Hot Zone (Elite Force 2)

She slid from the bed, her bare feet barely making a sound as she crossed to the nook. She rested her arms on the rail of the white crib. “A kid is a pint-sized package of possibility. Stare at a baby and you start thinking about what he or she will look like down the road, what they’ll do with their lives.”

“What do you envision when you look at him?”

Amelia sketched a finger over his fine, dark eyebrows. “With his face all scrunched up like that, I can envision him with little round glasses and a calculator.”

“Sure, I can see that.”

She kissed her fingers, stroked Joshua’s forehead, before turning back to Hugh. “I liked what you were playing for him.”

“I wouldn’t want to wake up the kid.”

“He didn’t seem disturbed when you played before, or with us talking now.”

He stepped away from the nursery nook, swinging the guitar back up to play softly, notes that went through his head when he thought of Amelia. He settled on the edge of the bed.

She sat beside him, her legs tucked up underneath her. “That’s lovely, but I don’t recognize it.”

“Just some chords that went together for the moment.” He played on while talking. “My mom was determined to bring up well-rounded sons. So my brother and I didn’t just play sports, we took music lessons too. My younger brother picked piano and I chose guitar because I thought guitar would be easier. Wow, was I wrong. She signed me up with a classical instructor.” He plucked through a few bars of Bach. “And it was forever before he would let me near the pieces I wanted to play.”

“And you wanted to play?”

“Clapton. Hendrix.” Ah, Hendrix. The songs he would play for Amelia if they had days and days together. His fingers found a classic blues riff, morphing into a Muddy Waters tune. “Hindsight, it was smart of my teacher, since it forced me to practice my fingers raw to get to what I wanted.”

“What sports did you play?”

“Football and track, field events. Lots of sitting around after the shot put and discus. I played. The girls gathered around. And then I really practiced, especially for the girl next door.”

His fingers moved easily over the fretboard, the changes and notes coming naturally from the training and practice, much like what happened when he was out in the field, on a mission.

She paused, frowned for moment before her blue eyes went wise and wide with realization. She slumped back against a bedpost. “You married the girl with the kitten.”

His eyes slid back to Joshua in the crib and nodded once. “I did. And we stared at Tilly’s face when she slept, and yes, we talked about what we thought that precious angel-faced baby would do with her life.”

Amelia watched him with those piercing eyes, her lawyer eyes that saw so much.

“Tilly colored on walls and defended her rights in the playground sandbox. She was tiny though, born two months prematurely. She spent three weeks in the NICU.”

He set the guitar aside, the fear of that time filling him up again even in memories. “I prepared myself to lose her during that time. But once she made it through?” He shook his head. “I let my guard down. I got complacent, let myself dream of the day she would start first grade, ride a bike, get her license… And while I know it’s unreasonable to expect I could have saved her, I took her for granted, and that’s what I find the hardest to live with.”

She rested her hands on his knees and stayed silent, thank God, she stayed silent. There weren’t words that could make this any better. Although the pain didn’t continue to grow. Her touch didn’t make it go away, but at least it didn’t increase.

He thought that maybe he could actually explain how they died, something he always left to other people to explain. Staying silent, staying busy had been how he survived for five years.

But right now in the silence with Amelia, he found himself saying “I told you before that my wife and daughter—Marissa and Tilly—died in an airplane crash. A fluke, couldn’t even pin it on mechanical error or pilot error. A wind shear forced the airplane down shortly after takeoff. There was no chance for recovery. The jet broke apart.”

Looking in her eyes became too much, so he glanced away and stroked the neck of the soundless guitar.

Her hand rested on top of his. “I’m so very sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine how painful that must have been, must still be for you.”

And she needed to hear the rest. He needed to say it, finally. “It happened when Tilly was in kindergarten, the Christmas after the pet-rock preschool incident. They were going to spend a month with her mother since I was deployed for the holiday. We didn’t really have the money for the tickets, but I surprised her anyway. Put the whole thing on a credit card because I felt so damn guilty about being away too much.”

“You can’t possibly feel responsible.” She clasped his hands, dipping her head and forcing him to meet her eyes. “You couldn’t have predicted that.”

He tapped his temple. “Up here, I know that.” He tapped his chest. “Down here has a tough time comprehending. If I’d gotten out of the air force and taken some regular nine-to-five job, she wouldn’t have needed to go to her parents. She wouldn’t have been so lonely and stressed-out. I wouldn’t have missed over half of my daughter’s too-short life.”

She squeezed his hands harder… Except he realized he was the one holding so tightly. She hadn’t winced even when he must have been close to breaking her fingers.

He let go abruptly. The reason for all this pouring out of his guts came to him. He needed to make her realize. “Amelia, I may be good with the kid, but I can’t go there again.”