“Well… does it matter what I think?”
“Yes.”
He was struggling to be fair. Dana could see it in every line of his face. That terrible pain and grief he carried inside him was eating him alive. Softly, she answered, “I know I can fly, Lieutenant. I never expected my body to rebel on me. Airsickness didn’t exist in my vocabulary.” She opened her hands toward him. “I feel Dr. Collins is right: Let me fly often. I’m sure I’ll adjust.”
Griff stood tensely, Dana’s husky voice washing over him like warm waves of water after a freezing night. There was such a powerful, invisible attraction between them. For a split second, he almost asked her personal questions. Where did she come from? What kind of life experiences had molded her into the person who stood before him? Griff found himself hungry to explore Dana on a private level. She fed him something he desperately needed: a feeling of peace and serenity. When her lips parted, he drew in a ragged breath and turned away. He walked to his desk and sat down. “This is going to put me on the line, Coulter. I’ve got my hands full with two new students, plus you. I’ll have to squeeze in those extra flights on a catch-as-catch-can basis.”
“You tell me when you want to fly, and I’ll be there.”
“It won’t be the same time every day.”
“That’s all right.”
He saw the resolve in Dana’s eyes and in the set of that full, ripe mouth—a mouth he wanted to explore intimately; to kiss, to feel the texture of. Jangled at his inability to keep Dana at arm’s length as he did every other student passing through his life, he growled, “Be at the ready room at 0700 tomorrow morning.”
Her smile conveyed her hope and thanks. “Yes, sir.”
***
Dana was given orders to leave her aeronautics class fifteen minutes early in order to catch another flight with Griff. It was Friday afternoon, and she eagerly left to reach the lockers in the ready room. The last two days had been a miracle of sorts. On Wednesday she’d pulled a 2.0 and was airsick only twice. Yesterday Griff had awarded her a 2.1, and she’d been ill only once. Everything was improving.
Or was it? Dana slowed her walk as she entered the ready-room building. She had to hurry and change into her one-piece flight uniform, grab her helmet bag and hurry out to where Griff was waiting for her by his trainer. The past two days he’d been moody and snappish, giving her instructions only when necessary. Dana knew she was rapidly improving on her landings. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t been “screaming” at her. Still, the pain lingered in his eyes.
On the tarmac, Griff nodded to her as she came up to him. “We’re going to do touch and go’s over at Pensacola,” he told her abruptly.
Eager to prove she could handle the denser traffic situation at Pensacola, Dana nodded. “How long can we fly?”
“Two hours.”
“Great!” She flashed him a smile and began the walk-around.
Moodily, Griff watched Dana. Everything about her was confident and sure. Going over to Pensacola wasn’t “great” in his opinion. It scared him to death. But it was part of the curriculum to use Pensacola’s busy flight pattern to get the Whiting students used to heavy air-traffic situations. Normally, Griff wasn’t ever nervous, but today he was. He was hoping that since it was Friday afternoon, fewer students would be in the air, with the instructors taking off a few hours early for the forthcoming weekend.
Griff’s plan backfired. As Dana flew the trainer to the Pensacola air station, the pattern was stacked with at least two hundred aircraft circling the huge airport facility. Groaning to himself, he felt sweat pop out on his upper lip. The urge to grab the controls from Dana was very real. Automatically, he began rubbernecking around, checking other aircraft flying in the vicinity. Over the past year, there had been three air collisions and innumerable close calls.
“Stay alert!” he snapped to Dana. “This airspace can kill you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Her voice was calm and steady—unlike his. Toby’s crash kept blipping in front of him. Griff turned off the intercom momentarily, releasing a curse, and then switched it back on.
Tension thrummed through Dana as she entered the busy flight pattern. The headset crackled with constant communications between the airplanes and harried controllers in the tower below. Griff had told her earlier that Pensacola was one of the busiest airports in the U.S. Looking at the hundreds of planes spaced no more than a quarter or half a mile apart, she believed him. Turbulence was constant. Luckily her stomach was responding with only minimal queasiness. Dr. Collins had been right; with more flights, her body was adjusting to flying conditions.
“Lookout!”
Griff’s cry ripped through her headset. Dana saw another plane loom in front of her cockpit windshield. Gasping, she wrenched the trainer to the left to avoid the collision. The controls were ripped from her gloved hands, and she felt the plane being banked in a tight right turn, out of the pattern. Griff was breathing raggedly. So was she.
“I—I’m sorry. I didn’t see it,” Dana whispered shakily.
“I’ve had it! This is the last time, Coulter! You damn well should have seen that aircraft! How in the hell could you miss it? It was coming right at you!”
Shamed, Dana knew he was right. “I—I’m sorry.”
” ‘Sorry’ doesn’t cut it, Coulter! I’m giving you a 1.9 for this flight. There was no excuse for your failure to see that plane!”
A 1.9. She’d be Boarded. Dana bit down hard on her lower lip to stop from protesting. Griff was still breathing raggedly, his normally unemotional voice lined with feeling. Abruptly, Dana remembered that his best friend had died in a similar accident in the flight pattern.
“Give me another chance, Lieutenant.”
“No way! We’re going back to Whiting.”
“I can do it! You can’t tell me you haven’t made mistakes flying. This was my first time in a busy pattern. Let me go back and try it again. Please!”
Sweat stung his eyes. Griff blinked them a couple of times, his hand tight around the stick. He wasn’t even going to allow her to fly the trainer back to Whiting. For the first time in his life, he’d been scared out of his wits. Although he was unafraid to land an F-14 Tomcat fighter on a heaving carrier deck in the worst kind of weather, this incident had struck real fear into him. He was coming apart at the seams; he could feel it. A terrible shaking, quivering feeling filled his gut. Nausea stalked him. Dana’s pleading request only fueled his desperation and anxiety.
“I said no!”
“You think I’m weak, don’t you?”
“All women are!” he roared back.
“I’m not! And there are a lot of other women who aren’t, either!”
Desperate, unable to steady his breathing, Griff grabbed at straws. “I’ll prove it to you, Coulter. Right here and now. Take the controls.”
“I’ve got the controls.”
Reaching over, he shoved the throttle back to idle. “All right, you have an inflight emergency.” He leaned down, holding the manual landing-gear release lever. “You lost all hydraulics, and you’ve got to crank down the landing gear by hand. Do it.” He knew without a doubt that with him holding the lever, Dana would never be able to budge it. He knew it was a rotten trick, but he didn’t care. She was pushing him too hard. He couldn’t go back into that pattern at Pensacola. Not today. Not with a woman. Not even with Dana, who was competent and didn’t deserve this. When she couldn’t get the lever down, it would prove she was weak, and he could wash her out of the school once and for all.
Torn by his conscience, Griff held the lever tightly, feeling her struggling with it. It moved fractionally, but Griff applied brute force.
“Come on, Coulter!” he shouted. “Get the landing gear down! You’re at one thousand feet and falling! Hurry up!”
The bastard! Dana almost said it. She knew without a doubt Griff was holding the lever on purpose. All right, if that’s the game he wanted to play, she’d do it his way. Straightening,
Dana pulled her left foot away from the rudder, bringing it back against her body as far as she could. Carefully, she aimed the heel of her polished black flight boot at the lever alongside the fuselage. With all her strength, she slammed it down on the mechanism. She heard Griff grunt over the headset. The lever popped free! With a cry of triumph, Dana manually lowered the landing gear. When she reached two hundred feet, she pushed the throttle forward and took the trainer back to one thousand feet, vindicated.
Griff cursed, holding his aching hand. He stared down at the bruised flesh around his left index finger. Dammit, it felt as if she’d broken his finger! Angrily, Griff touched it. The pain was too great. Damn her!
“Get this plane down on the ground,” he snarled.
On the ground, Dana waited warily for Griff to grade her. He held the board awkwardly in his left hand, fumbling with the pen. She saw a bruise forming on a couple of his fingers and took satisfaction in the knowledge that he’d paid dearly for trying to trick her.
“You’re getting a 1.9, Ensign.” Griff shoved the board toward her so she could see the grade and sign it off. Her eyes rounded with shock and then fury.
“I don’t deserve a 1.9! I refuse to sign it!” Dana thrust it back at him.
“You screwed up! We nearly got hit by another plane.”
“Well, did it ever occur to you that the other plane might have been at the wrong altitude?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Griff roared back at her. “You should have seen it!”
Breath coming in ragged gulps, Dana marched up to him. “Damn you, Turcotte! Damn you to hell! You’re trying to wash me out when it’s not me you’re really angry with! I know all about your best friend dying at Pensacola with a female student! Don’t you think I can put two and two together? You’re full of grief and loss and anger—and I just happen to be the closest thing in your gunsights to shoot at!” Dana struck her chest with her thumb. “I’m not stupid, Lieutenant. You’re projecting anger over your divorce and the death of your friend on me. It’s not fair! I don’t have it coming!” Her nostrils flared. “And I’ll be damned if I’m going to take this 1.9 lying down. I’ll fight you at the Board of Inquiry. I’ll spill everything. Even Dr. Collins knows what you’re doing! I’ll drag him in on this.”
It hurt to feel. Griff stood, Dana’s hoarse cry, her pain, consuming him. When he saw the tears in her eyes, he backed away. His hand was throbbing and on fire. His heart felt as if it would burst inside him. Spinning on his heel, Griff stalked away, afraid to say anything because he wasn’t sure he could get the words out. A sob lodged in his throat, tightening it, and he tried to gulp it away. It was no use. He owed Dana an apology. He owed her a hell of a lot more than that. She was right, his conscience railed; and he was wrong.
Dana stood alone by the trainer, watching Griff walk quickly back toward the ready room. Tears stung her eyes, then trickled down her cheeks.
“Damn him,” she whispered painfully, turning and retrieving her helmet bag. What would happen now? Would he push through with the 1.9 grade and demand a Board?
***
“Broken index finger,” Dr. Jamison said, pointing to the X ray. He eyed Griff critically. “How’d you say you broke it?”
Griff muttered, “I got my hand jammed around the manual landing-gear release by mistake.” Jamison looked doubtful and scratched his head. Griff was ashamed to tell him the rest of the story.
“Well, it’s going to take a cast.”
With a groan, Griff protested, “A removable one?”
“You want a crooked finger?”
“No, dammit.”
“It’ll be on for six weeks. Maybe five, with good behavior.” Jamison grinned slightly. “Come to the casting room with me, and we’ll take care of it.”
Humiliated, Griff shuffled along behind the small, wiry doctor. It was Friday evening, and sick bay was nearly deserted. Students generally got sick during the week, before critical flights, not before a weekend. He remained silent while Jamison created a cast that went up to his elbow. It was going to be in the way on flights. Angry with himself, not Dana, Griff wanted to escape the base and get out to the beach to think. And feel.
“Don’t get this baby in water, Griff. No showers, just baths.”
“Are you serious?”
“Want to go through this all over again?” Jamison asked, his hands and arms splattered with damp plaster. He quickly wrapped Griff’s fingers and wrist with yards and yards of gauze before applying the wet plaster.
“No, I don’t.”
“Then be a good fighter pilot and take a bath for the next six weeks.”
“I prefer a shower.”
“Of course.” Jamison chuckled. “Pilots like things quick and fast. A bath takes too much time and trouble. You can whip in and out of a shower in about five minutes—just like every other situation in life.”
Griff wasn’t in the mood to appreciate Jamison’s philosophical humor. Right now, all he wanted was to escape to his beach and think. Think about Dana’s accusations—and search his soul for the raw truth and some answers.
***
Needing the security of the ocean, Dana had chosen Strawberry Beach, one place she was sure Griff wouldn’t show up. The Friday-evening tourists lined the white sand, offering little privacy. It didn’t matter. Although many children played in the knee-deep warm water and a few body surfers dove beyond that, no one swam past the breakers where she planned to go. She would have all the privacy in the world. At least she didn’t have to worry about running into Griff here. Dropping her flowery print towel on the sand, Dana shrugged out of her white cotton shorts and gauzy lavender blouse. Her tennis shoes came off with a nudge, and she was ready to swim.
Children’s laughter caught Dana’s attention as she waded into the water. Part of her anxiety dissolved beneath their spontaneous joy as they played tag with one another. Dana halted, unable to remember a happy time like that in her own childhood. Pushing down those memories that could never be changed, Dana sank into the water, beginning a lazy freestyle stroke. The past was gone. She could only change the present.
***
Griff morosely studied Strawberry Beach and the many groups of Friday-evening families. He knew Dana wouldn’t be here. She would avoid the crowds. Not wanting to risk running into her by accident, yet needing the soothing quality of the water to aid his thinking, Griff spread out his small blanket. The cast made it awkward, but he had no one to blame but himself.
Looking toward the beach, Griff sat down. The laughter of children rang around him. They were so innocent and happy, Griff reflected. Dana’s face wavered in front of him, and he sighed heavily, allowing his head to drop forward. Staring down at the red cotton blanket, Griff recalled their last blistering conversation. Dana was right: He was using her as a scapegoat for his inability to cope with his own emotions about his divorce and Toby’s death. He’d caused her to cry. Guilt jabbed sharply at him, and Griff compressed his mouth.
Somehow, he had to stop hurting Dana. She had nothing to do with his problems. He was projecting them on her. Looking down at the cast on his arm, Griff knew he deserved the broken finger. He’d never pulled that kind of stunt on a student. His anger had overridden his sense of fairness. Never had he hurt someone with that kind of intent. Normally Griff prided himself on his sensitivity to others, but Toby’s death had set him into a tailspin, and he’d lost all sense of direction, allowing his dark feelings to rule him.
Rubbing his temple, Griff stared toward the choppy water. The sun would set in another hour. The clouds along the horizon blocked some of the light. Dana’s eyes had turned cobalt with anguish when the tears had formed, he remembered. He’d made her cry. What a rotten bastard he’d turned out to be. Dana was a strong, good person with clear values. She played fair. He hadn’t.
As his gaze perused the filled beach, Griff wanted to find a way to apologize, to get things back on track between them. He laughed abruptly. Whatever gave him the idea Dana woul
d have any interest in him after the way he’d behaved toward her? And yet Griff dwelled on that very thought, that fragile emotion that had stubbornly refused to be destroyed in his heart since meeting her. He wanted to know Dana on a personal basis.
Dana was right: She was nothing like Carol. Repeatedly, Griff had seen her strength and resilience. My God, she was strong, he admitted finally. Lifting his chin, he realized now part of why he was drawn to Dana. She possessed that internal strength he’d always searched for and never found in a woman.
“Great, Turcotte, just great. And you’ve damned near destroyed her because you were so blind,” he whispered, his voice raw with self-disgust. There was nothing to dislike about Dana, Griff finally admitted. She had courage—and she was a damn good flight student. Her ability to learn quickly and not get rattled under tremendous pressure was the mark of a successful Navy-pilot candidate.
Griff’s eyes narrowed against the sun shining brightly across the ocean in front of him. He saw a lone figure just outside the breakers, striking toward shore. Was he seeing things? Griff’s heart picked up in beat at the realization that it was Dana. He’d recognize her long, graceful swimming style anywhere. Unconsciously Griff rose to his feet, flexing his hands against his denim clad thighs. Fate sure knew how to play a hell of a trick. Dana had come to the same beach—probably to avoid him.
Shading his eyes against the sun, he watched as Dana bodysurfed on a small wave, then rose to her feet in the waist-deep water. A smile shadowed Griff’s mouth as he saw Dana lean over and talk to a little blond girl in a bright orange life jacket, who was paddling happily back toward the shoreline.
Griff waited tensely. Fate was offering him a second chance. As soon as Dana came out of the water, he would go over and talk with her. Whether she wanted to or not, she would hear his abject apology. He didn’t hold out hope that she would either believe or accept it. Words were weak compared to actions, and Griff knew he still would have to prove himself to Dana on a daily basis while they flew.
No Quarter Given (SSE 667) Page 10