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Chapter 13

“What do you mean missing?” Lindy asked. “Rush couldn’t have just disappeared.” It astonished her how calm she felt, how controlled, as though they were discussing something as mundane as the tide tables or what to fix for dinner.

“Lindy, I think you should prepare yourself for the worst.”

“That would be silly,” she said, turning back to the little boy she’d been talking to and purposely ignoring her brother. “Rush is fine. I know he is. There’s been some screwup and he’s going to be furious when he learns the way the navy has everyone so worried about him.”

“Lindy….” Steve hesitated, and his brow creased in thick folds of concern and regret. “I hope to God you’re right.”

“Of course I am.”

Steve left her then and Lindy sank into an empty chair. Her hands shook so badly that she clenched them together in her lap, her long nails cutting crescents of pain into her palms. Soon her arms were shaking, then her legs, until her whole body felt as if it were consumed by uncontrollable spasms.

Susan took the chair beside Lindy and wrapped her own sweater around Lindy’s shoulders. Susan held it there until some of the intense cold she was experiencing seeped away and a steady warmth invaded her limbs.

Lindy tried to smile, failed, and whispered one word. “Jeff?”

“He’s fine.”

Lindy nodded once. “Good.”

“They’ll find him, Lindy,” Susan said, her voice thick with conviction, although she was struggling with her own fears. “I know they will. Jeff won’t let anyone rest until they do.”

“I know.” Lindy remembered how Susan had once told her that she didn’t worry so much about Jeff at sea because she always knew Rush would be there to watch out for her husband. The truth of what Susan was telling her now was the only slender thread Lindy had to hang on to. Jeff would turn hell upside down until he learned what had happened to Rush.

Soon the other wives joined Lindy, scooting their chairs and forming a protective circle around her. No one did much talking. No one tried to build her up with false hopes. No one suggested she try to eat or get some sleep. Or leave.

That night cots were brought into the information center for those who wished to stay. Lindy insisted the other wives go back to their families, but each one in turn refused. They were special sisters, bonded together in ways that were thicker than blood.

“No one’s leaving until we find out what happened to Rush,” Susan said, speaking for them all.

The others managed to sleep that night in the cots provided. Lindy tried, but couldn’t. Every time she closed her eyes that same terrible scene flashed through her mind, and she was convinced she could hear Rush cry out in torment. As the hours slowly, methodically ticked away, Lindy sat and stared into space. In the darkest part of the night, surrounded by silence, she tried to prepare herself to accept Rush’s death, but every time she entertained the notion, such piercing pain stabbed through her that she shoved the thought from her mind. This interminable waiting was the worst nightmare of her life.

Food was brought in the following morning and the others ate, but Lindy knew it would be impossible for her to hold anything down.

Susan handed her a glass of orange juice. “You didn’t eat anything yesterday. Try this,” she said softly, insistently. “You’re going to need your strength.”

Lindy wanted to argue with her friend but hadn’t the fortitude. “Okay.”

Another eternity passed, a lifetime—hours that felt like years, minutes that dragged like weeks, seconds that could have been days. And still they waited.

“He’s dead,” Lindy sobbed to the others late that afternoon, although just saying the words aloud nearly crippled her. “I know it. I can feel it in my heart. He’s gone.”

“You don’t know it,” Susan argued, and her own eyes shone brightly with unshed tears. Her hands trembled and she laced her fingers together as though offering a silent prayer.

“Don’t even say it,” Sissy cried, her face streaked with moisture.

Joanna gripped Lindy’s fingers with her own and knelt in front of her, her gaze holding Lindy’s. “He’s alive until we know otherwise. Hold tight to that, Lindy. It’s all we’ve got.”

Lindy nodded, her eyes so blurred with tears that when she looked up to find her brother standing over her, she couldn’t read his expression. A powerful magnetic force drove her to her feet.

“Tell me,” she whispered urgently. “Tell me.”

“He’s alive.”

Lindy didn’t hear anything more than that before she broke down and started to weep, covering her face with her hands, her shoulders heaving with the depth of her relief. But these tears were ones of joy. A sheer release from the endless unknown. She tossed her arms around her brother’s neck and he gripped her waist and swung her around. Susan and the others were jumping up and down, hugging each other, laughing and crying as well.

When everyone had settled back down, Steve gave them the rest of the information. “They found Rush buried under a pile of rubble; he’s lost a lot of blood and in addition to internal injuries, his arm has been severely cut. He’s being flown to Tripler Army Hospital in Hawaii for microsurgery. Apparently the nerves in his left arm were severed. He’s unconscious, but alive.”

“I’m going to him,” Lindy said with raw determination, as though she expected an argument. Nothing would stop her. She wouldn’t believe Rush was going to live until she saw him herself. Touched him. Kissed him. Loved him.

Steve nodded. “I already made arrangements for you to fly out today.”

* * *

A pumpkin and a picture of a witch decorating the wall across the room from him were the first things Rush noticed when he opened his eyes. His mouth was as dry as Arizona in August and his head throbbed unmercifully. A hospital, he determined, but he hadn’t any idea where.

Carefully and with a great deal of effort, he rolled his head to one side and stared at the raised rail of the bed. He blinked, sure he was imagining the vision that was before him.

“Lindy?”

The apparition didn’t move. Her fingers were gripping the steel railing and her forehead was pressed against the back of her hands. She looked as though she were sleeping.

Rush tried to reach out and touch her, gently wake her, but he couldn’t lift his arm. Even the effort sent a sharp shooting pain through his shoulder. He must have groaned because Lindy jerked her head up, her eyes wide with concern. When she saw he was awake, she sighed and grinned. Rush swore he’d never seen a more beautiful smile in his life. The pain that stabbed through him with every breath was gone. The ache in his head vanished as the look in his wife’s eyes immersed him in an unspeakable joy that transcended everything else.

“You’re real,” he murmured. He refused to believe that she was a figment of his imagination. His head remained fuzzy and his vision blurred, but Lindy was real. He’d stake his life on that.

She nodded and her hand brushed lightly over his face, lovingly caressing his jaw. “And you’re alive. Oh, Rush, I nearly lost you.”

She bit into her bottom lip and Rush knew she was struggling not to cry. He wished he could have spared her all worry and doubt.

“Where am I…? How long?”

“You’re in a hospital in Hawaii. Two days now.”

He frowned. “That long?” Now that his eyesight was clearing, he could see the dark smudges under Lindy’s eyes. She was as pale as death, as though recovering from a bad bout of flu. And much thinner than he remembered. Too thin. “You look terrible.”

She laughed, and the sweet, lilting sound wrapped itself around his heart, squeezing emotion from him. Dear God, he loved Lindy. So much of the accident remained clouded in his mind. All he could remember was hearing a horrendous noise and seeing a ball of fire come hurling toward him. Everything had happened so fast that there had barely been time to do anything more than react. All he knew was that he didn’t want to die. He wanted to go home to Lindy. His Lindy. His love.

The next thing he remembered was pain. Terrible pain. More acute than anything he’d ever experienced. He knew he was close to dying, knew he might not make it, and still all he could think about was Lindy. Dying would have stopped the agony; slipping into the dark swirling void of death would have been welcome if only it would end the torment, but Rush chose the pain because he knew it would lead him back to Lindy.

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” she asked, her lips twitching with a teasing smile. “You’re not exactly ready to be cast as Prince Charming yourself.”

“You’ve been sick?” he pressed, his tongue faltering over the words. It was a struggle to keep awake, the pull back to unconsciousness greater with each second.

“No, just worried. It took them nearly forty hours to find you after the accident and until then you were listed as missing.”

“Oh God, Lindy, I’m…sorry.”

“I’m fine now that I know you’re going to be all right.” Again her fingers touched his face, smoothing the hair from his brow, lingering as though she needed the reassurance that he was real.

“How many…dead?”

“Seven. Three on the flight deck and four on the bridge.”

Rush’s jaw tightened. “Who?”

Lindy recited the names and each one fell upon his chest like a boulder dropped from the ceiling. “…good men,” he said after a moment, and was shocked at how fragile his voice sounded.

“More than twenty suffered serious injuries.”

Rush felt himself drifting off; he resisted, but the pull of the tide was too powerful for him to fight. “How bad…”

“The burn victims are the worst.”

He nodded and that was the last he remembered.

When he woke again the room was pitch-dark. He felt a straw at his mouth and he sucked greedily. “What time is it?”

“Two a.m.”

“Lindy, is that you?”

“Do you need something for the pain?”

He shook his head. “No.” Her fingers curled around his own and he held on to her, savoring her touch. He slept again.

* * *

Lindy sat in a chair at her husband’s side. She’d tried to sleep countless times, but the rest her body craved continued to elude her. Just as she’d start to drift off, the horror of those two days of not knowing if Rush was dead or alive returned and snapped her awake. She’d come so close to losing him. Seven men had died. Honorable men. And Rush had come a hairsbreadth from making the count eight. The men who had died were husbands, fathers, lovers—and now they were gone.

Standing, she walked over to the window. Palm trees swayed in the late afternoon breeze. The sun shone and the ocean lapped relentlessly against the white, sandy beach. The flawless beauty of the scene should have soothed her troubled spirit, but it didn’t. Instead she felt a cold hard feeling settle in her lungs. It spread out, making her breathing labored and causing her throat to ache. Those men had died, and for what? Lindy had no answers, and every time she closed her eyes the questions started to pound at her, demanding answers when she had none.

“Lindy?”

She took a minute to compose herself, pasted a smile on her face and turned around. “So Sleeping Ugly is finally awake. How are you feeling?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Concern moved her to his bedside. “Should I get the nurse? She said if you needed something for pain, I could…”

“I’m doing okay.” His brows folded into a tight frown as he looked up at her. “You’re still looking like death warmed over.”

She forced a cheery laugh and decided to put her makeup on with a heavier hand before her next visit. “That’s a fine thing to say to me!”

“When was the last time you had a decent meal?”

She opened her mouth to tell him, but paused when she realized she didn’t know herself. “I’m fine, Rush. You’re the patient here, not me.”

He looked for a minute as if he were going to argue with her, but he didn’t. “If you’re not hungry, I am.”

“I’ll see what I can scrounge up.”

She returned a few minutes later, carrying a tray. But it was soon apparent that Rush had no appetite and had used the excuse of hunger as a ploy to get her to sample something.

* * *

Three days passed. Rush grew stronger with each one, and Lindy grew paler and thinner. She still couldn’t sleep—not more than an hour at a stretch.

A week after Rush arrived in Hawaii, Lindy strolled into his hospital room to discover her husband sitting up for the first time. His left arm was in a cast and hung in a sling over his chest. The swelling in his face had gone down considerably, and he looked almost like his old handsome self once more. Lindy paused and smiled, perhaps her first genuine one since she’d arrived in this tropical paradise.

“You’re looking fit.”

“Come here, wife,” he said holding out his one good arm to her. “I’m tired of those skimpy pecks on the cheek you’ve been giving me. I’m starved for you.”

Lindy walked across the room like a woman who’d been wandering in the desert and been offered a glass of water. Once Rush had his arm around her, his mouth claiming hers, she felt whole again. He smelled incredibly good and tasted of peppermint.

The fears and doubts that had been hounding her all week dissolved in the warmth of his hold. When he lifted his head and smiled, Lindy felt weak and breathless in his embrace.

“Lindy, dear God, I’ve nearly died, I’ve wanted to hold you so much.”

Angry, selfish thoughts flooded her mind, and she clamped her mouth shut. He’d nearly died, yes, but it was from a terrible plane crash and explosion that didn’t have anything to do with her. But when Rush directed her mouth to his, she was engulfed in his kiss, lost and drowning. Nothing else mattered. As his lips closed over hers, demanding and hungry, he reclaimed everything that had once been his: her heart, her body, her soul. There was nothing left inside her to protest. He owned her so completely, so unquestionably, that she hadn’t the will to say or do anything. All she could do was submit.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him, giving him her tongue when he sought it, taking his when it was offered. Their need for each other was urgent. Fierce. Savage, yet tender. Nothing else in the world made sense except this. Only the driving need Lindy felt to be a part of Rush.

Moisture appeared in the corners of her eyes and Rush sipped away her tears. He kissed her eyes, her forehead, her cheeks, her lips, and nuzzled tenderly at her neck while his fingers tunneled through her dark hair.

“Lindy,” he breathed. “My love, my own sweet love.” His long fingers brushed the wisps of bangs from her face and wiped away the last trace of tears, as though she was the most precious thing he had ever touched.

“I talked to the doctor this morning,” he whispered. “I’m going to be released at the end of the week.”

Lindy’s tender heart swelled with unrestrained joy.

“We have one night, love, just one night before I fly back to the Mitchell.”

For one frenzied moment, Lindy was sure she’d heard him incorrectly. Going back? He couldn’t possibly be returning to the Persian Gulf after what had happened.

“No.” She freed herself from his grip and took a step back. “You can’t go back!”

“Honey, I have to. It’s my job.”

“But…”

“What did you expect me to do?”

Lindy wasn’t sure what she’d assumed would happen. Anything but having him return to the same nightmare.

“Honey, listen. We’ve only got six weeks of the cruise left. Hell, for all I know we could even be headed back sooner than that, depending on the amount of damage we sustained. Six weeks isn’t such a long time. I’ll be home before you know it.”

Somehow Lindy managed to nod. They had precious time left, and the thought of spending these last days together arguing was intolerable. After all, there wasn’t much she could say. She’d thought—or at least hoped—he’d be coming home with her now. She needed him sleeping at her side to chase away the demons and dissolve the horror from her mind.

Rush may want to make love to her, Lindy realized, but he wanted to get back to his ship more. She’d noted that when he started talking about the Mitchell his eyes had seemed to spark with new life. He didn’t like lying around the hospital; she would have been surprised if he had. Rush longed to go back to his ship, back to his men. He wanted to leave her behind, safely tucked away in a Seattle apartment while he was gallivanting all over the world, risking his life. Risking her peace of mind. Risking their happiness.

“I hope that hotel room of yours has a double bed,” Rush said, smiling up at her.

“It does,” she assured him, averting her gaze to the scene outside the window.

* * *

Something was wrong with Lindy. Rush knew it, felt it every time she walked in the room. She looked a little better—at least he knew she was eating regularly. Some color had returned to her pale cheeks when they’d walked in the sunshine.

Rush tried to draw her out, tried to get her to tell him what was troubling her, but she held it all inside and he didn’t press her. He would be leaving the hospital early that afternoon and leaving Lindy first thing in the morning. She’d been through a great deal and so had he. If what was bothering her was important, she’d say something to him.

The petite blond nurse who had been assigned his room strolled in, holding a small white cup and a glass of water. She was young and pretty, the kind of woman who might have attracted his attention before he met Lindy. Now he only had eyes for his wife and barely gave the woman more than a second glance.

“Pill time,” she announced cheerfully.

Rush grumbled and held out his hand. The blue-eyed nurse waited while he took the two capsules and swallowed down a glass of water.

“Where’s your wife this afternoon?”

“She’ll be by later,” Rush explained. He was surprised Lindy wasn’t there all ready. Lindy was as keen as he was to get out of this sterile environment, but he was far more eager to get his wife into bed. One damn night was all they had. He wished to hell it could be more. It seemed their entire married life had been crammed into three all-too-short nights.

“I hear you’re leaving us.”

He nodded. He didn’t like the antiseptic smell here, and he swore the food must taste better in prison. It had been torture to be this close to the ocean, to smell the clean tangy scent of it and be prohibited from doing anything more than gaze at the blue waters. He was anxious to get back to the Mitchell. He felt a lot like someone who had fallen off a horse and needed to climb right back on again. He’d been mentally shaken by the accident, his courage tested. He needed to set foot on the bridge, look down on that flight deck and know he was in control once more.

“I don’t know when I’ve seen a woman more in love with her husband. Or more worried,” the pretty blond nurse went on to say. “When your wife first arrived, I thought we were going to have to admit her. I swear she was as pale as bleached flour. I suppose you know she wouldn’t leave your side. For three days, she didn’t move. The doctors tried repeatedly to assure her you were going to be all right, but she wouldn’t believe it. Not until you woke, and even then she refused to go.”

Rush rested his head against the thin pillow and held in a sigh until his chest ached with the effort. He’d known that every time he woke Lindy had been with him, but he hadn’t realized she’d spent every minute at his side.

“I hope you appreciate that woman,” the nurse continued.

“I do,” Rush countered. Tonight he’d show Lindy just how much.

* * *

Lindy was determined that this one night with Rush would be as perfect as she could make it. She planned to blot out all her doubts and grab hold of what happiness she could before Rush returned to the Persian Gulf. She yearned to encapsulate these last hours together and hold them in her memory until he returned safely to her in December.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, once they were inside her hotel room.

“A little weak,” Rush admitted reluctantly. “But I’m getting stronger every day.”

She helped him into a chair. It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest he wait a few more days before flying across the world and rejoining his ship, but she knew it would be useless. She knew Rush. She’d seen that hard look of determination he wore more than once. He wouldn’t listen to her.

“I thought we’d order dinner from room service,” she said, standing awkwardly in the middle of the floor.

He nodded. “Good idea.” He hesitated and gave her a look that was almost shy. “I have another good idea, too. Come to me, Lindy. I need you.”

She couldn’t have refused him had her life depended on it. He stood, reached for her hand and walked her to the bed. He kissed her once, hard, his tongue delving into her mouth, stroking hers. His right hand was fumbling with the buttons of her blouse, but the left one was incapable of giving much assistance. With their mouths still linked, Lindy brushed his hand aside and helped him. When she was finished with her own, she freed his uniform shirt from his waistband and unbuttoned it for him.

“Thanks,” Rush breathed hoarsely, when she’d finished the task. Lindy paused, biting her lip as she ran her hand over the dark-furred chest. The muscles of his abdomen felt hard and sleek, the curling hairs wispy against the tips of her fingers.

“I want you like hell,” he groaned.

Lindy let her eyes fall and released a short, delicate chuckle. “I can tell.” His free hand cupped her breast and her nipple blossomed and grew incredibly hard. “I want you, too.”

He flicked his thumb over the rose tip of her breast and she moaned.

“I can tell,” he repeated thickly.

They finished undressing each other with trembling hands. Lindy helped Rush with the parts he couldn’t manage, and he helped her the best he could. Soon they were lying on the mattress, their bodies on fire for each other.

When he moved on top of her, Lindy smiled up at him, craving the fiery release his body would give her. Still trembling, she closed her eyes and gave herself over to this experience. She allowed herself to be swallowed up in his tenderness, and when he entered her, her body answered in perfect counterpoint to his. Rush’s touch, his lovemaking, was a balm, a healing potion for all they had suffered. Tears wet her face and his lips found them. Intuitively he knew she needed assurances and he gave them to her with the ebb and flow of his body into her own. No matter what the future held, he seemed to be telling her, no matter what happened in the next six weeks, they would have this night to hold on to and to remember.

They made love again after dinner, and he held and kissed her long after midnight. While Rush soundly slept, Lindy climbed out of bed and cuddled up in the chair across from him.

She’d tried so hard to put the fear behind her, but she couldn’t. A hundred times in the past week, she’d hungered to tell him how she’d nearly gone crazy with worry, and she hadn’t said a word. She wanted to explain how every time she closed her eyes the same freakish nightmare haunted her sleep. But again and again she’d held her tongue, gliding over what was important for fear of shattering the peace of these past days together.

In a few hours Rush would return to his ship and she would go back to Seattle. She’d been wrong not to tell Rush what she was feeling, wrong to allow him to assume she could go on playing this charade. Steve was right. He had been all along—she wouldn’t make a good navy wife. It wasn’t in her to bid her husband farewell time after time and handle whatever crisis befell them with calm acceptance.

Twice now Lindy had found herself deeply in love, convinced she knew her own heart each time. Confident enough to wear the rings each man had given her. Both times she’d been wrong. She wasn’t the type of woman Rush needed. She wasn’t strong enough to endure months of loneliness and deal with the knowledge that she would always take second place in her husband’s life.

Hot tears scalded her eyes and when she could restrain them no longer, she let them flow freely down her face, no longer willing to hold them back.

Rush raised his head from the pillow, looking disoriented and groggy. He turned and stared at his sobbing wife.

“Lindy,” he breathed her name into the night. “What’s wrong?”

“Do you love me, Rush?”

“Of course I do.” He threw back the sheet and sat on the edge of the bed. “You know I do.”

“If you love me…if you really love me, you’ll understand….” She paused.

Rush moved off the bed, knelt down in front of her and took her two hands in his one. “Understand what, honey?”

“I want you to get out of the navy.”

He tossed his head back as if she’d slapped him. “Lindy, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I do know. I know you love it. I know you’ve always loved being on the sea. But there are other jobs, other ways…. I can’t bear this, Rush, not knowing from one day to the next if you’re going to be dead or alive. Let some other man put his life on the line. Someone without a wife. Anyone but you.”

“Lindy—oh love.” He pressed his forehead on her bent knee and seemed to be pulling his thoughts together. When he raised his head, his eyes were hard. “The navy is my life. It’s where I belong. I can’t walk away from a fifteen-year commitment because you’re afraid I’m going to be injured again.”

Lindy felt as though her heart were crumbling, the emotional agony was so intense. She pulled her hands free of his grasp and stiffened. “Then you leave me no choice.”