One Man's War

by Lindsay McKenna

Tess tried to fight the need to walk into his arms. Just to be held by Pete would help. “So far, so good. Go on.”

  He gave her an uneasy look. “What do you mean, go on? That’s everything.” Dammit, he didn’t want to fence with Tess. He wanted to kiss that lush, sinner mouth of hers.

  “You haven’t said anything about you.”

  Pete’s mouth quirked. “Why do I feel like I’m in a dentist’s chair and you’re pulling my teeth one by one without novocaine?”

  Hurt and angry, Tess touched her damp brow. “Because I care about you, and you know it!”

  “Honey, we’re on dangerous ground again,” he growled. “Quicksand for me. Remember?”

  “Life is quicksand,” Tess parried hotly. “Ever since the crash, I’ve been worried for you, Pete.”

  “Don’t waste your worry on me, Tess. I’m not worth it.” He gestured toward the village. “Worry for that kid. He needs your care.”

  “You’re such a bastard at times, but you don’t fool me with your cheap talk and blustering.” Tess poked him in the chest. “Remember? I’m the one who can see through that wall you try to scare everyone off with. Now, level with me,” she ordered. “Has the crash left you with nightmares?”

  He pushed dirt around with the toe of his flight boot. “Yeah…sometimes.”

  “Just sometimes?” Her voice went off-key in disbelief.

  “Okay…I get them almost every damned night!” he snarled. “Are you satisfied?”

  Tess leaned against the jeep, trying to control her anger and frustration. “What else?”

  “There is no `what else,’ dammit!”

  “Why do you get so upset at giving little bits of information about yourself, Pete? Don’t you know it’s normal in a relationship to share private things with the other person?”

  Pete glanced over at Tess’s tense, shadowed features as the sun set behind the rounded, green-velvet hills. “I get upset over anyone knowing how I really feel, okay?”

  “And what do you think I’m going to do now that I know about your nightmares? Go tell Gib? Blurt it all over base to embarrass you?”

  “You could,” Pete muttered, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the jeep near her.

  Tess whispered tautly, “Not every woman is to be mistrusted! Don’t judge me by what your mother did to you.” Her voice became strangled with emotions that begged to be released. “I like the guy underneath that tough facade. Can’t you begin to look at me? Tess Ramsey? I’m sorry your mother abandoned you, Pete, but not every woman after her is planning on doing the same thing.”

  He eyed her warily. “You have a damned irritating way of getting under my skin. I’m sorry I told you about my mother.”

  “I’m not. If anyone has skirted our on-again, off-again relationship, it’s been you, Pete, not me.”

  Cold anger stirred in him. Grumpily, he stared down at the ground, refusing to meet her gaze. “Dammit, Tess, you want a lot.”

  “No, I want what any normal person does in a relationship: intimacy, honesty and sharing.”

  He snapped a glance over at her. “Can’t have you any other way, huh?”

  “No.” She held his frustrated gaze. “Pete, I’m serious about you! I want to know about you, the person, not the Marine Corps pilot, okay? I don’t consider this a game, and I hope you don’t, either.”

  “Life’s a game, honey.”

  “Some things in it aren’t,” Tess blazed. “Look, if all you want is a toss in the hay with me, Pete, then you’d better quit coming to visit. But if you want something more, to share something worthwhile between us, then let’s continue seeing one another when our schedules permit.”

  Pete cursed softly. “Tess, I can’t live with you, and I can’t live without you!”

  “Then something needs to change between us, Pete,” she rattled.

  “It’s scary, Tess.”

  “What is?”

  “You and me.”

  “Don’t you think I’m scared, too?” Tess demanded. Had she said too much? Shocked by her vulnerable emotions, Tess stepped away from Pete.

  He held her gaze and realized there were tears in her eyes. He winced. Stunned by Tess’s outburst, he stood tensely for a long moment. “I don’t like making a woman cry. I can’t stand tears.”

  “Because you don’t want to feel, that’s why,” Tess shot back hotly, wiping the tears away and forcing the rest back. “I want to share something with you, Pete. I loved Eric, and I thought he loved me.” Wearily, Tess raised her hand in a signal of surrender. “And then, one day, he broke off our engagement. I never could pull the reason out of him.” She closed her eyes, all her raw feelings tearing loose. “Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m not lovable. I don’t know. I’ve spent so many sleepless nights wondering why. What did I do wrong? Is there a flaw in me?” Tess forced herself to look into Pete’s shadowed blue eyes. “I have a lot of doubts about myself.”

  Pete wrestled with very real anger toward Eric. He saw the pain in Tess’s eyes, and heard a reflection of it in her voice. Clearing his throat, he whispered, “You’ve got a lot to offer a man, Tess. You’re bright even if you are bullheaded. You’re easy on the eyes, and you have a nice way about you.”

  “Thank you—I think.” She rubbed her brow and shrugged. Pete had already hurt her, and he could hurt her more. But Tess didn’t know what else to do with all these powerful feelings lunging through her.

  Stunned by her honesty and trust in him, Pete shrugged. “Hell, I’m not perfect, either, Tess.”

  “No kidding.”

  He managed a sour, tenuous smile. “I had that coming, didn’t I?” Silence settled around them. Finally, the words were forced out of Pete. “Look, it’s going to be hard to learn to trust a woman—you.”

  “I know that.”

  He saw how much he’d already hurt her, and it dug at his conscience. Of all people, she deserved happiness. “I don’t have a choice, though,” he admitted hollowly. “I like you….”

  A part of Tess leaped for joy, but she knew Pete was able to wound her even more if she capitulated to her crazy, nonsensical need of him. “It’s a step in the right direction.” Tess turned and rested her hand on his arm. “Pete, let’s learn to be friends first. No demands, no expectations of each other. Don’t see me as some girl to be chased down and bedded. I’ll try not to let my own doubts about myself interfere. Fair enough?”

  “I guess….”

  “Listen to me. In this world everyone is hurt by someone or something, Pete. What’s important, I’ve discovered, is going on despite the scars we get by living life. We can’t let a wound stay open and fester, because in the end it’ll stop us from living life to the fullest. Eric nearly killed me in one sense, just as your mother nearly did you.” Her grip on his arm became firm. “Aren’t we worth more than that? Why let shadows from the past block the sunlight of what we can possibly be to each other? The only way we’re going to find out is to trust each other—fully.”

  Her hand on his arm sent a heated wave of longing through him. Pete stood, mesmerized by her upturned face bathed in the pale pink of the sunset. There was such hope in her eyes. He ached to lean those scant inches closer and kiss her, to feel her heat and giving once again. Restraining himself, he looked up at the cloudless sky. “No promises, Tess.”

  “I didn’t ask for any.”

  “I’ll try,” Pete finally whispered, meeting her lovely emerald eyes. “That’s all I can do, and I don’t know if it’s enough.”

  Tess reached up on tiptoe and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek, rough with five o’clock shadow. “It’s enough for now,” she whispered unsteadily. “More than enough.”

  Just the brush of her lips against his flesh broke his control. Pete blindly reached out and grabbed Tess. The driving need to kiss her, to feel her soft, womanly heart, shattered through the barrier of his fear.

  Tess gasped, felt Pete’s hands settle on her shoulders and pull her hard against him. His mouth smothered h
ers in hungry urgency, taking her softness, giving back his heat, his starving desire for her. With a moan, Tess surrendered and sagged against his tall, tense frame. His mouth moved like fire across her lips, his tongue quickly finding entrance. The world exploded before Tess, and her moan was lost in his growl of triumph.

  “God, woman,” Pete breathed as he drew away, “you’re enough to try a saint, do you know that?”

  Tess felt herself go weak beneath his stormy blue gaze. Her lips throbbed with the power of his male kiss. Dizzied and shaken, she took a step away from him because she wanted to kiss him again. And if she did, all would be lost. Tess stared up at him, words jammed beneath the volcanic urgency building within her. “There won’t be any lines between us anymore,” she warned breathlessly.

  “That’s going to cramp my style,” Pete rasped. He saw the luster in Tess’s eyes, and God help him, he wanted her more than ever. The kiss hadn’t solved a thing. Instead, it had stirred his hungry longing to even more urgent life.

  “Then,” Tess whispered unsteadily as she raised her hand in farewell, “you’ll just have to be plain old Pete Mallory—the man I like.”

  With a shake of his head, he reluctantly slid into the jeep. “Music to my ears.”

  “It better be to your heart, Mallory.”

  With a laugh of relief, he started up the jeep. Tess had kissed him just as eagerly as he had her. “Hey, are you sure you don’t want to come into Da Nang for the night?”

  Tess hesitated. “No, but thanks anyway. See you tomorrow morning?”

  “Roger that, lovely lady.”

  Tess headed back toward the village, her heart singing. She’d risked everything with Pete, and miraculously he hadn’t thrown it back in her face. Hope raced through her.

  Some of her euphoria dissolved as she neared Lee’s hut. The baby’s deteriorating condition quickly snuffed out her sunny emotions. Tess wondered bleakly as she entered the hut if her world would ever stop being this roller coaster of highs and lows. As she knelt next to the baby and smiled over at Lee, Tess prayed for the morning to come quickly. The waxen pallor of the boy was frightening; she knew his small life hung in the balance.

  *

  Pete gave his crew orders that if any shooting or rocket attacks began as they sat on the ground near Le My, to take off without him. They could pick him up later when it was safe. As he unplugged the phone jack to his helmet and slid out the rear door of the Sikorsky, he thought he’d be damned if he’d place another crew in jeopardy.

  Pete jogged through the village. The smiling Vietnamese children welcomed him as he headed to Lee’s hut. It shouldn’t take long, he thought, a little perplexed that Tess hadn’t been waiting with the mother and son. She knew how dangerous it was bringing a chopper into a village area. The VC were really turning up the heat, getting more aggressive by the week.

  “Tess?” Pete shouted as he neared the hut. A huge crowd of people surrounded the opened door. Confused, he threaded through the Vietnamese, calling again for Tess.

  At the door, he halted, his eyes adjusting to the dim light within the thatched hut. Lee, the mother, was wailing and holding her son in a blanket to her breast. Next to him, her eyes red-rimmed, was Tess. Pete opened his mouth to speak, then realized with a sinking sensation that the boy had died.

  Damn. He hesitated. His instincts told him to avoid the situation. To stay meant to feel. He clenched his teeth, torn. Emotions were dangerous, pulling him apart in ways he never seemed able to recover fully from. But one look at Tess’s vulnerable face, the raw emotions written there, and Pete knew he couldn’t leave her—no matter how much it hurt him. Grimly, he turned on his heel and ran back to where the helicopter sat, its blades still kicking up huge clouds of dust. Pete stopped beside the new crew chief and motioned him to hand over the spare communications cable. Pete plugged the jack into his helmet connection and ordered the copilot to dust off and leave him behind. The younger man, a twenty-two-year-old with blond hair and hazel eyes, gave Pete a thumbs-up. It would be his first flight without the pilot on board. Pete knew he was breaking a lot of rules by staying behind, but he couldn’t turn his back on the look on Tess’s face.

  As he hunched and quickly moved away from the whirling blades, Pete thrust his hand up in the air, moving it in a circular motion to tell the copilot to lift off. His thoughts and his heart centered on Tess. Why was he doing this? He didn’t have to stay behind. He could have avoided an emotional confrontation. But he hadn’t. With a grimace, Pete pulled the tight-fitting helmet off his head as he watched the dark green Sikorsky whump skyward.

  As the helicopter banked and headed back to Marble Mountain, Pete breathed easier. At least his crew was safely away. Turning, he hurried back through the village. Tess needed someone, a shoulder to cry on, and he could provide it. God knew, he wasn’t an expert on this. As a matter of fact, Pete ruminated as he drew near the hut and the wailing cries, this was the first time he’d run toward something painful instead of away from it. Hope flared in his heart as he carefully wove through the tightly packed villagers, their shrieks and cries rending the air.

  Maybe Tess’s courage was rubbing off on him; Pete didn’t know. Right now, something was pushing him to stay. Some indefinable emotion, as deep as it was startling, was forcing him to hold ground—something he’d never thought he’d do with any woman.

  His heart picking up in beat, he made his way to the entrance of the hut. Tess was still in a kneeling position, her face stark and pale, her eyes like wounded holes, mirroring her grief over the baby’s death. She was comforting the mother. Pete knew what Tess needed: to cry. And then he laughed at himself—he, who never cried, knowing what was best for her. Moving inside the hut, his hands stretched toward her, Pete ignored his old instincts, still hammering at him to run away. For the first time in his life, he allowed his carefully protected heart to come out from behind that wall he’d built around it since childhood. He reached out to help someone else who was hurting just as much as, perhaps more, than he.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tess cried brokenly with Lee as the mother rocked and held her baby to her breast. It was only when Tess felt Pete’s hands settle gently on her shoulders that she looked up. His mouth was grim, his eyes shadowed with pain, her pain.

  “Come on,” he ordered thickly, lifting her to her feet, “let’s get out of here for a while. You’ve done all you can.”

  Tess stumbled forward, then sank against Pete. She caught herself, and through a veil of tears, followed him out of the hut and beyond the gathered, grieving villagers. His arm was around her waist, propelling her forward, and she blindly followed, too lost in her own anguish to care where Pete was taking her.

  Tess found herself back in her hut, the orange curtain thrown aside to allow bright morning sunlight to stream across the mats on the floor. Pete sat her down and moved behind her, his arms encircling her. His caring broke through the last remnants of grief she had been trying to hold back. Leaning against his body for support, Tess raised her hands, covered her face and began to cry in earnest.

  Pete tried to remain immune to Tess’s sobs as he slowly rocked her back and forth in his arms, but he couldn’t. Anger mixed with his own discomfort, because tears had always disturbed him badly. He tried to figure out why as he rocked Tess and murmured words of solace he knew couldn’t possibly assuage her grief. In those minutes of holding her and feeling her tremble, Pete’s initial discomfort dissolved.

  There was something good and warm about being able to share Tess’s pain and comfort her. Eventually, as her tears lessened, Pete turned her around in his arms so that, like a small child, she huddled against him, her face buried against his shoulder, her hands pressed to the wall of his chest. An incredible flood of new, awakening feelings flowed through Pete as he held her, stroking her tangled hair. Pete knew Tess had been up all night with the baby; her loyalty would drive her to do that.

  “Such care,” he whispered gruffly, his hand resting on her hair. H
e pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Tess, you’re bleeding yourself dry for these people. You can’t keep doing this to yourself, honey. You’ve got to save something of yourself for you….”

  Pete closed his eyes as he felt a tremor pass through her. He held her a little tighter. That was the real problem with her, he realized: Tess had been in the country too long. He knew enough American advisors who were on their second or even third tours in Nam, and it was a damning situation. After a while they no longer felt comfortable back in America—some unknown force drove them to come back to Vietnam. They felt better here. They no longer fit into the fabric of American society. Gently, he stroked Tess’s shoulder and back with long, smooth motions. Vietnam was taking every ounce of emotion from Tess, and she was close to running dry.

  He sat on the floor of the hut with her for half an hour with the sunlight spilling like gold into the darkness, chasing it away—and Pete discovered something else. Tess was his sunlight chasing away the shadows. Savoring the closeness, the intimacy of holding her in the aftermath of her grief made him feel humble and good about himself in a way he’d never before experienced.

  “I—I’m all right,” Tess whispered brokenly as she finally eased away from Pete. Touching her bedraggled hair with her trembling fingers, she wiped the last of the tears off her face.

  Looking around, Pete found a brush and comb on top of a small wooden chest. “Yeah, I know you are,” he said wryly. “Come here. Turn around and just sit here for a minute.”

  Tess allowed him to maneuver her around between his thighs so that her back was to him. “What are you doing?”

  “Cleaning you up. You look like hell, Tess.” He gently eased the bobby pins out of the messy bun of red hair. The strands, curled slightly by the constant humidity, tumbled into his awaiting hands. There was something incredibly beautiful about the moment, and Pete absorbed it like a starving man. “I haven’t brushed a woman’s hair before, but yours needs it. Sit still. I hope I don’t hurt you more than help you,” he joked weakly as he began to run the brush through the disheveled copper strands.