Ride The Tiger

Touching her brow, Dany drew in a ragged breath. “I’m sorry...I’m forgetting my manners. Please, sit down. Ma Ling has made us tea.”

The sofa was as delicate looking as everything else in the home. Gib, always aware of his size, sat down carefully. He noticed that Dany’s hand trembled perceptibly as she filled one cup with tea and handed it to him. Again, he was struck by the shadows under her eyes and their slight puffiness. No doubt she’d been crying more than sleeping the last couple of days.

“Thanks,” he murmured, holding the cup and saucer between his hands. “How are you getting on?”

Dany shrugged and poured herself tea, not really wanting to drink it. “I survive moment to moment,” she admitted huskily as she sat back, her cup and saucer also in her hands, untouched.

Gib nodded. Her fragility was transparent in her every move, in her soft words, edged with pain. He was grateful that she didn’t try to evade him with social small talk. Dany wasn’t the actress in the family. She was too genuine to hide behind some carefully constructed facade as Amy Lou appeared to have done all her life.

He cleared his throat. “I was an eyewitness to your mother’s death, and there are some questions I need answered.” Placing the cup and saucer on the coffee table, Gib opened his folder. The official IO report stared back at him.

Dany moved uncomfortably. “I don’t understand why the American military has to be involved. The local authorities are investigating. Shouldn’t that be enough? Can’t you talk to Constable Jordan in Da Nang? He’s responsible for law enforcement in this region and has already taken my statement.” Dany feared Binh Duc’s reaction to Americans snooping around. He might already know that Gib was here, blatant in his tan, short-sleeved marine uniform.

“I’ll talk to him, too,” Gib said, writing down the name. “I have to try to determine whether the land mine was buried by VC to destroy marine convoys that travel up and down the highway, or if someone had a vendetta against your mother.”

Dany’s eyebrows dipped. “I’m sure it was a land mine put there to try to kill the American marines.” She set the cup and saucer down a little too loudly on the coffee table and got up, unable to sit still a moment longer. Her gut screamed at her that Binh Duc had been responsible for her mother’s death because of Amy Lou’s flirtation with the American general. Whether Dany would ever be able to prove it was another thing. More importantly, Dany knew she didn’t dare divulge Duc’s name to either the Vietnamese authorities or the American military. To do so would invite reprisals from Duc’s powerful force—a group that melted into the population by day and gathered after dark to wreak havoc. She didn’t want the plantation destroyed, or any more lives taken.

Gib clung to his patience. Dany was suddenly nervous. Was she afraid he’d uncover VC connections? “Has anyone threatened your mother lately?” he asked quietly.

Dany looked over her shoulder. “Of course not!”

Gib motioned to the walls of pictures. “She looks to be a famous celebrity. A Hollywood actress?”

With a grimace, Dany folded her arms against her body as she stood in the center of the room. Her voice was low and off-key. “Didn’t you know pictures lie? That’s what Hollywood really is: carefully orchestrated lies designed to make the public think some beautiful fairy-tale land exists out there, and all the people who belong to it are somehow magical and better off than the rest of us.” She halted abruptly. This marine didn’t care about her. All he wanted was information that would ultimately destroy Villard neutrality.

Her pain was very real. Gib frowned. “Tell me about your mother. Was she a famous actress in Hollywood’s heyday?”

Dany’s mouth quirked. “Let’s stick to business, shall we, Major? No one had threatened my mother.”

He wasn’t going to be deterred. “I need some background information. Tell me about the Villard plantation.”

Feeling trapped, Dany stood very stiffly. As much as she wanted to dislike Gib Ramsey, the opposite was occurring. His eyes, although hard, held something else in their depths. Every time she connected with and held his probing gaze, she felt an incredible surge of warmth and protection surrounding her. It was ridiculous! Dany shrugged it off, attributing it to her grief-stricken state. Her heart pounding, she licked her lower lip. “We’re a rubber plantation, Major. A thousand acres of rubber trees. That’s what we do for a living—produce rubber and export it. We’ve been here since 1930.”

“How did your family get through the Vietminh years?” Gib asked.

Dany frowned. “Just as we’re doing right now—by remaining neutral. My father refused to take sides in the Vietminh situation when Vietnam was a French colony.”

“Did that create enemies?”

Exasperated, Dany shrugged. “I don’t know!” She wheeled around and started to pace the long, rectangular room. “I wasn’t even born then. And my parents never spoke about it to me.”

Gib dutifully recorded the information for his report. It hurt him to see her like this, especially knowing he was the reason she was becoming unraveled. He tried to take the gruffness out of his tone. “Who handles the operation of the plantation?”

“I do,” Dany said flatly. She turned and walked back to him. “I’ve run this place since my father died.”

“Didn’t your mother help?” Gib found it phenomenal that Dany could handle the reins of such a large operation. His ranch back in Texas was as big, and he knew the problems involved in managing such a concern.

“My mother—” Dany stopped, then sighed. “My mother lived to be a part of the social scene, Major. I stayed here and ran the plantation.” Her voice dropped and grew hoarse. “The land is what I love. This land and its people. Out back of this house is a Vietnamese village. Three generations of families have helped us till this soil and keep the plantation whole and alive.”

Moved by her admission, Gib tore his gaze from her. As a rancher, he understood love of the land only too well. There was something honorable about Dany that struck him hard. He forced himself back to the report.

“What is your affiliation with the Vietcong?” He didn’t look up, fearing the answer.

Dany made an exasperated sound. “Affiliation? Major, I’m neutral! I don’t deal with them at all! I have the local leader’s word that he will not cross or use my plantation in any warlike activity or purpose.”

“Would that be Binh Duc?”

Inwardly, Dany winced. “Yes.”

Gib looked up measuring the expression in her eyes and the tone of her voice. “You know him?”

“Of course I do!” Frustrated, Dany cried, “I’ve lived here all my life, Major! Just because I know Binh Duc doesn’t mean I consort with him! Is that what you’re implying? That I’m a VC sympathizer?”

Grimly, Gib held her angry, hurt gaze. “You tell me. Are you?”

“No!”

“Then who do you think planted that mine?”

Rubbing her forehead, tears jamming into her eyes, Dany whispered, “I don’t know!”

Gib had no defense against her. His heart jagged with the pain he was causing her by asking such brutal questions. The tears in her eyes made him feel like hell. “On the other hand,” he began hoarsely, “if the VC felt you weren’t being neutral in some way, they could have planted it.”

Dany stood very still, fighting an overwhelming—and ridiculous—need to be held by Gib Ramsey. She couldn’t forget the feel of his arms around her after the explosion, or the husky tone of his voice as he’d tried to soothe her panic and grief. Stiffening her spine, she rattled, “That’s entirely possible, I suppose, but we’ve done nothing to make the VC think we’re anything but neutral.” She agonized over the possibility. Binh Duc was fully capable of doing such a thing.

Grimly, he said, “It’s known that your mother and a certain marine general were pretty serious about each other.”

Dany’s heart thudded once, hard, in her breast. She felt the iciness of fear stab through her gut. “What?” she whispered.

Gib saw the disbelief and shock in her eyes. Was Dany putting on an act, or was this real? His heart told him she was genuinely stunned by his statement. “I’m privy to certain information that confirms your mother was very serious about this general. What do you know about it?”

“N-nothing.” Dany stood there, feeling suddenly dizzy with dread. Had Duc found this out? Was that the reason for the mine? She touched her brow and stared down at the teak floor. “My mother’s life was private. She always shared silly gossip with me when she came back from luncheons and charity benefits, but I never knew...really knew about her...” She grasped for the right words. Amy Lou had always been a tease to men and, like a butterfly, had never stayed with one man very long since Dany’s father’s death. Why hadn’t her mother told her how serious she was about this general? Tears drove into Dany’s eyes, and she forced herself to look at Gib.

“How much do you know about her relationship with the general?” she demanded in a choked voice.

“That he was going to ask her to marry him the day she died in that mine explosion.”

“Oh, God....” Dany wavered, then caught herself.

“Didn’t you know?”

Covering her eyes with her hand, Dany dragged in a deep breath. It all made sense now. Amy Lou had known the general for six months, gone out with him with a regularity that hadn’t marked her other relationships. Why hadn’t Dany realized it? Lamely, she admitted, “I didn’t know. She never told me.”

“But if Binh Duc had known, wouldn’t he have had reason to plant a mine, feeling you were no longer neutral?”

“I—I don’t know.” And she didn’t. Trying to stop the tears that threatened to fall, Dany squeezed her eyes shut and took a huge, ragged breath. “All I want to do now, Major, is live here in peace. I don’t like the VC, their methods or their political philosophy. Nor do I agree with the South Vietnamese bringing marines from America here.” Stormily, Dany held his gaze. “I want nothing to do with anyone. Is that clear? I don’t condone any political position. My home—our land—is what’s important. That, and the people of my village. I care about human beings and I care about surviving this damned war. It’s like a cancer touching all of us!”

Her cry seared Gib. Before he realized what he was doing, he’d set aside the report papers and risen to his feet. Dany stood so alone and forlorn. He ached to put his arms around her and protect her in a purely human response to her need. Something cautioned him not to, though, and he halted a foot away from her.

“In some ways, we have a lot in common. In others, we don’t,” he said in an effort to somehow assuage all the pain he’d brought to bear on her this morning.

Dany was wildly aware of Gib’s proximity. The urge to fall into his arms increased tenfold until it was an almost tangible, driving thing. She stepped away from him, afraid of the unexpected emotions he seemed to trigger in her. “How do you mean?” she whispered, her mouth suddenly dry.

Gib smiled gently. Dany’s face was dotted with a sheen of perspiration. The noontime heat was turning the drawing room into a steam room in his estimation. But there was a different kind of heat rising in him—a slow building fire he needed to fight.

“You gotta understand Texans,” Gib said gruffly, scrambling to find some neutral ground between them. He couldn’t go on torturing Dany with his questions. Her grief was too fresh, and the jolting realization that her mother had been ready to become engaged obviously had been too much for her to cope with. In an effort to soothe her, he began to talk about himself—the private side—something he’d done very little of since coming to Vietnam. “Texans are a unique breed in the United States, and we’re real family oriented. My daddy died in a freak pickup accident when I was ten, so Mama raised the four of us by herself, plus ran the Ramsey ranch. We shared a love of the land. I was raised on hard, dry Texas earth. Midland’s part of the oil-boom country of Texas, but my daddy always raised herefords. His death ended up bringing us even closer together—a tight-knit team bound and determined to make ends meet.”

Gib’s voice was like a balm to Dany’s shredded emotions. There was so much to this complex man. Dany tried to tell herself she was interested because he was American, and she wanted to know about American things because the blood ran in her veins. “So you grew up poor?”

“Dirt poor,” Gib said. He motioned to her bare feet. “And just like you, the four of us ran around in ragged coveralls and bare feet most of the time. The only time we saw a pair of shoes was when we had to go to school, and then we wore them grudgingly. The baby of our family, Tess, hated shoes. She used to get punished at school for taking them off in class and walking around barefoot in the halls.” Gib smiled at the thought of his stubborn baby sister—now an equally stubborn young woman who was also living in Vietnam, determined to help the peasants through her civilian-relief job.

Dany smiled hesitantly at the light of happiness shining in his hazel eyes as he reminisced. She could hear it, too, in his low, deep voice. “Your mother is a very special woman, then,” she said. “A strong woman loyal to the land and to the four of you.” Dany wished her own mother had simply loved her, wanted her. She didn’t mind that Amy Lou wasn’t really strong in many ways.

“Yes,” Gib agreed, “she was very special—to all of us.”

Dany tilted her head. “Was? Is she dead?”

Gib’s mouth quirked, and he glanced down at her. He saw in her eyes the sudden compassion for him, for his loss. It triggered a deluge of old, poignant memories. “You get me going here, and I’ll rag your ear off with stories about my life and my family. I don’t think you want to hear that,” he jested weakly.

“No...I’d like to hear about your mother, your family—that is, if you don’t mind sharing it with me?”

A sudden lump formed in Gib’s throat. He cleared it once. His mother had died unexpectedly, too, in his arms, of a heart attack two days after he’d returned home from getting his wings. To this day, the memory brought up unparalleled grief. Gruffly, he muttered, “I’m concerned how you’re going to take your mama’s death.”

“With a lot of guilt and remorse,” Dany admitted rawly. “I always loved her, but she—” Dany couldn’t say it. It took every shred of strength left in her to not say more. How badly she wanted to let down her guard and talk to Gib, to tell him the awful truth that haunted her.

How terribly alone Dany really was, Gib realized. He ached to share the warmth of real family with her. But under the circumstances, as IO in this matter, it was impossible. He knew he’d better bring things back to a more professional level. “Well,” Gib said hoarsely, “I think I’ve got enough information from you today to start the investigation.”

“Will you have to come back?”

The terror in her voice was real. Gib stared down at her. “I don’t like this any better than you do, but I’ve got a general waiting for this report. I’ll talk to the constable tomorrow.”

Wearily, Dany backed away from him.

Gib felt like a heel. He could see the grief and despair in her ravaged eyes. “You know, you might think of selling the plantation and leaving the country. This place is too much for one young woman to run by herself.”

Dany managed a strained smile at his gentle tone. Sweet God in heaven, but she was fractions of a moment from stepping into the cradle of his arms again. “I’d never sell this place, Major. It’s been my whole life for the last six years.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I was finishing up my degree in economics from the Sorbonne in Paris when my father became very ill with liver cancer. I graduated days before his death.”

Hungry to know more about Dany, Gib couldn’t help himself. “Did you know he was dying?”

Dany shook her head. “Father had ordered my mother not to tell me. He felt it was more important that I study, get good grades and receive a diploma. He thought if I knew, I’d want to come home and not continue to study in Paris full-time.” She looked away, fighting tears. “He was right.”

Inwardly, Gib seethed with anger. How callous and unfeeling her parents seemed to have been toward Dany’s obvious needs. “So you arrived home to find him dying?” he growled, unable to disguise all his anger.

“When my father said they couldn’t come to Paris for my graduation, I knew something was very wrong. My parents had always pushed me to get a degree. Neither of them had one, and they wanted me to better myself.” Dany walked slowly to the sofa and sat down. “He told me over the phone how proud he was of me that I had graduated with honors, but that he couldn’t make the trip. When I asked why, he just told me I’d know more when I came home.”

“Good God,” Gib breathed savagely, but stopped himself from saying more.

Dany saw the accusation in his eyes. “They loved me the best they knew how, Major.”

“It sure as hell wasn’t enough,” he rasped. “Not nearly enough.”

Again, Dany felt the overwhelming protectiveness emanating from him. It was such an incredibly different feeling, one she’d never encountered before. It acted as a stabilizer to her raw, spinning state. “Perhaps not,” Dany ventured softly. “When I got home, I found out the truth. I spent the last five days with my father—at least I had that time with him. We really talked for the first time in our lives about a lot of things...important things. It was from him that I really began to understand about my parents and what they meant to each other. I stopped being angry at them after that, because I knew they both loved me in their own way, and gave me what they had to give me.”

It wasn’t much, Gib wanted to tell her, swallowing his anger. “How did your mother react to your father’s death?”

“Terribly. She went to pieces after he died. For a year, she stayed in bed. The doctor said she had suffered a severe nervous breakdown, and he prescribed a lot of tranquilizers. After she got over the grief of my father’s passing, I spent another year getting her off the drugs—she’d become addicted to them. Gradually, Maman came out of it and began to live again. I picked up the reins of managing the plantation, and really, it was easy for me, because I understood what had to be done. Our workers are my extended family. I spent more time with them than with my parents when I was growing up. So when my father died and I assumed control, they remained loyal.”

“And you’ve been running this huge place by yourself ever since.” Gib was amazed in one sense, but he had his own mother’s example to look to, running their large Texas ranch and providing the bare essentials of life for five people. The set of Dany’s chin and the flash of pride in her eyes told him she was made out of the same bolt of cloth his mother had been.

“It has been hard,” Dany assured him with a small smile. “But also it’s been my salvation—my friend, if you will. I could bury myself in farm work and the accounting books or the mountains of export papers when things got tough with my mother. The Vietnamese people who work and live on our land are wonderful. They love this plantation and the soil as much as I do. The children I grew up with are now working with me. Most of their parents are old, but I refuse to kick them off the land. I ask the elders to contribute what they can, and in a way that gives them respect and importance. We operate more like a village hamlet than an agricultural business.”

Gib shook his head. “This place seems too big for one person to handle effectively.”

Dany shrugged. “I don’t have anything else to do. I’m used to working twelve to sixteen hours a day, Major.”

Gib knew it was past time for him to leave. Crossing to the sofa, he picked up the report. “I’ll be back later,” he promised. “Next time, I’ll call ahead.”

Dany nodded, chewing her lower lip with worry. “Couldn’t you just call me? We could talk over the phone.”

Gib shook his head. “No. I don’t like this any more than you do, but it’s got to be done.”

Dany felt suddenly crushed—and angry—at his insensitivity to her plight.

Settling the garrison cap on his head, Gib looked over at her. Anger was in her eyes, but so was something else. Something that triggered his protective mechanism. “I’ll be in touch,” he promised huskily.

CHAPTER THREE

“Colonel Parsons wants to see you right away,” Sergeant Jeffrey said from his desk.

Frowning, Gib dropped the pencil onto his own desk. Damn. What now? “Thanks, Jeffrey.” Locating his utility cap in a lower drawer, Gib got to his feet and walked across the hollow-sounding plywood floor of the tent toward the door. He knew what the colonel wanted—an update on the Villard investigation.

As Gib left the hot, steamy confines of the tent and stepped out into the morning sunlight, the temperature and humidity, both well into the nineties, hit him squarely. He settled the dark green utility cap on his head, the bill almost brushing the bridge of his nose to shade his eyes from the blinding sun.

Marble Mountain was a small base in comparison to Da Nang, which lay to the north of them. It had been erected on virgin white sands at the edge of the turquoise-and-emerald ocean. For as far as the eye could see hard-backed tents and other structures more solidly built out of wood dotted the hilly landscape. In addition, a series of bunkers sat nearby to protect against enemy attack. The place reminded Gib of a hive of busy bees, except that the men were clothed in dark green jungle utilities. In the last month the marines had moved over eight thousand men into Da Nang. Was it the start of a larger American build-up? Gib wondered. On his last tour, he’d worked exclusively with ARVN soldiers, and there had been very few GIs in Vietnam, except in advisory capacities such as his own. Things were changing now, and it bothered him deeply. Part of the reason he’d volunteered for a second tour was because of his strong and personal ties with the Vietnamese ARVN soldiers. Now it was looking more and more like a U.S.-staged event. Stateside, they still called it a “conflict,” but every day Gib felt it looked more and more like war.

Movement at Marble Mountain was constant: helicopters buzzed overhead; men and jeeps hurried from one place to another. Today, Gib felt the strains and pressures of the ceaseless activity more than usual.

Steeling himself for Colonel Parson’s questioning, Gib slipped into the tent marked with a red sign trimmed in yellow. Marine Air Group—(MAG)—Headquarters, it proclaimed.

Parsons looked up as Gib entered. Gib stood at customary attention until he was ordered to be at ease and sit down. “I’ve got the general breathing down my neck,” the colonel began without preamble. “What have you found out about the Villard case?”

“Not much, sir,” Gib admitted. “I talked to Constable Jordan in Da Nang a week ago, and he feels Binh Duc is probably responsible for the placement of the mine that killed Mrs. Villard.”

Parsons’s lean hand tightened around the pen he was holding. “Any proof?”

“No, sir. Short of finding Duc and making him admit it, I doubt we’re going to get anything substantial.”

“Have you questioned Miss Villard’s peasants?”

Gib felt his CO’s probing eyes go through him. With the unexpected number of helo flights the last week, he hadn’t been able to schedule time to see Dany again. “Not yet, but that’s next on my list.”

“When?”

“Today, sir,” Gib lied. He knew he was dragging his feet on this investigation because of Dany’s effect on him. Parsons wasn’t going to allow any more stalling on his part. He might as well get it over with.

Parsons grunted his satisfaction. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that I’m appointing you official liaison officer to Miss Villard. It’s been so damned busy around here that I keep forgetting to tell you.”

“Liaison officer? What for?”

The colonel shrugged noncommittally. “Don’t know yet. That’s the word that came up from Saigon a couple days ago. The boys at headquarters don’t think we need to know what’s going on—as usual.”