She'd heard Gray when he'd said the military was his life, but until now she hadn't really understood.
The transient lifestyle, the edge-of-the-seat action, the battle-forged camaraderie, Gray would never give it up. More important, he couldn't. Even if Gray somehow managed to overcome his resistance to commitment, this really was it for them unless she could find a way to accept his life in the military.
The spray slowed and dripped to a halt. Jostled from behind as people raced past, Lori steadied herself. Gray's parents, other uniformed flyers charged toward the plane. Julia dashed forward. Bottle in her hand, arms waving, she sprinted to her husband.
Gray hefted Magda from his father's shoulders and tossed her in the air. Water dripped down his gorgeous face as he caught her. Hooking her on his hip, Gray scanned the crowd. The party converged around him, in-flight emergencies long forgotten by everyone.
Except for Lori.
She didn't feel much like partying.
Chapter 13
"We need to talk." Gray waited for Lori to answer, but she stayed silent, jamming the key into her front door. Streetlamps threw shadows across her profile, or had he put those there?
Some days sapped the life right out of a guy. Magda lay slack against his shoulder, exhausted from the party. He shifted her more securely and waited for Lori to answer.
The celebration had gone off without a hitch—well attended, lasting hours past the schedule. Magda had won hearts as she taught her new friends a mixed English-Sentavian version of "Old MacDonald."
Lori's perfect smile had charmed his friends. He couldn't complain, except he recognized that smile. He'd invented it, after all.
Lori was upset. No one else had noticed. He couldn't miss it.
The trip to base should have offered her closure, saved her from being hurt when he left so he could shake loose the unrest dogging his heels. Instead he'd done the very thing he'd sworn never to do. He'd started an ulcer gnawing in her stomach just like the one his father had given his mother.
Gray had flown countless incident-free flights. Not today, not when he'd really needed to. A damned popped seal had blown his whole plan, and now he needed to fix it.
For two open, honest people, they'd danced around the real issue long enough, and time was running out. "Lori? Did you hear me?"
She spun to face him as the door swung open behind her. "Okay, fine. Let's talk."
The tight pinch to her full mouth told him clearly he wouldn't get anywhere with her tonight. No need to step straight onto the land mine. He would have his hands full dodging the less obvious ones. "Not now. Not while we're both wired. Not with Magda around."
And not with the moonlight caressing Lori's fragile jaw and glinting off golden streaks in her hair, hair he wanted to bury his face in while he buried himself in her. The open door taunted him with an invitation to Lori's room and peach-scented sheets. "Definitely not here."
"Well, Major Clark, that pretty much rules out all the options because I have a child to put to bed."
The marshy wind toyed with her hair, gusting strands over him. Options dwindled until he finally settled on the one place guaranteed to douse romantic thoughts. "My folks are having my brother, sister and their families over tomorrow for a farewell party."
"I know. Your mother invited me. Twice."
"I should have warned you. Sorry." The more he thought of going to his parents' for the day, the more he warmed to the idea. He would show her a good time, let them end on a positive note. And maybe if she spent more time with his family and saw his parents together at home, she might understand his need to stay away from her. "I want you and Magda to come."
Her brow quirked, Lori-spunk firmly in place and stirring his exhausted body wide awake. She also looked three seconds away from telling him to go pound sand.
Gray plowed over the silence before she could speak. "Come with me for the day. My mom can watch Magda. We'll talk without distractions."
"Wasn't today enough for you, Gray? It was for me."
She was giving him his walking papers, a chance to end it here and now. But he couldn't do it. Wouldn't do it this way. "We can't leave it like this. At least at my folks' we can find some time to talk—"
"Won't your mother think—"
"I'll take care of my mom. This isn't about her." He lifted Lori's hand and held it loosely in his, studying the fragile bones with an odd sort of objectivity. He knew the names of every bone in that hand. Just regular bones. But infused with Lori's vibrancy, they were beautiful, unique. "We have to talk."
Bells chimed eleven times—or was it twelve—while he waited, already lining up his next argument. Gray shifted Magda more securely on his shoulder, arm hooked under her bottom.
Head bowed, Lori stared down at their clasped hands. "I guess if the king of keep-it-simple wants chitchat, it must be pretty bad." She tugged her hand free and pressed it to her stomach. "We tried so hard to avoid this."
"Too much like last summer."
"But worse."
"Worse?"
Her mouth twitched with a reluctant smile. "We didn't even get to have sex."
Her words punched him square in the libido, and he could only laugh. His body hurt like hell from the rapid decompression. His head wasn't much better off, and still he ached for her. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into Lori's big bed and sleep tangled together.
Instead he laughed at himself and the colossal mess he'd made of his attempt to forget her. Lori joined him until she sagged against the balcony rail, swiping her wrist over her eyes.
He took her hand again and wouldn't let her pull free this time, instead tugging her to him. Her tear-filled eyes met his, stealing the breath from his lungs more effectively than any rapid decompression.
"Oh, God, don't cry, honey. Everybody's fine. No one got hurt today." He brushed his thumb along her cheek, absorbing a lone tear.
"That's not why I'm crying."
"I'm not worth it."
Her chin tipped up. "I know that."
"Of course you do."
Unable to resist, not that he'd ever had much luck resisting Lori, Gray skimmed his lips over hers, kissed her once, then again. A nice safe twelve or so inches separated them. He couldn't get closer or any more intimate, not with a sleeping kid on his shoulder.
Adrenaline letdown in the aftermath of his hazardous flight left him susceptible. He wanted those warm sheets and Lori's soft arms around him. All those moments when he'd thought he might never see her, kiss her, touch her again hammered down on him.
Too much emotion. He needed to pass off the sleeping kid and get away from the temptation of Lori and those welcoming daisies arched over her door.
Easing his face away, he nipped her full lower lip one last time and stared into her stormy eyes. "Come with me tomorrow. I have a reason, something I want you to see." He would come up with something by morning. "I know I've asked a lot. But do this one last thing for me."
No answer had been this important since his first pilot training check ride. His fingers worked a massage on her scalp, a silent plea for her to relax and trust him. A smart woman wouldn't.
"Okay."
Relief made speech tough. Thankful Lori had checked her brain at the door for once, he passed over the sleeping child. He should have offered to carry Magda inside, but he needed to keep his feet firmly on the other side of Lori's threshold since he was already on shaky ground around her. "I'll pick the two of you up around noon."
"I'll be waiting with both my shirts."
Apparently her brain had checked back in, and just in time. Intelligent thought seemed to be in short supply for him. If he didn't pull it together before he picked her up in the morning, he might do something they would both regret. If he hadn't already.
What in the world could Gray want to show her? They crossed yet another bridge over the intercoastal waterway to his parents' seaside condo.
He'd been so serious the night before, so unlike himself. She couldn't resist his invitation. After spending the entire party with her stomach in an uproar over the possibility that Gray could have been hurt, could have—
Blinking quickly, she focused on the glittering ocean.
She simply couldn't walk away. Not yet.
Beach music pulsed low, Gray humming if not singing. Magda drummed her feet against her car seat in time as she stuffed French fries into her mouth, a Happy Meal box on her lap. Gray had detoured to buy it for her even when Lori insisted Magda could wait. The stubborn man had pulled into the drive through anyway and bought himself a Big Mac, too.
Used to winning, more comfortable being in charge, she found his quiet mulishness an odd challenge. Funny how she'd been so focused on the playful exterior a year ago, she'd missed deeper implications of his determination. His resolution no doubt had carried him through in achieving two such ambitious career goals.
What else hadn't she noticed about him?
Like the annoying way he kept popping his knuckles and flexing his feet. Why couldn't he have worn long pants instead of those khaki shorts? Muscles bulged along his bare calf with each flexing stretch. "Could you stop that, please?"
"What?"
She stared pointedly at his cracking fist and feet.
His hand paused midcrack. He straightened his fingers and shrugged, his untucked plaid shirt rippling over his broad shoulders. "Oh, yeah. Sorry. Just working out the bends."
"The bends?"
His fist curled, finishing off the popping in the silence as Gray stared at her legs.
"Eyes on the road, Major." She tugged her silky sun-dress over her knees. Why in the world had she worn a dress to a picnic? She'd convinced herself she would be cooler, ignoring the fact that Gray had told her countless times how he liked seeing her legs bared by a dress.
His hands clenched and unclenched again around the steering wheel. What was he doing? Murmurs of residual panic still taunted her. "Gray? Are you okay? What are the bends?"
He shrugged again. "Just a byproduct of a rapid decompression. The air in your system expands. Now that I'm back at regular pressure, all those air bubbles in my joints are shrinking."
"Does it hurt much?"
"Yesterday's incident wasn't bad." He dismissed it with a wave. "We got on oxygen fast, descended quickly. No sweat."
All that stress and pain from something he claimed was a "simple" in-flight emergency? As if there could be such a thing. What other rigors did flight life put on his body?
"But does it hurt?" she asked, already knowing the answer and not sure why she felt the need to push her point. Perhaps she needed him to reach out to her with more than a smile. Any woman with an ounce of nurturing instinct couldn't resist a man in pain.
Gray flexed his ankle and almost suppressed his wince. "I've treated patients with worse."
Lori blinked through a sting of tears that wouldn't accomplish anything. In fact, tears had landed her in that tender kiss the night before that still tingled along the roots of her hair.
When he'd kissed her, she'd considered pulling him into her house and not letting him go until sunrise. Or maybe until several sunrises. But she'd been too emotional to risk an encounter with Gray, and more than anything, she hated weepy displays.
Admonitions from her parents fluttered through her mind. Dry your eyes, Lorelei, sugar. There's a new adventure right over the next border.
She'd always scrubbed away those tears and tackled the next challenge, a small part of her fearful that if she lagged she would be left behind. She couldn't regret her upbringing, as it had made her stronger and independent—skills that earned her respect in her job, and she loved her job.