by Cindy Dees
Annie blushed. He’d heard about that, had he?
“Uh, thank you, sir. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen…” She looked back and forth between the two men, not sure which one would give her permission to leave.
“Go. Go.” The admiral waved his hand at the door.
She whirled and managed not to sprint from the room. The admiral’s executive officer showed her through the maze of passageways to the infirmary.
A sailor gestured her to a seat in the outer office.
“Is he all right?” she asked.
“They’re still working on him, ma’am” was the impassive reply.
Each minute that passed was agony for her. He had to be all right. He just had to be. They’d been through so much together. They’d made it out, just as he promised they would.
Images of the past few weeks floated through her mind in a collage of memorable moments with Tom. It seemed unreal to be sitting in a sterile, quiet doctor’s office as if nothing had ever happened. As if they’d never been shot at, as if they’d never had to fight tooth and nail for their very lives.
It all started to feel like some sort of dream, insubstantial and fleeting. Had her relationship with Tom been part of that unreal time? Was there anything left for them, now that the mission was over and they were out of Gavarone?
An officer stepped through the inner door and walked over to her, a sober expression on his face.
Dread clogged her throat. They had to have saved him. They just had to.
She wasn’t very familiar with Navy uniform insignia, but she thought she recognized a medical corps badge.
“You must be Annie,” the doctor said.
“I am. How did you know?”
“My patient’s been demanding to see someone by that name, whom I gather is a rather independent-minded pilot of the female persuasion.”
Tom was alive.
Annie smiled widely, relieved to the point of tears. “Can I see him?”
“Please do. Maybe he’ll stay in bed if you’re here. He’s been threatening to get up and search the ship until he found you.”
Annie stepped through the oval door. Tom lay in a bed, eyes closed. His chest was bare, and a white sheet was pulled up to his waist. His left shoulder was swathed in a white bandage.
She hesitated in the doorway, unsure of what to say to him. He looked different, somehow. More authoritative, more an officer. Less her lover and companion of the last weeks.
“Hi.”
His eyes opened. “Hi.” His voice was gruff.
“I hear there’s a soldier in here who needs to be convinced to stay in bed,” she said lightly.
He gave her a long, inscrutable look. His eyes were that stormy shade of gray blue they turned when he was angry.
“We need to talk, Annie.”
“About what?”
“About your suicidal tendencies.”
She blinked. “My what?”
“You heard me.”
He wasn’t joking. She stepped fully into the room and shut the door behind her.
He continued, “I didn’t put it all together until a few minutes ago. You’ve been running around trying to be Superwoman the last few months because you felt guilty about dragging me through the jungle.”
She frowned. “And your point?”
He stared intently at her, his direct gaze cutting straight into her soul. “You were right about Simon Pettigrew. I have been running around trying to be a hero to make amends for getting him killed.”
Annie started. She hadn’t expected ever to hear such an admission out of him.
“But you’re doing the very same thing, Annie.” His voice took on a sense of urgency. “You’ve got to stop it. You made a reasonable decision under the circumstances out in that jungle.”
“But—”
He cut her off. “I didn’t die. You didn’t screw up.“
“But—”
He waved his good arm, silencing her protest. She stepped forward involuntarily when he winced at the movement.
“No buts. If we’re going to have a future together, you’ve got to let go of your guilt. I forgive you. Now get over it.”
She stared at him in silence. As hard as it was to hear his words, he was right. She had started doing the same thing that she’d watched him do to himself. He’d all but destroyed himself from the inside out. Was that really the path she wanted to go down, too?
She looked at Tom, lying in his hospital bed, his leg in an unwieldy cast, a gunshot wound in his chest, perilously near his heart. It was a miracle he’d survived as long as he had with a death wish ticking away inside him like a time bomb.
She stepped close, staring down at him intently. “Tell you what, Tom. I’ll let go of my guilt if you’ll let go of yours.”
He frowned up at her. “Explain.”
“You’ve been trying to get yourself killed ever since Simon died, right?”
He shrugged and then gasped in pain. She waited until the white line around his lips disappeared before she continued.
“But you’ve been carrying around something else inside you even more deadly than that.”
One dark eyebrow raised. “Do tell.”
“Tom, you’re afraid of love.”
He reeled back, staring at her, a stunned expression in his eyes.
She plowed on. He’d given it to her straight; she owed him nothing less in return. “You fell in love once. With a woman who betrayed you and your men. Have you ever loved another woman since then?”
“I’ve been too busy,” he protested.
She replied gently, “You’d have made time for love if you wanted it, Tom.”
His gaze slid away, and he went very still. He’d gone to a place inside himself where she couldn’t follow.
It was killing her to tear open his old wounds like this. It might very well cost her the man she loved. But he had to hear it. He had to face his demons once and for all.
She waited for several minutes, but he didn’t speak. Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore. “Tom, you’ve punished yourself worse than any one man deserves to be punished, by denying yourself love all these years.”
His gaze finally turned back to her, clear, calm and completely unnerving.
She managed to speak past the lump in her throat, “I never met Simon Pettigrew. But surely he wouldn’t have asked you to sacrifice everything—your life, your love, your very soul for him.”
Tom shook his head slowly. “No, he wouldn’t have.”
She waited for him to put words to his thoughts, which he clearly was struggling to do.
“You know, ever since I woke up in the hospital three months ago I’ve been afraid of what was happening to me. I didn’t know what it was. It felt like I was losing control of myself, and no matter what I did, part of me just kept slipping through my fingers.”
Annie tilted her head quizzically.
He continued slowly, searching for words. “The funny thing is, I spent all that time convinced I was losing the most important part of myself, when in fact I was finding it again.”
“What are you saying, Tom?”
“I’m saying you taught me how to feel again. You showed me that my well-being counted to somebody. That it mattered if I lived or died.” His voice trailed off to a near whisper. “You taught me how to love again, angel.”
A smile started deep down in her soul and burst forth throughout her entire being.
He held out his good arm to her. “Come here.”
She moved into the circle of his arm, perching on the bed beside him.
“So where were you for the past hour while I was asking for you?” he asked lightly.
Annie grimaced. “Getting my butt royally chewed by the admiral.”
“And a richly deserved butt-chewing it was,” he growled. “If you ever pull a foolish stunt like that again, young lady, I’ll kick whatever’s left of your butt into next year. Is that understood?”
She glared back at him
. “No, it’s not. I’d make the same decision again any day of the week and twice on Sunday. There was no way I was leaving you to die. I nearly killed you once, and I won’t have that on my conscience a second time. I love you, darn it.”
“Is that a fact?”
She matched his belligerent tone. “Yeah. As a matter of fact it is.”
He smiled at her. “Glad to hear it. I was worried that when we got out of Gavarone and you were safe again, you’d realize you’d been clinging to me because you were scared and not because you truly cared for me.”
She laughed. “And here I was, worrying that I was just a convenient female and that you didn’t really care for me.”
He snorted. “Trust me. You were not convenient by any stretch of the imagination.”
She stuck her tongue out at him while he grinned at her.
“Are you sure you can stand being around a beat-up old remnant like me, angel?”
She considered him thoughtfully. “I think I might just be able to stand having someone like you hanging around.”
A smile lit up his face and went all the way to the back of his eyes. “And have you got any bright ideas on how to bribe me to stay in bed while I recuperate?”
“Well, I could kiss you. That is, if you promise to stay in bed the rest of the day.”
He considered her in turn. “Hmm. I’d need a sample before I accepted a deal like that.”
“I think we could arrange that.” Annie leaned down toward him but then stopped. She looked deeply into his midnight-blue eyes. “I thought I’d lost you today.”
For once, he didn’t sound casual about a close call with death. “I thought I’d lost you, too, angel. Don’t you ever do anything so heroic—or dangerous—again. You hear me?”
Annie laughed. “Only if you’ll agree to the same.”
He looked at her seriously. “The doctor says my femur’s shattered. I’m going to need surgery and some heavy-duty physical therapy to repair it. Today was it for me. My days as a field commander are over.”
She put her hand over his. “Oh, Tom. I’m so sorry.”
“You know, a few weeks ago, that would’ve torn me up pretty bad.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m hoping maybe you’ll agree to take a nice, quiet staff position at a boring, out-of-the way Air Force base while I run Charlie Squad’s command center.”
Annie’s heart skipped a beat. “What are you saying, Tom?”
He gave her a withering look. “What do you think I’m saying? I’m asking you to marry me!”
She started to fling herself at him and then remembered how badly he was injured. She stopped short of touching him.
“You’d better kiss me fast, angel, or I’m going to get out of bed and start doing calisthenics.”
Gazing lovingly into his smoky-blue eyes, she drew close to him. Just before her lips touched his, she paused long enough to whisper, “Welcome back from hell, Tom.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-0105-7
BEHIND ENEMY LINES
Copyright © 2002 by Cynthia Dees
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Table of Contents
Annie stared at her unwilling patient. What would it take to get you to stay in bed where you belong?