it?”
“Almost twenty-one hundred.”
He stiffened. “What’d you say?”
“I’m sorry.” She sighed softly. “Military time comes naturally to me.”
He didn’t respond right away, but the muscles in his arm seemed pretty tight.
“Were you in the military?” he asked.
“Actually, I still am.” She supposed it wouldn’t hurt to lay her cards on the table, to have that little talk now. “I’m going to make a career of it. Why?”
His biceps twitched. “Something tells me we just came to a place where the old don’t-ask-don’t-tell line would be appropriate.”
Uh-oh. Now it was her turn to stiffen.
“What branch of the service are you in?” he asked.
A sense of foreboding crossed her mind, and her heart hammered in her chest as if trying to break through her rib cage. “I’m in the Army.”
He inhaled deeply, then slowly blew it out. “Where are you stationed?”
“Schofield Barracks. Does that matter?”
“It might.”
Oh, for Pete’s sake. Surely he wasn’t in the Army, too. If so, was he stationed in Texas? But wait, that’s not what he’d said. Was it?
She rolled away and practically shot up in bed. Then she folded her arms across her chest and turned to him. “You lied to me. You’re not a cowboy from Texas.”
“I grew up on a ranch in Wexler, and I’ve ridden plenty of horses over the years. But I never claimed to be a cowboy.”
“So you’re in the Army, too?” she asked, dreading the response.
“Yeah, I am. And apparently, I wasn’t the only one to withhold some details over the last few hours.”
“I am on vacation,” she said. “But only until tomorrow night, when I have to check in at the base.”
Bullet sat up and scrubbed his hand over his hair. Please don’t let him be an officer. It was against regulations to fraternize.
That sense of foreboding grew, casting a shadow over her. Over them.
“What’s your rank?” he asked.
“You go first.”
Bullet swore under his breath. “I’m Captain Clayton Masters. I command a Black Hawk squadron on Wheeler Army Airfield. And you’re...?”
Rickie blew out a sigh, plopped back down on the mattress and placed her hands over her face. “Sergeant Erica Campbell—enlisted.”
What rotten luck. Her lover wasn’t a cowboy from Texas. Nor was he a tourist on vacation.
Instead, he was a Black Hawk commander. An officer in the US Army.
And they’d just fraternized.
It hadn’t been intentional. And as long as they didn’t do it again, she supposed it was no big deal.
“I guess we screwed up,” Bullet said. “Ah, no pun intended.”
She blew out a weary sigh. “Big-time. If I’d known who you were, I never would have invited you back here.”
“And if I’d known who you were, I wouldn’t have come.”
“I never expected more than one night anyway,” Rickie said, although, just moments ago, she’d begun to hope for more. To wonder how they could possibly pull that off. “So no harm, no foul. Right?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” Bullet—or rather, Clay—raked a hand through his hair. A military cut, she now realized.
Damn. Should she call him Captain? After what they’d done, that felt awkward.
“I guess we really are neighbors,” he said, as he got to his feet and reached for his discarded board shorts.
“That’s about the size of it.” Wheeler Airfield was just across the street from Schofield Barracks.
Rickie figured she’d better get dressed, too, and climbed out of bed. Rather than put on her swimsuit, she rummaged through her suitcase and pulled out a green T-shirt and a pair of black shorts. She wouldn’t bother with a bra or panties.
“What’s your MOS?” he asked, referring to her military occupation specialty.
“I’m a sixty-eight whiskey.”
“So you’re a medic.”
“I work at a clinic unless I’m sent out for training ops.” And those often began on Wheeler, especially when she and her unit had to fly out to the Big Island. Damn, what a disappointing—not to mention awkward—mess this was turning out to be.
She slipped into her clothes, covering herself quickly as if they could pretend none of this happened. But good luck with that. The sex had been too damn good to forget.
“I suppose that means we could run into each other.”
True. So far, she hadn’t been on any missions with him, although she could. The Black Hawks usually flew soldiers out to the Big Island, where a lot of training took place. And since he was the commander of a squadron, it could happen in the future.
Yep. Definitely awkward.
“You know,” he said, “we can’t do this again.”
She wasn’t stupid, although she felt like it. “I’ve never done this before—made love with a guy I just met. This was just...one of those things. So I wasn’t expecting any more than one night.”
“Neither was I.”
She stole a glance at Bullet. Or rather Clay. They hadn’t actually lied to each other. They’d just withheld information that would have helped them avoid doing something like this.
“Are Poncho and Duck in the military, too?” she asked.
“No, they’re actually civilians visiting me. And I took a week off to stay with them. I didn’t mean to trick you...”
At this point, she figured it didn’t matter. But for some reason, it did. “I wasn’t trying to pull the wool over your eyes, either. I flew in from Houston last night and don’t have to sign in until tomorrow night. I didn’t see any point in sharing my life story.”
Although, to be honest, she wished they still had one more day together. But it wouldn’t be right.
“Well,” he said, nodding toward the door. “I’d better get out of here. Otherwise, I’d be tempted to climb back into bed.”
She smiled, clinging to the admission like a compliment.
“I wish things were different,” he added.
So did she. Their chemistry was off the charts. At least in bed. And before reality struck, she’d been ruing the thought of going back to her barracks and him flying back to Texas. But this was different. Worse.
So close, yet so far away.
She managed an unaffected smile. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
He stood in the center of the room for a couple of beats, as if he was struggling with reality and ethics and everything else. “Take care.”
“You, too.” Rickie watched him walk toward the door.
While it was possible they’d run into each other again, she hoped not. It would be awkward at best. Not to mention disappointing.
But an officer fraternizing with an enlisted soldier was against Army regulations, and since she wasn’t about to make any changes to her career plan, their short-term affair