Page 32 of Gryphon

“This is scaring the hell out of me,” she barely managed a whisper.

Mike closed his eyes and thumped the back of his head against the padded seat. “Well, at least we’re finally on the same damn page.”

She heard Andi’s words about Mike like they’d been burned into her brain. Shit, Holly. Did you think he was hanging around for the great sex? Ain’t nobody that good, not me and not even you. He puts up with all your mayhem because he loves you. Not that he’s any more likely to admit it than you are.

What if they were on the same page? She’d never met a better man. Maybe she never would. Not that he believed in himself.

“I—”

There was a loud thunk as the outer latch of the plane’s door was thrown. A blast of cold air drove into the plane sending a chill down Holly’s spine. What the hell had she been about to say?

With the door open and the stairs swung out and down, Tad stuck his head in. “Y’all decent?”

No idea of what she’d been about to say and not trusting herself to open her mouth in case it came spilling out, she gave him the finger.

Mike looked from her hand to Tad’s face and then her own as if he’d been struck by something very funny. She started to give Mike the same, but it didn’t feel right and she didn’t finish the gesture.

He raised his eyebrows in a silent question, which she ignored. All he said was, “It wasn’t me you were pissed at during breakfast.” He sounded surprised.

She had no idea what he was talking about. “Not only at you.” As far as she recalled she’d been pissed at everyone on the planet this morning. Not a whole lot of people had come off that list in the time since.

His smile said that he could think of several royally embarrassing statements. That finally gave her the motivation to give him the finger he deserved.

All it did was increase the size of his smile.

Tad spoke into the silence with only his head sticking in the door. “Miranda needs you, I think. Hard to tell with that woman, but she’s sounding pretty disjointed, then asked for you, Mike.”

Holly waved him ahead.

Waited until they were both gone and the cabin had chilled down to December-near-the-Arctic icebox levels. Mike had left the door open assuming she’d be on his heels.

She wasn’t.

She had some serious thinking to do first.

26

“Mike, you need to talk to her. She keeps crying and you know I don’t know what to do with that.” Then Miranda looked down her dog. “Good dog, Meg. Walkies.”

“Who?” Mike asked too late.

Miranda had already slipped on her noise-canceling headphones—set to high he’d wager. She and her dog headed out of the main building’s security entrance here at Uppsala Air Base. Out into the cold. Miranda’s newest avoidance tool; he hoped Meg’s paws held up for how often they went on extended walks.

He made a mental note to get Meg some leather booties for Christmas—even if he’d left the team and returned to Denver. Now there was an interesting idea; the first one he’d had in a while that made any sense.

He stared out the glass doors at the airplane, Holly’s head still visible through one of the small round windows. Not watching him, just staring straight ahead.

What had Andi said to Holly about him? And why had she assumed he was out to bed every woman he met? Who had she slept with since they’d been together?

She’d sure acted strange about that airline pilot in Australia a couple years back. Pretty clear something had happened there, though he’d never tried to find out what. She didn’t want to talk about it, that was her business.

He could corner her. Somewhere that Tad or Miranda or Jeremy or…any of them couldn’t intrude and get some straight answers out of her. Or maybe he already had them if he could find five minutes in a row to think?

For now, he had another weeping woman to deal with. Perfect, just perfect. How many weeping eyewitnesses and survivors had he been forced to coddle—his sole worth on the team. Let’s send Mike to talk to her. He’s always good with the ladies. He’d ruined enough shirts with running mascara to outfit a decent men’s store.

Other than that? He was less useful than stupid wads of Kleenex.

So he hadn’t studied engineering like Jeremy and Miranda, become a pilot like Andi or Tad, or a superwarrior like Holly. No JFK Special Warfare School diploma like Taz kept on her office wall along with her twenty-year Air Force career.

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