Page 43 of Operation Rescue
A look he wished he could have back.
Chapter 22
“You went from second looey to captain faster than anybody I know.”
Erin heard Rafe’s voice from the living room. They’d come back to the house and—after she’d finished marveling at the difference in her car—she’d hastened to check for any messages. There had been a few, but none with news, only friends checking on her, or asking for news.
Then she heard Blaine’s reply to Rafe’s comment. “Eyes on the prize.”
She suppressed a little shudder. How could flying into a combat zone, getting shot at, be the prize?
I don’t understand. How can being sent into some big battle, where you could get killed, be rewarding?
It’s the walking away afterward. Especially if you won.
That long-ago exchange with Blaine, one of the ones that had convinced her she would never understand that part, ran through her mind for the first time in a long time. But on the heels of that had come his whispered follow-up.
I do it so you, and others like you, don’t have to. So you can live a good life, in peace.
That was when she’d realized that this was just who he was, that he’d always risk himself for those he loved, and that in his mind that was what serving in the Marines was. That night had ended up with them in bed, and her riding him fiercely, showing him in every hot, physical way she could what those words had meant to her.
That had been the night she had at last comprehended she had married a hero. She just hadn’t understood yet how high the price for that was.
Now she realized she’d tuned into her thoughts instead of the present—something that happened far too often, something she feared may have been part of the reason Ethan had run—because Blaine was standing now, Cutter at his feet, and staring at the well-used tennis ball in his hand.
“C’mon, dawg,” he drawled, “let’s go wear you out a little.”
“Thanks,” Rafe said. “He’s a little restless today.”
“I know the feeling,” she muttered as Blaine and the dog stepped out into the backyard. She was glad she’d kept a long open space between her flower beds, so the dog at least had room to run.
“I know it probably feels like we’re not doing much,” Rafe said as he took a seat on one of the barstools pulled up to the kitchen counter.
She turned to look at the man who was only here because Blaine had asked for his help. But she couldn’t deny what he’d said was true.
“It’s just…”
“I get it. So much of what we do in cases like this these days is internet-related. But I understand the feeling that it doesn’t count if you’re not out there physically looking.”
“Only because my son is out there somewhere, getting involved in who knows what, already stealing, and… I’m sorry, I’m just getting more frantic the more time passes.”
“Of course you are. But this way we can search so much more area so much faster. Which Ty is doing as we speak. He developed our own recognition software, and that goes beyond facial to body type and way of moving, too. He’s looking for any other matches in videos we can access—which is more than you might think. The Foxworth name opens a lot of doors.”
She found herself relaxing a little. “You’ve already found out more than I did, or the sheriff. Are all of you this good at this?”
The still rather intimidating man laughed. “If there’s a low man on the tech tier at Foxworth Northwest, it’s me. I’ve gotten better, because I’ve had to, but believe me, my first instinct is the same as yours, to get out there and physically look.”
She smiled, rather wanly she was afraid. “You’d think I’d be okay with it, given almost all my work is done on a computer.”
“This is different. This is your son, not a customer or some tech problem.”
“And having Blaine here—” She cut herself off before she could say something truly stupid. Then, with a long sigh, she said, “He’s done nothing but try to take care of Ethan, over and above what the court declared as mandatory support. He sends us so much sometimes I wonder what he’s living on.”
“It’s cheaper to live on base, in many places.”
“So he does. And if we need something, he does what he can to see that we get it.” She gestured around the room. “The only reason I was able to afford this place at first was because he pays for almost everything else.”
“He’s a good man,” Rafe said, his tone a little too carefully neutral.
