"Thanks," Rush breathed hoarsely, when she’d finished the task. Lindy paused, biting her lip as she ran her hand over the dark-furred chest. The muscles of his abdomen felt hard and sleek, the curling hairs wispy against the tips of her fingers.
"I want you like hell," he groaned.
Lindy let her eyes fall and released a short, delicate chuckle. "I can tell." His free hand cupped her breast and her nipple blossomed and grew incredibly hard. "I want you, too."
He flicked his thumb over the rose tip of her breast and she moaned.
"I can tell," he repeated thickly.
They finished undressing each other with trembling hands. Lindy helped Rush with the parts he couldn’t manage, and he helped her the best he could. Soon they were lying on the mattress, their bodies on fire for each other.
When he moved on top of her, Lindy smiled up at him, craving the fiery release his body would give her. Still trembling, she closed her eyes and gave herself over to this experience. She allowed herself to be swallowed up in his tenderness, and when he entered her, her body answered in perfect counterpoint to his. Rush’s touch, his lovemaking, was a balm, a healing potion for all they had suffered. Tears wet her face and his lips found them. Intuitively he knew she needed assurances and he gave them to her with the ebb and flow of his body into her own. No matter what the future held, he seemed to be telling her, no matter what happened in the next six weeks, they would have this night to hold on to and to remember.
They made love again after dinner, and he held and kissed her long after midnight. While Rush soundly slept, Lindy climbed out of bed and cuddled up in the chair across from him.
She’d tried so hard to put the fear behind her, but she couldn’t. A hundred times in the past week, she’d hungered to tell him how she’d nearly gone crazy with worry, and she hadn’t said a word. She wanted to explain how every time she closed her eyes the same freakish nightmare haunted her sleep. But again and again she’d held her tongue, gliding over what was important for fear of shattering the peace of these past days together.
In a few hours Rush would return to his ship and she would go back to Seattle. She’d been wrong not to tell Rush what she was feeling, wrong to allow him to assume she could go on playing this charade. Steve was right. He had been all along – she wouldn’t make a good navy wife. It wasn’t in her to bid her husband farewell time after time and handle whatever crisis befell them with calm acceptance.
Twice now Lindy had found herself deeply in love, convinced she knew her own heart each time. Confident enough to wear the rings each man had given her. Both times she’d been wrong. She wasn’t the type of woman Rush needed. She wasn’t strong enough to endure months of loneliness and deal with the knowledge that she would always take second place in her husband’s life.
Hot tears scalded her eyes and when she could restrain them no longer, she let them flow freely down her face, no longer willing to hold them back.
Rush raised his head from the pillow, looking disoriented and groggy. He turned and stared at his sobbing wife.
"Lindy," he breathed her name into the night. "What’s wrong?"
"Do you love me, Rush?"
"Of course I do." He threw back the sheet and sat on the edge of the bed. "You know I do."
"If you love me… if you really love me, you’ll understand---" She paused.
Rush moved off the bed, knelt down in front of her and took her two hands in his one. "Understand what, honey?"
"I want you to get out of the navy."
He tossed his head back as if she’d slapped him. "Lindy, you don’t know what you’re asking."
"I do know. I know you love it. I know you’ve always loved being on the sea. But there are other jobs, other ways---I can’t bear this, Rush, not knowing from one day to the next if you’re going to be dead or alive. Let some other man put his life on the line. Someone without a wife. Anyone but you."
"Lindy – oh love." He pressed his forehead on her bent knee and seemed to be pulling his thoughts together. When he raised his head, his eyes were hard. "The navy is my life. It’s where I belong. I can’t walk away from a fifteen-year commitment because you’re afraid I’m going to be injured again."
Lindy felt as though her heart were crumbling, the emotional agony was so intense. She pulled her hands free of his grasp and stiffened. "Then you leave me no choice."
Chapter Fourteen
"I don’t leave you any choice? What do mean by that?" Rush demanded.
Lindy didn’t know. All she did know was that everything the other wives had warned her about was happening. Rush and she had such little time together and, not wanting to say or do anything to disrupt these precious few days, Lindy had skimmed the surface of their relationship, ignoring the deep waters of unhappiness and strife. They’d avoided any chance of conflict in their marriage until everything was ready to burst inside her.
"Well?" he repeated.
"I don’t know," she admitted reluctantly. "I want you to do something else with your life. Something outside of the navy that isn’t dangerous. You’ve got me to think about now…and children later. Maybe you think I’m being selfish, but I want you to be a husband and father before anything else. The navy is first with you now and I’ll always be a poor second. I hate it."
Rush rammed his fingers through his hair. "Honey, you can’t change a man from what he already is. You don’t have any idea what you’re asking me to do – it’d be impossible."
"You don’t seem to understand what you want of me," she countered sharply. "You claim you love me. You claim you want our marriage to work. But I’ll always play second fiddle in your life, and I can’t. I just can’t deal with that. If playing hero is so important to you, then fine."