Page 26 of Operation Rescue
Erin wondered how many miles she’d covered just pacing her own living room. Those people chasing ten thousand steps a day would be proud of her.
She had snapped out of a haze of thought to find herself standing and staring out the back window into the garden she’d worked so hard to create. She had made sure Ethan was a part of that, because she wanted him to be certain they would not be packing up and moving again, as they had so often during the first dozen years of his life. This was home, would stay their home, and she had wanted him to be sure of that. Because it was so important.
You think the place matters? It’s not home. It’ll never be home. Because Dad’s not here.
Ethan’s words, screamed at her as he’d thrown down the trowel she’d handed him, rang in her head now like the church bells from the mission she could hear when she happened to be nearby at the right time.
He had never forgiven her. He never would. She knew that now.
She didn’t blame him. He’d been there, too, through the worst of it. Through the time when everything had focused on getting Blaine back on his feet and as healthy as possible. He had even helped, willingly, as much as he could as an eleven-year-old could. If Blaine needed something he’d run to get it. If Blaine got down, he’d talk about all the stuff they’d do when he got well.
You gotta get well, Dad. I need you to show me that curve ball thing again.
That curve ball thing. She suppressed a deep, powerful ache. He could have done that. He could have played baseball, maybe even made the big leagues, with that snaky, impossible curve ball of his. She remembered the opposing players muttering that the damn thing changed direction twice just going over the plate. His strikeout record at the local high school still held.
But no, Blaine Everett had some patriotic idea that he wanted—no,hadto serve his country, and had enlisted instead. She had hated the idea, not because she didn’t love her homeland but because she was terrified at the idea of him possibly being hurt.
And you were right to be.
When it had happened, when she’d gotten word that his helicopter had been shot down by some random fanatic on what should have been a routine flight, all the fears she’d tried to keep hidden had burst free. She knew right then this was it. She would get him through this, get him on his feet and functional again, and then she was done. She couldn’t deal with the fear anymore, let alone the reality.
She spun on her heel, searching for something, anything to do. Because she knew if she let herself, she would sink into the mire of self-recrimination and regret and be lost for hours. She strode down the hallway, pausing to check the guest bath. The only sign anyone had been there was some remaining droplets on the shower floor.
She steeled herself and opened Ethan’s door. The first thing that hit her was like a slap in the face. The bed was made, perfectly. Ethan never made his bed. It was a major bone of contention between them, him saying he was just going to get back in it again so what was the point, while she tried to explain it was like setting your mind right for the day, to start out organized.
He’d called her a controlling witch, and she was pretty sure that first letter of the noun was different in his head.
But it had started her thinking. Was she? Was that the core of it all, that she wanted to control everything? And that the one thing she could never, ever control was what might happen to Blaine as long as he wore the uniform?
She gave her head a shake and continued down the hall. The guest room looked as if no one had set foot in it, except for the duffel bag on the chest at the foot of the bed, and the water bowl on the floor for the dog, a cleverly crafted collapsible thing that probably fit neatly in a side pocket of the large duffel. The bed here was also made, and perfectly.
Those Marines.
Nothing to do here, she told herself. Except be grateful Rafe Crawford had come with Blaine. Not only because he seemed more than qualified to help find and rescue Ethan from whatever he’d gotten into, but because he was a buffer of sorts. And now that her ex was here, she needed that buffer. Not because she hated him, or wanted to yell at him for never understanding why she couldn’t go on, but because…because…
Face it, Erin. He’s still the only man on the planet who gets to you. You’re as hot for him as you ever were.
She’d known that from the moment she’d opened the door and looked into those deep blue eyes. But she hadn’t really admitted it in so many words until now.
She’d kept telling herself she’d built a nice, solid wall around those old feelings, a wall built of bricks formed during that horrible battle to get him back on his feet. She was nowhere near as brave as the man going through it all firsthand. She’d never denied the problem was her, not him. She didn’t care that it was exhausting to her, or sucked up every bit of her energy. It was seeing him so destroyed that destroyed her.
She loved him too much.
She let out a smothered sigh, knowing that to most people that probably made no sense at all. Sometimes it made no sense to her.
She tried to think of something, anything that needed doing that she hadn’t already done three times since Blaine had told her he was on his way. She thought of that water bowl, and wondered if the dog needed food, or if that obviously prepared former Marine had brought that along, too. She should have asked, if there was anything he needed that she could pick up at the store.
It struck her then there was something she could do, something she hadn’t thought about. Assuming Blaine’s choice of foods to have handy hadn’t changed, she could go pick up his favorites. But then she’d be facing how much to buy. Enough to last a couple of days? A week? God help her, a month?
A horrendous wave of guilt swamped her. Her beloved—even if he had been so difficult to deal with—son was missing, and her first thought when contemplating a month of continued searching was to wonder how she’d survive that long under the same roof with Blaine without…
Without what? Jumping him? She certainly felt the need, just as she had when she’d first reached the age of understanding what this sensation of need and longing for him was. They’d waited—and only because their parents were friends and they knew they’d somehow get discovered and it would be beyond embarrassing—until their senior year of high school, when the need had become too strong and they’d been away on a senior class trip. It had only gotten better since then, and now, twenty years later, she felt it just as strongly as she had then.
That had been one of the hardest things after her leaving, the gradual realization that she would never feel the same way about any other man. Never ache with want, never breathless until she saw him again, never feel as if your world was completely off-balance without them.
They said you never forget your first, but she hadn’t counted on never wanting anyone else.
Chapter 14
