“Hardly. It’s the strain of the past month catching up with me,” she admitted.
He winked. “Come on, Raven, let’s go for a walk. Some fresh salt air will do you good.”
It seemed natural to feel his hand gripping hers. The beach was dotted with people walking their dogs, joggers and a few families. The sky was a bright blue, and white gulls with black-tipped wings sailed effortlessly on the invisible up and down drafts, skimming the calm ocean for unsuspecting prey. Chris fell into step with Dan, relishing his closeness. The wind was brisk, lifting strands of her dark hair across her face momentarily.
Dan looked down. “Cold?” Before she could answer, he released her hand and slipped his arm around her waist.
Chris made no protest, content to languish against his strong body, head resting on his shoulder. The crashing waves frothed and foamed, spilling out upon the dark sand at their feet. Above and to their right stood eroded sandstone cliffs. It looked as if a giant hand with sharp fingernails had raked their face, creating deep, scarring indentations. Driftwood ranging from pine to rare myrtle wood from the Northern California coast lay graying in the strong rays of the sun, thrown to shore by the latest storm. Chris stared at one piece of driftwood bobbing in the surf, finding a parallel.
“Do you ever feel like that,” she asked, pointing to the gnarled wood struggling against the relentless tide.
Dan slowed his walk and they halted, watching it. “Drifting?” he prompted, reading between the lines of her statement.
“Yes, sometimes I do. That sounds pitiful, doesn’t it?”
“No. It’s not pity. Matter of fact, Raven, people like us ought to be less hard on ourselves,” he murmured, resting his chin against her hair.
“What do you mean?”
“We’re pushed by our past. Me, to escape the shadow of my less than exemplary parents. You were alone so much of your life that you set your own goals instead of comparing yourself against others’ accomplishments.” He frowned, searching for the right words. “When you have no comparison, you sometimes overexcel.”
“My life hasn’t been very moderate,” she returned drily. “As a matter of fact, it has been one of extremes.”
Dan turned her around, resting his arms lightly on her shoulders, looking deeply into her violet eyes. “You are an extremist, like me,” he agreed. “But by being one, you’ve accomplished more than most people. So you see, it’s not all negative. But I think right now you need to learn more moderation. Allow yourself to let down and relax. That’s something I’ve already learned. Be yourself, Raven.”
Chris gave him a curious smile, basking in the warmth of his gaze. “I am myself.”
Dan’s eyes crinkled with silent laughter. “A fascinating, mysterious, provocative sensual woman. That’s you.”
She gave an embarrassed laugh. “Oh, stop it! You and Mark Hoffman! I don’t know which of you can outcompliment the other.”
“As long as the compliments are sincere, what do you care?” he mocked gently. “Just accept them with grace. Beautiful women should always consent to homage being paid to them, Raven.” He leaned down, placing a light kiss on her nose.
“And judging from your past, you’ve had ample opportunity to sample a world full of beautiful women,” she noted wryly.
“Guilty on all accounts,” he admitted. “That’s why you should take my compliments with even more validity. I know what I’m talking about.”
Chris grinned ruefully, pulling out of his warm embrace. It was easy to fall against him and bury herself in his arms once again. So easy. “You’re so full of it,” she retorted, beginning to walk slowly, hands thrust deeply into the pockets of her slacks.
“Sometimes I get the feeling you think I give women exactly what they want to hear.”
Chris glanced up at him. “That’s true. Ever since you told me about your past I can’t help but think that you were raised and polished to be the consummate social animal.”
He frowned. “I was raised on a ranch, Raven. I’ll admit I played around for the first twenty-three years of my life like any bachelor would. But the war sobered me up real fast. Up until then I sort of moved through life but didn’t really get too seriously involved.”
“Including no serious involvement with women?
Dan hesitated, pursing his mouth. “Yes, including women.”
“I wondered why you weren’t married.”
“I never found a woman who could complement all my diverse facets.”
She gave him a wry look, trying to curb a smile.
Farther down the beach, she found a particularly beautiful brown-and-white-spotted shell. Crouching down, Chris picked it up. Dan joined her.
“Look at this,” he pointed. “The ridges are all the same until they start flaring out at the end of the shell.”
The ridges were deep and identical as Chris ran her sensitive fingertips across them. They began to lose their shape and depth until finally, the last few melted into a flat surface of the shell. “Nothing in nature is an accident,” she mused. “I wonder what this means?” she asked, glancing over at him.
Dan shrugged, taking the shell and methodically studying it. “Maybe there’s a lesson in there for all mankind,” he remarked softly. His blue eyes darkened and held hers. “That we may be born into a very fixed, rigid set of circumstances. If we persevere and become our own person, we shed those old ways and habits.” He pointed to the smoothed area of the shell. “In the end we can take on other facets of ourselves and grow, if given the chance.”
“I think that’s possible,” she said, rising and pocketing the shell.
The sun was moving to the west, the light dancing off the quiet ocean, making them both squint. “I know it’s possible,” Dan said with fervor. He slipped his arm across her shoulder, drawing her near, needing to feel Chris against him as they started to walk once again.
“Are you talking philosophically?” Chris challenged, falling in step with him. How easy it was to become a natural part of Dan, she thought distractedly.
“No, factually.”
“Explain.”
He smiled grimly. “I’m an ideal example of what I just said. I walked away from the world my parents lived in and made a life of my own.”
Chris heard the emotion behind Dan’s words, as if some deep pain still existed within him.
“My father had my life planned out for me from the day I was born. I would take over the oil interests he had built. I would become an extension of him.”
“Why didn’t that appeal to you, Dan?”
“Drilling for oil wells never excited me.”
“But flying did?”
He grinned, sharing his smile with Chris. “It grabbed me by the throat and has never let go.”
She could identify with that. “So what happened when you told your parents you were going into the Air Force?”
Dan pursed his lips, his eyes growing distant for a moment. “Let’s just say all hell broke loose.”
Chris looked at him guardedly. She could feel the intensity of Dan’s commitment to his freedom. He had broken the shackles of his past and stepped free. They continued to walk in silence another mile before she finally spoke. “I’ve got a ways to go yet.”
“Oh?” He pulled her to a stop, placing his arms around her shoulders.
She chewed on her lower lip, unable to meet the warmth she knew rested in his blue eyes. Chris took a deep breath and said, “I’ve still got a chip on my shoulder.”
His laughter was sensual, low and nonthreatening. “Raven, do you want to know what I think?” he whispered near her ear. He placed his hand beneath her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes.
“Yes.” Her heart began a slow pound of awareness. He was so male, so intoxicatingly close, and so appealing to her heightened senses.
“You’re so intent on the distance that you’ve traveled in life that you try to measure what’s ahead, rather than appreciate what you’ve accomplished.” A gentle smile touched the corners of his mouth as he scanned her upturned features. “You react strongly from your growing-up days.” His voice dropped. “You need to shed that hardness, Raven. You no longer need it.” He stroked her velvety cheek with the back of his hand. “All you have to do is see what you’ve accomplished and allow that vulnerable woman who lives in there to come out.”
A burgeoning warmth centered in her heart, and Chris felt the heat of tears forming in her eyes. Dan caressed her cheek, tilting her head, brushing her lips in a slow, worshipful kiss. She trembled outwardly and moved into his waiting embrace, a supple willow against the hard oak of his body. A jagged bolt of heat tore through her as he pressed more demandingly against her yielding lips.
“Open your mouth,” he whispered thickly, “I want to taste you. All of you....”
A shudder vibrated through his body, and Chris felt it move through her own like a delicious caress. His fingers stroked the nape of her neck, entangling in her ebony hair, sending thrilling messages to her overwhelmed senses. His mouth moved teasingly across her lips, his tongue tracing, probing and stroking all of her. He tasted male; he was hungry, and in control. There was an overwhelming tenderness to his onslaught as he drank deeply of her. Dizziness washed like an ocean wave through her, and she felt as if her entire body was exploding with pulse-pounding heat as he savored her, kissing each corner of her mouth with sureness before he drew inches away from her parted, glistening lips.
Languorously, she forced open her eyes. Dazed by the liquid fire now racing through her, she stared wonderingly up into his eyes, now pure cobalt with desire. A gnawing ache spread throughout her lower body, and her fingers tightened around his neck as she pressed herself closer. The intense longing in his eyes freed her of her own fear of giving herself willingly to him, on all levels and in all ways. Dan slid his fingers up her delicate jawline, framing her face between his hands. His head descended, and he placed a soft wet kiss against her waiting lips.
“This is the woman I had seen all along,” he said huskily. “So warm, so vulnerable and trusting....”
Her thick ebony lashes fell against her flushed cheeks as she returned his achingly tender kiss. The licking flames of desire were melting every barrier. She wanted him—all of him. His maleness. His gentleness. His understanding of her that made her rapturous with joy.
“God,” he groaned, lifting his head. “I want you, Raven. All of you.”
Chris looked up at him wonderingly, needing his physical support in order to keep standing. She saw the corners of his sensual mouth draw upward into a wry smile.
“Of course, I would have to pick a beach with people on it.”
A slow smile of understanding pulled at her thoroughly kissed lips. “Of all people, I’d never have thought that a test pilot would have such bad timing, McCord.”
A glint of mirth danced in his eyes as he ran his hands down the length of her delicately curved back. “If that gets back to base, my reputation will be ruined as a test pilot,” he agreed. The turbulent blue of his eyes grew lighter with amusement. “But what I lack in timing, I’ll more than make up for with other skills,” he promised her huskily.
Chris leaned up on her toes, placing a kiss on his smiling mouth. “No complaint there, believe me.”
“Really?” He grinned down.
“McCord, I can’t even stand on my own right now.”
He gave her a pleased look. “You look absolutely ravishing, my raven-haired beauty. And believe me, if we were on a deserted beach, you wouldn’t be standing. You’d be in my arms, and I would be making love to you right there.”
Chris trembled, resting her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes. “I know,” she confided in a wispy voice. “And I wish there weren’t any people around, too.”
Dan smiled tenderly, holding her for a long, long time, simply feeling the woman of her against the man of him. Pressing a series of small kisses along her hairline and temple, he whispered, “We’ll do this again, Raven. We both need this. We need each other. I need you....”
6
T
HE CLASSROOM HAD
emptied at lunchtime, leaving Chris to grapple with some last-minute studying before the next test. Resting her head against her hand, she drank in the technical information on aerodynamic theory. A headache was lapping at her temples and she sat back, raising her shoulders, trying to get rid of the accumulated tension. Where had the first four months gone? Dan had been right: the pressures at the school were accelerating to the point where everyone was experiencing mental burnout.
Putting down the pencil for a moment, she rubbed her aching eyes. Memories of their day at the beach soothed her present worries and concerns. It had been the last time they had been together in a nonprofessional situation. With Dan and her pulling extra flight duty to get her qualified in the two other aircraft, the remaining time was filled with study and fretful sleep. Well, she thought, I have been trying to put my past behind me. Karen had noticed it, just last night remarking,
You’re—softer
. Her blue eyes danced with mischief.
Can’t be because of Dan McCord
,
could it?
she’d hinted broadly, grinning.
Could be.
Well
,
whatever it is
,
I
like it.
You’re not so brittle with the guys.
They feel it
,
too.
It’s a great change
,
and everyone is reaping the benefits from it.
I
know.
I
don’t go around ripping everyone’s head off anymore
, Chris had acknowledged.
No
,
you never did that.
You were just aloof
, Karen had explained.
Now you get along with everyone except Brodie.
One eyebrow moved upward, and Chris had stared across the table at her friend.
Tell me
,
who does get along with Brodie?
No one.
You’d think after all this time he’d cool his heels and begin to accept you.
Over his dead body
, Chris had muttered blackly.
Better his than yours
,
honey.