Free Fall (Elite Force 4)

“When your mom was drinking, after your grandmother got sick?”

“It was simpler for everyone if I stayed busy at school. Dad would swing by and pick me up on his way home. We made it work.” He started to stand.

She clasped his hand and tugged him back down beside her. “What about your niece and nephew? Are they into running? How old are they?”

“My niece is twelve and my nephew is eight. Madison is into soccer…” He paused, stuffing painful images to the far corners of his mind. “Michael swims.”

“Those are fun ages. My brothers and I were all athletic. Of course, I pretty much had to be if I wanted to keep up with them.”

“Paid off for you in the field,” he said, his breathing leveling out again as she veered off the subject of his family.

“You’re right there. Little did I know, all of our tree climbing to prove I wasn’t a scaredy-cat would help in survival and resistance training.”

He’d seen firsthand how tough she was in the field and right now he felt like the scaredy-cat, shaking at the thought of her injured, captured… Or dead. “What do your brothers think of your job?”

She crinkled her sunburned nose. “They’re under the impression I’m an interpreter for Interpol.”

“Good cover story. I guess ignorance is bliss.”

“I actually thought I might segue back into that field someday…” She looked at him through her eyelashes. “When I’m ready to settle down and have a couple of rug rats of my own.”

Time to veer off that topic ASAP.

He looped an arm around her waist and hauled her close. “Talking about kids when you smell like guava and sex feels somehow wrong to me.”

Pressing a hand to his chest, she arched her back. “Are you going to be that guy? The stereotypical dude we see in Hollywood movies who’s afraid to commit? I really expected more originality from you than that.”

Now that stung. “Call it what you want. I have a commander who’s on his fourth marriage. Stories like that can give a guy pause.”

“How’s his fourth marriage going?” She snapped the waistband on his shorts.

Damn, he loved her sass. “I believe he’s got a keeper this time,” he admitted begrudgingly. “Of course, he’s not in the field as much anymore. Good thing, since they have a kid on the way.”

“You’re not helping your case here. Any other tales of military life misery you want to share to shore up your argument?”

“You’re too smart, you know that, right?” His teammates and their wives were producing like rabbits these days. Brick and his wife had a new baby. So did his old teammate Hugh Franco.

“So it can be done,” she pressed, her smile tight. “You just don’t want to.”

“Roger.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not really.” Images of his nephew tormented him, little Michael scarred for life because he’d been neglected by an alcoholic mom too drunk to hear her child’s screams. Bianca had already been through rehab. They’d thought she’d turned her life around.

They’d grown complacent and Michael would pay the price for the rest of his life.

Jose refused to be complacent. Every day he fought the urge to take a drink and yes, so far he’d won. But this was his battle. He’d devoted his life to saving others on the job. How in the hell could he justify the risk of breaking the sacred promise of a parent to protect a child?

Intellectually, he understood from AA meetings that others found a way to rebuild a family life. But that didn’t stop the images of Michael for him. Only work offered him complete forgetfulness and he was beginning to realize Stella wouldn’t be able to accept that. Hell, she deserved more.

He slid an arm under her legs and lifted her against his chest. “Enough talking. I’d rather take you for a swim.”

He waded into the Shebelle River, knowing he’d only delayed the inevitable with Stella. They were headed for the crash…

***

Holding her sleeping body against him now as the sun rose on a new morning in Mogadishu, he let the memory of that afternoon kick around inside his head awhile longer. They hadn’t broken up that day, but it had marked the beginning of the end for them.