"Then why risk that by coming in after me?" She willed Lucas to hurry, her fist closing around the few remaining rose petals she'd snuck from the room. She'd been dropping them when she dared, praying Lucas would see and understand. Follow through the crawl space under their room, into the bomb shelter with a hidden door to an old drug runner's tunnel.>Small talk. This night was getting stranger by the second. Might as well go for broke since he sure could use some advice. "Have you ever done anything you regretted?"
Hunt jerked in his seat as if shot, then stared at Quade as if he'd grown an extra head or two. Damn. He wasn't that antisocial.
Okay, he was. But you'd think a guy could be more polite in hiding his surprise. "Forget it. I need to—"
"Hang on." He passed the mug to Lucas—to give himself time to think? Or recover from the shock, more likely. "Yeah, sure. We've all done things we're sorry for later. Maybe the feeling's a little more alien for you, sir. No disrespect meant."
"None taken." Sort of. But the jab was well deserved. He'd ridden the squadron hard during his command, demanded perfection.
"I've got boatloads of regrets." He stroked his mustache again even though his Ivy League appearance was smooth as ever after a full day of work. "But the one that bit the worst came from hurting a friend."
"I was talking about woman regrets."
"So am I."
"Oh, uh. Right." Of course. Why hadn't he thought of that himself?
Hadn't Sara been his friend? The only real one he could ever remember having. Except she'd said they weren't even friends, that he was too busy taking care of her, or whatever the hell she'd meant.
Hunt reached for his mug again. "When a woman's your friend but sex screws it up—so to speak—it's impossible to go back if you're not interested in going forward. Does that make sense?"
Sort of, in a jumbled way. "Are you sure you didn't have some of that rotgut tequila?"
"Positive." The pilot topped off his mug. "I'm just dead on my feet tired. Didn't sleep much while waiting for word on if you'd made it or not."
"Hell, sorry." He should go anyway. So why wasn't he standing? "You should sleep."
"Can't do that now that you've made me start thinking about her again."'
That he understood well. "Did you ever fix things with this friend of yours?"
"Tough when she won't talk to me."
"Sounds like her fault then." Wasn't that a lightbulb moment? He should be in there discussing this with Sara rather than Hunt. But it would be rude to bolt out.
Rude? Now he was going all sensitive, too. Next thing he knew he'd be a softie as Sara said.
"The problem is, sir..." Hunt turned his mug around and around on the desk, sloshing a film of coffee along the sides like a fine liquor. "I neglected to talk to her first for a while after we, uh...after I ruined the friendship."
Hunt had slept with a woman and didn't call her afterward? Hell, even he wasn't that clueless. "Remind me again why I chose an apparent moron as my third in command?"
"Beats me." He stared down into the coffee mug as if it held answers. "I'd give my left nut for a chance to fix things with her."
"If you have feelings for her—"
"I didn't say I'm in love with her or anything." He bolted back a gulp of Java like the shot he wasn't sharing with the rest of the crewdogs. .
"Right. You didn't." But being one of the walking wounded of an ambush from Cupid, Lucas recognized the signs.
"It's just awkward seeing her around."
"I can see how that would be tough." He could use a shot himself tonight.
"And her family."
Lucas paused middrink. "They know you, uh, did what you did?"
Hunt's head jerked up. "Hell, no! Her father would kill me. Slowly. Painfully. Staked out with buzzards to pick at my remains. And I'd deserve it."