The itch along her nerves turned to a vicious rash—ugly horror spreading through her as Bo confirmed all her worst fears about J.T.'s capture.
The longer her husband stayed silent, the more she'd hoped maybe the images haunting her were just the product of an overactive imagination. So much easier than admitting the worst had happened and her husband wouldn't even tell his wife.
Bo swung his boot back up on his knee, fidgeted with the long black laces. "There were already American hostages over there then, part of what we were checking up on—"
Pausing, he glanced up from his laces. "I swear I'm not being cagey. I can't say more than that for security reasons and it won't make any difference to what's going on here."
"I understand." Understood that her husband was a part of these things he couldn't talk about. Scary things that man-speak translated into the simple word tense.
"Anyhow, the Rubistanians intercepted the rebel caravan, and the bad guys turned us over to the good guys."
"Just turned you over?"
"Yep. They knew they were outgunned, so they gave us up rather than die."
More manspeak understatement. No doubt. "What about the days that followed?"
"Consisted of questioning while we waited for international channels to clear, and for the Rubistanians to poke around inside our plane. I don't remember a whole lot since I was drugged up for the pain most of the time."
"Does it help to downplay the events?"
He looked up, his eyes clear of the fog from reminiscing, if not the horrors of what he'd endured. "Yes."
Pain pulsed from him. She couldn't miss it even with the distance of training. The toughest part of her job. And this was a near stranger. The words would be hell coming from J.T.'s mouth.
If he ever told her.
"I don't mean to sound inane, Lieutenant, but you do realize that if you climb back into the plane, this could happen again?"
"I accept that as part of my job."
"And you're okay with it?" she asked, only noticing as the words fell out of her mouth that she'd opted for J.T.'s abbreviated manspeak.
"Only a moron is going to be totally okay with it."
The sanest response he could have given. Rena could all but see him step that much closer to his plane again.
"But I'm less okay with quitting. I owe a debt."
"The time left on your Air Force obligation can be spent in another job."
"That's not what I meant." He pushed to his feet, restless pacing resuming. "I was brought up by people who gave everything for other people, for me. I need to do something to repay that. I figured out pretty damn fast I wasn't meant for the priesthood." He tossed her a roguish wink that almost lit the dark shadows from his eyes.
Bo scooped a crystal paperweight off the corner of her desk, tossing it one-handed in the air. "And I'm too selfish in a lot of ways to go for the self-sacrificing gig. I like my toys. But I have to give something back. My Air Force commission allows me to settle the debt with the fringe benefits of some kick-ass toys."
He gave the weight a final pitch, snagged it midair, then replaced it on her desk. "I'm not as good as the people who brought me up. And I'm not some genius who can cure cancer." He placed his scarred hands on the edge of her desk. "But once I left the home, I discovered that these hands that were so good at playing music also had a talent for loving a woman and flying an airplane. These hands are who I am. I won't let anyone take that away from me."
He pinned her with his eyes, direct, no shutters or walls blocking her from seeing the man's burning drive to crawl back into that plane.
Then he spun away, hands on his hips, shoulders heaving. "Screw this. I've had enough. Isn't the government's nickel spent out for today yet?"
She could have continued for hours exploring the Cro-Magnon implications of what he'd revealed. But that wasn't her job. Instincts told her that while this young man might well have hang-ups, they had no bearing on his fitness to fly.
And about how his hands had been broken? What had happened that day? He'd definitely closed up for the afternoon, but she'd made the break in getting through to him. They would move on to that in the next session.
Still, she couldn't help but wonder, did men really think their entire worth could be summed up with their job and sex? Did her husband think that? With J.T.'s walls so high, she didn't know how she would ever find the answer.
And at the moment, with Bo's recounting of the capture still clanging horribly in her ears, she doubted her ability to keep her own defenses in place around J.T. while finding the answer. Even a hint of encouragement from her reticent husband and she would fall into their old patterns of comforting him the only way he ever allowed.