Wait Until Dark (The Night Stalkers) (17 page)

They didn’t finish even the first strip of condoms, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. It was from sheer exhaustion. Making love to Connie Davis wasn’t something any man with even a lick of common sense would ever hurry.

All the concentration on details she brought to her life as a mechanic, she indulged on John’s body. He’d never bedded such a woman. Not being a complete idiot, he knew he’d never find another like her again.

He wasn’t just thinking about the sex, though his body ached from its need for hers and was sore from the sating of that need. John had also witnessed a woman of such deep-rooted passion that she made all others pale by comparison.

And play. He couldn’t get over that. Connie’s soul possessed a deep humor, another layer he’d never seen. She’d made him feel as if he was sixteen when he’d chased her buck-naked into the aft torpedo room, her bright laugh and quick-dodging steps leading him the whole way. And there she’d made several comparisons between a torpedo’s size and his own before unlatching one of the crew bunks chained to the wall and pushing him down on it.

She’d inspected, explored, teased until he ached for her past tolerance. Connie had practically crowed with triumph as she’d straddled over his hips and took him from above.

Even as they finally dressed he could still taste her rich earthiness, the saltiness of her sweat, and the sweetness of her kiss as she’d sprawled back for him on the amidships crew’s mess table and he’d feasted on her body right past sated and into madness.

His legs barely had the strength to climb back into the conning tower.

Connie awaited him there in the three feet between the attack and observation periscopes. She had one hand on the controls for either scope.

“There’s only one rule. No matter what you do to me, if I remove my hands, you stop and we trade places.” Her grin was wicked.

He knew she was as exhausted as he. That, or she was an insatiable demoness who had already sucked out his soul. So he slipped up to her and kissed her the best he knew how. He kissed her and thought of the splendid use they’d made of each other’s bodies. He kissed her and thought of how strong and powerful she made him feel, not on the outside, but on the inside. He thought about how happy he was every moment he was with her.

When he felt her arms wrap around his neck, he enjoyed the sensations for a moment longer and then pulled back just enough to see those lovely eyes.

“I guess I have to stop now.” He tipped his head to indicate her hands, which were wrapped around him rather than the periscope controls.

She nodded in chagrin as she rested her forehead against his lips and he kissed her there.

“Your turn.”

“God, woman. Rain check. Rain check.”

She laughed and nodded her head before turning for the exit hatch.

***

The house was dark when they returned. John turned off the engine and lights.

Connie didn’t want to get out of the cozy warmth. Didn’t want to leave this little world of two people. Surprisingly, she understood that world. Had found an ease and comfort with John that she’d experienced with no other.

In that house, she could feel Noreen sleeping with a knowing smile on her face. She could feel Grumps dozing as if he still sat in the sun. And Bee and Paps and Larry. All watching her. Wondering how she’d be with their boy.

She’d surprised herself that she could be at ease with John. More than at ease. Silly. Giggling. Playful. It was a whole side of herself she’d thought dead and buried in some foreign land along with any remnant of her childhood. In John’s arms she found a joy she’d never experienced anywhere else.

She knew how to be with a helicopter crew, and tonight she’d learned part of how to be with John. But not with a family. That was a world far too foreign to imagine.

He climbed out and came around to open the door. As if aware of her reluctance, he took her hand and raised it to his lips. The kiss he planted on her knuckles gave her legs the strength to move.

When he made to follow her through the dark house and into his bedroom, she stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“John, your family,” she kept her voice low.

He gazed up thoughtfully at the ceiling and shrugged that he didn’t care.

Did she? It was his family. That wasn’t her issue. Unnerved in a way she hadn’t been all evening, she pictured them together in John’s bed. More intimate than anything they’d done in the submarine. Too intimate.

But she also knew that in his arms there was a feeling of safety. That maybe with him, the nightmares wouldn’t shock her upright in the middle of the night. Images of tumbling helicopters and groping hands already burning in fire.

“I want to wake up beside you.” Even in a whisper, his deep voice was loud enough for the world to hear.

She put her fingers over his lips and could feel his smile.

She cocked her head and listened to the silence of the night.

That was something she’d like as well.

Connie watched John roll into the barn well after sunup. He wore old coveralls, a thick knit hat of orange and yellow wool with earflaps and a ridiculous pom-pom, and a sheepish grin that looked pretty damn cute on him. He also brought three large mugs and a thermos of coffee that Connie was absolutely ready for.

He first served Grumps where he’d again perched on his milk crate to officiate. With no more words than a “Thank you” from her, they turned to the tractor.

John inspected her rebuild of the front end and offered a sharp nod for a job well done. They started reassembling the engine in easy harmony.

Grumps picked up the story he’d been telling her before John arrived. A tale of Old Man George losing his two boys at a bridge across the Rhine and how it had taken the heart out of the old man and his farm.

“That’s how we got the property to the west. We’d been planning to replace this old tractor in ’53, but Jeff died in Korea and none of his kids wanted the place. That brought us the south beet field. In 1960, Greg’s girls married college boys and none of them wanted the farm, so we picked up another couple hundred acres from him. Da’ and me, we started taking shifts, worked this old machine sometimes twenty hours in a day during the planting and the harvest.”

He nodded at the work they were doing. “Each purchase brought us some new machinery, most of it too worn to do half of what was required. I rode this little beast here right up to ’66. I almost drove her two more years to get her to her thirtieth anniversary, but we desperately needed a huskier machine. That’s the year I bought the JD 4020 down the end of the row there. A hundred horsepower instead of nine.” He waved his mug toward the far end of the barn.

“And I finally got my butt off them damn steel wheels Da’ had bought for me.”

She and John laughed together.

They worked in silence, reassembling the engine while the old man catnapped.

“Must be a hell of a mission coming up.” Connie startled slightly, not having noticed Grumps wake back up.

She and John exchanged a careful look over the nearly finished block and head assembly.

“What makes you say that, Grumps?”

“One thing, you’re both hurrying a job like there might not be time to finish. Oh, not criticizing the work, this old bitch, pardon my language but it’s true, been wanting a fixing for many a year and you two are doing her proud. But you’re in a hurry. And I seen your girlfriend there check her pager twice this morning.”

Connie carefully didn’t meet John’s gaze this time when he glanced over. She’d leave it for him to handle.

“Well, could be.”

“Would be,” Connie thought to herself. The range of new gear. They didn’t make upgrades like that in such a hurry unless there was a damned good reason. This mission was going to happen and it was going to be hot when it did.

“Then again, might not.” John’s voice was smooth and steady. “You know how unpredictable these things are. I didn’t want to tell Paps or Mom, they’d just start to worrying.”

“Mum’s the word, boy. Mum’s the word.” After a brief pause, Grumps started a tale about a tornado that had come through and torn out exactly one row of corn down the entire length of the northwest field.

Larry drifted in and was soon put to work with a wire wheel knocking off the outer rust. Eventually Bee and Noreen brought out a huge platter of sandwiches and were soon outfitted with paintbrushes and a couple gallons of glossy green paint. About the time Grumps slid into a nap, Paps showed up with a fresh painted sign. John Deere green and yellow on a sheet of steel, but he turned it to the wall before anyone could read it.

***

When Connie fired her up, John started what turned into a huge round of applause. He couldn’t believe what she’d done. Somehow, she’d entered a family already so close and brought them even more together. It had been a long time since they’d all worked together. Between the farm and the house and schooling and him in the Army, they’d been scattered a thousand different directions. But Connie had brought them all together to do something wonderful.

She made a few quick adjustments to the carburetor, and the old tractor settled into a soft purr.

She tried to get Grumps to take the helm for the test drive, but he refused even as he stood with a hand tucked around her arm.

“No, girl. My butt is done and gone with that machine. The old wench, pardon me, requires a younger behind than my bony old one. Just don’t ride it too long or your bottom won’t be nearly so pretty.” He winked at John. “Thought I was too old to notice, didn’t you?”

John just gathered the old man in. This farm, this family had been the dream of one man and an old tractor. Grumps thumped him on the back, still pretty hard for such an old man, before turning to watch Connie climb aboard.

She adjusted the idle, drove out the clutch, found first gear, and eased it back in. The old machine barely coughed as it dug in and drove forward for the first time in more years than John had been alive.

Again the applause rose, Grumps starting it this time.

Noreen leaned in. “Hey, Knothead.”

“Yes, Meddler?”

She merely grinned impishly in response.

“You do get that we’re applauding the woman this time and not the tractor.”

He nodded.

“And you know that she still doesn’t get that?”

He knew.

It seemed like half of Muskogee had turned out for The Night Before The Night Before banquet. The display lights were on now and washed the length of the
Batfish
, though her conning tower disappeared upward into the darkness. The field was a patchwork of glowing fires in the picnic fire pits they’d installed three summers ago. People gathered about the warmth and flowed from one fire pit to the next, clasping steaming mugs of cider to aid the chilly passage between.

Connie would have felt battered by the mayhem of it, but the Wallaces kept her close and she felt the protection of the family. Felt the welcome. If only every person there hadn’t known John quite so well. Within moments of each one greeting John, she could feel the looks turning her direction.

Some, like Dave, smoking a whole side of beef, grinning and giving her knowing winks. Others telling her what a good boy John was and how happy they were for him, though they never quite said why. And the young women, even the ones with a husband and a brood of children, eyed her as if to assess what she possessed, what she had that they hadn’t.

Everyone was making assumptions and she liked it less with each passing moment. This had to be stopped. But every time she got near John, there was another friend, ex-girlfriend, old friend of the family, relation, or who the hell knew what.

When she finally tracked him to the parking lot, she was hitting her limit.

Before she could speak, he pulled her tight against him. Before she could protest, he pointed.

“Here they come.”

Paps’s truck pulled into the parking lot. As he pulled even with them, she could see the old John Deere gleaming as if newborn on the trailer.

Connie was rapidly drawn into unlocking and unloading the machine. When they tried to get her to drive it, she refused. This wasn’t hers to do. She didn’t want to be seen. Didn’t want to give all of those people yet another reason to look at her.

“Grumps,” she offered in desperation. “It’s his. He should drive it. Or his son. Or his grandson. That’s even better, John. The history of it all. You should drive it.” Please. Anyone other than her.

He shrugged amiably when his father and grandfather waved him aboard.

It started clean with a thud and a roar. Everyone gathered close as he backed it off the trailer, shifted, and drove into the park.

She did her best to hang back, but Grumps took her hand and tucked it under his arm. Trapped, she headed to the park, though they lagged behind the others.

“The old beast never did move much faster than a walk, but I don’t move even that fast anymore myself without a little help.”

So they moseyed in behind John and the others as they circled the building, cut wide around the dormant cherry trees, and pulled into the head of the main meadow.

“Johnny’s quite gone on you, young girl. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Connie kept her gaze ahead as the old man chuckled softly. Next time she and John were alone, that was another thing she’d be straightening out.

“Well, you’ll see soon.”

“See? See what?”

He just shook his head and left her to wonder as they arrived beside the tractor.

***

Paps shouted for the crowd to quiet down.

They didn’t respond much until John thought to kick the old engine a bit. It roared for a moment, as if digging in deep for one last time, drowning any conversation across the whole field. He let it drop to an idle and then choked it down into silence.

Paps stood at the front of the tractor, beside the plaque he’d bolted on but covered with a cloth.

“Welcome all to The Night Before The Night Before,” his shout carried as John came down to stand beside him.

A round of cheers echoed across the meadow.

“Now, I know it’s braggin’ a bit, but it’s a braggin’ sort of night for the Wallaces.”

Hoots and laughter came from the meadow.

“I remember my dad and granda’ first talking about the USS
Drum
and then the
Batfish
. I remember him and many of your da’s and granda’s gathering around and doing the same. And here she sits, still proud despite more than thirty years beached.”

John spotted Grumps holding Connie’s arm and waved them forward.

Connie escorted him up beside John but faded back into the darkness before John could snag her hand.

“I need to thank each and every one of you who has labored these last few years on replacing her deck.” He paused and John could feel the crowd hesitate. “But there’s a side of beef cookin’, so screw that.”

Laughter and applause erupted. It was a good night.

“This old tractor is parked here for a reason. My dad was too young for World War II but not too young to work. He rode this tractor from four years before the
Batfish
was commissioned. Never too weary to help, he drove this tractor on many of your farms to help when help was needed. And like good Oklahomans, you did the same.” He waited for the next surge of applause to fade like the former mayor that he was. “Old Grumps drove her straight through until four years before the USS
Batfish
came to stay on our good Muskogee soil.”

This time the applause overrode him for several long minutes. During that time, he uncovered the steel plaque, then read it aloud when the crowd quieted.

“‘This 1938 John Deere Unistyler L served twenty-six years on the nation’s finest farmland keeping our people fed, while the USS
Batfish
kept our seas free for the same number of years. Donated this date to the museum.’ I warned ya’ll it was a bragging night!” He shouted down the next round of applause. “I’m almost done, then we can eat.”

John felt a tug on his sleeve as Paps pulled him forward.

“First, I want a moment of silence for our nation’s heroes. For those standing beside us,” he patted John’s shoulders, “for those not lucky enough to be home for Christmas, and for those fallen.”

Caps were doffed, heads bowed. John could feel the silence. Could feel why he served. To guard these good people and this good family. He bowed his own head and thought of the people he’d lost and the ones he was still privileged to fly beside. He thought of his buddies still over in the ’Stans, at Bati field especially.

The silence hung in the night air until all he could hear was his own breathing.

Paps’s gentle throat-clearing carried easily over the silent crowd.

“And now, my last announcement. I have another reason to celebrate. Sergeant?” He called out the last loud and clear.

John looked up abruptly, but Paps was facing back into the dark.

And there stood Connie in her uniform. Not her dress greens, but her ACU. The mottled tan, gray, and green of an Army combat uniform.

“By request, I’m pleased to present U.S. Army Sergeant Connie Davis of the 160th SOAR.”

The crowd remained silent. John tried to make sense of it. She’d been wearing Noreen’s big coat, but now she wore full uniform, billed hat, and her Beretta sidearm that she must have had on underneath. Somehow in the last twenty-four hours he’d forgotten the soldier that was such a part of the woman.

She dropped to parade rest and faced the crowd. Her earlier meekness had evaporated. The soft woman who’d slept spooned against him and woken him in the best way possible was gone. A SOAR Sergeant now stood and faced the crowd, and beware any who messed with her.

John could see that those fierce shields she kept around herself were firmly slammed into place.

“There are exceptional young people in the world…” Connie’s voice, normally so soft, carried easily on the silent night air. “And they are often the ones you’d least expect. These young men and women face a challenge that most would shirk. They do what others not only can’t imagine but wouldn’t do even if they could. These people are to be looked up to and encouraged for they place one thing higher than themselves. It is their country.”

John applauded uncertainly along with the crowd. Didn’t she know this wasn’t a time to lecture a crowd of Okies on patriotism? She was going to make a fool of herself if she continued with a recruiting speech. He went to step forward, but Grumps put a restraining hand on his arm.

“She knows what she’s doing. Now stand tall, son.”

His voice wasn’t all that steady as he spoke. He’d never served. What was going on?

Connie turned smartly to the dark behind them and shouted out, “Cadet Captain Wallace.”

Wallace? Who the—

Noreen stepped forward. But it wasn’t Noreen. She strode forward in precisely gauged steps. Her dress greens immaculate from her green beret, her jacket decorated with several awards, her blue pants with the gold side-stripe, and shining black shoes. Her long hair back in a neat ponytail. White dress gloves accenting her hands in the bright park lights.

Connie motioned his parents forward as John’s world turned under his feet.

Paps and Mama removed the three pips from Noreen’s shoulders. They replaced them with the single gold bar of an officer before stepping back.

“Cadet Captain Wallace…” Connie spoke loudly enough for the crowd to hear. “Please allow me to be the first to salute the U.S. Army’s newest officer, Second Lieutenant Noreen Wallace.” And Connie shot his sister a perfect and sharp salute with her right hand.

First, Noreen offered a silver dollar to Connie, left hand to left hand, and then returned the salute. Connie took the coin and tucked it into her breast pocket, Noreen snapped down her salute sharp as could be.

Then they hugged.

The crowd erupted. Roars, cheers, hoots, and hollers.

John shook his head even as his sister came up to him.

She saluted him.

Reflexively he saluted back.

Then he roared into her face, “What the hell, Nori?”