by Janet Dailey
“It’s a habit. I’ve ma’amed and sirred everybody all my life.” He cupped his hands around the match flame to protect it from the blowing wind and offered the welled light to Eden.
As she bent her head, she noticed the scoured cleanness of his callused hands, the undersides of his blunted nails completely free of grime. Lifting her head, she expelled the smoke she’d dragged into her lungs and the wind whipped it away.
“Sometimes, Bubba”—she watched him light his cigarette—“I think you put on an act with me. All that talk about dirt under your nails and just look at your hands.”
“It’s no act, ma’am. I’m just a poor ole Texas boy,” he insisted with a faint grin.
“See what I mean,” Eden accused.
His hand was curled around the cigarette as he took a drag from it and idly shrugged. “It could be, ma’am, that I’m just a sergeant, and a poor one from the country at that, whereas you’re an officer and a rich city lady.” Behind his smiling study of her, there was a sober light in his eye. “It would be foolish for a man in my position to get ideas. It could spoil a good friendship.”
Eden stared at him for a long second, realizing just how much she trusted this strong, rangy man on whose judgment she relied. The sudden nodding of the fishing pole caught her eye at the same moment that Bubba noticed it.
“Looks like I’ve hooked one.” He grabbed up the rod to begin playing the fish.
It was impossible to remain detached while Bubba struggled to land his catch. She found herself searching the waves, trying to get the first glimpse of the hooked fish. But neither saw what was on the line until he had reeled it in. Eden started laughing when she saw the small-sized fish that had put up such a large-sized fight.
“I’d like to see how you’ll make a meal of that,” she teased.
“Watch,” Bubba replied, and gently removed the hook from the fish’s mouth, then gave the small fry a toss beyond the oncoming wave. “Swim out and tell your big brother how I saved you,” Bubba called to the fish. “Then send him back to bite on my hook.”
“You should have kept it.” Eden chuckled to herself. “It’s liable to be all you’ll catch.”
“Not a chance. That fish is going to send his big brother back. Wait and see,” Bubba assured her with a deadpan expression.
“I think I will,” she declared. She crossed her feet to sink down onto the sand.
“Hey, you can’t sit down there.” He caught her by an elbow and pulled her upright before she could sit. “You’ll ruin those good slacks you’re wearing.” He unzipped his jacket to shrug out of it. “Just a minute. You can sit on this.”
The sincere and chivalrous gesture was so typical of him. “I’m certainly not going to ruin your jacket to save my slacks,” Eden retorted, and she sat firmly down on the sand before he could stop her. “Besides, I have a whole closet full of slacks at home even if I do ruin these.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Subdued by her remark, Bubba sank down onto the beach beside her and made a show out of checking his fishing rod to be sure it was securely positioned. She wondered why it bothered him that she was so careless about her clothes.
Twenty minutes later, there was another strike on his line. This time, when he reeled the sea bass in, it was a big one. “See? What did I tell you? It’s the big brother.” He ran a stringer through its gills.
“Why don’t you throw it back and tell him to send a whale?” Eden suggested.
“‘Cause I figure that little fish has a bunch of big brothers and they’re all gonna show up here sooner or later. So settle back and relax.” He winked broadly. “We’re gonna have us a fish fry tonight. Better start gatherin’ up some driftwood for a fire.”
The sea wind scuttled the smoke from the low-burning fire. The unburned portion of a stick fell onto the hot coals when its support crumbled and the flames briefly leaped anew. The broken trunk of a huge tree cast ashore by the ocean during a fall-cleaning purge acted as a partial windbreak, both for the fire and for the couple leaning against it.
“This sea air sure does give you an appetite, doesn’t it?” Bubba declared on a full sigh as he set the lid of the cooking pot, his improvised plate, onto the sand. Only fish bones were left on it. Then he noticed the way Eden was picking at the succulent flesh of the baked fish. “Is something wrong with my cookin’? I know it’s not like those fancy restaurants where they poach ’em in wine.”
“It’s very good,” she assured him, then she shrugged. “I’m just not very hungry.” Eden set her plate on the sand and rubbed her hands against each other. “Sorry, I just can’t eat any more.”
“You peck at your food like a bird. No wonder you’re so thin for as tall as you are.” When he saw the troubled moodiness settle over her again, his eyes narrowed to study her thoughtfully. Several times she’d gone silent on him and brooded. “Still thinking about the crash, ma’am?”
“No.” The denial was too quick, like the forced smile that flashed across her expression. “I was just thinking—Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink,” she quoted, looking at the rush of waves onto the beach, the tide thrusting them higher and higher as the afternoon sun lowered the angle of its light.
Bubba wasn’t fooled. Daydreaming she might have been, but not about anything pleasant. But since she didn’t choose to confide in him, it wasn’t his place to press the issue. Hell, he was just a mechanic with sergeant’s stripes and she was a refined lady with the prettiest copper-red hair he’d ever seen. Why, she had more class in one little finger than he had in his whole body.
“That’s not quite true, ma’am,” Bubba corrected her. “I did bring along a drop to drink. I’ve just been waitin’ for it to get good and cold.”
Her curiosity was aroused, deliberately, Eden suspected. Despite her initial intentions, she had never resumed her walk along the beach. She had spent practically the whole day in Bubba’s company while he had entertained her with stories about his childhood and pulled her leg with a few Texas tall tales.
His skill in aircraft maintenance she’d always known, and the friendliness of his broad smile. His leadership capabilities had been indicated by the stripes on his uniform. This afternoon, he’d even let it slip that his C.O. had recommended him for Officer Candidate School. Naturally, he’d refused; at least, it had been natural in Bubba’s way of thinking, because he enjoyed working with engines and people, and didn’t see the need to give either one of them up to be some clean-nailed lieutenant. His command of logic and common sense amazed her, delivered as it was in drawled phrases. There was no doubt in her mind that Bubba was a rough diamond—completely unpolished but a genuine gem just the same.
In sand made wet by the incoming surf, Bubba pulled an anchor pin, buried deep with only its curved ring showing above the surface. Eden watched as he began coiling in the attached rope cord that was strung into the ocean. At the end of it was a fisherman’s net, holding a half-dozen loose bottles. He brought his dripping catch back to the fire and knelt on the sand near the drift log.
Eden eyed the long-necked containers of brown glass. “What is it? Beer?”
“I’ll bet you haven’t drunk too much of it,” Bubba surmised as he removed two bottles from the mesh trap and produced a metal opener from his pocket.
“Scotch is usually my choice,” she admitted.
“Well, let me initiate you into the fine art of beer drinking,” he said, and he settled himself back against the dead trunk so they sat side by side. “You gotta know how to appreciate the good stuff.” He pried the top off one of the bottles. “Now you see this cork inside the cap—” Bubba held it out for her inspection while he explained in mock-serious tones, “Ya gotta check to see that it’s in good shape and the edges haven’t started to rot, ‘cause that’ll mean you’ll have little bits of cork in your beer and you’ll have to strain it through your teeth when you drink. Then you sniff the cork, too.” He lifted it to her nose so Eden could smell it while she tried to hold back the laughter
bubbling inside. “Smell good?”
“Wonderful,” she assured him, amused by the entire farce.
“Next comes the bottle.” The wet sides of the glass container were still slippery, and Bubba waited until she had a secure hold of it before he let go. “Carefully run your fingers around the lip to make sure it hasn’t chipped. It ain’t healthy to drink beer with glass chips in it.”
“No, I wouldn’t think so either,” Eden agreed, her mouth twitching with the effort to hold it in a straight line.
“Now the last thing is to run the bottle past your nose so you get a little whiff of the beer,” Bubba instructed. “What you’re lookin’ for is that good, malty smell you get when the grains are fermented just right.”
“How do you tell if it’s aged properly?” she asked, joining in with his joke.
“When it comes out of the brewery, it’s old enough to drink,” he said. “Now give the bottle a little shake, sorta swirl it around and see if it makes a good head.” As she followed his instructions, a white foam began building inside the brown glass. “Now, that’s a good beer,” he promised her. “And you got that straight from a real beer connasewer.” He clinked his bottle against hers. “Drink up. It’s only good when it’s at just the right temperature.”
She took a swig of the beer and gurgled with laughter. It was such a funny parody of the wine snobbery displayed by some of her New York friends. She drank his beer, not finding it as tasty as her Scotch, but it had its place.
They talked and laughed, with Bubba doing most of the talking and Eden doing most of the laughing, until the sun lingered above the sand dunes. Its golden, glowing fire spread out to encompass sand and sea in its burnished light.
Her hand held the last bottle of beer by its brown neck while she gazed at the golden-hued waters. The fear that she had successfully blocked from her mind for a while came back, and Eden restlessly pushed herself to her feet and walked a few steps away from the fire toward the tumbling waves, all but forgetting Bubba until he appeared beside her, taller by a couple inches, his dark eyes discreetly questioning.
“You know something funny?” she began, again turning seaward. “The Civil Air Patrol won’t let women fly coastal patrols because it’s too dangerous, but when we’re out on a tow-target mission, sometimes we’re fifty miles out over the Atlantic. And we’re getting shot at, too, by our own Army. It doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“The Army doesn’t have to make sense. It just has to win the war,” Bubba reasoned, sensing the comment was close to the cause of her restless moods.
She fell silent once again. Bubba noticed the way her fingers flexed and tightened their grip on the bottle neck, nervously worrying it. Her glance sliced sideways to his face, apprehension widening her dark eyes.
“I think I’m losing my nerve, Bubba. Every time that plane lifts off the ground, I wonder if I’ll make it back.” Although she tried to keep it steady, there was a vibration in her low voice. “I know you check the planes over thoroughly, but … how many accidents do we have here a day? How many tires are blown? How many engines quit? How many planes wind up taking hits in the fuselage? I just have the feeling my number’s going to come up. One of these times it’s going to be me. I’m scared, Bubba.”
She tried to laugh, but the sound became choked by a sob. Looking away, she widened her eyes and blinked furiously to keep back the tears. She felt the comforting touch of Bubba’s hand on her shoulder. Blindly, Eden turned into it while his arms went around her to gather her in, as he had done the night of Rachel’s crash.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you. I won’t let it.” His rough hands made an attempt to smooth her tangled, rusty hair while the warm feel of her body filled his senses.
The instinct to live is a primitive one, potent and compelling. The physical contact made Eden subtly aware of the hard, male vigor in Bubba’s lean muscled frame. It was the combination of vitality and comfort that first attracted Eden, then compelled her to seek the sustaining pressure of his mouth. As her lips grazed his cheek, she was met with an instant of stillness and hesitation. Then Bubba was turning to hasten the contact.
There was so much rawness inside her, so much built-up pressure, that it all seemed to explode as Eden strained against him, kissing him with a kind of fierce, yet desperate anger. She didn’t let him be gentle, but he consumed all the force she threw at him and gave her back ease.
Once the high tension had burned itself out, she could enjoy the slow moving pressure of his mouth across her lips. It touched some needy core of her, so simple and basic in its expression of clean desire.
Bubba slowly pulled away from her lips and studied their swollen softness with heavy-lidded eyes. Eden gazed at his strong, broad features with an odd wondering. He was without guile or pretension. She was drawn by this honest, direct man with his natural intelligence and warm, wonderful sense of humor.
When she felt the pressure of his hands on her, Eden expected to be pulled back into his kiss. It was a surprise when Bubba gently set her away from him instead.
“We’d best get the fire out before the sun goes down and the beach patrol comes along to warn us about it.” After he’d made his explanation, Eden had a moment to wonder which fire he was talking about while Bubba walked to the smoldering campfire in the sand.
Mounding sand on the coals with a shoveling action of his foot, he buried the fire and Eden came over to watch him. The rumble of a motor grew into a roar as a jeep came rolling over the wave-pounded firmness of the sand, making one of its regular patrols of the beach. The sun was sinking behind a sand dune when they stopped, the motor idling, to remind the pair that no one was allowed on the beach after dark.
After the noise of the jeep’s engine had faded, Bubba looked across the short expanse of sand to the hump showing where the fire had been, and held Eden’s glance. “Maybe it was a good thing they came along when they did,” he suggested.
“Maybe it was,” she conceded.
“Guess we’d better get movin’.” He seemed to push himself into action against a feeling of reluctance, as he gathered up his tackle box and the case with his fishing rod, and hooked his arm through a strap of his knapsack.
“Do you need a ride? My car’s parked down the road a ways,” Eden said, indicating its general direction with a wave of her hand.
“Thanks, but I left my bicycle just over the dunes.”
“I’ve got a convertible. You can throw it in the back end,” Eden persisted.
After a long minute of consideration, Bubba nodded an acceptance of her invitation, but there was a reluctance here, too, that indicated it went against his better judgment.
They reached his bicycle before they reached her car, and Bubba pushed it through the heavy sand to the road’s shoulder. He took one look at the canary-yellow roadster and its white leather interior, then issued a low whistle of appreciation. He walked around it, exclaiming over every feature and asking endless questions about the engine’s performance.
“I don’t believe it,” Eden declared on a faintly disgusted note.
“Don’t believe what?” Bubba looked up, a frown creasing his forehead.
“How many times does a girl offer you a lift and you fall in love with her car?” she challenged.
A rueful grin split his face as he scratched the back of his neck. “Reckon I did get a bit carried away,” he agreed. “But it is a beauty.”
“Want to drive?” Eden tossed him the keys.
“Sure.” He clambered behind the wheel with a beguiling boyish enthusiasm.
The wind tunneled through her red hair, roping it into tangled curls as Bubba put the car through its paces on the lonely beach road. The light faded and the blue shadows deepened with the coming of nightfall. The car’s headlamps were hooded to keep its beams cast downward in this blackout area along the coastline.
A mile from the entrance to the Army camp, Bubba turned into a small lay-by and switched off the engine. After the roaring engin
e and rushing wind, the silence was vibrant.
Bubba ran his hand carelessly over the arc of the steering wheel, rubbing it with unconscious ardor. “This car is really something.”
Amused and vaguely disgruntled, Eden sat sideways in the white leather seat and rested her back against the door. “What about its owner?”
Bubba looked sideways at her and smiled, a deep line breaking from the corner of each eye. “She’s really somethin’, too.” He paused, his look turning serious and compelling as his dark eyes took her apart. The scrutiny made Eden self-conscious about her appearance after the sun and the wind had stung color into her pale skin and the salt spray had dried it. Her clothes were gritty with sand.
“The owner’s a classy number, too,” Bubba said quietly. “Highly sensitive and temperamental, like a finely tuned racing engine. Not something you can manhandle. She needs … an easy touch to get the best out of her.”
“Is that right?” Eden murmured and began moving toward him, his words striking a chord deep within and drawing her to him.
“Yes—”
She pressed the ends of her fingers against his mouth. “So help me, Bubba, if you call me ma’am I’ll—” But she didn’t have to finish her threat. He gathered her into his arms and murmured her name many times over.
Chapter XX
IN FULL UNIFORM, Major Mitch Ryan stood at his desk in the small Pentagon office and flipped through file folders, selecting certain ones to go in his case. Behind him the door opened, and Mitch glanced idly over his shoulder, then stiffened to come to attention.
“At ease.” General Arnold waved off any salute as he briskly swept into the small room. He eyed the coffee thermos sitting atop a file cabinet. “Is that the strongest you’ve got?”
“No, sir.” With the smallest of smiles, Mitch went behind his desk and opened the bottom drawer. He reached to the back and brought out a fifth of whiskey, the seal broken and a third of the contents gone. After he’d poured a shot into a coffee cup, the only available drinking vessel in his office, he handed it to the general. “How was the fashion show?”