His satisfaction in that was about more than him just being an adrenaline junkie. Since he’d retired, one of the biggest challenges in transitioning to civilian life had been learning to live without threats and crises. After twenty years in some of the navy’s most dangerous jobs, his brain was hardwired to operate under the expectation of the worst-case scenario coming true. Normal life sometimes felt like an illusion that would shatter at any moment because, for most of his life, the snafus had been his reality.
But in the water, he felt more centered. His brain and his body and his instincts felt more at ease, more like he was in his element.
“Feels good to get back in the water, doesn’t it?” Jud asked, hanging his suit up next. “After I got out, being a landlubber about drove me nuts.”
“Hell, yeah, it felt good,” Jesse said. He waxed his suit’s zipper, a key to maintaining its function.
Jud clapped him on the back. “Awesome to hear. See you in the mess. I’m fucking starving.”
Jesse nodded, his belly aching with a hunger born of a good day’s work. Exercise had always been one of the things that had kept him feeling balanced—or at least as balanced as he got—and he’d kept up his routine even after he retired. But there was nothing like ten hours of ocean swimming and battling the elements to exhaust you in all the best ways.
Well, except maybe sex, of course.
Like the thought had drawn her, Tara appeared at his side. Obviously his wishful thinking was alive and kicking.
She stretched onto tippy toes to hang her cleaned suit. “One of my best days ever was my first dive with CMDS. I never wanted out of the navy in the first place. Commercial diving gave me back the water at least.”
“I got it,” Jesse said, hanging it for her as his gut filled with surprise and curiosity. If she hadn’t wanted out, had she been medically discharged? And if so, how had someone like him made it twenty years with only a few minor injuries, while people like her and the men he wore on his arm hadn’t been so lucky? “I didn’t want out so much as I thought it was best that I got out.”
He could hardly believe he’d given voice to the thought, but she’d shared something important, so it made him feel like he could do the same.
She hugged her sweatshirt to her chest. “How long were you in?”
“I did my twenty.”
Her eyebrows lifted as if he’d surprised her. “If you made it to retirement, I’d say you more than did your duty, Jesse. I knew a lot of EOD guys and more than a few burned out way before that.”
When he’d found a pretty, funny girl at the bar last weekend, he’d never imagined that he’d also found someone with whom he could talk about things like this. “Yeah, well, I felt my fair share of that, too.”
“I don’t know how anyone could do that job and avoid feeling that way at least sometimes. Something that intense with so much always on the line and so many losses….”
He swallowed hard. “Yeah.” It was all he could say in the face of such fundamental understanding. He’d never talked about feeling like he’d let his guys down. Not even once. Even though working in a relatively small community with such high casualty and suicide rates meant they literally lost someone every single week. And yet, it felt like Tara knew. He had to clear his throat.
For a long moment, they stood staring at each other, and that familiar sensation of the world closing in surrounded them. It was exactly how he’d felt before he kissed her that first time.
Suddenly, Tara hugged him.
Arms around him, her face on his chest, her embrace stole his breath. For just a second, it nearly knocked him on his ass. It was an utterly perfect moment, one even more meaningful than a kiss. Tara pulled back just as quickly, so fast that he’d barely been able to react.
“What was that for?” he asked, already missing the feel of her.
“Just looked like you needed it.” A gust of wind had her rubbing her arms, and she peered around as if scanning to see if anyone saw them. “I’m gonna go get cleaned up. See you at dinner?”
He nodded and watched her walk away, gobsmacked because he had needed it. And somehow…somehow she’d known.
Chapter 9
Tara stumbled into her cabin feeling the good kind of tired. She’d enjoyed her first day back on the job and now she had a full belly. After getting so little sleep last night, she couldn’t wait to climb into her berth.
The GD had five crew cabins—a captain’s
quarter for Boone and four small two-berth cabins for the rest of them. There were also cabins for visitors, like the scientific teams they sometimes worked with. When she’d joined the team, Boone had given her the choice to sleep where she was comfortable. Not wanting to be separated out from the team, she’d taken the open berth in Bobby’s cabin—which lasted approximately two hours upon learning that he snored like a chainsaw, which was why he slept alone in the first place. That night, she’d moved to the unoccupied cabin, which had led to a great deal of hilarity the next morning at breakfast.
But on a night like tonight when she was so bone tired, Tara didn’t mind sailing solo at all. Killing the overhead light, she fell into the bottom berth and tugged the curtain closed around her little bed. The rock and roll of the boat was comfortingly familiar. She got her pillow and her blankets and her position just right and let out a long sigh.
Her eyelids fell closed. And behind them she saw Jesse.
Tara groaned. “Not again, stupid brain.”