Free Fall (Elite Force 4)

“No thank you. I’m good with the tea.” She studied him intently, like he was a mystery to solve. “That must be difficult for you.”

He looked at her watching him and realized… She knew. He hadn’t told her about his alcoholism, but somehow she’d learned about it on her own. Of course, the woman was a professional agent. Apparently there wouldn’t be any secrets from her.

“Who told you? Or did you figure it out?” He forced himself to sit still, really still even though he wanted to charge right over to her side and ask if this was a deal breaker. “I wasn’t holding back; just waiting for the right time to bring it up.”

“I guessed, actually, although I wasn’t certain until now. I understand if you’d rather not talk about this.” She stared back, her gaze accepting, open. Sympathetic. “Men use half as many words as a woman.”

She declared it so matter-of-factly even though her green eyes glinted like dewy grass. And then he recalled what she’d said about having trouble expressing emotions, like her father.

So she rolled out studies to bolster those feelings she didn’t know how to express.

Something strange tugged at his heart, something that felt like… affection? So different from lust. “Studies show that, do they?”

“You’re teasing me?”

“A little.” To give himself time to figure out what he wanted to say next. “I’m sober. I’ve been through a rehab program. And honestly, Stella, during that time I’ve talked about the drinking, about staying sober… and talked and talked and talked. I went to AA—I still go whenever I can make meetings.”

She nudged his teacup toward him. “I’m guessing there isn’t a weekly group three doors down in some of the places you’ve been sent by the military.”

“Hey,” he smiled at her, grateful for levity to ease the tension, “that was a pretty good joke.”

“I was serious.”

“Oh, uh, sorry?”

She smiled. “Got you that time.”

He smiled back, so damn entranced by this woman who already understood him better than anyone he could remember. “You still surprise me, Stella.”

“I don’t know why. I’m pretty boring.” Her eyes lit with more of that tenderness that poured over him like aloe on a burn. “But we were talking about your drinking. Perhaps we could begin with why you started.”

She sounded so clinical. So precise. But instead of being put off by that seeming detachment, he was totally drawn in. If she had a tough time dealing with messy emotions, she could only be wading into his past crap because she genuinely wanted to know. Maybe she even cared.

“Stella, you know about statistics and studies. People can be genetically predisposed to alcoholism.” Maybe she would deal better with the more practical explanation. “You see one person get wasted every Friday night and then when he needs to stop, no big deal. Then someone else drinks half as much only to learn he’s totally hooked and the downward spiral starts.”

“You’re saying it’s in your DNA?”

“My mother, her father. Every generation as far back as I can trace.” What a legacy. He felt the weight of it all the more now as he told Stella, wondering if the words would send her running. “The stories people tell in AA about what triggered it for them… I don’t have that story. It just happened. One day I was hanging out with the guys drinking and the next day I realized, holy shit, I couldn’t quit.”

“You said your mother was an alcoholic.” She reached across the table and he could see her frustration at not being able to touch him. “That had to have left its marks on you as an adult.”

Down on the street, a shrill horn honked right beneath the terrace, louder than the steady drone of shouts and voices from the marketplace beside the ancient, storied river. Jose peered over the balcony, the scent of spiced meat rising from a vendor’s cart.

“Don’t try to make excuses for me. My dad held a steady job as therapist—there’s irony in that, don’t you think?” The old saying about not being able to cure your own family was sure as hell true. “We never went hungry. Mom didn’t drink when my sister and I were little. When things got tougher for her, Dad always brought supper home and made sure my sister had enough money to look after me while he was at work.”

Except she’d eventually used that money to buy booze for herself.

Stella sat quietly, just listening, never judging even though he judged himself. He refused to blame anyone for the decisions he’d made in ignoring his family history.

“My older sister left at eighteen, enlisting in the military to get out just like I did. Except she left the Army when she went into rehab for the second time, when she had to sign over custody of her two children.”

Now that part made her forehead furrow.

“How old were you when you quit drinking?”

“Twenty-two.”

“So that means you’ve been sober for five years.” Her forehead smoothed. “That’s quite an accomplishment.”