COOL UNDER FIRE

by Justine Davis

  "I am," she said, handing them both plates full of eggs, fruit and toasted English muffins. "I found out tonight that I've wasted a lot of time worrying about something I never had to. And I didn't have to get through tonight without falling apart to prove it. I realized it before."

  "And what brought on this revelation?" Robert asked as he took the cup she handed him.

  "When I told—" She broke off abruptly; she had no right to talk about Con's past to anyone, not even her father. "Never mind," she said hastily. "It's just that I realized—"

  "You were never like her."

  Shiloh stared at her father. "You … knew?"

  "Of course I knew. How could I not? All those years I watched you trying to meet every crisis as if you were forty, not fourteen. And later I watched you push yourself, test yourself, to make sure you'd learned."

  "I … never realized you knew." She sat down abruptly on the edge of the heavy coffee table made from an old navy footlocker.

  "I'd be a poor father if I hadn't." He sipped at the hot apple cider she'd brought and quirked a bushy eyebrow at her. "Dare I hope this means an end to hang-gliding, skydiving and the like?"

  Con set down his untasted coffee with a thud. The pictures, he thought. All those crazy, dangerous things she did—just to prove she could face the fear? Just to be sure she wasn't like her mother in the face of danger? What she'd told him up in the park, "I'm no more like her than you are like him," came back to him now with a new meaning and intensity.

  "Don't be too hard on your mother," Robert Reese was saying. "She didn't plan on what happened. She married a dashing young naval lieutenant with dreams of a ship of his own someday. She never counted on my being transferred to intelligence. She wasn't prepared for everything that entailed."

  Shiloh studied her hands where they lay in her lap. Con could see the tenseness in every muscle, the emotion in the rigid set of her slender shoulders. He felt as if he should leave; this was a family thing, the kind of thing he knew nothing about. Yet what he really wanted was to go to her, to hold her until that killing tension left her. Torn between the two impulses, he stayed, afraid to interrupt the flow that had clearly been bottled up for so long.

  "Do you think she would have been … different, if you'd been on sea duty for months at a time?"

  "I think so." Robert sighed. "Your mother was … spoiled, I suppose, first by her parents, then, in the beginning, by me. She was used to things going her way. When they didn't, and when she realized my work was going to directly affect her life, well…" He shrugged. "I think that was the worst. She couldn't take the secrecy, the threat to her as well as me because of what I did. She couldn't even talk about my work."

  "Brag about her husband the battleship commander, you mean," Shiloh said bitterly; even to Con, it was clear this was an old and sore argument.

  "Oh, Shy, my girl, I know it's hard for you to understand. You have no need for reflected glory, you go out and get your own. But your mother's of a different era, a different breed. Don't judge her too harshly."

  Con saw her lower her head, and his eyes fastened on the slender, fragile-looking column of her neck. She seemed so delicate to be so strong. He couldn't have left now for anything; he wanted to know everything there was to know about her.

  "I … even if I could forgive her for that … I could never … for the way she acted … after you were hurt…"

  Robert set down his cup, reached out and lifted her chin with a gentle finger. "Some things are between a man and his woman, and between them alone." Shiloh knew she was blushing, but she couldn't look away, she was too drawn by an odd, new look in her father's eyes. "And that is between your mother and me. And there it will stay. Understood?"

  She nodded, wide-eyed. Her father had never spoken to her like that before, never spoken to her as an adult about his relationship with her mother. It was as if he were suddenly seeing her as a woman instead of a child. As if he knew.

  "Good." His voice was brisk. "Let's eat, and then we can all get some rest before the sun comes up."

  Before the sun comes up, she thought a little numbly. Before the sun comes up and Con leaves. She turned away, knowing that that sun would never shine as brightly on her again.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  « ^ »

  He could see her in the distance, sitting amid a riot of colorful flowers, all of them brilliant in the sunshine, yet none of them outshining the burnished color of her hair or the vivid emerald of her eyes.

  He moved quietly, not wanting her to see him, but he broke his silence when he saw what was cradled in her arms.

  "Oh, God." It broke from him helplessly.

  So it had happened, just as he had known, just as he had feared it would. She had found that phantom man, that blond California boy who walked in the sunlight instead of the shadows. Telling himself he had no right to feel it didn't stop the pain.

  She didn't seem to hear him coming, and he risked another step, compelled somehow to continue the torture. The child in her arms had a smooth cap of hair only slightly lighter than the sunlit strands of its mother's, and it was tugging on those strands with a curious little hand.

  Still Shiloh seemed oblivious to him, but the child sensed his approach and turned to look, a sweet expression on that open, innocent face, and wonder in the eyes that looked up at him.

  Con sat up sharply, still groggy with the clinging mist of the intense dream, looking around the room as if searching for any part of that vivid image. All he could see were vague outlines in the dark room. Linc's room. And the memory of the eyes that had stared up at him from that childish face, not the glowing green of Shiloh's, not even the brown of that man he'd conjured up for her, but blue. Blazing, clear blue. His own eyes, staring back at him.

  Groaning, he fell back on the pillows, clenching the corner of one in his fist as he cursed both his rebellious body and his overactive mind for throwing these impossible images at him like acid-tipped darts.

  When he first heard the gossamer whisper of sound, he thought he was dreaming again. But she was there, wearing only a slash of green satin that he barely had time to notice before her hands went to the straps. It slipped down her body into a jade puddle at her feet.

  She watched him look at her, felt his gaze as it slid over her breasts, down to the indentation of her waist and the gentle curve of her hips, over her long, golden legs, then back to the tangle of reddish curls at their juncture.

  She blushed suddenly, taking a tiny half step back. Con saw her hesitation, her shy nervousness, and knew that she wasn't sure he still wanted her. He hadn't meant to, didn't want to take anything more from her; he'd done nothing but take from her since they'd met. But he would take again now, he admitted silently, because he couldn't help himself. He had to have one more sweet memory to guide him through the dark.

  He threw back the covers, baring his own naked body to her. He knew what she would see. He'd already been aroused by merely thinking of her; the sight of her undressing for him had brought him to a point of hard readiness that made him wonder once again if he would be able to last long enough to give her the exquisite pleasure she gave him.

  She slipped in beside him, her arms going around him eagerly. "I missed you so," she whispered.

  "I didn't miss you, Green-eyes." He felt her tense, and he smiled into the darkness. "I've done nothing but dream about you since I went to sleep."

  He turned to her, determined that, even if she didn't know it now, this would be a sweet memory for her, too.

  Shiloh felt his intensity from his first touch, and even with her limited experience she knew this was different. He trailed his hands over her, caressing every curve, probing every hollow, until she was spinning with the warmth of it. Then his mouth began to move along the same paths, kissing, nibbling, teasing, from her lips to her neck, from the taut, rosy peak of one breast to the other, down over the flat plane of her stomach to the point of her hip, and then down every inch of her slenderl
y curved legs.

  She was unaware of how she opened wantonly for him as he worked his way up the tender flesh of her thigh, didn't know how seductively she lifted her hips for him. She only felt his hand cupping the soft curls, his fingers gently probing. A low moan escaped her when he found that tender spot, and pleasure rocketed out to settle in the deep, hot place that had been born in her the first time she'd seen him.

  She cried out in stunned shock when he bent his head to her and let his tongue take over what his fingers had begun.

  Con was fired by that surprised little cry of pleasure, and the knowledge that he was the first to show her this filled him with a possessive heat he'd felt only once before in his life, on a small ship anchored in a quiet cove, where he'd been given the most precious gift of his life.

  The specter of a man rose in his mind, the man who would take this from her, as well, the man who would have this for the rest of his life. It seared acidly into his memory, and he fought to beat it back. He would do what he had to, somehow, for her sake. He would find the strength. Then he emptied his mind of everything except the slender body in his arms and clasped her hips to lift her closer.

  Her shock long ago charred to cinders, Shiloh knew she was going to die, and she didn't care. She would go up in flames and smoke and she wouldn't care, because she would have felt all there was to feel.

  She writhed in his hands, moaning his name on every breath. She tried to get away from his relentless caress because she couldn't bear it anymore, then twisted to get back because she couldn't bear it to stop. Her fingers tangled in his hair and she held him, as if afraid he would leave her inflamed, trembling flesh.

  Her blood was pounding wildly, and her pulse seemed to have shifted, centered now in that tiny little bud of flesh beneath his mouth. She let go, let him propel her to the precipice and then, when with one last lingering, suckling kiss he hurled her over, she went joyously, his name shimmering hot and sweet in her throat.

  When she could begin to think again, she wondered how on earth she could find words for what she'd just experienced. She could feel the precious weight of his head as he rested on her thigh, and she reached to stroke his hair.

  The moment she moved he lifted his head, and she made a small sound of protest. It was changed to a gasp when she felt him begin again, his tongue hot and probing against her still-pulsing body.

  "Con, no, I can't—"

  His voice came, deep and husky, muffled by her body. "Sure you can, Green-eyes."

  And he went on, and with the first flickering renewal of heat she knew he was right. The body she'd thought too exhausted to move rose to his caress; the nerves she'd thought singed beyond repair came sizzlingly alive once more.

  Yet this, too, was different; each time, just as she felt herself on the verge of that sweet, spiraling flight, he drew back, until she was crying out, clawing at him, begging him. She was begging him, and it didn't matter; all that mattered was that she would splinter into a million irreparable fragments if she couldn't have him soon.

  "Please…"

  "Tell me," he said, his voice hot and thick. "Tell me what you want."

  Her need overwhelmed her shyness. "You," she gasped. "Inside me. Oh, Con, please!"

  With a ragged groan he rose above her, lifting her in strong, gentle hands and pulling her toward him until he was buried deeply inside her. Then he withdrew, and she reached out as if to pull him back. That little movement, that reaching out for him, broke his tenuous control. His hands went to her hips, and, grasping her tightly, he slammed her up against him, driving hard and deep.

  She gasped at the impact, at the sharp, piercing stab of pleasure that shot through her. The sound made Con freeze, and he looked down at her hesitantly. Knowing he was afraid he'd hurt her, Shiloh gave him the only words she had breath left for.

  "Oh, yes…"

  With a hoarse groan he tightened his grasp on her hips and pulled her to him again, hard and fast, again and again, until he was driving into her with all the power and force his raging body demanded.

  Shiloh gave herself up completely, surrendering her body to him as an instrument for his pleasure. And she found that instead of losing herself, it was as if she had won a sweet, precious victory. The grip that could have been painful only added to her pleasure, and the sounds of his body thrusting into hers, the low groans of pleasure that burst from him at every stroke, were arousing in a way she'd never realized before.

  She loved the look of him as he rose above her almost as much as she loved the feel of him inside her. His face was drawn tight with passion, his blue eyes free of everything except his need and hunger for her, his muscles driving and flexing, as he sent her higher and higher.

  She reached out, desperate for something to hang on to, and found herself gripping the strong hands at her hips, the hands that were impaling her on him again and again. Her slender fingers tightened around his, wishing she could add her own strength to his, to make it harder, faster.

  And then it was, and she went rigid, moaning his name once more as she locked her legs around him. Her body was a wild thing, trapped in the flames he had kindled, and she nearly screamed at the exquisite, rippling, pulsing pleasure.

  She heard his guttural cry, barely recognizable as her name, felt the shudders that swept his body and shook his powerful frame. She felt the hot flood as he poured himself into her, felt his hips grind against her as he arched into her fiercely, throwing his head back as his groan of pleasure lengthened into a long, hoarse growl.

  She felt tears stinging her eyes at the beauty of it and held him close when he collapsed atop her, his breath coming in quick gasps. He slid to one side and she lifted a hand to touch him. She wanted to tell him so many things, but he had drained her of all her strength, and she barely managed to press a soft kiss on the thick darkness of his hair before she slipped into sleep.

  Con held her tight, hanging on to her as a drowning man hangs on to his rescuer. He'd wanted to know if her unflappable control could be shaken, had wanted to do it just like this. He hadn't counted on his own vulnerability; in shaking her control he had surrendered his own. He'd never been like this with a woman, his need so uncontrollable, his lovemaking so fierce, his own response so violent. He had never given himself so completely, and it shook him to his weary soul.

  Despite his exhaustion he lay awake, unable to sleep away these last precious hours. Gradually the darkness faded as the dawn arrived, and he was able to see the room he hadn't even looked at earlier in his weariness. He looked around at the shelves full of mementos and souvenirs, the kinds of things he'd never had; he'd never had more than he could carry. He didn't fit here, he thought, just as he didn't fit in her life.

  His gaze stopped on a picture in a silver frame that sat on the nightstand. It was Linc, in uniform, looking thin and weary, and Con guessed it had been taken when he returned from Nam. And in his arms, gazing adoringly at her beloved big brother, was Shiloh. Her hair pulled up in a bouncy ponytail, she was the child who had worked a miracle, who had pulled a gaunt-eyed, hollow-souled man back to life. No wonder Linc loved her so. She was sweet and pure and good, everything that was sunlight in this world. And she deserved all of that in return. Not a shadowy, dark life full of grimness and lies.

  Now. He had to do it now. He knew he was within a hair's breadth of throwing reality to the wind and spiriting her off somewhere, anywhere, where he could have her for as long as he could hold the world at bay.

  Slowly he eased away from her, ignoring the twisting knot in his chest. He got up and dressed hastily, resolutely keeping his back to the bed, knowing that if he looked at her he would be lost. He had to take her back to her own room; he couldn't leave her here for her father to find. Steeling himself, he turned back to her.

  He couldn't do it. He was going to cave in, surrender to the incredible power she had over him. He couldn't leave her, not now, not when he'd only begun to know her beauty, her strength and her fire. She moved, stretching out
one arm as if looking for him, her slender body painted gold by the morning sun streaming through a gap in the shade. She was so—

  He saw the mark. Dark, purple and ugly, marring the perfect silk of her abdomen. The memory of the fat man, his heavy, wicked heel digging into her delicate body, leapt into Con's mind. His fingers curled helplessly; he wished he'd killed him.

  That was his world, that ugly, brutal mark, and there was no place in it for her beauty and delicate grace. His resolve returned, and he leaned over the bed to wrap the sheet around her, trying not to remember how it had gotten so tangled, and gathered her up in his arms.

  Even in sleep her arms went around him and she gave a soft little sigh that settled into his name. He suppressed a shiver, knowing his body was screaming in protest at what his mind was ordering it to do, and carried her quickly and quietly down the hall.

  He slipped through the door to her room and with exquisite care laid her on the bed, then tucked her in gently.

  He leaned over to press a soft kiss on the spun silk of her hair, knowing he didn't dare linger or he might weaken. She murmured something again, and again it was his name; his every muscle went taut with strain. Then he whirled, crossing the room in two long strides. He slipped through the door, closing it behind him, then leaned back against it weakly.

  No battle he'd ever fought in his sometimes cruel, sometimes harsh life had ever prepared him for this. He fought the trembling of his body, fought the pain ripping at his gut, fought the merciless vise that was closing on his heart. He bit his lip savagely, hoping for a pain that would drown out the inner agony that was tearing him apart. He bit down until he tasted blood, and never felt a thing.

  He closed his eyes against the stinging behind his lids. The stinging grew worse, and he felt the moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes. He squeezed them shut tighter as he took a shuddering breath. It didn't work; he felt the wetness spill over and trickle down his cheeks. He opened his eyes and swiped at them. He hadn't cried since his mother had died; he hadn't thought he still could.