Risk Taker. Lindsay McKenna

flutter. The letters were crisp and lovely to look at. Ethan had written this? Someone at this forward operating base was a poet, of all things? Ethan? He had delivered it. Or was this a sick joke by her squadron mates? Her mind revolved back to her medevac squadron, wondering if one of the guys was pulling a trick on her. For all she knew, someone could have stolen this from a real poet to make it look like he’d written it. Her heart told her Ethan had not only delivered but had written it.

      Still, her fingertips tingled as she held the rich paper. The words, if she were honest, touched her deeply. She loved symbolism and saw it in just about everything in her life. Growing up, she’d found solace reading poetry. Although she couldn’t write a line of iambic pentameter to save her life. Intuitively, Sarah knew Ethan had written it even if he hadn’t signed it.

      She looked at the green metal locker in the corner of her tent. In it was her favorite book of poems, a small leather-bound volume by a Jewish American poet who wrote lush, drenching prose that made her heart sigh just as it did with this stanza of a poem Ethan had written for her.

      Sarah felt oddly comforted by the words. Did Ethan see her as a garden filled with beautiful flowers? Was that his message? An invisible balm eased through her heart. Here she was, out in a war zone, getting shot at almost daily, and this beautiful poem arrived at the door of her tent. The title...well, that held her heart captive, too. Wouldn’t any woman want the man of her dreams to whisper those words to her? That she was seen as a diamond, multifaceted, complex, having depth? Of course. Well, she would. Her experience with men had left her wary. To them, she was something to be lusted after. Something to be chased and caught and used.

      Her lips drew into a soft smile as she reread the lines of the stanza. They made her feel good. An invisible touch from a potential lover? Snorting softly, she laid the envelope aside and picked at a cinnamon roll. She was such a sucker for stuff like this. A romantic idealist, which was not a good way to be. Her love life resembled the chaos of a bull hooking its horns around in a china shop, not the reverent beauty of the words contained in this poem.

      As she sipped her coffee, Sarah felt a kind of mellowness invading her stiff limbs. Ethan’s words were beautiful. And profound. And sensitive.

      Shaking her head, she thought of the other sensitive guy at the FOB, Pascal, one of her medics who flew with her. She liked all the medics, truth be told. The rest of the pilots were thick as bricks, for the most part. All they saw when they looked at her was a body. Sarah was sick of being hit on by those Neanderthal types. She yearned for a deep conversation, flights of fantasy, someone who could join her on the magical carpet ride of her imagination and fly with her.

      “Hey, Sarah? Are you in there?”

      She started. “Aylin? Come on in. I’m home.” Sarah grinned as the nearly six-foot Apache combat helicopter pilot pushed open the flaps.

      “Hey, I’m checking up on you. We just got word over at Jaguar you got attacked yesterday afternoon. Are you all right?”

      Sarah gestured for the Turkish pilot to sit down on the cot. “He got the worst of it,” she said, glad to see her friend.

      Aylin was in her flight suit and had her helmet bag and kneeboard in hand, which meant she was going to be flying soon. Her black hair was captured in a ponytail. Her golden eyes were slightly tilted, giving her an exotic look.

      “Hmph,” Aylin said, sitting down. “You look beat-up. What the hell happened?” Her friend sat down, placing her helmet bag next to her flight boots.

      Sarah told her and saw anger leap into Aylin’s eyes. She was a deadly woman in the air as well as on the ground. They were sisters in that they both carried a black belt in karate. But Aylin also knew Krav Maga, the Israeli Defense Forces self-defense system, which was especially deadly.

      “Where’s the bastard now?” Aylin gritted out, flexing her fists.

      “They took him to Bagram. He’s going to be held there for court-martial. Eventually, I’ll have to fly in and testify.”

      “Too bad he isn’t still here.”

      Sarah knew Aylin was good for her word. “I’m glad he’s gone.”

      “You look tired.”

      “Very,” she admitted.

      “And you said a SEAL saved you?”

      “Yes. God, did he ever move fast.”

      Aylin chuckled. “Black ops. Those boys haul ass.”

      “Where are you off to?” Sarah asked.

      “Going to go with my wingwoman up toward the border,” Aylin said in a bored tone. “The Pakistanis are throwing 105s across into Afghanistan and at some of our Army forward operating bases. We’re supposed to fly in as a show of force.” Her eyes narrowed, predator-like. “Frankly, I’d love to throw some Hellfire missiles into those sites that are sitting just a few meters inside the Pakistan border. It would only have to happen once and those cowards would stop. Of course, that would be an act of war. No one said war made sense, right?”

      Laughing softly, Sarah agreed.

      “Is there anything I can do for you, Sarah?”

      “No. I’ve got four days to rest up.”

      Aylin’s arched black brows rose. “Oh, good. You can join us tomorrow then. We’ve got a poker tournament starting up.” She rubbed her hands together and grinned. “Going to be a big pot. Come and join us?”

      “I’ll come as your cheerleader. How’s that? I’m not a very lucky person.” She snorted and pointed to her face.

      Aylin looked at her watch and stood up. “Okay, drop by if you feel like it and be my good luck charm, then. It starts at 1900 in the ready room. Gotta go, girlfriend.” She picked up her bag and left.

      The tent diminished in energy as The Turk, as they referred to Aylin, left. Sarah felt better having had some company. The Jaguar women pilots had embraced her wholeheartedly. Sarah finished the first cinnamon roll and picked up the second one.

      It felt rather lovely to just sit and not have to be on the flight roster. She felt a little guilty about it since she knew some of the pilots were going to max out their flight hours every day because she was sidelined. They were missing two pilots who had been killed three weeks ago. A Taliban RPG had rocketed into their Black Hawk just as it had landed to pick up some wounded Special Forces operators. Everyone on board had died, the two pilots, an aircrew chief and a medic. It had been a huge and devastating loss to the squadron.

      Sadness moved through Sarah. She’d lost her only male friend at Bravo on that ill-fated flight. Chief Warrant Officer Ted Bateman had been her age, twenty-nine, with three kids and a wife he loved very much. He was sensitive, someone she could confide in. There was never a time he wasn’t respectful of her. Most important, he’d treated her as an equal.

      Sarah quickly closed her eyes. Ted had been an incredible pilot—so damned passionate about his job—and she’d seen him fly into a firefight many times to rescue wounded men. Many of the pilots would not. Major Donaldson, who ran the squadron, never wanted to lose a multimillion-dollar Black Hawk. It would risk his yearly budget’s bottom line. He would rant and rave during planning sessions about never risking the helo. The man or woman who was bleeding on the ground could wait until the firefight was over, and then they could fly in to safely pick them up.

      Wiping her eyes, Sarah sniffed. She ached to have Ted around right now. If he’d found out she’d been assaulted and nearly raped, he’d be right there at her side. He had been a fierce advocate for her to be in the squadron. When Ted came into the squadron, the rest of the pilots didn’t heckle her or play mean jokes on her as much. She wasn’t a man, so in those pilots’ eyes, she was defective. Ted always wanted to fly with her because, as he’d told her once, she had a set of invisible titanium balls. She’d laughed with him, shaking her head. He had always lifted her spirits and had been a role model of what a medevac pilot should be.

      “Oh, Ted,” she whispered.