Ride the Tiger

by Lindsay McKenna

  Tears trickled down Tess’s cheeks. “Gib, you aren’t going anywhere but stateside. Dr. Froelich said you’re going to be flown out of here soon to Oaknoll Naval Hospital near San Francisco.”

  Panic struck Gib. “Like hell I will! I’ve got to get in touch with Dany. She’s got to know I love her. Will you call her, Tess?”

  “Yes, I will. I’ll try and reach her right now. Listen,” Tess begged, “you’re looking terrible, Gib. You’ve got to rest. You can’t let this upset you any more than it already has. This is going to take time. I’ll do everything I can from my end. Unfortunately, I’ve got to leave this evening for Da Nang. I want to stay, but I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  Breathing hard, with sweat beading on his taut skin, Gib rasped, “If you can’t connect with Dany before you leave, then call Ma Ling when you get back to Da Nang. She was Dany’s real mother. If anyone can persuade Dany to come and see me, it will be her.”

  “Okay, okay, I will.” Nervously, Tess touched her brother’s dampened gown. “Gib, calm down, please. You’re working yourself into a lather.”

  “Damn it, Tess, I love Dany!” He jabbed his finger toward his bandaged extremity. “My whole life’s been ripped away just like hers has! I can manage anything—everything—but I can’t manage without her. Do you understand?”

  Sadly, Tess nodded. “I do.” She leaned over and hugged him gently, placing a kiss on his perspiring brow. “I’ll do what I can for you and Dany. I promise.”

  Gib lay there, eyes closed, after Tess had left. His mind spun with options, choices and harsh reality, while pain deluged him, far sharper than the agony he endured from his wounded leg. Dany needed him, needed to know that somewhere in this damn world, someone cared about and wanted her. She’d been unwanted all her life.

  But another fear, even deeper and more pervasive, chilled him. Maybe Dany had been horrified at seeing he’d lost part of his leg. Maybe that was why she’d left. Licking his cracked lips, he felt the terrible weight of the present crushing down on him. The Marine Corps would give him an immediate discharge as soon as he recovered. And he’d go home to the family ranch.

  Home. Gib inhaled brokenly. Home had always been the Ramsey homestead, left to him in his parents’ will. At least he had a place to go and heal, something familiar. Dany had nothing and no one. He recalled poignantly that she’d said her relatives regarded her strangely because she was half-American. Dany had no place to go where she’d be welcomed with open, loving arms as he would be. He knew that Miguel and Vivi would be thrilled to hear he was coming home to run the Ramsey ranch. And their two beautiful young daughters, Marina and Jessica, would be happy because they always considered Gib their “uncle.” Yes, he had a family to go home to. People who loved him, who cared for him.

  Bitterly, Gib wiped the sweat off his forehead, feeling nausea from the overwhelming pain floating up his leg. Still, the pain he felt in his heart was ten times worse. His love for Dany had never wavered, never changed throughout the months he’d known her. It had only grown in volume and depth, something so beautiful that Gib had feared it was too fragile, too good to last. Only he hadn’t counted on how it would end. Or why. Now he could only guess why Dany had run away from him. Was it really because she believed he didn’t want her? Or was it because he was no longer a whole man?

  Tears squeezed from beneath his spiky lashes as he lay on the bed. He cried for himself and for his loss, but more than anything, he cried for the loss of Dany.

  *

  Ma Ling hung up the phone. She stood in the spacious hotel suite in Da Nang for a good minute before moving. Dany was in the living room going through a box of items that had survived the fire at the plantation. Taking a deep breath, Ma Ling moved quietly into the room.

  “Who was on the phone?” Dany asked, looking up from where she sat on the carpeted floor. In her hands was a partially burned address book.

  “Tess Ramsey.”

  Dany held her breath. It had been two and a half days since she’d returned from Saigon, from being with Gib. Ma Ling’s face softened a she approached and sat down next to her on the pale pink sofa. “Wh-what did she say?” How was Gib? My God, she couldn’t think straight since returning to Da Nang. Her mind and heart were still mired in worry for him.

  Gently, Ma Ling picked up Dany’s hand and pressed it between her own. “Tess asked me to tell you that Gib wants to see you. She wants you to fly to Saigon immediately.”

  Gasping, Dany rose to her knees, her heart pounding with fear. “Is he worse?”

  Patting her hand, Ma Ling said, “He’s improving.”

  Dany closed her eyes momentarily, her hand pressed against her heart. “Thank God.”

  “Daughter of my heart, you must go see Gib Ramsey.” Ma Ling gestured to her belly. “You carry his child, and he doesn’t even know it.”

  Pulling her hand away, Dany stood up. Dizziness assailed her, and she caught herself. “He doesn’t love me!” she cried. “Why should I go see him or tell him about his baby?”

  Patiently, Ma Ling stood and went over to her. Her black eyes grew determined. “Tess says differently. She says that Gib loves you.”

  Bitterly, she stated, “That’s what she told me before I left.”

  “Then why didn’t you believe her?”

  “Because it was coming from Tess, not from Gib! He screamed at me to leave, Ma Ling!” Choking, Dany rasped, “What choice did I have? It was obvious Gib didn’t want me. I told him I loved him! And he started shouting at me to leave.”

  Ma Ling wagged her finger in Dany’s distraught face. “No! You must hear it from him. He’s no longer in a cloud of drugs. You owe it to him, yourself and your child to see him one last time. To tell the truth—about everything.”

  Dany pressed her hands against her face and fought the tears. “I—I don’t want my baby to grow up without a family,” she whispered. “I want her to have a family, a mother and a father who love her. I—I just don’t know.”

  Ma Ling led Dany over to the sofa and made her sit down. “`There are times in each of our lives when we must ride the tiger that can kill us,’ daughter. That is a very old Vietnamese saying and a wise one. This is your time.”

  Dany looked up at her nanny. As fierce as Ma Ling looked, her eyes shone with love. “I’m afraid,” she whispered.

  Tenderly, Ma Ling hugged Dany. “And Gib is probably just as afraid or even more so.”

  “Why should he be?” Dany’s voice was muffled in Ma Ling’s shoulder.

  The other woman released her and smiled down at her. “If he indeed does love you, how must he feel about losing his leg and wondering what you will think of that? Surely, he must wonder if you love him enough to stay with him!”

  The feelings that flowed through her at that thought were as excruciatingly beautiful as they were terrifying. Still, the fear of rejection stabbed at Dany. She’d been rejected so many times that it was almost impossible to say yes to Ma Ling’s request and put herself on the firing line one last time. If ever Dany had felt as if a rifle were being aimed at her at close range, it was now. Only this time the risk involved Gib—the only man she’d ever truly loved. Bowing her head, completely gutted of strength, Dany whispered, “Yes, I’ll go see him.”

  *

  Gib was angry and unhappy. He hated the light green room, the medical equipment, the boredom. Absently he gathered the bedspread in his fingers, clenched it, then released it. Tess had called him this morning to tell him she’d spoken to Ma Ling, who had promised to give the message to Dany. Would Dany come? It was only a three-hour flight to Saigon, and now it was 2000, the end of visiting hours. He’d so desperately wanted to see the door open and Dany appear. In another half hour the nurse would come in and give him a sleeping pill, and he’d be out for twelve hours straight. What if Dany came during that time? Would she stay? Leave? What if he didn’t have a chance—

  The door to his room slowly opened. Gib’s eyes slitted. No…it couldn’t be. Dany? He gripped the be
d sheet convulsively. Dany!

  As she silently slipped through the door, Gib’s heart somersaulted with unparalleled joy, then shrank in abject terror. He broke out in a heavy sweat, unable to accurately read Dany’s features. She wore a pale lavender ao dai with white silk pants, white sandals on her small feet. Her black hair was loose and fell across her shoulders. It was the darkness and hesitancy Gib saw in her huge green eyes that sent alarm through him.

  She stood nervously by the closed door, her hands gripping a small white purse in front of her, held like a shield to protect her—from him? His voice cracked. “You came.”

  Dany forced herself to look into Gib’s pale, sweaty features. His eyes were dark with suffering that had to be constant. Her gaze swept from his harshly lined face to the swath of bandages that encased his leg. Tears stung her eyes—tears of compassion for him as well as of joy at seeing him. Dany quickly fought them back. Gib would interpret her tears as pity.

  “I…” Her voice faltered. “Tess called this morning and—and Ma Ling said I should come and see you.” Stumbling on, afraid he was going to yell at her again, she whispered, “I’m sorry I didn’t call first. If this is an inconvenient time, I can—”

  “No! Please don’t go.”

  Dany closed her mouth and stared at him, the force of his words carrying so much emotional weight that she reeled internally from their effect. She saw Gib wrestling with inner demons. Did he hate her? Was she making his life complicated by coming?

  Gib felt the sweet, raw torture of wanting to open his arms to Dany, to crush her in a hard embrace so she’d never want to leave him again. His mouth dry, he glanced down at his injured leg. “What I mean is, I’m glad you came.” His heart was pounding so hard in his chest that he thought he might die. Forcing himself to meet her lustrous gaze, he said, “Please…sit down.”

  Dany forced herself to move, feeling light-headed, her legs like wooden extensions, her movements jerky and uncoordinated. It wasn’t until she sat down that faintness rimmed her vision. Was it relief that Gib hadn’t sent her away yet? She placed her trembling hands on the purse on her lap. Just one look into his shadowed eyes, and her heart automatically reached out to Gib.

  “You must be in constant pain,” she offered hesitantly, not sure he wanted to discuss the loss of the limb.

  With a shrug, Gib rasped, “Some things you live with.” He motioned to his leg. “This is a pain I can tolerate.” What he could never live without was Dany.

  “Do you have to take pain pills?”

  Gib nodded. “I don’t like drugs, but right now I have to take them whether I want them or not.” Desperately he wanted Dany to relax. If he could catch a glimpse of her old self… Her face had a pallor to it, and her left arm was still encased in a bandage. “How are you doing, honey?” he asked gently.

  Honey. Relief fractured through Dany, and suddenly she felt light-headed again. The way the endearment rolled off his lips and embraced her was like sun striking a cold, frozen land. “I’m surviving.”

  “Your home? The last I remember, it was on fire.”

  “It’s gone.”

  “Everything.”

  “Yes.”

  Gib ached to hold her. The loss, the depth of her abandonment, was in her eyes. Gib closed his own eyes. “I’m sorry, Dany. So damned sorry it happened this way. You didn’t deserve to lose everything.”

  Unconsciously, her hand rested against her belly. Gathering what little strength she’d found on the flight down to Saigon, Dany whispered, “Gib, why did you want to see me?”

  He saw the terror in her face and heard it in her voice. She sat tensely in the chair, as if waiting for him to strike out at her, dealing some kind of emotional blow.

  “I wanted you to know I didn’t send you away.”

  Her eyes rounded.

  “Dany, as much as I can piece this together, I was out of my head with drugs when you visited me that first time in ICU. Dr. Froelich had come in and told me I’d lost part of my leg, and I was in shock and denial over it.” He released a ragged sigh. “And then, you came in. I was semiconscious, but I don’t think you knew that. I was xre-experiencing the helicopter crash when you appeared in the middle of the flashback. I saw you superimposed on it. All I could think of was for you to get away before my gunship crashed and exploded. I was yelling at you to get away so you wouldn’t get hurt in the crash.”

  Dany felt the blood drain from her face. “Then…you weren’t really telling me to go away?”

  “No. My God, no, Dany. Not you, of all people.” Gib wondered if Dany was going to faint, she looked so waxen.

  All Dany could do was cling to Gib’s words, his admission that he hadn’t wanted her to leave. Hope rekindled in her heart for the first time. The silence deepened, and she saw how nervous Gib had become, his fingers gripping and releasing the blankets that covered him.

  “Dany,” he rasped, holding her gaze, “you mean more to me than anyone I’ve ever known.” Suffering deeply, Gib hesitated, so afraid she would spurn him if he spoke the words that wanted to rip from his mouth. As a cripple, what could he offer her?

  Dany didn’t move, terrified to ask what his statement meant. Gib hadn’t said he loved her. She lowered her lashes.

  Gib tried to read her features. Her hand was held protectively against her belly, and it struck Gib that she was holding herself in a protective position. Against what? Him? The unknown future? More than likely. He stretched his hand toward her.

  “Come here,” he whispered thickly. “Come and stand by me.”

  The words unstrung Dany, released her from the prison of her own fear of ultimate rejection. Stand by me. Jerkily, she got to her feet, leaving her purse on the chair. She walked forward in a daze of fear. Slowly, she lifted her hand. The instant Gib’s fingers captured hers, she released an inaudible gasp. Almost hesitantly, she moved closer. His fingers were hot, almost feverish, and she could see the anxiety deep in his eyes.

  His mouth dry, Gib rasped, “When I regained full consciousness after you’d left, all I wanted to do was hold you and love you, Dany.” His mouth pulled into a sad grimace. “And my next thought was that I wasn’t whole. I’m not a complete man anymore. I thought you might have run away from me because you were disgusted by my stump—by me.”

  A little cry escaped Dany, and she laid her hand on his chest. She could feel the heavy, hard beat of his heart beneath her palm. “How could I ever be disgusted by you?” she whispered unsteadily.

  Gib absorbed her words and reached up with his hand to the two tears trailing down her cheeks. “I’m crippled for life, Dany.”

  With a little shrug, she closed her eyes as his fingers trembled against her flesh. His touch alone was so stabilizing, so healing to her bleeding heart. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re all walking wounded of one sort or another. It doesn’t matter to me. Don’t you understand?”

  Gib was beginning to. “I was afraid….”

  She sniffed. “Don’t you remember what I told you?”

  Slowly, Gib shook his head, drowning in the dark forest color of her eyes. Tears beaded on her thick black lashes, and he ached to kiss them away. “No. What did you say, honey?”

  His slight pressure on her hand gave her the courage to speak. “I—I said that it didn’t matter whether you lost your leg or not. That—that I loved you, regardless.”

  Gib froze, his eyes holding her tearful gaze captive. “You what?” Had he heard right? Dany loved him? He was afraid to believe his ears, the words fragments of whispers escaping from her trembling lips.

  Time halted, and Dany tried to prepare herself for his reaction. Hadn’t Gib heard her admission? Why was he looking at her with that sudden intensity? “I said…I loved you.” There, the words were out. Breath jammed in Dany’s throat. What would Gib do with her love now that he knew it existed?

  With a groan, Gib reached up and swept her into his arms. “Sweet, beautiful woman,” he whispered raggedly, drawing her down across him and
holding her so tightly he was afraid he might crush her. When he felt Dany’s arm slip behind his neck and hold him just as tightly, he sighed. “I love you. I’ve loved you from the first time I saw you, Dany. And God help me, through these months, what we share has kept me going.”

  Gib opened his eyes, tears leaking from the corners of them as he gently stroked her unbound hair. He felt her sob, her face buried against him. “I felt as if my heart had been ripped from my soul when I found out you’d left the hospital.”

  Easing away, Dany quavered, “I’m sorry, Gib.”

  “Never be sorry, honey. Come here, let me kiss you.” He slid his hand beneath her chin and guided her wet, tear-bathed lips to his. The instant his mouth glided along her own, all the suffering, all the agony he’d carried for those hellish days and nights dissolved beneath the sweet, moist mouth hungrily returning his kiss. All the love he’d never spoken about went into his tender exploration of her lips as they parted and allowed him entrance. Gib inhaled her wonderful, fragrant scent amid the terrible hospital odors. Dany was alive, warm and like melting honey in his arms, her mouth searching, her breath a ragged symphony with his own. Finally, he eased back and looked into her emerald eyes—eyes filled with love for him alone.

  “I love you,” he rasped. “Don’t ever forget that, Dany. Not for one second, one minute, hour or day.”

  Sniffing, Dany eased away just enough to see his face and drown in the brilliant green, gold and brown of his eyes. She’d never seen a man cry before, but she did now, and it tore her heart wide open. “There’s so much to tell you, Gib, to share with you. And I’m scared, scared to death where to begin.”