Pete stood uncertainly by the jeep, staring angrily at the village of Le My. It had been three weeks since he’d last seen Tess, after the crash and loss of his crew. He’d left her at the O club and hadn’t looked back—until now. Rubbing his cheek, feeling the bristle of beard beneath his palm, he sighed and stared down at the red dirt beneath his booted feet. What the hell was he doing here? Why didn’t the image of Tess’s vulnerable features ever leave him—even during his worst nightmares?
A huge part of him wanted to let the past remain buried, as he always had before, but something invisible was pulling him to confront Tess. The village children began to gather around him, giving him curious looks. Occasionally one of the smaller tykes smiled.
Pete watched them slowly surround him and the jeep. These were the children Tess loved so deeply, little ragamuffins caught in the middle of an escalating war. He’d already heard of several children being instructed to carry hand grenades from the VC to some unsuspecting marine who was part of a pacification team in a village or hamlet. Pete shook his head. He never wanted that to happen to him with one of these innocent children. The thought of having to kill a child in order to save himself from being blown up was just too overwhelming to contemplate. War was a filthy thing, he decided.
“You little rug-rats,” he muttered, and dug deep into one of the pockets of his flight suit. “Here.” Producing six packs of gum, he tossed them among the awaiting children and watched them scream and yell with glee as they fought to get his gifts. As he walked toward the center of the village, Pete felt disgust and anger. It wasn’t fair. The kids were caught in the middle. But at least they had one champion: Tess. As he walked, his heavy heart began to feel lighter. Pete couldn’t explain why the awful feelings that had hung around him like a dark cloud were suddenly beginning to dissolve. What kind of hold did Tess have over him?
Finally, a small girl dressed in a cast-off cotton dress led him by the hand to where Tess was working. Pete paused at the door of the hut. The curtain had been pushed aside, and Pete peered into the gloomy depths. Tess was on her hands and knees bending over a small boy. He was sick, there was no doubt. Pete stood awkwardly for several moments before he spoke. Just seeing Tess made his heart swell with such a fierce tide of emotion and longing that a lump formed in his throat, blocking his words.
Tess was wearing her Vietnamese clothes once again—loose black pants and a dark blue top. Her hair was haphazardly pinned into a chignon at the nape of her slender neck, and tendrils stuck damply to her temples and cheeks as she worked over the boy, dipping a cloth into a small tin bowl, then wringing it out and bathing the child with it.
Pete’s gaze moved to the boy, who couldn’t be more than two years old. His left arm was in a dirty bandage, and he was delirious, his extremities moving and jerking of their own accord. Only Tess’s soothing voice and the touch of her hand seemed to quiet him. On the other side of the child knelt the mother, who looked to be barely out of her teens. Pete wondered if the child was a by-product of some GI, since he looked almost white and his facial features didn’t appear Vietnamese.
“Looks like I came at a bad time,” Pete said from the doorway.
Tess gasped. She straightened and gazed toward the door. “Pete!”
He nodded but had no smile for her. Still, the look in her widening green eyes melted his hardened resolve not to let her affect him. Ducking through the entrance, he came and crouched close to where she knelt.
“What’s going on with this kid?” he demanded.
Tess felt an incredible warmth suffuse her. “The baby was bitten by one of the village dogs a week ago. The mother didn’t tell me about it, because kids get bitten all the time.” Sadly, Tess touched the baby’s hot, feverish brow and thin strands of black hair. “The dog has rabies.”
“Damn.” Pete saw the terrible anguish in Tess’s eyes as she returned to bathing the child. “How about rabies vaccine?”
“Sure. I’ll just run down to the doctor’s office and get this poor child that series of shots.”
Pete heard the sarcastic edge to Tess’s throaty voice. Studying her closer, Pete saw she looked drawn and exhausted. “What can I do to help?”
Tess’s hands shook, and she tried to hide her reaction. It had been three long weeks without any contact with Pete. Her emotions were frayed from staying up with the baby last night. “Help or run?” she snapped.
Stung, Pete glared at her. “Look, this rug-rat needs help. I’m offering to do what I can.”
Slowly she turned her head. She met and held his angry gaze. “I didn’t think you’d want to get involved in anything that might leave you open to hurt.”
Grimly, Pete looked into her defiant green eyes, shadowed with fatigue. In that moment, he realized just how much Tess needed to be held. She had to be strong for everyone. Right now, the distraught Vietnamese mother was looking at her as if Tess could cure her child of rabies. Pete knew she couldn’t. Putting away his hurt at her accusing words, he muttered, “Did you contact Gib for help?”
“Yes,” Tess said wearily, “but he couldn’t budge any medical help loose. Now he’s down in Saigon with Dany Villard on business.”
“What do you need?”
Tess shrugged. “I think it’s too late for this little one. Even if we could get him the series of shots, I don’t think he’ll survive.” Pushing a strand of red hair out of her eyes, Tess went on in a dull voice, “What could help in the long run is rabies vaccine for the dogs in the villages I work with. Then we wouldn’t have rabies victims.”
“Who is the little rug-rat?”
Tess looked down at the baby while the mother took over bathing her child with the washcloth. “His father’s an American advisor. Lee, the mother, danced at one of the clubs in Saigon to make enough money to survive.”
“She did more than dance.”
“She’s doing what’s necessary to survive,” Tess said tightly. “And the American GIs aren’t helping the situation. They use these poor women, then throw them away. When Lee got pregnant, the club owner fired her.”
“Who’s been taking care of her since then?”
“Me. Lee’s family is either dead, kidnapped or in the South Vietnamese Army. She and a lot of other young women are falling through the cracks of the system as their families are broken up.” Tess smiled softly over at the mother, who looked terribly worried. “I helped Lee deliver her son.”
Pete saw the danger in Tess’s relationship to the baby. Why didn’t she pull away from emotional things like this? Why did she insist upon getting involved when the kid could die, leaving Tess wide open for heartache and grief? Scratching his head, Pete said, “Look, if a helo flies in wounded refugees, they accept them at the MASH units on base. How about if I bring a chopper in here so you can transport the kid and his mother to the base? That way, he’s assured of quick medical help.”
“Oh, would you, Pete? Could you?”
He shrugged at the sudden hope in her voice and shining green eyes. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Could you get in trouble for this?”
He grinned sourly. “Hell, I’ll just rig an emergency call. Nobody will know the difference back at Marble Mountain.”
“But...if you get caught...”
“I won’t. Don’t worry about it.”
“When can you come?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Tess studied the baby, her brow wrinkled. “It might be too late, Pete.”
He straightened to his full height. “It’s the best I can do. In the meantime, I’ll go back to base and see if I can round up some rabies vaccine for the mutts around your villages.”
Tensely, Tess got to her feet, telling the mother she’d be right back. Moving over to Pete, she followed him out of the hut.
“Thank you,” she whispered. She reached out to touch his arm, then drew back, remembering he’d been wounded in that arm. Wondering why he’d suddenly stepped back into her life, Tess asked in a low voice, “How are you, Pete?”
He glanced at his healing arm. “Mean as ever. Come on, you can walk me back to the jeep.” He looked up at the sky. “You coming into Da Nang tonight?”
Tess hesitated for a long moment, her heart at war with her head. Finally, she fell into step with him. “No, and don’t tell Gib when he gets back from Saigon, either.”
Pete met and held her gaze, confused by her sudden coolness toward him. “I won’t tell him, but you ought to come back with me.”
“I want to stay with Lee and her baby. She needs the support.”
With a shrug, Pete muttered, “You’re just as bullheaded as ever, aren’t you?”
Tess glared at him. “Seems to run in our family.” Then she gave in to her aching heart, the part of her that was lonely without Pete. “How are you?”
“You already asked me that.”
“You never answered.”
“I said I’m fine. Mean as ever.”
“That’s a cover, Pete,” she said angrily. Tess halted at the jeep and held his blue gaze, still seeing the remnants of the crash in his eyes. “I want the truth.”
He threw his hands on his hips, a scowl on his tense face. “My arm’s healed, and I’m back to flying two or three missions daily. I’ve got a new crew, and I’m trying to train them so they don’t get blown away. It’s a pain in the ass because I’m afraid of losing them.”
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 hers 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.