No Quarter Given (SSE 667) (8 page)

Dana languished in the salty water, slowly turning over on her back for a moment. The freestyle swim had taken the edge off her worry about her potential flying skills. The water was like a mother, cradling her protectively in a safe and loving embrace. Laughing, Dana rolled again, feeling like a porpoise, then dove downward, enjoying the rush of water surrounding her like a friendly welcome. The goggles she wore to protect her eyes from the salt water hung around her neck, and she dove blind, her eyes tightly shut, feeling the pressure build around her as she went deeper and deeper. She could hold her breath for nearly four minutes without having to resurface. The reassuring pressure against her body was something she gloried in. Mother Ocean, as she had always called the sea, would never harm her. Here, she was safe. Safe.

A viselike grip encircled her waist. Startled, Dana released the last of her air, twisting around. Her eyes flew open. At first she thought it was a shark, pain rearing up through her lower ribs as she was hauled surfaceward. And then, to her surprise, she realized it was a man. The salt water stung her eyes. Out of air, Dana had no resource, unable to fight his powerful grip.

They erupted from the water simultaneously. Blinded by the salt water, she struck out at her unknown male assailant, trying to jerk free. Her fist gave him a glancing blow alongside his head. She gulped water and choked, lifting her feet and shoving them hard against his chest. In seconds, she was free.

"Dana!" Griff croaked, flailing, shocked by her attack. "It's me, Turcotte! Hold still!" He lunged for her arm, but she slithered free.

Coughing up seawater, Dana rubbed her eyes, clearing them. Griff Turcotte trod water a few feet away, his face a thundercloud of anger. "What," she choked, "are you doing out here?"

Angrily, Griff jabbed a finger at her. "Trying to save your neck, that's what!" he roared back. "What the hell do you think you're doing? The ocean's flat and calm. Swimming out this far under those conditions can attract sharks. I came out to bring you back before you became dinner for one of our great whites, you idiot!"

Gasping, Dana laughed.
"You
came to save
me?
Oh, brother, Lieutenant, that's a real laugh."

Stung by her ungratefulness, Griff glowered at her and swam closer. "Okay, so you're a feminist and I'm still back in the caveman era. But I'll be damned if you're going to become a steak for some patrolling shark on my beach."

He was serious! Dana blinked, shoving the hair off her brow. "Your beach? For your information, this is a public beach, Turcotte! I came down here to swim! You had no right scaring the hell out of me! Just who do you think
you
are?"

Griff clenched his teeth, impressed in spite of himself at her spunk under the circumstances. "Just because you were swim captain at Annapolis, Coulter, doesn't mean you have an ounce of brains about swimming in the ocean. Did it ever occur to you that sharks are drawn to flailing sounds on top of the water? They signal a meal waiting to be eaten."

Dana began to laugh. She couldn't help herself. It was all so ridiculous! "You're something else, Turcotte. I was on this beach minding my own damn business. Did it ever occur to you I know what I'm doing?"

Griff momentarily lost his anger. When Dana smiled, he felt some old, heavy burden buried in his heart dissolve. Her laughter was rolling and contralto, like a song of a beautiful bird. And her eyes... Sweet heaven, but he wanted to capture that smiling mouth and feel her move sensually against him. The water glinted off her neck and arms like jeweled sunlight. The gold flecks were back in her eyes, and he knew now, without a doubt, she was happy. Just the graceful way she moved in the water told him she was ultimately at home within its grasp. Her incredible beauty nullified his anger.

"I was worried, that was all."

Her eyes crinkled. "I wouldn't think you'd care if I did get eaten by a shark. After all, you don't want me as a student."

Griff ignored her comment.

"Besides," Dana added lightly, stretching out on her back on the water's surface, "I was born by the ocean, Lieutenant. When I was three, I was swimming with my mother in it." She twisted her head in his direction, noticing his straight brows drawing into a frown. "I've had plenty of head-ons with sharks, jellyfish and other denizens of the deep. Once, a six-hundred-pound grouper attacked me. I just hit him with the hammer I carried in my diving belt. I was looking for abalone off the coast of San Diego when it happened. He got the worst of the deal."

"You're qualified for scuba diving, too?"

"Up to two hundred feet. I've had diving certification since I was fourteen years old."

Griff felt heat crawling into his face. He got the message: Dana was extremely capable of taking care of herself in any ocean situation. Embarrassed, he rubbed his jaw where she'd struck him earlier. When he'd seen her dive suddenly, he'd thought she was drowning and had gone in to rescue her. Griff knew better than to own up to that admission. When he looked over at Dana, he expected her to be laughing at him, but she wasn't.

Dana relented, touched that Griff had cared enough to come after her. "Did you come to my rescue because you thought I was too weak to swim back to shore?" she teased lightly. The water cascading down the hard planes of his face increased his rugged intensity. The color of his eaglelike eyes grew charcoal. She wasn't sure if it meant he was angry or pleased.

"It's obvious you don't need any help at sea," Griff bit back. "But the air's my domain, Coulter. Not yours."

She shrugged, silently wishing he'd lose the chip on his shoulder toward her. "The air belongs to everyone, Lieutenant, just like the ocean." She spread her arm out in front of her, fingers lightly skipping across the surface.

"You made a mistake coming to Whiting, Coulter."

"Oh?"

"You'd have been better off staying in the ship part of the Navy—it's obvious you like the water."

Smiling, Dana rolled gracefully in a complete circle, surfacing on her back and floating. "It's not my nature to do what's easy. I like a challenge."

Grudgingly, Griff prepared to swim back to shore—by himself. "Come next Monday, you're going to face the biggest challenge in your life, Coulter."

Her smile disappeared and she held his dark eyes. "Lieutenant, nothing you can throw at me will ever equal what I've already survived. Nothing."

Dana lunged past him, swimming strongly toward shore. Griff stared at her, assimilating the low tremble in her voice and the rebellion in her azure eyes. He trod water, wondering what she was talking about. Bothered, he began a leisurely swim back to shore. His threats rolled off her like water off an otter's back. Dana was no more afraid of him than she was of this ocean. She didn't scare easily. It had to be a facade. There was no other explanation. Underneath, Dana was just as weak and brittle as Carol had been.

The water sloughed away the rest of his anger. By the time his feet touched the sandy bottom, Dana had already retrieved her towel and was walking toward the parking lot. Flinging his head from side to side, Griff went in the opposite direction to retrieve his shirt, shoes and sunglasses. Running his long fingers through his hair, he got rid of most of the water.

He turned and looked over his shoulder. Dana had disappeared, and the beach once more was deserted. What had she survived? Needled, Griff shrugged on the black polo shirt and slipped on the sunglasses. He sat down, brushing the wet sand off his feet, struggling to put his tennis shoes back on. Dana's words echoed in his head:
"Nothing you can throw at me will ever equal what I've already survived. Nothing."

Was she referring to the rigors of Annapolis? God knew, it was a hellish place for a man, much less a woman. Ring knockers were a brotherhood, and didn't take lightly to newcomers in their ranks. The first two years at Annapolis were the most grueling challenge Griff had ever faced.

Jerking his shoes onto his feet, he got up, dusting the sand from his wet shorts. Griff mulled over Dana's low, trembling voice. Something told him she wasn't talking about Annapolis. But what? A marriage and then a divorce, possibly? Her file said she was single, but it didn't say if she'd been married previously. And what about her comment that this wasn't her first black eye?

Stymied, Griff headed across the dunes to the parking lot. Dana Coulter was an enigma; a mystery of the first order. His forte was solving mysteries. Irritated by his own curiosity, Griff consoled himself with the thought that come next Monday, more would be revealed about Dana. His method of instructing was sure to garner a host of reactions that would reveal a great deal more about her. And when he had her figured out, he'd make sure she'd never graduate as a pilot. Toby was dead, and he was damned sure he wasn't going to be some woman's next victim.

Chapter Four

Dana was in the ready room where all the students who were going to fly met their IPs. It was 0700, and she wiped her damp palms against her thighs just as Griff entered. A number of the other students gave her sympathetic glances as her instructor appeared. If Dana read their looks accurately, she was seen as a lamb going to slaughter. Despite the fear sitting in the pit of her stomach, her heart responded strongly to Griff. There was something different about him from any other man in the room.

Dana stood as he walked toward her. She searched his clear gray eyes and found them icy, without emotion. His mouth, always an intriguing part of his face, was grim. The dark blue garrison cap sat at a cocky angle on his head. She noticed the way the olive-green flight uniform fit his tall, tightly muscled body.

Dana shook her head, wondering if the nervousness over her first flight was making her crazy. Ordinarily, she never looked at men this way. The fear of how they could harm her always came first. With Griff, it was different. In some part of her, she instinctively knew he'd never raise a hand to physically hurt her—even if he was bound and determined to wash her out of flight school.

I'm crazy, Dana decided, unable to explain logically her reactions to him. Maybe the four years of grueling strain at Annapolis were catching up with her. Rising from the table, holding her new flight log, Dana held Griff's eaglelike gaze.

"Ready, Coulter?"

He couldn't even say "Good morning." Dana fought to regain that familiar sense of control, to protect herself from the inevitable pain of opening herself to caring what he did or thought. "Yes, sir, I am," she replied coolly.

Griff frowned. She'd been smart enough to get a flight logbook. He'd planned on berating her for little things right off the bat—things she was responsible to get and have ready when he arrived. It had been six days since he'd last seen Dana. For the most part, her black eye had disappeared. Her cheekbone was back to normal, and only a slight yellowish color beneath the left eye still showed. Her black hair was thick, glinting with bluish highlights beneath the fluorescent lights. Drawn to her azure eyes, thickly fringed with black lashes, Griff felt a hypnotic pull to simply lose himself in them.

With a growl he spun around, muttering, "Follow me."

Walking helped take the edge off Dana's nervousness. The late-April morning was clear and the winds were calm, the meteorologist at the weather desk had told her. Griff had frowned when he'd taken her to the weather station to get the forecast. A well-prepared student, Dana had pulled the slip of paper from her flight log, handed it to him and repeated the information on it. Griff's gray eyes flashed with grudging admiration laced with anger. Dana curbed a smile. She had spent the week learning flight routine from Maggie and Molly. Plus, she'd spent ten-to-twelve hours a day studying the textbooks, cramming every conceivable bit of information into her head so that it would be at her disposal, should Griff require it. And every evening, when her friends returned from the station, they would sit in the kitchen with the trainer mock-up and each spend at least an hour going through different flight procedures, burning them into their brains until the moves became second nature. In the cockpit they wouldn't have to stop and think; they would simply respond.

Griff stood openmouthed as Dana flawlessly performed the walk-around inspection of his trainer. She missed nothing. Nothing! The crew chief, Aviation Machinist Mate Parker, handed her the discrepancy log, and she noted and signed it off, giving him a warm smile of thanks. Griff bridled. Dana's smile had been genuine, and he found himself wondering if she'd ever bestow one on him. Her blue eyes were intense and focused. But the moment Parker came up with the log, her business facade melted. In its place were her dancing blue eyes and a smile that could melt the hardest of hearts. Even his.

As Dana turned toward Griff, she saw him scowling at her. Automatically, she became all business again.

"Ground inspection completed, sir." At every other trainer on the flight line, the same procedure was going on between IP and student. Voices were low and strained. Dana felt the tension and tried to keep her shoulders relaxed, her voice unruffled. Griff looked positively beside himself; like a mad dog wanting to bite someone, but unable to decide whom. She knew he hadn't expected her to move through the routine without a hitch. But she had. Now came the next test: the cockpit.

"Climb in the first cockpit, Coulter."

The first seat located behind the prop of the plane was hers. Dana placed her flight log in a leg pocket, pressing the Velcro closed to keep it there. Her heart raced with excitement and nervousness as she climbed on board. To her dismay, her legs were too short to reach the rudder pedals. She felt Griff next to her, and she automatically lifted her chin.

"Just another reason why women shouldn't fly. You're so damned small, you can't even reach the controls."

"I'm sure this seat's adjustable." Dana forced herself to remember where the lever was to move it forward.

Their hands met and collided.

Dana jerked hers back. He glowered at her, growling, "Move forward."

Her hand tingling from his strong, firm touch, Dana tried to rise above her physical reactions to Griff. It was impossible. Once the seat was repositioned, her feet rested comfortably against the rudders. Griff leaned against the fuselage, beginning to explain the cockpit panel, the controls, levers and various other instruments. She sat, nodding from time to time, valiantly trying to ignore his male energy, that tightly wound sensation that inevitably tugged at her concentration.