The Stormriders Page 11

  She felt his slow, long release of breath, the tautening of his muscles. After a long time he replied huskily, "I guess... I was afraid, too."

  She closed her eyes tightly, squeezing back tears. "Oh, Red, what are we going to do?"

  His lips brushed her fingers, his grip tightened on her hand. But he had no answer.

  And neither did she.

  Nine

  Red thought Meg was asleep when he got up carefully to turn out the light. She was lying on her side, her hair half shielding her face. The corner of the sleeping bag covered her legs and hips, but left her upper body exposed to the air. Red spent a moment watching her, thinking how beautiful she was. The slope of her torso was strong, slim and athletic, yet delicately feminine. Her arms were firm, sparely muscled where a woman's arms could develop muscles, for she did more than her fair share of the heavy work around here. She would pitch in to move a piece of machinery or steady a grounding pole in a high wind just as though she had forgotten she was a woman, as though it had never occurred to her that,with more than a dozen strong men standing around all she had to do was bat her eyelashes to have them tripping all over themselves to help. The truth was, knowing Meg, it had never occurred to her, and the first time Red realized that, it was with incredulous amusement and a kind of awestruck wonder over just what a special woman he had stumbled upon.

  He couldn't believe he had almost let her get away. Nor could he imagine, now, how he was going to be able to hold on to her.

  He arranged his shirt over her shoulders to keep off the chill and climbed back into the sleeping bag beside her, gently easing his arm around her again. The wind had died down; the storm had moved on. It might be a few more days before he could safely get back in the air, but they both had known it wouldn't last forever.

  He kept thinking everything should be different now, but the only thing that was changed was the way he felt inside: emptier, more anguished, more frightened than ever. He had known from the beginning he could never hold on to her, just as he had known, from the moment he had first seen her striding out onto the runway in Juneau, snapping orders and swinging her briefcase like a deadly weapon, that he would never get over her.

  Even after the night he had walked out for the last time, he hadn't intended for it to be over. He kept expecting to come back, every week, every day, but he battled to keep from coming back, up until the minute she had sent word that she intended to file for divorce, and then he had gotten drunk and stayed drunk for a long time. He had set about convincing himself it was good, it was about time; anybody could see that they had never had a marriage, they'd had a war zone, that he was well rid of her and now he could get on with his life. Only without her, there was no life to get on with.

  He knew the mistakes they had made. He had spent six months of sleepless nights counting them, fuming over them, grieving over them, calling himself every kind of fool and calling her worse. They had both been selfish, intractable and single-minded, like racehorses harnessed to buggies, each pulling in his own way with the same fierce go-for-broke determination. He and Meg couldn't live without each other, but the last thing either of them wanted was to be married.

  And nothing had changed. She was leaving as soon as she could get a flight out, and how could he ask her to stay? Her life was back in Washington, just as his was here. He still couldn't give her what she wanted and she had never understood what he needed—perhaps because he hadn't, either.

  There was no way out, no answer, and things were no less complicated now than they had been a day ago, a month, a year. Why couldn't he just let her go?

  She said softly, "Red?"

  He glanced down at her, wondering how long she had been watching him. The room was lit only by the green glow of the radio dials, but her eyes were quiet and luminous, her skin the color of moonlight. He did not think he had ever told her often enough how beautiful she was to him.

  "Go back to sleep," he whispered, stroking her hair. "You're exhausted."

  "I wasn't sleeping. And neither were you."

  He smiled in the dark. "I'm a man. I can take it."

  "And other fairy tales."

  She started to sit up, but met the gentle resistance of his hand on her shoulder. "Stay awhile. Everything's fine. Nobody needs you."

  "Sounds suspicious to me," she murmured drowsily.

  But she settled against him, resting her hand on his bare hip in a warm, familiar way, nudging her knees between his legs. It felt good. Wifely.

  He said, knowing he probably shouldn't, "What kept you awake?"

  She hesitated. Her voice sounded uncertain and a little strained as she answered, "Wondering... if I'd ever make love to you again."

  Red slowly turned over, so that he was a little above her, resting his hand beside her head, looking down into her eyes. "Megan," he said quietly, "I want to ask you something. And I want you to tell me the truth."

  She looked a little wary, but she held his gaze. There had been very few times in her life that Meg was unable to meet his eyes.

  "When you married me, did you expect me to build a nest?"

  "What?"

  "Cocktails at six, dinner at eight," he insisted. "Is that what you wanted?"

  She shook her head against his hand. "That's not a nest—that's a cage. You know me better than that."

  "No," he said slowly, "I'm beginning to think we never knew the important things about each other. What did you want, sweetheart?" he urged gently. "Just tell me."

  She closed her eyes briefly, sliding her hand over his shoulder. "Not a nest," she said softly. "But maybe...a perch. Some place to be safe from the storm."

  "And I brought the storm right home to you."

  She shook her head slowly. "No." Her hand moved over his neck, slipping into his hair. "The only time I ever felt safe was with you, Red. You were the only thing I could ever be sure of."

  Red realized slowly that he had always felt safe with her, too. But before now, he had never considered that a good thing.

  She whispered, "I love you, Red."

  “I know." He drew in a deep breath that was filled at once with both joy and despair. "I've tried to stop loving you, God knows I have. I can't."

  She touched her finger to his lips in a caress as tender as a kiss. "I know," she said softly.

  Her hand moved down his face and curled around his neck. She closed her eyes. After a long time she slept.

  Even later so did he.

  The crackle of radio static was a soothing background noise, like the distant sigh of the ocean, and Meg dreamed of white sand and azure waters. The radiant heat of the sun baked into her pores, glowing orange behind her closed eyes, and Red lay next to her, his naked thigh pressed against hers, his body slick with oil. She could hear his breathing, slow and relaxed, and then she realized they were both naked, naked on some secluded beach with the sun pouring over their bodies, so perfect, so wonderful...

  In an instant she was awake. She was on her feet, pushing her arms into Red's shirt and drawing its folds around her, stumbling across the room before she fully realized that the sound that had awakened her was a voice from the radio. She grabbed the microphone and pushed the transmit button.

  "Yes, this is Adinorack Base! Repeat! Over."

  The voice crackled back like a song from heaven. "Adinorack, this is Bixby One. Do you copy? Over."

  "Yes!" she practically shouted. "We copy. What's your situation? Over."

  Meg could hear Red behind her getting to his feet, pulling on his pants. She sank into the chair, pushing her hair back from her eyes, suddenly weak with relief.

  "No worse than anybody else, I guess," the voice drawled back. "That storm hit us like a ton of bricks. We've been receiving you, but our transmitter was out. So how's the weather down there? Over."

  "Calmer," Meg replied. Her heart was still pounding with the abrupt awakening and the sheer wonder of hearing another human voice out of the emptiness. "We've got injured. Is anything flying? Over.''


  "Hell, lady, all that's left of our chopper pad is a pile of twisted metal. We were hoping you had something. Over."

  There was a cold sinking feeling in the pit of Meg's stomach. Dimly she was aware of Red standing beside her. "We've got some pretty serious cases here. You're the only medical facility within a hundred miles. How soon—"

  "The good news is," the other operator interrupted, "we got doctors up the kazoo. The bad news is we're going to have to start evacuating ourselves inside twenty-four hours. The clinic's running on emergency generators now, not even enough juice to run the OR. We're starting to feel the hurt. According to what authorities we've been able to contact—" his voice was tight with frustration and concern "—it could be as much as a week before we're back on line. What do you hear? Over."

  Meg made a split-second decision, the kind that came naturally to her in times of stress. She made it automatically, without emotion or even much rational thought; it was at the moment the only decision, in fact, that anyone could have made, and it seemed very clear to her at the time that she had no choice.

  "We can get you power," she said. "Just hold on for..." She glanced at Red, and his mind was already working in the same track as hers.

  "Six hours," he said. "We don't know what shape the runway's in."

  "Six hours, outside," she repeated into the microphone. "Clear your airstrip and have a doctor ready for the return trip. We'll be back in contact. Adinorack out."

  Meg switched off the microphone and leaned back in the chair. It was perhaps ten seconds later that the full consequences of what she had done struck her.

  She had committed Red to a trip that only a few hours ago she had adamantly refused to let him make. A trip that might well be impossible, and that at the least would be hazardous, perhaps life-threatening. She had done it without consulting him, the position of the storm or the conditions outside. She had done it because it was necessary, because lives could very well be at stake unless the Bixby Medical Center received the electrical power she could provide, and because personal danger, in a situation like that, did not seem to be a factor.

  And she had done it because if she had not, Red would have.

  She lifted her gaze to Red, and they regarded each other in silence for a long moment. Her heart was pounding with belated alarm, and she wished she could have read more of his expression in the dark.

  Then he said mildly, "Even I would've checked the radar first, ace."

  He moved around her chair to do just that, and she swiveled around to study the screen for herself. "Looks pretty good from what I can tell," he commented after a moment. "Of course, this little machine was designed to hide a multitude of sins."

  She swallowed hard. "Like what?"

  "Upper-atmosphere turbulence, wind sheers, and the only snow you're going to track with this is the kind that comes down in buckets."

  "So it means basically nothing."

  His tone was absurdly cheerful as he agreed, "In a word. Of course," he added in an offhand attempt at reassurance, "they would've told us if there were any problems between here and there."

  "If they knew about them." Meg released an unsteady breath. "The last time I did anything that impulsive was when I married you."

  He glanced at her, a half smile curving his lips. "Bad example, babe."

  For a moment his presence was so intense that it was branded on her brain: his bare chest with its light dusting of hair, his flat abdomen above the unfastened snap of his jeans, the lean swell of his biceps as he braced his arm on the back of her chair; his scent, that peculiar mixture of him and her and warmth and intimacy, his wayward curls and his strong neck and the muted spark of amusement in his eyes. A sudden fierce protectiveness seized her and she thought, No.

  No, she couldn't let him do this, she was crazy to have even considered it. There was another way, and she would think of it if only she gave herself time. It wasn't really a matter of life and death; no one was making her do this. If Red hadn't been here some other solution would have been found. If she hadn't had the only portable, self-supplying generator in this part of the state, if Bixby hadn't gotten their transmitter repaired, if no one had answered their call for help...

  Then the injured people who crowded the offices and corridors of Carstone would have continued to suffer, perhaps to worsen or even to die from lack of a physician and adequate medical supplies. The Bixby Medical Center would have been without power in twenty-four hours, endangering the lives of all who were already there and many more who would be coming. And the only question she had to ask herself now was, at what point did the risk become acceptable?

  Perhaps for the first time she knew what it was like to be inside Red's skin.

  He moved away from her chair and crossed to their pile of clothes, searching for his shoes and socks. She could feel the excitement in him as though it was a physical thing, giving off a glow of heat and energy.

  "How many people will it take to get that generator of yours on board?" he asked. His voice was crisp, his mind busy.

  "You and I can handle it." Meg went over to him, untangling her own clothes from his.

  "Good. We'll need somebody on the snowplow. Hell, we might have to dig our way out of the hangar. God knows how high the drifts are."

  He handed Meg her panties and she stepped into them, suddenly seized by an irrational annoyance. "You enjoy this, don't you?"

  He pulled the long-sleeved undershirt over his head. "Don't start, Meg."

  "I mean it." Even she could hear the shrewish note of insistence in her voice, but she couldn't help it. Didn't he realize what he was doing? Didn't he care? She snatched up her jeans and pulled them on. "You love this. Any little chance you get to risk your life-"

  "For God's sake, Meg, listen to yourself! You're the one who volunteered me quicker than I could get my pants on!"

  "I had no choice!"

  He took her shoulders firmly and moved her aside. "Exactly." He bent to pick up his other shoe.

  She could feel herself sinking deeper and deeper into the mire of illogic, but she couldn't seem to stop it. It was the same fear, the same insecurity, the same sense of helplessness, the same anger because he didn't understand ... the same fight.

  "All right," she said tightly. She stalked to the door and grabbed her bra off the floor, shrugging out of his shirt. "All right, maybe I didn't have a choice, but even if I had would it have made a difference? You would have taken the choice out of my hands. You know you would have! Anything to get you back in the air again!"

  "What the hell are you getting so fired up about? We both know what has to be done and you're damn lucky I'm here to do it."

  ''That's not the point!''

  "Then what is?"

  "That you just can't wait! That the more dangerous it is the more you like it, that you don't even stop to consider—"

  "Of course I like it. It's my job! Do you think I do it for the pay?" As she struggled to fasten her bra he turned her around impatiently and did it for her. "You're talking like a woman, Meg. God, I hate it when you do that."

  "I am a woman!" she cried, and jerked away from him. "I'm the woman who loves you and I don't see why it's so hard for you to get it through your thick macho head that every time you go up there I go up there, too! You can't do something to yourself without doing it to me, Red, and every time you risk your life you're risking mine! And—" she caught a breath that sounded horribly, suspiciously like a sob "—what makes me mad is that you don't even care!"

  Red stared at her. A dozen fights, a hundred, just like this had been enacted between them over the past two years. The same angry words, the same careless accusations. Maybe after a while he had stopped listening. Maybe he had simply been afraid of the day when he would no longer be able to refuse to listen. Because suddenly it was all very clear.

  That was what made the difference. From the moment he had first loved Meg, he was no longer one person but two. She was always with him. He no longer thought for one
, felt for one, experienced for one, but for two. She was beside him in the cockpit, telling him to be careful. She was beside him on the ground, telling him to check twice. He had hated that, fought against it, done everything in his power to outfly her shadow. And when that hadn't worked, he had left her. It was as simple as that.

  He dragged his fingers through his hair and released a short, stifled breath. The cautious realizations and half-formed truths that were running through his head were too much to take in at once; he felt stunned, a little dazed, very unsure.

  "Meg," he said, struggling for words, straining to make her understand—and forgive. "It's. ..I don't know how to tell you how it is with me. All my life there's been this thing inside me—this need to keep pushing, to force the odds, to climb that next mountain. I don't know why. It's just something I was born with, like some people are born with two different-colored eyes or one arm half an inch longer than the other. I just have to keep proving things—not to anybody else, but myself. I know it's not right, I know it's not healthy, but I can't help it, any more than you can help being bossy and argumentative. Honey—" he took a hesitant step toward her "—I do care. But sometimes..."

  "If you tell me a man's got to do what a man's got to do," she said, her eyes glittering, "I'll spit in your face."

  He smiled. "I wasn't going to say that. But—" and the smile faded as he looked at her "—flying airplanes is what I do. That's not going to change. And what it really boils down to is that when I'm up there in the sky I'm out of your control. Everything there is out of your control. That's what you hate, not that I do it, not that I like it—that you can't control it. And the bottom line on that is trust, isn't it? Just letting go and giving me some credit."

  Meg drew in a breath, suddenly robbed of words. When he said it like that it made her sound so harsh, so selfish, so... true. He was her husband, the man who was as much a part of her as her own cells, and she would have trusted him with her life without hesitation—but she couldn't trust him with his own? Was that what it was? Was she so power-crazed, so compulsive and demanding that she felt she had to be in charge of every phase of the lives of those she loved, that if she let go for one minute the entire world would collapse? Was she that small, that childish, that insecure?