Lori followed Angela's gaze over to the black iron bench. During Angela's minirant, Magda had slipped away to stand beside Dave.

One by one, the older man quietly passed toys to the solemn-eyed little girl. A rainbow-striped ball. A Cinderella coloring book and box of crayons. A Raggedy Ann doll that looked suspiciously new with a dangling price tag.

Angela tucked her hand in the crook of Lori's arm. "He was always so good with our boys when they were little. Just like that. So patient."

Magda scooted forward, stretching up on her toes to peer inside the box. She eyed Dave warily, and when he nodded, her hand snaked inside the box. She pulled free a stuffed white-and-black Snoopy dog that had seen better days. Definitely a well-loved toy. Magda scooched up onto Dave's lap and continued to empty the box, one treasure at a time, all the while keeping her Snoopy snuggled under her arm.

Angela's bracelet jingled as she pressed a hand to her chest. "My goodness, Lori, does that ever bring back memories. Grayson's younger brother, Davis, was a cuddler like I bet you were." Angela sighed. "But Grayson, Lord have mercy, that child could wiggle. He never could hold still for more than five seconds at a time. The peculiar thing was deep down he wanted, even needed, those hugs much more than Davis."

Lori swallowed the urge to run up the stairs and lock herself in her apartment before Angela unveiled anymore heart-wrenching peeks into Gray's past. Instead of running, Lori changed the subject. "Magda seems to have taken a liking to the dog. I hope your grandchildren won't be upset that it's on loan for a while."

"They won't miss it. That's one I had tucked away. It was Grayson's. He slept with that Snoopy every night when he was a baby." Angela gnawed the corner of a nail absently. "He took it back after his father deployed to Vietnam."

Magda nested under Dave's chin, her eyes drooping as he patted her back. Lori couldn't help but think of how much living the man had missed with his own children.

Tears dulled Lori's vision without warning. She should have run when she'd had the chance. She was way out of her league in holding strong against the emotion-tugging powers of Angela Clark.

The older woman's hand fell back to her side. "So, dear, should we pick you up for the finit flight party at four or closer to four-thirty on Friday?"

Lori took in the determined gleam shining from Angela's eyes. There wasn't even a chance of avoiding that party. "You don't play fair."

The door slammed shut above, just before Gray charged down the stain, a determined look on his face.

Angela studied her son for a lingering second, then turned back at Lori. "Mothers rarely do when their children need them."

Chapter 12

Gray gripped the stick and flew. Beach music pulsed trough the interphone. No one argued or grumbled. This was his flight.

But he wasn't singing. The shock on Lori's face when he'd told her about his move kept blindsiding him.

Damn it, he needed to fly the plane.

Air-to-air refueling demanded concentration. Twenty-five thousand feet in the air, he eased up behind the tanker that would off-load the gas they needed to complete the mission.

Routine grounded him as he maneuvered the stick and mumbled through steps he'd completed hundreds of times before. "Visual references … lined up. Bump the throttles— Oops, too much. Pull it back. Wings level. Got good closure. Back … off … it and … level it right there." Gray called to the copilot. "Refueling checklist complete?"

Bronco slapped his checklist closed. "Roger. Checklist complete. Two green lights. Tanker ready to pass some gas."

"Uh-huh." Not in the mood for crew dog exchanges, Gray had let Bronco's lame jokes slide all day.

The tanker's long metal boom, an enclosed gas hose, dropped, connected, and the two aircraft flew in tandem twenty-two feet apart. Gray settled in for the forty-five-minute refueling with none of his expected excitement.

Refueling offered the greatest challenge in Air Force flying, short of combat, and he couldn't even find a song he wanted to sing.

Damn.

Gray adjusted his air speed.

Bronco stretched in the confined space. "Done any house hunting up in Washington yet?"

"Nope."

"But you've got a couple weeks permissive leave to look, right?"

"Uh-huh."

Bronco shifted in his seat, drummed his fingers on the panel. Shifted again. "Sure hope those firemen down there got the right hoses hooked up for you. Remember when they sprayed Sasquach with the yellow foam? Guy looked jaundiced for a week."

"Yeah." On a normal day Bronco was talkative, but the guy was downright chatty today with no signs of letting up.

"You're gonna pull some awesome Pacific trips with this new assignment. Temporary duty to Hawaii. Guam. Philippines. Japan. Great shopping."

Shopping. Thoughts of Barbie houses and Capri pants made Gray flinch.

"Hey, Cutter?"

"What?"

"You'd better talk to me, man, or I'm going to yank these throttles, knock you off the boom and then tell everyone you screwed up refueling on your finit flight."

Gray shot a quick glance at Bronco before returning his concentration to the plane flying in front of him. "Sorry. Were you talking to me?"

"Funny."

"Hey, Lance," Gray shot over his shoulder to the senior pilot in the instructor seat. "You actually let your copilot talk?"

"Sorry. He snuck that in while my mouth was full. Really great cookies today. Want one?" The bag rattled behind Gray's shoulder.

"No, thanks."

Silence settled over them, broken only by sporadic calls through the headset. Not at all like times he usually flew with these guys.

Tag was best of the best, one of the old guard. Lancelot had a great set of flying hands, a solid pilot, even if Gray didn't hang with him much outside the airplane. Rumor had it Lance's party habits, combined with job stress, had put his marriage on the line more than once. But he had an air sense Gray trusted.

And Bronco. Damn, he would miss the big, chatty guy.

Of course these guys would be his choice for his finit flight.

His finit flight, a tradition chock-full of celebration and other rituals central to the "fight hard, play hard" so he could "fight harder the next day" mentality of all soldiers. And he wasn't enjoying himself in the least because he kept thinking of Lori.

Would she be on the ground waiting for him?

She'd said she would, for Magda to say goodbye. For good.

They hadn't spoken all week, but she hadn't called to cancel, either. The flight had taken off before his parents would have even left to pick her up, so he wouldn't know if she'd come until he taxied down the runway.

There wasn't a thing he could do about it now. Might as well plaster on the smile and put on a good front. "Hey, Lancelot, did you hear what they said about Bronco at the last training meeting?"

Lance chuckled, picking up the teasing thread as any decent crew dog would. "Refresh my memory, Cutter."

"Something about copilot upgrades to aircraft commander. And how he'll never get one … because he talks too much!"

Lance coughed into the headset. "Almost made me choke on a cookie with that, Cutter. Good one, huh, Bronco? Or should we change your call sign to 'Motor Mouth'?"

"Upgrade me and it won't be a problem," Bronco growled, then fell silent. Before long, the big guy was squirming predictably in his seat. "Hey, you're making up that stuff about the meeting—right?"

"Whatever you want to tell yourself." Gray jumped into the familiar routine of crew camaraderie. Everything would be fine. He'd just experienced a ripple, a mental air pocket, before he leveled out. "Got any more cookies back there, Lancelot?"

Gray reached over his shoulder, downed the cookie, then decided he'd tortured Bronco long enough.

"Hey, Bronco." He winked. "I'm just yanking your chain. Get over yourself."

"I knew that." Bronco sniffed, then grinned.

Gray decided he should take the same advice for himself. He'd fallen into the trap of letting things get too complicated, and he knew better. The sky unfolded before him, cloud after cloud whipping past. Keep it simple. Just him and the sky—

Wham.

The pop reverberated through the aircraft. It echoed, like a baseball bat to the side of the plane. Gray's hand convulsed around the stick.

Fog rolled into the cockpit. An ominous white cloud churned, filling his rapidly fogging brain.

Rapid.

Rapid decompression.

His mind flashed with thoughts of Lori waiting on the ground. Lori, smiling because of a silly cracker.

No time to bite out a curse or waste on distractions. Training kicked in. He had less than twenty seconds of useful consciousness left.

Gray stared up at the refueling plane ahead of them and smashed the disconnect button.

"Breakaway! Breakaway! Breakaway!" He whipped the quick-don oxygen mask over his face.

A deep inhale started to clear his brain. "Rapid dee," he barked over interphone. "Everybody on oxygen and report up."

"Copilot up on oxygen."

"Instructor pilot up on oxygen," Lance called.

"Loadmaster up."

"Bronco, tell center we're descending to ten thousand feet." Gray clipped orders over the headset. He rammed the stick forward. Nosedown the plane dived, faster, rattling, increasing vibration, gaining speed as they descended toward breathable air.

His mind clicked through causes, everything from a popped seal to an explosion. He couldn't evaluate until they reached ten thousand feet. If they got there.

Lori's face flashed in front of him again at absolutely the worst time. He did not need distractions. Not now. And Lori had always been the biggest distraction he'd ever known.

The plane rattled louder, noises picking up, whining. Clouds whipped past the windscreen.

Still Gray couldn't shake thoughts of Lori. He could almost smell peaches. Was this what guys like Lance and the squadron commander, all those married flyers went through every time they faced danger?

If so, he didn't want it. Thoughts of Lori's horrified face if he died tormented him with each plummeting mile. He'd wanted her to understand, but hadn't imagined he could throw her right into the sort of pain his father had given his mother.

Damn. Damn. Damn. His crewmates counted on him to do his job, to protect them, and all he could think about was Lori. And the ground closing in at three hundred and fifty knots.

* * *

Lori hitched Magda higher on her hip and tried to soothe her with a combination of bouncing and swaying. It wasn't working. They'd been out on the flight line too long and any child would be restless.

Magda had already climbed up and down the small set of bleachers by the line of parked planes at least fifty times. The allure of strolling around their corner of concrete had long ago palled for the four-year-old.

A summer breeze liked along the open airfield and through Lori's loose hair, offering relief from the stored heat drifting up from the cement. At first Lori had worried a return to the base might upset Magda. But Magda's wariness had faded each day as she bonded with Lori—with a speed Lori understood well since she felt the same. She knew there wasn't a chance she would be giving Magda up at the hearing in a few weeks.

Magda squirmed to get down, not in the least bothered by her surroundings. Too bad Lori couldn't find some of that reassurance for herself. She still wasn't certain why she'd come. For Magda? To find out what made Gray shut himself off from any life other than flying and medicine?

To see him one last time before he left?

A tinkling sound broke through her thoughts. Angela Clark's bracelet sounded from Magda's fist.

Lori knew exactly why she'd come. Grayson's mother was just as persuasive as her son.