This time she did pull from him, staring him full in the eyes. "A marriage never has a guarantee. You know that. If you need a case in point, look at my parents. Age-wise, they're compatible and look at the mess they're in."
"I know there are no guarantees, Lindsey, but look at this reasonably. When I'm sixty, you'll be thirty-six. When I'm seventy, you'll be forty-six. I'll be old, Lindsey, and you'll still be in the prime of your life."
"And when you're a hundred and ten, I'll be eighty-six. Okay, say you don't make it to a hundred and ten. Say I don't make it to eighty-six. Couldn't we just be happy we had twenty, thirty, thirty-five years together? With the divorce rate being what it is, that's more than most married couples ever get. And as far as parenting goes, older parents make wonderful parents. They have so much to offer a child."
"Yeah," he said sarcastically. "They can watch someone else pitch balls to their son instead of pitching them themselves."
"That's a crock and you know it. Many men are active into their sixties, even their seventies. You'd have plenty of time to pitch balls. What's the real issue here, Walker? You just don't want to start over with a family again? I mean, I could understand that. You've raised your child. Maybe you don't want—"
"No!" he said so vehemently that it startled Lindsey. "That isn't it. It should be, but it isn't. I've raised my kid, I've paid my dues, and that should be enough, but..." He stopped. When he spoke again, it was with reverence. "I can't think of anything I'd like more than your having my baby."
"Then what is it?" When he said nothing, she said, though it was obviously painful to do so, "You don't love me enough to commit yourself permanently?"
"Dammit, no, that's not it! Haven't you heard anything I've been saying?"
"Yes, but it's not making a whole lot of sense," she said, her voice as angry as his.
"It's simple. I want to be fair to you!"
"You keep saying that, but what does it mean?"
"It means that I have to leave you free." His voice had lowered, as though he were having trouble saying the words when he added, "Free to make changes if you need to."
Lindsey heard the words. She even understood them, but something deep within her rejected them so violently that she had to ask for clarification. "Free to make what changes?"
"Any changes...that you need to." The words had seemed even harder for him to say this second time.
"Changes. Changes like walking away from you when I grow tired of being with you? Changes like moving on to greener pastures when I find them? Changes like leaving you behind when I find a younger man?"
Walker swallowed. "Lindsey, you're so young. You've got so much living ahead of you."
"Were those the kinds of changes you were talking about?" she insisted. When he said nothing, she cried, "Were they?"
"Yes!" For seconds, neither spoke. He simply stared at the way the sheet cupped her breasts. The breathtaking way. She stared at the way the sheet fell away from his chest, a chest that seemed just the width and breadth of her needs. Finally, Walker said, "I'll stay with you for today, for tomorrow, for however long in the future you want."
"But you won't marry me?"
He couldn't imagine the courage it would take to let her walk away from him, but it was a courage he knew he could find if he had to. For her sake. "Lindsey, babe—"
"How dare you belittle what I feel for you," she said, unable to conceal her now full-blown anger. Flinging the sheet from her, she scooted to the edge of the bed. She reached for her blouse and began to scramble into it.
"Lindsey, don't," he said, reaching for her. She shrugged, deflecting his touch, and scooped her panties and jeans from the floor. She thrust her legs into the scrap of lace, adjusted her hips, and tugged them upward. She then tackled the denim.
"You know what it sounds like to me?" she tossed back over her shoulder. "It sounds like you just haven't made a big enough commitment."
"That isn't true—"
"Being in love is like being pregnant. You can't be just a little bit. You either are or you aren't." Standing, she yanked the jeans upward and slipped into her shoes. She turned to face him. The hair that Walker had so thoroughly mussed only a short while before lay scattered about her face. She looked like a fierce lioness. "And when you're in love, Walker, you commit all the way. You take all the chances. You don't compromise. And you damned sure don't leave your partner free to walk away!"
With that, she stormed from the room.
"Lindsey, wait—Lindsey!" Cursing, he fell back against the headboard. A shaft of pain, like a thick stake, pierced his heart. He longed desperately to go back and repeat the scene. Surely he could have handled it better. Surely he could have found more expressive words. Couldn't he have? As the lonely evening wore on, the only thing he knew with certainty was that, even if the scene miraculously could have been repeated, he could not have changed his position.
He had to leave her free.
Because he loved her.
The storm worsened.
To complicate matters, the storm did not conform to meteorologists' expectations. It bypassed Cuba entirely before barging into the Gulf at speeds greater than anticipated. The whole Gulf Coast lay defenseless against its fury, and weathermen went wild trying to forecast where it would strike. Hour by hour, the storm changed direction. That variance necessitated that evacuation procedures be started. No place was safe until the storm had chosen its victim.
The storm at sea, however, couldn't hold a candle to the storm raging in the office of Gal-Tex. Walker, who once more hadn't slept a wink, came in at a little before seven. He felt far older than his forty-seven years, and his knee hurt abominably. The drizzle of the day before, now responding to the approaching storm, had turned into a steady, lightning-laced downpour. From the moment he opened the door to find Lindsey seated behind her desk, the emotional storm had erupted.
"What are you doing here? It's Sunday," Walker said.
At the sight of her, he felt as though his breath had been sucked from his chest. She hadn't slept any better than he. That was obvious from the dark circles beneath her eyes. Ironically, it was her age that was an issue, her age that was the wedge driven between them. If they had many more nights like the last, the age difference might cease to be a problem. She looked as though years—hard years—had been added to her. He fought the urge to say to hell with common sense and ask—no, beg—her to marry him.
He looked awful, Lindsey thought, wanting to rush to him and throw herself into his arms. But she didn't, because in his arms was the only place more painful than not being in his arms. It was painful because it felt wonderful, yet didn't offer the permanence she wanted, needed. She had gone all the way in loving him. He had to go the same distance or there would never be a future for them. Even though it hurt like the devil, she could not, would not, settle for less than his whole.
"I thought you could use some help with the storm moving in. I'm assuming you are evacuating the platforms."
"Yeah," he confirmed. "All four of them. I talked with your father about a half hour ago. He's coming by for a roster of the men aboard each rig and then he's going to begin the evacuation." Walker didn't bring up how strained the conversation had been. The two men had had no choice, however, but to talk. After all, business was business. More importantly, the safety of their employees was involved.
Lindsey steeled herself against the mention of her father. That he was due in any minute set her stomach to doing flip-flops. "Where are the rosters?" she asked, pushing back her chair in preparation to gathering the needed material.
"File cabinet," Walker said, "But I'm not sure how Gerri files them. It might take a miracle to find them." Miracle. Walker idly wondered if Lindsey still believed so freely in miracles. After a few sobering rounds with reality, miracles were never taken for granted.
Walker was uncertain whether or not she'd read his mind, but she responded with a firm, "I'll find them."
And she did after a couple of
aborted tries. She had just placed the files on Walker's desk when the door opened. In came a gust of wind and rain. Followed by Dean. He looked as ravaged as the weather, and it came to Lindsey as plain as day that her father wasn't a happy man. Their tiff notwithstanding, he wasn't a happy man. Why had she never noticed that before? Maybe she'd been filled to the brim with her own unhappiness, her own anger, concerning her parents' separation. Maybe there just hadn't been room for her to really see her parents. Something Walker said came back to her, something about pleasure and peace not being the same things. In regard to the affair, maybe her father had been questing after a pleasure that had brought him everything but peace.
Everyone—Walker, Dean, Lindsey—started to speak, but no one got past the first syllable. Everyone waited for someone else to break the ice. In the silence, Walker realized just how much he'd lost. He'd lost the best friend he'd ever had, the best friend he would ever have. That realization saddened him. As for Lindsey, she wanted to apologize to her father for slapping him, but she didn't. She wasn't quite certain why, except that apologies were never easy to make. Then, too, he'd hurt her. Maybe she was holding out for his apology.
Finally, Dean, who'd made no attempt to dress youthfully, said, "I came by for the rosters."
"Here they are," Walker said, passing them to his business partner.
Dean took them, his eyes only fleetingly holding Walker's. He seemed even less capable of looking at his daughter. After initial eye contact, he didn't glance back at Lindsey. Even so, he could not have failed to notice how tired she looked.
"Is everything lined up?" Dean asked, needlessly thumbing through the pages of the first roster.
"Yeah. I've got boats headed for each platform, and I'll make motel arrangements right away."
"Platforms One, Two and Three are less manned," Dean said. "I don't think they have more than about twenty-five men on board each, so I'm heading out to Four. It's got close to forty men."
"That sounds like a good idea."
"You got an ETA for the boats?" Dean asked.
"They should be in position by noon."
"Good. We ought to have everyone on land by nightfall."
"If the storm waits until tomorrow to come ashore, which is what they're predicting, we'll be in good shape."
"Yeah," Dean said. "If."
"Are they still saying that it's traveling more westerly than easterly?"
"That's what they're saying, but you know how it is. Sometimes what you least expect happens."
All three people within the room knew that the conversation had changed direction. All three people knew that he referred to the discovery he'd made the day before.
Walker said nothing.
Lindsey said nothing.
Dean turned to go.
"Daddy?" Lindsey called.
The big-shouldered man turned back, his gaze going to his daughter. Walker was certain that each was going to blurt out an apology, but in the end, neither did. Lindsey said simply, "Be careful."
Her father didn't even say that much. He nodded briskly, abruptly, then walked to the door and disappeared in a squall of rain.
Lindsey wanted to weep.
That desire increased as the morning wore on, for it was obvious that, although Lindsey and Walker were working well together on the surface, below that surface, like electricity hidden within a wire, ran a tension thick and hot. It was in every expression, every gesture, every look each tried not to make, but couldn't help. It was there when Lindsey, on her way back to her desk from the filing cabinet, glanced over at Walker. It was there when Walker chose the same moment to look up at her as he spoke on the telephone.
Their gazes locked.
I want to be in your arms, she seemed to say.
I want you in my arms, he seemed to return.
Then, why are we arguing? Why can't we just love each other and trust in that love to last until tomorrow? Why can't we marry and have babies and—
God, don't you think I want to, but—
"What?" he said suddenly into the receiver. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's fine. We'll take the block of thirty rooms." At the hurt he'd seen in Lindsey's eyes, he lowered his. A pain jabbed at his heart, just as a pain stabbed at his knee. He grimaced, thinking that he could at least rub the pain in his knee.
As the hours ticked by, the tension mounted. A hint of lace, the brush of their hands as she passed him a mug of coffee, the gloss of her lips—each left Walker degrees more frustrated, while Lindsey grew increasingly restless with the way spirals of black hair peeked from the vee of his shirt, the way his jeans became creased in all the right places, the way his hair looked rowdy with all the wayward flights of his fingers. She, too, became conscious of Walker's aching knee. Why else would he rub it so consistently? On the other hand, Walker noticed that Lindsey was growing more tired by the hour. Had she really slept as badly as he, which was to say not at all?
And the phone rang constantly, prickling nerves that were already frayed.
"Good God!" Walker barked when the phone rang just as he was hanging up from another call.
"Most of the calls are checking on the men," Lindsey said. "Their loved ones want to know if they're being moved from the rigs."
Walker knew he'd be making the same call if he were in their shoes, but the ringing of the phone was cutting through his skull, making him wonder which hurt the worse, his head or his knee. Searching through his desk, he found two Tylenol and, standing, walked to the water cooler. He downed them in a single gulp.
"...They should be on land by tonight," Lindsey told the caller. "Yes, ma'am," she added, consulting her notes, "he'll be at the Holiday Inn in Beaumont. Yes, ma'am, that number is..." Lindsey gave the number, then hung up. She sighed. "You got two more of whatever you took?"
"Yeah," Walker said, drawing another cup of water, which he handed to her. He then started to his desk for the medicine.
"Does your knee hurt?" Lindsey asked softly.
Walker glanced up. He tossed her the plastic bottle, which she easily caught.
"Yeah," he answered her question. For a fraction of a second, he thought she might ask him if he wanted her to rub it—the way she'd rubbed it Friday night, or maybe it was Saturday morning. The hours had blurred into a single blissful ecstasy. For a fraction of a second, he was afraid. What would he answer if she did ask? Would he have the courage to say no? She didn't ask, however, though it was obvious that her thoughts traveled the same pathway as his.
Lindsey felt the coolness of the water as they'd stood in the swimming pool—naked. She felt the nearness of Walker's body. She heard him saying, a teasing quality to his voice, that she had the wrong knee. She remembered splashing him, the mock fight that had ensued, the erotic ending of that fight.
I want you, she could hear herself saying breathlessly.
Then take me, she could hear him answering back.
She could feel her legs being drawn about his waist. She could feel him entering her—not slowly, but hard and possessively. She could feel... she could feel her bod growing hot. She was suddenly aware that he was watching her—as intently as she was watching him.
Walker remembered the coolness of the water, her massaging his knee—the wrong knee—her splashing him with water and then her fleeing from him. Chase. Capture. Carnal reward. He felt his body responding to the erotic memory.
Flinging himself into his desk chair, he growled, "Would you get your father? I need to talk to him."
Five minutes later, Lindsey was patched through to Jim Ramsey, the foreman of Platform Four. It took her only seconds to discover that her father hadn't arrived.
"He isn't there yet," Lindsey relayed to Walker.
He glanced at his watch. It was almost forty-five minutes past the time he'd expected Dean to arrive on site. Even so, he felt no alarm. Obviously, Dean hadn't left when he'd planned to. Picking up the phone, Walker said, "Jim?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Tell Dean to give me a call when he ar
rives."
"Yes, sir."
"How's the weather?"
"Raining hard with a lot of wind, but so far things aren't too bad."
"We want to get ya'll out before it gets bad."
"Well, you won't get any argument here. The boat arrived at noon and is just about ready to depart."
"Good. What's the condition of the sea?"
"Choppy. Look, me and a couple of others are gonna wait for Mr. Ellison and send the others on inland. There're a few more things we want to fasten down here on the rig."
"Okay. Dean should be there any minute."
"Right. I'll have him call."
But he didn't call. Not in a few minutes. Not in thirty of them. Not in forty-five.
"Do you think he's all right?" Lindsey asked.
"Oh, yeah," Walker said. "In this weather the flight's probably taking longer than usual. And we don't even know that he left on time. Or maybe he decided to fly to another platform first, after all. He's okay."
Walker hoped he sounded believable and, in truth, he did believe what he was saying. It was just that he couldn't shake this funny feeling he had. Exactly an hour later, he could deny the feeling no longer. He called Jim Ramsey again. With repetitive results. Dean hadn't arrived on the island.
"Maybe we should call and see if he left on time," Lindsey said, clearly worried, though trying to minimize it. Even to herself. Mostly to herself.
"Let's give him another thirty minutes," Walker said.
Tacitly, Lindsey agreed. And tried to busy herself with the work on her desk. Surely her father was all right. He'd flown dozens of these trips. In fact, he'd flown far riskier missions in Vietnam, or so she'd been told. The war was only history to her. The fact was that her father was a cool flyer and more than competent. And she was just trying to find something to worry about!
Standing, she said, "I'll be in the bathroom a minute."
Walker nodded, thinking she looked even more tired, if that were possible, and that that funny little feeling, the one that insisted on worrying about Dean, was dying away. For heaven's sake, Dean was one of the best pilots he'd ever known! And the weather wasn't that bad yet. If the two of them weren't at loggerheads, Walker would tell Dean, when he finally called, about his concern, and Dean would feign anger that Walker had even doubted his abilities for the shortest of seconds. Under the circumstances, Walker probably wouldn't tell him... or maybe he would. Hell, maybe it was the light note they needed to begin dissipating some of the darkness of the last few hours.
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