Kelley’s respect for Wyatt wasn’t the last sympathy he was offered that morning as they rotated through sit-ups and push-ups and a two-mile run. By the time they reached lunch, he was exhausted, but not from the workout. Rather it was all the eyeballs on him. Everyone knew. It felt like they were all watching him extra closely, seeing if he could hack it. But he wasn’t going to take his sandwich and go hide either. No, he forced himself to be social, sit with Kelley and some of the other recruits. This would get easier. It had to.
As one of the other recruits, a younger guy with a crew cut, droned on about his diet and fitness regimen, Jacob scanned the room, more than a little unsettled when his eyes met Linc’s.
The rest of the space seemed to fade away, the distance between them the only important thing. And the worst part was still wanting Linc, even after everything that had happened. Life would be so much easier if he could shut off caring about Linc, but if there was a secret to doing that, he had yet to discover it. He needed to, though, needed to get his head on straight before Linc cornered him again with whatever lecture he had planned. No way was Jacob being talked out of the goal he’d wanted for years now.
* * *
Linc’s next bite of sandwich turned to ash in his mouth as his eyes met Jacob’s. He didn’t look one bit ready to back down, defiant as always. But there was something else there beyond stubbornness that gave him pause—the same charged energy they’d had for years now, worse since...
No. He refused to think about that. No dwelling on since. Not here. Not now, and maybe not ever. Jacob was trouble, had always been trouble, and Linc’s only focus now had to be on getting him to change his mind for the sake of his mother, who had already lost so much. Jenna was truly good people, and there wasn’t much Linc wouldn’t do to take away her pain. She didn’t deserve this. First losing Big Mike to a heart attack three years back, then Wyatt, and now Jacob trying to break her heart all over again.
And fucking damn Jacob for letting him get blindsided by this news. He couldn’t have been the one to text?
You know why he didn’t. Fuck. There it was again. That voice reminding him just how badly he’d fucked up. And yeah, he knew he’d been scarce, doing what May and Jenna needed when he could, but also not hesitating to take a few gigs out of the area, just to put some miles between him and...
Fuck. Get over yourself, Reid. Quit stewing about shit you can’t control. He forced himself to look away, take another bite of sandwich. He’d get his chance to talk sense into Jacob soon enough.
And maybe this was another sign that those out-of-area gigs were the way to go. He’d done it once before. He could do it again, bounce around the West, put distance between him and everything Painter’s Ridge represented. He’d stayed after his dad died because fixing the place up, righting all his wrongs, had been a point of pride. That and it felt like the Hartman family had needed him. Wyatt had helped him get on with the smoke-jumping crew here again, after several years at other air bases, and it had felt like coming full circle to their teenage dream of being smoke jumpers together. Like maybe they’d have that and Linc could keep on ignoring Wyatt’s asshole side in favor of being a part of something. But now that something was tattered, a few worn scraps holding everything together, and he’d been wondering for months now if he should just pack it in.
“Maybe the kids will work out.” Ray nodded in the general direction of Jacob and the other rookies. “They’ve got some promise. Wyatt Hartman’s brother has balls of steel, I’ll give him that. No one would have blamed the kid if he’d yanked his application.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He knew better than to follow Ray’s gesture by looking back in that direction again or to get started on the topic of the Hartman brothers. “You get enough PT in this winter? You wanna run together Sunday morning?”
Linc had enough equipment at home and usually worked out alone, but he was worried enough about Ray’s ability to pass the fitness test to make an exception for his old buddy.
“Point taken.” Ray sighed. “Yeah, I could have done more. Let’s do it early, that way I can still get Betsy and the kids to church on time.”
“Leave time for some weights,” advised Garrick, another experienced smoke jumper who was sitting with them. Unlike Ray, the bigger man had easily churned out his exercises with his usual boundless energy. Friendly, he was on a first-name basis with darn near everyone, Linc included. “I’ll join you guys, give Ray some form pointers so that when Sims sees you Monday, you’re in fighting shape.”