A different kind of light played crimson shadows across her closed eyelids. What an odd dream, CC thought as she stretched luxuriously. The smooth feel of fresh sheets against her naked body mixed with the poignant, unfulfilled seduction of the dream. She still felt super-sensitized and her naked body tingled.
Naked?
She never slept in the nude. Why the heck was she naked? She flung her eyes open and cringed at the brightness of her bedroom, then quickly closed them again. It couldn't be later than 0730. Could it? Hadn't she set her alarm? Was she late for work? Her heart pounded.
Memories of the night came flooding back—the two bottles of champagne, the movie, the sudden brainstorm that led to the idea that led to the ritual. Here she cringed and tried to burrow down into her sheets, but her memory was relentless.
"You'd think I'd had enough champagne that I would have blacked it all out," she groaned.
She peeked over the side of the bed. The vanilla-rum candle had burned out. Well, at least she could be thankful she hadn't set her apartment on fire. She glanced down. Her nightgown made a rumpled, pale spot on her cream-colored carpet.
She shook her head and sighed. Two bottles of champagne—what had she been thinking?
"I forgot," she muttered. "The process of rational thought stops after bottle number one."
No wonder she'd had the weird dream; she'd been in a drunken stupor.
She glanced back at the nightstand and squinted at her bedside alarm clock, which read 11:42 a.m. CC's eyes widened. Panic banished the dream, and she sat bolt upright.
"It's almost noon!" She yelped, scrambling to her closet to frantically pull out a fresh uniform before she remembered that she didn't have to report for duty that day. She was flying out tomorrow, which meant that today would be dedicated to packing and tying up the loose ends being gone for three months created.
She took a shaky breath and ran her hand through her hair. Actually, the only reason she had to go on base at all that day was to stop by the orderly room and pick up her new set of dog tags. (She was still chagrined that she'd lost her old set during the move from Colorado.) Beside that, she just needed to buy some last minute toiletries for the trip, come back to the apartment and move her plants from the balcony to her living room so that her neighbor, Mrs. Runyan, could water them and finish her packing. And, of course, she had to remember to drop her key off with Mrs. Runyan before she left for the airport the next morning.
CC took a deep breath. What was wrong with her? She was usually so organized and logical about a deployment. She had planned to get up early that morning and finish her business on base, and then get her plants taken care of and her packing completed early so that she could spend the rest of the day relaxing. The trip to Saudi would be long and exhausting, and CC definitely was not looking forward to it—and that's not even considering how much she hated flying.
She shook her head. Instead she'd chosen to send herself off with an enormous hangover. CC marched into the bathroom and flipped on the shower. As the warm, soothing mist began to rise, she started searching through the cabinet for some aspirin for her tremendous headache. But before she found it, she stopped herself.
Headache? No, now that her heart wasn't yammering a mile a minute, and she wasn't afraid she'd been AWOL for half a day, she realized her head didn't actually hurt. At all. Actually, she felt fine. She closed the cabinet door and studied herself in the mirror.
Instead of the sallow, hollow-eyed look of a morning-after hangover, CC's chestnut-colored eyes were clear and bright. Her gaze traveled down her naked body. Her skin was healthy and vibrant; she glowed with a lovely pinkish flush. It was almost like she had spent the night being pampered in an exclusive spa, instead of drinking two bottles of champagne, eating a ton of KFC and getting caught in a thunderstorm while she danced in the moonlight.
"Maybe…" she whispered to her reflection.
A thrill of delight traveled the length of her nakedness as she remembered the moonlight and the electric passion it had fueled within her body. She could almost feel the night against her skin again.
The warm mist from the shower crept around her in thick, lazy waves.
"Like the pinyon smoke," she gasped, and her heart leapt. "Remember," she told her reflection. "You promised to break your mold."
Tentatively, she raised her arms, trying to mimic her movements of the previous night and turned slowly in a sleepy pirouette. The fog swirled around her, licking her naked skin with a liquid warmth that reminded her of her sensuous, bittersweet dream. Thinking about the handsome stranger her sleeping mind had conjured, CC continued to spin, catching quick glimpses of herself in the mist-veiled mirror. Her petite body looked lithe and mysterious, as if she had trapped some of the moonlit magic within herself.
"You believed last night; believe today, too." As she spoke something deep within her seemed to move, like smooth water over river pebbles.
"Magic…" CC whispered.
Maybe the night and the dream had been signs of things to come—things that would change—in her life. Maybe she just had to be open to change and answer when it called.
"Magic…" CC repeated.
She danced and laughed her way into the shower, loving the warm fingers of water that rippled down her body.
She didn't stop smiling the entire time she dressed and applied just a touch of makeup. The feeling wouldn't go away. It was like someone had taken a key and opened up something inside her, and now that it was open, it refused to be locked away again.
She stepped into her favorite pair of button-up 501 jeans. After listening to the decidedly cooler weather forecast, she pulled on her thick gray sweatshirt with air force written in block lettering across her chest. Her feet felt light as she grabbed a V8 Splash from the fridge and hurried out of her apartment.
The stairs that spiraled gracefully from her top-floor apartment were still damp from last night's storm, which made CC's smile widen. Everything looked preternaturally clear and beautiful. Her car was parked almost directly below her balcony, and as she unlocked it, she glanced up. Her lips rounded in a wordless O of delight. The light of the midday sun formed a halo over the rich green foliage that still sparkled with beads of rain, making her balcony appear more like something submerged in an ocean than something on land.
Magic is happening. The thought sprang unbidden into her mind, and instead of questioning it, CC took a deep breath and let the enticing idea settle.
The gate guard at Tinker's North Entrance was checking military IDs, and when her turn came, CC rolled down her window and beamed a cheery "Good morning!" to the serious-looking young airman.
The granite set of his face softened, and he returned her grin with an endearingly lopsided smile. "It's afternoon, ma'am," he corrected gently.
"Oops!" She grinned. "Well, everything's so bright and clear that it still seems like morning."
"Hadn't thought about it till now, but I guess you're right. It is real pretty today." He looked honestly surprised at the discovery. "You have a good day, ma'am." He waved her through the gate, but his eyes stayed fixed on her car and the lopsided smile was still painted his face long after she'd disappeared.
The Communications Squadron's orderly room was located in the Personnel Building. It was a typical military structure, large and square and made of nondescript red brick. CC was pleased to see that a front row parking space was open. Usually the parking lot was ridiculously crowded, and she had to park far away down the street. The lawn surrounding the building and the hedges that bordered the entrance were meticulously manicured. The sense of obsessive neatness carried through to the interior of the building as well.
CC pulled open the door and was greeted by the familiar smell of military clean. Yes, ma'am. You could eat off the floors, walls, ceilings and desks… literally. Directly in front of her a full-length mirror showed CC her reflection. She automatically read the words printed across the top of the mirror: does your appearance reflect your professionalism? CC started to grin sheepishly at her jeans and sweatshirt, then she did a fast double take.
Had her eyes ever looked so big? Entranced, she stepped closer to the mirror's slick surface. Her mother had always described her eyes as "cute" or "doelike." CC usually didn't give them much thought beyond being glad that she had twenty-twenty vision. But today they seemed to fill her face. Their ordinary hazel color sparkled with—
"May I help you, ma'am?"
The rough voice caused CC to jump guiltily. Her cheeks felt warm as she turned around to face a weathered-looking chief master sergeant.
"Uh, yeah. Can you tell me where I'd go to pick up my dog tags?"
"Sure can." As soon as she'd started speaking his gruff appearance softened, and he smiled warmly at her. "The office for tags and military IDs is on the third floor. You can take the elevator that's down this hall." He gestured to the right.
'Thank you, Chief," CC said and bolted to the elevator, face blazing.
The old chief stood for a moment looking after her.
"Now there's a pretty girl," he pronounced to the empty air.
The ID office wasn't hard to find—it was the busiest office in the building. CC sighed as she took a number and found a seat along the wall. Orderly rooms were always ultra-busy during the lunch hour. She should have known better. Trying to find an interesting article in an old Air Force Times newspaper, she wished she had remembered to bring a book with her.