A Dangerous Leap

by Sharon Calvin

  “Eighty, eighty-one, no, it’s nothing, eighty-two, like that. Eighty-three, he flushed out of swim school, eighty-four, eighty-five, and he can’t believe I did it. Eighty-six, eighty-seven, he eighty-eight, thinks I screwed my way through, eighty-nine, ninety.”

  She laughed as she completed three more sit-ups. Before Ian, it wouldn’t have occurred to her that any guy would think sexual favors from her would net her anything. Now she wasn’t so sure. “One hundred. Help me up.” She held her hand up and Tank easily hoisted her off the floor.

  She scrubbed a towel over her sweat-soaked face.

  “So Ms. Hotshot RS, care to make a friendly little wager?”

  Kelly looked over her shoulder at Joe’s anything but friendly voice. He stood a couple of feet behind her with hands on his hips and a smirk on his face.

  Chapter Seven

  “Take a hike Peterson,” Tank growled.

  “You her bodyguard now? A hundred bucks says I can do more push-ups than she can.”

  Kelly groaned as a few guys perked up at the mention of a wager. They began drifting closer to check out the action.

  Tank’s booming laugh brought more attention and Kelly knew what he was about to say. In Alaska he’d won money off unsuspecting Coasties doing this very thing—after he’d lost to her himself.

  “Why not make it a real challenge, double or nothing—”

  “Make her do pull-ups instead,” a fellow rescue swimmer suggested. He gave her a wink. Apparently, he’d already heard about her forte.

  “Jeez, Rip, I don’t know, then she’d have to pull her whole body up. In a push-up she gets to support herself on the floor,” Tank said with a fake frown. He gave her a condescending smile and a pat on the head. “She is a girl after all.”

  Oh, man, she’d get him for that one later.

  Joe smiled, looking like he’d already won. “Okay, two hundred bucks says I can do more pull-ups than she can.”

  In short order they had the whole gym lining up to bet and keep count. Kelly wasn’t surprised that most of the guys bet against her, but was happy to note her fellow rescue swimmers backed her, even if a few looked resigned to losing.

  En masse, the group moved to the elevated bars. Kelly allowed Tank to lift her, though she was perfectly capable of jumping up to grab the bar herself. She silently thanked her father for introducing her to the joy of exercise. At first she’d only done it to please him, but then she’d discovered how much it improved her swimming and she’d been hooked for life.

  Ignoring the rapid pace Joe set, she stuck to her normal repetitions. If push came to shove, she knew she could do fifty. The way Joe was going, he’d be lucky to make it to twenty.

  By the time Kelly hit ten pull-ups, Joe’s harsh breathing told her everything she needed to know. His count, now slower than hers, was at twelve. The other swimmers had joined Tank’s counting while Joe’s backers were calling out encouragement and suggestions.

  Loud chanting for her soon drowned out Joe’s followers. “Thir-teen, four-teen, fif-teen, six-teen.”

  Tank’s voice bellowed, “Hold it Shark-bait, Joe hasn’t completed fourteen. Do you concede, Peterson?”

  Kelly twisted her head around so she could see Joe. His face was almost purple as he kicked his legs out in an effort to “push” his body up. In an actual physical, that wouldn’t count even if he managed to get his chin above the bar. As it was, it didn’t get there anyway. He continued to hang before he finally let go and dropped to the gym floor.

  If Tank hadn’t grabbed him, he would have collapsed. Kelly immediately released her hold on the bar. By winning, had she just made things worse for herself? Engulfed by her supporters, Tank hoisted her to his shoulder and paraded her around the gym in a victory lap. Joe was bent over while someone talked to him.

  Kelly tried to get away from her new admirers, but by the time she received her last clap on the back and broke free, she couldn’t find Joe. God, she had made things worse.

  * * *

  Running late once more Kelly tore through her shower and raced out the locker room door, only to literally bounce off Joe in the hallway.

  “Shit, don’t you ever pay attention to where you’re going?” he demanded.

  She ignored his attitude. “Look, I’m sorry—”

  “I’ll have the money to you after payday,” he said cutting her off.

  “I don’t want your money—it was your damn bet, not mine.” Jeez, why were some men so small-minded when it came to competent women?

  She heard footsteps approaching and Joe turned as if heading back into the men’s locker room. “Wait a minute,” she took a step toward his retreating back when he stopped abruptly and spun around, knocking her into the wall with his shoulder. The loud smack of her head hitting the cork notice board reverberated through her like a body slam.

  “You son of a bitch,” Ian roared, hurtling himself at Joe.

  Sliding partway down the wall before she caught her balance, Kelly was vaguely aware of Ian pinning the other man against the wall.

  “Hey, what the hell?”

  Tank’s voice broke through Kelly’s momentary fog and she pushed herself away from the wall and into his steadying arms.

  “Baby-girl, what happened? Razz, don’t kill the guy just yet,” Tank added dryly.

  Kelly grabbed Ian’s arm where he had it wedged against Joe’s throat. “Let him go, he didn’t do anything. It was just an accident.” Tugging on his arm was like trying to uproot an oak. Dammit, she didn’t want her private war with Joe becoming public and ruining his friendship with Ian. Those kinds of conflicts never ended well, for anyone.

  “Tank, make him listen,” she said in exasperation.

  Ian released Joe and stepped back. “Don’t you ever touch her like that again. I don’t give a damn whether or not it was an accident. Bottom line, she ended up hurt.”

  Joe bent over with his hands on his knees, coughing and swearing. “Fine, you want…to stick up…for the little…bitch, go right…ahead.” He straightened and glared at all three of them, his face flaming. “While you’re at it, you might want to ask why a married guy’s so concerned about your girlfriend.”

  Kelly thought she’d pop a blood vessel over that little innuendo. She squeezed between Ian and Tank and stood toe-to-toe with Joe, her hands fisted on her hips to keep from hitting him. “You idiot, Tank happens to be a friend of mine, as does his very sweet wife. I’d be real careful about insulting a guy bigger than you. Heck, I should let him stomp you into the ground like a…like a little blond bug.”

  Joe stared at her as if she’d just crawled out from under a rock before a sneer twisted his mouth. Jeez, the guy wasn’t going to give an inch. The idea of having to depend on someone who hated her was more than a little disconcerting. As the hoist operator, he literally held her lifeline on most missions.

  “Blond bug?” Tank repeated and Ian sputtered out a laugh behind her.

  “Not to mention taking on someone bigger than you,” Ian added. He put his arm around her shoulders. “How’s the head? Do I need to take you by the clinic?”

  Kelly frowned. How had her good-mood morning soured so quickly? “No,” she said, probing the back of her head and shrugging out from under his arm.

  “Peterson, I don’t know the ‘why’ of your little tiff with short-stuff here, but I can guarantee you won’t find a more dedicated swimmer in the Coast Guard. That little demo in the gym should clue you in on a very important piece of advice when it comes to dealing with Kelly Bishop. Don’t underestimate her. Pound for pound, inch for inch, she’ll outperform your expectations every damn time.”

  Tank’s praise almost made up for the reference to her height. “Short-stuff? Could you all please dispense with the negative references to my stature?” She eyed all three men, acutely aware of their t
owering height.

  Joe cleared his throat and Kelly swung her gaze back to him. His arms were crossed over his chest. They probably hurt like hell and would only get worse. From his closed expression he obviously wasn’t buying Tank’s endorsement.

  “Look, I didn’t mean to hurt you. Like I said, I’ll have the money to you after payday.”

  Kelly rolled her eyes. The man was hopeless. “I don’t want your money but if you care to donate it to my favorite charity, I’ll accept with no hard feelings.”

  He nodded curtly. “Fine. You won.” He cast a suspicious look toward Tank. “But I think I was set up.”

  “Hey, I wasn’t the one that suggested the bet. Hell, I didn’t even suggest pull-ups!” Tank sputtered.

  “Sorry guys, I don’t have time for this little discussion. Joe, if you want to donate the money to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, I’d appreciate it, otherwise forget it, I don’t want it.” Any and all money she won from bets went to that charity. Maybe someday mothers wouldn’t have to see their children suffer the way she’d watched her daughter struggle for every breath.

  “All right, I will,” Joe said. He eyed Tank with what looked like grudging acceptance. “So tell me the truth, just how many pull-ups can she do?”

  Tank’s arm settled on her shoulders like a side of beef.

  “Far as I know, her personal best stands at fifty. She earned the CF Foundation a couple thousand in donations that day.”

  Joe’s scowl only deepened at the news.

  Kelly rubbed her arms at the memory. “Yeah, and I had to stand down from duty the next couple days while my muscles recuperated.” She ignored Ian’s curious stare. If she knew him at all, he’d be asking about the significance of her charity donation before the day was over.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else about now?” Ian asked.

  Startled, Kelly looked at her watch. Holy bat poop, she was late for the safety briefing. She began backing up. “Yep, talk to you guys later. Good seeing you, Tank, give Pris a hug from me.”

  She was jogging toward the hangar when the rescue alarm blared. She sprinted the last hundred yards. While not on ready duty, her crew was backup and as such had to be available for call-out as needed.

  She and a pointedly silent Joe assisted the on-call crew in getting out the door, then settled back into their own routines. Kelly, as the new kid on the block, had taken over the more mundane duties, such as delivering safety talks to the newer recruits.

  Twenty minutes later the second ready crew was scrambled to intercept a raft carrying what appeared to be several families making a desperate attempt to enter the United States illegally. Kelly shuddered. She did not look forward to her first alien interdiction assignment. The videos she’d seen broke her heart, especially of the children and babies crammed onto vessels she wouldn’t have trusted to carry her across a creek, let alone ninety miles or more of open ocean.

  Caitlyn’s crew, including Kelly and Joe, were next in line should the alarm sound. Despite a double dose of ibuprofen, by fourteen hundred Kelly’s head pounded with each heartbeat and sported a knot the size of a walnut. For once in her life she hoped they didn’t get a Search and Rescue call.

  Kelly was busy packing parachutes used for deploying dewatering pumps to ships from the air when the SAR alarm sounded. She knew it was going to be a rough one when Ian climbed into the helicopter—any time a call-out required two medical personnel, it wasn’t a typical mission.

  “What’s up?” she asked him as soon as he had his helmet mic plugged in.

  He surprised her with a grin. “How many babies have you delivered?”

  Kelly’s stomach dropped and it had nothing to do with Caitlyn’s take-off. “N-none,” she said through stiff lips. The closest she came was coaching her college roommate’s delivery. But once the situation deteriorated, a nurse had hustled her out of the delivery room stat.

  “I saw all the films in my basic EMT training class, but there wasn’t much call for it in Alaska—not many pregnant women go out on fishing vessels,” she said in a vain attempt at humor.

  Her expression must have been grim because Ian gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Well this is your lucky day. We’ve got a young lady in advanced labor. She’s Cuban and currently on one of our ships.”

  “One of the interdiction calls?”

  Ian nodded, his expression sobering. Kelly glanced at the gray-green water flashing by beneath the Jayhawk. What were the chances the woman had received quality prenatal care? She looked back at Ian, trying to remember facts she learned ages ago. “Is it full term? Any history of hypertension? Is this her first birth—”

  “Hey, slow down,” he said shaking his head. “I don’t know much other than the current crew didn’t want the responsibility of delivering a baby. She’s apparently been in labor for some time but kept quiet about it for fear she’d be sent back to Cuba.”

  Yeah, well she could relate to that sentiment. If she were pregnant and trying to sneak into the country illegally, she’d suffer in silence as well—she’d want her baby born in America no matter what the cost would be to herself.

  “Don’t look so worried. I’ve delivered more than my share of babies and my Spanish is pretty good,” he added.

  Kelly’s stomach did an end-over and her eyes widened. God, she hadn’t even thought about language issues. She didn’t think the words she knew in Spanish would help one bit. “You take the lead then, I’ll just do whatever you tell me to do.”

  She ignored Joe’s mumbled, “Yeah, right,” and sat on her hands to hide their shaking from Ian. Her mind busied itself with everything that could go wrong with a delivery and what needed to be done to save the baby or mother. Umbilical cord wrapped around the infant’s neck cutting off oxygen to the baby’s brain. Then there was the twin horror of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia. If the baby was premature, there could be breathing issues, an underdeveloped heart, and God knew what other kinds of birth defects that required a real hospital with real doctors and nurses.

  How could they possibly deal with any of those scenarios in the middle of the Gulf? Sweat pooled under her flight suit despite the wind whipping in through the open doorway.

  “Stop it.” Ian’s voice broke through the montage of bloody images recalled from her training videos. She jerked up her head.

  “You’re imagining all the bad stuff. Don’t.” He rested his hand on the back of her neck and gently massaged the tight muscles that were fueling her bigger-than-a-carrier headache. “Relax. You’ll do fine.”

  Looking into his confident blue eyes she could almost believe him. She sucked fresh air into her lungs and tried to smile back. It felt more like a grimace.

  Caitlyn’s voice came over the COM line, giving them their ETA to the ship and Ian requested a conference with the captain. Kelly concentrated on the gentle squeeze and release of his fingers on her neck and the warmth that seeped into her shoulders.

  She could do this—hell, she didn’t really have any choice. Ian would need help and she was the only one qualified. All she had to do was what she was told—how difficult could that be? She closed her eyes. A million and one answers came to mind.

  Twenty minutes later she helped Joe maneuver the Stokes litter into the Jayhawk, repeating to herself that she could do it, like a New Age mantra. The frantic screams of the teenaged mother-to-be didn’t help her nerves one bit. Ian seemed perfectly in control, even relaxed.

  He spoke with authority and a gentleness that soon had their patient keening softly and replying to his questions in between contractions. From what Kelly heard, his Spanish was better than “pretty good.” And, unless he threw in some colorful expletives, was way beyond her comprehension.

  “They’re going to send her husband up. I think it will help calm her,” Ian said to Kelly and Joe.

  While Ian sett
led the woman into the rear of the helo, Kelly helped Joe deploy the rescue basket. The young man they hoisted up looked as young and frightened as his wife. “Muchas gracias,” the man said as he scrambled out of the basket and to his wife’s side. Ian directed him to sit behind her, supporting her back against his chest, his arms encircling her. The young man’s love and concern was obvious in the soft words and gentle, almost reverent, way he touched her.

  Kelly’s eyes burned and she took longer than necessary to stow the rescue gear. Now that she’d seen Ian with his nephews, it didn’t take a lot of imagination to see him acting the same way with his wife and baby. Unfortunately, she couldn’t see herself in the receiving role—no matter how much she might wish for it to be so.

  Some things just weren’t meant to be.

  Kelly blinked rapidly to clear her vision and looked up into Joe’s hard-eyed stare.

  * * *

  Joe turned away from Kelly and yanked the Jayhawk’s side door closed. His deltoids protested loudly with the effort. Hell, he could thank Kelly for that little bit of humiliation while he was at it.

  The mama-to-be let out another scream and Joe winced. He glanced over at what was beginning to look like a delivery room. Damned if Ian wasn’t smiling like this was the coolest thing to be doing at 5,000 feet over the ocean. The next scream made Joe’s stomach bottom out like when Caitlyn hit an air pocket and the helo dropped unexpectedly. He hastily turned away from all the action, afraid of seeing something he barely wanted to acknowledge was happening.

  Hell, he’d been working search and rescue missions for damn near ten years. Dismemberment, blood and drowning he could take. But the smell of burnt flesh turned his stomach every time and now, now it looked like babies being born affected him damn near the same way.

  To keep his mind off what Ian was doing, he turned his attention to Kelly. And frowned. Instead of Control Bitch, he saw a very efficient but highly affected assistant helping Ian. Kelly’s face had lost all color and she kept her eyes trained on Ian, avoiding any stray looks at their patient.