Chapter 39
She shouldn’t feel so bad. Shouldn’t feel as if the entire earth had crumbled beneath her feet. Because she was back where she started, Ethan back but Blaine still gone.
Maybe she shouldn’t have been honest with him. Maybe she should have told him she would have left anyway, eventually. But she knew she wouldn’t have, and they’d always been honest, even when it sometimes hurt.
She heard Ethan calling out to Cutter outside, and silently thanked the brilliant dog for once again seeming to sense what was needed and handling it.
Ethan.
Just because he was back and safe didn’t mean things were fixed between them.
You coddle everyone, want everyone completely safe all the time. What kind of life is that, never taking any chances, ever?
For the first time she faced a truth she’d denied for a long time. That she had been not just protective but overprotective of Ethan, probably because she hadn’t been able to protect Blaine.
You wanted me helpless?
Another aspect hit her, hard. Had she? Had she felt she could handle it if he didn’t get any better, because at least then he wouldn’t be out flying into danger anymore?
She felt a wave of nausea sweep her, strong enough that she dashed for the bathroom.
All the lovely dinner came right back up and out.
When she could move again she flushed away the evidence, rinsed her mouth, and when that wasn’t enough dug into the medicine cabinet and found some toothpaste and a small stack of packaged toothbrushes.
When she was done she sank back down onto the floor because she wasn’t feeling like this was over.
She’d never felt this kind of…self-loathing before.
She’d always thought she’d simply done what was best for her and Ethan.
And now all she could think was that there was nothing, not even perpetual safety, that was worth losing Blaine.
Especially when it had nearly cost her their son, too.
“Erin?”
Blaine. He’d come back. She’d half expected him to take off. Maybe even take Ethan with him. And she wouldn’t have blamed him.
In the rush she hadn’t shut the bathroom door, and he quickly found her. And almost as quickly he was down on the floor beside her.
“Are you all right?”
She tried to smile but was pretty sure it came out more like a wince. “Dinner came back for a visit.”
“Didn’t agree with you?”
“Figuratively and I think literally. Because right now I don’t agree with me, either.”
“Agree with what?”
“Something just hit me. Hard. About why I’ve been…the way I’ve been with Ethan.”
He seemed to hesitate, then said, “Cautious?”
“You can say it. Overprotective. Or as Ethan put it, coddling.” She let out a disgusted breath. “And there’s another phrase for it that seems appropriate. Helicopter mom.”
That one got a slight twitch of a grin out of him. And that enabled her to go on.
“I’ve been overprotective of Ethan because I couldn’t protect you.”
Again he hesitated, but then he said softly, “I thought I was the protector.”
“You are, in all the ways that matter. I was just…trying to control what I could, because I was terrified of what I couldn’t.”
He slipped an arm around her. And because it was what she’d always done with him, she leaned against him, resting her head gratefully on his strong shoulder.
“I have to let Ethan be himself. I know that now.” She sighed. “It’s going to take him a while to get past this, but he won’t at all unless I give him room.”
“Within reason,” Blaine said. “There have to be limits. He is only fourteen.”
“I think he’ll only accept those limits from you. For now, at least.”
He was quiet for so long she had to wonder what he was thinking. Then, at last, he said, “Then I guess I’d better stick around.”
She straightened abruptly, turning to stare at him, fixing on those eyes she’d once teasingly called “clear flying blue.”
“Just how,” she said carefully, “do you mean that?”
He shifted on the floor then, turning to face her.
She had a brief flash of memory, from the time when that simple movement, when getting down here with her would have been impossible.
She’d always looked at that time as him doing all the fighting, she was just the support staff.
But now, thanks to his insistence, she was thinking maybe she had fought, maybe as hard as he said.
“You said you never stopped loving me,” he said bluntly.
“And I meant it.”
“So do I.”
Her breath caught. “Are you saying…you want to try again?”
“I’m saying I’m tired of not having the woman I love in my life.”
Her heart leaped, but this was too important to go on impulse. She thought about what she’d admitted, that if his injuries had been permanent, she would have stayed.
“But…how could you want me back, after what I told you?”
He reached out and cupped her face. “I still don’t like the idea that you would have stayed.
But…something Rafe said made me think. All that fighting you did for me, when I couldn’t?
And all the grit and determination you’ve shown these last couple of weeks?
That was you paying in advance for a second chance. For us.”
And then he was kissing her, and she wondered not for the first time how this man, and this man only, could make her feel safe, cherished and more than a little wild, all at the same time.
Wild enough to have crazy sex with him on a bathroom floor with their son playing right outside. But after thinking about that for a moment, she decided there couldn’t be a better time.
And afterward, when they finished tugging clothes back on, he gave her a cautious look.
“I’m not changing my mind, if that’s what that look is for,” she assured him.
“You might still, after I tell you something. Well, a couple of things, actually.”
She went still, but her determination held. “Nope. Not a chance. What?”
“Well… I’m transferring to Pendleton. You’ll have to put up with me under the same roof. In your house.”
“Our house!” She threw her arms around him in delight. “Why on earth would you think that would upset me?”
“Not done yet. The second thing is kind of two connected things. No, make that three.”
She was laughing now. “Can we get back to where you don’t walk on eggshells anymore? Just out with it.”
“You really want it all at once?”
“Fire when ready,” she said, and to her inner glee, she meant it. If it meant having Blaine back, she could—and would—take anything.
“I’m leaving the Corps after this re-up. Foxworth has offered me a job here at this office, but I’ll still be flying now and then.”
She stared at him. “You’re leaving the Marines?”
He nodded. “I decided that before you even called about Ethan.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it wasn’t important while Ethan was missing, and now… I didn’t want that to be the reason you said yes.”
For a long moment she kept looking at him, processing what he’d said. Finally she nodded. “Okay. I get that.”
He looked startled. “And you got that I’ll still be flying?”
“Yes. I’ve been okay with that since you mentioned you weren’t getting shot at anymore.
” She kissed him, long and hard and deep.
And then she pulled back and met his gaze again.
“I meant what I said, Blaine. Nothing matters more than you and Ethan, and I’ve realized I can’t hang on to either of you with a choke hold. That’s done, over. I love you.”
“Say that last bit again?”
“I love you, I love you, I love you.”
He looked oddly thoughtful. “Okay, about twenty-seven hundred more times and you’ll have made up for three times a day for the last two and half years.”
Erin burst out laughing. “Oh,” she said when she could, “I’m going to beat that by a long shot.”
“Promise?”
“I do,” she said, purposely choosing the vow they’d made all those years ago. He kissed her this time, full of promises old and new.
Then they went outside to collect their son.