Jayhawk Down Read Online Free PDF Page A

pull of an overbooked business day, the breath-stealing word,
onbula
, took her back fifteen years.
    On an innocent Sunday morning at a London café, she’d left her husband of three months to check out a window display across the street. That capricious jaunt had saved her life—and left Valerie Pappas Wooten a widow at twenty-five.
    The Arabic word for
bomb
seemed even more sinister in the morning sunshine of Jacksonville, Florida. Could fate be presenting her with an opportunity to prevent another family’s destruction?
    Clearwater, FL, Thursday,
15 September, 1518 hours
    Stillman sat on the tailgate of his truck in the USCG Air Station’s parking lot smoking a cigarette and waiting for Caitlyn to appear in the scatter of Coasties leaving the base. Late afternoon sun baked his shoulders through a medium blue polo shirt. Idiot, he should have worn white. But no, because some nurse mentioned it brought out the color of his eyes, he’d let his ego rule. In his forties and he was still acting like a flippin’ juvenile. It’d serve him right if he fried what was left of his brain.
    Tampa Bay mirrored the clear Florida sky. It was the first honest-to-God eye-searing sunny day since he’d moved to the state. He stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette and field-stripped it out of habit. Maybe he’d quit smoking for the queen.
    The earlier trickle of Coasties turned into a wave, spilling toward the parking lot in clumps of twos and threes. Stillman squinted through his dark shades looking for the tall redhead he hadn’t been able to purge from his thoughts. He’d known proficient pilots; he’d known some damn fine-looking women. But hell if he’d known both packaged as memorably as Caitlyn.
    A riot of red windblown hair caught his eye and his gut tightened with anticipation. She appeared to be carrying on several conversations as she kept pace with the copilot Stillman remembered from Saturday night. Her eyes were hidden behind black Oakley sunglasses, her face animated and glowing. She laughed at something someone said from behind her and his anticipation turned into raw hunger.
    Before he could analyze his reaction, he noticed she cradled a full-face motorcycle helmet against her chest. Disillusionment deflated his lungs. He’d spent too many hours piecing together bodies ground into red meat by high-speed encounters with asphalt to view motorcycles as anything but a painful ticket to the morgue.
    He tracked her long-legged stride as she headed his way. What the hell, she was a big girl; if she wanted to risk her brains on two-wheeled suicide, that was her choice. He was looking for fun, so maybe a walk on the wild side was in order.
    * * *
    Caitlyn spotted him before she cleared the parking lot gate. Dr. Butt Head slipped off the tailgate of a lipstick-red truck and hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans. An off-centered smile tilted the corner of his mouth, softening something inside her. Damn, did he have to look so inviting?
    “Uh-oh, enemy. Two o’clock,” Ryan said in a stage whisper.
    “Radar’s locked on. Let’s see what he wants,” Caitlyn murmured. She allowed her eyes, safely hidden from view, to consume the oh-so-irritating doctor. Not that she could complain about the visual he presented.
    Dressed in blue polo shirt, faded-to-white jeans and scuffed running shoes, he didn’t have the overdone artifice of some of the doctors she’d dated. Nice change. The dark hair with wings of silver at the temples and handsome angular face didn’t hurt either.
    His smile grew and he crossed his arms over his chest, emphasizing tanned muscles. Unconsciously her stride slowed. Regrettably her respiration and heart rate didn’t—not a good sign.
    “Careful, Caity, he looks awfully damn cocky. You’re not aiming for a dunk in the Gulf, are you?” Ryan chided.
    “Let me get back to you on that.” She concentrated on the man lazing in front of her with a practiced nurse-devouring grin on his face.