"Sure. I understand. It's just good Mom and the baby weren't hurt."
The accident kicked right back to the forefront of his memory. He couldn't let the emotions shake his focus. The cops hadn't been much help and wouldn't be unless he could give them something more to go on. Figuring out what the odd black-and-red emblem on the bumper represented would be a good start.
Once he got his family settled.
J.T. stood, leaned against the opposite side of the window frame as his son. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah. Sure. Why wouldn't I be?"
Chris's tone and chalky face sent parental antennae on high alert. With deployments keeping him away so much, time with his son lately was scarce. What might he have missed? "Is there any reason someone would come after you? A gang from school?"
Meeting his father's gaze dead on, no shuffling, Chris answered, "I'm not mixed up in a gang at school."
Slowly, J.T. nodded, believed. "Okay, then." Still, he wasn't talking any chances on leaving Chris alone yet. "Bo's been waiting at the house in case we didn't find you first to tell you about your mom's accident. He's going to crash there on the sofa for the night so I can stay up here."
Chris straightened away from the wall. Anger snapped from his eyes, his temper another inherited legacy from his mother. "Geez, Dad, I'm sixteen. I can stay overnight on my own. It's not like I'm gonna throw some drug-flowing orgy while you're gone or anything."
God forbid.
"Bo will crash on the sofa," J.T. restated, unbending. Arguing never solved anything.
His son slouched back again, layers of clothes rippling over his lean body. "Okay, okay, stupid me thinking anybody could have an opinion."
While he sure as hell didn't intend to justify himself to a teenager, he needed to remember his son wasn't a kid anymore. Some explanation might go a long way for easing tension. "Chris."
"Yeah, what?" He stared at his shoes.
"It's been a crappy day, son. Cut me some slack."
"Sorry," he mumbled without meeting his father's eyes.
No, his son wasn't a kid anymore.
The teen years hadn't seemed as difficult with easygoing Nikki. But there hadn't been a marriage breakup in the works.
Since he'd be around more helping out while Rena recovered, he also needed to make use of the extra time with Chris. "What do you say when I bring your mom home from the hospital, we take a couple of hours and lift some weights?"
Not a bad suggestion and the only thing he could remember doing with his old man in between double-shift-work hours.
"Lift weights?" Chris shrugged. "Yeah, sure. Whatever."
J.T. fished in his flight-suit pocket and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. "Here, get something to eat on the way home."
"Thanks. See ya." Chris took the money and shuffled across the room, gym shoes squeaking long after the door closed behind him.
Dropping back into the recliner, J.T. snagged his book again, not that he expected to get much reading done, just pass time while he prepped for battle. As much as Rena might prefer full-out confrontations, he knew gaining ground back into their house would call for a more covert operation.
Rena grappled through layers of sleepy fog, blinked until her eyes adjusted to the sparse light in the narrow room that was private only because no other patient occupied the bed beside her. The antiseptic smell churned her stomach, but she welcomed the reminder of a healthy pregnancy.
A pregnancy now out in the open.
Her gaze skipped to J.T. sprawled in the corner chair, reading lamp on, paperback gripped in his broad hands. She couldn't make out the cover, but imagined it was whatever military-action bestseller hit the shelves recently.
J.T. filled her eyes as completely as he filled the chair. Such a large man shouldn't be able to move so silently, yet he did. Always. Magnetically. Until her world narrowed to dark hair, muscles and slow-blinking brooding eyes.
As tempting as it was to stare at his rugged handsomeness instead of dealing with real-life worries, she was through repeating past mistakes. She couldn't hide from the truth any longer. There wouldn't be a more private time than now for their discussion. "Hi, J.T. Good book?"
He glanced up, studied her without speaking for four clicks of the second hand on the institutional black-and-white wall clock. Closing his book, he righted the recliner. Both boots thudded on the tile floor. "I hope I didn't disturb you with the light."