Night Flight (32 page)

Breath coming in gulps, Becky leaned against the bed for support. “I—I thought you’d died.” Curt’s hair was still damp and pressed against his skull. The multitude of cuts on his face emphasized the close call he’d had with death. There was anxiety in his eyes, his flesh taut and pale as he watched her.

“So had I, Sparrow.” He opened his arms and pulled her against him. The gesture hurt his back, but he didn’t care. His ankle, in a removable cast, was painful, too. But neither equaled the agony in his heart for what his decision had cost Becky.

Collapsing against Curt, Becky lay there, hearing the erratic beat of his heart beneath her ear. “I—I thought I’d lost you,” she said, her voice nearly inaudible.

“I’m sorry.” He kissed her hair, unable to get enough of her. “Patty? Does she know what’s happened?”

“N-no.”

Shutting his eyes, he whispered, “Good.” And then, he said softly, “I’m quitting flying, Becky.”

She lay very still against him, her eyes opening. Becky stared at the white wall for several minutes, not believing her ears. It had to be her tortured imagination! Fingers tightening against his light blue gown, she shuddered.

“Did you hear me?” Curt asked, and stroked her blond hair, something he thought he’d never be able to do again. “I’m going to quit, Becky.”

She lifted her head and sat up, her hand never leaving his. “Quit?”

Nodding, Merrill admitted, “When I ejected, I saw my whole life flash before my eyes. I saw you…and Patty. I knew I was going to die and—” He compressed his lips, trying to halt the sob that wanted to tear from him. Struggling with the words, he choked out, “In those split seconds before I hit the ground, I knew what was the most important thing in my life.” He raised his head and gazed into her tear-filled brown eyes. “You. You and Patty. God, Sparrow, I’ve been so damned stupid. I wanted to fly at the expense of everything and everyone else. You started drinking to numb yourself. Patty’s been uncontrollable and angry. When I ejected, I thought about all of it. Just before I hit the ground, I made a decision that if I walked away from this, I was going to quit. You and Patty are more important to me than my flying.’’

The words fell against her, but Becky couldn’t believe her ears. Reaching out, she touched his tears with her fingertips. “Wh-what would you do instead?”

“Get a job as an aeronautical engineer with one of the big defense contractors. It won’t be hard to get a job, not for someone with my background and experience.”

Swallowing, Becky clung to his somber features. “You’d quit…for us?”

Managing a grimace, Curt said, “Yes. My career’s washed up anyway. After this last stunt, they’ll want me out when my six years is up. I’ll save them the trouble and resign. But I want you to understand—I’d quit even if I wasn’t in trouble.”

Happiness threaded through her numbness and shock. “You wouldn’t miss flying?”

“Sure I would.” Curt kissed her small hand. “But I’d miss you two a lot more. And if I can quit the Air Force, Becky, you’ve got to promise me you’ll get help for your drinking problem. We’ve both got to face the truth. Together.”

“Yes, oh, yes, honey. I’ll do that. I’ll get help.” She slid her arms around his shoulders, embracing him. “I love you so much, so much….”

With a sigh, Curt crushed her against him, never wanting to let her go.

The next time Dr. Cartwright appeared, Megan was alone with Melody. Sam had gone with Becky to get his car and he would return shortly. They’d all been able to visit and talk for a few minutes to Curt, who was resting comfortably.

Megan felt Melody stiffen when the doctor approached. Automatically, they both stood, holding one another’s hand.

“Doctor?” Melody demanded in a low voice, clutching at the handkerchief in her fingers.

“Your husband is conscious, Mrs. Stang.”

“Thank God. What else? What’s wrong with Jack?”

“You’d better sit down,” Anna warned, motioning to the chair.

“I’ll stand.”

Megan chewed on her lower lip and read something tragic in Cartwright’s expression. Her mind whirled with terrible options, none of them good.

“Very well. Your husband has sustained severe injury to his spinal column. I’m afraid he’s paralyzed from the waist down.”

Megan gasped, her hand flying to her heart.

Melody’s eyes narrowed. “Are you positive?”

Anna nodded. “He doesn’t respond to any of the nerve response tests. Further, he’s got two herniated discs, and a severe concussion. Right not, he’s disoriented and knows he can’t move his legs, Mrs. Stang.”

“I must see him, Doctor.”

Hesitating, Anna said, “He’s not in very good shape physically or emotionally right now. I’ve given him a drug to neutralize his shock and an IV to handle the pain he’s in, but I can’t give him anything else for the next forty-eight hours because of his head injury.”

Dragging in a deep breath, Melody asked, “Is he—is he permanently paralyzed? Couldn’t this be an acute state and he’ll recover from it later?”

“There’s nothing acute about a spinal column injury, Mrs. Stang. I wish I could give you more hope, but I can’t.”

Melody pulled free of Megan’s grasp. “I’ll see him now, Doctor.”

“Of course.”

Megan stood there, watching Melody walk toward the hall. Her shoulders were squared once again, head held high. At the door, Melody halted and turned toward Megan.

“Thank you for your help,” she said, a quaver in her tone.

Megan nodded, not knowing what to say or do. Right now, all she wanted was Sam. The need to be with him, to hear his voice, to share the shock of this tragedy, was overwhelming. Becky was going to drive him over to Ops so he could pick up his Corvette, and then he’d come back here, to the hospital. Alone once again, Megan turned and looked around the empty lounge, numb. She wondered how many cries and tears the walls had absorbed over the years. Too many. Far too many.

Melody steeled herself as much as she could before she entered Jack’s room. A nurse hovered over his bed, and was in the process of adjusting the IV in his arm. A quiver zigzagged through her, and she stopped, dizzy. Jack’s head was swathed in a white bandage, the left side of his face swollen black and blue, his one eye hidden beneath the bruised flesh. He was mumbling, unable to move anything except his hands. His wrists were tethered with leather cuffs so he couldn’t pull out the IV, or perhaps cause more damage to his spinal column.

“Mrs. Stang, are you all right?” the nurse asked, coming over to her.

Swallowing her nausea, Melody nodded and moved forward. “Yes, I’m fine. Please, could you leave us for a few minutes?”

The nurse hesitated. “I really shouldn’t. Your husband is—”

“Five minutes,” she rasped unsteadily to the woman.

“Five minutes, Mrs. Stang.”

Melody walked to the bed, leaned over and placed a kiss on her husband’s beaded brow. “It’s all right, darling, all right,” she soothed. “I’m here. I’m here, and everything’s going to be fine….”

“My legs, my legs,” Jack mumbled, moving his head from side to side. “Can’t feel my legs…eject, eject! Oh, Christ, I’m not gonna make it!” He strained, as if to protect himself from the oncoming collision with the earth.

A sob caught in Melody’s throat. “Shhh, darling, shhh.” She placed a kiss on his mouth, his lips cool beneath hers. Jack quieted, his breathing labored.

“Melody?”

“Here, darling.” She continued to stroke his uninjured cheek. His one eye was red and swollen, a wild look in the depths. “You’re safe now, you’re at the hospital.”

“Legs!” he burst out in a sob. “Jesus, I can’t feel my legs! What’s going on? What’s happened?”

Framing his face, Melody kissed away his tears. They mingled with her own. “Rest, darling. Just rest.”

Jack stopped mumbling, quieting beneath her ministrations. His eyes closed, his breathing steadying out.

Gently, Melody crooned to him, a lullaby she sang to Scotty when he woke up from bad dreams. It had been a song her mother had sung to her. It hurt to see Jack strapped into the bed, a tortured, injured animal in a cage. Tears formed and continued to fall, but Melody sang each verse of the song. Right now, Jack was all that mattered—not his career, not the terrible crash that had occurred. He was in a great deal of pain, and she knew she could take some of it away with just her presence.

When the nurse came back in, Melody told her in a quiet voice to get her a chair to sit on, and to have another bed brought into the room. She wouldn’t leave Jack’s side. Not now. Not ever.

Megan uttered a little cry when Sam appeared at the entrance to the lounge. She got up and felt his arms go around her.

Holt crushed her against him, inhaling the wonderful fragrance that was only Megan. “You smell better than this hospital,” he murmured, and captured her lips against his. Kissing her long and tenderly, Sam reluctantly broke contact. Her huge green eyes were rimmed with exhaustion.

“What about Stang?”

“Dr. Cartwright says he’s paralyzed from the waist down.”

“My God,” Sam whispered, cradling her cheek. He worriedly assessed her features. “How’s Melody taking it?”

“Like the military trooper she is,” Megan answered wearily. “I admire her guts. She stood there and took it on the chin from the doctor, and then marched down the hall as if everything was going to be fine.”

Sam inhaled Megan’s fragrance, wanting the reminder of life around him, not death and destruction. “Melody is a fighter,” he said.

“She’s going to need that kind of courage if Jack remains paralyzed.”

Agreeing, Holt allowed Megan to rest her head against his shoulder, and felt all the tension she’d held dissolving beneath his hand as he stroked her shoulders and back. “He’s lucky to be alive,” Sam finally said. “God, that was a long fall.”

“I thought he’d die.”

“You ready to go home?” The words sounded good to him, and Sam wondered what the end result of the crash would mean for them. Fear ate him up inside.

Megan stepped out of his arms and went to retrieve her purse from the chair. “Yes. We’re both in shock and just don’t know it yet.”

“I think so. Your house or mine?”

She stood there, absorbing Sam in his flight suit. He looked incredibly handsome, shoulders thrown back, so strong-looking when she presently was not. A warmth flooded her, and Megan whispered, “I don’t care, just as long as I’m with you.”

Sam understood, moved to her side and drew Megan against him. “I feel the same way,” he admitted hoarsely. Inwardly, he was shaky and unsure. The crash had torn through all his carefully made plans. How much trust was left between them, if any? The urge to talk to her at length, explore her and find out where she was at, was almost tangible.

“Let’s go home,” Sam coaxed.

Megan watched the white sand of Lake Rosamond flash by them as they drove toward Lancaster. Sam’s brow was furrowed, and she knew something was bothering him.

“What will happen Monday when Lauren finds out about the crash?” she asked.

“Plenty,” he growled. “Stang took that plane up without authorization, and lost it. Do you know how many millions of dollars we’re talking about?”

“Too many for me to fathom. Do you think they might court-martial him?”

“Maybe.”

“What about Curt?”

“He’s an accessory. I doubt if they’ll court-martial him.”

“Becky said he was going to resign.”

“I know.”

Megan looked at his profile, the thinned line of his mouth. “How do you feel about that?”

For me or you?
Sam wanted to ask her. He didn’t, though. “I think Curt did the right thing for all of them.” Would she ask him to quit flying? To give it up for her?

“That means you’ll become chief test pilot on the Agile Eagle project,” Megan said softly.

“Yes.”

“When do the canards go on the plane?”

“Two weeks from now if everything goes according to schedule.” Sam gave her a strange look, wondering what was going on inside that head of hers. The crash had brought back to life Russ’s untimely death. It was a living thing within him, and tore savagely at his confidence. Emotionally, he seesawed between losing Megan and having to face his fear of death.

“And then you’ll fly it?”

“Yes.”

Megan looked out the window for a long time. She could feel the heaviness between them, the fear and anxiety palpable. So much of it had been caused by the crash. Straggling to keep her fear in the context of what happened, that Sam hadn’t been involved, Megan said, “Now I know how a goldfish feels in a small bowl of water.”

Sam forced a slight smile and held her hand momentarily. “We both feel that way, Red.”

Megan wandered around Sam’s huge, sprawling home. It was only 10:00 a.m., the morning clear with a breeze, the sky a dark blue. She stood on the sun deck, hands resting lightly on the cedar railing, and looked out toward the desert. Although it was only in the sixties, she was warm in the lamb’s wool jacket. Restless, Megan had avoided Sam since they had arrived home. He’d taken a hot shower and changed. She had paced.

The glass door slid open and closed. Megan looked across her shoulder. Sam was now in civilian attire, a blue plaid cowboy shirt, jeans and his boots. His hair had been recently washed and combed. He looked worse, in her opinion, completely exhausted.

Coming over, Sam stood next to Megan. Afraid of the forthcoming conversation, he didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, he murmured, “Hell of a day, isn’t it?”

“Yes, a terrible one.” And then Megan cast a glance at him, a warm feeling inside her because of the look in his eyes. “It could have been worse. Both men could have died.”

Sam leaned down, resting his elbows on the rail next to her. “Curt’s lucky. He’ll walk away from this, family intact and a good future in front of him.”

“And Jack?”

“I don’t know.” Sam pursed his lips. “Funny things happen to men when they survive a crash.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some guys it doesn’t faze, and they go back to flying as if nothing ever happened. Others, it haunts. In Jack’s case, he’s probably going to have to not only come to terms with the crash, but what his actions cost him in terms of what it’s done to him physically.”

“He’ll probably never walk again.”

“A terrible price to pay,” Sam agreed softly. Girding himself, he straightened and turned toward Megan. His heart was pumping hard, and he could feel each beat against his ribs. “I’m wondering what kind of price we’re going to pay because of the crash. That’s what has me scared.”

“Price?”

He ran his fingers through her hair, the strands strong and silky. “Yeah, Red, us.” His hand stilled against her flushed cheek. “All morning I’ve been wondering how all of this has affected you, because in turn, it will affect us.”

Megan closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his palm. Holt had a quiet kind of courage, the ability to talk about things that most people would fear to broach. “I was scared, Sam. I don’t think my mother ever saw a crash. It was as if I lived out her worst nightmare today through my eyes and heart.”

Gently, Sam ran his thumb across her cheek, loving each of her freckles. Loving her so much it hurt to breathe. “She instilled a fear of crashes inside you. The truth is, your father died in one.”

“Probably very similar to the one that happened this morning.”

Throat constricted, Sam held her wide, honest green eyes. “So, where does this leave us, Megan?”

Tears swam in her eyes, his face blurring before her. “You think I’m going to ask you to quit like Becky did her husband?”

Tenderly, Sam removed the tears with his thumbs. “The thought crossed my mind,” he admitted hoarsely.

“I wouldn’t ask that of you, Sam.”

“No?”

“No.”

“What then?” Every word felt strangled coming from him.

Megan leaned up, placing a warm kiss on the compressed line of his mouth. “Something happened to me out there today,” she admitted in a low voice, feeling his arms go around her and cradle her against him.

“Tell me about it.”

“I not only got to see how the crash affected the wives, but how it affected you. Sam, you suffered no less than any one of us. Father had always been so cold and callous about these things, I thought every pilot was like him.” Her voice cracked. “I was wrong. I saw tears in your eyes there at the hospital. That’s when I knew that my father wasn’t like everyone else.” She caressed his jaw, and met his unsure gaze. “Today, I saw the man, Sam Holt, for the first time. I never saw the uniform you wore. I only saw your actions as a human being.” Touching his lips with her fingertips, she said, “I love you….”

With a groan, Sam held her tightly. “I love you so damn much,” he rasped against her hair. “I’ve loved you since the day I met you, sweetheart.” He kissed her hair, temple and cheek, holding her tear-filled eyes. “I was so afraid of losing you today, afraid that you’d leave Edwards and call off what we had….”

A sob caught in Megan’s throat, and she framed his face. “What we have is so very special, Sam. I saw that today. I—I think that if we can always talk, always share what makes us angry, fearful, or whatever, we’ll be on solid ground with one another.”

“Even if I continue to fly?”

Megan nodded hesitantly. “I’m trying to see it as a job you have. It’s hard, because my childhood was controlled by it.”

Sam understood only too well. “But you’ve been around me long enough to find out that not every pilot lives, eats and breathes flying or testing like your father did.”