Vivian's Return Read online

  He saw the way the helicopter would start to spin around, its stability lost when the tail rotor failed and it would plunge into the sea below. He would see the surface of the sea leap toward him, then smash into the Perspex canopy and like a diving mask, the canopy would reveal the inky black depths below, waiting to swallow him and the Gazelle.

  He began to shake, feeling the fear in retrospect, giving his imagination free rein. It was always like this after moments of danger and he had learned not to try to repress it, for it would emerge in other ways, catching him unprepared—in his sleep, in moments when he relaxed, giving him no peace.

  He buried his face into his knees, feeling the sweat breaking out all over his body.

  He’d always kept this fear reaction a secret. At first he had hidden it out of shame but as time moved on he had lost the shame but grown reluctant to reveal the secret for reasons he was not fully sure of. He knew he went through this because his imagination was too vivid and his experience too vast—he had seen the worst tragedies possible and knew exactly what it was that he risked every time he entered dangerous situations. He could imagine himself suffering through the horror and hurt that he pulled other victims out of.

  On the other side of this retrograde fear was a peace of mind and body that was incomparable to any other contentedness or happiness he had known.

  Except for that he had known with Vivien.

  He got stiffly to his feet and went to the basin and ran water to wash his face. He glanced at the toilet. For the first four years of flying rescues, he had vomited every time. At least these days he was spared that much.

  The change had come about because of Vivien. She had taught him much about his fear, for when he had first met her he had made the mistake of thinking that she was utterly fearless.

  An utterly fearless eighteen-year-old wasn’t odd—there were plenty of them without the sense or experience to fear anything and it was often these reckless ones that Paul found himself hauling out of trouble of one sort or another. Vivien had been different.

  He had just turned twenty-one and been working for Batavia for three years. Already he had participated in a lot of rescue work. On this particular occasion he had pulled a couple of surfers out of a rip that had carried them far out to sea. He’d even salvaged their surfboards, for which they were more grateful than for the saving of their lives.

  The next day Paul flew to the beach the surfers had been using when they had been caught in the rip, to talk to the lifeguards there about precautions they could take to avoid it happening again.

  Tarcoola Beach was notorious for its rips and huge waves. It was also one of the favorite swimming beaches of Geraldton. It had white expanses of sand and surf that never failed. Large waves rolled in from hundreds of yards out, picking up power and swell over the extended shallows, to thunder onto the wet sand with spray leaping higher than a man.

  It was early spring the day Paul flew Batavia’s small two-seater helicopter there. It was chilly, overcast and the wind blew cold fingers over everything. The beach was deserted, although the lifeguards were required to be on duty because the beach was officially open. Because there was not a swimmer in sight, Paul landed the helicopter on the beach, which drew the attention of the lifeguards there. They slogged over toward him, grinning, as he landed.

  The meeting went well. As it happened, Paul knew a couple of the guards and they reached a solution that made everyone happy. By the time they had finished, though, Paul was beginning to shiver. The wind whipped along the unprotected beach and even the gulls had taken cover.

  “Damn it’s cold!” he complained. “I don’t know how you can stand it. Why don’t you pack up and go home?”

  “Love to,” one of the guards told him. “Hardly anyone wants to tackle the waves when they’re up this high.”

  “Hardly anyone? Who in their right minds would want to swim on a day like today, anyway?”

  “Vivien Galloway,” came the answer.

  “Who?”

  “There she is, coming in on that big wave right now.” The guard pointed out to the rolling surf.

  Paul looked and saw a distant figure body-surfing in on a wave that looked monstrous when scaled next to her body.

  “Body surfing?”

  “She says the waves here are perfect, because they last longer.”

  “Who is she?” Paul asked, fascinated.

  “We’re not really sure. She’s pretty young. She’s here all the time. Soon as it gets decently hot enough to swim, she shows up rain or shine. Real water-baby.”

  “Yeah, a real baby....” one of the others murmured, generating a small laugh.

  “Why?” Paul asked.

  “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

  Paul watched the swimmer making her way back out to where the waves began. At this distance he could make out no details except for the white of her face. “Maybe I will,” he said. He wanted to find out why a girl would tackle waves that gave most men reason to stay on the beach and what drove her here time after time.

  He settled down onto the doorsill of the helicopter and waited.

  She emerged about twenty minutes later and Paul watched her walk through the soft sand with unconscious grace, tipping her head to one side to clear her ears of seawater and pushing back shoulder-length hair. It looked red to Paul and even wet it maintained tight, wide ripples. She waved to the guards where they stood huddled around the forty-four-gallon oil drum inside which they’d lit a fire. She was wearing a wet suit—a spring suit, for her legs were bare.

  They were, without question, the best legs Paul had ever seen. Long, slim, muscular. They were worth sighing over.

  She was going to pass close enough for him to speak to her and she was already glancing curiously at the helicopter. A sudden flare of excitement churned his stomach. It felt as if he was on the verge of a life-changing event but he had no idea why he should feel that way. Look at me, he called silently.

  She finally glanced at him, instead of the helicopter and Paul felt his breath snatch away. Eyes the same green as the sea she had just walked out of and pale, porcelain skin...high cheekbones, defiant ones...oh, she was perfect!

  The rhythm of her step faltered. Had she noticed his reaction? Quickly, covering up, Paul called out to her. “Don’t you find it cold at this time of year?”

  Her steps slowed. “Freezing. I hate it.” She’d smiled then, giving lie to her words. It was the pure joy in her expression that caught him and turned his life upside down.

  Fearless, his mind murmured.

  He’d simply stood looking at her, then. No, he stared at her. Her figure was nothing like the fashionably boyish straight up and down shapes favored just then. It had old-fashioned curves that not even the thick wet suit could hide. And her legs... She came up well past his shoulder, which made her about five eight or nine and her legs were perfect in close-up too.

  But his gaze kept drawing back to her eyes and the intelligent, alive gleam in them and the perfect skin. There wasn’t a freckle or flaw in sight. His hand itched to touch it, to see if it was as soft and smooth as it looked. His mind itched to find out more about her.

  “How old are you?” he said finally.

  “Ninety-four.”

  Paul found himself grinning. He saw an answering smile on her lips. “How old are you?” she demanded.

  “Old enough to know that you are going to cause me serious trouble.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not your type. You’re not my type. I like quiet nights at home with my parents, I’m president of the chess club, I spend my spare time crocheting doilies and I hate gung-ho pilots with ponytails who land their helicopters on beaches to save themselves the trip by car.”

  She turned and walked along the beach and Paul found himself following her. There was no thought in it. He simply turned and kept up with her, needing to keep her near.

  “Who would do a thing like that?” he cal
led out to her back. “There’s got to be a by-law against it, at least.”

  She walked down the side of a shallow dip. In the sand at the bottom a small fire burned sluggishly, protected from the worst of the wind by the slope. Next to it were beach accessories that must be hers and a handful of sticks for fuel.

  She knelt next to the fire and stirred it back into life with one of the sticks. Paul squatted next to her. He saw that the fire had been feeding on a book, thick and big but too burned now for him to read any of it. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “A teapot,” she responded, lifting one brow in challenge, as if to say I don’t cooperate without coaxing.

  She was perfect. Everything she said was just right—it suited him. She suited him.

  * * * * *

  Vivien stood on the flat sand, her sneakers a good couple of yards above the reach of the water, looking out over the kiddy waves of the beach next to her motel, Paul’s words ringing in her ears.

  You lied.

  She hadn’t.

  You’ve forgotten about Tarcoola Beach.

  How could she possibly have forgotten that?

  She’d been body surfing. Afterward, she had walked up the beach and found he had audaciously landed the helicopter on the beach itself. Their eyes had met and she knew that she hadn’t imagined the impact that had shivered between them. Nothing like that had ever happened to her with any of her boyfriends, up until then. She had thought it was a creation of the one romance author she had ever bothered to read before returning to her adventure yarns and thrillers.

  She had walked back to her fire and knelt down to stir the embers of the fire, encouraging the flames to lick along the last remnants of her graduation yearbook. He’d asked her then what the book was and she’d answered flippantly, as she had been all along but this time it was to deflect his interest from the book.

  She didn’t want him to know that she was burning her high school yearbook. It would raise too many questions she didn’t want to answer.

  He hadn’t asked. He had just looked at her again. Stared. His eyes danced. It was then she decided that he was going to be hers. Somehow. That was an astonishing thought, because up until this moment, Vivien had never considered herself capable of wanting a man and getting him. It was an alien concept.

  Vivien Galloway...seductress? Vivien Galloway of the frizzy hair and ghostly skin, gangly skinned knees and skinny body?

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said, reaching out to touch her still-damp cheek with the tips of his fingers. Despite the overpowering smell of the sea, Vivien could sense his scent—a strong, musky male smell. She had never smelled it on a man before and was surprised at the latent power it had over her. It curled its way along her nerves, relaxing them and found its way to the pit of her stomach, where it lingered. What would be the results of this effect if she were in his arms? If she were so close to him that his scent enveloped her?

  “Your skin is so clear, so white” His voice was suddenly thick and very low. He lifted his fingers away from her skin and up to his mouth and delicately licked them, his gaze locked onto her face.

  Vivien shivered inside her insulating wet suit. She had never experienced such openness before. Boyfriends, she’d heard, had octopus arms and tentacle fingers and their motives, although fundamentally easy to understand, were always clothed in sweet compliments and cajolery. This man dispensed with all that. He simply followed his feelings, prompted by curiosity. He turned curiosity into a sensuous discovery. She felt a touch of fear at the thought of him discovering her body. Discovering her.

  “I’m too young,” she told him. “I’ll break your heart.” She knew she was incapable of that, at least.

  His smile faded as he caught her fear. “Impossible. You’re ninety-four,” he said, echoing her earlier answer. The strong sea breeze picked up thick locks of hair that had escaped the confines of the leather binding and fell over his forehead, moving gently in the breeze. The hair was thick, dark, clean and shining.

  She bit her lip, staring at him, knowing they had already stepped through gates that had clanged shut behind them. The first had closed as soon as they had met. There was no going back. Like being caught in the notorious rips of Tarcoola Beach, the only thing she could do was stay afloat and see where it took her. Maybe the current would weaken enough for her to break free, somewhere further out to sea. Or maybe she would have to ride it all the way out.

  Her fear swelled. If something like this was fated to happen to her, it was too early. She wasn’t ready.

  “I’ll pick you up at first light tomorrow morning,” he said, sliding his sunglasses back over his eyes.

  “What for?”

  “I’ll show you some proper waves.”

  “You don’t know where I live. Who I am.”

  He lowered his sunglasses enough to look at her over the top of them. “I’ll find out, Vivien Galloway.”

  The life guards told him who she was, she realized. What else had he found out about her?

  He was turning back toward his helicopter.

  “I’ve already got a date for tomorrow,” she called out to his back.

  He looked at her over his shoulder and then, perhaps seeing some of her fear, he turned back to face her. He reached out for her hand and picked it up. His hand was big, the fingers long and slim and the wrist strong, the tendons cording and rippling as he stroked the now dry skin on the back of her hand. His touch sent a warm muscle-weakening stream of sensations up her arm and through her body. “Don’t be afraid,” he said.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she whispered.

  He looked at her steadily and she knew he recognized this as the lie it was too. “I won’t ever hurt you. I won’t ever allow anything or anyone to hurt you.”

  For the next four years, he had kept his word. Nothing ever threatened her. Nothing ever made her fear for her safety. The only fear she ever felt was when Paul went out on mercy dashes or got involved in rescues and emergencies.

  * * * * *

  Vivien blinked against the blinding rays of the sunset she was facing, re-emerging from the memory with all the disorientation of a coma patient newly awake.

  She swore softly to herself. She was supposed to be running along the beach, completing a gentle two-mile jog, but the memory of when she and Paul had first met kept surfacing, immobilizing her with the strength of the emotions it delivered with each replay. This last time she had stopped running altogether and turned toward the water, facing the sunset, while it had played out in her mind.

  “Damn you, Paul,” she muttered to herself, stepping back from a wave that curled up the hard wet sand toward her. Until today, the memory had remained a gentle two-dimensional recollection. How had he changed that?

  It wasn’t his fault, she was honest enough to admit. It was because the blinders had finally been lifted from her eyes. It was because she had acknowledged that she still loved him that she could now replay the memory with all the emotional attachments, in full stereo surround-sound.

  Damn, damn, damn.

  She was running because she was fighting the overwhelming urge to go and find him and apologize for her behavior that afternoon. She knew the apology was truly deserved but she would be using it as an excuse to be near him and she didn’t have that right anymore. That right—that freedom to be with someone just because you wanted to be—lay with Jenny, if anyone held the right.

  Common sense dictated that she pack her bags and leave town again. It was impossible now for her to complete her job with any sort of detachment. To stay would be sheer stupidity. She’d had a taste this afternoon of what it would be like if she stayed. Paul’s and her personalities would rub against each other. One flint, one stone, constantly striking sparks. When they had been together before that friction had generated zest and energy and had been absorbed by their mutual passion and love of adventure. Without that outlet, where would that energy go? How would it emerge?

  There was a real danger they would
snap and snarl at each other as they had this afternoon. They both had hot tempers. They would stir each other to constant rage.

  Rage or passion? Neither were a viable alternative. She couldn’t stay. But if she left now, when she had already stated she intended to stay another week, no matter how long the job took, she would be openly declaring Paul had slipped under her skin. She would be agreeing with everything he had accused her of this afternoon and saying he was right, she had returned just to get even.

  She had to stay out the week. She had to build a defense, a way of keeping her feelings hidden and under control, for seven or eight days until she could nonchalantly ride on out of town as she had intended to do in the first place.

  Vivien glared at the sunset. Avoiding him would be just as much a declaration as leaving town. She had to act just as she had been all week long. Friendly, noncommittal, remote. Uninvolved.

  And she had to finish the job.

  She closed her eyes, seeing the sun play in shades of pink across her eyelids.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Paul’s voice whispered in her mind, the rasping tone of his voice in the lower registers preserved intact.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” Vivien said out loud and turned back toward the sandy path that led to the motel, knowing that just like the first time she had met him, she was lying this time too.

  It was almost fully dark when she reached the motel. She rounded the corner of the main building and walked up the path skirting the motel units with her head down, watching the car fenders so she didn’t hit them with her calves. She dug the motel key out of the waistband of her shorts and reached to insert it in the door of her unit.

  “Hello, Vivien.”

  Vivien swallowed back her surprised gasp and turned to face the speaker, already knowing it was Paul.

  He sat on the front of the Ford parked next to her Range Rover, one long leg thrust out for balance, a hand on his hip, pushing back his jacket. He was wearing the double-breasted business suit that she had first seen him in at the beginning of the week. His hair was slicked back, still damp.