Stranded with the Sergeant

by Cathie Linz

  One of his bungee-jumping buddies had given him a call, asking for his help with a group doing a jump Saturday morning. Joe wouldn’t be jumping himself so he wouldn’t be disobeying orders by helping out.

  While driving out to the site in his Jeep, Joe reminded himself that he’d done the right thing walking away from Prudence. Being with her would lead to nothing but trouble.

  Ah, but what sweet trouble. The chemistry between them was an incredible thing. He had enough experience with women to know that what they’d shared didn’t come around the block every day. In fact, he’d never experienced the instant explosion of desire he’d felt with Prudence.

  The jump site was a man-made tower built near the ocean, near enough to tourists and thrill-seekers visiting the coastal cities like Wilmington.

  His buddy Beau, who’d made a killing in the dotcom marketplace, had moved on to a new dream of starting up an adventure tour company featuring local North Carolina sites—whitewater rafting, hang-gliding or bungee-jumping. The bungee tower had been a huge hit.

  There was a small crowd gathered around the tower by the time Joe got there.

  Since the haunting dreams had kept Joe awake most of the night, he had a desperate need for caffeine to jump-start his nervous system. The large paper cup of black coffee in his hand should be just the ticket. He was just about to take a large sip when he saw her.

  Stunned, Joe almost spilled the hot coffee down the front of his T-shirt.

  Maybe he was seeing things?

  He blinked, but she was still there when he opened his eyes.

  Swearing under his breath, he marched up to Prudence and confronted her. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  Her warm smile aroused his body but her words…her words chilled him to the bone. “I’m getting ready to go bungee-jumping.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Are you out of your mind?” Joe growled.

  “You bungee-jump,” Prudence retorted. “Are you out of your mind?”

  He glared at her. “What is this? Some kind of test to prove I’m reckless, that I’m a pancake or two short of a stack? You think showing up like this is going to make me admit anything?”

  She frowned at him. “Admit what?”

  So many things. That he wanted her with every breath he took. That he was tired of the nightmares consuming him. That he was losing faith that he’d ever be the man he used to be.

  Prudence watched the conflicted emotions flashing over Joe’s face and desperately wished she could decipher them. She’d spent the first twenty-four hours apart from Joe moping, returning to school and her class with outward calm while inside she felt such a huge, gaping sense of loss.

  What they’d shared was special—the kisses, the embraces, the gleam in his eyes when he’d teased her and the shadows of darkness when he’d confessed his secret feelings of guilt to her. He’d told her things she was sure he hadn’t said to anyone else. And they were things he needed to say.

  Joe Wilder needed her. Whether he knew it or not. And she needed him. If she wanted him—and she did—then she was going to do something about it.

  She wasn’t going to let him walk away without putting up a fight. She’d spent the past ten years being so cautious, so afraid of making another mistake that she’d just about stopped living. It was time to start taking risks again. Her feelings for Joe had taught her that much.

  There was a time for caution and a time for taking a leap of faith—in this case a literal leap.

  So she’d signed up for bungee-jumping from one of Joe’s buddies. It hadn’t taken much questioning around the base to find out who his bungee-jumping friends were. And when she discovered that one of them was offering a bungee-jumping experience this weekend, she’d signed up.

  She hadn’t known Joe would show up, although she’d certainly anticipated that possibility. And having anticipated that, you’d think she’d have come up with something brilliant to say to him. She hadn’t. Not yet.

  Maybe after she’d bungee-jumped she’d find the words. She’d heard that the experience was great for your self-esteem, that you experienced a huge sense of achievement.

  Maybe she’d end up being transformed into a self-confident drop-dead gorgeous femme fatale.

  Wait, maybe drop dead wasn’t the best description to use—given the fact that she was jumping off a seventy -foot-high tower. And maybe fatale wasn’t all that good, either, she decided with a nervous swallow.

  “I forbid you to go bungee-jumping,” Joe declared.

  She blinked at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Your father…”

  “Isn’t your concern,” she firmly stated, narrowing her eyes at him in a warning he ignored.

  He stopped her departure with a hand on her arm. “He’s my commanding officer.”

  “And you’re afraid he’ll blame you for making me go bungee-jumping? Well, I’m not living my life in fear any longer.” She yanked her arm away from his hold.

  “You clearly haven’t thought this through.”

  “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

  Joe recognized the quote. “You’re no General Patton,” he told her.

  She merely lifted her chin at him and fixed him with a schoolteacher’s stare. The kind that got you sent to the principal’s office.

  But Joe was long past being impressed by schoolyard techniques. “You came here today to get revenge on me for kissing you up at the cabin.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. You’re furious that I walked away from you, so you came up with this ridiculous idea to try to get my attention.”

  Well, he was partially right. She had wanted to get his attention. But the bungee-jump had taken on a meaning of its own for her now. It represented a way out of the fear and caution she’d cocooned herself in and it had become a hurdle she had to overcome in order for the old Prudence to reemerge.

  “You probably had no intention of ever jumping, you just showed up here to get under my skin,” he said.

  “First off, I had no way of knowing you’d be here. Secondly, I have every intention of jumping. Just watch me, Flyboy.”

  “Go home,” Joe said flatly. “You don’t belong here.” He turned and walked away from her yet again.

  Joe found his buddy Beau ready to head up with the first group of jumpers. “Hey, buddy, I need you to check the weigh-ins,” Beau told Joe. Getting an accurate weight on each individual was important because the number of rubber cords used was determined by the jumper’s weight and people had a tendency to lie about something like that.

  Joe was distracted by a blond beach bunny in a halter top asking him a question. The next time he looked up, Beau had taken his group to the top of the tower.

  “They’re not going to toss you off the tower, you’ll be jumping. That’s why it’s called bungee-jumping and not bungee-tossing,” Joe told the blonde, sending her one of his patented grins.

  But he felt no pleasure in the curvy blonde’s interest. He was still rattled by seeing Prudence. Thank heaven he’d seen Prudence heading back to her car after he’d read her the riot act.

  “Hey, Joe, your friend is about to take her jump,” Beau’s younger brother Brady said.

  “What friend?” Joe asked, sudden dread filling his stomach.

  “The cute schoolteacher. Patience…no Prudence. That’s her name.”

  “Oh God.” He looked up.

  Joe thought he knew fear. But until he saw Prudence hanging in midair he realized he knew nothing, except that this woman got to him as no other ever had.

  Joe was waiting for her when Prudence came down from the tower. The minute her feet were on terra firma he grabbed her by the arm and hustled her off to a stand of palmetto palms away from the rest of the crowd.

  “I told you to go home,” he growled.

  “And I told you that I was going bungee-jumping.” Her cheeks were flushed, h
er eyes wide with wonder. “Wow. That was incredible!”

  “I’ll tell you what that was.” Each word was gritted out between clenched teeth. “That was the first and last time you are ever doing anything that reckless.”

  “It wasn’t reckless,” she argued, still caught up in the adrenaline of the experience. “I just sort of leaned forward and by the time I started having second thoughts I was already doing it.”

  “Well you’re never doing it again.”

  “Why not? It’s relatively safe. Your friend told me that his safety record is perfect. He told me about the history of bungee-jumping, starting with the tribespeople of the Pentecost Islands over a thousand years ago. Did you know that legend has it that the first bungee-jumper was a woman trying to escape her cruel husband? She climbed a banyan tree and, when he followed her, she tied some liana vines around her ankles and jumped. He leaped after her and ended up plunging to his death, but the vines saved her from crashing into the ground. They had enough give that she bounced back.”

  Joe didn’t know if he’d ever bounce back from the scare she’d given him.

  “Bungee-jumping may seem like a death-defying act, but the flexible cord cushions the fall,” Prudence was saying. “I researched it on the Internet. Parachutists and pole vaulters actually experience a harder jolt.”

  “So, what, you’re going to take up pole vaulting and parachuting next? You are crazy!”

  The more agitated he got, the calmer she got. “Explain to me again why you can go bungee-jumping, off a bridge, not a controlled situation like this one, and it’s fine.”

  “Because I’ve had more experience than you have.”

  “I’m trying to get more experience,” she said.

  “Not on my watch.”

  “You’re not on duty here, Sergeant. You’ve got no authority over my actions. You better than anyone should know how many safety precautions they take here. The cords are inspected before each jump, ditto for all the equipment and harnesses. Beau said the cords are retired after three hundred jumps, sometimes even earlier.”

  Hearing her recite statistics Joe had often told others was like being tossed into in the Twilight Zone. Nothing she was saying was making him feel any better. He was still furious…and badly shaken.

  “This is my fault!” he shouted because talking to her in a reasonable tone didn’t seem to be working. “You told me yourself that you were a cautious person. Then I got you snowbound—”

  “The blizzard got us snowbound,” she interrupted to correct him but he ignored her words.

  “—and the stress was too much. I drove you over the edge. Made you revert to your former reckless behavior.”

  Cupping his cheek with one hand, she guided his face to hers, using her free hand to point to her own eyes. “Look at me when you’re yelling at me, Sergeant.” She waited until his startled blue eyes met hers. “And listen to what I have to say. Since you won’t say a word in your own defense, I’ll do it for you.” Her touch softened as she smoothed her hand down his cheek in a move that was both a caress and a benediction. “You’re not to blame for the helicopter crash, or for getting us snowbound, or for me choosing to go bungee-jumping. You are not responsible. It’s not your fault. I’ve actually wanted to go bungee-jumping since I was a teenager, but I told myself I shouldn’t do it after the car accident. And that was wrong. I was living in fear. Fear of being myself. I don’t want to live that way anymore.”

  “So that means what?” His eyes burned into hers.

  “I don’t know what it means,” she answered honestly. “But I can tell you this much. I know you’re not ready to deal with your survivor guilt yet and I can understand that. Believe me, I’ve been there. But I’m not giving up on you, even if you’ve given up on yourself.”

  He looked away. “If you know as much about survival guilt as you say you do, then you know that logical statements don’t have any effect on the guilt.”

  “I just want you to know that you’re not alone anymore,” she said.

  “I’ve never been alone,” he shot back, stepping away from her.

  She smiled as if she knew his thoughts. “We’ve both been alone, in one way or another. You may not have been alone in the past, but you’ve been alone lately. Very alone. That doesn’t have to be the case anymore. I’m not giving up on you.”

  “You should,” he muttered.

  “Let me be the judge of that. So are you hungry?” she cheerfully inquired.

  He blinked at her. “Hungry?”

  “That’s right. Hungry. As for food.”

  As opposed to what? Being hungry for her kisses?

  “When was the last time you ate?” she asked him.

  “What are you, my mother?” Joe replied irritably.

  “After that jump, I just have this tremendous awareness of everything—the sunlight, the smell of the ocean, the image of fried clams from Sonny’s. Have you had their fried clams since you got here? No? Then you haven’t tasted heaven.”

  He didn’t know about that. Kissing her had sure tasted like heaven to him.

  “Come on,” she coaxed him. “My treat. The best fried clams in the world are only a few minutes’ drive from here. What do you say?”

  He should say no way, if he had any sense at all. But for some reason he said yes. Maybe it was the look in her eyes, so filled with anticipation and laughter. Or maybe it was the prospect of spending time with her after facing the raw fear of losing her.

  He should still be furious with her, and part of him was. But Joe had never been one to hold a grudge, and for some reason he didn’t seem able to resist her right now. His defenses were definitely at a disadvantage at the moment. It was as if she were a stealth bomber who’d slipped beneath his radar detection and scored a direct hit on his heart.

  She was in the passenger seat of his Jeep, her small backpack/purse in hand, before he knew what happened. “Put your seat belt on,” he growled at her.

  She wrinkled her nose at his tone of voice but obeyed his order. “Nice Jeep,” she noted as he backed out of the lot and down the small road that lead to the main highway.

  He wasn’t going to let her charm him that easily. “Where’s this Sonny’s place located?”

  “Two miles north of here. They’re located right off the highway.” Undoing her ponytail, she shook her head and let her hair fall around her shoulders in what Joe considered to be an altogether too sexy manner. Next she removed her cardigan, revealing the pink T-shirt she wore beneath it. The stretchy material molded to her breasts like a lover’s hand, the way his hand had cupped her sweetness.

  His palms itched with the need to cup her lush breasts once again, to hold them and caress them with a brush of his fingertips, making her moan in pleasure as she had in the cabin.

  “The speed limit along here is thirty-five not fifty-five,” she noted with a glance at the Jeep’s speedometer.

  Silently swearing, he let up on the gas pedal.

  She said, “So you’re a leadfoot huh?”

  A portion of his body was definitely as hard as lead, but it wasn’t his foot. Joe shifted in the driver’s seat, the fit of his jeans tight and uncomfortable. Her hand on his thigh only made matters worse.

  “You just passed Sonny’s,” she told him, nodding with her head toward the restaurant he could see in the rearview mirror.

  Agreeing to eat with her was a big mistake. He could see that now. He should just take her back to her own car and dump her there. Before he did something he’d regret.

  As if aware that she might have pushed him too far, Prudence removed her hand and stopped giving him those heated sideways looks that raised his blood pressure into the danger zone.

  Instead she efficiently directed him to a place where he could turn around. They reached Sonny’s two minutes later and Joe jumped out of the Jeep as if he’d been strapped to an ejection seat. He opened the passenger door for her, his training as a Marine requiring the courtesy. Smiling, she nodded her thanks. />
  Sonny’s was not the place for a romantic rendezvous. The place was well-lit and busy, with all the red-checkered plastic tableclothed tables filled to capacity. Faith Hill was crooning from a pair of speakers while the sound of the ocean drifted in through the screened porch area.

  Joe relaxed. The smell of food made his mouth water. So did the sight of her, a few minutes later, daintily dipping clams into red sauce before popping them into her mouth.

  She even closed her eyes and murmured mmm in the ultimate sign of satisfaction. Did she look that way when she made love? If he hadn’t pulled away from her, if they had made love that night in the cabin, would she have looked up at him and murmured mmm when he gave her the ultimate satisfaction?

  “You’re not eating,” she noted as she opened her eyes and gazed at him in concern. “Don’t you like it?”

  “Are you deliberately trying to drive me crazy?” he growled.

  “By eating fried clams in front of you?” She grinned at him, a dab of red seafood sauce on her upper lip. Joe wanted to kiss it from her mouth.

  Grabbing a paper napkin from the metal holder on the table, he shoved it at her. “You’ve got sauce on your mouth.”

  Instead of taking the napkin, she sent her tongue in search of the errant sauce.

  Oh Lord. He was dying here.

  She was doing it deliberately, he was sure of it. Well, heck, two could play at that game. Male/female games were right up his alley.

  “Here.” Reaching out, he gently brushed his index finger over her upper lip. “There, that’s better.” Bringing his finger to his own mouth, he sucked the sauce that had been on her lips into his own mouth. “Mmm, that is good.”

  She was staring at him with eyes that were cloudy with desire. She should have known he’d be better at this flirting stuff than she was. But she hadn’t been able to resist teasing him just a little.

  Now she was having second thoughts. It never paid to tweak a tiger’s tail. It was bound to turn around and take a huge bite out of you if you weren’t careful.