Rev It Up (Black Knights Inc. #3)(21)
He lifted his eyes to her face then. And they were so green, so tormented. “Did Boss ever tell you about the Marine barracks bombing?”
“Uh…no,” she shook her head, surprised and disoriented by the lightning-fast change of topic. “He…he never said anything about it.”
He nodded and went back to folding and refolding the beer label he’d finally managed to pull from the sweating bottle. Then he glanced up and made yet another visual pass around the courtyard. Yes, he may claim there was no cause for worry, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still on high alert.
She supposed there was some comfort in that. Of course, the small relief she garnered from knowing he would hop-to at a moment’s notice quickly dissolved when the silence between them stretched until it was a sharp, tangible thing.
When she couldn’t stand it a second longer, she cleared her throat and quietly asked, “Were you guys…um, were you stationed there when it happened?”
She remembered watching the footage of the horrendous event on the news. The scenes of carnage and destruction had been enough to have even the most stalwart constitutions running for the nearest toilet. At the time, she’d been beside herself with worry, wondering if her brother and all the men she’d come to think of as family were lying somewhere in that smoldering rubble.
Then Frank had called, joking around like usual, never breathing a word about the bombing, and she’d assumed Bravo Platoon was stationed elsewhere in Afghanistan.
“Do you, um, do you mind if we turn our chairs around?” Jake suddenly blurted, catching her off-guard yet again.
What the heck? This conversation felt more like a verbal scavenger hunt, one where she was missing the clues.
“Uh, sure, I guess” she said, pushing up from her Adirondack chair and watching in confusion as he hastily turned it, along with his own, away from the fire.
“I want my eyes to adjust to the dark, and I also want to keep watch on that corner,” he explained with a jerk of his chin toward the corner in question.
O-kay. Her pulse, which hadn’t been steady all night, tripped over itself.
“What’s over there?” she breathed, trying to see something in all that pervasive blackness.
“Nothing that I can see, and that’s the whole problem.”
Huh?
“Okay,” he said, retaking his seat and grabbing his beer, “where was I?”
She wasn’t sure anymore. Her head was spinning.
“Oh, you asked if we were stationed there when the barrack’s bombing occurred, and the quick and simple answer is yes.”
She dropped down into her seat as a wave of dizziness and nausea overcame her. The realization of how close she’d come to losing them all trumped every other thought.
So close. Too close…
“We were housed down the block from the marines. You see, SEALs and jarheads tend not to mix effectively when it comes to housing situations considering we’re an unruly, rough-and-ready bunch by nature, and Marine’s are a spit-and-shine, follow-the-rules group by training. You’ve sorta got yourself an oil and water situation there.” He grinned then and, even scared out of her mind, sick over the thought of nearly losing her brother and all the boys of Bravo Platoon, she had to mentally scold herself to keep from falling prey to his particular brand of allure as she watched his dimples deepen.
And, yes, considering the danger of her situation and the dreadfulness of their current topic of conversation, she fully grasped how ludicrous that was.
Of course, Jake always had the ability to muddle her thoughts, charming cad that he was.
“But that’s not to say we didn’t eat in the same mess hall with those dudes or have some brews around the same campfires,” he continued, his smile disappearing as his eyes grew shadowed, the memories obviously painful. “During that month, all us frogmen in Bravo Platoon got to know those leathernecks pretty good.”
“I’ve heard it said soldiers in war make friends really quickly,” she remarked quietly. “The shared experience and all that.”
“Yeah.” He nodded and turned away, his expression filled with anguish.
Her heart, the one she had to keep reminding herself to harden against him, proved true to character and softened around the edges.
He was quiet then, and only the gently hiss and crackle of the fire at their backs broached the stillness of the courtyard. After she’d allowed him some time to gather his thoughts and herself and her idiotic bleeding heart some time to beat back the urge to reach out and touch him, she ventured, “So were you guys…were you on base that day?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “We were.”
She knew what was coming next, and she steeled herself to hear it. As much as she’d love to plug her fingers in her ears and sing ob-la-di, ob-la-da, she squashed the urge to get up and pretend their conversation never happened. Instead, she pulled Franklin closer to her chest, taking comfort in his presence and his soft, little boy snores as she waited for the horror she sensed was about to fall from Jake’s lips.
One thing she’d learned being the sister of soldier: when a fighting man wanted to talk, you let him. No questions. No interruptions. No matter what was going on around you.
And even after everything that’d happened between them, after all the terrible things he’d said and done, she couldn’t force herself to turn away from him now, in his moment of need, though she sensed whatever he was about to say might ultimately cause her defenses to crack.