The Gauntlet (19 page)

His throat constricted, Cam asked, “How is she? What’s her status?”

“Good condition, Captain.”

Relief shattered through Cam, and all he could do was stand there, his eyes closed as the mountain of fear that had cascaded through him evaporated. “Thank God,” he whispered, opening his eyes. Both nurses were giving him curious looks, but he didn’t care.

“The elevator is right down this hall and to the left,” the nurse provided more softly. “I’m sure Ensign Rutledge will be glad somebody cares enough to check on her and make sure she’s alive.”

Cam frowned. “Her relatives were notified. Haven’t they phoned?”

“No, sir. No calls have been taken. She’s all alone.”

Alone.
Spinning on his heel, Cam took long strides down the white hall toward the bank of elevators. The smell of antiseptic always made him wince. He didn’t like hospitals or doctors, but knew they were necessary evils upon occasion. As he restlessly waited for the elevator doors to open, Cam wondered what Molly thought of hospitals. In a few minutes, if he was lucky, he’d get to see her.

In the elevator, his mood spiraled from euphoria back to sheer terror. He loved Molly; it was that simple. The bailout had forced him to confront his feelings. But did Molly love him? Or did she still see him as merely a friend? Cam had never felt so tenuous in his entire life as when he stepped off the elevator and onto the third floor. Could he hide his love for her? Cloak his need to take her in his arms, hold her and kiss the hell out of her?

The nurses’ station was busy, so Cam walked up to a man in a white smock who was signing off a patient medical record on the far side of the U-shaped counter. The man glanced up.

“I’m looking for Doctor Winklemann.”

“You’ve got him.” He smiled. “You must be the investigating officer from the naval air station we heard was coming to speak with Ms. Rutledge?”

“That’s right. I’m Captain Sinclair.” Cam shook the doctor’s hand. “How’s Molly?”

Winklemann’s smile deepened. “Except for being black-and-blue all over, and some spinal compression, she’s in excellent shape.”

Cam took a deep breath. “Great news.”

Winklemann placed the chart on the counter. “Yes, it is. When they brought her into emergency five hours ago, she looked like a drowned rat. We gave her a tranquilizer for the shock, checked her over thoroughly and put her to bed. Rest is what she needs right now.”

“Is she asleep?” Cam tried to keep the desperation out of his voice.

Winklemann looked up at the clock. “It’s past visiting hours, Captain, and frankly, I don’t think she’s up to being grilled right now.”

Cam glanced at the file he held. “No…I just want to see her, that’s all. She needs to know someone cares enough to be here for her. I’ll take her report tomorrow morning. There’s plenty of time for that.”

“In that case, go on down to room 304. It’s a double room, but she’s the only one in there. I’ve given the nurses standing orders that any snoopy journalists from local newspapers are to be denied access.”

“Good,” Cam said. Molly didn’t need reporters hounding her.

“Come on. I’ll walk you down. I’ve got a patient in the next room I’ve got to check in on,” Winklemann invited, coming around the counter.

As they walked shoulder to shoulder down the hall, Cam asked, “Has Molly received any phone calls?”

“Other than from reporters, none. Why?”

“Her father in New York City was notified by us five hours ago. I was just wondering if he’d called her yet.”

“No.”

“I see.” Damn the man! Cam fumed inwardly. The bastard was so filled with his selfishness that he couldn’t even stoop to call his only daughter when she needed him the most. What had it been like for Molly to come into a strange emergency room where she knew no one? To be in shock, needing to reach out and be held? Bitterness coated Cam’s mouth. He’d felt all those things after the shocking news of his own family’s death. Fortunately, the wives of other pilots had come to his rescue. His pilot friends had been supportive, too. In times of crisis, military families were tight-knit, a lifeline to the one in trouble. Molly had had no one. He wanted to cry for her.

Winklemann gestured to the door and Cam halted. His hands were sweaty, his heart beating so hard in his chest it felt like a drum inside him. Trying to gather his shredded emotions as best he could, Cam pushed the door open. There were two beds in the room. One was empty. The one next to the window was where Molly lay.

Walking quietly across the tile floor, Cam thought she was asleep. Only a night-light above the bed was on. Her blond hair, which had been washed and brushed until it shone, formed a golden halo about her features. They must have bathed her earlier to remove the brine from the bay. He searched her serene features anxiously, soaking the sight of her into his heart, his soul. A bruise colored her right temple, and a red mark stretched across the bridge of her nose. The oxygen mask fitted there, and Cam knew the force of ejection had probably imprinted the mask on her flesh.

She wore a light blue cotton gown, and the sheets surrounding her emphasized her paleness. An IV hung above her bed, and was taped to her left arm. How slender and beautiful were her fingers clasped across her chest. Cam halted at the foot of the bed, torn. He didn’t want to waken her. Her pale lashes swept like small fans across her cheeks. The word
fragile
struck Cam. Everything about Molly—her small, clean limbs, her long, graceful fingers and fine eyelashes—was a sign of her delicate nature.

Molly moved slightly and Cam’s breathing suspended. Her lashes slowly lifted, her green-gold eyes sleepily coming to rest on him. He managed a small shrug.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said hoarsely, frozen to the spot.

“Cam?” Molly blinked, disbelief in her scratchy voice.

“Yeah—” he smiled uncertainly “—it’s me.”

Molly slowly sat up, pushing her hair away from her face. “How long have you been here?”

Molly looked heartrendingly vulnerable. Cam walked over to the side of her bed and placed the file on a nearby table. “I just got here.”

Rubbing her eyes, she murmured, “You flew here?”

He ached to reach out and thread his fingers through the soft blond hair lying across her shoulders. “No, I drove.”

“You drove? That’s a long way.”

“You were worth it.”

Molly sat very still, searching his features. Cam needed a shave; the darkness of his beard accentuated the planes of his face and how exhausted he was. His eyes were bloodshot and anxious. “I’m glad you came,” she choked out.

“I wouldn’t want it any other way, Molly.” His voice cracking, Cam reached out and cradled her cheek. “I’m sorry you were alone when this happened. I was scared to death for you. I thought you were going to drown out there.”

Just the touch of his large hand cupping her cheek drove tears into Molly’s eyes. She sniffed. “I—I’m not feeling very strong emotionally right now, Cam. The bailout left me kind of shaky.”

With his thumb, he gently stroked her smooth, soft flesh. “No apologies needed, angel. It’s common after a bailout. Believe me.”

“Really?”

Sweet God! How Cam wanted to lean down and kiss her trembling lower lip. “You’re still in shock. It’ll take a couple of days.” He saw the terrible darkness in her eyes and groaned. “Come here, Molly….”

With a little cry, she opened her arms. After being alone and nearly dying, Molly needed to be held. She felt Cam’s arms slide around her and press her tightly against him. She gave a tremulous sigh.

“Everything’s going to be okay now,” Cam rasped, rubbing his cheek against her silky hair. “You’re safe now. You’re safe and you’re needed.” His heart was bursting with such powerful emotions that Cam could only hold Molly as tightly as he dared and absorb her slight, willowy form against his harder one.

Burying her face in the folds of his flight suit, Molly clung to him. “I was so scared,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest. “I thought I was going to die, Cam. I—I never felt so helpless. I didn’t want to die. All I could think of was you. I felt cheated. I felt angry and scared, all at the same time. When the parachute dragged me down into the water, I wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all.” Her fingers opened and closed against Cam’s strong back. Tears trailed down her cheeks and soaked into his flight suit.

Cam kissed her hair and gently ran his hand slowly up and down her gowned shoulders and back. Her admission was all he needed to know, and he struggled to hold himself in tight check for her sake. Right now, Molly was in shock. Often, Cam knew from personal experience, the truth came out in such times of stress. Molly cared for him—perhaps even loved him as he did her. Her words were sweet music to his ears and his heart.

“I flew above you,” Cam rasped, “wanting to bail out just to try to help you. I saw the chute lines fall over you. I knew what might happen.” He shut his eyes tightly, tears leaking out from beneath his lashes. “I’ve never felt so helpless, Molly. You’ve been alone—trying to make it on your own since you were ten years old. You were alone down there in that water.”

“I nearly lost you,” Molly sobbed, the horror of the past six hours finally surfacing. All she really needed, she thought, was someone who genuinely cared about her. “I was just reacting to the situation, not thinking. I thought they called those nylon lines shroud lines. I was wondering if those shroud lines would be my funeral.”

Cam trembled violently, gripping Molly hard. “Jesus, don’t say that! I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand losing someone I needed again,” he whispered hoarsely.

His cry serrated Molly, and she pulled away just enough to look up into his tormented face. Cam’s eyes were wet with tears. With trembling hands, she framed his face, and his beard prickled her palms. Leaning upward, she pressed her lips to the tortured line of his mouth.

Groaning, Cam hungrily drank in her offered gift. Her lips were pliant and soft beneath his hot, hungry exploration. Their breathing grew ragged as they absorbed each other into their souls. She tasted sweet, her lips yielding, telling him she needed him as much as he did her. Fire met and mingled with fire as he memorized every detail and nuance of her mouth beneath his. There was such urgency as they tasted each other. Slowly, so slowly, urgency turned to gentleness, then tenderness. Cam framed Molly’s face, wildly aware of her dampened skin, the velvet promise of her mouth beneath his and the love he held fiercely for her alone.

Their breathing joined and became one, gradually changing from a ragged symphony to an even one. He couldn’t get enough of Molly, of her special texture and taste. The fragrance of her hair between his fingers increased the ache in his lower body. He was struck by their slow, mutual exploration, as if each of them were imprinting on the other for forever.

Finally Cam eased from her mouth, leaving her lips glistening and well kissed. He held her gaze, golden and dazed in the aftermath. With trembling hands, he awkwardly smoothed the hair framing her face.

“This is real,” Molly breathed.

“We’re real.”

“Cam…”

He drowned in the beauty of the joy and care in the depths of her eyes. How could what he saw in Molly not be love? Cam wasn’t certain. Ever since his life had been destroyed by his family’s death, he’d taken nothing for granted. “When I first saw you coming up the steps of TPS, I called you an angel,” he told her in a low, thick voice. “You looked so clean and sweet compared to the life I was living. Hard men in a hard, unforgiving world of metal, computers and mathematics. Everything had edges to it, Molly. I was living in a numb place where I couldn’t feel.

“When I saw you, I felt for the first time in a year,” he continued. “I didn’t know what to do. The way you walked, your utter femininity, was the complete opposite of the world I’d hidden away in. You had gold hair—” he touched it reverently “—and it reminded me of sunlight.” His gaze moved to her eyes. “I thought your eyes were the color of green summer leaves on a tree with sunlight striking them.” He brushed her lower lip with his thumb. “And your mouth—your mouth reminded me of a sculpted red rose, as corny as it sounds. You reminded me of summer, growth and light. Your mouth promised me that laughter, that feeling good, wasn’t dead inside me, after all.” Cam bowed his head and gently took her into his arms. “Molly, you brought me life when I was swimming in a pool of darkness. Just being around you gradually brought me out of that black hell enough to see the light at the end of that tunnel I’d been trapped in for so long.”

Molly eased away, her hands on Cam’s shoulders, and she held his tear-filled gaze. “No one’s ever said anything so beautiful to me before,” she whispered.

“It’s the truth, angel, and don’t you ever forget it.” Cam stroked her head, following the natural curve of her hair down to her shoulders. He held the gossamer strands in his long fingers. “The last five months have been hell on you, and even though I recognized what was wrong, I also knew you had to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.” His gaze moved and held hers. “Dammit, Molly, I wanted to protect you. I wanted so much to stand between you and everything in life that had you by the throat.”

She shook her head. “You couldn’t help me. Maggie told me a long time ago that if I was to get strong, I had to do it on my terms and time. When she said that, it scared me. But in some deep level of myself I knew she was right.”

“And you’ve done it,” Cam added gently. “These past five months I’ve watched you grow and blossom despite your damned family and people like Martin aiming for you.”

With a little laugh, Molly gave a shrug, then grimaced with the pain of her bruised muscles. “I’ve tried, Cam.”

“You’re a winner, Molly, no matter what anyone says. I’m proud as hell of you. Do you know that?”

She gave a single shake of her head, lost in the smoky blue of his eyes that promised her so much that was yet unsaid. “I’ve got to tell you, it’s nice to have someone in my corner. You were there all along, Cam. You never deserted me.”

His throat tightening, Cam touched her temple. “I never will, Molly, and that’s a promise I intend to keep.”