Chapter 8
As the days and weeks flew by, Brandy’s father recovered with only a slight amount of memory loss. He still had headaches that drove him to bed from time to time. He was able to identify his attacker as Jorge, his former employee. Although both the Sheriff and the San Diego PD searched, when they couldn’t find him and he stopped reporting for meetings he was required to attend, it was assumed he had fled to Mexico. With his prior record, when he was apprehended, he’d be going away for a long time, since the assault caused injury that necessitated a hospital stay, and drew blood.
Brandy and Tucker spent time with Dorie and Brawley when they returned from their honeymoon in Hawaii. She also worked longer hours at the grocery, and assisted her father in hiring two more experienced clerks. She hired a professional organizer to work with her dad to get the office looking more like an office than a storage unit.
But Brandy knew she’d have to get another good job like she had with the ad agency. The rents in San Diego weren’t cheap, and with Tucker staying over at her cottage so much of the time, she wanted to get someplace more private and not under her father’s watchful eye. But she was in no hurry. She allowed her relationship with Tucker to take it’s own path. The longer she was around him, the less of a difference their fifteen-year age spread made.
But today was going to be an important test of their relationship. Tucker had worked on her non-stop until she finally relented. She was going to allow him to take her tandem skydiving. Although she’d visited the glider port and watched him jump and land safely a dozen times, it did nothing to remove her fear.
“You just have to ignore it. Just like you did when you learned to ride your first bike,” he’d told her.
“But I wasn’t going to fall thirteen thousand feet if I had a mishap on the bike.” She couldn’t imagine she would enjoy falling through the sky, even with Tucker securely strapped to her back.
“Trust me, it doesn’t feel like you’re falling. It feels like there’s a blast of wind coming straight from the earth, holding you up so you can fly. It really does feel that way, Brandy. You’ll see.”
The old converted bomber with the door removed loaded everyone and their buddies up after some ground instruction. Brandy and Tucker were to be in the middle of the jump, since it was her first one. Several SEALs and former Teammates of Tucker’s jumped solo, doing cartwheels and in-air formations. At last it was their turn. She stood at the edge of the door, barely able to see cars moving below. Houses looked no bigger than her pinkie fingernail. The air that blew back through the jump door was freezing cold.
She wasn’t sure when she was supposed to jump, and worried she’d catch her foot or shoelace on the flange at the opening.
“When do we—” she began to shout, until she felt Tucker’s weight behind her and effortlessly they were out of the plane and freefalling. As her heart rate began to return to normal, she realized he was right. It didn’t feel like she was falling at all. It felt like the earth was slowly moving to reach out and touch her, but very, very slowly. He tapped her arms, signaling her to make a human “W” as she extended them out to the sides and spread her feet.
He kissed the top of her head and shouted, “Close your mouth. I’m getting slimed.”
Her wonderment and awe had caused her to forget that little part of the training. “Sorry,” she shouted back at the top of her lungs.
Tucker handed her the cord to the chute and together they pulled it, which yanked her straight up several hundred feet, or so it seemed. As the glider extended, Tucker steered them around in circles, even driving them through wispy clouds, soaring up and then doing high-banked turns in mid air. As she came closer and closer to the earth, the air began to warm.
He pointed out the border. “That’s Mexico right over there.” He also pointed out several other landmarks. The San Diego Bay appeared like it was a shallow bowl of silver pebbles as it glistened in the morning sun. She took his hand and kissed his palm.
“Thank you,” she said to him in the quiet. It felt like the ride went on for an hour, that they would be suspended all day, but finally the ground began to loom large. She threw her legs out in front of her as they landed on Tucker’s, collapsed and rolled together in the long grass, entangled in the chute.
Looking up to the sky, it appeared twice as big as before, and twice as blue. A gentle breeze rearranged her hair when her cap fell to the side. Tucker’s face and beard was pressed to her cheek. “I knew you could do it,” he whispered. But even that whisper had the deep raspy tones that made her whole body vibrate.
“Amazing,” was all she could think to say in return, as she continued searching the blue spans above her. “It wasn’t anything at all what I imagined.”
“It’s like a lot of things. Scarier to think about than to do. We do thousands of these jumps on the Teams. Twice as high. At midnight when you only have your night vision specs on. You see oceans of glittering lights and hope that they’re harmless animals, not the eyeballs of the enemy.”
“I could never do that,” she answered. “But I can see you doing it. Must have been fun.”
Tucker hesitated before he said anything at all, and then she couldn’t make out the words. She left him to his private thoughts. She knew he missed the life, and would ask him sometime how he replaced the adrenaline he used to have coursing through his veins. She wondered if being a farmer, or a father or husband would ever be really enough.
“Come on, we gotta get up before we get overrun with the newbies.” He pulled her up by the straps, unhooked her from him and from the chute and began gathering the colorful fabric, shaking out the blades of grass and small rocks. She noted how happy he looked, with the sun shining behind him, greying hair blowing in the breeze.
She touched his cheek, making him stop, his hand wrapped around her wrist.
“I mean it. Thank you, Tucker.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed him until he swept her up and carried her off the field, the lightweight nylon chute tucked under his arm.
Afterwards, they went for a seafood lunch down by the marina. She scanned the million dollar vessels and the people out walking their dogs or jogging on this sunny Sunday. Every day was sunny here.
“See, you wouldn’t have this in Oregon,” she chided him.
“That’s very true. This suits me.”
“Me too.”
Over their soup he asked her, “Where do you want to go for Valentine’s Day?”
That sent a zinger up the back of her legs. She recovered quickly, but couldn’t make a decision. “Anywhere. You just name it.”
“How about we go up north? Several of the guys and some of the wives are doing a road trip to Sonoma. Can you get a couple of extra days off? It takes a day up and a day down. Gotta stay and do some wine tasting. And I understand you’re proficient at grape stomping.”
“In February? You know anyone who has grapes this time of year?” She wrinkled up her nose and then winked at him.
“I love that picture with you and Dorie.”
“Ah, the good old days, when I thought I had a job.” She allowed her voice to wander off.
“You want me to move in? I could help with the rent.”
Brandy’s pulse quickened as her stomach turned. “I was thinking I’d move someplace else.” She drank her water and didn’t look at him for a couple long seconds, not sure she understood how he’d take it. “And no, your apartment is completely out of the question.”
“Why would you ever want to move? Your place is perfect.”
“And it’s right behind my father’s house.”
“So? You don’t think he understands what we do all night long, Brandy? Come on. He knows his little girl is all grown up, with grown up appetites. Besides, I think he’d be relieved you had someone to watch over you when he wasn’t there to protect you himself. Give him a break. Let him relax. I’ll do the heavy lifting for awhile.”
The “for awhile” stuck in her chest. But, she had it coming. The conversation had come to the edge of their limit on what was safe to discuss. They never talked about long-term futures. It was way too soon.
“I think dad likes having me around, but it’s hard to make ends meet with what he pays me. It’s like my life’s on hold each week I stay there.”
Tucker was quiet, and then he spoke down to the tabletop. “Why not look at it like you don’t have to decide right now. If you stay there you’ll probably make him happy. He gets to see more of you than most fathers get. You’re not pressured to go knock yourself out trying to swim upstream with all the other people clamoring for a fat paycheck.”
She knew there was more he wanted to say, but was finding the choice of words difficult. She reached out and took one of his hands. “And I’m hoping you wouldn’t mind, right?”
His brown eyes saw everything about her. He saw her insides, how her heart was beating, saw all her uncertainty. Saw how grateful she was that they’d met.
“That would be an understatement.” His thumb caressed her knuckles and she thought she saw traces of a blush. “Can I ask you a question?” he asked.
“Shoot.” She inhaled deeply and braced for something momentous.
“If we did decide to move in together, could I keep just one of my posters?”