The Captain's Baby Bargain. Merline Lovelace

Gentry was a bioenvironmental engineer and key member of her Spill Response Team. Almost as senior as the fire chief, Mike had been talking retirement. Swish could only murmur a fervent prayer of thanks that he’d held off—although this mess might well convince him to put in his papers sooner rather than later.

      “Okay, Mike, with the feeder line shut down, we can use reports from monitoring wells along the line to help pinpoint the leak, right?”

      “Right. I’ve already requested immediate status reports from wells eleven and twelve, Captain.”

      * * *

      Using hard data from the monitoring wells and on-site samples, they pinpointed the probable point of the leak. Swish’s heart twisted when she drove out to the site and surveyed the greasy oil slick on the long, narrow lake. The scorching May heat didn’t help the situation. With the afternoon temperature nudging close to a hundred degrees, toxic fumes danced with heat waves to form shimmering, iridescent clouds above the water’s surface. Breathing heavily through her respirator, Swish knew a single spark could set the whole damned lake on fire.

      Sweat poured down her temples and stung her eyes, making each breath she sucked in through the respirator a Herculean chore, but she didn’t remove the mask until the booms were in place, the skimmer operating.

      * * *

      It was midafternoon when Swish grabbed a few minutes to scarf down the sandwiches and chips that Food Service personnel delivered to her and the rest of the team. Close to seven in the evening, she finally took a long enough break to call Gabe. Stepping away from the dig area, she thumbed her contacts listing. His cell phone number was still there. Even after all this time apart, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to delete it. She had no idea if it was still good but tried it anyway.

      “Hey, Suze,” he answered after a few rings. “Got everything under control?”

      “More or less.” Puzzled, she cocked her head. “I’m hearing a funny buzz. Where are you?”

      “Cruising along in Ole Blue.”

      A figure waved to her. Holding up her index finger, she pantomimed “Be right with you” to the EPA rep who’d been sweating alongside her and her team all afternoon.

      “Cruising where?” she asked, her gaze on the excavation in progress.

      “Home.”

      The succinct reply jerked Swish back to the conversation. “Home, like in Oklahoma?”

      “Roger that.”

      She tried not to feel hurt. But she did, dammit. She did. “Nice of you to take off without bothering to say goodbye.”

      “I left a note.”

      Now she wasn’t just hurt. She was pissed. “Oh. Well. That’s okay, then. A note makes you rolling out of my bed and hitting the road without a word just fine and dandy.”

      “Christ, Suze!” A matching anger rolled back at her. “What the hell did you expect me to do? Sit around for two or three days, twiddling my thumbs until you remembered you left a husband in that bed?”

      “Ex-husband.”

      “Yeah,” he snapped, “and that’s pretty much the reason why.”

      She couldn’t believe he was ripping at her for doing her job! Okay, she should’ve called sooner. But she was damned if she’d apologize or, worse, grovel. She’d done both often enough in the past.

      “Drive safe,” she snapped back.

      He didn’t bother to reply. She was left with a dead phone in her hand and another ache in her chest.

      * * *

      The note was right there, propped against a coffee mug, when she finally got back to her condo a little past two in the morning.

       Maybe we’ll pull up at the same intersection again sometime.

      That was it. No It was great seeing you again. No Call me. Not so much as a hint that they’d reconnected in the most elemental, mutually satisfying way. And it was mutual, Swish thought as she crushed the note in an angry fist. He’d wanted her. As much as she’d wanted him.

      Still wanted him.

      The realization was as unwelcome as it was irritating. They’d tried the happily-ever-after once. It hadn’t worked then. It wouldn’t work now. Nothing had changed.

      * * *

      The next few weeks kept Swish up to her eyeballs with work. As busy as she was, though, she couldn’t seem to regain her usual energy and equilibrium.

      The spill containment and recovery efforts proceeded on track. Reps from the EPA and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality fully endorsed her team’s efforts. The booms contained the oil slick on the lake and the skimmers removed the surface contaminants, while the soil vapor extraction system scooped up and vacuumed the contaminated subsoil.

      Yet she’d flash on the memory of those few hours in Gabe’s arms at the craziest moments. In the middle of a boring staff meeting. Or in her office, while staring sightlessly at some report. More than once she got all mopey, even teary-eyed.

      She had to remind herself that she’d lived through separations and a final bust-up before. She’d live through this one, too.

      * * *

      An unexpected visit from Dingo in early June raised her spirits. He was passing through Phoenix on his way to Tuscon. Some kind of business meeting, she gathered, although Dingo tended to be as vague about his life after the military as he’d been while wearing a uniform. They agreed to meet at one of her favorite Mexican restaurants just a few miles from Luke’s main gate.

      A call from the Staff Judge Advocate working the spill claims delayed Swish, so she got to the restaurant fifteen minutes late. She waved off the hostess with the explanation that she was meeting someone, took a half-dozen steps into the popular eatery and stopped dead.

      Good grief! Was that Dingo in a charcoal-gray worsted suit and red power tie? The military cop whose lethal security forces had protected Swish and her team five or six years back, when they’d been ferried into a highly classified location to lay down a runway for the air assault to follow? He’d been Captain Andrews, then. Captain Blake Andrews. His face smeared with camo paint, his weapon at the ready, he’d looked as tough and scary as they came.

      He still looked tough. And, yes, a little scary, but so damned handsome. Swish could certainly understand why Chelsea Howard had latched onto him. She was no slouch herself in the looks department. The two of them, Swish mused, made a striking couple.

      Returning his wave, she wove her way through the tables. Her sand-colored BDUs caught more than a few glances. They also generated a good number of smiling nods. Americans in general—and the folks in the various communities surrounding Luke AFB, in particular—took pride in their military, which only added to the pride Swish herself took in the uniform she wore. And that led to the question she posed to Dingo when he commented on the ripple her appearance had stirred.

      “Do you miss it?” she asked curiously.

      “The uniform? Or knowing you’re a small part of something big and really important?”

      “Either. Both.”

      “Sometimes. But there are other ways to serve the public.”

      He didn’t mention Gabe. Or the fact that his buddy was now mayor of Small Town, America. He didn’t have to. But she was half relieved, half disappointed when he aimed the conversation toward another mutual acquaintance.

      “I stopped by to see Cowboy and Alex last week.”

      Swish accepted the menu the waiter handed her and waved off anything but water. As much as she would’ve loved an icy margarita, she didn’t drink while on duty. “I haven’t talked to either of them since the Bash.