The Top Gun's Return

by Kathleen Creighton

  Oh, dammit, dammit, Jessie thought. I didn't want to cry. Beside her, Max Bauer was nudging her with his elbow. She glanced over at him, sniffing desperately. His eyes gleamed-Tristan's familiar twinkle-as he took a clean white handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and silently handed it to her.

  As she mopped at her nose and eyes, Jessie wondered how Tristan's daughter was holding up under the emotional bombardment. Stubborn as she was, Sammi June would just about rather die than cry. It was only later, after the ceremonies were over and done with and the informal reception was in full swing and people were milling all around, that Jessie had a chance to get a good look at her. Sammi June's face appeared calm and composed, as if she'd never shed a tear in her life.

  Well, no wonder, Jessie thought, and almost burst out laughing. She was watching her daughter move with a grown-up's poise at Tristan's side while he introduced his family to one dignitary after another. There Sammi June was, sandwiched between her father and grandfather for the first time in her adult life, and Jessie was struck by how much alike they were, the three generations of Bauers. The smile, the jaw, the crinkled eyes-proud, arrogant, stubborn and bullheaded as sin, all of them. Jessie didn't know whether to laugh or be worried to death.

  Following the reception in the hangar, Tristan and Jessie, Max and Sammi June were whisked away for a private lunch with the various secretaries and their wives, during which they were briefed on the White House visit scheduled for the next afternoon. During the rest of the meal, cocooned in rich paneling, soft leather and mellow lighting, the defense secretary debated the merits of American versus German motorcycles with Max, while his wife, who was originally from Charleston, South Carolina, flirted quite openly and charmingly with Tris. Jessie tried to listen to the SECNAV's wife talk about her NICU experiences-her most recent grandchild had been born eight weeks premature-but she kept being distracted by the conversation Sammi June was having with the SECNAV. He was quizzing her about her college and career plans.

  "Right now I'm a freshman at the University of Georgia," she heard Sammi June say, "mostly because it's close to home. But what I really want to do is learn to fly. I think I'd like to be a pilot."

  Jessie's insides turned to ice. She barely heard, through a rushing in her ears, the SECNAV say, "Is that right? Follow in your dad's footsteps, huh?"

  "Well, not necessarily military," Sammi June said. "I was thinking more about, you know, commercial aviation?"

  "Can't beat the training the military has to offer," said the SECNAV. "Have you considered the Navy? What about Annapolis? I think, under the circumstances, I could probably…"

  The SECNAV's wife had asked a question, but Jessie had no earthly idea what it was. She could only smile desperately, because right then all she could hear inside her head was someone frantically screaming, No, no, no!

  After lunch Lieutenant Commander Rees and Major Sharpe were waiting to drive them to their hotel. After seeing them to the check-in counter, the lieutenant commander said his goodbyes and left. Al, meanwhile, retired to the coffee shop for a bite to eat while he waited for Tristan to "freshen up." Later he'd be taking him to Bethesda for "processing in" for tomorrow's final battery of tests and examinations and debriefings.

  A nervous clerk checked them in while a distinguished-looking man wearing a tag that said Manager peered over her shoulder and watched her every move. As the clerk handed them their keys, she cheerily explained that Tristan and Jessie were to occupy a suite, with Max and Sammi June in separate rooms down the hall. "Enjoy your stay," she added, smiling warmly.

  Jessie had been mentally adding up the cost of three rooms in a first-class Washington, D.C., hotel and feeling more than queasy about it. She had begun a murmured protest about the suite when the manager interrupted.

  "It's on us," he said quietly, reaching across the counter to shake Tristan's hand. "Welcome home, Lieutenant."

  Tears sprang into Jessie's eyes. She glanced at Tris, who was smiling and saying, "Thanks, it's good to be home." But the words seemed mechanical, and although his lips formed the smile there wasn't any spark in his eyes. And she thought, I wonder if he knows he's home. I don't think it's hit him yet.

  But then again, she reminded herself, he's probably just exhausted. After all, they were still on German time, and it had already been a very long day.

  After Tristan had gone off with Al to Bethesda, Sammi June, whose body was set to Eastern Daylight Time and a whole lot younger besides, expressed a desire-a little bit surprising to her mother-to see some of the sights around Washington, D.C. She thought it would be especially cool to see the Lincoln Memorial at night. Max offered to accompany her, which was also surprising to her mother-though not nearly so much as when Sammi June readily agreed to the arrangement. As far as Jessie knew, Sammi June and her grampa Max barely knew one another. They invited Jessie to go with them, but tired as she was, she elected to stay and wait for Tris in their room.

  The first thing she did was unpack and take inventory of her clothes, both the ones she'd packed-oh, Lord, it seemed like a hundred years ago-for her original trip to visit Joy Lynn in New York City, and the few new things she'd bought in Germany. She had to conclude, sadly, that even taking full advantage of the hotel's drycleaning and laundry services wasn't going to make what she had with her suitable for meeting the president at the White House. Slacks, sweaters and blazers-that was pretty much it. Tris's wardrobe, though considerably newer, wasn't any better; nearly everything she'd bought for him in Germany had been casual. He'd need a suit, dress shirt and tie, at least.

  As it happened Tristan's problem was solved a short time later when Jessie answered a knock on the door of her suite. She opened it to find a hotel bellman standing there holding a garment bag. "This just arrived for Lieutenant Bauer," he announced, and left, refusing a tip.

  In the bag was a spanking-new Navy dress uniform. Jessie's throat tightened and her eyes misted as she gazed at it, remembering how devastatingly handsome Tris had looked wearing his dress blues. "No doubt about it," she said aloud to herself, "tomorrow I'm gonna buy myself a new dress."

  With that settled, she indulged in a long hot shower, washed her hair and blew it dry, scrubbed her teeth, lotioned every inch of her skin and did her nails. I'm acting like a bride on her wedding night, she thought with an inner shiver. Only, she doubted any bride would be topping off all this effort with an oversize T-shirt for a nighty. Tomorrow while I'm at it, she thought, I might just buy myself a new nightgown, too.

  It was late when Tristan came in-probably not by Washington, D.C., standards, but it would be the wee hours of the morning in Germany. Jessie had fallen asleep in bed, propped up on a pile of pillows, with the TV going and the bedside lamp on, turned down low. She woke up when she heard the door close in the outer room of the suite. Jangly from waking too suddenly from a short, sound sleep, she went to meet him and found him already unzipping his jumpsuit. Even in the dim light she could see that his face was gray with fatigue.

  "Hi," she murmured, and walked straight into his arms as if she'd been doing it every night for the past eight years.

  "Still up?" After the slightest hesitation, his arms came around her, and she felt his body move with his inhalation, and the tickle of his breath in her hair. "Mmm, your hair smells good," he mumbled, slurring his words.

  In her sleepy state it seemed so natural to lift her face for his kiss. His lips felt warm and silky and tasted of beer.

  Chapter 10

  Because she was half-awake, Jessie ignored it at first. Tristan had always drunk beer. The taste and smell of it on his lips seemed natural to her, almost comforting in its familiarity. And besides, his mouth was warm and vibrant, and after a little murmur of surprise and pleasure, responsive. For a few joyful seconds she allowed herself to sink into the sensations she'd been without for so long.

  Then…something in her brain said, Wait. Beer? But he was at the hospital.

  He must have felt her awareness-the slightest flinch
, an instinctive recoil-because when she pulled back to stare at him, his jaw had a set, defensive look to it. "Sorry to be so late," he mumbled, peering narrow-eyed past her at the clock on the nightstand. "Didn't think you'd still be up…stopped downstairs for a beer. Thought it might help me sleep…I'm so damn tired, but my body clock's screwed up…time change, and all."

  Jessie thought, One beer and how many more? But she only nodded and murmured, "I know, mine, too."

  With one arm still draped around her shoulders, he groped his way into the bedroom and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. While he was struggling to free himself from the top half of his jumpsuit, she knelt and pulled off his shoes.

  "Stand up," she ordered curtly when he continued to sit, zombielike, and he obeyed like a sleepy child. She tugged the jumpsuit down to his ankles, setting her jaw and clenching her teeth at the sight of his scarred and desperately thin legs. She pulled back the bedclothes and guided his swaying body down onto the waiting sheets. He toppled sideways into the pillows with a sigh, and his eyes were already closing as she pulled his jumpsuit off and drew the covers up to his shoulder.

  "I'll make it up to you…" he mumbled on a long, sighing exhalation. "I will…I promise."

  "I know…I know…" Swollen and achy with held-back tears, Jessie combed her fingers lightly through the silvery hair on his temples. "You just go to sleep now…that's right…sleep."

  His only reply was a gentle snore. Moving stiffly, shivering and goose bumpy under her T-shirt nightgown, Jessie picked up the jumpsuit and hung it carefully over a chair, then went around to her side of the bed and crawled between the sheets, leaving the light on. She was cold, but didn't dare snuggle up to her husband's body for warmth. Instead she lay curled on her side with her back to him and stared at the luxurious and unfamiliar room while she listened to his unfamiliar snores. It was a long time before sleep came.

  * * *

  Tristan awoke with a vague sense of self-disgust. That feeling evaporated rapidly, however, when he realized that once again he'd slept the night through without dreams.

  He raised himself on one elbow to gaze down at his sleeping wife. She lay on her side, facing away from him with her cheek pillowed on her hand, and her hair streamed past her ear and across the pillow like a river of molten gold. He thought of her neck and its lovely, vulnerable nape, now a warm and humid hollow that would smell of her hair and her skin and her femaleness. He thought about burying his face there and tasting the velvety textures with his tongue…sucking strongly to make his mark on her skin. His newly reborn ardor rose in him like a fountain, shivering his skin and warming his belly, and he nearly laughed out loud with the thrill of it. To feel like this again!

  But his mouth tasted foully of the beer he'd drunk the night before, and a glance at the clock on the nightstand told him he'd better get cracking if he wanted a shower before Al came to collect him and haul him back to the hospital-for the last time, he prayed.

  Reluctantly he leaned down to brush her cheek with his lips, the thought of how lucky he was to be able to do that tiny thing nearly stopping his breath-and then he saw something that robbed him of it completely. A smudge…a tiny purple mark the size of a thumb print…on her cheekbone. It could have been makeup, or the imprint of her hand made while she was sleeping. But he knew it wasn't. It was a bruise, the one he'd made when he'd struck her in his sleep.

  He closed his eyes as the passion-heat in his belly turned once more to cold disgust…and a hardening resolve never to let such a thing happen again. He'd had too much to drink that night but it had been the nightmare that had made him hit her. Last night, drunk, he'd slept without dreams. If getting tanked is what it takes, he thought grimly, so be it. The morning-after beer taste in his mouth didn't seem quite so vile as he eased his body out of bed and limped stiffly off to the bathroom.

  When he came out, Jessie was sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing her hair. She smiled at him and said, "G'mornin'," but the smile involved only her mouth. The forced brightness of it, and the veiled hurt in her eyes, were all too familiar to him. Boy, did he remember that look. She'd been wearing it, he recalled, when he'd told her he was going to the Persian Gulf, that last time. When he'd tried to explain to her how important it was to him, that this was his last chance at flying combat missions, which was what he'd trained his whole life for, and that it was something he felt he really needed to do.

  She'd accepted it, of course-she'd always accepted-but he knew she hadn't understood. Any more than she would understand now if he tried to explain about the darkness and the shadows in his mind, and the filth and the pain and the fear that wouldn't let go of him, that still kept a part of him-maybe the best part, the most important part-locked up in that Iraqi prison. She wouldn't understand that he was never going to be free, that he'd never be home again until he'd found a way to heal the pain, cleanse the filth and banish the fear. And most of all, she'd never understand that she couldn't help him do those things. Nobody could. That was something he had to take care of himself.

  "Your dress uniform came," she said. "It's in the closet."

  "Oh, yeah?" He didn't look at her as he zipped himself into his jumpsuit. "Great. What time's our meeting with the president?"

  "Four o'clock." She got up, walked over to the dresser and laid her hairbrush down. "I thought I might go shopping this morning while you're at the hospital." She said it without turning, carefully not looking at him. "To buy a dress. I don't think I should be wearing slacks to meet the president, d'you? I was thinking maybe Sammi June and I could go."

  "Good idea. Don't worry about the money, either. I've got a whole lot of back pay coming-" The phone rang, shrill and jarring in the molasses-thick atmosphere that had come between them. "Oops-that'll be Al-gotta go." Shamefully relieved, he ducked his head and swiftly kissed her cheek. "Buy something pretty," he stupidly said, and as he left her he was mentally shaking his head.

  Meaningless noise. It was the kind of thing he'd say to a stranger. Which is what she is, he realized, suddenly feeling bleak as he strode through the early-morning stillness of the hotel corridors, his footsteps soundless on thick spongy carpeting. A stranger in his wife's body.

  * * *

  "I think I like this one," Jessie said, turning in front of the three-way mirror. "What do you think?"

  Sammi June spared the lavender sheath with its matching boxy embroidery-trimmed jacket a disdainful glance. "It's okay."

  Jessie's shoulders sagged. "Okay? I'm going to meet the president, I don't need 'okay.'" She paused to consider, head to one side and lower lip outthrust. "So, what's wrong with it? It fits, it's your daddy's favorite color." And the price is right, she thought, fighting once more to quell the resentment that had flared when Tris had made that little comment about his back pay. And isn't that just like a man? As if I needed his salary in order to buy myself a dress. As if I hadn't been keeping myself in clothes and everything else for the past eight years, and very well, thank you! "It looks good on me."

  "Yeah," said Sammi June, "if you're fifty. Come on, Mom, you're not even forty, and you've got a great bod. You should show it off. Look-how 'bout this?" She held up something black that slithered and floated when she shook its hanger. "Basic black-can't beat that, right? Plus, it's bias cut-it'll cling like a glove, and this sweetheart neckline? Very retro-that's so in right now."

  "It looks like something your aunt Joy would wear," Jessie said with a slight shudder. Joy Lynn was known to shop for her vintage clothing in thrift stores and on Ebay-though on her, Jessie had to admit, somehow those old-fashioned styles always looked fantastic.

  "Okay, then, how about this one? It's a great color for you, it's got a jacket…long sleeves…your comfort zone, right?"

  "Hmm…well…" Jessie fingered the rich deep-plum fabric, then took the hanger and held the jacket in front of herself as she peered at the mirror. "Jacket's nice. Where's the skirt?"

  "Right there, Mom. Underneath…see?"

  "Good
Lord. Sammi June-"

  "It's only a couple inches above the knee, Mom. That's not too short. Anyway, you've got great legs. Go on-try it on at least. I dare you."

  With a sigh and an eye roll, Jessie headed for the dressing room, followed by a smugly triumphant cackle. As she unzipped and stepped out of the lavender sheath, she was thinking about past clothes-shopping trips with Sammi June and how their roles seemed to have flip-flopped suddenly.

  A few minutes later mother and daughter met again in front of the three-way mirror.

  "Well," said Sammi June after a thoughtful silence, "what do you think? Was I right or was I right?"

  "That skirt is definitely too short," Jessie said, staring pointedly at her daughter's sleek bare thighs.

  "I wasn't asking about me. Face it, Mom. That is a stunner. That's not an 'okay.' That is an 'Okay!'"

  No question about it, the color was great on her, and the jacket fit like a glove, in a long elegant curving line from shoulder to midthigh. "I don't know. It's kind of low here in front…maybe I should wear a blouse."

  "No, no, a great necklace, that's all. And high-heeled sandals with ankle straps. Now me…okay, what this needs is some great boots. Up to about…here. What do you think, Mom?"

  What do I think? I think you've grown up way too fast for me. As she stared at the two images in the mirrors, Jessie saw only one…taller than she was and willow-reed slender, shoulder-length blond hair cut in that spiky, waifish way so popular with the younger set nowadays. And now, wearing not the familiar jeans and T-shirts but a sophisticated chocolate-brown pin-striped suit with a jacket longer than the skirt, that could have come straight out of a fashion magazine. She wasn't looking at the images of a mother and her daughter, she realized, but of two women…two women who were physically very much alike, maybe, but in fact very, very different.