switch?”

  “Rotations. You’re delayed. I want to get the hell out of here. Can’t solve you leaving a newborn, but I can help you be here when the kid’s born.”

  Flincher’s bushy red brows bunched. “You serious?”

  “Be doing me a favor, man.” Get out of here in six weeks instead of six months? Hell yeah. “Might talk to Juice Box too. He’s on the third rotation. Could get you a few more months.”

  “I’m due for orders by then.”

  Twenty minutes later, the colonel had approved the idea, and the paperwork was in motion. When Lance settled down to his computer in the line of cubicles in the squadron room, he was actually whistling to himself.

  He was flying this week, and he’d be getting the hell out of dodge in six weeks. “Weather good?” he asked Pony while he logged on to his email.

  “Not raining beer,” Pony replied with a grunt. He was flipping through a webpage with kegs on it.

  Lance’s fingers curled around his mouse.

  His brain was heading back into not-smart territory.

  Dr. Kaci Boudreaux had distraction written on every inch of every one of her curves and lingering in every undertone of that sassy voice. And it looked like he suddenly only had six weeks to kill before he was out of here.

  Six weeks could be a long time.

  Or six weeks could be interesting.

  “How much are they?” he asked Pony with a nod to the screen.

  “At least a hundred.”

  A hundred bucks.

  Huh.

  He logged in, glanced at the weather, and then opened a blank document.

  He wasn’t flying until this afternoon.

  Which meant this morning, he could have some fun.

  * * *

  Kaci was wading through a stack of research papers Thursday afternoon when there was an authoritative knock at her office door. “Come on in,” she called.

  She looked up, expecting to see one of her Physics Club students or one of her grad students or maybe a freshman with a question about today’s lecture on centrifugal f
orce.

  Instead, Ron Kelly stood framed in the doorway. “Got a minute?”

  For the man who told her that if she didn’t have his babies, he’d divorce her, then followed her across the country to invade her new life? Nope. “Office hours for students are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from nine to eleven, and otherwise by appointment. Office hours for ex-husbands are never.” She flicked a finger at the hallway. “Shut the door on your way out, sugar.”

  He shut the door.

  But he stayed inside the room.

  Usually the eight-by-eight, white-walled space was big enough, especially with the window letting in natural light.

  With Ron standing before her oak door with his legs wide, hands tucked behind his back in parade rest position, the whole stinking physics building wouldn’t have been large enough to put enough distance between them. “It’s been over two years, Kace. Can I please have ten minutes of your time?”

  He was handsome in a distinguished way—dark hair threaded with the right amount of gray and subtle wrinkles that could’ve been mistaken for laugh lines about his blue eyes—but he’d put on a few pounds since his retirement and his suit coat didn’t fit just right.

  “Don’t know that we’ve got ten minutes’ worth of talking in us,” Kaci said. “I can give you three, and that’s only on account of my momma raising me to have manners.”

  “Being here the last few months has made me realize life’s been boring without you,” he said.

  “Sorry to hear that. Don’t you have a lecture soon?”

  “May I?” He gestured to the utilitarian blue plastic chair she kept in her office for students, then lowered himself into it without waiting for a response. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  She assumed he probably hadn’t. Even her injured pride couldn’t work up the argument that Ron had ever been mean-spirited. Not to her, anyway. “But you still meant everything you said about me not being a good wife.”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “It’s neither here nor there, because I’m not your wife anymore.”

  “I’ve been in counseling.”

  Her chin slipped down. The Ronald Kelly she knew didn’t need counseling, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have admitted it.