“For how long?”
“Time was so weird, surreal, but basically about three days.” Those days rolled through her memory again, the determination and the fear. Silence stretched now and she appreciated that Rick gave her the moment to digest those memories in this quiet room with nothing but the sound of the dripping faucet and Lauren’s gentle snoring.
Eventually—she had no idea how much later—he turned his mug around and around on the table and looked at her again.
“How were you rescued?” More of that professional assessment gleamed through, but with a steely determination that he would have rescued her faster.
“Rescued? I got away from Chavez myself.”
“Oh.” He blinked hard and fast. “I apologize for underestimating you.”
“I managed to stay alive long enough to find a time to overpower him and escape.”
She remembered well the thrill of that fight, the need for vengeance. It wasn’t a pretty feeling to realize how vulnerable she was to someone like Chavez. She’d been so close to plunging a knife between the man’s ribs while he lay there unconscious.
In the end, she’d palmed the blade, hog-tied him and run for the nearest city where she knew a safe house waited. “I bided my time and kicked Chavez’s butt. He died later in a tunnel collapse trying to infiltrate an airbase.”
“There is justice in the world.”
“I guess.” The death seemed too easy for all the grief he’d caused so many. “Although I would have preferred to see him stand trial for all the havoc he wreaked on people’s lives. I figure that just wasn’t meant to be.”
“You were denied your closure,” he offered with an insight she hadn’t expected.
“That’s quite a perceptive comment, especially for a man.”
“For a man? And that’s quite a sexist remark, lady.”
“I apologize.” Yipes. Open mouth, insert foot. “I have to confess I haven’t had much experience with men in touch with their emotions.”
“All right, I’ll ’fess up. They made me go through all sorts of brain-probe sessions during rehab. I’m full of cool, psychologically sensitive catch phrases.”
“Don’t be flip about this, please. It feels good to have you say something like that, to have someone understand, because, you’re right.” She could get used to having someone like Rick around. “I didn’t get my closure with the jerk who held me hostage. I may have knocked him out and run away, but I wanted to kick the crap out of him for how helpless he made me feel.”
It had been like a return to the hospital, at the mercy of cancer, not knowing if she would live or die, her options of fighting back limited. A totally hellish trot down memory boulevard.
Her hand fell to rest on his thigh. “We military types don’t deal well with the whole helpless thing.”
They shared a silent understanding, a link.
She could see that, all sensitivity aside, he wouldn’t outright admit how much it bothered him. So she would say the words for him.
“It’s a horrible experience losing control that way. But in a really strange, twisted way, it was also a liberating experience because I found my strength again.” She held up her hand. “No. Wait. I learned to trust my strength. I would wish that for you.”
“Are you deliberately being dense or you just slow today? We’re in two different situations. I’m not going to have my old life back.”
“You’ll build a new one.”
Mr. Sensitivity was long gone. Rick looked downright pissed. “How would you have felt if someone said that to you?”
“Just because I can still fly an airplane doesn’t mean I’m the same person. I lost a part of myself during that process.”
“I’m sorry for your loss. I know you went through hell and you’re an amazing woman to have come back. But that’s you and this is me. I’m not comfortable with the preaching. So if you value our roomie status, we need to end this conversation.”
“That’s quite a long speech for a man.”
“Then take it to heart.” He shoved to his feet, his eyes already on his bed and apparently leaving her to hers. “I must really mean it.”
How strange that just when she realized she didn’t want her space after all, Rick decided to rebuild his walls again.