The Woman Left Behind

by Linda Howard

  “I like your truck,” she chirped to Boom, knowing her tone would irritate the shit out of Levi, and maybe Boom, too, but Levi was her target and Boom would have to be collateral damage. “It doesn’t look like a pouty Darth Vader owns it.”

  Pouty. Boom coughed to disguise what was likely a laugh, and Levi slowly swiveled his head to give her a basilisk stare. She gave him a sweet, very insincere smile. This was fun. For a few seconds she could forget that her knees were knocking together.

  The landing strip Boom drove to was in rural Virginia, surrounded by farmland. The strip wasn’t busy, not this early, though a few planes were tied down beside a large, rusty Quonset hut with a rough but serviceable wooden addition jutting out to the left. Two other vehicles were there, but no one was in sight. A Twin Otter sat on the strip, and a fit-looking guy in jeans and a leather jacket was slowly going around the plane, examining every exterior detail.

  Just a few months ago she’d have thought a Twin Otter was a pair of cute critters, but now she not only recognized it, she knew it was considered one of the best planes for jumping. Yay for her. If only her test was on paper instead of practical experience, she’d ace the damn thing.

  “I rigged the chutes myself,” Boom said to Levi. “Most I’ve ever done at one time.”

  “We’ll probably need them all,” Levi replied.

  Meaning they were going to keep at it until she either made a jump or died? Probably. Surely they wouldn’t have time for more than two or three jumps . . . would they? She was the only trainee, though, and they were the only jumpers on the plane. They’d be limited by the time it would take the plane to take off, climb to altitude, then land again, plus however much time it took to pick them up from the landing zone. Her heartbeat kicked into another gear, hard and fast. They were really going to do this.

  “Where’s the landing zone?” she asked, hoping it was miles away because that would slow everything down.

  “Next field over,” Levi said, jerking a thumb to the right. “I would’ve made it here, but there’ll be other planes landing and taking off. I’ve arranged for us to be picked up.”

  Of course he had. Why couldn’t they just wait in the field until the plane landed and he could pick them up? That would have killed some time. But no, Levi had to be efficient, so they could get in more torture sessions.

  Frantically she pulled up the memory of zip lining. Her stomach had been in her throat then, too; stepping off into nothing and trusting the line to hold her had required all her nerve and gumption, but once she’d taken that first step everything had been okay. Maybe this would be like that. The guys had said it was, though they could have been lying. Maybe she’d automatically focus on what she was doing rather than what was happening. Maybe it would be okay.

  The sky was a big blue bowl, completely cloudless, as if trying to make up for the days of rain. Too bad, because she had really prayed hard for that rain to continue for the next year or so. There was a chilly breeze, but nothing that would interfere so there was no help on that front. The weather was not cooperating. Jina forced herself to take slow, steady breaths, trying to slow her heartbeat. The air smelled fresh and crisp, tinged with the smell of fuel. A few birds were calling back and forth, not the mad singing they did in spring but a kind of desultory “we’re here” notice.

  Boom got the harnesses from the back of his truck and Jina began gearing up. She was concentrating on getting the straps straight and in the right place, so it took her a minute to realize Levi, not Boom, was putting on the other harness. She stopped. “I thought Boom was jumping with me.”

  “I’m not certified for tandem jumps,” Boom replied. “Ace is.”

  “Oh, shit,” she said, so dismayed that she said it aloud.

  “Got a problem with it?” Levi asked, his tone hard.

  “Well, I do trust Boom not to cut me loose in midair if I vomit on him.” Oh Lord, she was going to be harnessed to Levi. She didn’t want to be even this close to him, much less strapped so closely to him they’d essentially be spooning.

  Boom snorted a laugh, and even Levi gave a quick grin. “You won’t vomit,” he said, and it was as much of a command as it was a reassurance.

  She pulled on her knit hat and Boom said, “That won’t stay on.” Sighing, she tucked it back into her pocket and instead stuffed the thick braid of her hair down the back of her sweatshirt.

  “Why won’t it stay on?”

  “Because we’ll be going a hundred and twenty miles an hour when we leave the plane,” Levi said.

  She blanched and tried not to think about it. Her heart started that pounding again. Was it possible to die from fright? She might not have to go splat; Levi might flare his parachute for a perfect landing with a corpse strapped to his chest.

  The idea was ghoulish enough that she felt a bit comforted, and the panic subsided. With luck, the experience would scar Levi so much he’d never be able to jump again. Would that be justice, or what?

  She was kind of in a daze as they boarded the plane and the two engines coughed to life. The Twin Otter was roomier on the inside than she’d expected: benches lined each side, and she slid onto one of them, buckled herself in. Boom closed the door, and he and Levi took their seats. Levi was right beside her, so close his left leg was touching hers. Silently she shifted her legs away from him.

  The pilot, who Boom had introduced as Air Bud because his nickname really was Bud, released the brakes, the engine noise changed, and the plane began moving. The copilot was Bud’s wife, a jumpsuit-wearing redhead with a broad grin and a lot of freckles. Jina wanted to go forward and commiserate with her about what jerks men were, but Boom wasn’t a jerk and she didn’t know about Bud so she clenched her hands on the edge of the bench and stayed where she was.

  The plane lifted away from the earth and began a steady climb. Levi got to his feet and he and Boom began making preparations that Jina didn’t watch. She was too busy trying to catch regular breaths and talk her stomach down out of her throat. Her mouth was dry, her legs trembling. She didn’t have to watch to know when the door was opened, because cold air rushed through the cabin.

  She had dreaded a lot about all the training stuff, but she hadn’t been actively frightened. Now she was. No, “frightened” was too mild a word; she was terrified, and it wasn’t something she could talk herself out of.

  Then Levi sat down beside her again, tapped her on top of the head, and said, “Time.”

  Mutely she looked up at him, the details of what she was supposed to do lost somewhere in the fog of silent panic. He waited, but no matter how frantically she searched her brain, no details surfaced. She was here. She was about to be forced out of the plane. Nothing else came to mind.

  An unreadable expression flickered across his face. Silently he scooped her up and sat her on his lap, her back to him, her legs straddling his.

  Whoa!

  Jina jerked, as shocked as if he’d thrown water in her face. Physical sensations rushed in—the heat and hardness of his body against her back and under her butt and thighs, his breath on her hair—all of it tangling with fear and numbness and throwing everything off-kilter because no one component fit with any of the others. What the hell was he doing? And right in front of Boom!

  Clumsily, none of her muscles working in coordination, she tried to shove herself off his lap. He grunted and clamped his right arm around her hips and hauled her back down. “Be still,” he growled. “This is the easiest way to get us harnessed together.”

  Harnessed . . . together. Right.

  Shaking, breathing hard, she tried to relax as he fastened their harnesses together in four places, on each hip and each shoulder. She was pulled back snugly against the muscled wall of his chest. Glancing down, she saw his spread legs between hers, which spread her legs that much wider. The visual was another shock to her system, sharpening her awareness of him to the point of near pain.

  “I’ll be handling everything,” he said in her ear. “You’re just along
for the ride, though after we’re under canopy, you can take the toggles and steer us to the LZ. Remember, tuck your head back into my shoulder and curl your legs upward between mine. Got it?”

  He was telling her things she’d already gone over during the ground training, but the repetition was good because she wasn’t able to think. She had never been so scared in her life, and the dread was getting worse, not better. Maybe the actual jump out of the plane was the worst, like the guys said, and once she was in the air everything would get better.

  Or maybe her heart would explode from the terror. That seemed more likely.

  “We’ll free-fall for about a minute. It’s like floating, you’ll have no sense of speed other than the wind. When we get to twenty-five hundred feet, I’ll pop the chute. It’ll jerk like hell when it opens, pull us up and back, so don’t panic. I’ll ease the straps so it’s more comfortable for you. Then it’s an easy ride down.”

  Don’t panic? Was it possible to panic more once one was already panicked? Like a re-panic, or a double layer of panic?

  “Goggles.”

  A pair dangled in front of her, and she put them on. Goggles. So it was really about to happen.

  “You’ll do fine,” Boom said reassuringly. “Ace has you.” Then the traitor helped Levi shift with her over to the open door. Lips trembling, she looked up at Boom and started to say something, maybe even beg him to help her, but before she could make a sound, Levi heaved them through the open door of the plane—

  Plunging into hell.

  Face-first.

  Jina jerked and stiffened, instantly engulfed in a screaming wind, her head forced back against Levi’s shoulder while her eyes rolled wildly around so that the brown and green of the earth flipped sickeningly with the merciless blue bowl of the sky. She was screaming, too, along with the wind, deep hoarse screams that scraped her throat raw. It was all too much, worse than she’d expected, more than she could handle. The fear she’d been halfway controlling seemed to explode inside her, a great black force that blew out of her chest and expanded in a split second to swallow her whole, and she fell into the black.

  “Jina! Babe! Wake the fuck up!”

  The black didn’t want to give her up. She didn’t want it to give her up, she wanted to stay right there, insensate and safe. She slowly resurfaced to the distant sound of Levi bellowing the command to wake up at her. The sound got closer and closer as consciousness returned, and she opened her eyes to stare dazedly around. Her head bobbled to the side, but she was able to catch herself, and she realized they were still in the air, still going down. She jerked again, pushing herself back against him as if she could force herself through his body, anything to put distance between her and the approaching ground.

  “It’s okay, we’re under canopy, we aren’t falling.”

  He kept repeating that, the words meaningless at first, but after a few times they began making sense and she tilted her head back to stare at the huge white mushroom blooming overhead. The movement moved her head against Levi’s chest and she saw the underside of his chin, his strong jaw, deeply tanned and bristled because he hadn’t shaved that morning. Odd how that seemed so obvious, and why she noticed at all, when she felt so sick. Her heart was slamming against her rib cage with such force she could feel her bones vibrating and she thought she might vomit after all. The fear seemed to come in uncontrollable waves, barely giving her time to catch a breath before she was swamped again. A high-pitched keen of distress vibrated in her throat.

  “Babe. You’re all right.” His deep voice was right beside her ear, so close she could feel his breath in her hair. “Here, take the toggles.”

  “No!” She thrashed her head back and forth, shrinking from the suggestion. The toggles represented this whole experience, and it was as bad as she’d feared it would be. It was awful. She’d never passed out before, but now she felt as if she might faint again, and she didn’t care what Levi thought or if this got her booted out of training. All she wanted was to be on the ground, and all in one piece. Normally her determination would carry her through a sticky situation, but this wasn’t just sticky, it was horrifying beyond her imagining. She’d felt the same way about bungee jumping—not going to do it, no way, no how.

  “All right, all right, you don’t have to.” That rough voice was oddly soothing. Maybe he thought he could afford to be kind now that she was very likely out of the program.

  Strange how now that they were actually floating instead of plummeting, she could tell they were moving, going down. At least she was upright instead of facedown, staring at her death. She could look out at the horizon—but she didn’t, because what was below her had her in an unholy grip. To escape it she closed her eyes, not wanting to see the ground getting closer and closer; her whole body felt limp, her muscle tone gone, and despite herself she let her head fall back against his shoulder again. Oh dear God, she was held in place by four buckles. Four. Levi was the one who wore the parachute harness, not her. If the buckles failed, or the straps broke, she was gone.

  “When I tell you, lift your legs straight out so they aren’t in my way when we land,” he said. That kind note was still in his tone. She hated him for being nice in the face of her failure. If he’d been this way from the beginning—no, it was probably better that he hadn’t. She didn’t want to like him at all.

  She forced her eyes open, because it seemed cowardly not to. The minutes crawled, but at the same time the ground was coming up way too fast. Her breath began hitching in her throat again, and her heartbeat was so fast she was essentially limp in the harness. Details on the ground began to take on sharp clarity, individual leaves on the trees swam into focus, and Levi said, “Legs up!” in that bark of command she was more accustomed to.

  Her body obeyed, as she had obeyed so many of his orders. Her thigh muscles shook, but she lifted her legs so she was in an L shape.

  It was like seeing her car was about to crash but being unable to stop it. The ground was rushing toward them now, a blurred impression of the black asphalt road, the brown grass, a red cross painted on the ground to make the LZ. A jolt shook her in the harness as Levi touched down, his powerful legs absorbing most of the shock. He made a couple of running steps, then stopped as casually as if falling thousands of feet through the air was an everyday occurrence, and began unhooking them. She was so numb she couldn’t quite absorb that they were on the ground, safe, without any broken bones or anything. She hadn’t smashed herself into red mist.

  The harness latches released, and she began dropping, sliding down his body; he caught her, one steely arm around her waist, and said, “Put your feet down now.”

  Okay, she thought, everything feeling distant, even herself, as if her mind had disconnected from her body. Still, she put her feet down and he bent down enough to stand her on the ground, then immediately turned around to begin gathering in the canopy.

  Jina sat down. She didn’t have any choice about it because her legs folded like noodles, but at least she sat instead of collapsing full-length. The chill damp of the ground soaked into her pants, and in the length of time it took Levi to gather and secure the canopy she began shivering. Wet ground was soft, she thought, and soft ground was good.

  She pulled off her goggles and drew her knees up so she could rest her forehead on them and close her eyes. Shutting out the world was a relief; if she could have deafened herself, she would have, to create a total cocoon, but she couldn’t and sound still intruded. She could hear Levi talking—at first she thought he was talking to himself, then realized he was on a headset talking to Boom. Likely they’d been in communication the whole humiliating, terrifying time. Boom knew how pathetically she’d failed.

  She didn’t care. For once in her life, she didn’t care that she hadn’t been able to make herself handle what was in front of her. Parachuting was going to be her Waterloo, because she couldn’t make herself go through that again.

  I have to.

  The inner whisper came up from her
depths. She tried to push the words away, because there had never been anything she’d run into before that had so terrified her beyond functioning. Sure, she’d been scared before, she’d hit obstacles before that she hadn’t thought she could get over, but she’d kept at it with dogged persistence that maybe went beyond the bounds of good sense. This was different. This was fear on a primal level she hadn’t experienced before. This almost reached the level of I’d rather slit my wrists than do that again.

  But even below that at the cellular level was something that made her take a deep breath and face the awful truth.

  She had to.

  She heard Levi’s footsteps come closer, felt him looming over her, blotting out the faint warmth of the sun and leaving her even more chilled, there on the wet ground.

  Forcing her lungs to pull in enough air to speak, she raised her colorless face from her knees and looked up at the big man who stood looking down at her. “Let’s go again,” she said.

  Ten

  Levi squatted down in front of her, his powerful thighs stretching the fabric of his cargo pants, those dark eyes boring into her as if he wanted to pin her to a board like he was some bug collector and she was the bug. “You fainted.” Accusation number one; she knew there were more coming.

  And she hated the way he said that. “Fainted” sounded so much more wussy than “passed out.” She put her cheek down on her knees again, picked up a small stick, and scraped at the winter-dead grass with it. “I won’t again.”

  “Really? How you gonna stop it?” He sounded derisive.