Out of Uniform (Wingmen Warriors 14)

Emily twirled the nursery monitor by the flexible antennae. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Just think about seeing it from your brother’s side. Jacob made the hard choice, even if it’s tough to admit it.” Dee gripped Emily’s arm before she could bolt away. “I do understand how much it hurts when the man you love lets you down.”

The teen blinked back tears and seemed ready to thaw…Then she backed away. “I gotta go help Grace pack Madison’s stuff.”

Part of Dee screamed Emily just needed time to reason through the crazy shift in their world. But she’d seen how a day of unresolved anger could stretch into years of alienation. Heaven knew she’d learned that lesson the hard way with her parents, a mistake she planned to fix as soon as she found Evan.

It was past time he met his grandparents. If only she hadn’t waited too long. The regret would be unbearable.

She stepped out of the truck and charged after Emily. “Your brother loves you. I’ve seen that. He wants to help you but doesn’t know how.”

Emily spun on her heels, anger as bright as her unshed tears. “Sure he loves me. He just doesn’t want a screw-up like me or Chase in his life. We’re not all perfect like him, you know. Wait till you mess up, then you’ll see. He’ll dump you just like he’s dumping me onto Grace.”

The barb hit home and stuck like a prickly bur. Kids didn’t fight fair. She should have remembered that from her teaching days.

Dee understood well enough how it felt to have a family member’s disapproval, but Jacob was different. “He’s not like your father.” Or mine. “He’s here for you.”

He’d said Emily wanted to stay in Rockfish, the reason he wasn’t taking her and the baby with him. Jacob took care of everyone.

But he never let anyone get too close to him.

Emily backed away. “I don’t need this psychobabble crud from you. I’m outta here.”

Intellectually Dee understood Emily was transferring her anger from Chase over to Jacob. Yet as Dee watched Jacob lope down the steps with a Thermos of coffee in hand, she couldn’t help but remember Emily’s words.

Such a perfectionist himself, how would Jacob accept failures from others? She had her fair share of flaws. Her perfectionist parents had frozen her out for years because of one mistake.

Climbing back inside the truck, Dee shook off her own emotional baggage and focused on Jacob. While in many ways a loner, he never turned his back on anyone in need. He took care of lost souls like herself—like his sister—on a regular basis. Yet how close did he allow himself to become in return? How much of himself did he share?

A woman could lean on those broad shoulders forever.

Would he ever lean on her?

She couldn’t settle for less than everything from a man ever again. If she and Jacob didn’t learn how to share control, find some balance between them, she feared she would lose Jacob as well as Evan. The chill inside her spread, and she couldn’t seem to jam her feet under that heater enough to warm herself.

Jacob opened the driver’s-side door, a blast of cold air gusting inside. Dee suddenly realized they would be alone together for the night.

When they arrived at the base’s visitor’s quarters, would they be staying in one room or two?

Chapter 15

T ossing aside his duffel bag next to the tiny microwave, Jacob wondered if Dee had expected him to get two rooms rather than one.

A moot point since he was lucky to have snagged even this last available visitor’s quarter. She had been antsy and distant since he closed the door on the small space with a bed, a blue sofa and corner mini-kitchen. She would likely wear a hole in the carpet if she kept walking around.

Worries for her son, he could understand. He’d felt that radiating from her every pore when he’d held her while they’d watched the sun come up. This was different.

She’d been so certain the Suburban hadn’t gone into the river. Could she be doubting now? He didn’t even want to think of what it would do to her if that body turned out to be her ex-husband.

He needed to calm her, if he only knew where to start. Right now, she’d taken to staring out the window as if she might find answers there.

Parents always wanted to talk about their children. He’d learned that from his friends and a woman he’d once dated who had a kid from a prior relationship.

He sat on the sofa and hoped that would encourage her to join him. “Tell me about Evan.”

Dee’s head swiveled away from the window toward Jacob. Pain glinted in her eyes like icicles on the bare oaks outside, then melted with her tender smile. “Evan loves chocolate ice cream and anything that flies. He has this plastic plane, a tub toy, that he’s carried around forever, like his blanket.” She sniffled and scrubbed the back of her wrist under her nose as she leaned against the wall. “I promised him a toy aircraft carrier for his birthday.”

Her ache lanced at him with surprising force. He’d felt empathy before, but this was something more. Her pain was his. His investment in finding Evan became all the more personal. “We’ll have another birthday for him with a huge cake and a trip to one of those places with goofy people in costumes, where kids can play video games.”