Free The Gauntlet by Lindsay McKenna Page A

hesitated.
    “I know this is personal, but what we share stays with me. I won’t use it against you, Molly. I promise.”
    Although Sinclair was still in his flight uniform and looked very much the warrior, Molly responded to the softened grate of his voice. The sensation was almost tangible, as if a cat were licking her with its roughened tongue. Needing to confide in someone, she nodded.
    “I miss my friends, Dana and Maggie. I used to be able to talk to them when things got tough. They’re still at Whiting Field and—”
    “You’re up here all alone without any friends or family?” Cam guessed, trying to keep his voice low and warm. He saw his effort work a minor miracle with Molly. She placed her hands on her knees and opened up to him.
    “I’m so lonely without a friend here. The last two weeks have been pure hell. Martin’s trying to sink me before I even get a chance to prove myself and—”
    “Whoa! Slow down, gal.” Cam held up his hand. “Let’s backtrack. I want to know about your father. What’s he like?”
    With a sigh, Molly told him. At one point, she thought she saw his eyes soften for just an instant. Or had it been her imagination? Maybe it was the evening light, the way the sun was slanting across the bay. She talked about her father for a good ten minutes.
    “So, to sum it up, you report in to your father
and
your brother on a weekly basis?” Cam asked. He struggled mightily to keep the disbelief out of his voice.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “When we’re alone like this, let’s drop the military formality, okay? Call me Cam, and I’ll call you Molly. Fair enough?” Cam wondered where that had come from. Well, it was too late to take it back. Molly’s face lit up with such gratefulness that it didn’t matter.
    “Okay…Cam. Scott, my older brother, hangs on my every word. It really makes his week to get my letters and phone call.”
    “Doesn’t he have his own life? A job?”
    Molly shrugged, making geometric designs in the sand in front of her crossed legs. “No.”
    “Tell me about your friends, Dana and Maggie.”
    Eagerly Molly filled him in on the two women, who were really more like sisters to her. Cam’s face remained stoic and without expression. She hesitated halfway through her explanation.
    “Why am I telling you all of this?”
    “Because I want to know.”
    “Why?”
    “I care what happens to you, Molly.” God help him, he shouldn’t, but he did. Cam felt himself falling apart inwardly when he saw her eyes fill with tears. Gruffly, because he knew he couldn’t stand to see Molly cry without taking her into his arms, he told her, “I care enough to help you learn how to help yourself. What else did Maggie and Dana do for you?”
    The harsh edge in his voice halted her tears. Molly blinked them away and continued with her story of how they’d met and become the closest of friends at Annapolis. By the time she’d finished, the sun had set and the sky was a bold apricot laced with the pink trim of the clouds that hung over the bay.
    Cam said nothing for a long time, digesting her story and trying to put the pieces together. Molly looked so alone sitting there in front of him. He was amazed that she genuinely trusted him with all this personal information. Yet, without it, he’d be helpless to understand her actions and reactions at TPS.
    “When you’re angry or upset, do you always retreat?”
    Molly stiffened. “I don’t retreat.”
    “I sat in that debrief room this afternoon and watched you crawl deep inside yourself, Molly.”
    “Martin had no business verbally abusing me the way he did!”
    “He was defending his territory. What were you doing?”
    “What? What territory? That test was supposed to be us working as a team.”
    “Every test pilot maps out his territory, and then he defends it, Molly. Do you think Martin is going to say ‘Yeah, I screwed up the flight’?”
    “I expect him to be honest!”
    “Because you are?”
    “Of