Her Rebel Heart Read online

  “I blamed you for all of our problems, but I never took responsibility for my own shortcomings. It would mean a great deal to me if you would come to one of my sessions with me.”

  The world had gone and turned itself inside out, and it was making Kaci’s stomach do the same. “I’m taking a break from men right now.”

  “All I’m asking for is an hour.” He spread his hands, a plea the Ron Kelly she knew never would’ve made. But she couldn’t tell if the hard set to his lips was a determination to put in what it took to get her back, or an order that she do what the great Colonel Kelly dictated. “It would be good for both of us.”

  “Time’s up. Lovely to see you, Dr. Kelly. Don’t let that door hit you on the tuckus on your way out.”

  “Kaci—”

  “And don’t go pulling those prick stunts you did at the Academy with pop quizzes for material you haven’t covered. Kids are here to learn, not have heart attacks.”

  “The real world doesn’t hand out lollipops for second best and weak efforts.”

  Dear sweet Jehoshaphat, she’d married that. “Y’all have a good day. I got work to do.”

  His jaw clamped shut, and he stood and reached for the door. “Think about it, Kaci.”

  She’d think about it.

  She’d think about it as long as it took her to think the word no.

  She hadn’t been unhappy in her marriage, but she’d been no more or less unhappy since her divorce. To her way of thinking, that said something about their relationship.

  And she didn’t entirely trust that his motives were purely personal.

  He’d gotten his own bit of attention for a paper he’d written in corollary to the paper she’d written that had gotten her invited to Stuttgart, and she didn’t much like the idea of him riding her coattails on his way to getting tenure first because he was a man and she was a woman.

  In this day and age, gender shouldn’t matter, but in academia, especially scientific academia, Kaci’s male counterparts still refused to consider that women could be just as brilliant as men prided themselves on being. One of her fellow physics professors had suggested to the dean that he go to Germany in her place to present her research. Because the conference was too close to the holidays and everyone knows women are busy then.

  The patriarchal baloney was one of the biggest reasons no one could ever know she was terrified to fly.

  She had to find a way to get on that airplane without hyperventilating.

  Somehow.

  Someway.

  She’d do it, dang it. She had to.

  The door slammed shut behind Ron. A moment later, a tentative knock sounded, and the mail delivery girl peeked in. “You got mail, Dr. Boudreaux.” She held three envelopes out in her chunky fingers, her sweet smile and bright eyes chasing away all the bad juju Ron had left in the office.

  “Thank you, sugar.” Kaci slipped the girl a fun-size Milky Way, then closed her office door and settled back at her desk to inspect her mail.

  One envelope from The Atom Report, another from the University of Stuttgart, and one from…

  Oh, lordy.

  One from the 946th Airlift Squadron on Gellings Air Force Base.

  At the thought of Captain Irritating, her belly did another flip.

  One thing Ron had going for him—he was safe. He had his moments of being a pompous ass, but he’d never made her nerves twist and swirl like a tornado in her chest.

  She grabbed her phone and hit Tara’s number.

  “Franco or Blake?”

  She blinked at the phone. “Pardon?”

  “I’m naming a new hero. Do you like Franco or Blake better?”

  “I like any of ’em that aren’t flying pigs sending me letters.”

  “Is that the Mississippian way of saying you’re getting back together with your ex, or do you mean Captain Catapult sent you a letter?”

  She tore into the envelope. “No, and maybe. Yes, I mean. No, I’m not getting back together with Ron, even when pigs fly, which they do, because yes. Yes, Captain Catapult sent me a letter, and he says—”

  She gasped as she scanned the letter more closely. “Tara, that man says I owe him and his Wild Hogs squadron two thousand four hundred eighty-six dollars for dumping a pumpkin on their keg.”

  “That can’t be right. The keg couldn’t be more than two hundred, tops. Maybe three if it was full of the good beer.”

  Her cheeks were on fire, the left from embarrassment, the right from indignation. “It was moonshine beer. Homemade. And he’s claiming I owe four hundred for the keg, plus two hundred for pumpkin cleanup, and the rest is to go for the ‘emotional trauma done to highly trained and irreplaceable members of the United States Air Force and their mascot, Gertrude.’ Does that man think I’m made of money? I don’t mind paying for my messes, but there’s no way on God’s green earth that keg was worth two thousand dollars. I got me half a mind to march right over there and give him what for.”

  “Um, Kaci?” Tara made a strangled noise, as if she were emotionally constipated. Or possibly trying not to laugh. “That’s a love letter.”

  She pulled the phone from her ear and looked at the black device on her desk. The cord was plugged in to the unit, and the unit was plugged in to the wall. “Did you just say this here’s a love letter?”

  This time, there was no mistaking the laughter on the other end of the phone. “He’s flirting with you.”

  “That’s a bunch of malarkey.” Why would the man flirt with her? He hadn’t liked her enough to keep kissing her the first night they met, and he definitely hadn’t liked her on Saturday.

  Either time.

  “Well, if he’s not flirting, he’s trying to push your buttons. Did he put a phone number on it?”

  She skimmed the bottom of the page. “Yep.”

  “Local area code?”

  “No.”

  “Bet you a brand-new slingshot he gave you his cell phone number.”

  She was getting way too predictable if Tara was betting slingshots.

  And life was getting way too weird if Captain Catapult had actually sent her his personal number.

  Also, she had research papers to get through, data to analyze in her lab, and a plane ticket to buy for her trip to Germany.

  Her heart dipped, her toes tingled, and her chest constricted at the thought of flying.

  Which was something he must do all the time, being in a flying squadron and all.

  “I’ll call you right back,” she said.

  She hung up with Tara and dialed the number.

  After five rings, it went to voicemail.

  “This is Lance,” his voice said, causing an irrepressible shiver that started in her core and flung itself out to her fingertips. Tara was right. He’d written her a letter so he could give her his phone number. And he sounded good when there wasn’t a sneer in his voice. Friendly. Encouraging. Sexy. “Leave a message.”

  The phone beeped in her ear, and her mouth engaged, but her brain didn’t. “Afternoon, Captain Wheeler. I got your bill, and like I just told my ex-husband, I’m off men. So if you’re looking to start a fight, you’re gonna have to pick another rock to look under. Toodle-oo!”

  She slammed the phone down.

  Then she slammed her head on her desk. “P equals V-R-T,” she recited. “E equals M-C squared. The speed of light is three times ten to the eighth power meters per second, and the average velocity of an unladen swallow is twenty-four miles an hour.”

  It was a dang good thing her brain still worked for physics. Because it obviously didn’t work for anything else.

  Chapter 5

  After three days of training missions up and down the Gulf Coast, Lance was on top of the world. Wasn’t any place he’d rather be than driving his bird halfway between the ocean and the top of the sky, calling out orders to his crew and feeling the roar of those engines in his soul. Cheri could have her fighters. He wouldn’t trade his C-130 for anything.

  He’d also go
tten a message on his phone that shouldn’t have been funny or cute or interesting in the least, but which had made him grin so hard he laughed.

  He’d follow up on that later though. Tonight, he was headed out with the guys again. Being single was starting to feel almost natural.

  Pony and Juice Box were already at Taps. The local bar and grill where Lance had had his disaster of a kiss with Dr. Boudreaux hosted trivia on Thursday nights. Since it was homecoming week for James Robert College, the bar was featuring beer specials, and Juice Box had wanted to check out the ladies. Lance was mildly curious if the students would be the only people out celebrating, but he’d only admit to being there to keep an eye on Juice Box. He settled in at the table with his buddies and passed fist-bumps around.

  “Ready for this, Thumper?” Pony said.

  “Hell yeah. Got a feeling we’re gonna win tonight.”

  The hairs on his arms went up.

  “You boys keep on thinking that,” Dr. Kaci Boudreaux said. His stomach tilted when that Southern honey voice hit his ears.

  He almost smiled.

  She’d shown up.

  She didn’t look at him, but he knew she knew he was there. “Me and Tara here are gonna whomp your rumps.”

  Juicy’s gaze locked on something below a woman’s usual preferred target zone.

  Pony glanced between Kaci and her curly-haired friend. “She a doctor too?” he asked Kaci.

  “Better. She writes romance novels.”

  “Aw, man, that’s hot,” Juicy said.

  “Oh, sugar, you have no idea.”

  Lance tilted his seat back. She still hadn’t looked at him. It was like she couldn’t see his part of the table.

  All the better. This would be fun. “Got your message,” he said.

  The tendons in her neck tightened. She kept her nose up, without a hint of a blush touching her porcelain skin. “Loud and clear, I hope.”

  “It was loud,” he conceded.

  Her companion, the curly-headed Tara, sucked her cheeks in. But she also gave him a second once-over, which she hadn’t done with any of the other guys.

  “And we’re going to kick your ass as soundly at trivia as we did with pumpkin-chucking,” he added.

  “You wanna put your money where your mouth is?” Kaci’s blue eyes darted to him, then away.

  He had an insane desire to leave his money out of it and put his mouth somewhere it had no business being.

  Getting involved with Kaci Boudreaux was a terrible idea.

  But damn, was it fun to push her buttons. “No skin off my back. I’ll add it to your bill.”

  This time, her gaze landed hard on him, and she held it steady without blinking or flinching. “Aww, you poor thing. You go on and keep asking, but I’m not giving you my number.”

  He didn’t answer and instead let a wolfish smile creep over his face.

  She’d called his cell phone. He already had her number. Which a brilliant physics professor should’ve realized.

  Her poise faltered. “Anyway, good luck to you, gentlemen. And I hope I can still call you gentlemen when the night’s over.”

  She and Tara left, taking seats two tables over. Close enough to watch and see if his table was Googling for trivia answers, far enough away that they could talk about him and his buddies without being overheard.

  Much.

  “You didn’t tell me he was hot,” Tara clearly said.

  “Honey, the skinny dark-haired one. Not the cute one with the muscles.”

  “I know, Kaci.”

  Pony grinned at Lance. “Cute? Girl needs glasses. I ain’t cute, and you ain’t hot.”

  “She calling us cheaters again?” Juice Box asked.

  Lance watched Kaci and Tara lean closer together, whispering and pretending they weren’t watching him back. “Looks like.”

  “That chick can call me anything she wants. If you don’t want her, Thumper, I’ll take her.”

  “She owes me a new keg,” Pony said.

  “Wouldn’t hold your breath,” Lance said to both of them. “But we can show ’em who has the brains around here.”

  Because when it came to this chick, winning was where it was at.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Kaci was drowning in a sea of embarrassment thanks to her mouth being too big for her brain.

  Again.

  “We have to bet it all,” Tara said. Their meals were gone, sweet tea drained, and they were fighting for thirteenth place against Lance’s table.

  No, he wasn’t Lance. That was just what his voicemail wanted her to believe.

  He was still Captain Catapult. Captain Kiss-and-Run.

  When she’d asked Tara to come out tonight on the pretense of breaking up her routine—and to avoid listening to those hypnosis tapes she’d picked up at the library—she hadn’t intended to run into him.

  But there they were in all their arrogant flyboy glory, beating Kaci and Tara by one point in a battle not to be last.

  She hated losing.

  She didn’t mind that there were four tables of James Roberts students beating her—none were obnoxiously rowdy or in any of her classes, all had at least one sober driver at each table, and she’d happily give them the high of beating a professor in trivia, if they even knew who she was—but she minded losing to Lance and his flyboy buddies.

  “Dollars to donuts those boys are betting it all,” she said. “Bet two points. If they’ve got the answer, they’re gonna beat us no matter what. If they don’t, two points are all we need.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sugar, math is a third of my life. Trust me on this one.”

  “Okeydokey.” Tara scribbled their final trivia bet on a scrap of paper, then dashed it up to the judge.

  Lance was watching Kaci.

  Captain Kiss-and-Run. Lordy goodness, if she let him have a real name, he’d be a real man, but he couldn’t be a real man because there was no way that boy was even flirting with thirty yet.

  Which obviously hadn’t mattered that night she met him, but one night of making out was far different from whatever this was.

  Plus, Kaci was off men.

  As he’d gotten the message.

  Loudly.

  The man was a pain in her rear end.

  And she wasn’t proud of knowing she was probably a pain in his rear end too, but she didn’t like the way he rattled her.

  Tara slid into her seat as the last question was announced. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer called, “your final question: What college football team has won the most national championships?”

  Lance’s team erupted in cheers.

  “Alabama,” Kaci whispered. “Write Alabama. Freaking elephants.”

  “They’re Bama guys?” Tara wrinkled her nose. “Figures. Who’s writing these questions? As if half the bar won’t know that one.”

  “Makes up for asking us the pumpkin capital of the US. Who knows that kind of stuff?”

  “So you can chuck ’em, but you don’t know where they’re from?” With a cheeky grin, Tara ran their answer up to the judge. When she plopped back into her seat, her grin had turned grim. “You know he’s watching you again.”

  “He can watch all he wants. I’m done with men.”

  And fear shot through her belly every time she said it.

  She could swing her hips and show her boobs like nobody’s business, but if she never had another man in her life, it wasn’t the sex she’d miss. Or even having someone reach up to the high cabinets without needing a stepstool, or having a date to faculty functions.

  She’d miss the companionship. The safety of knowing there was another person in the world who cared and who wanted to look after her and who would be there.

  Sure, she could look after herself just fine. She’d never make a lot of money, but she made enough to take care of herself and Miss Higgs and not have to run home to Momma in Mississippi. She knew how to cook, clean, and brew up a pot of sweet tea. She could make up her
face with her eyes shut. She could still balance a book on her head while walking around in heels if the occasion warranted.

  She truly didn’t need a man.

  But there was that lingering shot of panic in her gut again.

  “I’d do him,” Tara said.

  “Hush your tongue,” Kaci hissed.

  Because that shot of heat rushing through her midsection this time wasn’t panic.

  It was far uglier.

  “As a onetime thing,” Tara said. “For research, of course. Maybe I’ll write a pilot one day.”

  “Tell me you don’t sleep with men just for research.”

  “If I did, at least I’d be sleeping with something. Oh, hey, did I mention that I saw Ol’ Grandpappy in the back corner thirty minutes ago?”

  “What? Here?”

  “He looked a little blocked up.”

  Kaci closed her eyes and blew out a breath.

  Ron could go anywhere he wanted. It was a free country. So long as he left her alone and never mentioned counseling or came to visit her at work again, she’d be fine.

  They weren’t married anymore, and she didn’t plan to marry him again. “He always looks blocked up. It’s because he puts the ass in academics.”

  “There’s no ass in academics.”

  “It’s silent until he’s involved.”

  Tara squinted at her. “Why’d you marry him?”

  Because he was safe. Calm and rational, competent and levelheaded, in a field with low mortality rates, at an age when decreasing testosterone levels would make him less likely to be reckless and wild. Because he could talk to her on an academic level. He understood her love of physics in a way her momma never had, so he’d accepted her as normal in a way Momma never had either. “He said all the right things about my potato gun.”

  “Is that a euphemism, or do you actually have a potato gun?”

  “Do armadillos have armor? Of course I’ve got a potato gun.”

  The announcer interrupted them to give the final standings for the night.

  And, unfortunately, Kaci and Tara were dead last.

  “Better luck next time, Dr. Boudreaux,” Captain Kiss-and-Run called.

  The guy she’d realized was Pony—whom she owed a new keg—didn’t smile. The younger one did, but it held an offer Kaci would never cash.