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.
gue
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?"
"We're not going to make it to Europe."
Silence echoed for two seconds, cut only by the rumble of engines taking on a progressive tenor of pain.
Crap.
J.T. pivoted toward the cavernous cargo hold containing a pallet full of top-secret surveillance equipment. The technology could not fall into another government's hands. Beyond that, the stored intelligence from monitoring terrorist cell-phone traffic would give away field agent identities. "Plan of action?"
"We'll have to circle back and haul ass toward the coast to land in Rubistan."
Definitely bad. But not as bad as it could be. Relations with the country were strained, yet not outright hostile. Still, the equipment on that pallet made for a serious time bomb if they didn't offload it before reaching land. "How much longer 'til feet dry?"
"Ten minutes until we make the coastline."
Tight, but workable. Scooping his small black binder off the floor, he flipped through to the destruction checklists. "All right, then. Stretch it if you can while I destroy as much of this crap back here as possible before ditching it in the ocean."
Then pray like hell they didn't end up ditching the plane, too.