He ditched the toolbox on his workbench—beside his Shakespeare anthology. The book was getting dog-eared from overuse these days.
Thumbing along the edges, he slowed, flipped it open. Two Gentlemen of Verona. "The private wound is deepest."
Well, hell. He could use a little less insight tonight. He smacked the book shut. He'd have to work off his tension in a more basic way. Sex would be great. But not wise. And not an option.
Exercise.
He sat on the edge of the weight bench and unlaced his boots, one, two, tucked them to the side. He unhooked his web belt, placed it within easy reach on his workbench, then peeled off his sweaty flight suit. God, how many hours ago had he put the thing on?
Wearing only his black T-shirt and boxers, he reached for a pair of workout shorts flung over a weight bar.
The door from the house opened—revealing Rena. His hands closed around the shorts. Talk about being caught with his pants down.
She startled to a stop. Tension to match his rippled off her in visible waves. Corkscrew spirals of hair all but crackled with energy.
After a quick flicker-glance down his near-naked body, her gaze met and held his. "I have something I need to say."
Uh-oh.
The determination in the tilt of her chin, he recognized well. The vulnerable glint in her eyes, however, caught him completely off guard at a time when his defenses were already somewhere in the negative numbers.
He braced his shoulders for whatever she planned to tell him—and wished be had some pants to go along with the strengthened will.
Rena's slim fingers wrapped around the stair railing, queenlike in her garage castle. "Temporary truce."
Chapter 12
Rena gripped the railing until the edges cut into her palm. Swallowing her pride came hard.
Being alone right now was harder.
She moved down another stair, closer to J.T. and the weight bench. "I don't have a clue what we're going to do tomorrow. Or the day after that. I know you want to move back in for the baby, and you have to know I'm still not sure I can live with that. We haven't really resolved anything."
His face blanked, but she'd expected that once she started discussing their problems. He gave her so few glimpses into him, his feelings. She would have to go with her instincts, all of which told her to forge ahead. To take what she could right now, find something solid to hold on to.
"But I also know this is about the worst day of my life, second only to when I heard you'd been shot down."
A vein throbbed along his temple. Not as outward a sign as some of the ones Bo displayed in her office, but she read the tension in her husband well. Her arms ached to hold him as much as her body yearned to be held.
"I can make it through tonight on my own if I have to. But God, J.T., I don't want to. I want somebody to hold me for just a few minutes while that somebody tells me everything is going to be okay. I need for you to hold me."
He moved toward her, slow, silent, her big stealthy husband, and yet somehow he was there in front of her before she could blink. His arms went around her, lifted her off the last two steps and clasped her to his chest, lowering her in a glide against his solid body that comforted and excited all at once. Her feet lightly touched ground, if not her senses, which were definitely still flying.
His fingers smoothed over her hair, again and again without stopping, his other hand working a firm massage against her waist that kept her anchored to him. "I can't promise you it's going to be okay. But I can promise I'll do my damnedest to make that happen. And I can most definitely hold you for as long as you need me."
How about forever? she wanted to ask. Except needing him meant more loss if he left again. Not that she expected him to walk out the door with the baby on the way. But she'd learned there were so many other ways to leave. He'd lived in the house with her for years while still seeming thousands of miles away.
J.T. rubbed circles on her back. "Did everything go okay with Chris upstairs?"
She nodded. "He actually fell asleep. I think the fear exhausted him. Is it totally ridiculous that I stood there at the door and watched him sleep as if that could somehow shift things back to when he was five and I used to do the same thing?"
"Not ridiculous at all. The five-year-old was a helluva lot easier to deal with. Bigger kids. Bigger problems." His arms tightened around her.
Frustration sparked inside her, the need to do something, fix things in a way she could with a little child. "What did we do wrong that he didn't come to us right away?"
"Teenagers don't always see long-term ramifications. I'm guessing he kept slapping Band-Aids on the problem hoping it would get better on its own."
A coping method that sounded familiar. "Who are we to judge on that reasoning?"