Free In Perfect Time by Sarah Sundin Page B

her up, pressed her against the rocky cliff. “You know, it’s more fun when you give up the pretense and admit you want it.”
    “I don’t. I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with you.” She tried to raise her knee to strike him in the crotch, but he had her pinned.
    “All right, we’ll do it your way.” He ran his hand into her hair, almost tenderly. “I’ll pretend to be the dastardly villain, you pretend to be the damsel in distress, and I’ll ravish you. Sounds like fun.”
    No. No, it didn’t. Her words swelled and blocked her throat.
    Lord, help me. The prayer dribbled out, useless.

10
    Imphal Main Airfield, Imphal, India
    “Hurry. Come on.” Roger beckoned the litter-bearers toward the plane. He didn’t like the looks of the clouds to the northeast, the smell of the wind, or the sense of plummeting barometric pressure. A thunderstorm was coming, and he needed to get the C-47 airborne.
    Imphal lay at the northern end of the Manipur Valley, surrounded by high mountains—and by the Japanese. For two weeks, C-47s and C-46s had been supplying 170,000 troops trapped at the British base.
    “Welcome aboard.” Pettas stood inside the cargo door and motioned a dozen healthy administrative personnel toward the folding seats in the front of the cabin. Ferrying out these “useless mouths” reduced the amount of supplies that needed to be ferried in.
    A man lifted the foot of a litter to another worker crouched inside the plane. The litter tilted at a dangerous angle.
    “Not like that!” Roger sprang forward and lowered the foot of the litter to the floor.
    “Thank you, sir.” The British soldier on the litter saluted with a bandaged hand. “This is more dangerous than the front lines.”
    “Sorry. We don’t have an air evac team.” Roger showed the native workers how to safely load the litter onto the plane, then how to anchor it in the web strapping.
    He never had to do that in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. In the MTO, teams of flight nurses and technicians could load a plane full of patients in ten minutes flat. The 803rd MAETS served in the CBI, but they didn’t fly the Imphal run.
    Kay’s face flitted into his mind, and he couldn’t shake it free. Again. The dame might be dangerous, but she was an efficient and competent flight nurse. He could see her doing the tasks he was doing right now—buckling straps and making sure patients were comfortable—only a lot better.
    Roger knelt and tightened a strap attached to the securing pole that ran along the floor.
    A cry rang out. Across the aisle, the top litter teetered and slipped. Roger lunged and grabbed it just in time. “It’s not tight enough.” He worked the pole into the loop of strapping and yanked as hard as he could.
    For the first time ever, he missed Kay Jobson. And for the third time that day, he felt an overwhelming compulsion to pray for her.
    He did so as he worked. All mail was being held in Sicily for their return next week, so he didn’t know if she’d written or if she’d asked any questions. But he did know shame, remembered it with a knifing pain. That memory deepened his prayers.
    Was that why God had chosen him? Why couldn’t the Lord have chosen a Christian man eager to get involved with the gorgeous redhead, a stronger man who wouldn’t be tempted like Roger was? Or a woman? Why didn’t God choose a woman?
    “Okay, Coop. That’s the last of them.” Whitaker wiped his brow. “Now we can do our own jobs.”
    “Yeah. Let’s get this bird off the ground as soon as we can.”
    In the cockpit, Roger picked up his clipboard with Forms 1, C, and F. It would take him a good twenty minutes to fill them out the Army way, or he could do it in five his way.
    Roger pulled out the load calculator and got to work. What was wrong with the military? They cared more about numbers than about the real men those numbers represented. Was it more important for the boxes to be filled in or for these soldiers