He adjusted his hips against hers and whispered, “There’s something I’ve always wanted to do, Helen. From the first time we met.”
“So you said before.”
“I did?” He leaned down, preparing to kiss her.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you, Captain,” a stern voice said behind him. “Unless you want to be seeing bars for the next year or two.”
Rafe rolled off Helen and into a sitting position. He was staring at enough brass to fill the Pentagon, not to mention a dozen soldiers with weapons raised.
“Why aren’t they Mexican bandits?” Helen murmured, sitting up beside him.
“What?”
He and Helen blinked their mutual confusion at each other.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
She shook her head as if to clear it. “I don’t know. It just popped into my head.”
“Helen! Oh, thank God you’re all right,” one of the brass shouted. The ranks parted for the general — her father — who reached out a hand and drew her to her feet, hugging her in relief.
“Daddy,” she cried, burying her face in his chest for a moment before she remembered herself. Within seconds, she pulled on her military mask. Until another high military mucky-muck showed up — this one younger, about forty. Helen ran into his arms and they embraced, like lost lovers. It must be the colonel… her fiancé.
A raging, totally-uncalled-for jealousy swept over Rafe as he observed the trio march off to a waiting helicopter.
The chopper must have made the whirring noise he’d heard in his head.
“What happened, honey?” he heard her boyfriend ask as he kissed her cheek.
How dare he kiss Helen? She’s my wife. Rafe’s mind came to a screeching halt. Wife? Wife? Yep, he was suffering brain damage.
“I don’t know, Elliott. Everything happened so fast. It’s starting to come back to me, but it’s so… so confusing.” She glanced back at Rafe over her shoulder then, and their eyes connected and held, questioningly.
Her father put an arm around her shoulder, drawing her away. “We’ll talk later. The important thing is you survived.” Helen and her fiancé climbed into the waiting chopper with some other officers, while General Prescott said a few words to another general standing by. They both gazed at Rafe, and their expressions were not congenial.
Almost instantly, the craft was airborne and he was left alone. Well, not quite alone. The other general and a squad of goons were looking at him as a likely target.
“Young man, you have a lot of explaining to do,” the general said in a you-are-dogmeat kind of voice. He motioned for several military vehicles to come forward, and Rafe was hustled to his feet.
I am in deep shit. And I don’t even know why.
That evening, after being interrogated in a conference room back at military headquarters, he was finally released. His memory was back, totally, and he was madder than a bull, threatening to sue every screwball officer on the base, and to go to the newspapers with the story of his treatment, or both.
For five hours, they’d harassed him with their questions.
“Why did you push Major Prescott out of the airplane?”
“Have you ever been treated for psychological disorders?”
“Do you understand the meaning of ‘behavior unbecoming to an officer?’ ”
“Have you ever spied for a foreign government?”
On and on, the stupid questions had gone. Oh, they’d covered their asses in some regards. They’d had him examined by military doctors to make sure he was physically unharmed by the incident. And they’d fed him some gross Army food, and allowed him to use the toilet facilities. If they hadn’t, he’d have sued them for that, too.
It was when he’d stripped in the base hospital for the checkup that he’d seen the items in his boot. The usual knife and the crucifix, but two more items, too — a wedding band and a piece of aged paper that said he and Helen Prescott had married on October 30, 1850.
Everything came back to him in a flash then. That was when his memory returned, and along with it, his anger over his treatment.
He’d demanded to see Helen, her father, probably the president of the United States, too. He’d turned into a raving maniac. No wonder they’d called in the psychiatrists then and begun asking him whether he’d ever suffered delusions and all that psycho mumbo jumbo.