The low level whine of the winch being activated drew Zoe’s attention to the back of the boat. She watched as Derrick and Marjorie were slowly reeled back in. The vessel came to a stop.
“Your turn,” Derrick said as he joined them at the front of the boat.
“You’re going to love it, Zoe,” Marjorie enthused. “You can see all the way to Mexico from up there.”
Zoe’s legs were shaky, not from fear or excitement about the flight, but the sudden serious tension between her and Hawk. There had been a moment when she had wanted to say, ”Why do you have to be a SEAL? Why do you have to do a dangerous job?” Something in his face had strangled the words. If she said them, if she challenged what he was, it would be over.
The military wasn’t just a job. It was a way of life. It was a calling, like being a minister or a Peace Corps worker. It had to be, otherwise, why do the job? To ask him to give it up would be like asking him to stop breathing.
She got to her feet and shed her sandals and the wrap around skirt that matched her bathing suit. “Could you hold on to this for me, Marjorie?”
“Sure.” Marjorie’s eyes settled on her thigh where a rectangular scar, pale and shiny, defaced the top of her leg.
As Zoe walked forward, she imagined every eye on the boat homed in on her left calf. She avoided looking at the other passengers. It didn’t matter what they thought. As long as Hawk could look at her and still want her, nothing else was important. His grasp on her hand never faltered as he followed her aft to the flight deck.
The young blond crewman offered her a hand up onto the platform. “Hold onto my shoulder while I help you with the harness,” he instructed. “All you have to do is sit and enjoy. The parachute will do all the work.” He clipped the harness to the rigging. A crewman stood behind them controlling the chute as the wind pulled and tugged on it. Hawk braced his feet as the man strapped his harness and secured it to the tandem bar. The boat started forward.
At the blonde crewman’s nod, the other released his hold on the rigging. The chute, already filled with air, shot upward lifting them from the deck. The wind whipped about them as they rose. The ocean stretched away into the horizon disappearing into a bluish-white haze. Hawk’s hand covered hers on the rigging and she turned her head to look at him.
He shouted above the wind. “You kick ass, baby.” His grin projected equal parts amusement and pleasure. “You just strutted your stuff like a model and every guy on the boat was looking at your perfect backside.”
“No they weren’t.”
“Yes, they were. I didn’t know whether to be jealous or proud.”
Zoe burst out laughing. “Only you could come up with something like that. You are shining me on, Lieutenant.”
“I’m not. They weren’t looking at your leg, they were checking you out.”
“Great. Now I’ll be worried about everyone looking at my behind.”
“That’s what guys do, Zoe. I checked it out the first time you walked away from me, and every time since.”
She grinned and shook her head.
The sound of the wind grew the higher they floated, making talking impossible. The buoyancy of flying free intensified.
On the right, Mission Bay circled around, a maze of cerulean water. Red and white buildings on the boardwalk became a miniature shopping village. The roller coaster at Belmont Park looked like a toy as the cars rose then whipped around the tracks. San Diego stretched outward to the southeast beyond it.
Down the coast Ocean Beach and Point Loma, lightly textured strips of green and yellow-brown, stretched against the bluish-gray water. A distant pier shot like a compass needle pointing out to sea. Along the sand crusted coastline, white foam frosted the waves like powdered sugar.
Hawk pointed downward and Zoe looked below. A pod of dolphin streaked through the water then bobbed to the surface in staggered synchronization. Their strength and speed in the water was impressive even from up so high.
The look of interest on his face as he watched them brought a smile to her lips. Tenderness swelled inside her. This passion, this emotion he inspired, filled the emptiness inside her in a way she’d never experienced before.
Hawk pointed toward the city indicating several places of interest. Zoe was as much aware of his every look and gesture as she was the scenery. They were together, yet separate, and totally in communion with one another without words.
When the chute started being towed in from below, she sighed.
Back to the real world. Back to the hospital and her brother who still hadn’t woken up. Back to Derrick and Marjorie and the special tension their association with them created.
Back to this tug of war that never stopped between her feelings for Hawk and what he did.
She was in love with Adam “Hawk” Yazzie.
But if he asked her to commit herself, she didn’t know if she could live with this feeling of constant dread, in order to be with him. But could she live without him?