Page 88 of Luck Be Mine
Coincidentally, her friend squeezed her formerly injured left hand.
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◊ Unspoken Things ◊
Cait sat in one of the front porch chairs and gave a sigh at the softness of the cushions. Stuffed from a full spaghetti dinner with salad and bread, she breathed in the flower-scented night air. A late October fall in San Diego was one of her favorite times. Her day-off visit to her garden center had netted the display ofpumpkins on the edge of the steps and the pots of orange and red chrysanthemums across the porch.
How long did she planned to sit here and wave at neighbors? Only Hunt knew. Eventually, he’d come home. Ops tempo didn’t conform to bankers’ hours. She knew this. But his dinner was cold, and it irked.
When he was home, he was supposed to be hers. The Navy never agreed with her sentiment, but it was a constant wish. Currently, he was inside the wire, coming home, eating, and sleeping with her, but he was closed off. Was it work? Something else? Should she push? She’d never had to ask herself these questions before. In general, they weren’t together enough to get into arguments where bad feelings lingered. But this was different. Distant.
She heard his truck before he pulled into the driveway. Conflicted, she took her time rising to meet him. He got out of the truck, grabbed his bag, and met her in the middle of their lawn. “What? No run and jump into my arms?”
She didn’t answer but tipped her head and gave him a quick kiss on the neck.
“You’re mad at me.”
“No.” A little fib. “Yeah, maybe a little.”
“Yeah, something. What?”
She looped her arm through his and led him across the lawn to the porch. “I thought the longer we were married the easier this would get. I remember the speech about how we can do hard things. But these hard things keep getting harder.”
“I don’t disagree.” He went silent, intensifying her worry.
“We both run into the fire. It’s who we are. You go do you. I go do me. I worry. There is no priority for us.”
“Do you think we’re failing?” Hunt sat on the step; his voice had quieted with the night.
She sat next to him, kicking her bare feet out in front of her, but keeping a hand on his thigh. “No, but I feel like we’re drifting from one tough spot to the next.”
Hunt’s fingers gripped her neck. “Are you trying to tell me you want out?” His tone frosted over causing a chill to snake down her back.
She straddled his lap and cupped his face. “No. I’m with you always. I knew exactly who you were when I met you, and I know who you are now. I’m not going anywhere. Are you?”
“You don’t have to ask me. I come home.” His eyes shifted to the street.
“I come home, too.”She forced his eyes to hers. “What?”
“Do we need to talk about this crap?” His tone roughened, eyes hard, yet something was there, and it was stuck between them.
“Tell me.”
His mouth pressed into a stern line. Finally, he took a deep breath, as if going for a dive. “It started in Afghanistan,” he muttered. “The failed rescue mission. The way I came apart afterward. I’ve never let anyone see me like that. Not my team. Not you. Not ever.”
“You think I judged you? The mission was three years ago. Awful things were happening. Everybody was suffering through the horror. I didn’t judge you.”
“I judged me.” The harsh words fell wrong into the night air of home.
Cait rubbed his neck. “You kept it in a box while you needed to. I wade in blood and need the box, too. We both have to let down sometime.”
“I’ve always kept the job separate. But after I lost it, I couldn’t figure out how to regain control. I coasted. Faked it. Now, Stemmons gets hurt, and I’m back to questioning every reaction. Again.”
“You’re human, not perfect. The Navy trusts you with the job because you’ll run into the fire, and you’re a great leader. They can’t ask for more.”
“So what are we talking about? What do you need?”
She flipped her fingers from him to her. “I need us to address our coping mechanisms for all this time apart, and the ongoing stress. We use sex to connect. Not complaining, but you stay too contained trying to protect me or yourself, and I don’t share because I don’t want to put more on your plate. All this time apart is crushing us, and we’re both burying things. I need some sense we’re in this together. That ‘we’ is going to survive.”
