The Surprise of His Life (25 page)

He
looked awful, Lindsey thought, wanting to rush to him and throw herself into
his arms. But she didn't, because in his arms was the only place more painful
than not being in his arms. It was painful because it felt wonderful, yet
didn't offer the permanence she wanted, needed. She had gone all the way in
loving him. He had to go the same distance or there would never be a future for
them. Even though it hurt like the devil, she could not, would not, settle for
less than his whole.

"I
thought you could use some help with the storm moving in. I'm assuming you are evacuating
the platforms."

"Yeah,"
he confirmed. "All four of them. I talked with your father about a half
hour ago. He's coming by for a roster of the men aboard each rig and then he's
going to begin the evacuation." Walker didn't bring up how strained the
conversation had been. The two men had had no choice, however, but to talk.
After all, business was business. More importantly, the safety of their
employees was involved.

Lindsey
steeled herself against the mention of her father. That he was due in any minute
set her stomach to doing flip-flops. "Where are the rosters?" she
asked, pushing back her chair in preparation to gathering the needed material.

"File
cabinet," Walker said, "But I'm not sure how Gerri files them. It
might take a miracle to find them." Miracle. Walker idly wondered if
Lindsey still believed so freely in miracles. After a few sobering rounds with
reality, miracles were never taken for granted.

Walker
was uncertain whether or not she'd read his mind, but she responded with a
firm, "I'll find them."

And
she did after a couple of aborted tries. She had just placed the files on
Walker's desk when the door opened. In came a gust of wind and rain. Followed
by Dean. He looked as ravaged as the weather, and it came to Lindsey as plain
as day that her father wasn't a happy man. Their tiff notwithstanding, he
wasn't a happy man. Why had she never noticed that before? Maybe she'd been
filled to the brim with her own unhappiness, her own anger, concerning her
parents' separation. Maybe there just hadn't been room for her to really see
her parents. Something Walker said came back to her, something about pleasure
and peace not being the same things. In regard to the affair, maybe her father
had been questing after a pleasure that had brought him everything but peace.

Everyone—Walker,
Dean, Lindsey—started to speak, but no one got past the first syllable.
Everyone waited for someone else to break the ice. In the silence, Walker
realized just how much he'd lost. He'd lost the best friend he'd ever had, the
best friend he would ever have. That realization saddened him. As for Lindsey,
she wanted to apologize to her father for slapping him, but she didn't. She
wasn't quite certain why, except that apologies were never easy to make. Then,
too, he'd hurt her. Maybe she was holding out for his apology.

Finally,
Dean, who'd made no attempt to dress youthfully, said, "I came by for the
rosters."

"Here
they are," Walker said, passing them to his business partner.

Dean
took them, his eyes only fleetingly holding Walker's. He seemed even less
capable of looking at his daughter. After initial eye contact, he didn't glance
back at Lindsey. Even so, he could not have failed to notice how tired she
looked.

"Is
everything lined up?" Dean asked, needlessly thumbing through the pages of
the first roster.

"Yeah.
I've got boats headed for each platform, and I'll make motel arrangements right
away."

"Platforms
One, Two and Three are less manned," Dean said. "I don't think they
have more than about twenty-five men on board each, so I'm heading out to Four.
It's got close to forty men."

"That
sounds like a good idea."

"You
got an ETA for the boats?" Dean asked.

"They
should be in position by noon."

"Good.
We ought to have everyone on land by nightfall."

"If
the storm waits until tomorrow to come ashore, which is what they're
predicting, we'll be in good shape."

"Yeah,"
Dean said. "If."

"Are
they still saying that it's traveling more westerly than easterly?"

"That's
what they're saying, but you know how it is. Sometimes what you least expect
happens."

All
three people within the room knew that the conversation had changed direction.
All three people knew that he referred to the discovery he'd made the day
before.

Walker
said nothing.

Lindsey
said nothing.

Dean
turned to go.

"Daddy?"
Lindsey called.

The
big-shouldered man turned back, his gaze going to his daughter. Walker was
certain that each was going to blurt out an apology, but in the end, neither
did. Lindsey said simply, "Be careful."

Her
father didn't even say that much. He nodded briskly, abruptly, then walked to
the door and disappeared in a squall of rain.

Lindsey
wanted to weep.

That
desire increased as the morning wore on, for it was obvious that, although
Lindsey and Walker were working well together on the surface, below that
surface, like electricity hidden within a wire, ran a tension thick and hot. It
was in every expression, every gesture, every look each tried not to make, but
couldn't help. It was there when Lindsey, on her way back to her desk from the
filing cabinet, glanced over at Walker. It was there when Walker chose the same
moment to look up at her as he spoke on the telephone.

Their
gazes locked.

I
want to be in your arms, she seemed to say.

I
want you in my arms, he seemed to return.

Then,
why are we arguing? Why can't we just love each other and trust in that love to
last until tomorrow? Why can't we marry and have babies and—

God,
don't you think I want to, but—

"What?"
he said suddenly into the receiver. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's fine. We'll
take the block of thirty rooms." At the hurt he'd seen in Lindsey's eyes,
he lowered his. A pain jabbed at his heart, just as a pain stabbed at his knee.
He grimaced, thinking that he could at least rub the pain in his knee.

As
the hours ticked by, the tension mounted. A hint of lace, the brush of their
hands as she passed him a mug of coffee, the gloss of her lips—each left Walker
degrees more frustrated, while Lindsey grew increasingly restless with the way
spirals of black hair peeked from the vee of his shirt, the way his jeans
became creased in all the right places, the way his hair looked rowdy with all
the wayward flights of his fingers. She, too, became conscious of Walker's
aching knee. Why else would he rub it so consistently? On the other hand,
Walker noticed that Lindsey was growing more tired by the hour. Had she really
slept as badly as he, which was to say not at all?

And
the phone rang constantly, prickling nerves that were already frayed.

"Good
God!" Walker barked when the phone rang just as he was hanging up from
another call.

"Most
of the calls are checking on the men," Lindsey said. "Their loved
ones want to know if they're being moved from the rigs."

Walker
knew he'd be making the same call if he were in their shoes, but the ringing of
the phone was cutting through his skull, making him wonder which hurt the
worse, his head or his knee. Searching through his desk, he found two Tylenol
and, standing, walked to the water cooler. He downed them in a single gulp.

"...They
should be on land by tonight," Lindsey told the caller. "Yes,
ma'am," she added, consulting her notes, "he'll be at the Holiday Inn
in Beaumont. Yes, ma'am, that number is..." Lindsey gave the number, then
hung up. She sighed. "You got two more of whatever you took?"

"Yeah,"
Walker said, drawing another cup of water, which he handed to her. He then
started to his desk for the medicine.

"Does
your knee hurt?" Lindsey asked softly.

Walker
glanced up. He tossed her the plastic bottle, which she easily caught.

"Yeah,"
he answered her question. For a fraction of a second, he thought she might ask
him if he wanted her to rub it—the way she'd rubbed it Friday night, or maybe
it was Saturday morning. The hours had blurred into a single blissful ecstasy.
For a fraction of a second, he was afraid. What would he answer if she did ask?
Would he have the courage to say no? She didn't ask, however, though it was
obvious that her thoughts traveled the same pathway as his.

Lindsey
felt the coolness of the water as they'd stood in the swimming pool—naked. She
felt the nearness of Walker's body. She heard him saying, a teasing quality to
his voice, that she had the wrong knee. She remembered splashing him, the mock
fight that had ensued, the erotic ending of that fight.

I
want you,
she
could hear herself saying breathlessly.

Then
take me,
she
could hear him answering back.

She
could feel her legs being drawn about his waist. She could feel him entering
her—not slowly, but hard and possessively. She could feel... she could feel her
bod growing hot. She was suddenly aware that he was watching her—as intently as
she was watching him.

Walker
remembered the coolness of the water, her massaging his knee—the wrong knee—her
splashing him with water and then her fleeing from him. Chase. Capture. Carnal
reward. He felt his body responding to the erotic memory.

Flinging
himself into his desk chair, he growled, "Would you get your father? I
need to talk to him."

Five
minutes later, Lindsey was patched through to Jim Ramsey, the foreman of
Platform Four. It took her only seconds to discover that her father hadn't
arrived.

"He
isn't there yet," Lindsey relayed to Walker.

He
glanced at his watch. It was almost forty-five minutes past the time he'd
expected Dean to arrive on site. Even so, he felt no alarm. Obviously, Dean
hadn't left when he'd planned to. Picking up the phone, Walker said,
"Jim?"

"Yes,
sir?"

"Tell
Dean to give me a call when he arrives."

"Yes,
sir."

"How's
the weather?"

"Raining
hard with a lot of wind, but so far things aren't too bad."

"We
want to get ya'll out before it gets bad."

"Well,
you won't get any argument here. The boat arrived at noon and is just about
ready to depart."

"Good.
What's the condition of the sea?"

"Choppy.
Look, me and a couple of others are gonna wait for Mr. Ellison and send the
others on inland. There're a few more things we want to fasten down here on the
rig."

"Okay.
Dean should be there any minute."

"Right.
I'll have him call."

But
he didn't call. Not in a few minutes. Not in thirty of them. Not in forty-five.

"Do
you think he's all right?" Lindsey asked.

"Oh,
yeah," Walker said. "In this weather the flight's probably taking
longer than usual. And we don't even know that he left on time. Or maybe he
decided to fly to another platform first, after all. He's okay."

Walker
hoped he sounded believable and, in truth, he did believe what he was saying.
It was just that he couldn't shake this funny feeling he had. Exactly an hour
later, he could deny the feeling no longer. He called Jim Ramsey again. With
repetitive results. Dean hadn't arrived on the island.

"Maybe
we should call and see if he left on time," Lindsey said, clearly worried,
though trying to minimize it. Even to herself. Mostly to herself.

"Let's
give him another thirty minutes," Walker said.

Tacitly,
Lindsey agreed. And tried to busy herself with the work on her desk. Surely her
father was all right. He'd flown dozens of these trips. In fact, he'd flown far
riskier missions in Vietnam, or so she'd been told. The war was only history to
her. The fact was that her father was a cool flyer and more than competent. And
she was just trying to find something to worry about!

Standing,
she said, "I'll be in the bathroom a minute."

Walker
nodded, thinking she looked even more tired, if that were possible, and that
that funny little feeling, the one that insisted on worrying about Dean, was
dying away. For heaven's sake, Dean was one of the best pilots he'd ever known!
And the weather wasn't that bad yet. If the two of them weren't at loggerheads,
Walker would tell Dean, when he finally called, about his concern, and Dean
would feign anger that Walker had even doubted his abilities for the shortest
of seconds. Under the circumstances, Walker probably wouldn't tell him... or
maybe he would. Hell, maybe it was the light note they needed to begin
dissipating some of the darkness of the last few hours.

When
the phone rang, Walker was feeling brighter, more hopeful, than he had in a
while. "Gal-Tex," he said, leaning back and peering out the window
into the late-summer rain. The brightness tarnished in the wake of the words he
heard.