Vivian's Return

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  “Don’t you dare say it’s too dangerous.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, I won’t. But you’re not going, Vivien.”

  She stared at him. Her cheeks were flushed and he could feel her trembling. “So this is it, Paul?”

  That was when he realized that not only was he refusing to let her go but he was effectively ending their relationship with it. This was the thing that she had most feared. This was the one thing that she had demanded if their relationship was to work this time.

  He couldn’t do it. Let her dive out of a hovering Sikorsky, into cold black water and just stand by and watch? No, he couldn’t risk losing her, not when there was a choice in the matter.

  But he was going to lose her anyway, if he didn’t let her on the helicopter. Yet even if he never saw her again, he would rather she were alive, even hating him and alive, than dead.

  He tried to make her understand, keeping a stranglehold on his voice so it would not tremble. “I love you, Vivien,” he said. “And I can’t let you get on that helicopter.”

  “Paul,” she pleaded and it speared into his heart.

  He looked at her for one endless moment, trying to do as she had silently asked. It’s so simple. Just say yes. But finally, he slowly shook his head. “I can’t,” he grated.

  Vivien closed her eyes and hung her head for a moment. Then she lifted her chin again and looked at Morris. “Can you drive me to my motel? I’ll need to get some things.”

  “You’re coming?” Morris asked, puzzled.

  Vivien kept her eyes averted from Paul. “Yes,” she replied firmly. “I’ll get the people out of the hull.”

  The shock impacted on him like a sonic boom. Close on its heels was something akin to panic. “No!” he protested, stepping toward her, as if he would physically prevent her from leaving.

  But Morris shot his arm out and it thumped across his chest, halting him. It was one more shock to add to the pile—Morris physically manhandling him. There was hidden strength there, wiry strength that Paul would never have suspected in Morris.

  “Wait a minute, Paul. Vivien’s a diver and we need a diver. Now, if I understand what just happened here, you’ve relinquished any say over what Vivvy does or doesn’t do? Am I right, Vivien?”

  Vivien clenched her jaw tightly for a second. “Yes,” she said stiffly.

  Morris nodded and turned to face Paul, careful to keep his shoulder between him and Vivien. “You go down to the Sikorsky and get her ready. I’ll take Vivien to the motel.”

  Paul swallowed. “We don’t have any gear that will fit her,” he said. It was a last desperate bid to prevent her going.

  Vivien nodded agreement with him. “I know. That’s why I want to go to the motel. I have all my own gear in the Range Rover. Why do you think I drive a big tank like that? Scuba equipment is heavy.”

  Morris pushed on Paul’s shoulder, trying to turn him toward the door. “Come on, man. People could be dying out there, you know.”

  The reminder was enough to get him moving. Paul suspected that it would be the hardest thing he would ever have to do but he turned and walked away and every step pushed a nail into his heart.

  * * * * *

  Vivien watched Paul leave. Reluctance radiated from every stiff angle of him but he was going because Morris had appealed to Paul’s ultimate sense of humanity. Paul had spent his life saving people. He couldn’t stop now, even for Vivien’s sake, and that was why she loved him.

  She might have guessed when the pressure built up that Paul, despite heroic efforts to overcome his own prejudices and attitudes, would revert back to the values that he had first learned to hold dear. She had feared it and hoped it would not happen but she had hoped in vain.

  She bit her lip, blinking back tears and caught Morris’ arm. “Thanks,” she said softly. “Thanks for backing me up.”

  “I didn’t do it for you,” he said gruffly.

  “I know but thanks anyway.” She looked at Morris’ watch, read the time upside down and looked around the room. “I need to make a phone call before we leave,” she said.

  “A phone call?” Morris repeated, astonished.

  She nodded. “I’m going to phone the office and tell Jack not to let Paul leave until I get to the helicopter.”

  Morris looked astonished. “You don’t think Paul would do a thing like that?” he said.

  “I do. He’s done it before—don’t you remember?”

  After a moment, Morris nodded. “Aye, I do, now,” he said sadly. “Let’s get cracking, girl,” he added. “You’ve got lives to save.”

  * * * * *

  Jack was sitting in the copilot’s seat when Paul climbed through and worked his way into the pilot’s seat.

  “Let’s go,” Paul told him, reaching for his headset.

  Jack shook his head. “Vivien’s not here yet. We have to wait for her.”

  Paul felt a little ill. This was his last gambit. It had to work. “I’ll do the diving. You’ll be able to keep this bird hovering while I go down.”

  “No.” Jack grinned. “Vivien phoned and said you might try to take off without her.”

  She’d outguessed him. No, she’d simply remembered the last time. Paul tried to think up another way of preventing Vivien from getting on the helicopter. He may have blown any chance of a relationship between them but he could still protect her. He could still stop her somehow. Couldn’t he?

  “Come on, man,” he pleaded to Jack. “You don’t want her to risk killing herself doing this, do you?”

  “Funny, that’s just what she asked me about you.” Jack shrugged.

  Paul took a deep breath, reassessing. He’d never seen it that way before. He’d never thought of it that way.

  “She’s better qualified than you. She’s got training and equipment. You’re just working on a wing and prayer.” Jack shook his head. “We wait. She’s the best person to do this.”

  He’d failed. On all counts he had failed, their relationship, protecting her, oh and don’t forget you were never going to hurt her, either and remember that look on her face when you told her no?

  Total, complete failure.

  All his fears but one had come to pass. Would he now have to watch her body being hauled from the water?

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was a clear, still night in town but out on the open seas clear meant a different thing. It wasn’t raining, or blowing a gale, although there was always some sort of a breeze out there. There were no storms, or fog. That meant it was clear. But there was a swell that picked up the waves and kept everything tossing under the full moon’s silvery light.

  Paul saw Jack pull out a bundle of brown paper bags and place them within arm’s reach on the console. Jack glanced at Paul, saw he was watching and grinned ruefully. “I don’t react well to situations like this—not with the damned sea rocking the way it is.” He had to lift his voice to be heard over the noise of the helicopter, despite the headsets.

  “You mean you get scared.”

  “Hell yes!” It was a heartfelt confession.

  “Me too.”

  “Really?”

  “Every time, for the first five years. It eases off, eventually.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Jack laughed. “Difference between you and the men who stay at home is that you throw up and still go out there.”

  “I know someone who doesn’t throw up at all. Absolutely fearless.”

  “Vivien.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s different for women.”

  Paul shook his head. “Worse, maybe.”

  “You’ve never worked with women, have you?” It was almost an accusation.

  “No.”

  “Well, I have. Lots of them. They’re different. They’re not as strong physically, but inside they are more powerful. That’s probably where it counts, especially when the heat is on. They just work differently. Women can starve the imagination until the work is done.” Jack shook his head, wonderingly. “They�
��re probably better suited to emergencies. They keep their heads and stay cool. We can do it with training and experience but they’re naturals. The average man is more useful for standing around, following orders and supplying muscle upon demand.”

  Paul shook his head. “You’re saying women, like Jenny, for instance...they work better under pressure?”

  “Sure. In a pinch. You’ve just been doing it for years and you’ve learned how to do it and not throw up. If someone was in danger, Jenny would do it without thinking. Without training. You’ve heard those stories about mothers lifting cars off their children.”

  Paul thought about it. The protection of loved ones. Wasn’t that why he was out here? Maybe that was why Vivien was out here too. He never had asked her why, before. He’d have to ask her when they got back.

  If they got back.

  Then he remembered. He didn’t have the right to ask her anything, anymore.

  * * * * *

  Vivien spared a quick glance at the moon through the observation window in the hold of the Sikorsky in between changing into her insulating wet suit and checking the rest of her scuba equipment. They would be glad of the moon’s light before the night was out. It wouldn’t make much difference below the surface but it would be infinitely easier to scoop survivors out of the sea.

  Paul was flying on instruments but the reflecting moonlight helped to show him where the surface of the water was. Jack was beside him at the dual controls but in the one quick glance Vivien had spared for the cockpit, it appeared that Paul was fully in control. Jack was manning the radio.

  Vivien hung her ball gown up over a handy projection. She rather doubted it would survive the night there but she could live in hope. By the end of the night, there would be crewmen from the submerged ship sitting and lying all over the floor of the Sikorsky and they would hardly be in a fit state to worry about a woman’s dress.

  As soon as she was changed, Vivien donned a spare set of headgear, which consisted of headphones and a voice pickup. She plugged it into the wall jack. The headgear gave her communications with the cockpit. The headphones muffled the noise of the engine, which was very loud where she was working.

  “Jack, I’m on the air,” she said into the voice pickup.

  “We’re fifteen minutes away,” Jack told her. “Just passed over the harbor rescue launch on its way out. They’re about an hour out, I’d guess. How are you going? Need any help with the gear?”

  “Nearly all done. You can help me load it when we get there.”

  “Okay,” Jack said cheerfully.

  Paul stayed ominously silent. Vivien tried not to think about him, not as someone who meant anything to her. If she did, then the subterranean keening inside her would surface and become a cry of pain. It was safer to think of him as a pilot and that was all. But she couldn’t help but remember Jack’s quick words as he had helped her load her equipment aboard the Sikorsky just before they’d left. “He wanted to leave. Good thing you phoned or I wouldn’t have known to play stubborn.”

  Now she methodically went through all the equipment in the heavy canvas carryalls, mentally cataloguing what she had, what she might need and deciding what she should take down into the water with her. She separated out a few cylumes. She always wore one tied to her tank for a night dive—it was easy to see the green glow from a distance whereas torch light was too tightly focused and directional. She tested the powerful, big underwater torch, tasted the air in her tanks and sat on the cold, softly vibrating deck to indulge in some calming deep breathing exercises. She needed it. Not only was she actively involved in a situation where lives were at stake but she had defied love to be here.

  “According to the instruments we’re there,” Jack’s voice whispered to her over the headset. “Using the spotlight now.”

  Vivien made her way forward to the narrow cockpit door. Ahead of her, through the glass, the sea was washed in the sweeping glare of the powerful spotlight mounted under the nose of the Sikorsky, which moved restlessly but smoothly across the silvered area of sea ahead of them. Jack was operating the joy-stick controls of the light, while Paul kept the Sikorsky hovering. Their altitude gave them a wide perspective but still kept them close enough to see something as small as a human in the choppy water kicked up by the helicopter’s blades.

  Both men were staring at the surface. Paul’s features were a smooth mask and he neither acknowledged her appearance nor spoke.

  Vivien scanned the water too, following the movements of the light.

  Paul tapped Jack’s forearm and pointed ahead. “Eleven o’clock,” he said and brought his hand back to the controls and pushed the big helicopter forward through the air. Jack adjusted the light and finally picked up in the beam what Paul had seen by moonlight—flotsam. They followed the trail up the current and soon the light had found the slightly calmer sea over the top of African Reef and there, waving and probably shouting themselves hoarse despite the noise of the engine completely masking them, were the bobbing heads of men and two round yellow plastic life rafts. They’d found the ship.

  “If you bring it down to around fifteen or twenty feet, I’ll jump from there,” Vivien told Paul. “I’ll show one of them how to put them into the sling and then Jack can haul the swimmers up one at a time until the launch gets here. Jack, can you help me now?”

  Jack nodded and unbuckled his seat belt. Vivien went to move backward, to allow Jack out into the hold but Paul’s hand shot out to grab her wrist, halting her. He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder, one hand on the controls. His eyes burned into hers, fierce and hot. For a moment he just held her, his big fingers wrapped around her slender wrist and she knew he was fighting off the urge to deluge her with advice and cautionary words. She was here against his wish, a wish so strong that he had given up her love for it.

  “I’ll be watching you,” he said and his voice echoed through the headset as well. “Jack is the one you have to talk to but I’ll be watching you as much as I can. Don’t try to be a hero, Vivvy. Just do your job.”

  She nodded.

  He let her wrist go and turned back to the controls and Vivien stepped back, allowing Jack through. He raised his brow at her in query.

  “Paul didn’t want me to come,” Vivien explained simply. She slipped on the scuba equipment and Jack eased the tank harness over her shoulders and she settled the weight onto her back.

  “Fifteen feet!” Paul announced.

  Vivien gave one last check of her equipment, took off her headset and nodded at Jack to tell him she was ready. Jack opened the door. The wind howled inside and plucked at her. Vivien grasped the faceplate of her mask and stepped through the door into nothing but air.

  * * * * *

  Paul watched her plummet into the black sea. It was a long drop and the splash of her landing was tall. For a moment it seemed his heart had traveled down into the cold water with her and he could feel the vertigo and rush of the drop too. He panicked.

  For a blind moment he considered diving back through the cockpit door and jumping into the water after her, to haul her out. When her head did not instantly reappear on the surface, he almost let go of the controls.

  Only a tiny, sane corner of his mind kept his hands on the controls. It was the same small voice that kept him in his seat, until finally he saw Vivien’s head, the face plate of the mask glinting as she turned, checking her bearings.

  * * * * *

  Vivien struck out for the nearest person in the water to her. “Do you speak English?” she shouted over the roar of the helicopter barely twenty feet above them.

  The man just stared at her and smiled and pointed up to the helicopter. Ruefully, she smiled back and waved up at Jack, braced in the open doorway, to send down the cradle. They would soon understand what they needed to do.

  As they waited, a handful of others swam toward them and the closer life raft was paddled in her direction. She understood why there were men in the water, then, for the life raft looked to be dan
gerously overloaded with men already.

  The cradle reached the water and Vivien pulled the nearest swimmer to her and put the cradle around his chest and fastened it. She picked up his hands and closed them around the material just below the cable and squeezed, looking at him.

  “Don’t let go!” she told him. He smiled and nodded. She looked up at Jack and waved for him to lift the man up. Slowly, the man was raised up, clutching the harness.

  A silver-haired man sitting on the edge of the life raft waved her toward him and she swam slowly over, conserving her strength. “There are six men trapped under the hull!” he shouted in perfect English. “The bows broke off and overturned. They are in a corridor—it is an air pocket.”

  “How long have they been there?” she asked.

  “Nearly an hour!”

  Vivien trod water with an easy, energy-conserving paddle and thought fast. “You organize the swimmers to be lifted up,” she told the old man. “You saw how I did it?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I saw what you did.”

  “I’ll go down.” She looked around and pointed toward the reef. “That’s the eastern edge of the reef there—where the waves are all chopped up. Give me directions from there.”

  “On this side, very close to here. We haven’t drifted far. It was shallow water.”

  Vivien nodded and pointed toward the winch, which was on its way down again. “See to it!” she told him. She looked up at Jack, who was hanging dangerously far out of the open hatch, watching for her signals. She lifted up her closed fist, pointing her thumb down toward the surface of the water and jabbed it downward a few times. Jack signaled back with an “okay.” Then she put her regulator into her mouth, blew out the water and ducked under the surface, where instantly it all became quiet.

  * * * * *

  Keeping the helicopter stable and hovering over one point was simple. Paul found his mind nearly fully occupied with watching the sea below him for glimpses of Vivien as she worked. With the green cylume flare, she was as easy to locate as a firefly in the dark. He watched her bring the first man up out of the water and organize one of the others to do the same, before going below the surface again.