Back or no back, Grant couldn't resist the opportunity. He pulled her by the hands to where she was leaning out the opened canopy, then he stooped and grabbed her under the arms and swung her up. For a moment her soft hair brushed his ear, and a light scent from her neck suggested he keep her pliant form close to him a little longer than necessary.
He planted her next to the steps, and she muttered an uninspired thank you. But halfway down, she halted and turned.
"It's much easier asking me out dancing, Grant," she smiled impishly, and clacked across the hangar floor toward the jeep.
By the next morning arrangements for a small staff and office space had swiftly gone through. Working through lunch, Bridget had the office set up and the staff briefed and researching when Grant returned from dining with the general.
"You're just in time," she said, looking up from an already cluttered desk. "I'm ready now to scan through any G-2 you have on atomjet operation in your Mojave files."
Grant bristled. "These files are under the general's nose, and I don't think he'd appreciate—" He broke off when he observed Bridget tapping her pencil and frowning at him impatiently.
With a degree of diplomacy he had to admire, Grant lifted the non-technical files from the general's office and furtively smuggled them out in his brief case.
"Don't take all day," he warned, handing them to Bridget. "Part of my job is keeping the general neutral about you, and not against."