That sense of accomplishment was the real reward, though sometimes there was unexpected blowback.

Tony had once told him the story of Beth Middleton, and how he was attracted to her the instant he saw her. The woman’s smile hooked him and her tight jeans held him. Her quick wit did its job, too. In that sense he was not unlike most men: it was lust at first sight.

Beth was thirty years younger than him but something about her was much older. When they finally got around to talking about something other than medicine, he learned that she had grown up in a military family, moving from base to base, though she had managed to stick around the Florida panhandle, near Panama City, long enough to go to high school. Maturity is something he found in a lot of army brats. Because they never really got to put down roots, because they rarely got to make friends for very long, their lives were spent on the outside, reading when they were alone, watching when they were with people.

Beth’s father had been a lieutenant colonel in the air force. He flew a hundred combat missions in Nam, in the F-4-a classy, long-range Mach-buster that was still being used in the Gulf War. The sky jocks always said that if you had to be away from home and honey, this was the baby you wanted to be with. Lieutenant Colonel Middleton apparently felt the same. He later became a flight instructor, keeping close to the Phantoms, married late, and had Beth even later.

She worshipped her father and craved his attention-which he obviously didn’t bestow as readily or happily as he did lectures on the range of his big silver bird. Beth didn’t have to say it for Tony to figure out that he was the reason she was attracted to older men. He didn’t imagine he was the first.