by Laura Kaye
“Hey,” he said, pressing a little kiss to her forehead.
“Hey,” she said back, smoothing her hands over the back of his neck.
Jesse helped her up, and then they took turns in the bathroom. When she came out, he was sitting on the edge of her bed, his clothes piled in his lap. “Should I go?” he asked, echoing her words from that first night.
She hated that there was even the tiniest moment of question in her gut. But there was. For now, though, she ignored the hell out of it. “Stay.” He pulled her to sit sideways on his lap, making her laugh. “This was how we got in trouble the last time.”
“Baby, if that was trouble it was the good kind.” The smile he gave her was so damn sexy. And, gah, the term of endearment was too.
“Yeah,” she conceded. “It was really good.”
“Tara, I know…” He tilted his head so he could look her eye to eye. “I know you’re not sure about me—”
“No.” She shook her head, hating that he thought that. “My uncertainty is not about you, Jesse.” Doubt darkened his eyes. She needed to make him believe. “It’s not. I promise. It’s about the fact that I struggle with anxiety—as I know you witnessed the other night—and, oh—” Her thought died mid-stream because she realized she hadn’t yet thanked him for what he did. So she cupped his jaw and kissed him. Once, twice.
“What was that for?”
“For what you did for me. Your phone with the song. Being there but also giving me space. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He dipped his chin. “Was worried about you.”
“I was worried about me, too. And that’s at the root of why I feel any uncertainty at all. Ever since my accident, I’ve struggled with anxiety and panic attacks. They’ve gotten a lot better, and I have coping mechanisms that work pretty good. But my accident happened at work, on a dive, and it took me a long time to get myself back in the water. The idea of letting myself be distracted for even a second just…it doesn’t do good things for my anxiety.” Admitting all this unleashed a shiver down her spine.
Jesse reached behind him, grabbed the chenille afghan folded at the foot of her bed, and draped it around her. Taking care of her one more time. “I understand what you’re saying, and I appreciate you explaining it. But we worked together all week. We worked good together.”
He wasn’t wrong, but there was more to it than that. “We did. I know. But I also know that I was worried about you when you skipped your safety stop. And after Jud descended, my mind kept straying to how you were doing. And even though I would’ve been worried about any of my teammates, my concern was deeper because it was you.”
He listened intently as she spoke, and finally nodded. “I hear you.”
“How did you feel when I went in after Jud?”
His whole expression shifted, and it was answer enough.
“See what I mean?”
Jesse laced his fingers between hers and squeezed her hand. “Not because I doubted your ability. I didn’t, not even for a second.”
“I believe you. But you felt different about it than if it would’ve been someone else, didn’t you?”
“Fuck,” he said, rolling them backward so that they lay close together, on their sides facing each other, their arms and legs all tangled under the blanket.
The disappointment in his voice squeezed her heart. “I know. I’m sorry. My brain’s stupid now.”
“Don’t apologize. And nothing about you is stupid, Tara. Your feelings are totally valid.” He stroked her waves back from her face. Tucked them behind her ear. Trailed his touch down her neck until his fingers traced both of her scars. The intimacy of it unleashed goosebumps all over her body. “Will you tell me what happened?”
She nodded, not because she felt like she owed him this story, though she did feel that, too. But she wanted to tell him this because, again and again, he made her feel safe to share the most vulnerable parts of herself. “My team was inspecting damage on a bridge along a critical transport route, and I was in about thirty feet of water inspecting the pilings. One of the supports collapsed, taking out part of the bridge and raining all kinds of debris down on us. A shard of broken cable caught me on the throat. It was a total, freakish, wrong place/wrong time thing. Turned out the bridge’s cable system was completely corroded.”
Jesse’s thumb stroked her cheek as she spoke. “Jesus, Tara, that must’ve been terrifying.”
“The crazy thing is that I don’t remember most of it now, except for the feelings. The confusion, the fear, the panic, the pain…” She swallowed hard against the memory of those emotions, which threatened to stir as she gave them voice. But there was a strength in sharing this with someone else—she totally saw that now that she was doing it. So she kept going. “The blood loss was pretty catastrophic, as you can imagine. Our medic had to do an emergency trach in the field because I couldn’t breathe. And I flatlined twice on the life-flight to base. Three other guys on my team were also injured.”
“A lot of people never would’ve been strong enough to get back in the water after that. And no one would think the worse of them for it, either. You’re so damn brave, Tara. Do you know that?”
His words helped heal parts of herself that even she sometimes picked at—the parts she thought should be stronger, the parts that shouldn’t be bothered by this anymore, the parts at which she wanted to shout, You survived! Get over it!
“I don’t feel brave. I certainly didn’t after Jud’s accident. I totally fell apart.”
“Was that your first rescue since your accident?”
The fact that he guessed that said so much about how well he got her. “Yeah.”
“Shit,” he said. “No wonder. But don’t you forget for one second that you did your job. You got him out. The adrenaline crash after something like that is a bitch all on its own. Not a soul would blame you for that impacting you the way it did.”
“Thanks,” she said. She waved at her eyes, blinking as she struggled to hold back tears. “It’s just, women can’t do this on the job. Not in these kinds of jobs, anyway. And not in front of the men they work with. Women can’t be soft or emotional, because it gets read as being weak and irrational. And now that I have this anxiety going on, too, I always feel like I need to keep myself under the strictest control.”
Jesse nodded, his expression full of understanding. “That’s a lot of pressure for anyone.”
God, she felt as disappointed as he sounded. Was she wrong here? Maybe she was making more out of this than she needed to. Maybe he was right, that despite the concern they’d sometimes felt for each other, they’d both been professionals who’d done their jobs. Maybe being involved with a teammate wouldn’t be the distraction she feared and wouldn’t impact how the rest of the team viewed her. Maybe, maybe, maybe…
Tara blew out a shaky breath, still uncertain but not wanting to be, damnit. “Maybe I could try—”
Jesse spoke at the same time. “I’ll happily be just friends if—”
Both froze mid-sentence.
Tara gave a little chuckle. “We’re a mess, aren’t we?”
He shook his head. “No, we just found each other at the wrong time.”
Those words made it feel like she was swallowing around a knot. “I could be wrong, Jesse. Maybe we could try.”
Running his fingers through her hair, he frowned. “I don’t want you to change for me, Tara. And I don’t want you to do a single thing that would shake your confidence or make you second-guess yourself. You’ve been through enough. And I’m not worth it.”
Her mouth dropped open and her heart hurt to hear him say such a thing. “Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s true.” The sadness in his dark eyes squeezed her throat. “I have a bad habit of letting people down, and I don’t want you to sacrifice for me knowing I’ll let you down, too, sooner or later—”
“Don’t say that. I don’t believe that,” she said, nailing him with a stare.
“
Why not? It’s true. And truth is what we give each other, always. Remember?” No matter what he said, everything inside her railed against his words, but he didn’t give her the chance to refute them. “So we’ll see each other at work and we’ll be friends.” Jaw tight, he stroked her hair again, quiet for a long moment. “You can always count on me having your back.”
She wanted to keep arguing with him, to challenge the way he talked about himself, but his eyes had gone distant, like he’d stepped behind a wall. And maybe she didn’t have the right to push him on this when she was the one calling them off. So she just burrowed into his chest, her face against his skin. “If you’d rather not, I’ll understand. But…do you want to stay the night with me?”
“Of course I do.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tight.
Tara tried to remember everything about this moment. The crisp smell of his soap in her nose. The soothing strokes of his fingertips against her scalp. His heartbeat in her ear. The heat of his legs entwined with hers.
She traced a finger around one of his star tattoos, then another, and another.
All the while knowing she’d never get to be with him like this again. And it was her own damn fault.
* * * *
Two weeks had passed since Jesse had walked out of Tara’s apartment in the gray light of dawn.
Two weeks had passed of them working together. The first week laying a small section of power cables under the Anacostia River. The second, inspecting bridge pilings for a newly expanded bridge in the lower Potomac River—a project they’d be continuing next week.
And fuck if Tara hadn’t turned out to be right.
Because worrying about how she was feeling about doing bridge inspection work after what she’d told him had tied his gut in knots all week. Especially because Jud’s foot was still bothering him, so he’d served as Tara’s standby which meant she had to be in the water sharing the inspection work with Jesse. All the while, he’d had anxiety for her—knowing that she was having to face doing the same work that’d nearly killed her once before.
Of course, she’d handled herself like a fucking champ, because she was a professional, brilliant, and one of the bravest people he’d ever known. And that was saying something given all the people he knew who played with bombs for a living.
For the first and only time since he’d kissed her sleeping forehead and left her apartment knowing he’d lost his shot with her for good, he’d even been a little happy that they weren’t together. He was already worried about how she was handling the stress of the inspection, but he knew it would’ve been worse for her if she’d actually had to see his concern in their private moments together, or feel it in his embrace, or taste it on his lips.
The problem was all him.
Jesse’s heart had made some decisions all on its damn own, and now he was stuck with emotions he shouldn’t have and that were getting in the way. Emotions that were keeping him from reacting to her the way he would any of his other colleagues. Emotions he needed to stuff back in the fucking box they’d come from. Except that shit couldn’t be willed.
So he’d been attempting to keep things strictly professional between them.
The day they’d learned that their next job would be the bridge inspection, she and Jud had invited him out for dinner, and Jesse had passed rather than risk making clear his concern for her. He’d skipped Warrior Fight Club last Saturday because he hadn’t had a chance to get his doctor to sign off on the paperwork—a handy excuse for avoiding an opportunity to get physical with her again, even in the name of exercise. And when they’d been living aboard the Going Deep during the bridge project, Jesse had only let himself play poker with her one night, because one night was all it took to realize he had no poker face when he was around her.
Her asking him if he was okay during the game was proof enough of that.
So distance had to be the name of the game.
Sitting on the edge of his bed on Saturday morning, he debated what to do with himself for the weekend. What he probably should do was start apartment hunting in earnest. He’d lived in this suite for a month now. It was time. Especially when he knew that part of the reason he hadn’t much looked yet was because it would mean moving away from Tara.
Which was idiotic on many levels. He was well aware of that.
Except when he looked around this room, he saw them stumbling through his door, breathless and wanting. He heard her laughter in his ears from when he’d thrown her over his shoulder and onto the bed. He felt her when he lay on that mattress—the memory and the loss of her.
Fuck, if there was one thing Jesse Anderson was good at, it was torturing himself. He knew that to be true. But because some part of him believed he deserved the torturing, he always found it freaking difficult to stop.
“Fine,” he said to the empty room. “Let’s find a damn apartment.”
His cell buzzed where it sat on the nightstand. Jesse grabbed it and found Jud’s name on the screen. “Hey, Jud,” he said by way of answering.
“Jesse, how are ya?”
“I’m good. What’s up?” The question came out more curtly than he’d intended, and he winced.
Jud didn’t seem to notice. “I think my foot’s feeling up to checking out Warrior Fight Club today. You in?”
Oh. No. “Uh, I might…be busy.” Way to sell it, Jesse.
“Too busy for me? I’m hurt, dude. Get un-busy because you’re coming.”
Jesse chuckled despite himself. “I’m not sure that’s how this works.”
“Sure it is. Be my wingman.”
Exasperated, Jesse got up and paced. “What the hell do you need a wingman for?”
“Be. My. Wingman.”
Raking a hand through his hair, Jesse shook his head. “But you know people there.”
“Jesse, my man. When wingman duties call, the only honorable thing to do is answer that call.”
Heaving a deep breath, Jesse caved. “Yeah, yeah, all right.”
“Good deal. Okay, when and where is this shindig, again?” Jud’s tone was so satisfied that Jesse wanted to smash his head into a wall for giving in. Seeing Tara at WFC was way the hell against his best judgment.
Jesse gave him all the information. “Bring clothes for after if you want to go out for dinner,” he said, a weird hollowness filling his gut. Because it would be hard as fuck to find his way out of going along.
When they hung up, Jesse tossed his cell on the bed. It was only ten in the morning, so he could still spend part of the day making headway on his living arrangements. Which would be a better use of his time than sitting around wallowing like the morose motherfucker he’d been lately. So he opened his laptop, browsed for an online realty site, and began searching.
He was open to both apartments and houses, and he definitely wanted to buy. Between how much of his military income he’d saved over the past twenty years and his pension, he had more than enough savings to get something comfortable, even in DC.
Except, house shopping was a surefire way to remind yourself of everything you didn’t have.
Master bedroom with his and her walk-in closets! Master bath with dual sinks! Awesome, except he had no one with whom to share that kind of space.
Great school district! Fanfuckingtastic, except he had no family.
Close to a metro stop and a dog park! Yipdeedamndoo, except he didn’t even have a fucking dog.
At least he could do something about that last one.
Needing to make at least one thing about his life feel less empty, Jesse clicked away from his house hunt and searched for the city’s SPCA. He scrolled through both the available cats and the dogs and instantly knew this was something he wanted to do.
And he didn’t want a puppy or a kitten either, cute as those were.
He wanted the pets no one else wanted. The ones who wouldn’t get adopted. The ones who’d been discarded or left behind by a thoughtless fucking family.
The ones who didn
’t fit in anywhere and had no place to call home.
The ones, well, sorta like him.
Which meant he needed to find a fucking house. One close to a dog park, thank you very much.
So he sucked it up and went back to his house hunt. And ignored the hell out of those his-and-hers closets and dual sinks he was never going to need.
Chapter 16
Tara sat in the middle of a big group of friends all having dinner and sharing their lives, and yet she’d never felt more alone in her life. Which had nothing to do with any of them, of course, and everything to do with the fact that she’d let fear dictate her life and as a result had pushed away something she’d realized too late that she wanted.
Jesse.
She missed him so much her chest actually hurt.
Maybe that was crazy given that she’d seen him almost every day for the past two weeks. But there was a wall between them now, one she’d built with her fear and her doubts. So she saw him, but she had no idea how he was doing. She worked with him, but they didn’t joke around. She heard him, but he didn’t say anything beyond the necessary work logistics and basic pleasantries. She got near him, but never got to touch him.
It was as if they’d never shared anything personal at all. As if they were just co-workers like any others. No, scratch that, there was now far more distance between her and Jesse than there was between her and any of her other teammates.
Which had brought her to a stunning conclusion.
There was no going backward for them. No being just friends.
And here was another revelation. She didn’t really want to just be his friend, anyway.
The morning Boone had told them about the bridge inspection job, Tara had felt like the whole world sucked in on her. She spent her weekend doing her five things over and over again until she drove herself freaking nuts.
But then…she’d finished her first day on the job. She’d done it—beaten her fear. Beat it despite the fact that she and Jud had switched positions while his foot finished healing, meaning she’d been in the water with Jesse as one of the working divers. In the end, she’d realized that anticipating doing the work had been much scarier than actually doing it. And learning that made her feel like she was on top of the world.