Danger Zone (Short story)

By Mal Olson

Air Force pilot Katrice Kennedy is a woman with nerves of steel capable of flying an F22 at supersonic speeds. Ex-Delta Force operative Benjamin Thigpen is a Homeland Security specialist immersed in national safety issues twenty-four-seven. They're strangers when they board a 747 in Washington D.C. But are they destined to become kindred souls when they survive a rock 'n roll landing on an icy Milwaukee runway and chase a could-be terrorist into the Danger Zone?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mal Olson
• Release date: Feb 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465957085

Mal Olson

Mal Olson writes adrenaline-kicked romantic suspense. When her consuming passion for writing allows time, she enjoys reading, flower gardening, jamming with friends on the mountain dulcimer, and hiking in a nearby state forest (or in the mountains somewhere). She has three grown children and one granddaughter and resides with her own special hero in southeast Wisconsin where she juggles writing time with her freelance landscape design business.

Book preview

DANGER ZONE

by

Mal Olson

Adrenaline Kicked Romantic Suspense

Short Story – apx. 6,700 words plus bonus excerpts

Smashwords Edition

COPYRIGHT © 2012 by Mal Olson

All rights reserved. No part of any of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author.

~**~

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

DANGER ZONE

The plane shimmied. Even with a ninety percent hearing loss, Benjamin Thigpen, special consultant to Homeland Security, detected a faint droning whine.

Attention, please. We are experiencing severe turbulence. Please fasten your seatbelts as we begin our final descent into Milwaukee. Thiggy read the flight attendant’s lips while the seatbelt sign at the front of the Boeing 757 seconded the motion to fasten up.

This could be a rough one, he said, speaking to the young woman dressed in United States Air Force dress blues in the seat next to him.

She looked up from the book she’d been absorbed in since they’d left D.C., glanced out the window at the sea of white curtaining the window, and then turned a pair of extraordinary eyes on him. Eyes the color of a stormy ocean, perhaps the color of a tempest-tossed Lake Michigan if one could see Lake Michigan as they prepared to land at Mitchell International in a near blizzard.

The plane bucked. A vibration buzzed Thiggy's forearm where it pressed against the armrest. He sensed the reduction in thrust and a slight forward tilt as he watched the young woman’s face to read her reply. It wasn’t a hardship. Flawless creamy skin. Thick dark hair with golden highlights. And as if he hadn’t noticed immediately, midnight black lashes framed her navy blue eyes.

Don’t worry, I’m sure the pilot knows what he’s doing, she assured. The aircraft bobbled. When the woman with knock-out eyes shifted, he noticed the silver wings on her uniform. An Air Force pilot. Probably an Air Force Academy graduate, definitely a commissioned officer, who had toughed out training as extreme as Thiggy’s basics—at least before he’d progressed to the ranks of Delta Force. This woman had endured land survival, water survival, and pilot training. Yeah, she’d been through hell, but she’d also touched heaven.

All of which probably accounted for her calm, deliberate movements when she slid the tray against the seat in front of her