Match Play. Merline Lovelace

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СКАЧАТЬ shook his hand and relaxed into a smile, looking so much like the woman Luke had fallen for that his stomach pitched into a ninety-degree roll.

      “These clowns,” Parks said, “are Gabe, Tucker and Dweeb.”

      “Dweeb?”

      “His call sign. Short for dumb-ass dweeber, after he missed a direct approach to a well-lit runway at a location that shall remain nameless.”

      “So you’re all flyboys?”

      “We are,” Parks confirmed. “We’re on an exchange tour, attached to RAF Leuchars.”

      By now the response was so automatic that it sounded authentic even to their ears.

      “We saw some of the advance PR on TV about the women’s Pro-Am International,” Parks said, eyeing her golf bag. “I didn’t know you were competing in it, though.”

      “I’m a last-minute entrant. And I’d better hustle over to the driving range if I want to make it past the qualifying round. Nice meeting you all.”

      When she turned to Luke, all he got was a cool nod. He should have let it go with that. Like a fool, he didn’t.

      “Good to see you, Dayna.”

      “Sorry I can’t say the same.”

      She walked off without a backward glance, leaving a stone-cold silence in her wake. Dweeb broke it with a low whistle.

      “Damn, Harper. What did you do to the woman?”

      Parks jumped in with a reply. “You haven’t heard the story? Dayna Duncan and our boy here used to get all hot and heavy.”

      “No kidding?” Eyes wide, Dweeb followed her progress as she crossed the cobbled street. “What happened?”

      “Woman got smart and dumped him. Best I recall, it happened a few months before the 2004 Olympics. That right, Harper?”

      Parks had the year right but the rest of it wrong. Luke didn’t bother to correct him.

      Like a radar lock, his gaze stayed fixed on Dayna’s hip-swinging stride, trim rear and long legs. All the while his mind churned up memories of how those legs used to hook around his.

      They’d met during the last half of his senior year at the University of Colorado. Luke was in air force ROTC and had been selected for pilot training. Dayna was a junior. A star athlete in both golf and kayaking, she was already a prime contender for the Olympic kayaking team.

      They’d dated throughout the spring and into the summer, while Luke waited for an undergraduate pilot training slot to open up. Just the memory of those long, hot days and even hotter nights had him sweating under his leather bomber jacket.

      Dayna began her senior year about the time Luke left for pilot training at Columbus AFB, Mississippi. They continued a long-distance love affair throughout the fall and into the winter—until Dayna’s coach contacted Luke and bluntly informed him that she stood to lose both her scholarships and her spot on the Olympic team if she didn’t cut out the cross-country commuting and focus.

      Luke knew how desperately she wanted to make the team. He also knew he was about to enter the most intensive phase of pilot training. Following his head instead of his heart, he suggested they take a break. Hurt and angry, Dayna suggested he take a flying leap.

      Judging by the acid dripping from her voice a few moments ago, she obviously thought he hadn’t fallen far enough or hit anywhere near hard enough.

      With a spear of regret for what they might have had, Luke thrust his hands in the pockets of his jacket and turned away.

      “I need to head back to the base,” he told his buddies. “I’ve got mission prebrief in a couple hours.”

      More rattled than she wanted to admit by the encounter, Dayna stalked past the Old Course’s eighteenth green. Workmen were busy erecting bleachers and scaffolding for camera crews, but she barely noticed these modern scars on the face of the ancient course.

      She’d known Luke Harper was stationed at the RAF base, dammit. She should have been more prepared for a chance meeting with her old flame.

      That was as good a description as any for him, Dayna thought with a stab of self-disgust. She’d gone off the deep end, but Luke Harper had never loved her. Lusted for her, yes. Driven her half out of her mind with his muscular body and his busy, busy hands, certainly. Yet he’d cut the cord fast enough when their romance began to interfere with their respective training regimens.

      Something to remember, she told herself fiercely as she hailed a shuttle. The gaily decorated carts ferried golfers between the five courses, two clubhouses, modern golf academy and state-of-the-art practice center that comprised the St. Andrews Links complex.

      “G’day to ye, Ms. Duncan.” The trolley driver greeted her with the rolling Scots burr that required careful attention by the listener or the services of an interpreter. “Are ye gaein’ oot for a bit o’ practice?”

      “Yes, I am. Would you take me to the driving range, please.”

      “I wud indeed.” Relieving her of her bag, he stowed it on the rack at the rear of the cart. “Off we go, then.”

      Dayna used the short drive and the stiff breeze coming in off the bay to blow Luke Harper out of her head. The man was history. For the next week her sole focus would be Wu Kim Li.

      Kim Li and this course, she thought, eyeing the rolling fairways and deep sand traps. It was the oldest course in Scotland, the playground of kings and commoners, covering a stretch of land beside the sea like an old, crumpled carpet. Unlike the manicured fairways and lushly landscaped grounds of most U.S. courses, St. Andrews pitted man against the elements. There were no stands of pine or oak to blunt the often gale-force winds that blew in from the bay, no banks of colorful azalea or rhododendrons to separate the holes.

      The fairways had been planted centuries ago in a stubby, scruffy native grass that put its roots deep into the sandy soil and sent shock waves through wrists and arms when hit with a club at the wrong angle. Worse, there wasn’t a level patch anywhere on the course. The burns, sways, gorse-topped hummocks and treacherous sand traps required intense concentration on every shot. Dayna would have a real challenge to keep her ball in play and Wu Kim Li in her sights.

      She found the North Korean holding court at the practice center.

      A modern facility devoted to the art and science of golf, the center’s driving range boasted sixty bays with air-cushioned mats and automated power tees. Wu Kim Li occupied the center bay—in full view of television crews crammed into the glassed-in viewing area, naturally.

      By shamelessly playing on her name and former Olympic glory, Dayna had snagged the bay next to the teenaged megastar. She waited patiently until the golfer who had it before her finished, then walked out to the open-sided booth. Removing the head cover from her driver, Dayna hooked the club at the small of her back and did a few stretching exercises.

      The movement snagged the attention of a woman two stalls down. Obviously an amateur, the observer violated range etiquette by calling an excited greeting.

      “Hi, Dayna! СКАЧАТЬ