She needed to think.
She needed to call Shirley. But most of all, she needed a minute to breathe.
According to her lab results, it was the last minute she would have for a very, very long time.
What shedidn’tneed was the heart-stoppingly handsome Southern gentleman leaning against her car, sweet spaniel at his feet.
He straightened when she stopped. “Anna Grace?”
And there it was. Just her name, but it said so much.Are you okay? What’s wrong? Let me fix it for you.
“No,” she said.
He watched her as he would a wounded coyote. He didn’t so much as twitch, but she felt him circling her, sniffing, looking for a way in. “Just wanted to talk.”
Anna reached across herself to rub her stiff shoulders. She wanted to go home, run a hot shower, and crawl into bed.
Looked like neither of them would be getting what they wanted tonight. “I can’t.”
Radish whined.
And suddenly she had more tears. Because she should’ve been able to talk to him. Because she needed to shut the door between them, but all it took was a whisper from him to keep it open. The backs of her eyes prickled. A lump grew in her sore, achy throat. “Please. I can’t tonight.” Because he couldn’t fix this for her.
She wanted him to, though. She wanted to hand him the test results and Shirley’s number, let him call her and let them fix it.
He stood there, watching her. Waiting to be asked.
She didn’t move.
Neither did he.
At length, he looked past her to the building. “Work troubles?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed at her temples. “My samples aren’t coming out right.”
He straightened. “How not right?”
“It’s just the samples from one company. The rest are fine.”
“How not right, Anna Grace?” he repeated.
Her whole body sagged. “The baselines are wrong.”
“It’s not JP8? Not an authorized HRJ?”
And this time she heard it.
She wasn’t talking to quasi-boyfriend Jackson.
She was talking to Major Jackson Davis, officer of the United States Air Force, sworn to protect and defend the United States of America with his life.
He stood tall, legs wide, arms over his chest, glaring at her as if she were an airman just out of basic who’d forgotten how to lace up her boots.
“I think it’s contaminated,” she said, not because Major Davis intimidated her, but because she needed to talk through this to figure out how she was going to tell Shirley.
“With what?”
“I don’t know.”
