Water gushed Niagara Falls style over the sides of the porcelain pot.
"Damn it." Rena dropped the watering can and scooped up a burgundy throw pillow from the sofa to blot the water off the floor. She'd just wash the pillow later.
Sheesh. She wasn't the same eighteen-year-old at an air show all gaga-eyed and drooling over a hot airman in his flight suit. She was a mature woman.
The bell pealed again.
A mature woman who needed to answer her door so her soon-to-be ex-husband could start his weekend visitation with their teenage son.
She Frisbee-tossed the soggy pillow across the room and out of sight into the hall. Flipped her long hair over her shoulder. Whew. Composed? Ha. Not inside. But enough to pass muster outwardly for at least five minutes.
Rena tucked around and past the ficus tree beside the overstuffed armchair. "Hold on. I'm coming. Just, uh—" her eyes fell on the telephone "—finishing up a call."
Liar. Liar. Her heels chanted with each click along hard-wood floors, then muffled on a braid rug as she made her way toward the broad-shouldered shadow darkening the stained-glass inset.
Regret pinched, not for the first time. How sad that she'd come to a point in her life where her husband had to ring the bell at his own house. He deserved so much better than this.
Better from her.
They'd sure as hell tried for years until she'd booted him out six months ago. Taken him back once he returned from Rubistan and whatever horrors he'd endured after being captured. Only to have him walk out on her a few days later.
She slowed in front of the door, pressed her hand to the glass magnolia pattern, her cluster of silver bracelets jingling and settling up toward her elbow. He wouldn't think anything of the gesture if he saw her on the other side since she was unbolting the lock with her free hand. But she let her fingers linger on the colored window for a second longer over the place where his body shadowed the pane.
After twenty-two years of sleeping with this man, her body instinctively hungered for the comfort and pleasure she could find in his arms. Her mind, however, reminded her of the heartache.
Her hand fell away from the glass.
She opened the door. "Hi, J.T."
Whew. She got that much out without stuttering or panting over his hard-muscled body in a flight suit. Still, she couldn't stop herself from soaking up the image of him to reassure herself that yes, he had survived the ordeal overseas. New threads of silver flecked his dark hair beneath his hat, adding to his appeal, shouting maturity. Experience.
Stress.
"Hello, Rena," rumbled her husband of few words.
She sidled outside with the company of passing cars, safer than inside alone, and commandeered a spot by a potted topiary reaching shoulder high. "Chris should be home any minute now. His shift ended an hour ago and he knows he has an algebra test tomorrow. He's looking forward to your weekend together."
"Me, too. We'll be camping, but I'll have my cell phone on me if you need to call."
Camping. A shared sleeping bag with J.T. under the stars while their children snoozed inside the tiny tent. So many memories she'd made with this man. Prologue
February: Over the Persian Gulf
"We've been hit!"
The aircraft commander's words popped like bullets through Senior Master Sergeant J.T. "Tag" Price's headset. Ricocheted around in his brain. Settled with molten-lead heat as J.T. sat in his solitary loadmaster perch beneath the cockpit in the cargo plane.
Not that he even needed the aircraft commander's announcement. The teeth-jarring thump still shuddered through the C-17. Yet up to that last second, he hadn't given up hope of a minor malfunction.
Minor? The wash of warning lights blazing across his control panel told him otherwise. "Details," he quizzed, quick. Brief. Never one to waste words even on a good day.
This sure as hell wasn't a good day.
Aerodynamics went to crap. The craft already rattled, strained.
"Missile hit," the aircraft commander, Captain Carson "Scorch" Hunt, answered from the cockpit above. "Probably a man-portable, fired from a boat, I think."
The plane bucked. Shuddered. His checklist vibrated off the console. "Are we gonna have to put down somewhere bad or can we make it to Europe?"