Where was he? "What do you mean?"
"A flyer flight surgeon."
"What about Captain O"Connell?" Lori nodded to the woman across the runway. "I thought she was a flight surgeon, too."
"She is, but didn"t Gray ever explain the difference? He probably didn"t want to brag. A flight surgeon is a doctor who specializes in medicine pertaining to flyer ailments! Only a few of them are actually flyers themselves, about a dozen I think."
"A dozen?" Lori answered absently, scanning the horizon, searching for a dot, each minute weighing on her. Wind stirred, swirled, plastering her silk wraparound dress to her body. "Here?"
"No. In the Air Force."
Julia"s words sank in, slowly, heavily. A flash of admiration mixed with a wayward twinge of pride. Only a dozen people in the entire Air Force held that distinction, and Gray was one of them.
There wasn"t a chance he could give it up. That doused the last of her hopes, banked though they may have been. No reserves or weekend warriors after his stint in Washington. He"d charted his life.
A nimble sounded in the background. Lori straightened, her breath catching as she searched the sky and runway. Was that the plane? She jerked to look over her shoulder.
Hangar doors growled open, not aircraft sounds at all.
Sirens split the air.
Numbness fell away.
Fire trucks tore out, six of them screaming across the tarmac toward the runway.
Lori stopped breathing altogether. She looked around frantically. Gray had said a fire truck would hose him down, a tradition for finit flights, but he hadn"t said anything about six trucks with sirens.
Julia"s pale face didn"t calm Lori in the least. Just as she started to search for Gray"s parents, a handheld radio crackled, blaring loudly enough to be heard over any flight line pandemonium, "Wolf One, this is command post."
Lori followed the noise to a small group between the bleachers and line of planes.
The squadron commander, Lori searched for his name and couldn"t find it, raised the radio to his mouth, "Yeah, Wolf One here, over."
"Sir," the radio broadcast, "Lifter one-three has declared an in-flight emergency. Experienced a rapid decompression. They"re on twenty-five-mile approach."
In-flight emergency. Just the words horrified her. Lori held herself still, desperate to absorb and decode every word.
"Roger that, command post. Rapid decompression. And the crew?"
"No injuries."
No injuries. Lori clung to those words as tightly as she held Julia"s arm. When had she grabbed it?
"Roger," the commander barked. "Send Foxtrot over to pick me up at spot twelve. I"m heading out for landing. Over."
Seconds later the commander leaped into a truck. Sirens blaring, it followed the fire trucks past the line of parked planes next to the lengthy runway.
As quickly as that, her world rocked.
Lori felt a hand on her shoulder and startled. She found Gray"s father standing behind her, Magda still on his shoulders jingling Angela"s bracelet.
"He"ll be fine, Lori." Dave held his wife"s hand, her face pale but in control. "Rapid dees happen all the time. The trucks, the noise, it"s all procedure. Since he"s only twenty-five miles out, he"ll be here in minutes. Probably landing in less than five. Should be breaking the horizon right about ... now."
Like magic, a speck appeared.
Lori exhaled. She pulled the fragmented pieces of her reason together. What right did she have to accept comfort, anyway? She wasn"t anyone to Gray, not like his parents beside her. And Julia had a husband to worry about.
That didn"t stop Lori"s heart from punching her rib cage or her hands from shaking.
Julia"s hand fluttered to rest on Lori"s arm. "Really, thank goodness it"s just a rapid dee. Those can be absolutely nothing big."
Lori looked around at the fire trucks positioned along the runway. If this was "nothing" she didn"t want to consider "something." How could they all be so blase?
The plane roared closer, growing larger. She started breathing again. Her pulse only raced double time now, not too bad.
Julia laughed a slight wobble. "I remember once when Lance came home and told me-"
Angela cleared her throat, shooting a pointed look Lori"s way. "Save that one for another time, dear."
"Ooops, sorry, just nervous chatter." Julia clutched the champagne bottle to her stomach. "We"ll all laugh at the party."
Of course they would. She could always count on Gray for a laugh, and in minutes he would surely step from that plane as carefree as ever. "I"m fine. Dave, do you want to pa.s.s me Magda?"
"Let her stay."
Lori held Magda"s foot, anyway, needing the comfort of contact. Eyes trained upward, Lori watched the plane near, slow, touch down.
Relief turned her limbs to oatmeal. Thank G.o.d she wasn"t holding Magda because she surely would have dropped her.
Engines whined as the aircraft slowed, fire trucks pacing alongside. The cargo plane turned, heading toward them.
Dave nodded. "That"s good."
"What?"
"If it was a serious emergency, they would have stopped on the runway. But they"re still coming over. That"s good. Probably nothing more than a loose seal."
Swallowing twice, Lori tried to moisten her gritty mouth. The lumbering aircraft neared. She could even see Gray through the window, his headset on as he parked the plane.
Lori inhaled deeply, the exhaust-tinged air stinging her lungs with each gasp. This was nothing, she reminded herself. Just a little in-flight emergency, practically an everyday occurrence for him.
She would have a heart attack by the end of the week. Handling a crisis had always been her strength. Why was she freaking out now?
Because she was helpless. Out of control. There was nothing she could do in a situation like this, and she needed control over her life after so many years of chaos.
The side hatch door opened. A firefighter in his silver fire suit waited, firehose poised and ready.
One at a time crew members ambled down the few steps onto the runway. Burly Bronco. Too-pretty-for-his-own-good Lancelot Steady Tag.
Finally Grayson.
His smile as bright as the sun glinting off his airplane, he loped down the stairs.
"Congratulations, Major Clark," the firefighter shouted. "And farewell!"
The blast of water caught Gray full in the chest. His laugh rumbled over the flight line as he stumbled back from the force of the crystal-clear water.
Bronco grabbed a bottle of champagne from a cooler, popped the cork and launched into the deluge, pouring the bottle over Gray"s head. Sun shimmered off the fire hose spray, sparkling rainbows into a nimbus around them.
She"d heard Gray when he"d said the military was his life, but until now she hadn"t really understood.
The transient lifestyle, the edge-of-the-seat action, the battle-forged camaraderie, Gray would never give it up. More important, he couldn"t. Even if Gray somehow managed to overcome his resistance to commitment, this really was it for them unless she could find a way to accept his life in the military.
The spray slowed and dripped to a halt. Jostled from behind as people raced past, Lori steadied herself. Gray"s parents, other uniformed flyers charged toward the plane. Julia dashed forward. Bottle in her hand, arms waving, she sprinted to her husband.
Gray hefted Magda from his father"s shoulders and tossed her in the air. Water dripped down his gorgeous face as he caught her. Hooking her on his hip, Gray scanned the crowd. The party converged around him, in-flight emergencies long forgotten by everyone.
Except for Lori.
She didn"t feel much like partying.
Chapter 13.
"We need to talk." Gray waited for Lori to answer, but she stayed silent, jamming the key into her front door. Streetlamps threw shadows across her profile, or had he put those there?
Some days sapped the life right out of a guy. Magda lay slack against his shoulder, exhausted from the party. He shifted her more securely and waited for Lori to answer.
The celebration had gone off without a hitch-well attended, lasting hours past the schedule. Magda had won hearts as she taught her new friends a mixed English-Sentavian version of "Old MacDonald."
Lori"s perfect smile had charmed his friends. He couldn"t complain, except he recognized that smile. He"d invented it, after all.
Lori was upset. No one else had noticed. He couldn"t miss it.
The trip to base should have offered her closure, saved her from being hurt when he left so he could shake loose the unrest d.o.g.g.i.ng his heels. Instead he"d done the very thing he"d sworn never to do. He"d started an ulcer gnawing in her stomach just like the one his father had given his mother.
Gray had flown countless incident-free flights. Not today, not when he"d really needed to. A d.a.m.ned popped seal had blown his whole plan, and now he needed to fix it.
For two open, honest people, they"d danced around the real issue long enough, and time was running out. "Lori? Did you hear me?"
She spun to face him as the door swung open behind her. "Okay, fine. Let"s talk."
The tight pinch to her full mouth told him clearly he wouldn"t get anywhere with her tonight. No need to step straight onto the land mine. He would have his hands full dodging the less obvious ones. "Not now. Not while we"re both wired. Not with Magda around."
And not with the moonlight caressing Lori"s fragile jaw and glinting off golden streaks in her hair, hair he wanted to bury his face in while he buried himself in her. The open door taunted him with an invitation to Lori"s room and peach-scented sheets. "Definitely not here."
"Well, Major Clark, that pretty much rules out all the options because I have a child to put to bed."
The marshy wind toyed with her hair, gusting strands over him. Options dwindled until he finally settled on the one place guaranteed to douse romantic thoughts. "My folks are having my brother, sister and their families over tomorrow for a farewell party."
"I know. Your mother invited me. Twice."
"I should have warned you. Sorry." The more he thought of going to his parents" for the day, the more he warmed to the idea. He would show her a good time, let them end on a positive note. And maybe if she spent more time with his family and saw his parents together at home, she might understand his need to stay away from her. "I want you and Magda to come."
Her brow quirked, Lori-s.p.u.n.k firmly in place and stirring his exhausted body wide awake. She also looked three seconds away from telling him to go pound sand.
Gray plowed over the silence before she could speak. "Come with me for the day. My mom can watch Magda. We"ll talk without distractions."
"Wasn"t today enough for you, Gray? It was for me."
She was giving him his walking papers, a chance to end it here and now. But he couldn"t do it. Wouldn"t do it this way. "We can"t leave it like this. At least at my folks" we can find some time to talk-"
"Won"t your mother think-"
"I"ll take care of my mom. This isn"t about her." He lifted Lori"s hand and held it loosely in his, studying the fragile bones with an odd sort of objectivity. He knew the names of every bone in that hand. Just regular bones. But infused with Lori"s vibrancy, they were beautiful, unique. "We have to talk."
Bells chimed eleven times-or was it twelve-while he waited, already lining up his next argument. Gray shifted Magda more securely on his shoulder, arm hooked under her bottom.
Head bowed, Lori stared down at their clasped hands. "I guess if the king of keep-it-simple wants chitchat, it must be pretty bad." She tugged her hand free and pressed it to her stomach. "We tried so hard to avoid this."
"Too much like last summer."
"But worse."
"Worse?"
Her mouth twitched with a reluctant smile. "We didn"t even get to have s.e.x."
Her words punched him square in the libido, and he could only laugh. His body hurt like h.e.l.l from the rapid decompression. His head wasn"t much better off, and still he ached for her. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into Lori"s big bed and sleep tangled together.
Instead he laughed at himself and the colossal mess he"d made of his attempt to forget her. Lori joined him until she sagged against the balcony rail, swiping her wrist over her eyes.
He took her hand again and wouldn"t let her pull free this time, instead tugging her to him. Her tear-filled eyes met his, stealing the breath from his lungs more effectively than any rapid decompression.
"Oh, G.o.d, don"t cry, honey. Everybody"s fine. No one got hurt today." He brushed his thumb along her cheek, absorbing a lone tear.
"That"s not why I"m crying."
"I"m not worth it."
Her chin tipped up. "I know that."
"Of course you do."