UPON THE STORM

  * * *

  Contents:

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

  * * *

  * * *

  One

  ^ »

  He plants his footsteps in the sea,

  And rides upon the storm.

  —William Cowper

  He'd had the dream again, so he wasn't surprised when he awoke to rain. The accompanying wind made the windows rattle. A ferocious wind, howling eerily in the darkness, like it had then. It was always the same, always the terror, the fear, the water, and the howling wind and rain. And then the sweetness, the unbearable, unbelievable sweetness…

  He sat up, shaking his head sharply. You're not going through this again, Dalton, he told himself determinedly, and tossed back the covers. Ignoring the aching tightness of a body not as quick as his mind to abandon the lingering, all too familiar dream, he swung his feet to the floor.

  He wondered what had happened to all that determination when he came out of his reverie to find himself standing in front of the bathroom mirror as it began to steam over. As usual, it had begun when his eyes, as they always did, strayed to the faint, white line of the scar that had marked his temple for the past three years.

  With a sigh of disgust, he turned away from his rapidly fogging reflection. All the people who figure I spend a lot of time looking in a mirror would never believe what happens when I do, he thought dryly as he yanked open the shower door. He paused when he heard the pounding on the outside door and a familiar voice hollering through the wood panel.

  "Trace! They're almost ready for you." Right on time, as usual, he muttered silently, then leaned back to shout through the half-open bathroom door. "I'm up, Roger. Give it a rest."

  He showered and dressed, then sat on the edge of the bed to tug on his shoes. As he straightened up, his gaze slid to the shelf of books on the wall opposite him, unerringly going to the tall volume at the far end. He could just make out the lettering on the spine, not that he needed to. He knew every inch, every page, of that book far better than he wanted to.

  It was incredible. The photographs in it did with flair and drama what few had, conveying, in the flatness of two dimensions, the incredible power and unstoppable force of a hurricane. It would have sent a chill down his spine even if those amazing photos had been as close as he'd ever been to nature gone berserk.

  The pages had brought it all back, the fear, the awe, the certainty of impending doom. That he'd gotten himself into that mess by virtue of his own unbelievable stupidity only made it worse. He should have been dead, he'd thought again as he looked at the pictures that caught the overwhelming, ferocious strength of wind and water. He would have been dead, if it hadn't been for—

  And that had been the exact moment when the realization had struck. He'd been staring at a two-page spread, a shot of an unexpected doorway amid the sand, a doorway to a small cavelike hut dug back into the low, sandy bluff until it seemed part of the landscape rather than an independent, man-made structure. And the message had finally gotten through to the brain that had been busy reliving those hours of horror. "My God."

  He had closed the book with a slap, staring down at the cover. Christy Reno. There it was, in tiny print, almost overwhelmed by the power of the cover photograph. All the time he'd spent looking for her, and here she was, right in front of him. He'd opened the book to those pages again, staring at the tiny place that had once been the center of his world.

  He had turned to the back of the jacket, then the inside flap, but there was no picture, and just the barest amount of information about the photographer. Not nearly enough.

  He hadn't fully believed her. She'd told him, and he hadn't believed her. Nobody could be that reckless, to weather a hurricane of that size in such an exposed place, just for the sake of some photographs. "Just innate insanity," she'd said blithely, never telling him the destination of those photographs. He'd halfway believed her, though; there was no other reason for anyone to be there. Except maybe for an idiot whose own temper and ego had gotten him caught in the middle of it…

  God, he had never expected her to disappear like that. He had tried to find her after the furor had died down, but she had vanished. No one seemed to know where she had gone. For the first time in his life he'd been furious at the celebrity he'd worked to achieve; if it hadn't been for the media crush at the Coast Guard Station, he never would have lost sight of her.

  She had vanished so completely, and his dreams of that time were so real, so vivid, that he'd begun to wonder if he had dreamed her, as well, conjured her up out of the mists of his battered brain. What had happened had been crazy enough, unlikely enough … he wasn't sure it could be real anyway.

  Then, after nearly a year, Roger had handed him the book. Hope had surged in him, until he called the publisher, who referred him to her editor, who regretfully but firmly said Ms. Reno refused to release any personal information. When he had pressed, for the first time since coming back using the weight his famous name carried, he'd gotten an answer that had felt like a kick in the stomach.

  "I'm so sorry, Mr. Dalton, but I'm afraid that you are … specifically mentioned in her instructions. Should you happen to inquire, we are to tell you nothing."

  He'd run the gamut of emotions from disbelief to shock to hurt to anger, finally settling into a wrenching sadness that had lasted a long, long time. His life had been turned upside down, his emotions battered, his very soul somehow changed, and the reason, the catalyst, the wise, gallant spirit that had brought it about, had vanished like mist under the morning sun. That she had done it intentionally made it all the more painful to his newly awakened and battered heart.

  He had wondered if, in some way, on some unseen balance sheet somewhere, this was the payback for the time when, drunk on the success he'd achieved, he had fallen into the pit of the users and the used, never caring who he hurt, or what anyone thought. He'd gone from party to party, from drink to drink, from bed to bed, and decided jadedly that all three were overrated. It had been a bout of dissipation that gained him a reputation it had taken almost three years of the hardest work of his life to overcome.

  "No wonder she doesn't want anything to do with you."

  He had said it bitterly to his own reflection. And in a final paroxysm of humble self-disgust, he'd told himself that he deserved everything he got. And everything he'd lost. And in the quiet darkness of the most chastening night of his life, he'd made a solemn vow to continue what she'd begun.

  He'd kept that promise, he thought. Any resemblance between him and the cocky bastard who'd left the Air West set in a huff to go belting home to Corpus Christi because the big boys wouldn't play his way had been ground to dust beneath his determined feet. Sometimes it had felt as if he were at the bottom of Mount Everest, equipped with only a shovel and trying to bring it down, but whenever he felt like quitting, the image of a pair of wide gray eyes kept him going. That and the forlorn hope that somehow, some way, wherever she was, she might hear of the change and know…

  "Christy."

  He whispered it as he stared at the spine of the book. He'd never quit trying. He'd even considered hiring a private investigator, but the thought that her anger over that might ruin any slim chance he had held him back.

  "There has to be a way," he muttered suddenly, fiercely. And he would find it. Somehow.

  "Let's go, Trace! They're waiting."

  He sighed as he got to his feet. He slid on his watch, noting as he did that he would have to hurry or he would be late for the call. There had been a time when he wouldn't have cared, but that was long past. He grabbed the familiar jacket that, as always, was handy, then stepped out into the rain.

  Christy knew she had to go, but she hated the idea. Her unease grew as she chang
ed from the puddle-jumper that had brought her from the small coastal town of Eureka to San Francisco to the big airliner that would carry her to L.A. If something happened to her, what would happen to Char? As wonderful as kindly Mrs. Turner was, she didn't want her daughter raised by a stranger. Not like—

  Stop it, she snapped at herself. This was old, worn ground. She wasn't like that other woman. She loved her baby girl with all her heart. God, she would miss her, even for the short time of these meetings.

  "Come on," Jerry Farrell, her agent, had cajoled. "You're getting a vacation in sunny—well, not at the moment but soon—Southern California. Land of sun and surf."

  And Hollywood. The words echoed in her mind now as they had then. She smothered a qualm and continued her inner chastisement. Quit griping. You should be glad.

  Glad? Three years ago she would have been ecstatic to have a small press with the reputation of Dragon Books courting her, instead of the other way around, to have the chance at working on all the ideas that had been floating around in her head since she had taken her first picture.

  "It's time, Christy. And they're anxious to get going again," Jerry had coaxed, and she had felt herself yielding to the temptation of dreams fulfilled.

  She really didn't mind the meetings themselves, the brainstorming sessions that resulted in the mapping out of the basic plan of the book. Meetings that were about to begin again after a lengthy hiatus. Three years ago they had ended abruptly with the chance to complete the work that had lain half-finished for months, after the very subject she had been trying to capture on film had risen to destroy most of that work. So she had left the luxurious offices and gone to Texas instead and changed her life forever…

  Christy loosened her seat belt but left it fastened, a habit ever since there had been more than just herself to think about. Pain wrenched at her again. She'd never been parted from Char since she'd been born, and no matter how many times she told herself that she was coming back, the thoughts of a mother who hadn't returned refused to be quashed. She settled back in the seat and tried to relax. It didn't work.

  With a sigh she sat up and reached into the pocket on the back of the seat in front of her for the ubiquitous airline magazine. She thumbed through it without really seeing it, trying to remember the days when she had looked forward to gallivanting off to some distant part of the globe.

  Her fingers froze in the act of blindly turning a page. God, he was even here. It figured, she supposed. He'd made about every magazine on the racks this month. And his series was about a pilot, so why shouldn't he be in an airline magazine? The show, with its stories about the life of a charter pilot and the people who hired him for all the various reasons people did, had caught the imagination of the country, and added to the already romantic image of pilots.

  Of course, the fact that the star was the most gorgeous, sexiest thing this side of the sun didn't hurt. But she didn't need glamour shots to remind her. Those chiseled, even features, that thick, sun-streaked hair, the leanly muscled body, those incredible eyes, were engraved in her memory with an accuracy and vividness that far surpassed any photograph.

  She felt an echo of that old twinge of pain and resolutely smothered it. It wasn't her fault that she hadn't known, that she'd been in the wilds of Alaska when Air West had first swept the country. She'd watched the show once, afterward, and found it altogether too painful.

  She stared at the picture, at the tall, lean figure in the battered leather jacket with the aviator sunglasses dangling from the chest pocket, flashing that dimpled grin as he leaned on the wing of the lovely, graceful jet. She read the caption, which quoted him as introducing the small craft as the real star of the show. The printed paragraph then went on to make a pointed but good-natured observation that the "old" Trace Dalton would never have shared his star billing with anyone, let alone an airplane.

  She'd heard about how he'd changed; it was practically impossible not to, even when she tried to avoid hearing anything about him at all. It showed even in photographs; there was a new gentleness in the formerly arrogant set of his mouth, a new depth in those breathtaking eyes that, like the sea, changed color as the sky did. She slapped the magazine shut with a sharp movement, stuffing it back into the pocket with a vehemence that startled as well as irritated her.

  She was only aware of how long she must have been staring at the picture when the announcement came over the intercom that they were on final approach to Los Angeles International Airport. Into the lion's den, she thought. It's a good thing the lion doesn't walk among the peons.

  The rain had stopped by morning, and Christy was glad. Her enjoyment of heavy, torrential rains had been dimmed by the memories they conjured up. She tried to think of something else, but the only thing that came to mind was Char. God, she missed her already! That brief phone call last night hadn't been enough. The child's animated chatter had only made it worse.

  Christy wondered yet again how she had managed to produce such a cheerful, serene child. All things considered, she had expected a rather stormy, turbulent temperament. She wondered grimly if Char's mellowness would stand the test when the time came that she began to ask about her father.

  "I had no choice."

  She repeated the words for the millionth time as she sat in a cab on the way to her meeting. She'd had no choice, and she damned well wasn't going to feel guilty about it. If he'd been anybody else, she would have taken the chance. But he wasn't anybody else, and the fact that she hadn't known that at the time only made it more impossible, more unbelievable.

  Forcefully yanking her thoughts off that worn road, Christy savored the freshness in the air as she checked the address on the building in front of her. It was in the Wilshire District, a tall, modern structure of bronzed glass. Definitely high-rent territory, she mused. Then she saw Jerry and knew she was in the right place, although she still didn't know why he'd insisted on meeting here instead of his office. He saw her then, too, and hurried toward her.

  She found herself smiling as she was greeted effusively. A far cry from when she was doing Alaska on forty-nine cents a day, she thought. Amazing what a few book sales will do. More than a few sales, she amended to herself proudly. The first book, the one she had practically had to finance herself, had more than paid her back. The whimsical character study of what she had labeled the "Urban Coyote" had struck a chord in a society whose booming growth put more and more people in direct contact with the clever creature they had seen only on film in old westerns. And those sales had been enough to interest the likes of Dragon Books.

  "You look wonderful," Jerry said enthusiastically, and Christy grinned at him.

  "You said no jeans and tennis shoes."

  She remembered his heartfelt plea on the phone before she'd left. She had laughed but agreed, despite her doubts that it would matter much what she wore. Christy Reno was not a great fan of her own looks and was generally unaware of the effect she had on people. Men and women alike were not immune to the gamine charm she exuded, although their reactions to it were quite different.

  She thought her mouth too wide, her gray eyes too big for her small face, and her baby-fine, near-black hair too flyaway for any but the simplest style. She had long ago given up the desire for long, luxuriant locks and resigned herself to the short, tousled cut that suited her best.

  And as for her shape, diligent exercise kept her trim and taut, but she would never, ever have the flat, boyish figure that was so in vogue these days. Even before Char, there had been no chance that Christy Reno, even at a distance, would be mistaken for anything but female.

  She'd kept her promise to Jerry, and the suit she'd worn was far from jeans and tennis shoes; the pale blue color turned her eyes the color of the dawn sky, the long, clean lines of the fitted jacket made the most of her figure while maintaining a businesslike air, and the skirt was short enough to bare a womanly amount of shapely leg without being blatant. She was glad Jerry approved; she owed him a great deal.

  Jerry Fa
rrell was a thin, wiry man with nearly white-blond hair in a short brush cut that made him look decidedly younger than his forty-four years. He was genial, kind and generous personally, and a coldhearted perfectionist about his work. He combined those qualities into a unique method of drawing that same perfection, sometimes painfully, out of the people he worked with. He would settle for nothing less than your best. Sometimes, Christy thought with wry amusement, the best he coaxed out of people surprised even them.

  And his unwavering support and loyalty in the most trying time of her life, even when she had refused to discuss it with him, was something she would never forget.

  Lost in her reverie, Christy had missed most of what he was saying at his usual, machine-gun pace.

  "Whoa, Jerry! Slow down, will you? I'm not on L.A. double-time yet. And why are we here?"

  "Sorry," he said, not slowing down a bit. "I'm just wound up over this new opportunity. I mean, Hurricane Productions! Appropriate, isn't it, after the last book? They're very good, with a good reputation, especially for a fairly new company. They've had great success with their other documentaries, and they want to do a book tie-in with this one. Come on, we don't want to be late—"

  "Jerry, what documentary?" she asked patiently.

  "I told you," he said, ushering her through the building's outer doors. "They want to do one on you."

  Christy sensed the blood draining from her face and felt an odd tingling in her fingers that told her the shock was racing through her entire body. On me? she thought numbly, barely aware of Jerry guiding her to the elevator.

  No. Her every instinct for survival, every ounce of her hard-won pride, rebelled at the thought. To parade her life, her past, her work, and, God help her, her mistakes before the world? To possibly bring herself to the attention of the one member of that world she had worked so hard to avoid? No.

  "—fascinating that anyone would take the chances you have, the risks, and turn them into such magnificent pieces of work. They feel the public will be equally fascinated."