Chapter 32 #2
“That’s the job,” I said. She had it right, and I wasn’t sure what else I could say to ease her worry.
I’d been lucky in that my parents didn’t ask a lot of questions—maybe they worried about me, but I never felt the need to ease their minds…
I never knew what was on their minds. Cruz, though, was always worried about Willow and their mom when she was alive.
“Cruz is good, though.” I turned my head so I could meet her eyes.
“I’ll never admit I said it, but he’s the best. Always has been. ”
She gave a hum of acknowledgment and continued to rub my back.
“My tumor reached the tipping point in compressing my spine in the middle of a mission,” I said, gaze locked on the pillow.
“It had been bothering me for months, but we were used to abusing our bodies. Everyone had something going on. I kept taking Advil and ignoring the tingling and pain. That night, we’d retrieved injured Marines, and I was providing cover as they got them to the chopper.
It was quiet. Still. Too still.” For a long time, I heard the chopper blades in the still landscape every time I closed my eyes.
“Bullet whizzed by me and I clipped the shooter, but then hell broke loose. They were closing in. I ducked back to take shelter behind a few boulders and to draw the combatants away from Cruz and the others who had the Marines.”
Willow gave a sharp inhale above me, her fingers slowing their movements.
“Cruz signaled he had me covered, but I couldn’t get up.
” I shuddered at the memory. I’d been scared thousands of times.
I always saw the danger, even if I was determined to rush through it.
But that feeling of sudden immobility, of not being able to move, and of my team in danger waiting for me—it was a new kind of fear.
The three men we’d rescued would have been strapped down to stretchers and in need of immediate transport.
“My legs wouldn’t work. I kept looking at them, willing them to move, and nothing. I couldn’t stand up.”
She flattened her fingers and slid them up over my neck and shoulders. “And he came back to get you?”
“It was heavy fire, and the Marines weren’t going to make it if we didn’t move fast. One was unconscious already. I told them to get out.”
“But they didn’t. They saved you? Of course they did. You’re here.”
“I’m here,” I said, the image of Cruz running across the sand, avoiding fire, would be forever burned into my brain, the relief and horror when he reached me and hoisted me onto his shoulders.
“Cruz got me back to the chopper.” I didn’t tell her how close we’d both come to getting hit or about the combatants our team took out with cover fire.
I didn’t tell her about the hits Cruz took to his body armor.
“We got out, but one of the Marines didn’t make it.
” I turned my face away from her. “If we’d gotten out five minutes sooner—if they hadn’t had to wait for me—he might have had a chance. ”
“It’s not your fault,” she said, sliding her palms in circles over my back.
I nodded. It was what I’d had to agree to with the therapist in the hospital. It was my fault, though. “That’s why I need to go back. I need the chance to balance the scales. And I need to have Cruz’s back like he had mine.”
I cringed at her next touch because of the way her soft, warm skin against mine made me feel like I could melt into the sheets.
This was one more thing I’d have to pay penance for.
“Anyway,” I said, pushing away the thought.
“He’s the best. The actual Captain America,” I added, trying to defuse the tension of the last few minutes of my confession.
“Zoe certainly thinks so.”
I chuckled.
“You miss him.”
“Him and the team.” I nodded and kept my eyes closed. “You know how you described feeling out of control?”
“You were having wild, toe-curling orgasms while doing pararescue work?”
“No.” I chuckled at her question and settled against my arms, inhaling her scent. “But without the team, without the work, I feel out of control in kind of the same way. Only there’s no big joy, and no comedown. I’m just kind of floating.”
Willow’s fingers grazed the side of my ear, and I let out a sigh at the touch, my back beginning to feel better. “Do you think there are other ways you might help people? Save people?”
I pictured my document I’d been using to track my progress. “I don’t have another plan.”
She stroked my head and didn’t add anything, but I still kept my eyes closed, not wanting to see her expression.
“Except for helping you finish your list before I go.” I flexed my fingers and tried to sit, but I winced at the jolt of pain and fell back to the bed. “And taking the risk I promised you I would.”
“Slow down,” she said. I finally opened my eyes and took her in, her curls wild around her head and her gaze soft as she studied me. She was beautiful, like the kind of beautiful that made my heart rate speed up in her presence.
“And I will help you with your list, pages one and two, before I go back. I want you to feel like you’ve really started your new life.”
She gave my head another stroke. “And if it’s what you want, I want you to get back your old one.”
I nodded, and she slipped off the bed, promising to return with a paper towel for the excess ointment.
I watched her walk out of the room, Gus following on her heels, and I wondered what it would be like to have my old life back and no longer have her in it.
My eyes fell closed, and I inhaled the sweet, heady scent of her lingering on the bed.
It meant everything to go back to my team, to my work, to my life.
I had never had to weigh that against someone I loved enough to make me want to stay close to home.
Because I wasn’t that guy. I was a guy who threw my body in front of problems and who had things to atone for.
I was a guy who owed a debt to a friend I could never repay.
I was not the right guy for Willow. In my head I knew that.
My heart was a different story entirely.
With the ghost of her touch on my arm and the scent of her in my head, I wondered what my life would be like if I was a guy who got to talk about love out loud.