Navy Rescue
Geri Krotow
She saved a baby, but can she save her marriage? Navy commander and pilot Gwen Brett is shot down in a disastrous mission–and survives six months in terrifying circumstances. She manages to escape with an orphaned baby she rescued and is determined to bring home.Devastated when she was presumed dead, her ex-husband, Drew, is overjoyed by her survival. He offers Gwen and the baby a place to stay, to recover. Gwen accepts, convinced their love is gone. But almost losing her for good makes Drew realize he wants her back–and Gwen feels the same…. However, this rescue might be the hardest one yet!
She saved a baby, but can she save her marriage?
Navy commander and pilot Gwen Brett is shot down in a disastrous mission—and survives six months in terrifying circumstances. She manages to escape with an orphaned baby she rescued and is determined to bring home.
Devastated when she was presumed dead, her ex-husband, Drew, is overjoyed by her survival. He offers Gwen and the baby a place to stay, to recover. Gwen accepts, convinced their love is gone. But almost losing her for good makes Drew realize he wants her back—and Gwen feels the same…. However, this rescue might be the hardest one yet!
Gwen saw him as soon as the plane pulled up to the hangar
Drew.
He was the tall one with the sure stance, waiting for her with a group of other people. Relief eased some of the tightness in her chest.
She straightened and walked to the hangar. She was at least one hundred feet from the open doors and the welcoming group, but Drew’s features were as sharp as if he stood six inches away.
His sunglasses hid his eyes so she had only his facial features and posture by which to judge his demeanor. He looked taller, his face defined, more mature. Not as young as she’d remembered him for six long months.
Before she finished her train of thought, Drew was in front of her. She hesitated. Was he angry about taking her in? Having her stay at his house?
“Gwen.” He closed the distance between them and embraced her. He kept his arms tightly around her, and she relished the feel of his winter jacket against her cheek. Relished the way she could almost convince herself she still had him to come home. That this was real.
She felt a sudden urge to pull back, look him in the eye and tell him that now she understood what really mattered in life.
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for your support of the Whidbey Island series! Your positive comments on Facebook and Twitter, and your emails, mean so much to me. It’s heartening to know you’ve enjoyed meeting the fictional heroes and heroines of Naval Air Station, Whidbey Island, as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. While my characters are always made up, their virtues are not—courage under fire being the most common. Whether the heat is felt on a war-torn battlefield or in the home of a military spouse who’s keeping the family together while his or her warrior is deployed, it’s what makes today’s military family stronger than ever. I’m honored to bring you these stories, and I hope they lift the spirits of our friends and families in service.
Navy Rescue started in my mind years ago when I had the gift of a conversation with a senior enlisted aircrew man who survived a P-3C ditch in the ocean. Unfortunately I don’t remember his name but I’ll never forget how he so honestly described the details of the ditch. His real-life story made me think about the repercussions of one of the crew getting lost at sea, and how difficult it would be to come back home after being assumed dead.
Gwen and Drew have been divorced for several years when the story starts. Two life-changing events for both of them force the reassessment of why they split, and make them consider whether the love they shared is worth resurrecting. Or maybe they now have a chance at a newer, deeper love.
I look forward to your thoughts on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads. For the latest news on the next book in the Whidbey Island series, check out my website, www.gerikrotow.com (http://www.gerikrotow.com), and sign up for my newsletter. As always, thank you for your unwavering support of our men and women in uniform and the families they love.
Peace,
Geri Krotow
Navy Rescue
Geri Krotow
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Former naval intelligence officer and U.S. Naval Academy graduate Geri Krotow draws inspiration from the global situations she’s experienced. Geri loves to hear from her readers. You can email her via her website and blog, www.gerikrotow.com (http://www.gerikrotow.com).
For Bob Coughlin and Jack Stoner, two heroes who rescued me when I didn’t even realize I needed rescuing!
Acknowledgments:
Much appreciation to John Weiss, DPT, and his staff for their professional insight and patience with my very fictional questions.
Contents
PROLOGUE (#uf9c4cd2a-34e5-5b11-b35e-19c35159cabd)
CHAPTER ONE (#u30a0d9ab-c973-5ec9-b4d6-c7f00bbf5153)
CHAPTER TWO (#u5609f02a-86f0-5c67-825f-0d5439e63ee6)
CHAPTER THREE (#u69bb9852-d85d-5c87-8911-005f93a47b93)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
NAVY RESCUE/WHIDBEY ISLAND SERIES ACRONYMS (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE
COMMANDER GWENDOLYN BRETT adjusted the power levers on her P-3C-Orion aircraft as another gust of wind racked the airframe. Lightning lit up the night sky over the Philippine Sea and she wished they’d finished the mission hours earlier.
Terrorist insurgents in the remote southern islands of the Philippines hadn’t shown their hand until the last possible moment before she had to turn the plane around while there was still enough fuel to make it back to base. Besides streaming live video to government troops on the ground, her crew got their location, captured excellent photos of their camp and transmitted them via satellite to be disseminated to the intel weenies who’d figure out what it all meant.
They’d completed the mission; now she had to get her crew back to base.
Alive.
Thirteen souls, including herself.
That awareness kept her from letting the monotonous drone of the four turbo-prop engines lull her into drifting off—into thinking about anything other than the flight...
For some reason, the image of Drew as she’d driven off just before deployment had haunted her all day. She’d wondered why he’d bothered, why he showed up at the hangar. He’d said, no one should go off on deployment alone. He’d given her a friendly hug.
They were friends, in spite of all the hell they’d put each other through as young junior officers. So why had his platonic hug been worse than if he’d tortured her with a kiss, reminded her of all she’d lost when they’d divorced five years ago? More important, why was she allowing thoughts of him now, during a key mission?
The old mesh fabric pilot’s seat gave little support to her spine, and she shifted her position, trying to stretch her lower back.
“You’ve got to do those ab moves I told you about, XO.” Her copilot’s gentle chiding made her smile.
“No amount of exercise is going to shave the years off me, David.”
“Aw, ma’am, you’re still young.”
She chuckled, even as the sharp stab of a lower back spasm made her wince. Simple tasks that she’d managed through brute strength as a junior officer were becoming more difficult as her birthdays added up.
Thirty-seven was young in the civilian world, but not in the navy.
She was tired of the constant reminders of the years passing too quickly. When she got back from deployment she was going to follow her best friend, Ro’s, advice and get herself back into the dating scene.
Not that she’d ever been in the dating scene. Because of Drew. Because they’d been together since flight school in Pensacola, Florida.
From the beginning they knew their marriage faced more challenges than most—long deployments, geographical separation, war. Hurdles that wouldn’t go away until one or both of them resigned from the navy. Drew didn’t have the passion for flying that Gwen did and they’d agreed that she’d stay in while he got out. They both assumed Gwen would eventually resign her commission and fly for a commercial airline.
They’d survived three intense years after Drew got out of the navy and went back to school to earn his doctorate in Physical Therapy. His PT practice had thrived after only a year.
As his career took off, so did hers. Unfortunately, their marriage tanked.
She still mentally kicked herself for not seeing the inevitability of their divorce. That would’ve saved them both so much emotional distress. Very few dual-active-duty couples made it for the long haul. Factor in how young they’d been when they got married, and the odds had never been in their favor.
The long deployments and wartime assignments had been hell for both of them, but her performance earned her top marks and led to this tour. The ultimate goal all career officers chased after—the command tour.
Serving as the Executive Officer of Patrol Squadron Five-Two, the Grey Sharks, she’d had two more months until she’d become the commanding officer. A coveted twelve-month stint that had taken her entire career to reach and taken her marriage with it.
Her squadron’s mission was to conduct reconnaissance and antisubmarine warfare all over the globe. They provided real-time intelligence to operational ground forces and operational commands, no matter which theater they flew in. Often her missions kept civilians safe from unspeakable terrorist events. Sometimes it was simply reconnaissance. Other times, Gwen’s aircraft carried weapons, or helped others aim their weapons on the enemy target.
“See the flashes, XO?” David pointed starboard of the nose, to where sharp points of light lit up the not-distant-enough horizon.
“They’re not happy. Good. That’s our job.” She referred to the insurgents who were shooting off AAA, antiaircraft artillery, in an effort to take her aircraft down.
“We’re too far away for those triple-A rounds, Commander,” one of the radar operators said over the ICS or intercommunications system.
“And we’re going to keep it that way, crew.” Gwen spoke into her microphone as she eyed her fuel levels.
She glanced over at her copilot, his profile relaxed but alert in the starboard seat. Young and supersmart, he reminded her of Drew and of herself. Once again she lamented that they’d been so young when they started out in the navy and in life. Too young to know how to make a marriage work.
She contracted and relaxed her abs and her glutes. It eased the discomfort in her lower back.
At least she and Drew had remained good friends. That was more important than a marriage, in so many ways.
Drew hadn’t been impressed with her selection to command. He was proud of her, unquestionably. He’d supported her through the wartime deployments—by getting her mail, doing basic admin stuff a spouse often did, handling household responsibilities. But they’d been divorced for five years when she left last month. Neither of them had remarried, but she expected he’d be the first one to make that leap.
He’d wanted to start a family. She’d wanted to wait.
Tonight, at the end of a long mission, flying through a hell of a storm, she wondered if she’d been nuts to stay in the navy, to go through so much, for this last operational tour. Had it been worth it, giving up so much to become a commanding officer?
Lately she’d begun to suspect that she’d lost more than her marriage in the process. She didn’t know who she was anymore, except for her military vocation. If she hadn’t screened for command, would she have stayed in to make the twenty-year mark required for retirement?
“Shit! Incoming starboard, three o’clock! Probable missile!” The aft observer’s scream in her headset shattered her thoughts.
“Confirmed surface-to-air. Son of a bitch!” The radar operator validated that the sighting wasn’t another aircraft or fireworks.
Cold dread gripped her.
“I see it. Hell, it’s closing, XO!” Her copilot had his hands on the yoke, his head swiveled around to the right as he sighted the missile off their starboard side.
Preflight intel confirmed the existence of AAA during their mission brief, but never mentioned manpads—portable surface-to-air missiles.
They had an incoming that could blow them all to bits.
She heard screams and shouted curses over the ICS.
Drew.
Shudders buffeted the fuselage of the P-3, and Gwen’s operational instincts pushed anything else out of her mind. The plane rolled alarmingly to port and she threw a quick shout at her copilot. “Help me out here, David!”
“Engine number four, gone. Wing on fire.”
She never lifted her gaze from the control panel, where she confirmed that they’d lost an engine. Annunciator lights in the cockpit also indicated that number three, the other engine on the starboard wing, looked as if it was going to quit at any moment.
“We’ve lost both hydraulic systems,” the FE shouted.
“Roger. Pull the boost out handles!”
The FE leaned down and pulled the three yellow-and-black striped handles by his feet.
This left them with only manual control of the aircraft.
“What’s next, XO?” David yelled into his mic, even though he was right next to her. They’d never hear each other over the roar of the aircraft as it struggled to maintain altitude.
It was a losing battle. The altimeter showed they were dropping at an alarming rate.
One, maybe two minutes was all she had to prepare her crew.
They’d trained with the hope of three minutes.
“We’ll never make it to land, David.” She tore her gaze from the instrument panel and looked at him. His profile was set and determined, but she recognized the same fear she felt.
No one wanted to die. Not like this.
“You with me?”
He turned his stare on her and an understanding passed between them.
Whatever it takes.
Yells and shouts mixed with expletives over the ICS as the crew went through their trained-for responses.
The flight engineer pushed the button that issued the deadly warning—one long ring on the command bell. The sound she never wanted to hear while flying a P-3 reverberated through the entire aircraft.
They were going to ditch.
“Prepare to ditch!” She yelled what might be her last command—she had no choice. They’d lost two engines and were damned lucky they were still airborne.
The controlled panic of the crew aft of the flight station was palpable. Gwen heard swear words, prayers then silence as the country’s best-trained professionals prepared to fight for their lives.
Lives in her hands.
“Everyone got their LPAs on?” She referred to the survival vests that would be their only flotation device, other than the three life rafts, once they were in the harsh seas.
“Condition One set!” Lizzie, the TACCO or tactical communications officer, confirmed that everyone was prepared to ditch.
God help us all.
Ten thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean, approximately five miles off the southwest tip of the Philippines, they were about to ditch. The condition of the sea was abysmal, with waves that were ten feet and higher, And it was quarter past midnight.
Pitch blackness.
Her worst nightmare come true—a nighttime ditch in rough seas, miles from land, oceans from the nearest naval vessel.
Robert “Mac” MacCallister, the flight engineer, worked in sync with the copilot to complete the ditching checklist. It was standard procedure they’d all practiced and prayed they’d never need to use.
I’m ditching in the ocean.
She’d practiced it in the flight simulator countless times, mentally rehearsed the most undesirable event for any naval aviator.
“I’m here if you need relief, XO.” The voice of the third pilot rose above the rush of air that swept through the cabin. He clutched the back of the copilot’s seat as he shouted in her ear.
Gwen couldn’t spare him a look.
“Go back to your station and strap your ass in, Aidan!” If any of them were going to survive they had to be properly secured. She had to bring the bird onto the water safely and in one piece so they could get out before it sank.
“But ma’am, if you—”
“Take the freaking order!” Before she even finished her statement, Gwen had to grab the yoke back after it was wrenched out of her hands.
“Help me out here, David!” she shouted to her copilot.
“I’m pulling as hard as I can!”
Gwen didn’t have to see David’s face to know the young officer spoke through clenched teeth.
“Come on, gal, give us one more break!” Gwen yelled at the old bird, then groaned as she stretched her shoulder and back muscles to their limit in her effort to pull back. Losing hydraulics after two engines had been blown apart by the surface-to-air missile wasn’t just bad luck.
It was fatal.
She had to beat it.
That was her crew’s only chance.
“Five thousand feet.” Scott reported each time the altitude dropped another thousand feet. Soon it would be every hundred feet.
“Wind direction is two-four-five at 45 knots,” her navigator, Bryce Griswald, shouted from the nav station, aft of the cockpit.
“Roger, Grizzy.”
Gwen checked the compass heading and was grateful for one small miracle in this hell. She was taking the plane down at the right angle of descent to keep the waves from becoming brick walls lying in wait to destroy the aircraft.
Forgotten images of her life appeared before her in quick succession. The first time she rode her bicycle without training wheels, her dad’s smile, Mom’s hugs, Drew’s first kiss, her graduation from Annapolis.
Their wedding.
Drew.
“This plane is coming down in one piece. We’re all getting out.” It might be the last thing she ever did for them.
“Two hundred feet!” David hadn’t missed a beat.
“One hundred feet!” David’s shout reached Gwen just before she saw the last glint of white-capped waves through the night darkness.
“Hang on!” She pulled back on the yoke with all her strength.
“Fifty feet!”
David’s last report.
“Hands off power levers!” Gwen shouted the order for David to join her in letting go of the power levers and gripping the yoke. They’d lose their fingers if they didn’t release the levers.
For the length of an indrawn gasp, the world stood still as she waited for touchdown. Her mind struggled to convince her that this was like any other landing, the end of any other mission she’d be able to walk away from.
That delusion shattered when the plane hit water. What remained of the two operating engines’ combined ninety-two-hundred shaft horsepower screeched to a halt as metal propellers met the ocean surface with such a violent impact she was sure they were finished. Panic threatened to drown them before their greatest enemy did. The sea.
Not yet.
Water sprayed against the windshield and blinded her. It took all her mental discipline to ride out the ditch, hands on yoke. Each creak, groan and shudder as the aircraft broke apart echoed in her bones.
After interminable moments, the aircraft’s forward motion stopped and the race for their lives began.
“Out, out, out, let’s go!” Gwen used her deepest shout, the one that had its origins in her plebe summer at the Naval Academy, to motivate her crew. Not that they needed any motivation—their quick decisive actions flashed in front of her as if they ditched regularly.
Mac crouched next to her, shoving the copilot out the upper hatch. They were up to their chests in water and jet fuel, so every movement became slow and difficult. Her flight suit provided no protection from the ocean or the thousands of gallons of aviation fuel that had spilled from the torn wing tanks.
“Anyone else?” Mac yelled as he pointed directly above his head to the cockpit hatch.
“No, everyone else will exit the over-wing hatches.” They couldn’t go back to help anyone now, and she had to trust that the rest of the crew had survived the ditch. Her toe met a hard, unmovable steel bulkhead as she fought to hang on to the hatch rim while Mac, the flight engineer, prepared to egress.
Gwen prayed the crew who’d been strapped in back were out over the wing hatches, along with the life rafts. She wouldn’t know until she was out.
The fuselage tilted dangerously forward. They had precious minutes to get out and away from the sinking wreckage.
“Go ahead, Mac.” She gave him a shove and watched as his body disappeared up the hatch. Seconds later Mac’s hand reached down and grabbed the top of her helmet.
“Up here, ma’am! Let me pull you.”
Gwen complied and allowed him to save her life. As the plane commander, Gwen was responsible for each crew member’s life. She had to be the last one out.
She grabbed the edge of the hatch as soon as her arms were past the entrance and pushed herself up into the raging storm. The sting of salt water and the howl of the wind shocked her, and she had to take several gulps of air before she could ascertain where the life rafts were. In doing so, she breathed in the aircraft’s fuel fumes. Her eyes and throat burned and her stomach heaved. She had no choice but to vomit on the spot.
She saw David’s face, illuminated by his flashlight. The copilot was safe with the navigator and the second flight engineer. She couldn’t see any farther into the menacing darkness.
“How many?” Gwen screamed across the waves and the rapidly sinking P-3 to the first of the life rafts.
“All here, XO.”
Gwen couldn’t allow time for relief. She sought out the second and third life rafts.
“We’re missing the TACCO!” The shout from the second raft elicited immediate action from Gwen. Lizzie was still stuck in the aircraft.
Gwen had to go back in and get her.
Lizzie.
Going back the way she’d exited was risky, especially if Lizzie was unconscious. Gwen couldn’t inflate her LPA or she’d never get back in the fuselage. She made a quick guess as to where the over-wing hatch was positioned on the now-sinking aircraft.
She had seconds.
Gwen took a deep breath and dived into the thrashing sea, holding on to the aircraft as a guide. She found the over-wing hatch and went in.
Total darkness meant that feeling her way through the fuel-filled cabin was a challenge, but Gwen knew she had to get Lizzie. Get your shipmate or die with her.
She ignored her need for air and felt forward to the TACCO station. Lizzie was still strapped in her seat, only her face above the waterline.
Gwen drew in great gasps of air as she struggled to release Lizzie’s seat belts.
“C’mon, Lizzie Lady.” She used Lizzie’s call sign and grimaced with relief when her fingers managed to unbuckle Lizzie’s straps.
“You with me, Liz?”
“I’m here. Hit my head.” The whispered reply was all Gwen needed. Lizzie was still alive and had a chance if Gwen could get them out of the destroyed fuselage.
“I need you to take a deep breath. Hang on to me and I’ll do this as fast as I can.”
“I’ll try.”
“Okay. One, two, three.”
Gwen went under with her arm around Lizzie’s chest, pulling her through the totally submerged aft cabin. Their progress was excruciatingly slow and Gwen sent up a prayer that they’d make it to the over-wing hatch.
The fuselage groaned with each wave that hit the steel frame, sounding deadly, final.
Gwen’s fingers caught on the rim of the hatch and she pulled both herself and Lizzie through it. Something scraped her arm and a piece of metal clanged on the top of Gwen’s helmet.
She didn’t stop. She couldn’t, wouldn’t. She was Lizzie’s only chance.
Her own lungs burned and she was afraid that Lizzie had sucked in fuel or seawater in an effort to breathe. Gwen felt the tug of the aircraft’s drag once they were free of the fuselage. They had seconds to clear the area. She reached over to Lizzie’s LPA handle and pulled. Lizzie left Gwen’s arms as though a great arm had stretched down and pulled her up. Gwen grabbed her own beaded handle and yanked. Her LPA inflated and bolted her to surface.
The black spots that she’d tried to fight off dissipated as she gulped in the salty, wet air. She blinked. Lizzie floated a few meters away from her. She swam over and wanted to scream when she saw Lizzie’s closed eyes and blank expression.
Please let her be unconscious, not dead.
She tried to hook their LPAs together but the rough seas only allowed her to clutch Lizzie’s vest collar as they were tossed like pieces of trash.
“XO, over here!”
Gwen couldn’t tell whose voice was behind the flashlight beams as she started swimming toward them, Lizzie in tow.
Get away from the aircraft. Get away. Get away.
Hours of training in simulated ditches had drilled into her the necessity of putting as much distance as possible between her and the ditched craft. It was moments from sinking and would take down everything around it.
She pushed and kicked and hung on to Lizzie. After what seemed like hours, they arrived at the side of life raft number two. Number one was attached to the right of it. She couldn’t see the third raft.
“Get her up—she’s injured.” Gwen pushed Lizzie as hard as she could, watching as the hands of two crew members reached over to haul her up.
She saw Lizzie’s boots go over and into the life raft.
She’d done her job. All crew members safe, in their rafts.
“Grab my hand!” The second flight engineer leaned over the raft and held out his arm.
Gwen prayed it wasn’t too late. Exhaustion weakened every muscle and she couldn’t lift her arm out of the water.
“Go, report it.” She wasn’t sure he’d heard her, and the sea spray threatened to choke her each time she opened her mouth.
Drew.
She had to fight, to get back, to get home. A sob escaped her throat as she willed her booted feet, so heavy, to move, damn it! Her life, her hope, was on Whidbey Island.
Not lost at sea.
“Please. Let me get there.” Her words came out as the tiniest of whispers.
She focused on the FE’s outstretched hand and dug deep for the core of her will, her remaining physical strength, to grasp it.
To save her life.
A wave crashed over her and made it impossible.
If she was going to survive, it would be on her own. She didn’t have control over the ocean any more than she did the memories that clawed at her.
The family room with its woodstove burning while the Christmas tree twinkled... She and Drew wrapped in each other’s arms in front of the fire.
CHAPTER ONE
Six months later
“YOU’VE GAINED TWENTY-SIX degrees in your mobility over the last six months, Helen.” Drew smiled at his prize patient and snapped his protractor closed. Helen Burkoven was sixty-two, and had presented with a frozen right shoulder, due in part to her competitive tennis practice of the past fifty years. She made a lot of his younger clients appear lazy.
“I can’t tell you how great it is to be able to pull weeds again, Drew. The brambles had taken over my rose garden!”
“As long as you keep doing the exercises we’ve gone over, you’ll be fine—but take it easy on the tennis court, okay?”
Helen grunted and walked over to the chair, where she waited while Drew got an ice gel pack out of the chiller.
He arranged the pillow under her arm to make her more comfortable before he placed the gel pack over her injured shoulder.
Helen groaned in pleasure. “Oh, that always feels so good after all the work you make me do.”
“Sit tight and enjoy. You’re free to go in fifteen minutes.” He set the timer near Helen’s chair and went to see his other client, Tom, who was doing leg exercises for his knee on a wheeled office chair.
Drew relished the modern layout of his clinic. One large room held the equipment and therapy tables for up to six clients at a time.
“How’s it going, Tom?”
“Fine, doc. But I feel like a crab on the beach, walking around while I’m sitting on this stool.”
“It’s going to help your knees, trust me.”
“Drew?” Serena Delgado, his receptionist, interrupted him.
Drew looked at her sharply, but his annoyance dissipated at the stunned expression on her beautiful face. Whatever it was, she wouldn’t express it in front of his clients. Serena didn’t normally interrupt his consultations. The last time she’d burst in like this—
Gwen’s plane had gone down.
That was well over six months ago, but damned if he didn’t tense up and expect Serena to give him more bad news.
There isn’t anything worse than knowing Gwen’s never coming home.
“You have some visitors. It’s very important.”
The dread that had simmered in his gut since the minute he’d learned Gwen was missing erupted into an all-out boil.
They’ve found her body.
As much as every piece of naval intelligence that he’d been told about, not to mention logic, indicated that Gwen had perished in the South Pacific six months ago, he’d held out hope. That she’d survived—that she’d come back. That, somehow, against all the odds, she’d made it.
He shook off the fantasy.
If she’d lived, if she came back, they’d only be the friends they’d become since the divorce.
“Drew?” Serena stared at him. He swung his gaze to Helen, his rotator cuff patient. She hadn’t said a word, but she wasn’t deaf. Her eyes sparked with knowing. Hell, the whole town knew what he’d been through. The P-3 ditch. Gwen’s role in it—she’d saved her crew. The entire damned crew had returned safely to Whidbey Island. To their families.
Except Gwen.
Gwen didn’t have a family to return to anymore. Only him, her ex-husband, and their shared pets. The island newspaper had detailed Gwen’s naval career as well as her personal bio, including their divorce. Her MIA status had been picked up by the national news, as well.
While locals like Helen knew an awful lot more about his personal life than he’d choose, they didn’t know the half of it.
“Go ahead, Drew. You’re done with me.” Helen’s eyes didn’t twinkle any longer, and her expression was gentle. Motherly. “We’re all praying for you.”
“Thanks.”
After a quick nod at Helen, he followed Serena to the back office, behind the therapy room.
He stopped at the threshold when he saw the occupants.
“Ro.”
Lieutenant Commander Roanna Mikowski, his wife’s best friend since they’d been midshipmen at the Naval Academy, stood with her hands clasped in front of her. She was still on active duty, but had put in her resignation so she could remain in the same place as her husband, Chief Warrant Officer Miles Mikowski. A stab of envy broke through his shock as he saw the obviously happy couple.
Why couldn’t Gwen have resigned, too?
It wouldn’t change who we both are. We’d still be divorced.
Miles stood next to Ro and offered Drew a slight smile. “Drew.”
“Miles.”
Silence stretched between them. They’d shared an awful lot of grief these past several months. Tension seemed to crackle off Ro and Miles. They were going to confirm his worst fears, the news they’d all dreaded.
“Do I need to sit down?” His voice sounded sane, steady, but he couldn’t feel his mouth move with the words.
“Yes.” They spoke in unison, then glanced at each other. It was the kind of look that only a couple who knew and deeply loved each other exchanged. Drew missed that kind of intimacy.
He sank into the leather office chair, unable to relax.
“Spit it out.” He wanted to run away, leave the office, leave Oak Harbor, charter a flight off Whidbey Island. Destination: Anywhere But Here.
It wouldn’t change the truth.
“Drew, they’ve found Gwen.” Ro’s voice was low and steady. He gave her credit for being so strong.
He couldn’t stop the tears that squeezed past his closed eyes. “Where?”
“Drew, look at me. You don’t understand.”
He opened his eyes and saw that Ro’s eyes glistened with unshed tears, too.
“She’s alive, Drew. She made it.”
“She—” His voice crapped out on him. Miles nodded in affirmation. Relief bloomed in his chest. And then common sense shut it down.
“That’s impossible.”
“Ro’s not kidding, Drew. She’s alive! She was caught by insurgents but escaped from their prison camp after two weeks.”
Gwen. Alive.
Drew jumped out of the chair and grabbed the edge of his desk. “Where was she for the past five months? Where is she now?”
“Apparently, she found a small village where she hid out until she had a chance to walk out of the jungle. She got to our embassy in Manila via the Philippine government, once she was able to reach them. She saved a baby’s life while she was out there.” Ro paused. “That, of course, is classified.”
He blinked, grateful that Ro was willing to risk telling him something she probably shouldn’t have.
“I appreciate it, Ro.” He turned to each of them. “Thanks for sharing this with me. I’ll call her mother.”
Ro shook her head. “She’s probably already called her. It’s going to hit the news any moment.”
“Got it.” Drew was grateful they’d come and told him in person, so he wouldn’t hear it first on the radio or see it on TV. Now he needed them out of here. They were waiting for a reaction he couldn’t give them. No matter what he’d told them when Gwen had gone missing, it didn’t change who he and Gwen were. They were friends. Exes who’d outgrown their youthful first love.
“She’ll be coming home in about a week. She’s being flown from Manila to Seattle, and examined down at Madigan for several days.” Madigan Army Hospital was three hours away, south of Seattle.
“I’m sure they’ll take good care of her,” he said. “She’s tough, we all know that.” He stood up as if to go into the therapy room. It had to be enough of a hint for them.
“No, Drew, stop.” Ro walked around the desk and put her hand on his arm. He stared down at her hand.
“She needs some time to come to grips with it all, to adjust to the reality that she got out of there alive.”
“You talked to her?”
“No, not yet. I’m telling you this ahead of the call you’re going to get from the commodore. I couldn’t bear the thought of you finding out alone. We wanted to be with you.”
He looked at Ro, then Miles.
“You know this doesn’t change anything,” Drew said. “We’ll never be more than friends.” He didn’t mean to say that out loud, but there it was.
“This isn’t the time to worry about that, bud.” Miles gave him a long look. “What you told Ro and me, it’s just between us.”
Drew wasn’t so much in shock that he didn’t know bullshit when he heard it. Ro was Gwen’s best friend since they’d been on the same sailing team together. Gwen was like a sister to Ro. Drew shook his head and walked to the side of the desk. He beckoned to Miles and Ro, and enveloped them both in a hug.
“She’s alive. Nothing else matters.”
He’d been given what he’d prayed for. The chance he’d bargained for with God. He’d promised he’d accept that they were friends, and never hold another angry thought about the fact that they weren’t destined to be more.
Surprisingly, Gwen’s disappearance had taught him to be grateful for the entire time he’d known her—not only the good years of their marriage but the tough years, too. It had all brought him to where he was today, enjoying the career he’d dreamed of in his favorite place on earth, Whidbey Island.
He couldn’t go back to regrets or what-ifs.
To the reasons for a divorce that had become final five years ago, after nine years of marriage.
Miles pulled back from Drew’s embrace but Ro stayed by his side, her expression hopeful as she kept glancing over at Miles as if for support.
Please don’t bring up the possibility of reconciliation.
“There’s a detail we still have to take care of, Drew.”
“Yeah?”
“She has to stay with you.”
Drew pulled back and dropped his arms. He rubbed his face.
“I’m willing to help her out, Ro,” he said after a moment, “but living with me? Not going to happen. She’d never agree to it. Besides, I’m sure Brenda will take her home before the week’s out.” Let her mother, Brenda, help her out for once.
He could be her friend, but not in such close proximity. Not day after day, in a situation he might mistake for more than it was.
They’d all thought she was dead.
You knew she was still alive.
“She’ll want to come here. Whidbey is home to her. And you know Brenda’s not who Gwen needs right now. She needs someone who’s had PTSD, who’s been through a war. Someone who understands what she’s got ahead of her.”
Leave it to Ro to pull out the big guns.
“I went through my issues a decade ago, Ro.” Miles was watching him with wary alertness.
“Ro and I just finished going through our ‘issues.’ None of us will forget the hell it can be once we’re back. You’ll be able to support Gwen like no one else can. You’ve known her almost as long as Ro has.” Miles didn’t add the “you’ve been married to her” part. He didn’t have to.
No. Freaking. Way.
Gwen in his house? Living under the same roof again?
No.
“You’re still forgetting that Gwen has to agree to this.”
“Her apartment’s been rented out. You have all her stuff in your garage from a month after she went missing. It’ll take at least two weeks before she’s steady enough to go looking for a place of her own.” Miles spoke reasonably enough.
“I’ll get her household goods delivered to a new apartment. Hell, I’ll find an apartment for her, if that’s what it takes.”
Ro and Miles stared at him. He clenched his fists, taking a deep breath before continuing.
“I realize you two would love nothing more than for me and Gwen to suddenly decide we made a mistake and get back together. But it’s not going to happen, and we all know it. Why make her suffer right from the get-go? She needs to get herself squared away without being around me.” And he didn’t need the reminders of what had gone wrong, what they’d lost when they’d allowed themselves to drift apart.
Ro leaned over the desk. “You’re all she’s got, Drew. Her mother and stepdad are not who she’d pick to recuperate around. You know that as well as I. She could come stay with us, but...”
“You’re still newlyweds. No way.”
Ro nodded. “Right, and as much as we don’t care about that, Gwen would.”
“Speak for yourself.” Miles smiled at Ro.
A sense of anticipation awakened in Drew. To have Gwen home, to be able to exchange simple small talk while she healed, seemed innocent enough. But it wasn’t good in the long run. For either of them.
Still, his gut instinct to take care of her was hard to ignore.
“Drew, you’re a physical therapist. You know that clients have to start from a baseline, work on the smaller, less challenging exercises first. Only after their strength comes back can they do the hard stuff. Like when you helped me get my hips and lower back straight after my fall.” Miles gestured at his prosthetic leg. He’d survived a tough rehabilitation with the navy. He’d taken a fall several months back and had come to Drew’s clinic for physical therapy.
Drew glared at him. “Being patronizing isn’t your forte, pal. Your back and sacrum were easy fixes—you were already in great shape. Gwen and I haven’t seen each other in over six months.” And hadn’t spoken, or touched or talked like a real couple in five years.
They were friends without benefits.
“This is a lot to put on you, Drew, but imagine what Gwen’s going through. For her to come back to anyplace but a house she’s familiar with is too much right now. She needs the easier road.”
“I don’t disagree with that, Ro, and you can’t disagree with the fact that there aren’t a lot of happy memories for Gwen in my house.” It’d taken him years to call it my house and not our.
“Think about the comfort the pets will give her, Drew. You have to know it just about killed her to leave Rosie and Nappie.” Ro’s persistent tone grated. This was the problem with having friends who’d known you forever. They called you on your crap.
What they’re saying is true.
After Gwen moved out, she’d asked to come by when he wasn’t around. Said she needed to spend time with their parrot and their dog, so the pets wouldn’t be traumatized by the divorce. It had evolved into a joint pet-sharing venture that rivaled the joint-custody agreements divorced parents arranged. He didn’t know how much Ro knew about that, and wasn’t going to volunteer it.
“Okay, fine—she needs a place, and the house is probably the best option for her. She can be with the pets. I’ll take a room in town.” Hell, he could camp out in his office.
Miles shook his head as he put a calming hand on Ro’s shoulder. “That won’t work, either, Drew. She has to be with someone, another adult, in the house. Hell, Drew, you know what coming home from war’s like. The nightmares, the crazy crap right afterward. No one should have to do that alone.”
Miles was right. He watched Ro slip a protective arm around Miles’s waist. Both Miles and Ro had gone through their post-war transitions as single sailors, living on their own. They’d found each other in the midst of it.
He couldn’t let Gwen suffer on her own, no matter how difficult the living arrangement was for either of them. He stared down at his closed laptop, unable to look at the happy newlyweds while contemplating the antithesis of a honeymoon with his ex-wife.
His injured, battle-fatigued ex-wife.
Shit.
He looked up at his closest friends.
“When did you say she’d be back on the island?”
* * *
DREW SHOVED THE glass-paned door wide open and strode into the parking lot behind his practice. The blustery March day was no match for the heat of his blood as it pumped through his veins with an intensity he hadn’t experienced since—
Since the navy told him Gwen was dead.
He ran both hands over his head, willing the sharp, cold bite of the March air to prove he wasn’t dreaming.
Gwen was alive.
Maybe there was a chance. Maybe the reason neither of them had connected with anyone else yet was— No, never.
She was still Gwen.
They’d never forgiven themselves for ending their marriage. They’d been too young to understand that sometimes it was okay to let a relationship go before it hurt too much.
Gwen hadn’t made any attempt to say goodbye before she left on deployment. He didn’t know what had possessed him to drive to the hangar to see her off that last day. He was sure she’d chalked it up to pity, as she always did whenever he expressed compassion for her.
He’d said he was seeing her off like any other friend, and thanked her for her service. Gave her a friendly hug.
What had he been trying to prove? That he could touch her without wanting to make love to her again?
Her reaction had been cool, professional. The shell she’d grown over the past several years had hardened to an impregnable wall that didn’t let anyone in.
Especially him.
Living through what, by all accounts, had been hell on earth—captured by insurgents, escaping, being on the run through the Philippine jungle—must have cracked that wall in more than one place.
Didn’t Ro say she’d saved a baby?
And if there was a chance for him to get inside Gwen’s heart again, did he really want to?
He gazed at the water and shook his head.
Surviving the worst nightmare of her life wouldn’t change Gwen’s mind about their divorce, and it hadn’t changed his. No matter what the circumstance, they’d always end up back where they’d stalled—neither willing to compromise for the relationship.
He’d worked hard to start a life without her, and she’d never sacrifice her career for a marriage.
Thoughts of what might have happened to her ripped at the shock he’d been in since he ran out of the building. If she’d been raped...
“Damn it all to hell!” He yelled at the parking lot, to the soccer fields and playgrounds that edged the perimeter of the island’s shore, to the calm water of Puget Sound.
A startled seagull flapped off the waste bin Drew’s practice shared with a hair salon. He registered the bird’s presence but didn’t try to shield himself from any potential droppings.
He dug his numbed fingers into his pockets and pulled out his car keys. He’d left everything except his keys and his wallet in the office. He’d been too crazed to grab his jacket.
Didn’t matter. The car had a heater and he had to get out of here.
* * *
LOST IN THOUGHTS of Gwen’s return, Drew drove up to the Koffee Hut. Drive-through-only specialty coffee shops were a common feature in the Pacific Northwest, and Whidbey was no exception. Only after he’d shifted the car into park next to the trailer window did he realize his mistake.
“Drew! What a nice surprise. In the middle of the day, too.” Opal smiled at him from the serving window of her business. She’d set it up after leaving his employ; she’d been one of his assistants for the first two years he’d had the PT clinic, during which she’d earned a part-time business degree at the community college.
“Yeah, well, I needed a break. I’ll have the usual.”
“A large cup of drip, coming right up.” Worry lines appeared between her perfectly shaped brows. With stunning blond curls and bright blue eyes, Opal looked like a cherub in an Italian painting. He watched as she plucked a cup from the tall stack and poured the coffee. Her expression reflected friendly concern.
“What’s going on, Drew?”
“Nothing much.” He wasn’t going to confide in Opal. It’d been hard enough convincing her that he didn’t want to pursue a relationship with her. He refused to encourage her or lead her on.
The entire time she’d worked for him she’d been a worthy employee, but he never crossed the line and dated people he paid. Good thing, since she’d bought the house next to his right after he and Gwen split. It might have been a real-estate coincidence, but it was still awkward in those first few months after his divorce, when she’d started her new business. She’d repeatedly emphasized that she didn’t work for him anymore. If he’d dated her, it would have been a disaster when they broke up.
Because they would have. Long-term relationships weren’t on his agenda.
One had been enough for him.
Opal’s feelings had been hurt that he wouldn’t even consider a date with her. They were both single, ran their own businesses, loved the Pacific Northwest.
After several attempts to have Drew over for dinner, Opal had accepted their “friends only” status.
Maybe he had been crazy to turn her down. If he was involved with someone else, he wouldn’t be a safe harbor for Gwen. He wouldn’t feel as if he was staring down the wrong end of a weapon.
“You don’t look your usual chipper self.” She handed him the hot cup. As he reached to take it, she put a hand on his wrist.
“Drew, we’re friends. How many times have I told you I don’t take it personally that we didn’t work out? It’s okay if you need an ear.” Didn’t work out? They’d never been more than friends.
Neither had he and Serena, who still worked for him so was technically off-limits. Serena was another available woman who, on paper, appeared to be a good fit for him.
Drew fought to keep a scowl off his face.
He’d had every opportunity to date other women and like a fool he hadn’t. If he had, Gwen’s return wouldn’t be shaking him up so much.
He gently removed her hand from his arm and took his coffee, leaving the payment on the small Formica counter.
“I appreciate your concern, Opal. I’m just not ready to talk about it.”
Opal’s kind smile was back. “I totally understand. Let me know if you want me to bring over some dinner for you tonight.”
“Oh, no, I’m fine. Did a big load of grocery shopping yesterday.” He was lying and prayed she hadn’t checked his refrigerator the last time she’d popped in uninvited to leave him muffins or a casserole.
He really needed to start locking the side deck door.
Until now he hadn’t minded her unannounced drop-ins, since she’d accepted that they’d never be more than friends. Now that Gwen was going to be staying with him, he’d have to convince Opal to stop her visits.
Or keep his damned door locked.
* * *
DREW DROVE TO the other side of the island with his coffee in one hand, the other on the steering wheel. It used to be a favorite haunt of his during the dark days of his divorce from Gwen.
Gwen.
He gulped too much of the hot coffee, which burned his throat, but that served as a way to keep him grounded. God knew he needed something to keep him focused on reality. It’d be too easy, too natural, to think that he and Gwen were going to find a way to reconcile.
Never. You can’t reconcile what isn’t there. When there’s nothing to work with.
They had nothing left of what had been their marriage. Just a run-of-the-mill friendship.
Drew didn’t consider himself a stupid man. But maybe he’d screwed up by not forcing himself to date more regularly. When the divorce became final, he swore he’d never settle down again. Plus, he’d almost no time to date. He’d blamed it on the stress of his expanding practice, the stress of the adjustment.
You know why you haven’t looked at another woman.
He crushed the paper cup, scalding his hand and spilling the coffee all over the steering wheel and his lap.
“Dammit!”
Drew unzipped his gym bag, which sat on his passenger seat. His smelly workout T-shirt soaked up most of the liquid. He’d finished more than half the cup, so the damage wasn’t as bad as it might have been.
He looked at his pants and frowned. The brown stain spread down his zipper, onto his right leg.
If the mere thought of Gwen coming back into his home unnerved him this much, how was he going to stay steady enough to help her while she suffered through her reentry?
Frustration was already a constant companion; with Gwen under the same roof it would be that much worse.
Drew threw the soaked shirt on the passenger-seat floor and leaned back, forcing himself to focus on the scenery.
The ebb and flow of the waves on West Beach were in stark contrast to the flat Puget Sound water he saw out of his office windows every day. The energy in each white-capped wave soaked up his anxiety, bit by bit.
He’d come here every single day after he and Gwen had agreed to separate with the intent to divorce. She’d never asked where he was going and he’d never volunteered it, even when he knew she probably thought he was meeting friends at a bar.
The first two months after she’d ditched her plane in the South Pacific, he’d been out here every chance he got. He’d never missed an appointment that first week she was MIA, but Serena and the rest of the staff had known his mind was elsewhere. Wondering what kind of torture Gwen was enduring. The local and eventually national news media reported the Pentagon’s assessment that she’d been lost at sea.
Gone. Dead.
But he’d known. Deep down, he’d known. Gwen’s heart was still beating, somewhere.
Ro’s position as the wing intelligence officer gave her access he’d never get as a civilian, and she’d brought him what little intel she’d been able to gather. Miles had cornered him after a therapy session one day and told him that both he and Ro were concerned about his increasing isolation, his avoidance of them and others outside work.
Miles had convinced him that going on with his life wasn’t an affront to Gwen’s memory.
After Gwen had been gone six weeks, Drew allowed himself to mentally engage with the world again. He couldn’t fight the facts, but he didn’t have to ignore his instincts, either. He’d figured that if she were still alive after six weeks—which he’d believed even if no one else had—she’d survive whatever came her way. Somehow she’d make it out.
As she had.
He went to sip his coffee and only when his empty hand curved around air did he shake off his thoughts. He couldn’t prevent a smile. Gwen would never settle for plain drip coffee. She took hers like a lot of people native to the Pacific Northwest. Two shots of espresso, with steamed low-fat milk. Maybe a shot of almond syrup if her sweet tooth was nagging her.
Their Sunday-morning routine rushed at him with its remembered familiarity and warmth. They’d hem and haw over whose turn it was to get the pastries, their once-a-week treat from the local bakery. Gwen liked the fresh-made éclairs, while he favored the apple fritters. One of them would pick up the pastries and coffee, while whoever stayed home walked the dog, fed the bird and got the woodstove blazing if it was chilly.
It’d been so easy, so natural, their life. Their love.
Until it got hard. Their professional drive, perfectionism and insistence on each being the best at what they did took its toll. Damaged the bond between them.
Memories of their competitiveness still made him squirm. They should’ve seen it; two strictly trained naval officers were innately competitive at a primal level. That hadn’t changed, even when he’d left the navy. Of course it had bled into their relationship and blown it to smithereens.
The event that had exploded the fissure into an impassable crevice had taken place on the night of a squadron party. He’d been there with Gwen, acting the consummate navy spouse as usual. He’d played the role willingly; anything to keep the peace, to let her see he wasn’t threatened by her success. His practice was still fledgling but promising.
He’d left the celebration early—told her he’d meet her back at home. They’d taken separate cars as they’d both come from work.
Unbeknownst to him, one of Gwen’s subordinates followed him home and tried to convince him to let her come in and talk to him. She was an attractive aviator, a younger version of Gwen. Except that she didn’t seem to care that Drew was married. To her boss.
But Gwen had come back before he’d gotten rid of her, and assumed the worst. Hell, at that point in their marriage he would’ve thought the same thing if he’d found a strange guy in his house.
After he’d pummeled him.
He’d told her the truth.
Gwen, nothing happened. She came over and said she needed to talk. I let her in, told her I wasn’t interested. She’s just young and dumb.
I’ve never thrown myself at my boss’s husband.
You’re a professional, Gwen.
She’d shaken her head. It doesn’t matter, Drew. The point is I believe you—and this doesn’t surprise me. I wouldn’t blame you if you had taken her up on her offer. Let’s face it, I haven’t been a great wife to you.
She’d referred to their lack of lovemaking. Either or both of them had been too tired over the past few months. It should’ve been a red flag after the way they’d burned for each other in their earlier years.
The conversation hadn’t solved anything. The disbelief, hurt and anger that Gwen should have expressed, should have felt, wasn’t there.
Gwen’s desire to pursue her naval career, his decision to open a private practice that made him averse to further navy moves, as well as their inability to forge a solution to their failing relationship— it had all been too much for any marriage.
Gwen had moved out within the week, and their road to friendship had begun.
Five years ago. It felt more like fifty.
He turned the key in the ignition so that he could lower the windows. The salty Pacific breeze cooled his face, tugged at his hair.
Reminded him that he was alive.
Gwen’s alive.
Sunlight played off the frothing waves as it slipped out from under a heavy cloud. He’d been here for over an hour; he needed to get back to the office, back to reality.
And get ready to do the one thing he dreaded most—living in close quarters with his ex-wife again.
CHAPTER TWO
THE FIRST THING Gwen noticed when she arrived in Washington State was how clean and fresh the air felt.
The second impression was that she’d developed claustrophobia. The military hospital she’d been “requested” to stay in for a complete post-trauma physical was pristine and comfortable, even spacious. But it was still a building. With solid walls. After six months on the run, most of it spent with little more than a thin barrier between her and the jungle, she felt hemmed in.
At least that was what she told the medical staff. In reality her chest hurt as if a three-ton gorilla sat on it, keeping her from freedom.
Whidbey called to her. She wanted to go home.
She needed to be back on the island.
The doctor who sat across from her didn’t agree. Not yet.
“I’m ready to go.” She shifted in the soft-cushioned chair.
Gwen still couldn’t get over the relative plushness of her psychiatrist’s office compared to the way she’d been living for the past half of a year. She’d only met with him for the past few days but it felt as if he’d peeled back every layer of emotional skin she had left. She knew it was his job to determine how emotionally healthy she was after her time in the Philippines, but that didn’t make it any easier.
“You will go home, Gwen. Soon, I promise. We can’t send you back without some basic reentry tools. I can’t underestimate the mental stress you’ve been under.” He peered at her as if she were a biological specimen. Dr. Lucas “just call me Luke” Derringer had told her he lived out on San Juan Island but commuted into Madigan Army Hospital as needed to support returning warriors “such as yourself.” He explained that he was permanently working on San Juan at the Beyond the Stars Resort, which was a counseling center for Gold Star families—families who’d lost a loved one to war.
She liked how Luke, a former SEAL, seemed to truly appreciate what she’d been through. A quick look at the walls of his office told her he’d served at Walter Reed National Medical Center, so he knew his way around the effects of PTSD.
Still, he was a psychiatrist. Gwen knew she needed help but the only assistance she craved at the moment, besides getting Pax back in her arms, was climbing into her own bed, under clean sheets, wearing soft, freshly laundered pajamas.
Dear, sweet Pax. No one would believe her when she said she was going to be a mother, was already a mother to the little boy. She hardly believed it herself.
Luke droned on about how she needed to watch for any signs of severe PTSD, including suicidal thoughts. It was a given that she’d suffer some symptoms, but it could get a lot worse before it got better.
She didn’t care. She was back home.
Almost.
“If you want to go back sooner, you’ll have to move in with your ex-husband for the time being.”
Shock forced her head back, her spine straight.
No.
Lucas stared at her, unblinking. Gwen shook her head in an attempt to make sure she wasn’t hearing things.
“What?”
“As I’ve just explained, you can’t be alone for the first several weeks that you’re back. This is nonnegotiable, if you want to be released to go to Whidbey.” He paused. “If you’re serious about adopting the baby, Gwen, this will give you the best chance to prove you’ve made every effort to heal and provide the child with a stable environment.”
“But we’re divorced. I’m divorced. I have my own apartment. Drew rents his half of the house from me—we kept it undivided in our settlement as an investment. We’re divorced.” How many times did she have to remind him?
The counselor looked at his file.
“The apartment you rented has been sublet to someone else. All of your finances had been put on a hold. Your ex-husband is the only one who had access to them. You’d left him as next of kin on your Page Two, and he had power of attorney when you went missing.”
God, what didn’t the navy have on file about her?
“I gave him the power of attorney for the house, for my finances, in the event of my...” She swallowed. “Oh.”
“Right. Even though everyone hoped you’d made it to land and were still alive, all indications pointed to your death.” Lucas leaned toward her. “This is where it’s going to take some time, Gwen. You’re coming back to a world that thought you were dead. Add that to the usual adjustments after six months at sea on any deployment. You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
“I can’t go back to that house.”
To Drew.
Lucas looked up. “Were you abused there? Was your breakup acrimonious?”
“No, not at all.” She bit her lip, still severely chapped from months of sun and primitive living. “Drew and I—we’re friends, we’ve remained friends. He’s never hurt me.” No, she’d done a good job of hurting herself, thank you very much.
“Then you can manage this. You don’t have a choice, Gwen, not if you want to go back to Oak Harbor. You’re not ready to live alone—you need someone there to help you reenter.”
He made sense, but...
“My ex won’t be expecting me.”
Lucas watched her with compassionate eyes. “You’re not the first GI to come back to this type of situation. Your time away has certainly been unique, but coming home to an ex—it happens. Especially when there are children involved. You haven’t had kids together, but you told me you had pets, right? And now you want to adopt baby Pax. Your friend—” he glanced back at his records “—Roanna, she suggested moving back in with your ex. In fact, I know she’s spoken with him.” Lucas shrugged. “It’s just until you’re on your feet again. Nothing permanent.”
“Doesn’t look like I have much of a choice, does it?” She sure as hell didn’t want to spend one more day in the hospital.
“Not really.”
She clutched the sofa’s throw pillow to her belly. He wasn’t going to give her any more wiggle room.
“You told me all along that you and your ex have maintained a friendship. Since he’s amenable to the arrangement, I recommend that you accept it. It’ll be easier to room with someone who knows you, and having your pets with you will be helpful as you adjust.”
Gwen tried to slow the thoughts that whirled like pinwheels. “What if the adoption comes through quicker than we expect? I want to bring Pax to my home, the place I’m going to raise him. Plus, isn’t having a man around who isn’t permanent, too confusing for an orphaned child?”
Luke leaned back in his chair. “Gwen, I do hope your adoption goes through. I’ve got no doubt that you’ll make an excellent mother. But you need to learn the first lesson all mothers have to master—you give yourself the oxygen first. Adoption, overseas adoption especially, can be emotionally grueling. You have to allow yourself some mental space before you go through everything required to bring Pax home. And you need time to heal.”
She refused to consider that the adoption wouldn’t clear; the fact that she’d saved Pax from his burned-out village when he was two months old, and had cared for him until she’d walked out of the jungle last week, put the odds in her favor.
But living with Drew again? Didn’t Doc Lucas know that it could present its own kind of torment?
You’re friends.
True, her ex-husband didn’t have any idea of the thoughts she’d had as she’d faced her own mortality over the past six months. No one did. She and Drew were friends, had been since their split. But her feelings for him had been magnified by her adrenaline, by the threat of imminent death.
She’d made it through shark-infested waters, a terrorist camp, unbearable living conditions.
Compared to that, living with Drew, for a few nights or even a few weeks, would be a cakewalk.
For Pax, she could do anything.
“Okay, fine.”
She wasn’t going to argue with a medical dude. She’d made it this far—she’d agree to whatever she had to, to get back. Drew was obviously being nice enough to go along with this, and she owed him. When she got there, she’d explain that she wasn’t going to stay at the house any longer than absolutely necessary. They’d lived under the same roof without communicating for the last year of their marriage. She could manage a matter of days.
* * *
GWEN OPENED HER eyes to the small hospital room she’d lived in for the past three days, and let the thrill of being free wash over her. Her hospital bed was far more comfortable than the commercial plane seat she’d endured for the twenty-two hour flight back from the Philippines, and much cleaner than any of the night camps she’d made for herself during her six months on the run. Today was go-home day.
Drew.
The phone on her nightstand rang. The clamor startled her, and her muscles tensed painfully in her back, her legs.
“Hello?”
“Gwen, honey, it’s Ro.” Gwen felt a sense of warmth wash over her, and she couldn’t stop tears of relief from spilling down her cheeks. Her best friend from way back when they’d been midshipmen at the Naval Academy, Ro knew her as well as Drew once had.
“I’d know your voice anywhere, sister. How are you?”
Ro laughed. “How am I? More like how the hell did you do what you did? First, I’m jealous as hell that you’re getting all this attention for ditching and saving your crew. Now you come back alive, from conditions a lot of SEALs haven’t survived. You’re a hero, sweetie.”
“Can you hear that flutter? It’s my BS flag. I’m waving it in your face.”
They both laughed.
“I’m glad to see you’re not letting any of it go to your head.”
“Oh, I will, trust me. You owe me at least a month’s worth of almond lattes.”
“Done.” Ro paused, the silence scaring Gwen as much as the ringing phone had.
“What?”
“Have you talked to Drew?”
“Of course not. Why would I?” Gwen deliberately sounded obtuse. Ro had always held out hope that she and Drew would work things out. Especially since she herself was—
“Wait, Ro. You’re married! I’m so sorry I missed it.”
“You had other things to worry about, sweetie.” Ro paused again. “I missed you so much that day. It was so beautiful. I wish you could’ve seen it.”
“Me, too.” It was hard to imagine Ro married; she’d been so gung-ho about her career and hadn’t wanted any distractions.
Gwen heard sniffles. “Are you crying?” she asked. “Don’t cry, Ro. I’m fine. You’ll see me soon and I’ll prove it to you.”
“I’ve missed you, Gwen. I can cry if I want.” Rustling tissue and a cough or two echoed over the phone. “Listen, honey, you know you were assumed— I mean, people thought you weren’t coming back?”
“I’m aware I was presumed dead—or at least as close as you can get to it, yes.”
“It was horrible. We were all sick about it. I can’t tell you how good it is to hear your voice, to know you made it back.”
“I promise you I’m really here, Ro.”
“You’re okay with staying at Drew’s?”
“Hmm. I hear you had something to do with it.”
“Sweetie, don’t be mad. I knew you wouldn’t want to go to your mom’s right away. You love Whidbey.”
“True, but honestly, Ro, suggesting I live with Drew again?”
“Miles and I were with him when he found out you’d ditched, and again when we found out you got out. It’s true, I suggested it to him.”
“So I do have you to blame. I’ll bet he’s thrilled about me moving back in.”
“He’s okay with it, Gwen. He still cares for you.”
“And I care for him. We’ll always be friends.”
She wasn’t going to rehash her divorce history with her best friend. Not today.
Besides, she was so tired, exhausted, from talking.
“I have to hang up, Ro. When will I see you?”
“Later today. I’m sending a suitcase of clothes for you with the commodore’s group. They’ll be there soon. I’ll see you when you land, okay?”
“I can’t wait. Thanks for getting me some real clothes, Ro.”
“Sure thing. See you. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Gwen hung up the phone and fought the urge to throw herself on the bed and have a long cry. But if she let one tear fall, there’d be so many more behind it she’d never get out of here, never get home. Ro’s voice, so full of unabashed love, threatened to burst her thin layer of composure.
She wanted to get home, to sleep in her own bed.
Shivers of reality jumped on her skin. She didn’t have a home to go to. Who knew where her bed was if the apartment had been sublet?
How had going through hell led to more torment? Being in close quarters with Drew would be nothing less than emotional torture. They hadn’t lived together in too long. Awkward didn’t begin to describe it.
Why did Drew have to be such a good guy, Mr. Do The Right Thing? For once, having him say “no” would have been a blessing for both of them.
She felt unease and even guilt at her lack of appreciation. Blaming Drew for being a good person wasn’t going to get her very far.
He’d been the last person she’d talked to before she left on deployment.
She’d gone on a mission that had been moved up by a few weeks. The terrorist strongholds in the southern Philippine Islands had to be destroyed before they reached a point of serious threat to the nearby nations, as well as U.S. interests in the area.
Drew had come to the base, walked into the hangar and said goodbye to her. Wished her the best. They’d exchanged a friendly hug—they were friends, after all. She willed her mind not to go back to the beginning of her department-head tour, nearly six years ago. To the reason she and Drew had decided to end their nine-year marriage—the discovery that the spark, the romantic love, had died.
The timing had been bad. She was to assume command when she returned from deployment and the squadron spouses were all acquainted with Drew—he’d played the perfect navy spouse. He brought the right mix of concern for each person, the squadron’s mission and the Oak Harbor community at large. His renowned sense of humor combined with his clean-cut good looks in a charming package. Gwen had been grateful to him, until that charm proved irresistible to one of her officers. An officer she’d pulled out of her ditched P-3.
Lizzie.
Don’t. Go. There.
It could’ve been any other woman who’d turned out to be too interested in her husband. Their marriage had been a mess all on its own by then. She and Drew hadn’t had a regular sex life in months, and when they did it’d become cursory, a matter of doing the familiar, getting the known-and-needed release. She slowly stood up from the hospital bed and let her legs bear her weight. Thinking about Drew made everything hurt all over again.
Gwen didn’t fight the shame. No marriage fell apart due to one person. It always took two, and theirs had been no exception.
Her hands were still shaky. Lucas had told her it would take time for her system to settle back into a routine of regular meals, a safe place to rest, no constant need for vigilance.
Her body didn’t realize that the threat she perceived today wasn’t from the jungle or a terrorist insurgent. It was from her fear of not getting her baby back, the child she’d saved in the jungle. It was from the fear of having to finally face her grief over her failed marriage. She had to go and live with her ex-husband. What wasn’t there to be afraid of?
Their marriage had been good once. Drew had been her safe harbor, giving her the chance to grow—as a woman, a naval officer, pilot and wife. But the hours of study his Physical Therapy education required, combined with Drew’s need to live in Seattle for school during the week, meant they were hardly ever together. Her operational job as a department head, the last chance she had to prove she was worthy of the plum command tour billet, hadn’t helped.
When Drew graduated and moved back to Whidbey they’d thrown themselves into setting up his new practice. With the onslaught of injured vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, his business had nearly tripled the first year.
She was happy for him, but they never had enough time alone for her to really express her pride in him. Weeknights were filled with social obligations for her and long hours in the clinic for him. Even a few words before sleep became rare.
Her record-breaking performance as the squadron operations officer made her a shoe-in for squadron command. Before she’d finished her department head tour, their marriage was over. She’d taken shore duty orders away from Whidbey, away from the emotional fallout of the divorce. It had been a tough time in Washington, D.C. She blamed it on missing Whidbey and their pets.
As expected, she was awarded her own squadron. She asked for a billet in Jacksonville, Florida, but her detailer sent her back to Whidbey as the executive officer. The promise of commanding officer in one short year took her career to a new level.
She and Drew had picked up where they’d left off—as the good friends they’d become since their divorce. Contact only when needed to facilitate her visiting the pets. A text here and there to check in, but no more than a couple of times a month, if that.
It still bothered her that she’d failed at marriage. She’d run from the vulnerability needed to maintain intimacy in the middle of everything life threw at her—her job, Drew’s job, the long deployments.
Couples drifted apart all the time.
But the drift wasn’t what had brought the final blow to her marriage.
The death knell to theirs hadn’t been finding Lizzie with Drew that awful night. Gwen believed Drew—nothing had happened between him and Lizzie. Not then, anyhow. What had cut deep was the realization that they didn’t have a relationship anymore. She didn’t have a husband, she had a housemate.
“All ancient history,” she grumbled to her empty room.
Just great. She’d been back only a few days and she was already talking to herself. Maybe the months in survival mode had forever changed her.
* * *
“WHICH VILLAGE WAS it, Gwen?” Navy Captain and Wing Commodore Buzz Perry, her boss on Whidbey, sat in front of her. He was the last one to question her. Yet because he was her boss, the closest in her chain of command, he thought he’d be able to ferret out what the past five days of interrogation hadn’t.
“I don’t know the name. I don’t speak Tagalog, Commodore. I told you what I’ve told everyone else. Pax was the only survivor.” Tears scalded her eyes at the mere mention of the baby she’d saved. The child she now considered her own. “No offense, sir, but I’m talked out. The sooner I get back to Whidbey, the sooner I can report to the squadron.”
Gwen refused to tell the commodore that she was afraid she’d never feel strong enough to go back to her job. She hoped it was her weakness from lack of decent nutrition and the overwhelming stress she’d dealt with for too long.
A vulnerability that would heal with time.
She’d survived the debriefings she’d been through with the State Department, Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, and now her boss, the wing commodore. He’d been flown down from Oak Harbor on the base C-2 airplane to meet with her before he escorted her back to Whidbey Island.
“We’re here to help you, Gwen. We’ll help you adopt the baby you rescued, if that’s what you want. But you have to see the difficult position you’ve put the government in. We want to reward you for all you’ve sacrificed but you seem to feel that nothing less than this baby will be enough. It’s not so simple, Gwen. The needs of the navy and the country, not to mention diplomatic relations, have to come before any personal issues.”
The commodore’s eyes were steady but she knew the deal. His chain of command had put him up to this. The highest levels of government wanted to get as much information from her as possible.
Fresh intel was always a hot commodity.
She fought to keep still.
“The difficulty I’ve caused? What about the difficulty of flying a forty-year-old aircraft that wasn’t fit for fair weather, let alone outmaneuvering a surface-to-air-missile during monsoon season? What about how I escaped from a terrorist training camp? What about the difficulty that serving my country has caused me?”
The commodore stretched his arms across the worktable in the psychiatrist’s office and placed his hands over Gwen’s.
“I’m not the enemy, Gwen. Neither are any of the doctors or officials who’ve questioned you this past week.”
She sighed. Her body ached to lie down; she wanted to sleep for hours, days. Pax hadn’t been the only weight she’d carried through mile after mile of jungle. She needed a safe place to shelve her emotions before they got the better of her.
“Then stop acting like one.” She clasped her hands and stared at the floor.
Buzz shifted in his seat. This wasn’t easy on him, either, but she didn’t have the energy to muster any compassion.
“Gwen, if I could’ve changed anything, I would have. That airframe would’ve been recalled before you left on deployment, and you would have had one of the new P-8s. Our funding’s been shortchanged by my predecessor’s actions.”
Commodore Perry referred to the criminal deeds of the previous commodore, who’d falsfied the aircraft maintenance books. He was now doing jail time in Fort Leavenworth military prison. As a result, it was taking longer for the newer airframes to come on line in the wing and her squadrons. The plane Gwen had ditched in the Pacific Ocean hadn’t been up to the rigors of a deployment, much less being shot at by a modern missile. The crew would’ve had much more of a chance in one of the new P-8s. The former commodore’s crimes also included murder, but his punishment hadn’t helped the crews flying the aging planes.
He’d indirectly put aircrews like Gwen’s in danger.
“The old frame was part of the problem, but we both know a surface-to-air missile brought her down, the same as it would have a brand-new P-8.” Not to mention the fact that the plane had checked out okay before deployment.
Fatigue blew out her anger.
“Face it, Commodore, it goes back to pilot error, doesn’t it? I should have abandoned the mission earlier.” Five minutes would have saved the navy an old plane, protected her crew from trauma and avoided her jungle adventure.
“Gwen, you brought her down safely. You saved every life on that bird. The intel your mission captured prevented what would’ve been a massacre of tens of thousands of people in a sports stadium two weeks later. To top it off, you rescued a newborn from a burned-out village. You’re a hero to me, to the whole damned country, Gwen. But it would help everyone if you could remember more details about your captors. We want to prevent future terrorist attacks.”
“Don’t you think it would help me to remember, too? Then our interview would be over. I’m lucky I made it ashore, Commodore. I was so afraid of the sharks in that warm water. The prison camp wasn’t fun, either.” She leaned her head back. The soft leather of the office chair was like cashmere compared to the old material that covered the P-3’s she was used to.
Would her arms always feel this empty without Pax in them?
As long as her baby remained eleven thousand miles away in the Philippines, yes. There was a possibility she might never see him again—slight but a possibility nonetheless. Still, her heart would never let go of him, of his smile, the way he clung to her through their struggles. If that happened, she’d have to accept it, as she’d had to accept her failed marriage.
Drew.
Friends. We’re friends with a unique history together.
* * *
GWEN DRESSED WITH care in the outfit Ro had sent her—dressy black jeans and a soft flowing grey cardigan. Her cream-colored Italian wool coat set off the ensemble. Leave it to Ro to understand that she needed to feel pretty again, more like the woman she’d been when she left Whidbey.
This wasn’t a usual homecoming. No navy band would play upon her arrival; she wouldn’t be dressed in her uniform or flight suit. The squadron, at her request, wouldn’t be there. She wasn’t up to it yet.
As she shakily applied the makeup Ro had included with the clothes, she ignored how pale her reflection in the mirror was, how chapped her skin, her lips. Whidbey was the best place for a sailor to do reentry. She wouldn’t be alone in her struggles, if and when they came. Other survivors were doing just fine, whether they were still on active duty like her or had transitioned to civilian life.
A lot of the vets weren’t fine—they continued to suffer immeasurably. Would she be one of them?
It felt odd to put on makeup again. What would Drew think when he saw her?
“Nothing,” she muttered. “He’s going to think the same thing he did when Miles, Ro or any of our other friends came back.” Anger at her uncontrollable emotions sucked away the last of her energy, and she leaned against the hospital room’s sink.
Where was the tough streak she’d always been able to rely on?
She had no control over what she’d been through, or the fact that she’d returned from the dead, virtually homeless. Gwen slapped some blush on her cheeks. She didn’t have to look as if she’d been through hell, at any rate.
They’d all thought she’d died, out on that ocean. So had she.
Miracles still happened.
* * *
THE FLIGHT HOME TO Naval Air Station Oak Harbor was thirty minutes, tops, but Gwen felt as though she was on another endless journey.
After a quick drive from Madigan Army Hospital, they’d taken off from McCord Air Force Base in a C-12, the twin-engine turboprop owned by NAS Whidbey. She hadn’t been so keen to get on another plane after the long trip back from Manila, but at heart she remained a pilot, and a practical one at that. Twenty-five minutes in the air versus more than two hours in a car, longer if there was typical Seattle traffic, was worth any anxiety.
Once her feet hit the tarmac on Whidbey, her healing could start.
She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the feel of Pax’s little body as she’d held him, carried him through miles of jungle and through the crowded streets of Manila. His baby scent... These memories sustained Gwen in her hope that she’d be his legal mother soon. She’d gotten through the jungle, the journey to the American embassy and all she had left was this flight home to Oak Harbor.
The experience of having the medical team poke, prod and question her to determine the extent of her injuries was over.
The only hurt she continued to suffer was remembering the excruciating goodbye to Pax as she’d turned him over to the Philippine social service workers. He had to live in an orphanage pending his adoption.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the vision of row upon row of tiny cribs, Pax one of dozens of babies.
“Mama’s getting you out, baby.”
The drone of the engines kept her words inaudible to the others. She opened her eyes and looked around. The commodore and his few staff members were reading, napping or staring out the windows. They’d be exchanging knowing glances if any of them had noticed her talking to herself.
Heck, did Drew realize what he’d signed up for when he’d agreed to help her transition?
He’d never believe she’d had a change of heart about her priorities, even when he found out she wanted to adopt a baby. He’d assume the worst of her as he always had those last fractured months of their life together. He’d assume she was in it for herself.
You survived a ditch, war-torn terrorist country, turning over the baby you love. You can do this.
When her life was threatened, it’d been clear that, of all her accomplishments, the one that mattered most was her marriage. A marriage that had failed. Gwen didn’t kid herself—she knew she was far from perfect.
So she’d thought of her marriage during those long, traumatic days and nights. As she ditched her P-3C, as she floated at the whim of the ocean’s harsh currents, her thoughts had gone back to Drew and to the love they’d once shared. She was only human.
CHAPTER THREE
GWEN SAW HIM as soon as the plane stopped taxiing and pulled up to the hangar.
Drew.
He was the tall one with the sure stance, waiting for her with a small group of other people. Relief eased some of the tightness in her chest. She’d specifically told the commodore that she wasn’t ready to meet and greet her squadron. Not yet, not like this.
Unstable.
How did she go from constantly being “on” while in survival mode, to feeling like such a complete emotional wreck?
“Gwen.” The commodore’s hand was on her shoulder. It took every ounce of energy she had left to take her gaze from Drew, to unbuckle and get out of the small plane. The squadron XO carried her bags. He’d had to fill in for her, be the CO, until she came back. Yet now he deferred to her.
“Thanks, Bradley.”
“No problem.”
Both men looked at her, waiting. They wanted her to be the first off the plane.
Gwen tried to grin but it wasn’t much of a success. She turned and walked to the main cabin door. The airman who’d opened the door stood back after he’d let the ladder down.
“It’s all yours, ma’am.” He motioned for her to leave.
She took a deep breath and ignored the immediate sharp pain that lanced through her left side. Her ribs were still bruised from the last fall she’d taken, tripping over a tree root on her way out of the jungle with Pax in her arms. Thankfully he hadn’t been injured.
The day was bright and she squinted at the light as she grasped the railing and took the four steps down to the tarmac.
As soon as her feet hit the deck she bent her knees, then sank to the ground and kissed the concrete. To hell with her fancy dress pants or what anyone else thought.
There’d been many nights when she’d believed she’d never be on Whidbey’s tarmac again.
She straightened and walked to the hangar. The open doors and the welcoming group were at least a hundred feet away, but Drew’s features were as sharp as if he stood six inches from her.
His sunglasses hid his eyes so she only had his facial features and posture by which to judge his demeanor. He looked taller, his face more defined, more mature. Not as young as she’d remembered him for six long months.
She’d fought to come back here alive.
Her independence was still intact even though she had to accept help from the last person she ever wanted to depend on—Drew. It was only temporary.
At least she’d be able to make amends to him, to tell him she finally understood that neither of them was more to blame than the other for their divorce. She’d played a big part by not recognizing her own need for independence sooner and wanted him to know she didn’t hold any ill will toward him. She truly only wanted his happiness.
This would be a new start, a chance for both of them to move on like they should have done years ago.
Before she could finish her train of thought Drew stood in front of her. She hesitated. Was he angry he’d been coerced to take her in?
“Gwen.” He closed the distance between them and embraced her. She smelled Ivory soap and the hint of black licorice, his favorite snack. Licorice was Drew’s go-to stress reliever. He’d devoured it from big plastic bins after his return from the war, and again during his final dissertation and exams for his doctorate.
He kept his arms tightly around her, and she relished the feel of his winter jacket against her cheek. By keeping her eyes closed she could almost convince herself she still had him to come home to. That this was real.
She felt an urge to pull back, to look him in the eye and tell him she’d realized what really mattered in life.
If she did, he’d think she was crazy, suffering from PTSD, that she didn’t mean any of it. She had no way to convince him of her sincerity.
Her epiphany—that love and relationships were the only important things in life—was too late. He didn’t deserve to be harangued with revelations that might have served them better four years ago, maybe even earlier.
Homecomings weren’t good times for surprises or emotional breakdowns.
Instead, she clung to his shoulders and leaned heavily against him. It beat collapsing on the tarmac in front of onlookers.
She would have stayed in his arms for hours if he’d allowed it. The longer she could soak up his strength, the longer she could put off facing the reality that she had to go home with him and play at being friends.
Drew made the decision for both of them as he pulled back and bent his head to hers, taking the sunglasses off. “I’m so glad you made it, Gwen.”
His eyes were unnaturally bright and she wanted desperately to believe it was from relief that she was alive.
“I am, too. And I’m doing great. I won’t be in your way for long. I appreciate your taking me in, though.”
His instant frown removed the shine from his eyes and his mouth formed a straight line. An all-too-familiar expression from the last months of their marriage. His body stiffened next to hers but he kept his arms loosely around her waist.
“It’s going to take a while to recover from everything you’ve been through, Gwen.”
“Do I look that bad?”
He had the decency to appear chagrined.
“You’ve been to hell and back. Ro told me you were living in the jungle for most of your time on the ground.”
“I was. But I’ve been trained to do that. I went to SERE school, remember?” Graduating from the navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training had been one of her proudest accomplishments.
Until she’d carried Pax through one of the more dangerous places on the planet and lived to tell about it.
“Speaking of Ro...” She peered over his shoulder to where her best friend stood next to the ridiculously handsome Miles.
“Ro!” She stepped away from Drew, holding her arms open. Ro ran up to her and gave her a big hug.
“Welcome home, sis.”
Gwen couldn’t say anything past the burning in her throat.
* * *
DID HE REMEMBER her going to SERE school?
Drew shoved down a distinct, primal need to growl as he watched Ro and Gwen reunite.
How could he forget? When Gwen arrived back from SERE she’d sported several scrapes and bruises. The large bruise over her kidney had given him pause—and been the start of a long battle to convince Gwen that she belonged somewhere other than the navy.
He ignored the tension in his stomach. He’d been young and fiercely protective of his new wife. She’d been just as intense, determined to prove she’d make a good officer.
Gwen had never understood that of course he supported her career and her talents. But to him she’d been his wife first. And he’d wanted to protect her, to keep her from the horrors she’d witnessed in the war in Afghanistan.
Now she’d survived the wilds in the southern Philippines. She’d evaded terrorist camps and again, death.
No wonder she hardly spared him a glance. He couldn’t stand to look at himself, either.
Because in the end he hadn’t been able to protect her—from anything.
He waited until she was done with the brief greetings from Ro and Miles. They’d agreed before she landed to keep it short. Ro would visit Gwen soon enough, at home.
As soon as possible without being rude, he walked back to her side and slipped his arm around her waist. She stiffened for a moment before she relaxed, no, leaned into him.
He noted that Ro and Miles discreetly moved away as she turned her head into his shoulder. Fear raced through him. This exhausted, drained Gwen was not the proud woman who’d left on deployment eight months ago. Not the good friend he’d had on island over the past several years, the one he’d split the vet bills with.
“I never doubted that you’d survive this, Gwen.” He couldn’t resist planting a kiss on her head before he lifted her chin to let her see he meant it.
“Liar.” Her mouth tilted up in its lopsided grin. God, he’d missed her. He couldn’t stop himself from stroking her cheek before he stepped back. He still kept his arm around her, in case she needed the support. His fingers tingled. Her skin, even after months on the run and recovering from the brutal conditions she’d endured, was still the softest thing he’d ever touched, at least in the places the sun hadn’t reached.
“Maybe I was scared you’d been killed, but I knew if anyone could get out of that hellhole alive, it was you. I never gave up hope, Gwen.”
Her gaze measured him and he had no doubt he didn’t make the grade. How could he? He’d begged her to leave the navy during her department head tour, the ticket to her XO/CO tour.
Back off. You’re friends.
“Homecomings always stir up emotions. Once you’re back on your feet this will feel like a dream.”
The spark in her eye extinguished and she looked exhausted. “You’re right, of course.”
Guilt ran a knife through him, leaving another invisible wound. He’d been safe and warm in his bed, working in his office, living on the island Gwen loved so much while she’d battled a monsoon, a missile, terrorists. Yet she’d come back. And she’d saved the lives of her crew, and—
“The baby. When will you get to see the baby again?”
“You know?” Her eyes were wide, her mouth open. Her soft, sexy mouth.
“Of course I do, Gwen.”
“I’m not sure when. It may be a long while. I can’t believe you already found out about him.”
He sighed. “I was still listed as next of kin on your Page Two. Because everyone knew we’re still friends, the command kept me informed pretty much every step of the way. Ro gave me any information I wasn’t officially cleared for.” He nodded in Ro’s direction. “Without her I wouldn’t have known you were safe until a day or so later.”
He also knew that she’d told Ro she didn’t want any visitors at the Madigan Army Hospital, not even her best friend. Certainly not her ex-husband, no matter how solid their friendship was. She’d requested that everyone wait to see her until she got back to the island.
It had nearly killed him to wait, not to drive down on his own and burst into her hospital room.
He had a lot of ground to cover if he was going to make things right with her. Although it was nothing like the horrors Gwen must have gone through, during the past six months he’d lived in his own kind of hell. Trying to persuade her to get out of the navy and settle down into his idea of the perfect life had been his biggest mistake. He’d paid for it with their broken marriage. But at this point all of that was inconsequential. Except for his deep desire to make it up to her, to be anything but the pain in the ass he’d been for too long. Gwen’s independence was so important to her that she’d left their marriage rather than rely on him to meet her emotional needs. Needs he hadn’t been capable of meeting, not then.
The least he could do now was be a real friend—with no expectations.
“Drew, thanks so much for coming today.” She put her hand on his forearm. “I’m sorry I didn’t want anyone to visit right away, but I thought it was best. I was looking pretty rough when I first got back.”
He shook his head. As if he’d ever thought she was anything less than beautiful! “Don’t you remember how awful I looked when I got back from downrange ten years ago?”
“You were tired. And the nightmares weren’t exactly fun for you.” A glimmer of fear flickered in her expression.
“Gwen, you’re going to be okay. You’ll get through it—I did.”
“I don’t want you to think you have to take care of me just because of that time, Drew. We’re not married anymore. I’m not your responsibility. About the baby—yes, I found a baby while I was on the run.” She faltered, her eyes downcast and her shoulders slumped. “I want to go home, um, to the house, and talk about it there. Not here.”
* * *
“You’re free to leave, Gwen. No one’s going to ask any more of you than you want them to.” He glanced over at the commodore, Ro and Miles. They were huddled in a group several feet away, trying to look as though they weren’t studying every aspect of their reunion.
Some reunion. He hoped they hadn’t expected a passionate embrace. He and Gwen hadn’t kissed that way since they were both younger, still married, still in love.
God help them both get through the next few days.
* * *
THEY DIDN’T TALK on the drive to the house. Gwen couldn’t get past the weight of exhaustion that pressed on her bones, and thankfully Drew didn’t attempt conversation.
You’re going home. You’re almost home!
As much as she told herself the house would never be home again, not with Drew, it was how she felt as he pulled into their driveway. As if she were returning from a regular deployment, home to the safety of their marriage. She’d always felt safe with Drew, regardless of how ugly it got between them.
“Here, I’ve got your bags.”
Drew grabbed the two small overnight bags—one she had from the embassy in Manila and the one Ro had sent stuffed with new clothes and cosmetics.
“Ro went overboard—she bought me so many outfits and girly stuff. I need to thank her and pay her back.”
“You know she’ll never take any money from you. She was worried that you were living in Madigan Army Hospital gowns and sweatpants from the embassy store in Manila.”
Gwen laughed as she climbed the wooden steps to the front door. “It was pretty bad, at first, but the embassy staff found clothes that fit me, and as you know, there are some wonderful markets in the PI. They outfitted me with all kinds of summer clothing.”
“It’s a little too chilly for that here.”
“Yes.” Actually, she hadn’t paid much attention to the weather or the temperature—she’d been focused on Drew. Early spring on Whidbey was typically windy and chilly. Today the air was still and the sun shone, making the grass sparkle. She’d missed the deep emerald-green unique of the Pacific Northwest. Gwen soaked up the scenery, let it lift her spirits.
“The door’s unlocked.”
Of course it was. Drew didn’t see the need to lock the door, ever. It’d always bothered her, his view that if thieves wanted in, they’d get in.
“So Nappie’s still guarding the place?” They’d shared the dog, a hound mix, along with the parrot, when she’d moved out.
“Rosie’s helping. Nappie’s hearing isn’t as good as it used to be when she was a pup.”
Sure enough, as soon as Gwen stepped foot inside, the bird belted out “Mommy’s home!”
Rosie said “Mommy’s home!” whenever anyone came into the house, male or female, acquaintance or stranger. Still, it made Gwen smile and she had to wipe away a few tears of gratitude.
“You all right?” Drew’s hand was on her shoulder and no, she wasn’t all right—not considering the way she’d reacted to his touch.
“Fine, fine. Like you said, I’m going to be overly emotional for a bit. The docs told me the same thing. It’s not personal, just part of my recovery process.”
Drew dropped his arm and motioned for her to go up the stairs.
“Let’s get you settled.”
“Wait—I need to say hi to my girls.” She bent down and accepted wet sloppy kisses from Nappie, the long-eared rescue who’d been their first pet. After she was certain Nappie had received enough affection, she walked over to Rosie, the Indian Ring-Necked parrot who hadn’t stopped talking.
“Whatcha doing?” Rosie cocked her head at the angle that always made Gwen laugh.
“Rosie’s a pretty bird, aren’t you, girl?” Gwen crooned. Rosie bent her head forward, exposing her nape for Gwen to scratch. It was the ultimate show of trust from a winged creature. More burning tears pushed at Gwen’s eyes.
Was she going to see everything through a lens of grateful tears from now on?
“Good bird.” She gave Rosie a kiss on her beak and turned back to Drew.
“Where to?”
She thought he’d take her to the guest room, where she’d lived for months before she’d moved out, but followed him to the master bedroom.
“I made this up for you. I wasn’t sure how you felt about coming back. Wait—let me rephrase that. I know you didn’t want to come back here, that you’d want your apartment. I’m sorry it got rented out from underneath you, Gwen.”
Gwen watched Drew put her small travel case on their bed. What had been their bed, in the master bedroom, which was oddly devoid of any hint of Drew’s presence. Neat stacks of her clothes and favorite books were on the bureaus, where Drew had placed them; she never folded her clothes so meticulously.
That was why he’d always done the laundry.
“Losing an apartment is part of the deal when you’re considered dead, I suppose.” Her attempt at humor was weak, and she knew it.
“This is not going to be easy for you, Gwen, and I want you to promise you’ll tell me immediately if you think you’re down too far.”
They both knew what the down too far could lead to. Friends had attempted suicide at such points in their post-war return to “normal” life.
“I’m not one of your PT clients, Drew.” She held up her hand. “Wait, that came out way too harsh. Can you tell I haven’t had regular conversations for a long time?” She referred to not having to use gestures the way she had with Mia, the woman who gave her and Pax shelter in a remote village, or using the very few words of Tagalog she knew.
He smiled. “Does it seem weird to be talking to people who all speak English again? Other than doctors and navy personnel, I mean.”
“Yes and no. I had to communicate with Pax, of course, but that was mommy-baby stuff. All physical. Hugs, kisses, tickles. When I settled in with a village woman, Mia, she and I communicated mostly through sign language. It’s not like I was in solitary confinement or anything.”
Except in her thoughts of him...and the mental and emotional review of her life those months away from civilization had granted her.
“Like I said, you need anything, you tell me.”
“Sure.”
“I’m in the guest room. As you can see, I’ve brought in some of your stuff—the rest is in the garage.” The gruff edge of apology surprised her. It wasn’t his fault she was here, that he’d had to go through her household goods.
She tried to smile, tried to look as if she knew how to handle a multisentence conversation anymore. He was right; she hadn’t talked to a lot of people for the past six months, not until the past two weeks during which she’d been quizzed and downright interrogated by every embassy and military official who needed information from her.
How did you survive, Commander? Were you raped? Were you hungry much of the time? Where is the baby from? Why did you decide to take a baby with you? Do you really think you can leave the country with that child? How can you prove you didn’t kidnap him?
“Gwen? You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She couldn’t, wouldn’t, have him waiting for her to explode with PTSD symptoms. “Don’t worry, Drew, I haven’t shown any signs of PTSD yet. I’ve had one or two nightmares, but that’s to be expected.”
His expression softened. “Of course it is. It’s like being downrange, Gwen, but probably worse. You were without your crew, your team. You were all alone out there for a lot of the time, weren’t you?”
“Yes, at least the first month and a half. Shortly after I found Pax I made some friends I could trust among the locals.” Heat rushed to her face. “You’ve heard all this, haven’t you?”
“Not all of it.” He shifted on his feet. “I know you’re not ready to talk about it. Once you decide you are, I’m probably not the person you’ll want to share everything with. But I’m here, Gwen. Ro’s here. You’re not alone. And your mother wanted to be here with her husband when you landed, but I convinced them to wait at least a week or two. She’d appreciate a call that you’re here—later, when you’re ready.”
* * *
“I AM SO sorry you got saddled with taking me in, Drew.”
He shrugged. “It’s not a problem.” He shot her a lopsided grin. “You never changed that Page Two, you know.”
Ah, her Page Two—the second page in any sailor’s service record, but the most important in the event of his or her death. It listed next of kin and who their Service Group Life Insurance was going to.
“No, I didn’t change it.”
“You’ve had a busy few years. Your Page Two was an easy thing to forget, although I’m surprised your admin chief didn’t ask you about it.”
Admin had reminded her, but she’d purposefully kept Drew as the primary beneficiary on her policy after the divorce. She would never have made it this far in her career without him. He deserved it all if she was killed in the line of duty, legal husband or not. Her mother and stepfather were financially secure; they wouldn’t need the money.
And even if they had, she would’ve kept Drew as her beneficiary. It wasn’t his fault he’d married a woman who was never meant to be married.
They’d been so young.
She couldn’t say it. Not again. Not now.
“If anything happened to me, it would take care of my share of the house. Plus, it’d keep Nappie and Rosie fed and in great toys for the rest of their lives.”
Drew’s silence proved how crazy she sounded.
“I’ve changed, Drew. I’m not who I was six months ago.”
Should she tell him about those thoughts? The visions of them when they’d been in love? Making love.
Oh, no.
“You’ve been through a lot, Gwen, and yes, it’s changed you, changed your outlook on things. But trust me, it’s like life on Whidbey. New restaurants pop up, coffee shops switch owners, but the water, the mountains—all the fundamentals are still there. Same as always.”
“The snow cap on Mt. Baker is shrinking.”
He grinned. “Well, yeah, there’s that.”
Standing next to Drew, feeling his warmth, smelling that familiar scent...her head was so heavy and his shoulders would feel so good to lean on.
It wouldn’t be fair to either of them if she took advantage of the situation.
“Yeah.” Her voice cracked.
She couldn’t find the words, didn’t have the energy to explain that she’d changed from the inside out. She’d forfeited any right to accept comfort from Drew the day she’d signed their divorce papers. The things she’d found boring before her ordeal—a safe home, a good meal, time to simply relax—meant the world to her now. She wished she could explain this to him without the risk that he’d think it was PTSD or related emotional upset.
You’re the only one who needs to know you’ve changed.
Why did she care whether or not Drew understood she’d turned into a mother, a family woman?
“I’ll leave you for a while. Take your time. Have a long hot shower if you need it. When you’re ready, I’ll put together some dinner.” He left the room and shut the door behind him.
The instant quiet scared her. After the incessant humming of bugs, birds and animals she never identified, the silence of the bedroom made her uneasy. At least the hospital had a constant whirr of activity and air systems serving as white noise.
You’re safe.
As she’d done these past two weeks of freedom, she forced herself to focus on the next obvious task.
A hot shower.
The novelty of readily available water hadn’t worn off yet. She’d never take hot running water for granted again.
Before she walked into the master bathroom, she tiptoed to the bedroom door and silently turned the handle to open it. Just a crack.
It was silly and stupid and maybe superstitious, but it made her feel connected to Drew.
An invisible link could save your life.
* * *
DREW FIRED UP the gas grill and used the few minutes outside on the deck to calm down.
“Damn it.” He spoke under his breath to the trees, the earth, the fates that had blessed him with Gwen’s survival while cursing him with her nearness.
He really needed a cold shower. Gwen had never stopped turning him on, difficult though it’d been that last year they’d lived together. As the friends they’d become, he knew she was off-limits. That didn’t change his initial reaction to her each time she came over to see the pets, or whenever he ran into her in town. Sexual compatibility had never been a problem for them.
It was emotional maturity they’d lacked. Apparently, he still hadn’t grown up. He felt lower than a caterpillar, getting turned on by her when she was clearly so fragile. When they both knew where it would all end.
They’d still be divorced.
If he was going to be the friend she needed right now, he had to ignore the sexual thoughts that had started the minute he saw her again.
He had to let go of the way his arms ached to haul her against him. The way he wanted to kiss her. To make love to her until she forgot about the world and everything she’d endured.
Double damn it.
When he went back in, he found her sitting at the long kitchen counter that divided the great room. She looked so waifish, all bundled in sweats and perched on the bar stool.
“You’ve kept the place clean, I’ll give you that.” Wet hair and chapped lips, and she still had her sense of humor.
“I have help. After you left on deployment my business picked up. I couldn’t keep the house anything close to hygienic on my own.” He offered her a grin. “My talents are limited to folding clean laundry.”
“You, Mr. I-Can-Do-It-All, hired a housecleaner?”
“It was a long fall, but I’m tough that way. I can handle it.”
She giggled, and it was like a blast of tropical wind as his ego reacted to her small sign of pleasure.
He needed to make sure he kept his distance over these next few weeks or he’d start misinterpreting every little thing she did.
Gwen had often told him that his sarcasm and arrogance had endeared him to her at first, but grown tedious as the years went by.
His self-recrimination had passed, though. There was no point in wondering why the heck he’d waited so long to grow up.
“I’m grilling veggies and chicken—that sound good?”
“Wonderful.” She gazed around the kitchen as she absentmindedly rubbed the top of Nappie’s head. “I don’t expect you to wait on me, Drew. Let me do something.”
“I’m not going to be your slave, believe me. But today’s your big day. You’re finally back from deployment.”
“Yes, I am. Only two months late, right?”
Her squadron had returned two months ago, after six months in Japan. She’d deployed with them, but gone missing during their second month, on her ill-fated mission.
“Your XO has been acting as the CO since the change of command. He’s kept me informed.”
“How much did he know?”
“Not much, at least not based on what he shared with me. Like I said, Ro filled in the holes, plus she learned stuff ahead of the squadron. She didn’t keep anything from me, even though I’m a mere civilian.” He stopped himself from adding “and an ex-husband.” He’d been read out of his clearances over seven years ago when he’d resigned his commission.
He watched her while he sliced zucchini and red onions for the grilling basket. To his immense relief, he could still recognize the real Gwen beneath her pallor and extreme thinness. But the shadows in her eyes worried him. What horrors had she faced?
“Look, let’s save this conversation for later. For now, we’ll eat and celebrate that you’re back.”
And I’ll do my best to keep my hands to myself.
* * *
DETECTIVE COLE RAMSEY knew this wasn’t the time to bother Anita Perez. It was the end of her workday, and her twelve-hour night shifts at Coupeville General Hospital left her tired and needing to sleep while her kids were in school. Her parents had moved in with her after her husband died, enabling her to take the graveyard shift. She had a boy and a girl, both in elementary school, two years apart.
They were adorable, like their mother.
Anita would be tired and in no mood to deal with the likes of him.
Too bad.
He’d read the island paper this morning and the news of his good friend Drew’s ex-wife, Navy Commander Gwendolyn Brett, coming back from the dead was the big headline. The feel-good ending to what everyone had assumed would be a tragic story was the kick in the pants he needed.
It reminded him that miracles happened, even on Whidbey where he saw the worst of the community up close and personal each day.
Ramsey balanced the paper coffee carrier that held two steaming-hot cups of local brew, and a bag of fresh cinnamon donuts. If Anita wouldn’t talk to him, he’d bribe her. When he’d conducted the investigation into her estranged husband’s murder last year he’d discovered she had a wicked sweet tooth.
Her tall, slim figure exited the side door of the hospital and she made a beeline for her old station wagon. He pushed back the uncertainty that tightened his chest.
“Good morning, Anita.”
She abruptly paused and her cool blue eyes sparked recognition before her professional nurse’s mask fell back in place.
“Ramsey.”
They studied each other for a full minute. He’d bet his paycheck, admittedly never enough, that she felt the attraction, too.
“Coffee?”
Anita was at eye level with him, but only because she wore flat working shoes. In the slightest of heels, she’d be taller than him.
He didn’t care. In fact, it turned him on.
“Thanks.” She reluctantly took the paper cup he offered. “I have to get home, Ramsey.”
She started walking toward her car.
“I know you do. And this isn’t a date.” She’d declined the two other times he’d asked her.
She had the longest stride. He almost had to jog to keep up with her.
“Who said anything about a date?” she asked. She stopped at her car and looked up at the sky. He saw the raindrops hit her skin before he felt the splats on his sleeves.
She sighed, looking back at him. Resignation, maybe an acceptance that they should give it a try?
She nodded at the passenger side. “Get in.”
Ramsey wasn’t going to argue. If a beautiful woman told him to get in her car, he did it.
The interior smelled of sugar, coffee, her. Crumpled snack wrappers littered the back with its two booster seats. They sat in the comfortable quiet of the rainfall, the companionable silence completely different from the manner in which they’d met and their encounters until now.
“Mmm.” The froth of her cappuccino stuck to her upper lip and he watched her tongue lick it off, her eyes closed.
“How was your shift?”
She sent Cole a sidelong glance, giving him a quick glimpse of arctic blue, before she returned her gaze to the windshield.
“The usual, but not as busy. Quiet.” She sipped. “I prefer to have more to do. Not that I wish anyone ill. It’s just that when it’s quiet, I have too much time to...think.”
“I know.” Ramsey felt the same way when his days held nothing but paperwork.
“Yes, I suppose you do. Our jobs aren’t really that different.”
He took a gulp of his black coffee. He hadn’t come here to talk about himself.
“How are your kids doing?”
“Fine.” Which meant she wasn’t going to allow him to step one inch into her life, much less her children’s. She hadn’t in the year since her husband was murdered by an overzealous senior naval officer who had stopped at nothing to secure his own career success. Why would she let him in now?
“Eventually you have to open up to somebody, Anita.”
“Who says I haven’t?”
“I saw enough of you last year to see that we operate in much the same way. You’re not going to let anyone in who wasn’t already there, who doesn’t already know your story, at least that part of it. It’s too much to put on anyone else.”
“You haven’t answered my question, Detective. For all you know, I took a lover and confided in him. But for the sake of argument, let’s say I didn’t. Why do you think I’d ever want to open up to anyone else again? To risk changing the family life I’ve built with my kids by bringing in someone new?”
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