If the first time was hard and fast, the second was slow and sweet.
They more or less drifted into it. She was sprawled facedown on the tangled covers, still lazy with pleasure, when he padded in from the bathroom. She watched him with the one eye she didn't have buried in the pillow.
Russ McIver in uniform epitomized today's modern, highly skilled warrior. Out of it, he was all sleek muscle and satisfied male. His weight set the mattress springs creaking as he settled beside her and nuzzled her neck.
"Mmrn. That's nice."
"We need to talk, Cari."
"I know. Could you do that a little lower?"
Nuzzling soon gave way to nipping. The bristly rasp of his five o'clock shadow added to the scrape of his teeth. Cari had come fully alive again when she felt a suspicious prod at her backside. Twisting, she aimed a laughing look over her shoulder.
"You certainly recharge your batteries faster than Pegasus does."
Grinning at the compliment, he proceeded to demonstrate several other areas in which his performance exceeded that of an all-weather, all-terrain attack/assault vehicle.
By the time they finished, late afternoon had darkened into stormy night and Cari was limp with pleasure. Mac, on the other hand, appeared remarkably together for a man who'd already made a serious dent in his emergency supplies. Hooking his left elbow under his head, he smiled across the pillow at her.
"Have I told you what a remarkable woman you are, Lieutenant Dunn?"
"Not lately." She thought about it for a moment. "Not ever, as a matter of fact. Nor, I would like to point out, have you told me you love me."
He blinked in surprise. "Sure I have."
"Is that right?" Dragging the sheet up, she tucked it under her arms. "When?"
"What, you want the exact time and place?" He searched his memory. "That night in Caribe, after you told me you'd called things off with Jerry-boy. I told you then I had it bad for you."
"Actually, your exact phrasing was that you had the hots for me."
One corner of his mouth tipped up. "That's pretty much the equivalent of saying I love you in marine-speak."
"Not in coast guard lingo. Say it, Mac. I want to hear the words."
His smile took on a curve that was tender and tough and rueful all at the same time. "I love you, Cari. I have from the first time you squared up to me and suggested I get my head out of my butt, or words to that effect."
Snuggling closer, she bent an elbow on his chest and propped her chin in the crook. Her heart was in her eyes as she answered the question in his.
"I love you, too, big guy. So much I was prepared to use your sling to tie you to this bed until you admitted the feeling was mutual."
"Well, damn! I didn't know you were into kinky stuff. It's still not too late for ropes and chains."
Grinning, she ignored his exaggerated leer. "The question now is whether we take the next step slow, or jump on a plane and zip out to Vegas before returning to our separate duty stations. Personally, I vote for Vegas."
Just like that, Mac felt the worry and frustration and disgust at his lack of control over his life slide out of him. She was so sure, so certain. Her brown eyes held not the faintest trace of doubt.
He knew then that it didn't matter what the medical evaluation board decided. The corps had filled his mind and his heart all these years. He suspected both would be now fully occupied by Lieutenant Caroline Dunn.
Before he could tell her so, a ferocious pounding rattled the door in the other room.
"Oh, no!" Cari groaned. "Why does this always happen when we get naked?"
"You stay naked. I'll get it this time."
Shaking his uniform pants, he stepped into them and dragged them on. Cari reached across the bed to keep them up around his hips while he worked the zipper.
"Thanks." His flashed her a quick grin. "We make a heck of a team, Dunn."
"So we do," she returned smugly.
Still grinning, Mac left her amid the tumbled covers and closed the bedroom doors. He opened the one in the living room to find Jill Bradshaw in the hall, her fist raised to pound again. The cop's startled glance zeroed in on his bare chest, dropped to his shoeless feet and whipped up to his amused face.
"Sorry to interrupt," she said got out after a moment. "If Cari's in there with you, she might want to turn on the television."
The sound of her former roommate's voice brought Cari's head popping through the crack in the bedroom door.
"Why? What's up?"
"A news flash just came on. Evidently a cruise ship out of Galveston lost one of its stabilizers. The storm's tossing the liner around like a toy boat."
"Oh, Lord!" Dragging the sheet she'd wrapped around her, Cari made for the TV. "Anyone want to bet two thousand passengers are upchucking all over that ship right now?"
Neither Mac nor Jill took her up on the bet, which was smart, as the news chopper's aerial shot of the floundering ship made even Cari's stomach turn queasy. The helicopter's high-powered spots barely cut through the sheets of rain and winds that sent walls of angry water smashing across the vessel's bow.
"She's floundering," Cari muttered, her gaze narrowed on the screen. "They'd better start taking off her passengers, like fast."
As if to confirm her assessment of the situation, the newscaster pitched his voice over the howling winds to advise that the coast guard had ordered them to vacate the area immediately so as not to interfere with rescue operations. White knuckled, Cari clutched the sheet.
"The coast guard units here and at Kingsville will respond," she told the others. "Navy rescue craft, as well. They'll have to shuttle the passengers in by shifts. The operation will take all night."
Dropping into the chair at the desk, she reached for the phone and asked the operator to connect her to the coast guard operations center. She wasn't surprised when the on-duty controller ascertained she wasn't reporting an emergency then put her on hold for a good five minutes. When he came back on, Cari cut right to the purpose of her call.
"This is Lieutenant Caroline Dunn, United States Coast Guard. I'm on detached duty here at Corpus Christi. Tell your CO. I'm available if he needs more hands to assist in the rescue operation."
"Will do, ma'am. Give me your number and I'll pass it to the skipper."
After that, there was nothing to do but watch as the local rescue units battled nature's fury. Cari and Mac retreated to the bedroom only long enough to dress. Two hours crawled by, long stretches filled with tossing seas and a steady progression of rescue craft pinned in the unrelenting glare of the aircraft circling overhead. Jill rapped on the door again, this time with Cody, Kate and Dave in tow.
Her face grim, Kate delivered more bad news. "I just checked the weather service computers. We've got another front moving down from the north. The two are going to collide right over this corner of the Gulf. The situation is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better."
Her prediction was right on target. Where the seas were angry before, they soon turned vicious. The news agencies reported forty- and fifty-foot swells. Shots of the cruise ship showed the liner battered by white-capped swells that leaped and crashed around it like furies.
Cari was huddled in front of the TV with the rest of the Pegasus team when the phone rang. Thinking it was the coast guard controller, she snatched up the receiver.
"Lieutenant Dunn."
"Cari!" Her sister's frantic voice jumped across the line. "Is Paulo there with you?"
Her fist went tight on the phone. "No, he's not."
"We can't find him. We think he's run away."
"Why, for God's sake?"
"Jack found him playing with a rusty old pocket-knife. He was afraid one of the other kids might cut themselves and tried to take it away."
"Oh, no!"
She'd forgotten all about the boy's prize possession! She should have warned Deb he had it, explained how much it meant to him.
"How long has he been missing?"
> Mac pushed out of his chair and came across the room. "How long has who been missing?"
"Paulo."
She angled the receiver so he could listen to Deb's rushed account.
"Paulo agreed to give Jack the knife. I thought he understood we were only holding it for safekeeping, but when we went up to check on the kids, he was gone. So was the knife."
"Have you called the Whites?"
"I checked with them first."
Mac snatched the phone out of Cari's hand. "What about the hospital? He might have gone there looking for me."
"I already called there. No one's seen him. Jack went out to search up and down the beach." Her voice wavered, cracked. "Oh, Mac, I hate to think Paulo might be wandering around in this storm."
Chapter 14
After instructing Deb to notify the police about Paulo's disappearance, Cari, Mac and the rest of the Pegasus cadre raced through the sheeting rain to the Hamiltons' beachside condo. The Whites arrived mere minutes later, as did a team of police officers and a hastily assembled group of local volunteers.
While Deb manned a mini-command post set up in the kitchen, searchers combed an area stretching from the populated sectors in the north to the Padre Island national seashore farther south. The searchers stayed out until well past midnight. Buffeted by wind, lashed by rain, they went door to door in the developed areas and used ATVs to comb the dunes.
The police called a halt to the official search just after 1:00 a.m. and asked the volunteers to reassemble come daylight. Mac, Cari, Jack, the Whites and the rest of the Pegasus crew gathered at the condo to regroup. Downing mugs of steaming coffee, they prepared to go back out again. A thoroughly miserable Jack shoved back the hood of his canary-yellow rain jacket and dragged a hand over his face.
"I feel lousy about that business with the knife. I didn't have any idea it meant so much to Paulo."
"That was our fault," Janice White said wearily. She was as soaked as the rest of them. Water dripped from her lashes and her strawberry-blond hair stood up in wet spikes. "We should have explained how careful Paulo always was with it around the other children. I'm surprised he ran away because you took it, though. The first few times Harry confiscated it, Paulo just rooted around the mission until he found it again."
Jack took small comfort from her words. Mac understood how he felt. He'd sensed something was troubling the kid, had tried to ferret it out of him. The best he'd been able to do was offer hearty assurances he'd be there when and if Paulo went into surgery.
A kid needed more than assurances. From bitter experience, Mac knew they needed a hand to hang on to. One that wouldn't let go through the rough times or the good.
"I'm going back out," he said abruptly.
He returned his mug to the kitchen counter with a thud, slopping hot coffee onto the back of his hand. He ignored the sting and dragged up the hood of his borrowed squall jacket. His uniform pants were drenched from the knees down and his shoes would never take another shine, but a lack of military precision didn't concern him at the moment.
Cari edged around the counter. Her hand caught his and made soothing little circles on the still-stinging skin.
"We'll find him," she said softly.
She'd guessed his guilt, his gut-wrenching sense of having failed Paulo as so many adults had failed Mac during his younger, wilder years. Despite the worry darkening her eyes, she was taking time to let him know she understood.
Funny, he'd never talked about his past. Had never needed to talk about it. Cari was the only one he could remember opening up to, and then with little more than the sketchiest details. Yet the bits he'd shared with her had given her a clearer insight into his thinking than he'd realized. For the first time, Mac had an inkling of what it would be like to share his life, his bed, even his thoughts with someone.
No, not someone.
With Cari.
Turning his palm up, he gave her fingers a tight, reassuring squeeze. "Damn straight, we'll find him."
He was halfway to the door when the shrill of the phone froze him in his tracks. Everyone in the kitchen jerked toward the wall-mounted unit. Leaping out of his seat with a look of anxious hope, Jack reached across the counter and snatched up the receiver.
"Hamilton here."
A moment later his shoulders drooped in disappointment. Turning, he held the phone out to his sister-in-law.
"It's the coast guard operations center."
"Oh, hell," Cari muttered. Her wet sneakers squishing on the tile, she crossed the kitchen. "I forgot about that cruise ship. God, I hope it hasn't gone down."
For several tense moments, it looked to the others in the kitchen that the worst had indeed happened. Cari identified herself, listened to the controller for a few seconds and suddenly stiffened.
"How far out are they?"
Her knuckles turned bone-white where she clutched the phone. Every vestige of color drained from her face. Her glance cut to Mac to her sister and back again.
His insides went cold. The call was about Paulo. He could see it in her face.
"Advise the RCC I'm on my way."
Slamming the phone into its cradle, she faced the tense, silent group.
"The coast guard Rescue Coordination Center just received a distress call from the captain of a commercial fishing boat. The Aransas Star put out from the docks just north of here earlier this evening, intending to edge around the worst of the storm so its crew could set their tuna lines come dawn. The boat had almost cleared the storm area when the second front hit. Its engine took a horrific beating fighting those swells and seized."
"Seized?" Deb gasped. "Like in died?"
"Like in died. When the crew went down to try to restart the engine they discovered a stowaway. He won't tell them his name..."
"Because he can't," Mac guessed grimly.
White-lipped, Cari nodded. "Their description of the boy tallies. It's Paulo."
The questions flew at her then, fast and furious.
"Did they get the engine restarted?"
"Are they bringing Paulo in?"
"Is the coast guard going after them?"
She shook her head. "No to the first two. As for the third, the Rescue Coordination Center is looking to see what assets they can redirect from the crippled cruise ship. Hopefully, they'll have a chopper or a cutter on the way by the time we get there."
"We're wasting time here," Mac snapped. "Let's go."
Deb and Jack stayed with their kids. The Whites remained at the condo as well, since their civilian status wouldn't allow them access to the restricted RCC. The six Pegasus team members piled into their vehicles and tailed Cari back to the naval air station.
The Rescue Coordination Center was like a dozen others Cari had pulled duty in. A wall-sized screen displayed a huge, computerized map of the Gulf. Controllers sat at a U-shaped console that gave them an unobstructed view of the screen while they synthesized the information pouring in by phone, fax, radio and computer. Given the level of activity, the very air inside the center vibrated with tension.
Cari pinpointed the location of the cruise ship with a single glance at the screen. The flashing red icon representing the ship looked like a giant queen bee, surrounded by hoards of rescue craft that buzzed around her like drones. Several pleasure boats were in distress as well, Cari saw. And there, in the northeast corner of the operational sector, was the flashing signal marking the position of the Aransas Star.
The center's commanding officer dragged his attention from the screen only long enough to brief the new arrivals. Mac was the only one of the group wearing a uniform, but the CO. recognized Cari instantly. The coast guard was a relatively small service and most of the officers had crossed paths at one time or another.
Swiftly, Cari introduced the others. The CO. accepted Jill's army status, Doc Richardson's Public Health Service background and Dave Scott's air force experience without a blink. His interest quickened when he learned Kate Hargrave was one of the Na tional Ocea
nic and Atmospheric Administration's famed hurricane hunters. The National Weather Service was one of NOAA's major sub-units and, it turned out, had accurately predicted the turbulence that would occur when the second front moved in and collided with the first.
"We managed to get a warning out to most of the ships at sea," the rescue coordinator said, brushing a hand through his short, sandy hair. "If the cruise liner hadn't lost a stabilizer, she would have made port before the second front hit."
"How's the off-load of passengers progressing?" Cari asked.
"More slowly than we'd like. We've pressed all available navy, coast guard and customs service vessels into service, along with choppers from every base along the Gulf. But with these winds and swells, it's hell trying to bring the rescue craft alongside the liner."
"What about the fishing boat? We think the stowaway they found aboard is the same child we reported missing some hours ago."
His face etched with sharp creases, the commander eyed the flashing red icon in the northeast sector of his operations area. "They're more than a hundred nautical miles out. I'm diverting a chopper but will have to refuel it in flight. We're requesting a tanker orbit now."
Cari's stomach sank. Bellying the rescue chopper up to a tanker in these winds would eat a precious thirty minutes. Sending it across a hundred nautical miles of storm-tossed sea would eat at least another hour. The fishing boat couldn't take another hour and a half of being pounded by these murderous swells.
Mac did the math as swiftly as Cari did, but grabbed on to a different solution.
"We've got our own craft," he informed the commander brusquely. "It's got twice the air speed of a chopper. What's more, it's fueled and ready to fly."
Cari whipped around. "Pegasus isn't configured for deep-water rescue."
"It's equipped with a Survivor Retrieval System," Kate reminded her. "We used it to haul Mac out of the river."
"The SRS won't hack it in these kinds of seas. We'd need a harness sling or a basket."
She spun around again, an urgent question on her face. Her coast guard comrade answered with a quick nod. "We can supply a sling, but the baskets are all in use."
The Right Stuff Page 14