Tailspin

“Maggie, sorry I’m late. Happy birthday.”

“James.” Maggie turned to hug the man who wore a dress uniform that matched Nash’s.

“General.” Nash nodded at the man.

Maggie introduced General James Winslow to the group. When it was her turn, Bianca grasped the hand the general extended. She was a little surprised when the current superintendent of the Air Force Academy showed no sign of recognition. It had been less than a month since he’d refused to meet with her or even speak to her on the phone. After that, she’d received the same refusal from everyone else she’d phoned. No one wanted to talk about Cadet Brian Silko.

There was a story to uncover, all right.

When the string quartet segued from Brahms to a lively rendition of “Happy Birthday,” Maggie laughed. “I think that’s a hint that I should cut my birthday cake.”

As the group was dispersing in the direction of the cake, Bianca drew in a deep breath. She had a plan to complete before Nash drifted away. Taking a step toward him, she said, “I’d like to set up an appointment for an interview.”

When he met her eyes, she could read nothing in them. “Grams told me as much. Are you free tomorrow morning around eleven?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be in my office at the academy. Do you have transportation?”

She nodded. “A rental car.”

“Then I’ll have someone meet you at the main gate and show you the way.”

“See you then.” As Bianca watched him move ahead to fall into step with his grandmother and General Winslow, she thought she’d handled that well.

He could still arouse feelings in her, but she would deal with them. She would just have to keep their relationship on a professional level.

As everyone burst into “Happy Birthday,” she settled her gaze on Nash again. And her heart bounced hard and high. She might just as well have been seventeen again.

Keeping things professional will be a good trick if you can pull it off.

Bianca had no comeback for that.

3

NASH MADE ONE LAST crease in the paper airplane he’d been crafting for the past fifteen minutes. Creating them had been a habit he’d picked up from his dad. They used to sit side by side for hours at the kitchen table in his grandmother’s house completing entire combat squadrons and then waging war. As a result of years of practice, Nash had learned to make an aeronautically superior paper plane. Usually the process helped to clear his mind and even solve problems.

And he definitely had a problem.

Hefting his latest masterpiece between his finger and thumb, he launched it with one practiced flick of his wrist. It soared upward for two seconds before it nose dived onto the floor nearly a foot short of its intended target—his wastebasket.

Glancing over the top of his desk, Nash noted that it was the fifth plane that had crashed before reaching its destination. In the past hour, only one of his masterpieces had survived the trip.

And the failed missions littering his office floor were all due to Bianca Quinn.

Rising, he shoved his hands into his pockets and paced through the debris to the window of his office. In the distance, mountain peaks jutted into a cloudless blue sky. After eleven years, she was back in his life, and he wasn’t at all sure how it would play out. He wasn’t sure how he wanted it to play out.

He felt the same way about her now as he had when he’d first seen her eleven years ago. He’d gotten a glimmer of that feeling when he’d first seen her from his grandmother’s balcony, but taking her hands and kissing her cheek had confirmed it.

Nash found the strength to smile. He’d wanted to throw her over his shoulder and simply leave the party. And it might have been worth it to see the expression on his grandmother’s face.

Because Maggie Fortune was pulling strings in this situation. He had no doubt of that. But his more compelling problem was Bianca. What he’d learned last night was that he wanted her, intensely, urgently, to the exclusion of everything else. Just as he had the first time.

How could that possibly be? Time had intervened. He was older now. So was she. But all he’d had to do was see her, meet her gaze, and she’d sent him into the same tailspin she had the first time.

What had happened between them in their teens, as intense as it had been, should have been over. More than a decade had passed. And it was the “to the exclusion of everything else” part that was the most worrisome. At nineteen, he could understand it.

Now… With a frown, he paced back to his desk and sat down. There was a lot in both their lives that couldn’t be excluded. And there was so much they didn’t know about each other.

He hadn’t even been aware that she’d written a book. He glanced at his computer screen and reread the review he’d pulled up. “Gripping…a first-rate page-turner.”

Unable to resist, he’d downloaded a free chapter, and the voice, the energy in the writing had immediately captivated him. He could hear her, feel her in the words. And the story was a fascinating one.

On the surface, the slaughter of an ordinary middle-class family in a presumably safe neighborhood in Dryden, New York, had all the markings of a random home invasion. The suspects, a woman and her son, had been tracked down when they’d run up charges on credit cards that had been stolen from the victims. The son had been killed by the police, and though the woman had never confessed, she’d been convicted by the fingerprint evidence at the scene of the multiple murders.

Fingerprint evidence that Bianca Quinn had later discovered had been planted by an overzealous member of the state police. Thanks to her diligent investigation of the cold case file and her extensive interviews, another suspect had surfaced and had been arrested.

It didn’t surprise Nash at all that Bianca was coming into her own as a published author. Writing had always been her first love, and it had motivated her decision to cancel their elopement plans and leave Denver.

Though it had hurt like hell at the time, Nash knew what it was to pursue a dream. He’d been equally focused on his future career in the Air Force. At nineteen, he’d been convinced that they could each achieve their goals while they were together. In the end he’d had to accept that Bianca’s love of writing had prevailed over her love of him. She’d made that quite clear in the “Dear John” note she’d left him at the base of the statue of St. Francis.

Anger, bafflement, hurt. He’d experienced all of them the night he’d read her note. His first impulse had been to go after her and convince her that she was wrong. And if that hadn’t worked, he would have simply dragged her back. That had been his battle strategy until Father Mike had walked into the prayer garden. The priest had talked to him in that calm, logical way of his and persuaded him to see everything from Bianca’s point of view.

Father Mike had been honest with him about his grandmother’s involvement, and about the opportunities she’d opened up for Bianca—a college education, a chance to major in writing at a prestigious Ivy League school—opportunities that Nash couldn’t offer at that point in his life. In the end, Father Mike had gotten a promise from him to let some time go by before he did anything rash. Then holding his hand, the priest had encouraged him to say a prayer to the statue. If his memory served him correctly, he’d prayed what was in his heart, that Bianca would change her mind and come back to him. But she hadn’t.

End of story. He’d had a heart-to-heart with his grandmother, but she’d used the same argument as Father Mike had. If he truly loved Bianca, he’d give her this chance. So he hadn’t gone after her. The pain he’d felt all those years ago had eventually faded. The wounds had healed.

Then he’d seen her at his grandmother’s birthday party and felt as if he’d been struck by a thunderbolt, one that had opened up everything he’d believed he’d buried long ago.

He glanced at his watch. In fifteen minutes she was going to walk through the door of his office for an interview. And he wanted her as much as he’d wanted her before, and more than he’d ever wanted any other woman.

And that was enough to give any sane man pause. He was no stranger to going with impulse. He enjoyed taking risks. That part of his nature was what made him a good pilot. But on a mission, he always weighed the consequences of various strategies before hand.

Eleven years ago, he hadn’t done that with Bianca. He’d been too blindsided by her. He’d rushed into a relationship with her with very little thought of the future—his, hers or theirs. And when they’d gotten around to a plan, it hadn’t worked out.

He threaded his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair. Hell, he knew a lot about battle strategies. First you had to have a goal. And he thought he had that. What he was feeling for her was not going to go away. He wanted to taste her again. He wanted her again.

He picked up a piece of paper and began folding it. There was no denying the fact that she was special to him. And it wasn’t just impulse or raging hormones driving him now. He was curious about the woman she’d become. Having read some of her work, he was even more intrigued.

What he needed was an effective strategy for reaching his goal. One that considered her as well as himself. The problem was, he wasn’t quite sure what that strategy was. He’d have to figure it out. He lifted the paper plane and flicked his wrist a few times. He’d weigh the data as it came in and adjust. With a grin, he aimed the airplane at his wastebasket and let it rip. Then he watched it ricochet off the edge and nose dive to the floor.

“I remember when your father used to make paper planes. I swear he’d make twenty or thirty of them before he flew each mission.”

Startled, Nash rose to greet General Winslow. “Come in, sir.”

“I can also remember the days when you called me Uncle Jimmy.”

“A long time ago.” Winslow was medium height with the compact build of a boxer. He’d roomed with Nash’s father when they’d gone through the Air Force Academy together, and they’d served together in the Gulf War. In the first year or two after his father had died, the general had visited his grandmother frequently. But until Nash had come back to the Air Force Academy to teach, he hadn’t seen Winslow in years. And it was the first time since he’d returned that the general had paid him a visit in his office.