The Daughter-in-Law (3 page)

They came running toward him, first Ben who had steered himself in close, and then Nicole who was hobbled by her hard landing. Jonathan climbed to his feet just in time to fall into his friend’s arms.

“You scared me, buddy,” Ben said, as they rocked each other like lovers.

“Not as much as I scared myself.”

“You should have pulled sooner.”

“I didn’t pull at all. It was the AAD that saved me.”

Nicole’s voice pushed them apart. “You’re all right. Jesus, tell me that you’re all right.” She rushed into Jonathan’s arms and took up the embrace that Ben had started. Their helmets banged together as she forced her mouth against his, kissing him, talking, and sobbing all at once. “You saved my life! Are you hurt? Can I help you?”

“You can let him get some air,” Ben said, easing her away. Then he looked at Jonathan, “Unless you’d like me to leave the two of you alone?”

Jonathan wasn’t amused. His eyes blazed into Nicole’s. “What the hell happened up there?”

She sobbed deeply and shook her head. “I don’t know. I was lost until you hit me. And then I thought we had collided. I must have . . . lost it.”

He reached out angrily, grabbed her shoulder harness, and pulled the AAD out of her pack.

“What are you doing?” She was shocked by his violence.

“What did you set this for?” he demanded.

“Three thousand. It’s always at three thousand ...”

Jonathan studied the device and that pushed it in front of Ben’s face. Ben read the gauges. “Holy shit...”

“What’s the matter?” Nicole looked from one man to the other. Ben handed her the activation device.

Nicole’s hand went up to her cheek. “Oh, my God.” Her eyes came up to meet Jonathan’s. “How could it have happened?”

“One thousand feet,” Jonathan snarled. “You know how close that puts you to dying? A second. Two at the most. Only experts cut their margins that thin.”

“No, I didn’t set it at a thousand. Do you think I’m crazy? It’s always at three thousand.”

“Did you set it this morning, or were you too busy throwing up?”

She hesitated. There was a flicker of doubt in her eyes.

“You didn’t check it,” Jonathan concluded. “You figured it was always set for three thousand feet so why bother to reset it and recheck it.”

“I. . . I never change it. Just the base altitude depending on where I’m jumping. But the safety margin is always the same: three thousand. I swear. I’d never set it for one thousand. Do you think I’m insane?”

“No,” Jonathan said as he stormed away from her and began gathering up his chute. “Not insane. Stupid, maybe. And careless, without a doubt. But not insane.”

She followed after him, waving the AAD in his face. “I don’t know how it got this way. Someone must have changed it.”

He wheeled on her. “Or it changed itself while it was bouncing around with all the other gear in the back of your car. But either way, you would have caught it if you just bothered to check.”

She started to protest but she had no voice. He was certainly right. She should have checked. You should always check. “I’m sorry,” was the best she could do.

Jonathan rolled the chute under his arm, his anger stiffening every movement and gesture. “What I’m sorry for are the people who’ll be with you on your next jump. I wonder how many of them will get themselves killed.”

The van from the jump center turned from behind the trees at the
end of the field. The school owner, a former paratrooper who identified himself as Willis, got out and walked around the front. The SEALs emerged from the sliding side door. Willis walked toward his errant jumpers. Jonathan led the humiliated procession across the field toward the van.

“You’re being a bit of prick,” Ben whispered to Jonathan.

“She’s an idiot,” Jonathan snarled. “She could have gotten us all killed.”

“It was a mistake. She said she was sorry.”

“Well then I guess all is forgiven. So why don’t you go back up and jump with her?”

“What in hell happened to you guys?” Willis demanded as he drew close to them.

Jonathan answered. “We had equipment trouble. One of the chutes was screwed up.” Ben smiled. Jonathan had conceded his point that the girl didn’t deserve to be skewered over one mistake no matter how serious it was. He was covering for her.

“It was my fault,” Nicole confessed.

“It was equipment,” Jonathan contradicted, and he led his group right past Willis.

The SEALs were all leaning back with their arms folded. “Nice flight,” one of them snickered.

“You two were really getting it on up there,” another added.

“Equipment problem,” Jonathan lied for the third time.

“What happened?” a Navy man leered. “Your fly get stuck?”

“He saved my life, jocko,” Nicole snapped. “While you Boy Scouts were working on your merit badges, these guys were bringing me down.”

She pushed past them, tossing her unfolded gear into the back of the van.

“Hey, I’d like to bring you down,” one of the three offered. The others laughed in agreement.

Nicole wheeled around and found Willis. “You know what? If these three apes are riding, I’d rather walk.” She stormed away from the car and began marching down the road.

“They came out here in case you needed help,” Willis called after her.

Nicole never looked back. Her answer was a middle finger raised into the air.

“So what happened?” a Navy man asked Ben as they were getting into the van.

“Her AAD failed. Set for three thousand and the damn thing never went off.”

The SEALs looked shocked. “You’re kiddin’.” one said.

“Those damn things never fail,” another added.

“Just don’t bet your life on it,” Ben answered. Jonathan sat silently, his eyes locked closed.

They passed Nicole on the road and persuaded her to climb in. She took the place up front next to Willis, who kept stealing glances toward her. The group rode home quietly.

At the center, which was little more than a corrugated steel warehouse with a storefront, they all climbed down. Nicole went directly to the back of the van, hauled out her chute, and dragged it to her Volkswagen hatchback. She spread it out like an unmade bed, and then rolled it into the back.

One of the SEALs lifted a cooler from the back of an SUV and began tossing iced beer cans to his friends. “Join us,” he said to Jonathan and Ben and handed each of them a beer.

Another SEAL walked after Nicole. “Have a beer with us, babe. I’d like to hear about your jump.” His tone was polite, even professional. Sharing tales was part of the sport and by jumping out of the plane she had paid her membership dues.

She looked uncertainly at the gathering and spotted Jonathan’s scowling face. “Thanks, but I’ve got to get back,” she said. She tossed her helmet in the trunk.

Then she unzipped the jump jacket and pulled it off over her head.

Wow! Jonathan thought. Nicole was no fashion photographer’s emaciated imitation of a woman. She was the real thing—a firm breast line, slim waist, and hips that actually flared out into graceful curves. Her skintight jump pants revealed an ample butt and muscles down the backs of her legs.

The SEAL made no secret of admiring her figure. “You’re sure you can’t stay just for one?”

“I never stay just for one,” she answered. She slammed the trunk closed and slid in behind the wheel. Their eyes never left her as she shifted into gear and accelerated away.

THREE

F
OR THE
first few days after their meeting, Jonathan held fast to his just anger with Nicole. Her carelessness had nearly killed him, and he had been completely within his rights to tell her so. Skydiving was an inherently dangerous sport, and if she couldn’t handle a dressing-down then maybe she should get into something more timid. But by the end of the week he had become more forgiving. Sure, she had made a dumb mistake in not checking her equipment. True, she had compounded it by not watching her jump partners. But she was just a beginner, and very good for a beginner. She had realized the gravity of her error and had apologized profusely.

“I wonder if that airhead girl will be here today,” Jonathan asked absently as he and Ben headed back to the jump center for their weekly flight.

“What girl?” Ben asked from the passenger seat of the Mercedes convertible. His attitude was all innocence; he knew which girl. Jonathan had mentioned her several times, at first fuming over his near-death experience, and then explaining his change of heart.

“Nicole, or whatever her name is. The one we had to rescue last week.”

“You’re going to jump with her?” There was a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “But I thought you said—”

“Yeah, and I don’t regret what I told her. But what the hell? She’s a novice and probably deserves another chance.” He kept his eyes fixed to the road, knowing that he would blush with embarrassment if he glanced at his friend. “I mean, it takes balls for a woman to cut it in a macho sport.”

“Oh, she’s got balls, all right. I really loved the way she gave those Navy guys the finger.” They both laughed at the memory of Nicole, boiling mad, putting the Navy SEALs in their places.

They turned off the interstate but Jonathan didn’t cut back on the speed. He enjoyed testing the car against the narrow roads that
wound through New Jersey horse country, and racing along the miles of white paddock fencing that bordered the lush green fields. It was the thrill of speed in his overpowered sports car that had made him search for the new and more pleasant highs in jumping. He found nearly erotic excitement in the few minutes of free fall and then a narcotic euphoria in the glide down to earth after the parachute had deployed.

“You’ve been talking about her a lot,” Ben said, restarting the conversation they had let lapse.

Jonathan shrugged. “I guess it’s not easy to forget a near-death experience.”

“Or a woman who nearly suffocated you with kisses when she found out you were alive.”

“I think she was just relieved she hadn’t killed me.”

Ben snickered. “Why don’t you ask her when you see her? To me, it looked like she was after your body.”

But when they reached the jump center Nicole wasn’t there. Jonathan asked if she was coming when they were making up their jumping order.

“Called in this morning and canceled,” Willis answered nonchalantly. “Asked me who was going to be flying. I went through the list, six people in all, and she said it sounded too crowded.”

“So, when is she coming?”

“I don’t know,” Willis answered. “And I don’t really care. Wasn’t she the one who got tangled with you guys?”

They made their jump from eight thousand feet, joined hands with three of the others to form a star, separated and released their chutes at thirty-five hundred and steered themselves to perfect landings.

“Glad she didn’t make it,” Ben announced as they were packing up. “She could have spoiled a beautiful day.”

Jonathan nodded, but he begged the girl’s address and phone number from Willis. “Just to get a few things off my chest,” he explained.

He phoned twice and when she didn’t answer he hung up without leaving a message. “You don’t apologize to a machine,” he said, explaining his perseverance to Ben. But on Friday morning, just before he left for a weekend dive in the Florida Keys, he did just that. He called, hoping to catch her before she left for work, and when her answering machine clicked on, he left his invitation.

“Hi! This is Jonathan Donner, your jump partner from a few weeks back. I’m calling to apologize for being so tough on you. I’m not always that uptight, and I guess I was a bit of an ass. Put it down to the excitement of the near-death experience. I wasn’t quite my lovable self. At any rate, I’d like to see you to tell you I’m sorry. Maybe we could have dinner or something. I’ll be away for the weekend, so I won’t get back to you until Monday. If you want to leave me a message, my number is . . .”

He left both his office and home numbers, said he hoped that they would talk soon, and drove up to Westchester County Airport where his company’s charter jet was hangered.

The weekend of scuba diving was breathtaking and the company was exciting. The diving conditions were perfect with sunlight sparkling on the Florida reef and illuminating a wreck that was forty-feet down. He played in and out of iron hatches, chasing a school of snappers that had settled into the pilothouse, and coming face-to-face with a moray eel that lived in the boiler. The captain’s assistant turned out to be a marine biology major from Miami who returned with him to his hotel in Marathon and made love as if it were an endurance sport. But even so, Jonathan found himself remembering flashes from his skydiving experience with Nicole, and looking forward to Monday when he hoped to talk with her. He realized that she had been on his mind off and on since he had told her what a careless lightweight she was.

He was disappointed when he got to his apartment on Sunday night and found that she hadn’t returned his call. Logic told him that she, too, would have returned that evening even if she were away for the weekend. She must have gotten his message, so it was obvious that she wasn’t all that anxious to talk to him. In the morning, he passed up the opportunity to call her, fearing she might put him in his place for his rude behavior. He reached his office at Sound Holdings early, hoping she might have called his office number, but again he was disappointed. When his telephone rang promptly at nine, he answered in his business voice.

“Jonathan Donner?” It was her.

“Yes . . . yes it is.”

“The
Jonathan Donner?”

“Well, maybe. There are two of us.”

“The principal partner at Sound Holdings?”

“That’s the other one. I’m just an ordinary partner.”

“But I think you’re the one I’m looking for. This is Nicole, the one who nearly killed you and several other skydivers out in New Jersey.”

“The
Nicole. The one who gave the finger to the Navy frogmen?”

“I’m afraid so. And I can’t tell you how happy I am that you called. Really, I wanted to call you . . . to apologize for being such an idiot. I remembered your name was Jonathan Donner, and of course I know about Sound Holdings. But I didn’t make the connection until I got your call. Your business number was already in my computer.”