Chapter 2
Erin had grown up here, too, and after she’d left him she’d come straight back.
Not to the old neighborhood, it was too expensive now, but close enough.
Back to build the life she’d wanted, a life without the man she’d married, the marriage he’d thought would last forever.
After all, he’d loved her since he’d been old enough to understand what the word meant.
As little kids they’d done mischief and punishments together.
They’d made big plans and carried out little ones.
They had grown into the proverbial girl/boy-next-door romance, except it was across the street.
As adults, they’d finally cemented it all.
The entire neighborhood had turned out for their wedding.
He’d signed the divorce papers alone.
He’d had no choice. Because he loved her. He would always love her. And so he wanted her to be happy. Which to her meant she couldn’t be married to him anymore.
He leaned back in the comfortable seat, thinking he’d be sore and aching now if he’d gotten his usual ride on one of the big transports that would have him sitting on a hard bench with a sling around his shoulders for a seat belt.
His body didn’t tolerate such things so well anymore.
But so far things had gone surprisingly smoothly.
He’d wrangled leave, managed to get his duties covered.
And then he’d been able to hitch a ride on the usually VIP jet that was on its way to pick up some big shot—he hadn’t even wanted to know who—giving a speech in LA.
It was stopping here at Camp Pendleton to refuel, which was the only reason he’d taken it, since he had no desire at all to set foot in what had at one time been a dream destination.
He’d been surprised when Rafe had texted that he’d pick him up here, at Pendleton.
He’d expected to have to make his way to the address the former Marine had given him to meet up on his own.
But he shouldn’t have been surprised, he realized now.
No Marine base anywhere was going to turn down a request from the most famous Marine sniper since Carlos Hathcock himself, except maybe for Chuck Mawhinney.
But the biggest surprise came when he spotted Rafe Crawford on the tarmac with a dog at his heels.
A dog who, although with more fur, reminded him of the military K-9s who were often passengers on his own flights.
Or at least, they had been, when he’d been really on active duty, doing something more than just training his replacements.
But that was then, and right now it seemed the Corps had decided it was time to slowly ease him out, given his reup enlistment was down to its last six months.
At least they’re not kicking you out the door like Erin did.
He shook his head at himself, then waved a final thank-you to the pilot as he passed the cockpit headed for the stairs that were already lowering.
He’d long ago accepted Erin’s leaving, and didn’t blame her for why. In an ironic sort of way, it just showed how much she had loved him. She’d even said as much, that she loved him too much to see him go through such pain again. It was an irony that bit deep, but still…
He looked at Rafe, remembering when, still on crutches from his own injury, the man had trekked all the way to see him after he’d finally ended up in a military hospital stateside after his crash.
And he’d visited often after that. Blaine had still been hooked up to every medical machine imaginable, and from photos he’d seen it had been pretty bad, but the man kept coming.
At least he was doing well now. When Blaine had gone to see him in the field hospital after he’d pulled him off that battlefield, Rafe hadn’t looked so great.
He had barely managed to slow the bleeding from the gaping wound on Rafe’s left leg long enough to get him out of there.
He’d always been amazed they’d managed to save that leg.
It had been a casevac, since he’d have bled out by the time a medevac unit could respond.
Blaine had had to call up some long-unused first aid skills to get the bleeding slowed enough to load him up and go.
Flying the big SuperCobra was interesting enough with the standard two-person crew, but alone it was…
an adventure. He also could have used a hand getting Rafe aboard, but the wounded man somehow found the strength to help a little, and they’d gotten it done.
And he’d never forget what the man had said, lying there with his lifeblood literally pouring out of him.
“Thanks. I didn’t want to die there.”
Like it was only where that mattered.
He hadn’t understood that at the time. But a year later he had, when his helicopter had been blasted out of the sky and he’d nearly disintegrated with it. Then he’d been the one saying to the evac crew, “Just get me, and yourselves, out of here.”
He hadn’t said he didn’t want to die knowing they’d died, too, trying to save him, but he saw the understanding in their eyes. They knew.
They’d gotten out. And for him, once back at a hospital facility, the real hell had begun.
Rafe had spotted him now. He’d only had contact via phone or email since that day, so seeing the tall, rangy guy walking toward him with just the slightest of limps made him feel good, like he’d had a part in it.
He knew too well the kind of work it had likely taken for the man to be this functional, since he himself had a couple of aftermarket parts now.
The combination handshake-shoulder slam got them through the initial greeting, but then the awkwardness of lack of contact set in. Blaine had been wrestling with what to tell the man on the entire flight, and hadn’t really reached a conclusion.
“Nice ride,” Rafe said, nodding at the Citation jet.
“Lucky timing,” he said, but added with a wry smile, “Coulda’ been worse.”
“Yeah,” Rafe agreed. “It could have been an Osprey.”
Blaine chuckled at the old joke about the versatile but disaster-prone aircraft. It was the first time he’d even smiled, let alone laughed, since he’d gotten that phone call from Erin.
“And this,” Rafe said, gesturing at the dog whose steady gaze Blaine would have sworn he could feel, “is Cutter.”
Blaine bent to offer a hand to the dog, who nosed it willingly. “He’s yours?”
Rafe shook his head. “Belongs to my bosses, but they loaned him to me in case he could help.” Blaine would swear the cool, gray eyes of the former sniper held more than a hint of amusement. “And believe me, he will, in ways you can’t imagine until he shows you.”
“I’ve seen some pretty smart war dogs,” Blaine said.
“So have I. So mix that with incredible perception, cleverness, planning ability, and understanding of the crazy human brain, plus—well, that’s enough for now. Just pet him, and that’ll be your first clue.”
Blaine’s brow furrowed, but the dog nudged his hand again, so he complied and stroked the dark head. An unexpected and odd sense of calm flowed into him, as if the soft fur held some sort of magical drug that soothed his soul. His gaze shot up to Rafe’s face. The man was grinning.
“Told ya,” he said, in a jovial tone that surprised Blaine as much as the look in his eyes had. The Rafe he remembered had been as grim in demeanor as you would expect a sniper to be. But this man…this man had found peace. Maybe sometime before this was over he could ask him how.
“That’s…really something. What is he, some kind of therapy dog?”
“Among several other things, including a tracker, an undercover agent and an attack dog when necessary.”
“Jack-of-all-trades dog, is that what you’re saying?”
“Trades you can’t even imagine,” Rafe said, and Blaine had the strangest feeling he was laughing to himself. “Come on, let’s roll. You can fill me in on the way to Foxworth Southwest.”
“To what?”
“I’ll explain on the way. But first tell me what’s going on with your boy.”
Blaine sighed deeply as they started walking toward where he could see some vehicles parked. “I’m not sure. We usually text regularly, but that stopped last week. And… I haven’t seen him in person in three months.”
Rafe gave him a startled look. Blaine supposed he was remembering how obsessively proud he’d been of his son, always willing to talk about him, to anyone. “How’d that happen?”
“Long story. You want the whole sorry thing?”
“Up to you, but tell me what I may need to know to help. Are you saying you and… Erin, isn’t it? Are you saying you’re not—”
He hadn’t realized he’d never mentioned that to Rafe. He sighed. “We aren’t me and Erin anymore, no.”
“Sorry. Sucks.”
“In two words, yes.” He sighed again, but stopped when he realized he was dodging.
If Rafe was going to help, he needed to know the basics, at least. “When I crashed, it was…pretty bad.” He shot Rafe a sideways glance.
“Thanks for offering to help back then, by the way. But Erin—” he had to pause to swallow past the lump in his throat “—she took care of me. She never left my side when I was in the hospital. All the surgeries, all the setbacks, she was there. She made the doctors coordinate, fought with them if she had to…”
He couldn’t stop the tightening of his throat, and for a moment he wondered if he’d be able to even breathe if he kept going. It was a moment before he could.
“I remember waking up sometimes and she was there sleeping on one of those lounger things they bring in, obviously exhausted, and usually…usually with her cheeks wet from crying.”
Blaine couldn’t remember the last time he’d poured all this out, and it still made him uncomfortable.
But Rafe said nothing, just kept walking.
He had that slight hitch in his gait, but it didn’t slow him down any.
And the dog, he noticed, was between them.
He looked down to see the dark eyes—were those touches of gold he was seeing there?
—flicking from him to Rafe and back again, as if he were assessing and wanted to be between them so he could help whoever needed it.
Which was a crazy thought, no doubt brought on by Rafe’s unexpectedly fanciful description of the animal.
He drew in a long breath and went on with the sorry tale.
“When I got out of the hospital Erin was there every step of the way. She coaxed, pushed and shoved me through all the rehab and therapy it took to get me back on my feet. For a year she took care of both me and our boy, Ethan. As much as I hurt, as tired as I got, I don’t think it was anything compared to what she went through. ”
They’d reached Rafe’s car, a newer-looking, silver SUV Blaine had seen hundreds of on the road. But when they got in and Rafe started it up, the engine roared and then settled into a throaty growl that told him there was nothing basic about it.
Rafe caught his startled look and smiled crookedly. “I came down and did a little work on it after they bought it.”
Blaine remembered something else then, from when he’d happened to be near the hospital Rafe was still in and had stopped by to see him.
And had found him in a hallway outside his room, in a wheelchair, talking to another man in a wheelchair.
Only this man’s leg hadn’t had the chance to heal: it had been ripped off by an IED.
What had surprised him was that they were talking, not about their injuries or recovery, but about engines.
He fastened his seat belt. The dog, who had jumped easily into the back seat, plopped his head down on the console between them. And as they started to move, Rafe spoke again.
“Then what?” he said, prompting him to continue the sorry tale by saying the words in a knowing sort of way that somehow made it easier to vomit it out.
“When I was back on my feet, just when things looked like we could get back to normal, she told me she was leaving. That she couldn’t go through anything like that ever again. Because…because…”
He stumbled on the word twice and gave up. Rafe finished it for him. “Because she loved you too much.”
Surprised, because the man he remembered had not been one to talk about such things, he could only nod. And then he used his last thought as a way to divert from a subject it still gutted him to talk about. “You been studying human nature or something since you got out?”
A slow smile spread across the man’s face. “In a way.”
That clinched it. Whatever had happened to the top Marine sniper since he’d left the service, it had caused a sea change. And it was apparently for the better, because he’d never seen that kind of smile from the guy.
And he had to quash a stab of another feeling. The guy had dropped everything to help him, after all, so being even a tiny bit jealous of him being so obviously happy seemed wrong.
It was wrong, and it would end now. He needed to focus on the chaos of his own life, not envy someone else’s.