The Hot Pilots Read Free Page B

around and walk back the
     way he’d come, but that seemed cowardly. He wasn’t about to let her think that he was
afraid
to talk to her. On the other hand, he didn’t want to cause any uncomfortable awkwardness … At least, no more than they’d
     both already experienced with each other …
    So what the fuck was he going to do? He couldn’t just keep on walking past her, and pretend not to see her…
    He looked out at the ocean, and decided that the way out of this mess was to go for a swim. What the hell—He was feeling hot;
     a dip would be refreshing. It would also give Linda the chance to pack up and move away down the beach if she preferred not
     to talk to him. If she did so, he’d take the hint.
    But if she stayed …
    He shrugged off his terry-lined, shirt-jac, its pockets bulging with his car keys, wallet, and sunglasses. He put the garment
     down on the sand, took his cigarettes and lighter from the pocket of his boxer swim trunks, and laid them on top. He put his
     sandals on top of everything, and then ran out into the cold, clean water. When he was in up to his waist he pushed off, swimming
     with strong strokes until he was out beyond the point where the waves broke. He splashed around for a while, either floating
     on his back or treading water, watching the sun glint on the aquamarine sea as he thought about Linda Forrester.
    They’d met in 1947, on a sultry summer Friday afternoon in Washington, during the Senate B-45 bomber hearings. Steve had been
     a captain assigned to the Air Force’s Office of Public Information, and she had been a free-lance journalist, hired by Amalgamated-Landis
     to do a puff piece on their young engineer Don Harrison, who was in Washington to testify on behalf of the bomber he’d designed.
     Steve still remembered how happy he’d been when he’d found out that the relationship was strictly business between the bookish
     young engineer and the knockout brunette with shoulder-length curly hair and blue eyes to die for.
    The next day had been a Saturday. Linda had asked Steve if he wouldn’t mind showing her around Washington. The sight-seeing
     excursion had ended up in Steve’s apartment, and finally, in his bed. The spark they’d lit that Saturday afternoon back in
     1947 had burned fitfully for five years. It wasn’t like they were boyfriend and girlfriend, or going steady, or anything like
     that. Hell, they’d only managed to get together for a weekend maybe half a dozen times a year. In between their get-togethers,
     he saw plenty of other women, and if he knew Linda, she saw plenty of other men, but somehow they’d always made the effort
     to get back to each other. Steve didn’t think it was love—at least it didn’t seem to him to be like the love they wrote about
     in books—but the sex had always been outstanding, as had their friendship …
    Funny how the relationship had always remained less than the sum of its parts
, Steve now thought as he began to swim back toward shore.
    The end of the relationship had come two years ago, at Chusan Air Field in Korea, where he’d been serving with the 44th FIS,
     an F-90 BroadSword fighter-interceptor squadron. Linda, a senior correspondent for the
Los Angeles Gazette
, had been part of a contingent of reporters on a tour of the front. As soon as Steve had learned that Linda was on her way
     to Chusan he’d bribed an airman a couple of bucks to get the key to an out-of-the-way storeroom in Operations Center. He and
     Linda had enjoyed themselves on the cot he’d stashed in the storeroom. For that couple of days Steve had thought that life
     was as good as it could get: By day he’d had MIGs to joust with up in the sky, and by night there’d been Linda, waiting for
     him in the sack …
    It had been outstanding, all right, but during their third night Linda had gotten all mushy, starting in about how she loved
     him, and maybe they should be thinking about marriage … In hindsight, he guessed that he’d