Lindsay McKenna - Destiny's Woman

Turning, Akiva saw another, much larger storage tank, which held the fuel for the helicopters. Once a week, a Blackhawk would fly in with fuel bladders and refill it so they could keep flying their missions. That helicopter would come from a secret CIA base to the north of them. The CIA would become their main supplier for anything they needed to keep Alpha Base going.

“I’m happy as an armadillo diggin’ for grub worms.”

Akiva turned and couldn’t help but grin. Joe ambled around the corner, his hands in the pockets of his camouflage pants, a pleased look on his face.

“Armadillos?”

“Yeah, those critters that live in Texas and are worse than prairie dogs, leavin’ holes all around so folks can stumble into ’em and break a leg. And they’re always diggin’ for worms and grubs, their favorite dessert.”

Joe halted about six feet from Akiva. She was happy; he could see it in the sunlight gold dancing in her eyes as she met and held his gaze. Her hands rested on her wide hips and she had long ago gotten rid of the uncomfortable chicken plate vest. In the black, body-fitting uniform, her womanly curves and stature were obvious. She was a woman of substance, of pride, strength and confidence. Best of all, her full mouth was no longer pursed like it usually was, he noted.

“You like our new home, then.” Akiva turned, tearing her gaze from Joe’s smiling face. The man’s positive outlook on life was diametrically opposed to hers. He was always smiling and joking. She never did either.

“Shore ’nuff,” he murmured. “I’ve got Sergeant Cooper whippin’ the women into order over at that second building. I told her to set up housekeeping and unpack their duffel bags.”

“Good.” Akiva continued studying the way the jungle was hugging the base. She tried to stop her heart from opening up to Joe’s sunny presence. Trying to avoid looking up again at his well-shaped mouth, Akiva wondered what it would be like to kiss him. Would Joe be as gentle as he seemed? Or hurtful like every other Anglo man she’d had the sorry misfortune to tangle with? Forcing her mind back to the present, Akiva was unhappy that she was evaluating Joe on such an intensely personal level.

Joe moved to where Akiva was standing with her back to him. He was getting used to how she tried to ignore him. Her thick black hair had been woven into one large braid, tied off with a piece of red yarn and then coiled at the back of her long neck so that it fit beneath her helmet when she flew. Now, as he approached her, she took out the pins holding her braid in place and let it roll down her long, strong spine. The urge to reach out and touch that frayed, silky rope was almost his undoing. He forced his hand to remain in his pants pocket, knowing she’d probably deck him if he tried to touch her. Frustrated, Joe wondered what made her so defensive.

“This is a good place, strategically speaking,” he confided to her in a low voice. “The jungle is close enough to really hide us.”

“Yes…” Akiva moved away from him. She didn’t like Joe’s intimacy with her. Giving him a hard look that said Back off, she announced, “I’ll be in the tack and strat building,” and she pointed behind them. “Ask Spec—Specialist—Bradford to get over here and get the computers and communications online.”

Joe nodded. “Right away.” He turned and headed back toward the hangar. Once again Akiva was all business. But the panicked look in her eyes told him she didn’t want him getting that close to her in future. As he made his way with long, easy strides through the tangle of grass, Joe sighed inwardly. What was it about him that Akiva hated so much? She rarely tried to hide the fact she couldn’t stand being in the same room with him.

As he stepped into the hangar to hunt down Iris Bradford, their radio communications specialist, Joe tried to stop the ache he felt in his chest. More than anything, he wanted others to like him, to think well of him. He wanted to make up for his youth, spent as an outcast because he had Comanche blood flowing through his veins. He felt a driving need to always look good to his superiors. As a result, he was a hard charger from a career point of view. He saw this X.O. opportunity as a possible gateway to becoming an officer in the U.S. Army someday soon, not just a warrant officer. However, his career was now in Akiva’s hands. If she put a bad report in his personnel jacket, she could torpedo his career goals in a heartbeat.

And why? What was wrong with him? he wondered as he poked his head into the first office, where he found blond-haired, blue-eyed Iris Bradford. She was twenty-three years old and a computer geek from the get-go. Five foot three inches tall, she was slightly chunky, big-boned and, he had learned, of Swedish background. She brightened when she saw him enter the office.

“Sir, I’m looking for the comms. You seen them?”

Joe nodded. “They’re over in the last building, Bradford. Why don’t you hightail it over there and get that stuff hummin’? Chief Redtail’s over there, too.”

Flushing with excitement, Iris said, “Yes, sir! This is so cool! I love this place! I’m so glad I was asked to be a part of the team.” She flashed him a toothy smile, moved past him and then trotted out of the hangar toward the last building in the row.

Joe smiled and looked around the office. He saw a laptop computer on the desk, a printer, a telephone and a small gold plate on the front of the desk that said C.O. This was Akiva’s office. Figuring his must be nearby, he left the office and closed the door. The next office over was indeed his. Standing there in front of his desk, where the small gold plate saying X.O. sat, he got chills. Excitement thrummed through him. Finally, the army was giving him a chance to show what he could do. Now his only problem was Akiva.

Joe wondered where Akiva was. It was 2330, nearly midnight, of their first full day at Alpha. Everyone was in bed in the second building, each in her own plywood cubical containing a cot and metal locker. The C.O. and X.O. cubes were at the front, on either side of the aisle, the enlisted people’s to the rear. The light had been doused a long time ago and thin filaments of moonlight threaded through the windows, which were covered with years of grime. As he walked quietly down the aisle toward the door, Joe mentally put cleaning the windows on his to-do list. Just because Navy Seabees had come in here and built them rough living quarters didn’t mean the place was livable. From a cleanliness perspective it was a disaster.

Exhaustion pulled at him. Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his camouflage jacket, he headed out the door. Overhead, foglike clouds were gathering, due to the high humidity. The scream of monkeys and the hooting of owls drifted out of the darkened jungle as he walked across the flattened grass between the living quarters and the communications building. He had a hunch Akiva was still over there in the planning room, working out the myriad details of their upcoming flights, which would start as soon as they could get organized at the base.

Opening the rickety door as quietly as he could, he entered and stood just inside it. The Seabees had divided the room into three sections—the comms center, a meeting space where flight planning could be held, and a small cubicle with a desk in it. There were no doors on the partitioned-off areas, and he saw dim light flooding out of the smallest cube.

He moved to the office, stood in the doorway and felt his heart wrench. Akiva was sleeping over the flight maps, one arm beneath her cheek, the other spread across the table, a pencil hanging limply in her long, thin fingers. At some point she’d unraveled her braid, and her hair cloaked her shoulders like an ebony coverlet, the reddish highlights glowing in the light of the fluorescent lamp on the plywood table that served as a desk.