When hell freezes over, Tyler thought with grim humor. On several missions he’d been forced to jump out of plane, in such less than ideal circumstances that it had been added to the list of things he would never do if he had any kind of choice. Jump out of an airplane, cut off his genitals with a rusty knife…
Marguerite was at the opening in a white diving suit that covered her from head to toe, her body clearly defined, smooth and sleek as a seal. Her goggles were down, but he’d know those soft lips anywhere, the way she tilted her head, apparently listening to something the cameraman was saying to her. She nodded, reached out, clasped his hand. Drew back, adjusted her goggles and then leaped.
Tyler’s chair scraped as he stood up, unable to stop himself. Fortunately, the instructor and class were too riveted on the screen to notice his involuntary response.
“She chose a forward exit. Notice how quickly she orients herself, finds that angle we talked about. You can do a head down or a backward jump as well. In fact, she’s likely to roll in a few moments…there she goes…now she’s on her back, which is an outstanding view. Just blue sky, folks, nothing up there but you and God. The beauty of the Atmonauti jump is, because you’re at that angle, you find silence. No noise, no air rush, no disruption…”
“Well, except for John and his camera,” an instructor near Tyler quipped.
“God, she commands the air,” one of the students said, awe in his voice.
“You don’t command the air,” the teacher reproved. “You learn to work with it, respect it. She does, on all levels. She’s part of it.” Tyler noted the man did not take his gaze from the screen as he added, “Marguerite is poetry up there. She’s the best of Walt Whitman with some of the darkness of Edgar Allan Poe thrown in.”
“Yep.” The staffer who’d made the original quip gave the class a wink. “For a lot of guys, it’s a beautiful girl carrying a six-pack of Budweiser, but to Kyle here, it’s a woman who looks like that and is a hell of a diver. What more could he want?” How about jaw replacement surgery if he doesn’t stop salivating over her? Tyler quelled the territorial surge. She WAS beautiful. Even the woman in the audience was riveted, as if they were all watching an angel, something not quite one of them and capable of marvelous feats.
“All right, she and John will break now and she’ll pull her chute and come back in.” The instructor turned back to his class. “Let’s go over the head down jump…” Tyler watched the full jump, his eyes trained on the television even as John got farther from Marguerite and his camera at times was swinging to capture the scenery, above and below. But eventually the camera would swing back to her and it was for that Tyler waited, leaning forward in his chair to watch the now small figure. The chute pull, her body drifting up with it gracefully, then her arms moving as she used the cords to take her in the direction she wanted to go.
Did she go there for the stillness? For the weightless feeling? For the memory of her last moments with David, spinning through the air, knowing that it was when they hit the ground that everything would change?
When the class was complete and the students were headed out to practice landing techniques, he stepped outside, standing in the shade of the hangar, simply waiting for her. He wasn’t sure how he felt. He’d come, driven by anxiety, but now he just needed to see her, touch her, reassure himself that the endearment he used for her was not in fact what she aspired to be, to fly away from him, from all of them.
The Jeep that pulled into the parking lot was driven by a kid who he assumed was John. An eighteen-year-old geek type with a surfer’s physique who looked at her as if she was everything he could ever want in life. There was an older man in the second seat who called out as she left the Jeep, “Be sure and put something on that scrape.” Tyler’s eyes coursed over her, saw the rip in the knee of her suit, the stain of blood.
It was superficial, something probably caused by a stumble on landing, but it still made him take a deep steadying breath before he stepped forward.
She’d already seen him, even as she lifted her hand in acknowledgement of her companion’s comment. Carrying her gear in her arms, she came toward him, her expression unreadable. Not welcoming or unwelcoming, just neutral.
“You know, certain royal personages used to cut the tongues out of their servants’
heads to ensure their secrets weren’t revealed,” she said when she was within earshot.
“As devoted to you as she is, I’m not sure Chloe would stand still while you got the butcher knife,” he commented. “Unless you presented papers proving you were related to Prince William and could arrange a date with him.” She stopped a few feet away, studying him. He raised a brow. “What?”
“I’m wondering if I need to run. You have that look like you did the other night.”
“I was angry at first,” he admitted. “I thought this was more of the same. Your constant flirtation with death. But—”
“It was.” She stated it quietly, met his startled gaze. “At first.” She glanced around.
“Let me put my gear down and maybe we can walk down to the duck pond, there at the end of the runway.”
She dropped her equipment in her car, shoving it into the second seat to repack later, and pushed back the hood of the jumpsuit. Her hair was wound in a crown of braids tightly pinned against her skull. When she released the pins and let the braids drop, she tied them together with one of the braids, making the tail look like a flogger of multiple blonde strands. After a hesitation, she reached out. Bemused, he took her hand. She started down the runway linked to him in that fashion.
“I like holding hands,” she said, with a shy nod that he found charming.
“I like holding yours.” He cocked his head. “You’re different every day, you know that? I can’t keep up with you. A week ago, I’d have had to take you through an interrogation to understand something like this. And now you’re initiating the conversation, taking me somewhere we won’t be interrupted.”
“Or I could be taking you somewhere to take advantage of you,” she pointed out.
“The duck pond is rather private. Though if we have a plane come in to land, or the students go up, they’d get an eyeful.”
“Or you could be taking me there to drown me. I never know.”
“Well, you said like you liked my unpredictability.” She sobered. “You want me to explain this to you. I promised, last night…” She swallowed, met his gaze with an obvious effort. “To be open to you as Master. And as a lover. And I understand that answering your questions is part of that. It’s not easy for me. I’m just trying to do it right.”
“You’re doing fine.” He found it difficult to speak, too overcome by the urge to simply kiss her.
The duck pond was inhabited by cattails, lily pads with white blooms and a wooden bench. A group of ducks that were gathered companionably on the banks waddled away at sauntering speed, proving their wary acceptance of human companionship, though quacking their mild displeasure at being disturbed. When she sat down on the bench, he took a seat next to her, stretching out his arm behind. He felt her tension rise, so before she could start speaking he put two fingers under her chin and turned her face to him. Parting her lips with his, he tasted her, then groaned as she opened for him further, taking him in. Her arms came up around his neck, pressing her body against him in the formfitting suit, letting him feel her pleasure at seeing him, being with him. When he eased back, he didn’t know whose heart was beating faster.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “That made it easier.”
“Any sacrifice to help.” He tugged on her tail of braids, but she didn’t smile.
“When I first started jumping, it was to make me feel like I was back with David, in those last moments. You know how my brother died.” Tyler nodded, ran a hand up her arm. “I won’t press, but one day, any day you’re ready, angel, I’d like to know more about him. I know he was important to you.” She wasn’t ready to tell him. Marguerite couldn’t tell him that before she’d shared her bed, which meant before she’d met him, she’d had to tie her arm loosely to the bedpost. That way when she tried to sleepwalk, to fly, she’d wake half slumped on the floor, her arm pulled taut. During those quietly despondent hours of the night, she’d sit crumpled on the floor and blearily look up into the night sky, at the stars or various phases of the moon. She’d think how their light was like the promise of a heaven she could never reach, because for some inexplicable reason she wouldn’t free herself to go there. To go to David.
She closed her eyes. “Not today. Today’s too good.” She opened them, looked at him. “But something changed, as of this week. For the first time, it was about joy. True freedom. The first freedom I think I’ve ever felt. And I shouldn’t be telling you these things, because you’re arrogant enough as it is…”
“Tell me anyway.”
She reached out, trailed her fingers along his forearm, let her hand be captured and held on his thigh. “I felt like there’d be someone to care, to catch me if I fell.”
“Next time you might mention when you’re going out, so I’ll know to arrange for that.”
She gave him a tiny smile. “I know it’s not realistic. It’s just a feeling.” She bent, unlaced her shoes, removed them and pushed up the fabric of the bodysuit covering her calves. Rising, she moved to the water’s edge.
“So how long have you done this?” He looked up as a Piper Cub buzzed over for a landing.
“About ten years. I could take you up one day. I’m a trained instructor.”
“Not happening.”
Her attention flicked over to him. “It’s really wonderful. Falling at over a hundred miles an hour, just you. Sometimes it’s nice with others, too, because you don’t talk.