Chapter 22
“You went from second looey to captain faster than anybody I know.”
Erin heard Rafe’s voice from the living room. They’d come back to the house and—after she’d finished marveling at the difference in her car—she’d hastened to check for any messages. There had been a few, but none with news, only friends checking on her, or asking for news.
Then she heard Blaine’s reply to Rafe’s comment. “Eyes on the prize.”
She suppressed a little shudder. How could flying into a combat zone, getting shot at, be the prize?
I don’t understand. How can being sent into some big battle, where you could get killed, be rewarding?
It’s the walking away afterward. Especially if you won.
That long-ago exchange with Blaine, one of the ones that had convinced her she would never understand that part, ran through her mind for the first time in a long time. But on the heels of that had come his whispered follow-up.
I do it so you, and others like you, don’t have to. So you can live a good life, in peace.
That was when she’d realized that this was just who he was, that he’d always risk himself for those he loved, and that in his mind that was what serving in the Marines was.
That night had ended up with them in bed, and her riding him fiercely, showing him in every hot, physical way she could what those words had meant to her.
That had been the night she had at last comprehended she had married a hero. She just hadn’t understood yet how high the price for that was.
Now she realized she’d tuned into her thoughts instead of the present—something that happened far too often, something she feared may have been part of the reason Ethan had run—because Blaine was standing now, Cutter at his feet, and staring at the well-used tennis ball in his hand.
“C’mon, dawg,” he drawled, “let’s go wear you out a little.”
“Thanks,” Rafe said. “He’s a little restless today.”
“I know the feeling,” she muttered as Blaine and the dog stepped out into the backyard. She was glad she’d kept a long open space between her flower beds, so the dog at least had room to run.
“I know it probably feels like we’re not doing much,” Rafe said as he took a seat on one of the barstools pulled up to the kitchen counter.
She turned to look at the man who was only here because Blaine had asked for his help. But she couldn’t deny what he’d said was true.
“It’s just…”
“I get it. So much of what we do in cases like this these days is internet-related. But I understand the feeling that it doesn’t count if you’re not out there physically looking.”
“Only because my son is out there somewhere, getting involved in who knows what, already stealing, and… I’m sorry, I’m just getting more frantic the more time passes.”
“Of course you are. But this way we can search so much more area so much faster. Which Ty is doing as we speak. He developed our own recognition software, and that goes beyond facial to body type and way of moving, too. He’s looking for any other matches in videos we can access—which is more than you might think.
The Foxworth name opens a lot of doors.”
She found herself relaxing a little. “You’ve already found out more than I did, or the sheriff. Are all of you this good at this?”
The still rather intimidating man laughed. “If there’s a low man on the tech tier at Foxworth Northwest, it’s me. I’ve gotten better, because I’ve had to, but believe me, my first instinct is the same as yours, to get out there and physically look.”
She smiled, rather wanly she was afraid. “You’d think I’d be okay with it, given almost all my work is done on a computer.”
“This is different. This is your son, not a customer or some tech problem.”
“And having Blaine here—” She cut herself off before she could say something truly stupid. Then, with a long sigh, she said, “He’s done nothing but try to take care of Ethan, over and above what the court declared as mandatory support. He sends us so much sometimes I wonder what he’s living on.”
“It’s cheaper to live on base, in many places.”
“So he does. And if we need something, he does what he can to see that we get it.” She gestured around the room. “The only reason I was able to afford this place at first was because he pays for almost everything else.”
“He’s a good man,” Rafe said, his tone a little too carefully neutral.
“I know,” she said, her throat tightening and making it hard to get the words out. “He’s done nothing but try to see to Ethan, and to me. Which is why I hate, truly hate the way I get mad at him. He doesn’t deserve that.”
A long and—for her at least—painful silence spun out. When she finally looked at the man across the kitchen counter from her, she saw him swallow as if his own throat was tight. Then, very quietly, he said, “Maybe…maybe you’re not mad at him, or not solely. Maybe you’re mad at yourself.”
She blinked, drew back. “What?”
He grimaced. “Voice of experience here. Charlie and I butted heads constantly for years. We…hated each other. Were constantly mad at each other. Or so we thought.”
“But?”
“She was only…reacting to me being always angry when she was around. And it wasn’t her I was mad at.”
She remembered what Blaine had told her. “You were mad at yourself?”
“Yes.”
He looked as if it pained him to even remember, so she didn’t pry.
He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would easily share deeply personal things with essentially a stranger, and she understood.
She didn’t explain to even her closest friends that the reason she and Blaine had split had been her own cowardice and she was—
She was mad at herself for it.
She stared at the man with those eyes that looked as if he had seen far too much, and too much of it awful. Was that how he had read her so accurately? Because he recognized what he’d felt in her?
His phone chimed an alert.
“And that,” he said flatly as he reached for it, “is the end of my poking my nose into what isn’t my business.”
“I think they call that ‘mission accomplished,’” she said quietly, feeling she needed to acknowledge what had obviously not been easy for him—and what had struck such a chord in her.
His gaze shot back to her face as if she’d startled him. But when he went back to tap the phone screen, he was smiling.
A while later Blaine came back in with Cutter.
“Man, my arm is tired, but he’s still ready to blast off.”
Rafe chuckled. “I think I’m the only one to ever wear him out. And it wasn’t from chasing a ball.”
He had a look on his face that told Erin there was a lot more depth to that statement than appeared on the surface.
The dog came over to her and nudged her hand.
She stroked his dark head, savoring the soft fur, again felt that sense of calm and comfort, and wondered why on earth she’d been so adamant about not letting Ethan have a dog.
Of course, this one was obviously special, from what Rafe had told them.
But she had the feeling every dog was special in its own way, and maybe, just maybe, she’d deprived both of them of something good by clinging to her old reasons for not adding a pet to their little family.
She was aware of Blaine coming to sit down beside her—close, but not too close—but she wasn’t prepared for what he said, because she’d almost forgotten how good he was at reading her.
“Second thoughts about the ‘no pets because we’re always moving’ rule?”
Her gaze shot to his face, and she looked into those blue eyes that she so loved. Still. And driven by that admission she gave him an answer she’d never given anyone.
“It wasn’t just that. It was…it felt like it would be trying to replace you in our lives. And nothing could ever do that.”
His eyes widened, and he looked actually shocked. At the words, or at the fact that she’d said it, she didn’t know. “Then why—”
He cut off the question she didn’t want to answer when Rafe got up and walked over to them.
“Walker’s inbound, due to land in about fifteen, so I’m going to head up to get him.
We may need to make a stop or two—he wants to make some calls, plus he’ll want to see Amy.
By then it’ll be late, so I’ll crash at Foxworth.
We’ll be here bright and early for a planning session. ” He looked at Cutter. “Dog?”
The dog looked up at Rafe, then he turned to face him and sat down practically on Erin’s feet. He just looked at the man who was his surrogate owner at the moment.
“Really?” Rafe asked, one brow lifting. Then he looked at her and Blaine, and she saw that look of understanding again. “Ah,” he said. “Okay, your call, dog.”
He shifted his focus to her and Blaine, and she wondered what those long-distance gray eyes had seen. “He self-regulates on food, so just leave some of that kibble in the bowl.”
“You’re leaving him here?” Blaine asked, sounding as surprised as she felt.
“Problem?”
“No,” Blaine said quickly. “He’s great, I just figured he’d want to stick with you.”
Rafe nodded toward where the dog was sitting. “That’s his ‘staying here’ position.”
Erin blinked. “He decides that?”
“He does.” One corner of Rafe’s mouth quirked upward. “He knows where he needs to be. And who needs him,” he added as he dug his keys out of his pocket.
She didn’t know what to think of that. Or to think of a dog who had seemingly convinced his humans that where he went and what he did was up to him. Or a dog apparently smart enough to see that it all worked out.
All of which kept her from thinking about the one thing that was hammering at her brain demanding to be let in.
She was going to be spending tonight alone with Blaine.