A/N: This is my 14th Black Sheep fanfic. Writing this stuff is my happy place and I'm glad you're joining me. "Sheep's Clothing" is my standard Greg and Kate romp, complete with brawling, flirty inuendo, sultry looks, dimpled grins, spectacular legs, fooling the enemy and probably more attention to how good Greg looks from both front and back than is proper. My goal with all my stories has been to let this community of fans relive the show through my interpretation of the characters and situations. Heaven knows I've taken a lot of liberties but it lets me immerse myself in a series that never got the run it deserved. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Reviews welcomed—I never get tired of hearing from fellow Black Sheep fans.
PRESS CORPS IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING
Chapter 1
October 1943
Vella La Cava, VMF 214 HQ
The Sheep Pen – where trouble is brewing. Again.
Associated Press war correspondent K.C. "Kate" Cameron leaned against the bar in the Sheep Pen, a bemused smile on her face. She took an appreciative sip of single malt whisky and wondered how long it would take before the shit hit the fan. If she was the betting type—she wasn't, gambling with this unit was a guaranteed losing proposition—she'd give it about fifteen more minutes before things spontaneously combusted in classic Black Sheep style. Too bad the squadron's odds-maker, Bobby Boyle, wasn't here to take everyone's cash and make the evening financially lucrative as well as entertaining. On the other hand, Boyle's absence was the reason for the brewing trouble. She chided herself for equating the pending brawl with entertainment. Living with these boys was eroding the genteel polish she'd acquired while covering the war from Great Britain before transferring to the Southwest Pacific Theater.
VMF 214's ramshackle little social club hummed with music, alcohol and testosterone in equal amounts as the boys stepped away from the war for the evening. Two jeeps full of nurses from the Navy hospital at the north end of Vella La Cava had rolled in earlier, further raising the bar for the Saturday night social hijinks.
The breeze wafting through the windows carried the scent of aircraft fuel from the flight line, overlaid by the salt tang of the ocean. With the boys in uniform and the girls wearing colorful dresses, the scene could have been from a rear area officers' club, not this remote forward base on the edge of the war. For a few stolen hours, dancing and flirting dimmed the constant danger and mayhem that marked the Black Sheep's daily agenda.
Of course, Kate mused, mayhem with this bunch wasn't restricted to official missions. They were perfectly capable of stirring something up on the ground, a tendency currently amplified by the temporary absence of their commanding officer. She glanced at her watch. He should be back by now.
"Hey, Katie." Captain Jim Gutterman pushed through the crowd to join her.
"Hey. You're late to this party," she observed.
Jim scowled, a thundercloud passing over his face as he turned to Bob Anderson behind the bar. "Scotch. Make it a double." He turned back to Kate. "I been out on the line, getting my butt chewed by Micklin about how I treat his aircraft. Like I put that lead in my tail on purpose this morning." He eyed the dark amber liquid in her glass, then the substantially lighter colored alcohol in the glass Bob handed him.
"Don't look like yours has been watered down," he said.
Kate studied her drink with pleasure. She'd carried the tumbler of high-end Scotch into the party, not planning to indulge beyond a single, social drink before returning to her typewriter. The story she was crafting for the stateside papers, a thousand words on the recent concentrated movement of Japanese naval vessels into this portion of the theatre and what it meant for the Allied troops, needed to go out in the courier's packet on tomorrow's transport. Greg would tease her about being all work and no play on a Saturday night but she had a job to do.
"It's Greg's private stock," she said coolly, swirling the liquid.
Jim gave her a knowing look. "Private stock?"
"He was helping me with a story last night and left the bottle in my tent." Kate felt color rising in her cheeks. There'd been a little more to it than that but damned if she was telling Jim about it.
"Helping you with a story?" The unit's executive officer chuckled. "That what you're calling it now?"
Kate jabbed him with her elbow. He dodged, still laughing. Arguing with him would be useless. The more she protested, the worse the teasing got. The minute the boys realized their CO, who had no use for the press corps, and the war correspondent who'd been embedded with the 214 had moved beyond a professional relationship, they'd been merciless.
Still, she felt obligated to mount some level of defense. "We were . . . I needed . . ." Oh hell. She gave up. "It wasn't like that."
"Whatever you say, darlin'." Jim surveyed the room and nodded toward a nearby table. "Hmmm. I'd like to find me a little of what TJ's having."
Relieved at the change the subject, Kate followed his gaze. At a corner table, lanky, sandy-haired Lt. TJ Wiley was deep in conversation with an attractive brunette nurse. They were sitting a little closer than two people having a casual drink warranted. TJ's hand was on the girl's knee.
"But isn't Deb Boyle's girl?" Kate asked, hoping she'd lost track of the boys' tangled web of social interaction. If Deb wasn't Boyle's girl, the odds for trouble this evening would be substantially, although not totally, reduced.
"Yepper, but not tonight," said a new voice. "Bobby went to Espritos with Greg and Deb's not wasting any time auditioning replacements."
Kate and Jim shifted to make room at the bar for Lt. Larry Casey.
"Beer?" Anderson asked and without waiting for an answer, pulled a bottle out of the small refrigeration unit, popped the cap off and handed it to Casey.
Casey looked at it, then looked at Kate's Scotch.
"Hey, that looks like—" he began.
"It is," Kate said and raised her glass. "Slainte."
"Does Greg know you're drinking his private stock?"
"Yes," she said patiently. "He gave it to me."
Jim laughed. "Hell, Casey, that ain't all he's givin' her."
Kate closed her eyes and counted to ten. When she opened them, Jim and Casey were still there. Of course they were. That was the problem with fitting into this unit. Once they'd stopped keeping her at a distrustful arm's length as a member of the press corps, everyone from Gutterman to Bragg had heartily embraced her as one of the boys.
Kate shot Jim a look that would have left a weaker man trembling but only made the Texan's grin widen. Her relationship with Greg was nobody's business but hers and Greg's. The boys didn't see it that way, which meant anything the two of them did on the base was subject to scrutiny. With that in mind, they made it a point of doing a specific number of things as far away from the base as they could get. On an island the size of La Cava, that was never as far as she'd prefer. She looked at her watch again. "Shouldn't they be back by now?"
Outside the Sheep Pen, the hard edges of the tents were blurred in green and gold shadows as twilight fell over the jungle.
"They should have been back an hour ago." Jim peered out the windows. "It'll be full dark soon."
Flying in the dark wasn't that big of a deal. All of the boys could fly instruments only or dead reckon their way back to La Cava from anywhere in the theatre. Landing was another issue. With no lights on the air strip, pilots found themselves dropping into a black morass of jungle and volcanic hills. Not that the Black Sheep couldn't do it. From what Kate had seen in her two months with the unit, they could do anything but salute.
She pushed away the worry nibbling at her mind. Colonel Lard's summons had come early enough in the day to allow Greg and Bobby plenty of time to return before dark. Why had they been detained for so long? Greg hadn't told her what Lard wanted, just called, "Back later, Cameron!" as he passed her tent on his way to the flight line. Casey had filled her in and he hadn't known much about the summons, either, only that Lard had called Greg to Espritos immediately on "a matter of urgency." That had been more than four hours ago.
The Sheep Pen's screen door slapped shut and Lt. Don French pushed his way through the throng. Spotting Kate, Jim and Casey, he raised a hand in greeting.
"Pappy just radioed in," he said. "He and Boyle are ten minutes out. Thought you'd want to know."
Kate breathed a silent prayer of thanks. Nothing was guaranteed in this war. Every time Greg climbed into that cockpit, there was the unspoken understanding she might never see him again. She'd come to terms with it because the alternative was denying she loved him and that was impossible. She couldn't deny the man anything.
"Thanks, Don," she said. "Is everything okay? I mean, they're cutting it kind of fine."
The stocky pilot grimaced. "Pappy didn't come right out and say but I got the feeling the meeting with Lard wasn't good news."
Meetings with Lard were never good news, but generally they involved their leader being called on the carpet for some minor infraction the boys had committed or yet another futile attempt by the upper brass to make Greg operate according to the Marine Corps Manual.
"I was startin' to wonder if he and Boyle landed themselves in the brig," Jim mused. "I reckon we'll find out what went down soon enough."
Kate sipped her whisky and pondered what was behind Lard's orders for Greg to appear in person. It had to be something not left to chance via the allegedly secure radio waves, even if the 214's scrambler happened to be working. Whatever it was, Lard would have known better than to think Greg would meekly accept any new campaign COMSOPAC trotted out. That wasn't his style. No matter the situation, it was entirely possible the Black Sheep's CO would fabricate his own interpretation of these latest orders, one that would leave the brass on Espritos scratching their heads and not-so-silently fuming. If General Moore got involved, which was also entirely possible, he would be open to considering Greg's plan, although he might not come right out and say it. That could lead to more behind the scenes subterfuge. It made her head spin. She sipped her drink.
Don eyed Kate's glass suspiciously. "That doesn't look like bar stock. Does Greg know you're drinking his—"
"Oh for heaven's sake." Kate raised the tumbler and tossed back the remaining whisky. "There. It's gone. Now can you please find something else to obsess about?"
Ever helpful, Casey changed the subject. "Think someone should tell TJ to back off? Bobby's gonna come busting in here soon as he sets down, expecting Deb to be waiting for him."
"What the hell's TJ playing at, anyway?" Jim asked. "He knows Boyle and Deb are an item. He's gonna get bent teeth for moving in on her like that."
Kate shook her head. There was generally honor among the Black Sheep when it came to members of the opposite sex. It was an unspoken rule you had your wingman's six upstairs and you didn't mess with their girl on the ground. But TJ flew wing for Jim, not Bobby, and it wouldn't be the first time the boys had come to blows over a girl.
"I think Deb's coming onto him, not the other way around," she said. "Look. Her hand is on top of his and the way she's snuggled up to him, he can't get away."
The boys looked. Although at first glance, TJ appeared to be enjoying the nurse's flirtatious company, an air of uneasy reluctance emanated from his posture.
"Huh," Jim said. "Reckon you're right. How'd you pick up on that?"
Kate made a non-committal noise. She was a North Dakota farm kid who'd grown up watching the body language of everything from roosters to draft horses and lately had transferred that skill to the male of the human species. Watching the men of the 214 provided endless entertainment. It also allowed her to get out of the way before the trouble started. Or stay right where she was, depending on the circumstances.
"Bobby's going to be hotter than a two-dollar pistol when he sees that and he won't stop to ask how it started," she said. "I've got ten bucks says there's gonna be a dust up."
"Now you're starting to sound like him," Anderson said from behind the bar. "Maybe you should go ask TJ to dance or something, run interference before it goes any further."
Deb's hand had moved to TJ's thigh. Kate shook her head in negation. No way was she getting involved in that.
"Not my circus, not my monkeys," she said, wishing she had another shot of whisky. Greg and his boys would do whatever they set their minds to, regardless of input from anyone who might have a more objective view of the situation. This was an admirable trait in some situations but not so much in others. And, in spite of her initial efforts to remain aloof and professional, she'd grown to love each of the 214's pilots like brothers. This was her circus and they were her monkeys.
But she drew the line at getting involved in their romantic liaisons. Not that they stayed out of hers. In the distance, the throaty growl of Pratt and Whitney Double Wasp engines throttling down as they came in to land reverberated through the evening air. Kate sighed with relief, although the odds of mayhem increased the closer Bobby came to the Sheep Pen. Yeah, the shit was gonna hit the fan, it was just a question of how big of a mess it would make.
XXX
After a brief consultation with line chief Andy Micklin, Major Greg Boyington had two things on his mind as he made his way through the darkening base. One was a glass of the twenty-year-old Scotch he'd left in Kate Cameron's tent the previous evening and the second was Kate herself. The correspondent would be both a welcome distraction and a sounding board while he figured out how the hell he was going to handle Colonel Lard's latest edict. Approaching her tent, there was no light burning and he didn't hear the staccato rattle of typewriter keys. She must have taken a break for a drink with the guys, as was her evening habit. Meatball trotted out of the tent to join him and Greg bent to scratch the dog's ears.
"You're sleeping in her bunk now? I thought you were my dog."
Meatball stretched and wagged his tail. The terrier was fiercely loyal to Greg but lately had transferred some of his allegiance to Kate and often curled on her bunk as she worked.
"Can't fault your taste. You liked her before I did," Greg said and kept moving. The sooner he shared Lard's announcement—and dealt with the inevitable backlash from his men—the sooner he could put his own plan into action. It was sketchy, he admitted, concocted hastily during the flight back from Espritos. He just had to convince Kate to go along with it. Which wouldn't be hard. Probably.
Mounting the steps to the Sheep Pen, he heard the trouble before his fingers touched the door handle. Angry words sliced into the evening stillness. While Greg had paused for a word with Micklin, Bobby Boyle hadn't wasted any time beating feet to have a drink and see his girl. It was Saturday night, after all, and the extra jeeps parked in front of the building indicated the presence of the female element. No doubt that was the root of the pending mayhem. As much as Greg tried to stay out of his men's romantic entanglements—an approach fueled by the futile wish they would stay out of his—when push came to shove, he often ended up right in the middle of it. Literally. He hoped it wouldn't come to that tonight. He had too much else on his mind to be the calm sense of reason among these hotheads.
The sound of a chair scraping backward was followed by the scuffling of multiple feet backing out of the way. Greg squared his shoulders and opened the door. The crowd inside ignored him. Everyone was focused on two figures circling each other in the center of the room like snarling dogs.
"You could have any girl on this island you wanted but you had to move in on mine the minute I wasn't around?" Bobby snarled as he stood face to face with TJ. His normally easy-going features were twisted with anger. There was a good six inches difference in height between the two pilots but that wasn't stopping him.
"Hey, I didn't—" TJ started but Bobby shoved him backward with both hands. TJ tripped over a chair and crashed onto the floor. He scrambled back to his feet, genuine irritation erasing the previous wounded innocence on his face.
"Back off, Boyle," he snapped. "Maybe if you treated Deb a little better, she wouldn't go shopping around for new company."
Greg folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the doorframe. It didn't trouble him that none of his men had bothered to salute a superior officer when he stepped inside. Saluting was overrated and his unacknowledged presence gave him time to figure out what romantic boundaries had been breached this time. And more importantly, if intervention would fall to him. The squadron was going to be faced with a unifying crisis soon enough and he'd prefer they go into it without any lingering petty quarrels.
Brawls among the pilots were nothing new. If he intervened too soon, unresolved hard feelings would smolder, undermining the unit's focus. Better to let them settle their differences. He'd step in only if things got completely out of hand. The boys loved a good fight, which to his way of thinking didn't necessarily equate out of hand. Sometimes he thought they loved it a little too much but it was what made them so good upstairs and he wasn't about to start fixing things that weren't broken. He'd leave that to the brass on Espritos.
Greg scanned the room. Bob Anderson paused in wiping out glasses to watch the pending altercation. Jim Gutterman lounged against the bar, sipping a drink as he, too, watched the brewing storm, with Larry Casey next to him, beer bottle in hand, looking apprehensive but resigned.
Between his executive officer and the de facto company clerk stood the Associated Press war correspondent embedded with the 214. His quick top to bottom evaluation left him wishing he could make her his only priority tonight.
Kate Cameron's intriguing curves and spectacular legs were enhanced by both her eclectic wardrobe and the rough surroundings. The girl would look good no matter what she wore or where she wore it. Her toned, sun-kissed thighs and sleek calves were well-displayed in shorts fashioned from cut-off fatigues. She wore a white man's work shirt with the sleeves removed and her hair, still damp from a shower, hung in a riot of tawny curls held back by a rolled bandana. She looked as at home in the sea of khaki and testosterone as any of the men. In the two months Greg had known her, she'd become an invaluable asset to the unit. She'd become more than that to him.
XXX
Kate caught his eye across the room, held it as her mouth curved in a dazzling smile. Greg returned the smile for a heartbeat, then reluctantly focused his attention on the mayhem brewing in front of him.
She looked past Bobby and TJ snarling at each other when Greg entered the building. He was still in his flight suit and the utilitarian garment only emphasized his rugged good looks. His dark hair fell across his forehead and his jaw was set in a what-the-hell-now expression. She was familiar with that expression, having been on the receiving end of it more than once since her arrival at the 214.
Greg's gaze caught hers and those blue eyes swept appreciatively up and down her body, warm as a caress. She bit the inside of her lip as her heart sped up, savoring the moment and resolutely trying not to smile. It would not do to let him know the impact he had on her.
It was probably too late for that. He knew full well the impact he had on her and her only consolation was that she could return the favor with a demure look or subtle shift in body language. Just the thought made her break into a full smile, destroying any hope of playing coy.
They'd fought the mutual attraction, counting the reasons why anything more than a professional relationship was asking for trouble. He was military, she was civilian. He was 35, she was 22. They were living in a front area. He was, technically, her commanding officer as long as she was with the unit. The top brass who assigned her to La Cava thought she was a man and there'd be hell to pay if that particular cat ever got out of the bag.
Greg hadn't let any of that stand in his way. The night he made it clear how he felt about her, she hadn't hesitated to return those feelings. Since then, their romance had been a whirlwind of sensuality, danger and more often than not, frustration.
And routine violence, she thought, her attention pulled from Greg back to the scene unfolding in front of her.
"Don't put this on me," Boyle said through clenched teeth. "You think you can just move in on my girl when I'm not around?
"Get over it, Bobby, I didn't—" TJ started to protest but there was an edge of anger in his voice now.
What TJ might or might not have done remained a mystery. Boyle lowered his head and charged. To his credit, TJ tried to avoid him but when he stepped back, he ran up against a table and Boyle plowed into him like an enraged bull. Boyle's first punch connected with TJ's jaw and the taller pilot responded in kind. He launched a haymaker that sent Boyle staggering backward into French and Bragg, who helpfully set him back on his feet.
Kate glanced away from the brawl long enough to notice a stirring of unrest among the girls. Several of them were frowning at Deb. The pretty, dark-haired nurse set her mouth petulantly and looked away.
The combatants exchanged another volley of blows. TJ ricocheted off the bar, rattling the bottles in a case of beer at one end and sending the box tipping dangerously. Anderson rescued it before it fell.
"Oh, bloody hell!" Kate snapped, stepping toward the melee. Her tolerance for solving problems through fists instead of diplomacy extended only to altercations with other branches of the military. Beating on a fellow pilot was just plain stupid, especially when neither of them were to blame. She reflexively ducked a right hook Boyle telegraphed from a mile away. She hadn't spent the last two months watching the Black Sheep's fighting style for nothing.
"Knock it off, both of you!" The authority of her voice caused both men to pause long enough for her to step between them. Putting a hand firmly on each of their chests, she shoved them apart.
"Katie," Boyle panted, wiping blood off his lip, "this isn't your fight." He tried to dodge around her to get at TJ, who dodged the other direction, wisely keeping Kate between them.
"It's not TJ's either," she said, not giving an inch. "Before you keep pounding on him, maybe you ought to ask Deb how long it took her to find new company tonight when you weren't here."
"Huh?" Boyle looked toward the nurses gathered at the edge of the room.
Deb had the decency to look guilty now. One of the girls gave her a little push and hissed in a stage whisper, "You can't just stand here like it's not your fault when a guy's taking a pounding because you were hitting on him."
"What the hell?" Boyle lowered his fists, his attention shifting from his opponent to the now visibly uncomfortable nurse. A blush of shame was spreading across her cheeks, leaving them unattractively blotchy.
Boyle took a step toward her, disappointment twisting his features. "Really? I thought I could count on my girl to be waiting for me when I set down. Guess I was wrong."
"I—I—" Deb couldn't find any words to support her cause.
"I think it's best if we don't see each other again," Bobby snapped. Deb didn't reply, just turned away. Bobby pivoted toward the bar. "Gimme two beers, Anderson."
As Anderson retrieved the bottles, two other nurses moved toward TJ, their hands gentle as they fussed over his abraded face. The lanky pilot groaned theatrically.
Anderson threw a clean bar rag at Boyle. "Don't bleed on my floor. I'm on buildings and grounds duty this week and I don't need any extra work."
Bobby caught the cloth and mopped at his lip. He apologetically handed a beer to TJ, who was recovering rapidly under the girls' ministrations.
"Sorry. Guess she was just after a pair of wings and didn't care whose uniform they were attached to," he said.
"That's what I was trying to tell you," TJ said ruefully.
"No hard feelings?" Boyle looked genuinely repentant, a rare condition among the Black Sheep. He glared at Deb, who was being ushered out of the building by one of the nurses. "You may have done me a favor. She was about as trustworthy as an alley cat."
TJ rubbed his jaw and took an experimental sip of the beer. "Naw. And you may have done me a favor." He grinned lopsidedly through a swollen lip and rolled his eyes toward the two girls still fussing over him.
Kate shook her head. Tempers flared like incendiaries in this unit but when push came to shove, the boys' loyalty to one another was unbreakable. She caught Greg's eye as he started toward the bar. His quick, dimpled grin sent a bolt of heat through her belly but just as quickly his face resumed a serious expression. Whatever happened on Espritos has been more than the standard "I want to see your pilots shaved and in uniform, blah, blah, blah" tirade Lard frequently issued when he wanted to throw his weight around.
Greg was half way to the bar when the Glenn Miller number thumping on the jukebox ground to a scratchy halt. The familiar, rattling hum of the refrigeration unit was briefly loud in the silence, then it, too, shut down with a series of clicks. The lights flickered eerily, then went out, plunging the room into darkness.
"Aw hell, Casey. Did you forget to pay the bill?" Jim quipped.
The building's occupants shuffled awkwardly. Outages weren't uncommon on the base as the over-worked generators occasionally went off-line for no apparent reason, then surged back to life within minutes.
This time, nothing happened. The darkness was absolute.
To be continued . . .