Way of the Warrior (Troubleshooters #17.5)(93)

“Because you flew.” Kendall had come up behind her without her noticing. His voice was barely a whisper. So close she could feel him there now, though he didn’t touch her.

“Because I flew?” But that’s everything she was…had been. “You didn’t clue me in about how you felt, because I flew.”

“Yes.”

She spun to face him so fast that he took a quick step back. “Oh, but now that I can’t fly, now that the sky has been ripped away from me, now it’s okay to kiss me like you want to take me to bed? Well, to hell with you.” She tried to storm away, but he stopped her. He was far more powerful than she was, could have caged her against the counter, done anything, and she couldn’t have stopped him.

All Kendall did was rest his hand lightly on her arm, and suddenly all of her momentum failed her.

“Why?” She couldn’t look up to meet those dark eyes. “Can you at least tell me why?”

He nodded slowly, then led her back to the couch. His hand was strong and warm as he supported her through the still awkward transition from standing to sitting. She wanted to curl her legs under her, but the cool metal creeped her out each time it brushed her other leg.

“It’s not that you flew—”

“But you just said—”

He held up his hand to stop her. His face was unreadable. She might not remember much of their last hour together, but she had remembered watching the mobility of his features. His easy smile, the laugh that started in his eyes long before it reached his lips or his voice. There was something behind his eyes now, a darkness she recognized and now wished she didn’t. Kendall had become her beacon of light somewhere along the way. Two dinners and a kiss hadn’t been what did it.

The flight. The gift of flight, even if it was a simulated one. She couldn’t see where the hope led, but she could feel it lying somewhere just out of reach.

Well, the light had gone out, and now the man sitting across from her was frowning with a seriousness she didn’t recognize, didn’t know he had in him.

“My dad flew Desert Storm.” His voice with thick and slow. “He’s one of the ones who didn’t make it home.”

“I’m so sorry.” She reached out and took his hand. Why hadn’t she known? Because he hadn’t told her, duh! But as she watched how hard it was, she understood that not only hadn’t he told her, he’d never told anyone.

“My mom broke that day.” He stared down at their clasped hands, began massaging her hand as if it weren’t connected to her, just an object to keep himself distracted. “She was great, everything a kid could ask for in a single mom, but she’s never even dated again. ‘No point,’ is all she says to anyone who asks. I swore as a kid that I’d never be with a serving soldier.”

Then he looked up at her. Those deep brown eyes so close and intense. “No one. And I mean no one ever came close to making me break that vow, except you. So I need you to be really sure that you want me in your bed for more than a one-night rehab therapy session. Because to me, it’s a hell of a lot more important than that.”

? ? ?

Lois stood at the living room window, lit only by the distant field lights that found their way here, for a long time after she sent Kendall away into the cool spring night. She’d sent him with half a pizza and the best kiss of her life, but she’d sent him nonetheless.

“I don’t dare risk hurting you as much as I expect I will,” she’d told him. He was too important, though she was unclear how or when that had happened.

He’d tried to protest that he could take care of his own hurt, but she’d refused.

“Time. Give me some time.” That’s when he’d hit her with that kiss. It hadn’t scorched and burned like last night’s. Instead, it had asked and promised. She had wrapped her leg—her missing leg—behind him to keep him close and neither of them had reacted to that. She’d wanted and needed, but she hadn’t taken. Hadn’t taken him to her bed or taken him on the couch.

Instead, she had shown him the door and, without a word, released him into the night.

From her front window, she could see the airfield lights shining beyond the next set of barracks. Dozens of choppers were parked there, the more specialized ones tucked safely out of sight in hangars. That’s where her heart had been, tucked safely out of sight. The question she couldn’t answer was how safe it would be if it got out.

? ? ?

For a week, Lois went to the PEB offices to check if there was any information on her paperwork processing. More often than not she met Clara the AW2 advocate for lunch. Clara didn’t push anymore. Instead, as they slowly became friends, she told Lois her own story.

“I was part of Team Lioness. We were temporarily attached to Army and Marine units, meaning we were dropped into combat teams without heavy combat training. Our job was to frisk the women so as not to violate their religious laws against any man other than their husbands touching them. You tell me how we go in with a gung-ho Marine team and don’t end up in the thick of it.”

“Pixie dust? I hear the Pentagon is making that standard issue now.”

Clara laughed. “Could have used some. I got this one woman cleared of guns, and she had several. But my teammate hadn’t secured this damn big kitchen knife just sitting out in the open. She missed my heart by that much.” She raised her artificial arm. Her prosthetic began just below the shoulder. She’d chosen a cosmetic arm controlled by wires in a harness attached to her opposite shoulder. It was good enough that it would have passed for real at a casual glance, if she hadn’t chosen a short-sleeved blouse to go with it.