“Well,” he hedged, “I’ll leave that up to you. But this helo does not have the instrumentation to fly at night.”
“Oh, not like your old MH-47, huh?” That was the juiced up model for the Night Stalkers. It was the Chinook with the ability to fly in any kind of weather, day or night.
Dan chuckled a little. “Yeah, I miss the MH. This model is daylight running only. No IFR instrumentation on board, unfortunately.”
“So? If I wanted to camp out and have hot dogs and roasted marshmallows over a fire, that would mean we’d have to sleep on the beach and leave the next morning?” Her imagination was taking flight, and it scared her. Right now, Sloan was more afraid of herself than of Dan making a move toward her.
“Yes, if you want.”
She couldn’t see his eyes as he replied, but the low vibration in his voice sent fiery riffles through her lower body. “No,” she said, “I don’t want to stay overnight.” If Dan was bummed out about it, he didn’t show it. Instead, he became serious.
“I wouldn’t bother you. I know you love the outdoors and I know you love to hike and camp.” He glanced at her for a moment. “I wouldn’t touch you. I’ve brought two sleeping bags with me, and that tent is pretty large.”
Sloan winced inwardly, hearing the sadness, the regret, in his voice. “I know that,” she said. “But I’m still tired from jetlag. By the time we get done scuba diving, I’ll probably want to pass out from exhaustion.” Right now, she had to be strong.
“We’ll take it easy,” he reassured her, guiding the Chinook toward the airport. “A little scuba diving, walks on the sand in our bare feet, and we’ll watch the gulls sail on the wind.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Sloan said, meeting his eyes for a moment. She could feel Dan wanting her, wishing that she would have agreed to stay and camp out on the beach. It was such a balancing act and stressed her out more as a result. Nothing was easy.
*
They rented a truck at the airport, and it took him fifteen minutes to drive to the coast, the sparkling sea flowing out from the yellow beach of fine sand. There was a huge, curved hook of land sheltering a large area between it and the beach where they checked their gear before wading into the water. They changed on opposite sides of the truck. The place was deserted and pristine at this time of the morning. Far out on the Red Sea, Dan could see several tanker and container ships in their lanes. There were many, many wrecks beneath the water because the reefs that extended out from the beach were plentiful and treacherous. Those same reefs were a draw for scuba divers from around the world.
Dan put on his weight belt, air tank, and breathing gear, hanging it over his shoulder. He looked forward to swimming into that wonderland, remembering how he and Sloan used to scuba dive together. They would take a flight from Bagram to the Hawaiian Islands, or somewhere closer, and spend five days diving in the surrounding seas. Those had been some of their most enjoyable times.
He pulled the fins out from the box he’d placed in the rear of the truck. His gloves were tucked into his weight belt. He never went into the water without a good knife in a scabbard attached around his lower right calf, also. There were a lot of hammerhead and aggressive bull sharks in this area. Many of them frequented the shallow reefs because of the old shipwrecks where the fish of the sea lived. Those fish were their meals. Because of this, scuba divers who wanted to appreciate the beauty and color of the reefs along the coastline also had danger at every turn. It wasn’t for the faint-of-heart, and divers had to stay on guard and alert.
Dan stood by the hood of the truck, his back to it, giving Sloan her space so she could climb into her dive gear. Since she’d blurted out that she’d fallen in love with him at Bagram, he’d been bothered by the admission. Dan didn’t know what love was—never had. Rubbing his chest, he scowled. Was this love he felt?
As he stood there, watching the gulls sailing parallel to the beach looking for critters that had washed up the night before, he once more felt like a loser.
Cursing softly under his breath, he heard Sloan walking toward him and turned. She had put her hair into a ponytail. Everything she would need he’d rented and packed for this outing. She wore a 5mm black neoprene skin with a pink accent on the arms and the sides of her thighs. She was dressed in her gear and out of habit, Dan checked the harness for the air tank she carried on her back. She looked happy, and he felt his joy ramping up, giving her a slight smile. “You look like you’re ready to go diving,” he teased.
“Who wouldn’t be?” She gestured toward the empty beach and sea beyond it. “This is perfect, Dan. It’s the right time of day, no people, and we have this place all to ourselves.”
He smiled and pulled on his dive boots and gloves, walking with her down the slight sandy incline. “It’s a favorite place of mine.” He carried a spear gun as a matter of habit, and a net bag tied onto his waist belt for any fish he killed to eat. “I’m going to try and hunt for some fish, and when we come out to change air tanks, I’ll put them in a container in the truck. We’ve got two spare tanks in the back of it so we’ll be able to make two dives. I figure by that time it will be near noon when we’ve run out of air. We’ll make a campfire, and I’ll bring the grate and other things we need to roast those fish and have a good meal before we fly back to the hangar. Sound good?”
“Does it ever! This brings back so many memories from when we would escape Bagram and spend four or five days at some seacoast and do just this.” She held his warm gaze, desperately wanting to kiss him.
“Yeah, those were good times,” he agreed. He halted at the edge of the warm water. “Let’s do a final breathing and harness check.” Sloan turned her back to him, and he quickly skimmed the hoses and the regulator, making sure everything was snug, and there were no cracks in the hoses or anything else that could endanger her life when underwater. The steel tank was full of oxygen, and he checked the fittings. Onshore, the tank weighed twenty-five pounds. In water, it was roughly eight and a half pounds, full. “You’re good to go on the back. Turn around,” he said.
She turned, meeting his narrowed eyes. His fingers moved with knowing precision focused entirely on a safety check. Even through her wetsuit, her flesh prickled pleasantly as his fingers slipped beneath the nylon shoulder harness, testing it, making sure it wasn’t too tight or loose upon her body. She could smell the salt air around them, but as he leaned in to check the goggles and mask hanging over her right shoulder, she could smell him, and it was a wonderful aphrodisiac.
“Okay,” Dan murmured, removing his hands from the equipment, “your turn to check me out.” He turned his back to her. He trusted Sloan completely because she’d been a diver since her late teens. Just having her this close, those knowing touches here and there, checking the equipment, sometimes brushing against his neoprene skin, made pleasure hum through him.
“You’re set,” she declared after checking him front and back. It wasn’t lost on her that she could see a partial erection on the skin tight neoprene wetsuit he wore. There was no way to hide it. She swallowed and kept her eyes above his waist as she pulled on her gloves. “I think we’re ready to go.”
Dan nodded. They waded into the water, leaned down, wetting their fins and then slipping them on over their boots. “I’m going to take us a specific way as we swim in and around the reef,” he told her. “There’s a cranky moray eel in one place, and we’re avoiding him for obvious reasons.”
“I’ll be happy just to follow you,” Sloan assured him with a grin. “This is your home turf. I know nothing.”