Explosive Alliance Read Free

in his restaurant's shrimp trawlers? And how could she have missed that she and her husband were living far better than an up-and-coming restaurateur should?
    Paige popped a Tums and bolstered her resolve. She was through being a gullible idiot when it came to charming men. Her daughter needed a strong mama with a good head on her shoulders, straighter than her perpetually crooked glasses.
    The four men slowed, gathered, studied their aircraft, chests pumping for air. The oldest, a lumbering man, bent to brace his hands on his knees. Two others swiped their brows with a forearm.
    Her gaze skipped last to the lanky guitar-carrying aviator who still stood tall, barely winded in comparison. His coal black hair reflected the sun's rays, some of the beams lingering to catch along the hint of curl in his close-cropped cut. Why couldn't she look away from him? She definitely wasn't in the market for a man now, if ever again. Kurt had singed her but good.
    She frowned. Did the guy look familiar? Maybe that was what snagged her attention. Except, she couldn't tell for certain from so far away. Maybe they all looked alike in those green flight suits.
    Heaven help her if she actually knew him. It was bad enough that her husband had cultivated a couple of young service members with deep debts to help him track military-drug-surveillance flights. But then, he'd threatened others who wouldn't help him.
    Coming to an Air Force base and facing so many reminders of her husband's deceit left her longing to dig deep in her purse for the whole roll of antacids. But there was precious little excitement around here to entice her child's playfulness back. The annual air show marked major goings-on in the area, right up there alongside the yearly State Fair and Rodeo.
    Not that she was complaining anymore. Unlike during her teenage years, she now embraced the starkness of her home state. Nothing was hidden here. There wasn't even a respectable tree in sight for a good old-fashioned game of hide-and-seek. Definitely different from the verdant marshes of the South that had cloaked so much.
    The guitar guy chose that vulnerable moment to glance her way. Dry lightning crackled overhead. Or at least she thought it did because her skin prickled, fine hairs rising with a warning that nature was about to unleash a storm.
    What a ridiculously fanciful notion—and a dangerous one. Still her hand sneaked up to check the stretchy band holding back her own hair as blond as Kirstie's.
    Her hand fell away. Damn it, she didn't have time for vanity, much less men.
    Without breaking eye contact, the guy angled to speak with a grumpy-looking fella next to him, boots already moving forward. Toward her. Ah, geez.
    Paige hitched the insulated lunch sack from the ground up onto her shoulder, her heart thumping like thunder answering lightning. "Come on, punkin, let's find somewhere to sit." Far away from here. "We can watch the planes land while we eat."
    Kirstie stared up with eyes enlarged by the lenses of tiny kid glasses. "I want to go inside the airplanes."
    "And we will. Tomorrow when the show officially starts. Okay? Today the planes are just arriving."
    The man ambled closer.
    Time was running out. She resorted to desperate measures. "We'll eat cupcakes for lunch."
    "I thought I gotta eat protein first so I don't get sick with the flu or new-monia and hafta get a shot."
    "I brought peanut butter and jam sandwiches, too," she bartered through clenched teeth. "Blackberry jam. And I'll give you a Rugrats vitamin the minute we get home. Come on."
    Kirstie's wide eyes shifted from the lunch sack to the airplanes and back again. Her tongue peeked out of the corner of her mouth.
    Yesss. They were seconds away from a sugar high she suddenly craved very much. Paige gave her daughter's hand a gentle tug. "Race ya to that bench over there."
    Way over there, far from the man who really, really couldn't be walking toward her.
    Kirstie's sneakers smacked asphalt while Paige