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  “Burke.”

  “Captain, this is Sergeant Nickerson.”

  Nickerson. The auto accident. She’d sent the sergeant to the hospital to clean up the details while she raced over to the airfield.

  “Shoot,” she said, rubbing her eyes.

  “I thought you should know,” he said. “That guy who was in the vehicle that was hit?”

  “Yeah, the cowboy. What about him?”

  “Ma’am, he ain’t no cowboy. He’s a bird colonel, name of Alisdair MacLendon. Captain, he’s the new Bomb Wing commander.”

  The expletive that escaped Andrea’s lips was both unladylike and expressive. Nickerson chuckled.

  “Thought you should know, ma’am,” he said again, and rang off.

  For the moment, all hope of sleep was forgotten. The new commanding officer, so of course she had called him cowboy. And naturally she had managed to shove her chest into his face, making it unalterably certain that he was aware of her sex, which was one thing she absolutely didn’t allow to intrude on her job.

  Well, she was just too damn tired to worry about it now. That knock on the head would keep him cooped up in the hospital for a couple of days, anyhow. In the meantime, she had to sleep.

  The groan that escaped her this time was satisfied, as her head landed on the soft pillow. Nor was sleep shy. It caught her instantly in a warm embrace.

  Noon found Andrea staring at her bleary-eyed face in the mirror. She’d always looked a little like Huck Finn, with her reddish blond hair and the smattering of golden freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her short haircut did nothing to dispel the illusion.

  Sticking her tongue out at herself, she turned from the mirror and headed for the door. Today she was off duty, and dropping by the office to write a report didn’t mean she had to wear a uniform. The people in her squadron had gotten used to the sight of her in her Air Force Academy sweat suit and jogging shoes. She’d grown up as the middle child in a family with six boys, and it was easier for her to be one of the guys than anything else. Pretty soon, everybody who was around her for a while realized she was just that: one of the guys.

  Picking up her radio, which was exactly the size and shape of the brick for which it was nicknamed, she stepped through the door and set out at an easy jog.

  The front office at the Security Police Headquarters building was at its usual Saturday afternoon ebb. The radio crackled with quiet static: two cops sat drinking coffee and looking bored. Andrea trotted past them with a nod.

  As commanding officer of the squadron, she had the largest office in the building. Entering it still gave her a thrill, even after two years. Here the majesty of the United States put on a moderately impressive display, ensuring that anyone who entered was reminded of the authority residing in a commanding officer. The floor, elsewhere tiled in nondescript beige, here was carpeted in Air Force blue. To the rear and either side of her massive, polished desk, on stands topped with brass eagles, hung the U.S. flag and the squadron’s flag. Large, framed photographs of historic Air Force planes adorned the walls on either side of the room. On the wall directly behind her desk hung the emblem of the Strategic Air Command, an iron fist holding crossed lightning bolts and an olive branch. Beneath it was the motto: Peace is our Mission.

  Actually Saturday and Sunday were the best days to take care of paperwork, she thought as she settled behind her desk in her deep leather chair and pulled out a report form. Distractions were few, if any, and heaps of paper disappeared as if by magic.

  She was scribbling away industriously when she became aware that she was no longer alone.

  “Just a sec,” she said and poked her tongue out between her teeth. “How do you spell circuit?”

  “C-I-R-C-U-I-T.”

  “I-T, huh? Sure doesn’t sound like it.” Suddenly her head snapped up. She knew that voice.

  Colonel Alisdair MacLendon stood on the other side of her desk. He was resplendent in a Class A blue uniform, rows of ribbons on his chest. There was something about broad shoulders, a wide chest, and narrow flanks in Class A blues that made Andrea feel not at all like one of the guys.

  Up, up her eyes traveled—good grief, he was tall—and finally reached a face that was craggy, weathered, and set in an expression of patience. His eyes, however, did not look patient. The color of blue ice, they were at this moment narrowly assessing.

  “Ah…” The sound escaped her like a strangled sigh, and she leapt to her feet. Throwing back her shoulders, she snapped to attention with a ramrod stiffness she hadn’t needed since the Academy.

  MacLendon opened his mouth to put her at ease, then stopped, a glimmer of amusement in his cool blue eyes. When she stood at attention in that sweat suit, there was absolutely no question that the captain had a pair of standard female issue breasts. In fact, he thought, a little better than standard issue. He rather liked the view.

  He also found he rather liked the way her hair was tousled. Not quite red, not quite blond, it was almost exactly the color of a new penny. Was it strawberry blond?

  “Captain Burke, I presume,” he said. The name was on a plaque on the front of her desk, but he couldn’t resist giving her a hard time.

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Do you always come to work in civvies, Captain?”

  “No, sir. I’m off duty.”

  He glanced at the inscription on the shoulder of her sweatshirt. “Academy graduate?” He still had some difficulty adjusting to the idea of female service academy graduates.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “At ease, Captain,” he said, finally relenting. Amusing as it was to watch her respond like a plebe on parade, the workaday world of the Air Force was a relaxed one, in most ways exactly like its civilian counterpart. He understood why Burke had resorted to military formality, but he wasn’t the kind of officer who required it.

  Andrea at once slipped into parade rest, feet spread, hands clasped behind her back. The view thus provided was no less disturbing. MacLendon sighed.

  “I’m Alisdair MacLendon,” he said. “Monday morning I’m taking over command of the Bomb Wing.”

  “Yes, sir.” Something flickered in her hazy green eyes. Humor? Doubt? He couldn’t tell.

  “From the moment I take command, Captain, I will be grateful if you refrain from addressing unknown persons as cowboy. Sir or ma’am are the appropriate forms of address.” Was that laughter twitching the little minx’s lips? he wondered.

  “Yes, sir,” was her only response, however, and a clipped one at that.

  “Sit down, Captain. I want to talk to you.”

  Andrea immediately plopped into her chair. MacLendon followed suit, taking one of the three chairs that faced her desk. He crossed his legs loosely, right ankle on his left knee.

  “How long have you been in security?” he asked.

  “Since graduation, sir. Over six years.” Andrea found herself wishing his eyes were any color but that particular icy blue that seemed to see right through her. She hadn’t felt this nervous since her plebe days at the Academy. Of course, she’d never gotten off to quite this kind of start with a new commander before, either. Worse, she had the feeling that her excessive use of military formality was amusing him rather than soothing any ruffled pinfeathers he might have.

  “So you’re career law enforcement?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  MacLendon rubbed his chin. Clearly she was an exemplary officer or she wouldn’t be sitting where she was. Why, then, was he so convinced she was going to be a handful?

  “Did you ever finish your unannounced inspection last night?” he asked.

  “No, sir. We had that intruder alert out in the Zulu Bravo section. It took us until almost 5:00 a.m. to locate the cause of the alarm.”

  “Not a faulty circuit, by any chance?” he said drily.

  Just the faintest tinge of color came to her cheeks. It was so slight he almost missed it.

  “Yes, sir, it was. I plan to perform my inspection tonight.”

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