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  When the last of the mess had disappeared, just as rich aromas of turkey were beginning to issue from the oven, he joined her at the table with his wineglass.

  “To future holidays,” he said, raising his glass.

  Andrea lifted her glass and managed what she hoped was a casual smile. “No football?”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “Sometimes. I can take it or leave it. Why? Is there a game you want to see?”

  Andrea shook her head, the faint smile still on her lips. “I watch it because it’s expected. I have to be able to talk football with the guys. I’d rather scan the sports section in the morning and pick up the highlights so I can sound intelligent.”

  He chuckled. “Me, too. But don’t ever tell anybody.”

  “Personally, I’d rather play it.”

  “Don’t tell me you were on the Academy squad.”

  She laughed then. “Not likely! Equal opportunity didn’t go that far. I fenced.”

  “You’re very good at thrust and parry,” he said.

  Their eyes locked, and something happened. While some corner of her mind acknowledged the thrust of his teasing remark, the ground seemed to shift beneath her. She blinked quickly and looked away, feeling panicky.

  The conviction formed in MacLendon then that, although he was going to wrestle with himself about it all day, some time before he said good-night to Andrea Burke he was going to kiss her. Only as the idea took root in his mind did he realize that he’d been wanting to kiss her for weeks.

  Looking down at his wineglass, he considered the idea. It would be dangerous, no question of that. They had to work together every day. He wished the thought had never occurred to him. He liked Andrea, damn it. He liked her and respected her and felt that they had arrived at a uniquely comfortable working relationship. She was, in fact, among the best of the officers he had worked with in his career. She took her job seriously and was unquestionably skilled at both security and command. Her no-nonsense approach to matters kept her unit running like a well-greased machine. Unlike so many other female officers of his acquaintance, her femininity never came to work with her. She was a good man.

  So why the hell was he proposing to upset what surely must be a delicate balance for her? Because he had to know what she tasted like? What she felt like against him? What his name sounded like on her lips? Never yet had she called him Dare. It was beginning to look as if she never would. So for the sake of a little male curiosity, he was going to risk it all?

  He looked up and found her misty green eyes watching him warily. He could have sworn she knew what he was thinking. He wished he could read her mind. Was she sitting there wondering how she would handle the sexual harassment if he touched her? Because it could be considered sexual harassment. Off duty or not, he was her CO.

  “Damn,” he said suddenly, startling them both, and rose from the table. He couldn’t touch her. They would never, ever be off duty enough for it to be all right for him to touch her. One of them would have to get a transfer first.

  “Dare?”

  The sound of his name on her lips for the very first time drew him up short halfway across the kitchen. “It’s okay,” he said, not daring to look back. “I just remembered something. Won’t be a minute.”

  When the other guests, four very young lieutenants, arrived that afternoon at two, they were obviously nervous at the prospect of having dinner with the CO. All four were ROTC graduates, summer soldiers who were just getting their first taste of the real Air Force. Dare took pity on them and poured them all a stiff drink. By the time they sat down to dinner an hour and a half later, the alcohol was doing its work, and Dare kept it flowing freely, figuring he could sober them up over dessert.

  Talk and laughter began to flow just as freely, and MacLendon told a few of his funnier war stories. Around five, when they cut into the pies, Dare cut off the alcohol and Andrea started pouring coffee. After pie, they settled onto the living room couches and somebody noticed that a light snow flurry had started.

  “We had that briefing last week,” one of the lieutenants said. Davis was his name. “The bad weather briefing, about carrying supplies and blankets and things in your car. It really gets that bad?”

  “Absolutely,” Andrea and Dare answered in one voice. They looked at each other and laughed.

  “This is my third tour here,” Dare said, “and I still take it seriously. We get these storms called Alberta Clippers, which are breakthroughs of polar air. Inside of twenty minutes the temperature can drop sixty degrees, and the wind kicks up so bad that if there’s a quarter inch of snow on the ground, you get what’s called a whiteout. You can’t see the hand in front of your face for the blowing snow.”

  Hardy, another of the lieutenants, whistled softly.

  “You know that saying about thirty-thirty-thirty?” Dare asked. “At thirty degrees below zero in a thirty-mile-an-hour wind, exposed flesh freezes in thirty seconds. When we’re talking about an Alberta Clipper, we’re talking about temperatures that can be sixty degrees below zero, with forty- to sixty-mile-an-hour winds. If you’re out in one without shelter, you can expect to be frozen to death in under five minutes. It happens. It has happened. So you carry survival gear in your car, and if you go off the road, you stay put until rescue comes.

  “And even on a sunny day in February, it’s dangerous. There are about six weeks every winter when the daytime high doesn’t get over thirty below. And the wind here never blows less than thirty miles an hour. Believe me, you want that stuff in your car.”

  “I guess so,” said Davis.

  “And come March,” Andrea said, “when the daytime highs rise above zero, you’ll be outside in sweaters talking about how warm it is.”

  The lieutenant gaped, and Dare chuckled.

  “This reminds me of a funny story,” Andrea said. “A funny true story that happened my first winter here. A couple of my cops were on their way out to the missile fields when they got caught in a whiteout and went off the road into a ditch. In almost no time at all they were buried in drifting snow. We found them, of course, but it took a good twenty-four hours, and all that was showing when we located them was their radio antenna.”

  “My gosh,” said Davis. Coming from Florida, he really couldn’t imagine it.

  “Anyhow,” Andrea continued, “they were okay except for being thoroughly chilled and thoroughly scared. After they were released from the hospital, I called them to my office to see how they were doing. One of them, I can’t tell you his name, said to me, ‘I’m scared to death, Captain.’ I thought he was joking, but he shook his head and said, no, he was even more scared than he had been when they were trapped. So I asked him why, and he said, ‘I keep remembering all the promises I made to God.”’

  When Dare walked the lieutenants out to their cars around seven that evening, Andrea went to the kitchen and started doing dishes. It had been a nice day, she thought, a very nice day, except for that one awkward moment this morning where something had happened. She wondered what it was, then shrugged it aside. She was getting used to awkward moments around Colonel MacLendon.

  “Andrea, leave those dishes alone. I’ll do them tomorrow.”

  He had returned to the kitchen, and as he came up beside her, she could feel the outdoor cold that clung to him.

  “I can’t do that,” she answered. “I was raised to believe that leaving dishes overnight is a sin.”

  “Then I’ll do them, and you go sit down.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are you refusing to obey a direct order?” His voice was teasing, but there was another element, one that disturbed her. She looked up at him and green eyes met blue. The world stood still.

  “Andrea.”

  “Yes?”

  He closed his eyes. “If you don’t get the hell out of here now, I’m going to do something unforgivable.”

  “Sir?” Her voice took on a note that made him open his eyes. She was lookin