His hand moved as she felt the flutter of pontoons grasping the water, skimming over the highest waves. This was her fifth seaplane landing and she recognized the sensation, although this time it was tangled with a vibration like driving over an unevenly graded gravel road.
Bumpy landing. She fought a wave of nausea that welled up in response to the heaving motion, forced it down, but the motion grew worse as they slowed and the plane's engine dropped to an idle.
Gray's hand lifted from the rudder—at least, she thought that was the rudder. His fingers settled gently on her hair.
"We're down. It's okay."
His hand slid to her shoulder. She twisted her head and saw that although he looked pale, he was smiling.
"Rough landing. Sorry about that."
"I didn't notice."
He laughed and squeezed her shoulder, then she felt a shaft of loss as he lifted his hand away.
"What do we do now?"
Gray seemed intent on studying the world outside the plane, although to Emma's eyes there was little to see. They were confined to undulating water ringed by the impenetrable gray that had flowed in on them with the storm, and a muddy green line of darkness to the left. She thought the darkness might be trees, knew it must be trees.
The water didn't have the white streaks of roughness she'd seen out in the channel, but it wasn't smooth either. Riding on the surging surface, the plane had a sickening motion.
"Gray, I need... airsickness bag?"
"Open the door. The air will help." He leaned across her and did something to the door. The back of his arm pressed into her breast, and his muscles tightened as he released the catch and let in a wave of damp air.
Nausea swept over her face in waves, as if seasickness had grabbed hold of her mind as well as her stomach. With the air came the sound of the idling engine, ebbing and flowing like water on the shore.
"I didn't expect to get seasick," she said, trying to hold reason as a weapon against the waves of nausea.
"Look at the trees, not the water."
She jerked as his fingers closed on her wrist, warm and hard.
"Push your sleeve back." He didn't wait for her to comply, but shoved her sweatshirt several inches up her arm. His fingers searched the inside of her wrist, her pulse beating against their pressure. How could it be possible to feel nausea and sensual awareness at the same time?
"Right there," he said, pressing his thumb into her wrist. "This is an acupressure point for nausea."
As his thumb probed her inner wrist, sensation radiated through her entire body.
"You're kidding," she gasped.
He pinned her eyes with his gaze, his mouth only a heartbeat away from hers. "How's that?" he asked, his breath warming her lips.
If she leaned forward the smallest bit, her mouth would brush his. With her pulse beating into his touch at her wrist, the pull felt overwhelming.
"Does it feel better?" He asked.
His husky voice confused her and her reaction must have shown in her eyes, because she felt his response as if his pulse were beating in her body. She fought for reason.
"Acupressure?" She swallowed hard, told herself to get his hands off her, but the words didn't come.
"How's the nausea?"
"It's, ah... it's gone."
His eyes widened and she knew her voice must be even more unsteady than she'd thought. "I... I, ah—I can—thanks."
She pulled her arm, but he didn't release her.
"The spot's right here," he said, turning her wrist so it lay in her lap like someone else's, as if her arm were their patient and they two doctors examining it, except she could feel her own pulse beating hard and fast. "Two fingers from the joint, just between these fine bones."
He showed her how he measured the spot and she stared at his hard brown wilderness hands on her pale city skin.
"I've got it," she said, breathless. The nausea had disappeared, either from the acupressure or as a side effect of her response to his touch on her flesh, his mouth hovering so close to hers. She tried to think of something else to say, anything to break the strain of her heartbeat and the need to know whether his mouth still tasted like a heady, masculine drug.
"It's strange that you know about this acupressure point and I don't. I mean, my being a doctor." She cleared her throat and forced her voice to steadiness. "Do I keep pressing this spot until the wind goes down? Or do I stop after ten minutes or something?"
"Keep pressing, but give me the chart first, and pull that door closed when you're ready. I'll find a spot where we can run up on shore and get out of this slop."
He found a small patch of sand surrounded by evergreen trees and ran the amphibious plane onto the bumpy beach. The surrounding trees stretched up to disappear in the fog. Emma twisted to look back, but couldn't see the water beyond a few feet.
Gray cut the airplane's engines, but the silence was only a breath, instantly filled by a low growling.
"What's that sound?"
"Wind in the trees. Stay where you are." He shoved his door open and disappeared outside. A moment later, the door opened on her side, letting in a hard sprinkle of icy rain. Gray shoved a bundle of yellow into her arms.
"Put that on before you get out. You can't afford to get your clothes wet."
The rain gear was made of a rubbery yellow substance. She twisted in her seat to get her arms into the appropriate holes, then fastened the buttons hurriedly.
Something fell between her feet and she rummaged, her hands grasping a conical yellow rain hat. She pulled it on, tied its flaps tight, intensely aware they had landed in the middle of nowhere, rain and night falling all around, no civilization in sight. Gray was right. This was no place to get wet, risking hypothermia on a cold and stormy night.
She needed to be alert and aware when morning came, ready to resume the search. She pushed the latch and climbed out slowly.
The wind seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, howling and distant, yet close. Overhead, all around, yet not here. Wind roaring through the trees, threatening violence. The hazy shapes looming on shore looked strangely unlike the trees she knew must be there.
If she let fear take over, let herself imagine her son broken, destroyed on some rocks, or lying lifeless in a hypothermia-induced sleep, if she let the dreadful possibilities win in her mind, some terrible trick of fate might make her fantasy real.
"I can't do this," she whispered. "I'm not strong enough for this."
The words caught somewhere deep inside, evoking a familiar echo. She'd been twenty-eight years old, a second year intern at All Saints General Hospital, standing in surgery with a scalpel in her hand because the resident, Dr. Davies, had said, "Dr. Garrett, you can open."
All her knowledge disappeared and she knew she wasn't good enough or strong enough. If she wielded a scalpel on this living person she would do some terrible damage.
Dr. Davies' voice rescued her from panic.
"Dr. Garrett, concentrate on the details. Feel the floor under your feet, the scalpel in your hand. Hear the heart monitor. See the patient's thigh. Imagine the line of your incision on his flesh, the layers of skin. Focus on one small detail at a time."
Starve the imagination; fill the mind with details: Her feet balancing on the sloping surface of the pontoon. Pain in her left leg, stiff throbbing from hours sitting in the plane. The airplane—a metal strut to her left stretched from the body of the plane to the wing overhead. She reached one hand up and grasped it, anchoring herself.
Focus on details to fight the instant when panic threatens. She'd done it so often in the instant before surgery, when she felt the depth of her own smallness before the task of repairing a broken body.
The sand was a few feet below the pontoon. If she jumped down, her leg might cramp, flinching against the impact. She would turn, climb down onto the sand, and—
"Does your leg hurt?" His words sounded like an accusation as he loomed in front of her.
"No," she sai
d truthfully. The stiffness wasn't exactly pain.
His hands gripped her waist and he swung her down onto the sand. She pulled back from him, stumbling a bit, her motion accompanied by the squeaky sound of her rubber-coated rain gear. He loomed in front of her, his rain gear making him seem even larger than usual.
She tipped her head back to search for the sky, but the grayness was darkening as she stared up, icy rain falling on her face. She couldn't see the tops of the trees, but she could hear the branches moving.
No wind touched her face, but its low growl filled the world, reminding her this bit of beach was a small pocket of calm in the storm. Had Chris and Jordy found shelter, or were they exposed to the wind and rain? If their clothes became wet, how would they maintain the body warmth needed for survival?
She'd envisioned bears and mountain lions threatening them when they stopped for the night, big waves swamping the kayaks as they fought the storm. But the most likely disaster was the most insidious—hypothermia, the inability of the body to maintain its warmth.
"Get up under the trees," ordered Gray. "I have to get the plane anchored in case the wind shifts."
She saw a pile of logs jumbled against the shadowy line of trees and turned back to study Gray at the luggage compartment. Everything seemed unreal, even Gray.
"I can help. Tell me what to do."
He threw her one scowling glance, then shrugged.
"Take the tent." He tossed a green bundle onto the sand. "Go up above the high tide line and find a flat area big enough to spread it out. Up above the logs—the storm could drive the tide higher."
He turned away to pull a coil of rope from the luggage compartment.
She picked up the green bundle. Hard to imagine a tent could fit in this bag, but she remembered Chris's tent lying on the ground in the backyard, collapsed, remembered him folding it and rolling it, compressing it into a similar bundle. She carried the tent away, up the slope of the beach, placing her feet carefully on the uneven ground, feeling darkness grow all around.
"Take a flashlight!" he shouted. "There's one in the pocket in the pilot's door."
She didn't reply but walked back, set the tent on the pontoon, and climbed up to open the door, her leg protesting. The flashlight was where he'd said, and she climbed back down by sitting on the pontoon and sliding off, rather than risking the impact of jumping down on her leg.
She was strong enough for hours of standing, strong enough to endure the physically exhausting regime of a surgeon, but Gray's wilderness was full of uneven ground, obstacles to be climbed, challenges her leg wasn't accustomed to. She felt angry and wasn't certain if her rage was directed at her leg or Gray's wilderness.
She shoved the flashlight into the pocket of her rain gear and picked up the bundle containing the tent. Did Gray always carry a tent in his plane as a precaution against the wilderness, or was it something he'd packed on board for this search?
Chris's face filled her mind suddenly, his mouth strained with intent as he checked off each item of equipment he'd spread around their living room. Sleeping bag, tent, first aid kit, flares.
Flares.
If Chris and Jordy were in trouble, surely they would have set the flares off. Why had no one reported seeing flares?
She stumbled over a lump, her leg jarring as she saved herself from falling by grabbing at a branch protruding from a log embedded in the sand. The bundle in her arms went tumbling over the log and disappeared.
"Emma? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she snapped.
She leaned against the log, catching her breath. Stupid, rushing up the slope to the dark trees, trying to pretend she was as fit as the woman he'd married. A woman she'd never met, but pictured as strong and tanned, ready to sling a pack on her back and stride into the wilderness.
As if she were competing for Graham MacKenzie.
Ridiculous. She could do a twelve-hour hospital day on her feet, but running up a hill would always be as far beyond her as seeing in the dark.
This wasn't her world. She had a home, a job she loved, a family—her son and her mother. She had Alex, too, although the future they planned seemed unreal here under the trees with the storm raging somewhere above.
The light was gone, night growing fast as she rested against the log. She stretched her senses. She could hear the wind, that constant growl close by. Air moved on her face, the edges of that wind licking into this sheltered cove. She tipped her face back and allowed the rain to cool her flushed cheeks. She could smell something fresh and wild on the rain, could feel her own heart pounding in her ears.
She forced herself to wait until her heart slowed, until she could hear smaller sounds. Something strange, a whipping sound. She listened, tuning her ear to the sound. It sounded more like a rope than a wild animal, perhaps Gray anchoring the plane against possible winds.
Here in this bay there was almost no wind, but Gray must believe that might change. Perhaps the wind would twist in the night. If so, they were safe on dry land. Emma didn't know if there was any possibility of danger to the seaplane, but there didn't seem to be any real danger for her and Gray here tonight. They had the tent and sleeping bags. Gray would know what to do if the wind attacked them, and when the wind stopped, they had the plane with its radio.
Chris should have taken a two-way radio. He had a receiver for weather broadcasts, but why hadn't he taken a transmitter? Why hadn't she thought of it? The boys had planned the trip with one of the men who'd been Chris's guide on his kayaking trip the year before. She'd assumed it would be all right, that her worries were neurotic and must be suppressed to allow Chris to be a courageous, confident young man.
She should have stopped him. Somehow, she should have kept him at home.
She pulled the flashlight out of her pocket and pointed it at the trees. In some strange way, the light only emphasized the surrounding darkness.
She twisted and found the circle of light behind her that was Gray working on the plane.
She told herself to concentrate on her job: pick up the tent, find a flat spot to spread it out. Details.
The tent had fallen into a crack between two logs. She lay on the closer one and stretched down to catch the cord that tied the bag. Something caught as she pulled it out, and she yanked, freeing it, hoping she hadn't punctured the tent.
She used the cord to sling the tent over her shoulder, leaving her hands free for the flashlight and for balance. She couldn't see any way to get to those trees ahead without climbing over logs. Slowly, carefully, she began navigating the complex jumble of dead trees, hoping there would be a clearing on the other side.
As she slid down off the last log, her flashlight illuminated a stand of wild grass between the logs and the trees. She played the light along the edge of the trees, illuminating a thick wall of bushes that seemed to fill the area under the trees.
Impenetrable. Heaven knew what was living in there. She walked along the edge, her back crawling with nerves as she took each step into the unknown.
If she shouted, Gray would come to rescue her.
She knew it was ridiculous to call for help, that there was probably nothing here but her own fear of the unknown. With the rain and the storm, surely the animals would be hiding under cover, probably in those trees.
At the base of a tree that seemed thicker than the others, she found a small flat area sheltered by branches. She leaned against the tree and pulled open the drawstring of the tent's bag. As she pulled the bundle out, something fell to the ground. She swung the flashlight and found a piece of metal that looked as if it were meant to be driven into the ground. A tent peg.
She found all the metal pieces, then spread the emerging tent flat on the ground. Her rain hat slid around and obscured her vision, so she untied it and shoved it into her pocket. Had the rain stopped, or were the branches overhead protecting her?
She shed the rain jacket and dropped it against the tree. Something moved behind her. She jerked around and saw a circle o
f light moving closer.
"Gray?"
"Here," he said, his silhouette clear against the darkness behind him as he paused at the top of the jumble of logs. He carried something in both arms, and that lump on his back must be a pack. He walked along one log, balancing easily, then jumped to the next. How could he see enough to keep his footing in the dark tangle of logs?
He jumped down and strode the few steps to her circle of light. He shed the two sleeping bags and the pack, crouching over the tent she'd spread on the ground.
"I think you've found the only decent bit of shelter on this beach," he said. "I'll give you a hand with the tent." She turned away from him, staring back at the darkness. If she concentrated, she could make out the shape of one wing of his plane against the night.
"What did you use to anchor the plane?" she asked.
"Jerry cans. I keep some empty plastic fuel containers in the luggage compartment. I filled them with water and hung them from the wings. It's enough to stop the wind from lifting the wings."
If the storm drove the tide higher, would anything happen to the plane? Did Chris and Jordy know the storm could influence the tide's height? Had they pitched their tent high enough to escape the rising water?
So many dangers.
It was a very small tent he erected, a pup tent. She'd never slept in any kind of tent. She stared at Gray's back as he worked. The strong flex of muscles... he would be heavier on her than she remembered. Her hand would feel those muscles when she gripped his shoulders in the breathless moment when she took him inside her.
She had no business fantasizing Gray's naked body tangled with hers.
"There isn't room," she said. "The tent's too small."
He pulled a rope that tightened the ridge, then stepped past her again. Emma's head swung to follow him. She should be helping, but she had no idea what to do.
He tossed the two rolled sleeping bags through the open entrance to the tent.
"Spread those out," he ordered.
She crawled into the tent awkwardly. It was no bigger than, a double bed. She gulped and started unfastening the ties that held the first sleeping bag. The two bags looked very intimate rolled out side by side.
If You Loved Me Page 10
