Lindsay McKenna - Under Fire

Wes smiled. “Roger that.”

“So you said you were divorced and have a daughter?” Maggie probed, again surprised by her sudden personal questions. She’d never asked Hall things like this.

“Yes.” He leaned down and unzipped one of the pant-leg pockets of his flight suit and withdrew a wallet. “Here’s a picture of Annie.” Wes couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice. “She’s five. The woman holding her is my ex-wife, Jenny.”

“Your daughter sure has your eyes and mouth.”

“Thanks.” He smiled shyly. “Annie has some of my Cherokee genes, I think. The rest of her takes after Jenny.”

The woman in the picture was blond and blue-eyed. In Maggie’s opinion, small and frail looking. In some ways, she reminded her of Molly. But Molly’s face had inherent strength in it. Jenny’s did not. The black-haired girl in her arms was just as pretty as her mother. Maggie could see why Wes was so proud of his daughter.

“You made a handsome family, Wes.”

“Thanks.” He shrugged. “Navy life didn’t agree with Jenny.”

“The months away at sea?” Maggie guessed.

“Yes. You know how a military wife has to be self-sufficient and handle the emergencies when we’re away. Jenny just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t there when Annie was born. That’s when our marriage started down a long road I’d just as soon forget.” Wes shook his head. “The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I was gone on a six-month Med cruise a year ago and Annie got appendicitis. She had to have emergency surgery. I wasn’t there for that, either. Jenny came apart. She got hysterical thinking Annie was going to die. There was no one there to hold Jenny, support her or take over.”

Maggie felt for his ex-wife. “I feel like that sometimes myself. As much as I’d like to believe I can overcome every obstacle life throws at me, I sometimes wonder about it.”

“Oh?”

“So far, I’ve been successful at everything I’ve ever attempted, Wes. Some people say I’m lucky, others say I’ve got a charmed life.”

“Irish luck, by any chance?”

She smiled. “Not in my opinion. It’s called hard work and more hard work. I’m driven, in case you didn’t know.”

“You’re like a tightly wound spring.”

“No hiding secrets from you, is there?”

“We don’t need secrets between us,” he offered. “We’re a team, remember? We depend on each other to survive up in the air. With the exception of marriage, I don’t know how much closer you can get to a person than an RIO is to a pilot.”

He was right. “Well, as I was saying, I’m an overachiever and I’ve gotten everything I ever went after.”

“You’ve never failed?”

“That’s right. My folks raised us to be successful. There was no room for failure.”

With a grin, Wes said, “Must be nice. I’ve fallen down, busted my nose and butt a few times and found egg on my face more than I’d care to admit.”

She laughed and lightly traced the bridge of her nose. “I’ve had a broken nose, too. So we’re even.”

“Who hit you?” Wes imagined Maggie was a hellion in the making even back in grade school, taking no guff from any young punk who might have tried to push her the wrong way.

“I did it myself. I took a dare from a ten-year-old boy that I could swing like Tarzan from one tree to another. I told him Jane was better at it than Tarzan ever could be—I was a feminist even at ten.” She laughed. “The long and short of it was, the rope I used was old and frayed. Halfway there, it broke and I fell thirty feet to the ground. When I regained consciousness ten minutes later I found out I had a broken nose and jaw.” She touched the left side of her face, indicating where the break had occurred. The look of concern and then care on Wes’s face surprised her. There was genuine compassion in his eyes.

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