Already up to his ass in the plan, he might as well forge ahead. He arced his arm behind the seat again and pulled out a chocolate Yoohoo. "Or this can count as calcium for the baby with some chocolate for you. You'll have to key me in on what you're craving, because I'm pretty damn clueless about what you'll like."
Would she get the double meaning? Subtext wasn't his strong suit.
She stared down at the bottles resting in her lap. "Have you been keeping a junk-food stash in your car all these years?"
"I stopped by the shoppette before I picked you up." He couldn't see her face clearly enough to gauge her reaction. "That's why I was late."
"You planned this?" Still she didn't so much as glance his way, but her voice went soft.
Progress. Onward. "I wasn't sure what you would want, so I bought a little of everything." He turned off the two-lane road onto a dirt path. "When you were carrying Nikki, you couldn't get enough pizza, but then first time I brought you one when you were pregnant with Chris, you threw up all over my flight boots."
"And then we had ice cream for supper instead."
Made love. Had more ice cream. "Peach ice cream."
"You remember?" Her face went as soft as her voice.
Ooh-rah for Romeo. "I remember."
He slid the truck to a stop at one of his favorite fishing spots, total solitude with a perfect view of the inland waterway. Everything moved slow. The birds. The fish. Even the shrimp boats took their time to cast and draw back nets, cast them again or simply troll to the dock.
Why hadn't he thought to bring her here before?
Hefting the bag from behind the seat, he upended it gently into her lap, releasing a waterfall of food.
Granola bars. Pretzels. Roasted peanuts. Spanish peanuts. Chocolate-covered peanuts. Cashews. Pistachios.
"Ohmigod," she squealed, sifting snacks through her fingers. "You really did buy a little bit of everything."
"I can't take total credit. Something the guys did at the squadron gave me the idea. So do you like it?" He picked up three kinds of peanuts. "Nuts equal protein."
She scooped a bag of peanut-shaped orange candies. "Circus peanuts? And we can call this protein?"
"Hey, whatever works for you, babe."
She clasped the bag of circus peanuts to her chest. "Like I used to tell myself the gallons of peach ice cream meant healthy milk and fruit."
Positioning the brown sack below the edge of the seat, he 'raked the junk food off her lap, and hell but Rena's legs felt good even through layers of her crinkly skirt. He set the bag to the side. "What is it that you need now? Help me out here."
"So I won't hurl on your boots and mess up that nice shine?"
"I'm not talking about Coke and ice cream anymore, but I don't know how to say what you need to hear. We have to find more … neutral ground, and damn, but it was hard before and since I got back…" He shut his eyes, opened them again because the memories kept pushing through anyway. "It seems like we're more screwed up than ever."
She touched his hand. "We've never really talked about what happened to you over in Rubistan."
"There's not much to talk about." Thinking about it sucked enough. "It was scary as hell waiting for the diplomatic channels to clear, but they did. And we all came home."
She wanted more from him. Only a fool would miss that. So much for giving her words, dumb ass. But if those words would upset her? If those words scraped like a blade against his insides on the way up and out?
He would find other words for her instead. "But I made it through since I always knew I would come home again."her husband wouldn't tell her pinched her pride and heart more than her over-tight skirt constricting her breathing. "It's always helpful to hear things from another person's perspective. Adds surprising insights."
"Fine. We'll play this your way then if it'll get me out of here quicker."
Unease itched up her spine like the healing skin over her cut foot. She couldn't shake the feeling of disloyalty in hearing what J.T. had chosen not to tell her. Damn it, why couldn't this one have been shuffled to someone else? But even if her boss had relented, the move to a new counselor would mean starting all over again, perhaps delaying Bo's return to flying.
"The part where local warlords got ahold of us at first, was … tense. That's when I got these." He held up his hands. The right could have passed for normal with only one thin scar across the top. But the left shouted pain with fading incisions, the skin pale and peeling after so long in a cast. "Wondering what they would do with us was hell—fearing they might turn us over to one of their terrorist bosses. I wouldn't have made it out alive without your husband keeping them off me."
J.T.'s bruises.