The reek of stale peanut shells, spilled beer and cigarette smoke smacked Alexis in the face the moment she stepped inside the Cactus Café. Her nose wrinkled as she surveyed the patrons of the run-down bar on a corner of Albuquerque’s Central Avenue. She should’ve guessed the tough, combat-seasoned men and women who’d worked for the legendary Colonel Mike Dolan, call sign Badger, would pick a dive like this for their annual drunk.
Except they didn’t conduct a Badger Bash every year. Only when three or more of them happened to be on the same continent at the same time. And they didn’t get drunk, she’d discovered the first and only other time she’d attended a Badger Bash. She’d been a guest then, along with a few other wives, boyfriends and significant others. The chance-met date of one of the participants, invited on the spur of the moment. That moment that now looked to make a serious change in the direction of her life.
They’d gotten just a little loose at that Bash. Laughing and snorting in their beer as they took turns adding to the absurdly ridiculous tales of Colonel Dolan, hard-ass squadron commander and the world’s studliest Special Ops pilot.
Alexis had left that Bash convinced Dolan’s subordinates had fabricated his whole larger-than-life persona. The colonel’s adventures were too fantastic, his kill ratio too unbelievable, his success with the female half of the population way too improbable.
Then again, she’d left the gathering in the company of one of the Badger’s protégées. Major Ben Kincaid. Also a Special Ops pilot. And a world-class stud. One long weekend with the major had pretty much made a believer out of Alex.
Now Kincaid was here. In Albuquerque. Just seeing him again after all this time knocked the breath back down Alex’s throat. He was leaning against the bar, one boot hooked on the rail, his jeans and black knit polo shirt hugging his long, lean frame and a grin tipping a corner of his mouth. Ruthlessly, she banished the memory of that mouth moving over her. Moving over every part of her.
This was business.
A very desperate business.
Dragging in a determined breath, she stepped out of the shadows of the bar’s entrance and let the door whoosh out the hot New Mexico night. As she wove her way through the Cactus Café’s beer-stained tables, smoky haze bit into her lungs and the country-pop crossover nasal whine blasting through the speakers assaulted her eardrums.
She didn’t recognize the man talking to Kincaid. Another military type she guessed from the buzz-cut hair and easy slouch that somehow still managed to convey a careless self-confidence. She did recognize the woman with the two men, though. The blonde was another of Badger’s protégées that Alex had met at the previous Bash. Susan Something. Alex couldn’t recall her last name but she did remember that the woman owed her call sign Swish to the ponytail that teased her shoulder blades seductively. That was the version put out for public consumption, anyway. A grinning Kincaid had indicated there was another version, known only to the chosen few.
Swish caught sight of Alex first. A frown creased her forehead as she tried to fit the face to a name or place. She made the connection while Alex was still a few yards away. Arching a delicately penciled brow, she nudged Kincaid with an elbow. Either he was too involved in the other man’s story or he mistook the poke for something more intimate. Smiling, he curled an arm around her shoulders and rubbed his palm up and down her arm.
The absentminded caress stopped Alex in her tracks. Damn! Had Love-’Em-and-Leave-’Em Kincaid changed his modus operandi? Her carefully constructed plan would disintegrate if the easy camaraderie Alex had observed between him and Swishy Susan two years ago had developed into something deeper. Something more permanent.
Then the blonde dug her elbow into Kincaid’s ribs again. Hard enough to get his attention this time. His beer sloshing, he winced and sent her a pained look.
“Hey!”
“We’ve got company,” the blonde said. “Someone from your checkered past, if memory serves.”
Swish tipped her chin. Kincaid followed her lead. Under other circumstances the blank look when he spotted Alex might have bruised her ego. Instead, it confirmed that the major was still the right man for her job.
Cutting past the last few tables, she joined the three of them at the bar. “Long time no see, Cowboy.”
That was his call sign. Cowboy. Reportedly gained when he’d swooped low over some grazing longhorns and stampeded the whole herd across thirty miles of Texas panhandle. Much to the displeasure of several local ranchers, he’d confided to Alex.
“Long time,” he agreed.
There was just enough of a question buried in his reply to confirm that he didn’t have a clue who she was. Alex wasn’t surprised. She’d changed considerably since Vegas. Her hair, her style of dressing, her life.
Still, they had spent two days and three extremely erotic nights together. She couldn’t help feeling a little piqued. With a cynical smile, she held out her hand.
“Alexis Scott. Las Vegas. Two years ago.”
She could see him make the connection. Those electric-blue eyes widened, made a quick trip south, zipped back up to her face.
“Alex! Damn. You’re looking good.”
She should be. She’d donned her best armor in preparation for this meeting. The subtly dramatic makeup. The snug short-sleeved black tank sparkling with turquoise and silver crystals along its low-cut scoop neckline. The slim black jeans with matching crystal trim on the pockets. The black boots with ice pick heels. She’d even coaxed some curl into her shoulder-length auburn hair.
“You’re looking good, too” she had to admit as she mirrored his quick inventory. His dark hair was a little shorter than she remembered from Vegas. The white squint lines at the corners of his eyes were pretty much the same, though. So were the square chin, the strong neck and the muscled shoulders under his faded denim shirt.
“What are you doing in New Mexico?” he asked, jerking her back to the here and now.
“I moved here last year.”
“With...” He cocked his head. “What was his name? The real estate tycoon?”
“Bryan, and no.”
She’d started dating Bryan a month or so after her wild weekend with the hotshot special operations pilot. She and Bryan had progressed to the exclusive stage when Kincaid called her some four months later. He’d been in Iraq, he’d explained. Then she’d explained her situation at the time, at which point he’d cheerfully wished her and Bryan the best and disappeared from her life again.
Not that Alex had ever expected her weekend with the major to result in any kind of long-term relationship. Kincaid had been up-front with her about his single state. No ties, no obligations, not even a pet goldfish. Short-notice deployments flying heavily armed gunships into hot spots around the world didn’t make for either stability or durability in relationships. Alex suspected there was more to his deliberately casual philosophy of life and love, but