Pursued. Catherine Mann

extension picked up. “Hello?”

      “Hey, Diehard.” Josie pumped cheer into her voice and worked to recall happier times of horseback races, her little sister’s blond pigtails streaking behind her. “It’s me. Your bossy big sister. I’ve got a favor to ask, if you have time to talk for a minute.”

      The five-count silence was deafening.

      “Uh, sure, Josie. What can I do for you?”

      Stunned or resentful? Who could tell anymore with Diana?

      Josie tucked down into her leather seat for a more comfy chat, her eyes locked on the neon spotlight showcasing the plane tail sticking out of the top of the bar’s roof.

      “I was wondering if you could track down some insider scoop on a retired air force test pilot, Major Diego Morel.”

      Through the air conditioner-fogged bar window, he watched Josie Lockworth’s silver-gray Mustang, the car the same color as her arrogant eyes.

      The bitch had to be stopped.

      “Birddog,” as he was called these days, nursed his bottle of beer while others at the table discussed her project and her future, how lucky she’d been to have this chance to resurrect her mother’s work. Of course, some made their own luck. He savored the taste of hops and success. His eyes stayed focused on the window, on Lockworth. He kept silent. Listened. Planned while his thumb cleaned condensation from his bottle.

      Her test data would be proved eventually. He didn’t doubt that. But with Lockworth out of the picture, he could make his own modifications. The success would be deemed his.

      He could not allow her to assume the credit—her or her mother. By the time they split all the accolades, there’d be little left to go around. Tough enough to accept defeat if another man assumed the glory, but how unacceptable to be beaten by a woman.

      Ego? Sure. But ego was damned important for fliers. The godlike feeling in the air had enabled him to hurtle his body through the clouds in nothing more than a tin can.

      And walk away victorious.

      It was all about the victory.

      He’d been willing to share the fame at one time, until the subtle rejections started from her. Never anything overt, but the back off was clear all the same. The Lockworth bitch barely noticed his existence.

      But he’d sure as hell noticed her.

      His eyes lasered in on the Mustang convertible, where a feminine shadow moved inside. Images reeled through his mind of womanly flesh. Lithe, soft.

      Naked.

      He flexed his fingers along the scarred wood table to capture the imagined sensation of sliding his hand through silky brown hair. Tighter he gripped as if to tug her closer, pulling harder while he pounded deeper. The mere fantasy left him shaking. What he wouldn’t give for the reality of having her under him.

      Definitely under.

      “Birddog, are you with us?”

      Hearing his call sign brought him back to the present. Lust still pounded through him, painful, unrelenting and with no hope of relief. Not with the kind he wanted, anyway.

      He forced his fingers to relax, his thoughts to clear and flicked away stray pretzels from the table. “Absolutely. How about another round? This one’s on me.”

      Cheers lifted, blending with the camaraderie of the bar. Birddog instructed the waitress to keep his tab open while he assessed his drinking partners. Nobody suspected a thing. And they never would, because he had control of every detail.

      He would simply keep closer watch now. The opportunity to stall her project would present itself. He only needed to be patient. Then he would bring Josie Lockworth down fast in a ball of flames.

      The conversation with her sister was spiraling downward.

      Fast.

      Josie tucked the cell phone to her ear with one hand and pitched a Beanie Baby puppy up and down in her other while watching car after car pull out of the bar parking lot. She and her sister had covered work, Athena news and exhausted every superficial conversational topic on the planet. Neither sister wanted to be the one to say they really had nothing important to discuss, nothing important to share, sister style.

      And if they dared try broaching a deeper topic, they could very well end up arguing about their parents. Diana defensive of their father and disdainful of their mother. Josie protective of their mother and pissed at their father’s emotional abandonment. How ironic that their parents were still together, but the discord between the sisters had never fully healed.

      So she continued to pitch the toy basset hound and keep the conversation light, an odd turnabout when she’d never been a quitter or a coward. Why back off in a relationship that should be special?

      The whole mortality deal swamped over her again.

      Okay. She’d take a shot at communicating with her sister while staying off dangerous territory about their parents.

      “How’s life treating you, kid?” She mentally kicked herself for the kid comment. What a way to sabotage reaching out from the get-go.

      Diana had prickly down to a fine art when it came to being the younger sister wanting to outdo her older sibling. But sometimes it was hard to imagine Diana as anything other than a dimple-cheeked kid with no front teeth.

      “I’m fine. Busy at work, but fine, Josephine.”

      Josephine. Josie stifled a wince at her sister’s apparent payback for the kid comment.

      What a name to be saddled with for life. God, she’d hated the first day of any new school year when the “official” roll was called. Josephine Lockworth. Those early days at Athena seemed so long ago, the initial days when the Cassandra group had formed under Rainy’s senior leadership. Sam, with her huge chip on her shoulder. Tory, the motor-mouth attention hog. Darcy, the kiss-ass. Serious Kayla, with no sense of humor. Alex the snob. And, of course, Josephine, the Tattletale Queen.

      A smile flickered. It was a wonder they hadn’t blown apart the school with their arguments in the early days. But slowly, surely, an unbreakable bond had formed as a group of hardheaded leaders figured out how to combine their strengths into an unbeatable team. Rainy, a senior, had been their group leader. Before she’d graduated, they’d all made a vow. If one called for help, the others would rally. No questions asked. They called it their Cassandra promise—a promise invoked by Rainy’s call just before her fatal accident.

      Another car grumbled past the bar’s front window. “I’m glad to hear work’s going well.”

      Gotta love those deep and intense answers.

      Your turn, kiddo. Josie waited.

      And waited.

      The thickening air damn near smothered her. Unease prickled with the sense of eyes boring into her forehead. Josie scanned the parking lot, rechecked that her doors were locked. She found nothing. Sheesh. She really was paranoid tonight. But then talking to her sister always left her on edge.

      Fine. Diana didn’t want to talk. Better to hang up and try again lat—

      “So what are you doing calling me on a Friday night?” Diana asked. “No hot date with some pilot pal of yours?”

      Hot pilot? Her mind immediately winged to both Morel and Bridges. Two hot men in so very different ways.

      And both a serious pain in her side right now. So, yeah, She was seriously hot under the collar about Diego Morel and Mike Bridges, and the threat this congressional investigation posed to her project. “I just finished up a late business-dinner meeting after a flight. What about you?”

      “Only me all alone with my big bowl of macaroni and cheese.”

      “Ah. Comfort food.” Some people turned to ice cream or chocolate. She and her sister always dug into