Page 26 of Confessions of an Apache Pilot

On a plateau behind the village was a flock of sheep so dense it could have covered a football field. “You sound jealous,” I teased.

“Maybe a little. Who doesn’t want to live on a secluded mountain getaway? I bet they have great skiing during the winter time.”

I laughed at the thought. Looking down the sides of the mountain I tried to imagine what skiing down them would be like. Brief probably, with an abrupt stop. Then I turned my eyes back on the village.

“I could imagine being in a ski lodge with him. Though I wouldn’t be doing much skiing,” Karolyn said in a sly tone.

“That's enough, Karolyn,” Nick chided her. I was going to have to have a talk with her later. Nick gave me a side-long look with a scowl on his face. He was thinking the same thing.

Now I couldn’t shake the thought she’d voiced though. The thought of a warm fireplace inside a stone cabin occupied my mind. It did have a romantic feel to it. Nice strong arms wrapped around me while on a couch watching the fireplace. That’s when I snapped myself out of fantasy land and decided to rejoin the flight. I wasn’t here for that and certainly not with…him. Focus on the flight.

We left the mountain village and continued northeast. Over every ridge was another village, and in some cases fairly large towns. And as Sheppard had pointed out, in these remote areas the locals hardly seemed to take notice of us.

The mountains themselves were incredible. Higher than anything I had seen before, with such deep valleys, and so long and drawn out. The colors were spectacular. The contours formed by the different sands and minerals made them contrast every couple hundred feet and created a beauty like I’d never seen before.

“This about wraps up our flight,” Sheppard announced to us, turning back to the north. “Just over this ridge and then home. Be mindful of the updrafts.”

“Updrafts?” I asked. His response came through as a demonstration. I watched him fly out over a ridge, then suddenly shoot up into the air a few hundred feet higher than he already was. He looked like a dolphin, nose high in the air, then rolled right, straight into what looked like a vertical dive and disappeared below the ridge line.

“Um, where did he go?” asked Karolyn. Her answer came as we crossed the same ridge. The updraft caught us, and with the amount of power that I already had applied the aircraft shot up into the air just like Mark’s had. I adjusted the power to stabilize the helicopter. Then I looked down. Way down. This ridge had a four-thousand-foot shear drop off. I hadn’t realized it, but we had just flown over the top of The Wall. All the way down at the bottom was Mark. He had dove all the way down and leveled off near the ground.

“Well, I guess we follow.” I pitched up and rolled, letting the helicopter settle into a dive. Both Karolyn and Sarah let out excited screams, and I couldn’t help but notice Nick tensed up a bit. “Not used to this?” I teased. He didn’t respond. I kept us accelerating to the ground behind Mark, finally leveling off at our max airspeed. The girls were giggling in the back. I couldn’t keep the huge grin off my face, even when Nick gave me a sour look. Who wouldn’t have enjoyed our own personal rollercoaster ride?

“This concludes our tour, now we head back to the house.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I responded. “This time, can you avoid setting the airfield on fire, please?”

The silence seemed to take too long. Like he was putting it to serious thought. Finally, he responded with “You Hawk guys, ah hem, girls, are no fun at all.”

I shook my head, still smiling, because there was a teasing note to his words. Hope that we were finally figuring out how to work together was rising and if I could somehow keep mending the tear between our two communities this might end up being a fun time after all.

CHAPTER 16

Jen

Despite knowing I should keep my distance, we found ourselves back inside the area designated for the Apache crews during our downtime, more often than not. I kept trying to convince myself that it was because they had a bigger TV and more movies, but more and more it seemed like any excuse to be around them would work.

You mean any excuse to be around him.

Sarah had been getting along particularly well with Santos. I didn’t ask for details, but it was clear why she wanted to be here all the time. It was a good cover for me coming down here with her. Karolyn was behaving a little better. For now, she resigned herself to staring and sighing. After Nick had snapped at her, she seemed to realize she was over doing it.

I hadn’t fought very hard when the girls begged to come over to hang out. I was grateful we were all getting along, but knew that I still had to keep an eye on Karolyn. Brady had been sniffing around her, and with Mark giving her the cold shoulder, I had a feeling she wasn’t above choosing Brady next. She needed to realize that even chasing the wrong man could have disastrous effects on her career and theirs. Not to mention that we had a mission to focus on here. It was the same speech I gave myself each time my heart started pounding a little too hard, which happened whenever I was around Mark. Sarah was at least keeping things at her rank, not to mention being discreet.

There were some new faces in the room today. I sat down in an empty chair next to Brady and listened as Mark explained to Sarah that a detachment of pilots and crew chiefs were transitioning through to replace our guys out at Pamir, a small base to the east of us. The new guys weren’t part of our unit, but Mark and his guys seemed to know them well. Apparently, they had deployed with them years ago.

It was like a big reunion. There was food and drinks on every available surface and we kept getting told to ‘help ourselves.’ Everyone was gathered around the TV watching a movie, with some side conversations happening in the corners. I tactically moved to a chair near where Mark was, but far enough away that no one would guess I wanted to be on his lap. He was still in his gym clothes, and I had to be careful not to get caught staring too much. The man had the sexiest arms. All muscle and veins and dusted with dark hair. It made me want to strip him out of his clothes to see what the rest of his body looked like.

I turned my attention to the TV for a few minutes in order to give my libido a chance to cool down. Someone on screen started to take their clothes off—so much for cooling down—and all the guys started yelling, “Cover your eyes, Junior! This is for adults only!”

I laughed, confused, but saw one kid, and I mean kid, obediently cover his eyes. He looked like he was sixteen.

I leaned forward in my seat and asked Mark, “What’s going on?”

He turned in his chair so he was facing me and laughed. The deep husky sound caused a shiver to skate down my spine and my nipples to harden. Jesus, I needed to get laid. I couldn’t do that here though, so I’d have to take care of it myself later. Then again, ‘taking care of myself’ didn’t seem to be dimming my need much if my response to Sheppard was any indication.

I focused back on Sheppard as he explained, “That’s Jim’s kid,” he said pointing at the younger guy, then at a man that looked like an older clone of the kid. “He enlisted on his eighteenth birthday and is in the same battalion as his Dad. Jim is one of the Chinook pilots in their battalion. Junior is a mechanic.”

“How is that possible? I didn’t think that the Army would let family in the same command?”

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