Flying High (12 page)

“Look at the birds, Unca Nelson,” Ricky screamed as they passed
the Waterfowl Sanctuary on the drive along the George Washington Memorial
Highway.

“One day I’ll bring you out here. It’s spectacular on a
pleasant day. He drove through Old Town Alexandria and parked. To throw the man
he’d come to think of as “Mustache” off his trail, he’d had his secretary
purchase their tickets. Half an hour early, at the foot of Prince Street, they
boarded the Scandinavian-built schooner
Alexandria,
and he made sure they got on first. As unobtrusively as possible, he stationed
himself near the entrance and watched until the boat shoved off. He could
relax...almost; Mustache didn’t board after he did, but agents had means and
used them. Still, he felt reasonably relaxed.

However, as he turned from the railing, he didn’t have to be
told that the man who’d buried his face in the Saturday edition of
The Washington Post
was the one he called
Mustache.

Twice, “Mustache” had seen Audrey with Ricky and himself, and
that made her vulnerable. Marilyn wanted the matter kept secret, but he had to
tell Audrey enough to ensure her awareness of possible danger. He watched the
sights with one eye on his adversary. Along the shore as the seagulls glided
above them and less flight-worthy birds fluttered overhead and alongside them,
the
Alexandria
took them through bits of history;
past Founders Park, dedicated to the Founding Fathers; Torpedo Factory Art
Center, once a gun shell factory; past some of the town’s most elegant
restaurants.

As they disembarked, Ricky’s yawns gave Nelson the excuse he
needed to cut their outing short. Later, Audrey lingered at her door,
telegraphing to him her wish to prolong their time together. With Ricky asleep
in his arms, he couldn’t even kiss her properly and had to settle for a stroke
of his fingers along her cheeks and the promise that his eyes communicated.

“That’s it,” he told Marilyn as soon as he fastened Ricky into
his car seat, got in and closed the door. “I have to tell her. She can’t be
sacrificed, and neither can my housekeeper.”

“I’ll take care of it. Tell them not to widen their circle of
friends right now.”

He had planned to work at home that evening, but the severity
of pain in his shoulder was such that he couldn’t concentrate.

“Can you tell me some stories about the cow and the moon, Unca
Nelson? Can I see the moon?”

He’d never been so glad for a cloudy sky. “The clouds are
covering the moon. I’ll tell you some bedtime stories when I’m not so sleepy,”
he said, fighting pain so severe that talking irritated him.

Ricky gazed up at him with trusting eyes. “I can tell you a
bedtime story if you want to go to sleep,” he said. “Let’s see, ‘The Happy
Chipmunks,’ ‘Puss ’N Boots’...” His eyes widened. “I know, I’ll tell you ‘The
Golden Goose.’ Lie down.”

“Ricky, come take your bath. Ricky, where are you?” Lena
called.

Ricky ran to the door. “Unca Nelson is sleepy, and I’m gonna
tell him a bedtime story.”

Relief flooded him when he heard Lena’s steps in the hallway.
“You’d better take your bath first.”

“Okay. Stay awake till I get back, Unca Nelson.”

“I’ll try.” He closed his door, went into the bathroom, soaked
a towel with hot water, folded it and wrapped it around his neck. After
repeating the measure several times, the pain ebbed slightly. A hot shower left
him feeling like a brand-new man, so he dressed in Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt
and went downstairs where he knew he’d find Lena watching a rerun of the Judge
Judy show.

“You’re not in danger,” he said, after giving her a brief
synopsis of the problem. “I’m telling you because you’re entitled to know what’s
going on.”

She slapped her thighs and rolled her eyes. He figured that in
her younger days and before personal tragedies darkened her life, Lena had been
a handsome woman. If she’d had that gap between her two upper front teeth
closed, she might even have been very good-looking. “Thanks,” she said. “If I
catch that old vulture tagging behind me, I’ll walk right up to him and tell him
I’m gonna have him arrested for sexual harassment.”

Lena had an off-the-wall way of looking at things. He tried not
to laugh, but it poured out of him anyway. When he could recover his aplomb, he
told her, “That ought to put the fear of God in him. You bet he won’t want to
see the inside of a clink.”

“Humph. It’s my intention to put the fear of Lena into him. He
may not be acquainted with the Lord.”

Still laughing, Nelson bounded up the stairs, looked in on
Ricky and found him asleep with his bunny in the crook of his arm. He gazed down
at the boy, trying to understand when and how he had begun to feel as if Ricky
were his own child. After lowering the air conditioner thermostat, he turned out
the light and tiptoed from the room. He had to warn Audrey.

* * *

“Hi. I need to tell you something, and it’s not for the
telephone.” He looked at his watch. “It’s nine o’clock. Can you meet me at the
Omni Sheraton lounge, or should I come to your place?”

“Is this urgent?”

What a question! “I’m beginning to think it is, and it’s best I
go to your house.”

“All right. But Nelson—”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Oh yes, I do. I trust me, too, but I wouldn’t put my money on
the pair of us. Alone together, we’re not trustworthy.”

He could think of several dagger-sharp answers to that, but
prudence dictated that he keep them to himself. He settled for “Trustworthy? I
don’t remember having let myself down, so speak for yourself.”

“Think harder, and you’ll come up with something. Something
big.’

“What do you mean by that?”

“Talk to yourself, honey. Ask yourself a few strategic
questions. By the time you get here, you’ll be less certain. See you in half an
hour.”

“Yeah.” All of a sudden, staring at him through his mind’s eye
was the picture of his beloved Carole in his bed with Bradford Stewart, his best
friend. He blew out a long, tired breath. “Yeah. See you.”

* * *

Her smile when she opened the door had the shimmer of
moonlight, an invitation whether or not she meant to extend one. He diverted his
glance in order to change the direction of his thoughts, and even then, red
toenails peeped at him from between the thongs of her sandals. Pretty toes. His
gaze traveled upward to bare knees punctuated with dimples and on to white
shorts that covered only a small portion of thighs that were smooth, brown and
luscious. Damn! All that talk about being trustworthy. He’d better change the
venue.

“Hi. Why don’t we...uh...go for a ride, maybe stop at The Igloo
on Connecticut Avenue, get some ice cream or something? We can talk along the
way.”

She knitted her eyebrows. “But I thought—”

“I did, too. But unless you’re interested in spontaneous
combustion, I say we hightail it out of here.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh! Uh... Let me get my pocketbook.”

He didn’t want to put his foot inside, and he’d feel silly
waiting outside the front door. “You don’t need it. Let’s—”

She cut him off. “Quit steamrolling me. I do so need it.”

She whirled around, dashed up the stairs and, five minutes
later, glided back down wearing an antique-gold sweater-blouse and an
ankle-length black-and-gold-patterned skirt with a slit high up one side. His
gaze took in her hair hanging around her shoulders in a slightly unkempt fashion
that, along with the big gold hoops that hung from her ears, gave her the look
of a sexy siren. And all that in five minutes.

He could feel his lips curl into a grin. “Damndest pocketbook I
ever saw.”

She tossed her head. “A gentleman doesn’t make such
comments.”

His grin threatened to erupt into a laugh. “What about an
ordinary guy like me? Would he say something like that?”

“You’re impossible,” she said, although she showed no sign of
displeasure.

He drove on Wilson Lane down to River Road, turned onto
Garrison and from there to Connecticut Avenue.

“You seem to know this town as well as if it were your
backyard.”

He brushed off the compliment with a shrug. “I’ve been trained
to see what I look at, to be aware of everything around, below and above me, so
I can can’t take credit for being observant. And that’s as good an opener as any
for what I have to tell you.” He pulled up to The Igloo, parked, cut the motor
and took her left hand in his.

“Is this a brush-off?” she asked, her facial expression similar
to a large question mark.

“Nothing like that.” He gave her the facts, beginning with
Stacey’s wish to visit Ricky. “You are not in danger, but the official advice is
that you shouldn’t widen your circle of friends.”

“You mean, go on as if this situation didn’t exist? That’s
asking a lot.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. Apart from being careful, that’s what
I’m
doing. You’re in this because of your
association with me, and you’ll be as well protected as I am. Don’t doubt
that.”

“I won’t ask what you do that has put you in this
position.”

Since she wasn’t asking, he saw no need to volunteer an answer.
She didn’t speak again for a long time, merely sat there, seemingly lost in
thought. His arm stole around her shoulder in a protective gesture, and when she
snuggled closer to him, a softening, a longing stole into his heart, generating
in him a feeling he hadn’t experienced in years and had hoped never to have
again. She would never know how glad he was that they were not alone in her
house.

“I want a double cone of peach ice cream,” she said, and as the
words left her lips, she eased out of his arms with a smile blooming on her
face. The way a woman looked when she had a cherished secret. He wondered at
that smile, for he saw nothing remotely amusing.

Later, they sat in the car eating ice cream, she peach and he
black raspberry. He punched a button, and immediately the sound of Mississippi
John Hurt’s ancient voice and masterful guitar giving forth with “Nobody’s
Business If I Do” filled the air.

“I didn’t know you collected folk blues,” she said. “I like
this, but I’ve always been partial to classic jazz.”

“Oh, I enjoy that, too. What about opera and symphonic music?
Like that?”

“Basically, I love it, but I can do without some of it. The
more modern it gets, the less I like it.”

“Same here.” He watched her run her tongue around the edges of
the ice cream and then lick her lips. He looked at the cone in his hand, closed
his eyes and expelled a long breath. If he could just get that tongue into his
mouth, he’d...”

“I think I’ve had enough,” he told her. “Excuse me while I find
a wastebasket.”

“Wait a minute.” Her even white teeth sank into the cone, and
she turned to him. “Taste this. It’s delicious.”

He took the cone from her hand, tasted the ice cream and looked
into the soft brown eyes that gazed up at him expectantly. Without thinking
about it, he reached across her to the glove compartment, found a plastic bag,
put their cones in it and dropped the bag on the floor.

Her gaze still rested on his face. Tremors shook him as he
enclosed her in his embrace and lowered his head. Her lips opened to him and his
own groan startled him as he plunged his tongue into her mouth. She gripped his
head and sucked his tongue deeply into her, moaning, pulling him in deeper. When
her breath came in pants, his fingers went to the hem of her sweater, so eager
was he to taste again the sweetness of her beaded nipple. But his senses kicked
in, and after breaking the kiss, he held her to him and leaned his head against
the back of the seat.

They were in his car beneath the streetlight, and he’d almost
committed a serious faux pas. “I didn’t mean to start that here in public.
That’s not my style, Audrey.”

“Nor mine. I forgot where we were. At the moment, you were
between me and the world.” She shifted to her side of the car. “Looks as if
bucket seats haven’t circumvented making out in cars.”

He sat forward and ignited the engine. “Not by a long shot. By
the way, you’ve given me several IOUs. Don’t be surprised if I decide to cash
in. Ready to go?”

“You can’t ‘cash in,’ as you put it, without my cooperation.
I’m ready to go.”

“That’s precisely what I’m counting on. There’s nothing
one-sided about this, and you know that as well as I do.” He believed in calling
it as he saw it. “You want me, and I want you.”

Her shrug didn’t fool him, nor did her words when she said,
“I’ve wanted a lot of things I didn’t allow myself to have. So don’t be so
sure.”

“Whatever you say.”

“I’m not going any farther than your front door,” he said when
they reached her house. “If I step into that foyer with you, I’m going to do
everything I can to make sure I spend the night.” She gasped and lowered her
gaze. “Better get on in there. I’ll wait here until I hear the lock turn.”

Looking less than happy, she opened the door, walked in and
closed it. A second later, before she could lock the door, her screams pierced
the air.

Chapter 6

H
e stopped dead in his tracks, whirled around and raced back to the front door. He didn’t ring the bell or knock, but gave the door the full force of his two hundred and six pounds, and it yielded at once. Thank God she hadn’t had time to double-lock the door.

“What... What on earth?” He nearly stumbled over her. Remembering her reaction to darkness, he flicked on the light and saw that she had tripped over the ficus tree that stood beside the door. He knelt, lifted her into his arms and cradled her body to his. Perspiration beaded his forehead and his shirt clung to his damp body. He hadn’t prayed since the night his helicopter crashed, but he found words to express his thanks that she was unharmed. With his eyes closed he rocked her.

“That must have scared the beejeebers out of you. What’s this thing doing on the floor?” he said, when he trusted himself to speak.

She appeared calm, but her staccatolike breathing belied it. “It fell on me when I stepped inside. I thought someone had grabbed me, and with that man stalking us... Well, you may imagine what I thought.”

He helped her to her feet, picked the tree up and stationed it in the hall beside the telephone table. “I expect you were terrified. Will you be all right now?” He didn’t want to leave her. But neither did he want to seduce a woman who was at his mercy. “Would you like to go home with me? At least you won’t be alone.”

“Thanks. I’ll be fine.”

He checked the lock. “Seems okay.”

“I hadn’t locked the door.” She dusted the back of her skirt, though he saw no reason for it. “I appreciate your concern and that you came back here to check on me, but I’m sure I’ll be all right.”

“If you’re sure.” It could have been his imagination, or maybe her usual aplomb had only momentarily deserted her, but she seemed defenseless. Exposed. Vulnerable. Seeing her that way aroused in him a need to protect her, intensifying the physical desire that had rumbled in him since she’d opened her door to Ricky and him earlier in the afternoon. He didn’t need a degree in mathematics to understand that the combination was lethal for his self-control.

“Yes. I’m sure. And...thanks.”

“I’d better check the place out,” he said, when it occurred to him that someone could have moved the ficus tree from its usual place, causing it to fall when she opened the door. After checking every part of the house, including her back deck, he made his way back to her. She hadn’t moved.

He observed her carefully, her facial expression, her stance, the tilt of her head, the truth in her eyes and, convinced that she meant for him to leave, he reached for the door.

“Oooh!” He grabbed his right shoulder, frowning and wincing, unable to hide his reaction.

“Nelson! Honey, what...let me.” She draped an arm around his waist and walked with him to her living room. “Lie facedown on the carpet, and take off your shirt.”

She ran hot water from the tap into a bowl, got a towel and applied the heat to his neck. Then he felt her straddle him, but the severity of his pain was such as to preclude the effect that her being in that position would normally have on him.

After she eased the pain with her fingers and repeated applications of the heat to his neck and shoulders, he sat up with his back against the sofa.

She knelt beside him. “Is becoming a four-star general worth this pain, and the crippling disease you’ll probably get from this damage?”

He leaned his head back and looked at her. “Probably not, and if I hadn’t made that promise to my father, I expect I would have given up on it. But I can’t. He went through so much for Joel and me. He sacrificed his own career for us and retired as a lieutenant commander when he should have become an admiral. He turned down one opportunity after another so that we could have a stable family life. After a while, the opportunities stopped coming. Joel is gone now, and that leaves me. I promised my father I’d make it to the top, and in less than five minutes after I said the words, he slipped away from us.
I can’t give up.
”

He drew her into the circle of his arm. “Didn’t you ever have a goal that your life revolved around?”

She rested her head on his shoulder, tentatively, as if fearing that she might hurt him. “I’m working to open my own practice. When I think of all that it entails, I get goose bumps. It means I start from the bottom with debts and the few patients who will be willing to follow me from the clinic. Most won’t, because the clinic will cost them less.”

“Have you set a deadline for yourself?”

She told him she’d found a place she liked and thought she could afford. “I hope to open by the end of November.”

“Maybe I’ll be your first patient.” He shrugged, dismissing the thought. “Just kidding. You’d have to report it, and I would never knowingly put you in a position where you had to choose between ethics and loyalty.”

“I’m just praying that what you’re going through will be worth it in the end. But I wish you could find a way to get the tests that wouldn’t be prejudicial to your career. It pains me to think about it.”

She had never said the words, and he suspected she didn’t plan to, but she told him in many ways that she cared for him, and it went far beyond that hell-for-leather heat they’d had for each other since they first met. It was in him, too, and deepening with each passing day.

“If you’re sure you’re all right alone here, I’ll leave now.”

She kissed the side of his neck and moved out of his arms before he could react and plunge them into fire-hot passion. As he left her, he had difficulty remembering what he was like as a man before she came into his life.

“This is dangerous,” he said aloud, easing the car away from the curb in front of her house. “I’m getting in deeper and deeper, and I can’t seem to stop myself.” He corrected that.
“I don’t want to stop myself.”

* * *

As if she and Nelson were mentally attached to each other, her mind loitered in their private hell. She climbed the stairs, wishing she trusted her judgment about men sufficiently to follow her instincts and let herself love Nelson.

How much proof do I need?
She undressed, completed her ablutions, said her prayers and was about to crawl into bed. Feeling perverse, angry at herself and wanton at the same time, she pulled off her gown and slipped her nude body between yellow satin sheets, which were one of her few extravagances.

She didn’t understand the unadulterated wickedness that stole over her as she reach over for the phone and dialed Nelson’s number. The minute she heard his voice, she wished she hadn’t yielded to the impulse.

“Hello, Audrey. Are you all right?”

“I...uh...I just called to say good-night.”

“You sound as if you’re lying down. Are you in bed?”

She wanted to kick herself, because she either had to admit it or lie, and she hated to lie. How could he tell? She decided to finesse the question. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“The soft, kittenish sound of your voice, that’s what,” he said in something approaching a growl. “If you want me to come back over there, just say the word.”

She tried to decelerate the rate of her breathing so that he wouldn’t be aware of her turmoil. “I called to...to say...good-night, Nelson.”

“You owe me better than that, Audrey. You know...one of these days you and I will lay our cards on the table. Secrets, fears, baggage we can’t seem to get rid of. I’ve been wondering what we’d be like together if we didn’t have all that stuff dragging us down.”

“You’re speaking for you, I take it.”

“No. I’m speaking for us. You think I’m so stupid I don’t know the reason you keep a protective barrier around yourself. Same reason that I do. Baggage. I’m going to take a good look at mine, and I think it would be good if you did the same. In my case, the damage was done almost six years ago, which means I’ve let someone control one of the most important areas of my life, a someone whose main contribution to my life has been pain. Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

“Well?” he said when she didn’t answer.

“If all you’ve felt is pain,” she said at last, “consider yourself fortunate. I have the pain, yes, but sometimes the hatred I feel is so intense, so passionate, that it’s enervating.”

“I’m sorry. Really sorry. For both of us. We’d be great together, but unfortunately neither of us is able to get over that hurdle. I’ve just had a good talk with myself, though, and I’m turning a corner. I intend to try my damndest to put it behind me.”

She was sitting up now, the felinelike prowl that had beset her earlier had dissolved with the impact of his admission. His words hadn’t surprised her, but she hadn’t expected that he would ever utter them to her. He intended to free himself of the past. If only she could do the same.

“To promise I’ll do the same would be tantamount to telling you I’ll learn how to throw an elephant.”

“Let me help you.’

She leaned back against the headboard and looked toward the ceiling. “How can you? I need to help myself.”

“Give me a chance.”

“Oh, Nelson. I’ve heard those exact words before, and I complied. To my regret. I know in every chamber of my heart that you’re different, but I can’t see myself opening up to a man. If you knew! If you only knew!”

“When you trust me, you’ll tell me.”

She exhaled a long breath. “I guess that goes for both of us.” She blew him a kiss. “Good night.”

“At least you didn’t forget my kiss. Good night, babe.”

She didn’t want to get up and put on her gown, and she was no longer in the mood to sleep nude. How could you love a man if you didn’t trust him not to break your heart? She didn’t know if she could ever love
any
man again. And yet...

* * *

Monday morning following that all-revealing Saturday, Nelson sat at his desk working out a military game, a strategy for helicopter defense in the absence of other air cover, when he received a call from Lieutenant McCafferty, the Commandant’s aide. In response to her request, he walked down the hall to Room 100-A, two doors removed from his own office. He entered the Commandant’s reception room and stopped. If his hair had stood straight up on his head, he wouldn’t have been surprised. However, he strolled over to the man whose presence shocked him and offered his hand.

“Good to see you again, Colonel Holden. I’m sure you’re glad to be back.”

Rupert Holden, known in the service as Rupe, had just returned from Afghanistan, where he’d served in the unit that had once been under Nelson’s command. A Lieutenant Colonel, and thus one rank below Nelson, he, too, commanded respect.

“It’s good to be back, too. I’m hoping for a lengthy tour stateside, but I don’t think there’s much chance. I’m told my office is a few doors down from yours, so we’ll be seeing each other.”

The officers stood, and Nelson looked around to see that the Commandant had entered the room. The Commandant introduced them to Rupe Holden in a briefing that lasted about three minutes, after which they were dismissed. Nelson shook hands with Holden again and hurried back to his office. Rupert Holden was the last person he needed in his life, the man who might know about the one time he broke Marine Corps rules and who, given the opportunity and a chance to curry favor, would delight in reporting it.

Holden didn’t mind ratting on his fellow officers and had done so several times. His superiors ignored the incidences Holden reported, claiming that such matters were personal and unrelated to the officers’ responsibilities. Nelson didn’t believe in infidelity, but he didn’t think Holden should have reported the officer who committed the act.

Nelson wasn’t certain, but in an afterthought, it seemed to him that Holden hadn’t given him the deference that one officer accorded a more senior one. If so, it might mean that Holden knew he’d overlooked a Marine sergeant’s infraction of the rules by sleeping on guard duty one night. He’d have to face the consequences of that when the time came.

* * *

“Where you going on vacation, sir?” Lena asked him when he got home. “You and Ricky need a vacation. You know, some change of environment.”

He propped his left foot on the bottom stair step and let a grin play around his lips. Used to Lena’s way of talking around a point when she wasn’t sure of her ground, he laid his head to one side the better to observe her unobtrusively.

“In other words, there’s someplace you want to go for about a week. Right?”

Laughter rolled out of her. “I declare, Colonel, if sometimes I don’t think you’re psychic. You young people don’t do nothing but work. I been telling Audrey she gon’ be dull as dirtballs.”

He held up his hand. “That’s enough of that. There’s no reason for Audrey and me to take our vacations together.”

She tossed her head. “That so? Things must’ve changed since I was your age. All right. There’s this family reunion we have every other year. This year, it’ll be in Orlando. If I’m going, I need to make my reservation right now.”

He wondered if she thought she could wind him around her finger. “When is the reunion, Lena?”

“Uh...weekend after this one coming up.”

“You may go, with my blessings. Do I still need a vacation?”

“Sure thing. But Ricky said he wants Audrey to go, too.”

“
Too?
You’ve been discussing this with Ricky?”

“Yes, sir, he’s a member of this family.” She rushed from the room muttering, “I do declare.”

He figured Ricky would nag him till he promised him a vacation with Audrey, but it wouldn’t happen. He went to his room, put his cervical collar around his neck, sat down and luxuriated in the relief he felt. Sounds of little fingers scraping across the harp in Ricky’s room drew him, magnetlike, and he found Ricky standing in front of his father’s harp, trying to play it.

The child ran to him, squealing his welcome. “Unca Nelson, I wanna play the harp!”

“But I thought we agreed you would learn the piano first until you got bigger and your arms were longer.”

“I like the piano, but I like the harp, too.”

“All right. I’ll get some professional advice about this and we will act accordingly. You understand?”