I Own the Dawn: The Night Stalkers Read Free Page B

during the entire two-week course.
    Well, if any of those women had hit the inner target ring, Sergeant Smith had just whacked it with a bull’s-eye shot. Despite her size, there was a force of nature, a power that wrapped and curled around her filling up far more space.
    He’d wasted far too much of his life thinking about women who would never be his. He really should pay more attention to the ones who wanted to be with him, but they never bull’s-eyed that button in his brain.
    “What are you staring at, Bucko?”
    “That’s Lieutenant to you.” His response was instinctive even as he blinked a couple times. Kee Smith stood right in front of him. His eyes had tracked her, even if his brain hadn’t. And this time they were focused where no decent man’s should be, on that delicious double curve where chest rolled into that mysterious crevasse between her—one more blink and he returned his eyes to her face.
    “Nothing. Simply observing.”
    “Well, Lieutenant.” Amazing that she could pile so much sarcasm into a single word. “Have you observed where my billet is, Lieutenant Professor, sir? I need some sack time.”
    Professor? The nickname that had nearly made him insane during Green Platoon training didn’t bother him in the slightest at this moment. And that made for an interesting observation in itself.
    “Professor?” She snapped her fingers in front of his face.
    Now she’d think him a complete dolt.
    “This way. I’d be glad to show you.”
    “No thanks, just point the way. I need to sleep, not wrestle off some guy.”
    That snapped him out of it. “Stow that, Sergeant!” Came out harsher than he intended. A little flirting, that is all she was doing, and he had shut her down hard. Very smooth.
    She actually blushed and looked down. “Sorry, sir!”
    About the cutest damn thing he’d ever seen, that a woman so clearly a primal force could blush. No longer trusting his tongue, he pointed at the small tent set aside as women’s quarters.
    “Thank you, sir.” She headed away without a backward glance. No teasing sashay of the hips, no coquettish glance over the shoulder. Had his own thoughts misinterpreted her comment? Had she thought he was suggesting…? He’d never… But she wouldn’t know that, so he was just another guy to her.
    He watched the diminutive juggernaut heading for her target.
    He headed for the showers, hoping his common sense would catch up with him somewhere along the way.

Chapter 2
    “When did the desert get so frickin’ cold?” Kee cinched down the cuffs of her flight suit to cut any chance of airflow up her arms. Slick, fingerless gloves helped, but she had to huff on her fingertips to make sure they had feeling. Two hours cruising in the dark and all she had to show for it was a chill halfway to frostbite. She tapped her rifle case for the third time where she’d secured it against the bulkhead. Felt good to have it near her, even on a DAP Hawk where the chances of using it were close to—
    A low laugh on the headset in her helmet, just a notch louder than the turbine whine and rotor thud that was part of a Hawk ride. She’d guess Staff Sergeant Big Bad John, her fellow crew chief. One serious piece of very large man with a deep boomer of a voice to match.
    “At this altitude, we often experience a sixty-to-seventy-degree temperature swing day to night,” Lieutenant Stevenson said. Okay, she didn’t have their laughs sorted out yet. He didn’t act put out by her earlier screwup so she did her best to stop kicking herself over it.
    “Oh, really? Do tell, Professor, sir.” She’d tagged him with it and he hadn’t argued. Just started answering to it with those perfect manners of his.
    “With the low moisture and thin air—”
    “Less chatter.” That was Queen Hoity, though Kee’d been smart enough to keep that tag to herself, sounding all put out. Clearly someone she’d rather have in Kee’s seat had left the Black Hawk. Well, tough. Sergeant Kee