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Willing training to override emotions, Darcy keyed up her mike. “Crew, I think we have a fuel leak.”
* * *
Max stood at the end of the dock that thrust out into the dolphins’ sea pen. One at a time he flicked fish toward Lucy and Ethel bobbing below with open mouths. Since the incident with Lucy’s food poisoning, he’d kept closer watch over what the dolphins ate.
Another couple of days and they would both be released into the wild, due to government cutbacks in funding. He was slated to take the place of a retiring trainer working with the marine mammal program and SEALs at Coronado. A kick-ass assignment that would route him around the world.
After he put the monster responsible for attacking Darcy into that very dark, very cold grave.
Max flung another fish by rote. At least he had Darcy off the island. Now he didn’t have to be cautious for her sake. Finally he could do his job, no holds barred. His world was so silent. The dock so empty.
Reaching into the bucket, he pitched handfuls of herring and squid farther into the water. Lucy arched over and away with a splash. Ethel stayed behind. Bobbing. Silently.
Max crouched down and stroked her rostrum. “Hey, girl.”
He didn’t need to say more. Words weren’t needed here. Wise eyes stared back, radiating sympathy. He understood well that humans only communicated with dolphins when dolphins chose. The irony was lost on many frustrated trainers—the difference between bribing a few repetitious jumps and developing a working relationship. Odd, but he’d never really thought about it before.
Before Darcy made him stretch the boundaries of his world.
Yeah, he felt the sympathy. Too bad Ethel didn’t have any more answers than he did.
A low drone echoed in the distance. Built. Swelled into a siren whine. Max looked over his shoulder. Foreboding knotted in his gut. “What the—”
The alert siren pulsed. Again and again.From the base.
Foreboding gelled into certainty. Max shot to his feet, pounded down the dock and through the gate. He raced for his jeep and launched inside. Cranking the engine, he reminded himself that Darcy was somewhere over the Pacific in her airplane. He’d watched her take off to be sure. But the siren was too coincidental in an op where coincidence had bitten him on the butt more than once.
Max plowed over the rutted road, calling for updates on his radio. Cold, deep anger grew with each pulse of the siren, each pulse slamming his temple. Credentials bought access for whatever he wanted on this island. He didn’t hesitate to use them now to purchase the information and entry he needed.
Emergency C-17 landing. Fuel leak on board, followed by a fire on the runway. Crew taken to the hospital for observation.
Max kept his breathing steady, palm trees whizzing past ashe drove. At least if Darcyhadbeen on the plane, she was alive. He followed directions to the reception area outside the flight surgeon’s office.
And found… Yep. He’d been right to be worried. His instincts were a pain in the butt and dead-on. Max stalked into the clinic waiting room. Darcy and her crew were sprawled throughout the grouping of stark government-issue office furniture as they filled out seventy-two-hour histories for the accident review board. Loadmaster Tag was nowhere in sight, probably already giving lab samples and receiving an exam. Crusty leaned with his back against the wall, loose, relaxed, flipping through the stack of papers.
Too much so.
Max knew the attitude well—a studied disconnection from the event until it could be analyzed from a safer, less emotional distance.
Bronco sat at the table, scrawling on a clipboard, face set, fist resting beside the papers. The fist was clenched around a key chain Max knew held a mother/daughter photo.
Bronco glanced up. “Hey, Doc. You must have twisted some heavy duty arms to get in here.”
Max shrugged, a good cover for working the Darcy-induced kink out of his neck. “What are a few rules here or there anyhow?”
A half smile pulled at Bronco’s mouth. He jerked a thumb toward the window where Darcy stood with her back to him. Her fingers parted the blinds to expose the smoke rising in a cloud over the base.
“Wren deserves major kudos. Her quick thinking and air sense saved us today. If we’d been farther out over the Pacific…” Bronco’s knuckles whitened around the key chain.
Max answered with a tight nod. Anger and something else he didn’t want to think about at the moment twisted inside him. He’d worked a lot of ops over the years, had almost bitten it more than once. But he’d kept himself detached from it all, like Crusty over there.
For a good reason, especially since Eva.
Detachment gave objectivity. And right now he was feeling anything but objective as he looked at this crew he’d come to know and admire over the past weeks. More importantly, as he looked at this woman he’d come to know, still didn’t understand but had to touch.
Max strode across the room and took her by the shoulders. Just stood, absorbing the warmth of her shoulders as they both stared out the window.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly.
