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She pushed off firmly, collapsing into the solid pressure of the air two and a half thousand feet above mother earth. Without even thinking about it she went straight into the drill, forcing her body into the 'stable' position, stomach down arms and legs spreadeagled, head back against her pack as she shouted out the vital count, 'One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand. Check!'
Even before she had finished counting off the seconds she felt the disorientating jolt that pulled her into a vertical position, indicating that the static line attached to the plane had deployed her parachute. On the word 'check' she looked up to make sure and to her horror she saw that the canopy was billowing out into two asymmetrical lobes rather than a reassuring roundness. She recognised it instantly from their lectures as a 'Mae West'; one of the rigging lines must have caught over the top of the canopy. She looked down towards the other jumpers to judge her speed, and her stomach swooned as she realised that her descent was far more rapid than theirs. She was also starting to rotate in the rigging and knew that it would continue to increase at an alarming rate if she didn't act quickly. Time, it had been hammered into them, is your biggest enemy. Fran, with years of practice at reacting quickly to emergency situations, had performed the equipment and safety drills meticulously in class and now she automatically went into action, cold clarity of thought smothering her momentary sense of panic.
She reached for the handle on the top of the reserve parachute strapped to her stomach and pulled, holding the pack steady with her other hand and keeping her feet pressed tightly together. The handle came away and she let it go, grabbing the emerging reserve with both hands and throwing it violently down and away. It blossomed up past her, immediately slowing her rate of descent, and she rested her forearms on the reserve rigging lines to keep it clear of the main 'chute which was now beginning to collapse completely. A few seconds later she used the canopy releases to jettison the useless main, and
watched it snake ground wards.
She had done it! She had only a brief moment of glorious relief to savour the drifting weightlessness, the beautiful sound of the canopy singing its rushing song of flight, before she was looking for the ground instructor, grasping the steering toggles to obey his hand signals to run and hold according to her position over the target area.
She didn't have time to be scared, even when the ground came streaking up at her—she was too busy. She tucked her arms up, bent her chin on to her chest and rounded her back, holding her knees and feet together to absorb the passive blow from the grassy field, and dissipating the shock of landing with a backward roll to the left.
She was scarcely aware of the congratulations of the instructor as she deflated her canopy and gathered it in, or of the excited chatter of her fellow students. Her hands shook as she removed her goggles. Dimly she heard someone say, 'You did everything right, Francesca, everything right. Here, let's get this off you and you can sit down.' Calm hands unbuckled her harness webbing and pulled off her helmet. 'Are you OK?'
And then there was another voice, abrupt, familiar, aggressively controlled. 'No, she's not OK, she's in shock. I'll look after her, I'm a doctor,' and she was being hustled across the uneven grass, half-dragged, half-carried, past the knot of interested friends and relations and Saturday-morning tourists, through the sagging farm gate to the road where a cluster of cars were parked. She was thrust on to the back seat of the nearest, a long, black limousine which even had a uniformed chauffeur sitting glassily in the front seat, her booted feet scuffing the roadside dust as her head was thrust unceremoniously between her knees. One of the jumpers must have some very rich and very vulgar friends, Fran thought with a semi-hysterical giggle. She stared at the Italian leather shoes, toe-to-toe in the dust with her borrowed boots.
Ross! Her shock began to dissipate as she realised that he must have witnessed her spectacular victory over self. Beth must have spilled the beans after all, but no matter, it saved Fran a trip. She felt drunk with relief. She wanted to share the bubbling exhilaration with Ross. For a few minutes up there she had walked the knife-edge, thrilled to the sharp taste of fear. But this time, unlike that terrifying flight in the Tiger Moth, she had been prepared for it... had conquered the fear with her own force of will. It was like a revelation, illuminating all the shadowy corners of her psyche. Fran knew now that she could conquer the world if she wanted to...!
'Ross—'
'Shut up and breathe!' The hand tightened murderously on her neck and Fran squeaked. His tone of voice was hardly calculated to soothe her shock. Wasn't he going to congratulate her? He had toasted Beth with champagne! Fran hadn't gone to watch her friend's inaugural jump, not only because she wasn't ready to face Ross, whom she knew would be there, but because she thought that it would be a psychologically disastrous move to confront the reality of what all those ground drills meant until the last possible moment. Coward to the last... but a brave one!
'Ross—'
Suddenly the weight lifted from her neck and she was hauled upright, dangling on tiptoe from the jumpsuit fabric balled in his fists. She gulped as she got her first look at his expression. Congratulations were definitely not on his agenda! He looked grey under his tan, the sexy mouth clamped into a thin line, his eyes two chips of blue steel.
'What in the bloody hell were you doing up there?' His snarl took the skin off the top of her ears and she stared at him open-mouthed. The instructor had been pleased. Had Ross's expert eye seen something that he had missed?
'It all happened so fast,' she gasped apologetically,
trying to loosen his grip with unsteady hands. 'Should
I have tried to clear the canopy? I didn't think there was
time to have a go and we were told that if there's any
doubt—'
'Not that!' he roared, shaking her furiously. 'You know damned well what I mean. I mean, what were you doing up there at all! And don't try and feed me that lie you fed Beth about it having nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with me. You never showed any sign of being interested in adventure sports before. Why now? What incredibly cretinous theory about us have you cooked up in that tiny little brain that makes you think you have to prove anything to me? Goddammit, Frankie, have you any idea what I went through when I saw that malfunction? Well?' he rattled her again. 'Have you?'
The adrenalin still rushing frantically around her body was well shaken up by this time. 'No, but I can make a good guess,' she threw at him. 'At least I didn't land in a tree and break every bone in my body.'
'What did you say?' he asked, in a thick and dangerous voice and Fran, still feeling cocky, started to repeat herself with pointed sweetness. She didn't get past the first word. He kissed her with the full force of his anger and, after a moment of recoil from his savagery, Fran kissed him back, with equal force. She was his equal, in every way, and she was through running away from the prospect of loving him.
He broke the kiss as violently as he had begun it, one hand lifting from her shoulder to wipe his mouth. They both stared at the blood which streaked the hard knuckles.
'Is that yours, or mine?' Fran asked shakily and Ross closed his eyes, and shuddered. 'You're not going to faint at the sight of a little blood are you, Doctor?' she murmured as he actually swayed on his feet. He made a raw sound and put his arms around her, not gently, holding her hard against the erratic beat of his heart.
'Don't you ever, ever, do that to me again,' he said with quiet violence.
'Parachute?' Fran asked, her voice muffled in his chest. Now that her initial shock and euphoria had died she was realising that she didn't particularly want to make a habit of this kind of thing.
'Shut me out of a decision like this. I need to know, I need to be part of it. Oh, Frankie, I accused you of being a coward, but I'm the coward here, not you. I dismissed your fears as of no account because I was afraid that I would lose you if I admitted that they had any validity. But they do. God, how could I have been such a hypocrite as to say that I love you and yet be willing to put you through the kind of agony I just went through? I never fully realised before how utterly terrifying it can be to watch someone you love hover literally between life and death and be powerless to help them. I had an inkling of it when you swam out to the boat that day, but I didn't know I was in love with you then. I didn't realise it until you walked out on me, and I faced the fact that it wasn't a matter of choice any more. I couldn't just shrug and let you go, I had to make you love me, even if it took the rest of my life. But you do, don't you, Fran?' His arms tightened briefly. 'That's why you were so afraid and now I understand... But you don't have to be any more. If you want me to give up this sort of thing, I will, with no regrets. I'd far rather have you, just the way you are. You don't have to make any grand gestures to show me how brave you are, I don't care. Just show me your love, that's bravery enough... if you can...'
'I didn't do this for you, Ross,' Fran said, with tender amusement at his anguished humility. 'I did it for me. I wasn't trying to be someone I'm not—just to be a strong me. And I am. I'm...free. I needed to know that I could trust myself before I could trust anyone else. And I do trust you, Ross. I know that you would never deliberately hurt me. So don't you make any grand gestures, either. Even if you never regretted giving up your racketing around the skies, I would.'
He caught his breath and cupped her face, lifting it from the cradle of his chest. The clear, grey serenity of her eyes smote him to the bone. Her love was there, open and unafraid, for him to see.
'Yes, I love you,' she said huskily and watched his skin flush with warmth. 'All of you, not just the pieces that I feel comfortable with. And I couldn't bear it if you thought that you had to be less than you are for my sake.' She smiled at his expression. 'I want you to be more, not less. I love you, Ross.'
