My Kind of Christmas (Virgin River #20)(53)

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Patrick felt the soaring, heard the powerful engines, the g’s pulling on him. The sky above him was the kind of clean blue you can only experience from a jet. The water below barely moved. Then he reached land that was brown and gray, mountainous and stark.

Nothing in the world felt so potent to him, yet even in his deep sleep he was afraid to feel it, to let it consume him. He felt he had complete control of a mighty machine, and yet…

Viper One, target in range. Descending to ten thousand feet.

He held his breath. Even in his sleep, he stiffened and couldn’t breathe. And then it happened—just as the three Hornets passed over the mountain range with a large fortress in his sights, he felt his ship rock from an explosion, a blast of white light, flying debris, and he screamed. He banked away and brought the jet level, looking for a chute. Jake! Goddammit, Jake! Where’s the goddamn chute?

He screamed his friend’s name, sat up in bed, covered with sweat and freezing. Panting. Gasping.

And there was Angie, kneeling beside him, running her small hand over his back and whispering his name. “Shhh, Paddy, it’s all right now. Shhh, just a bad dream…”

Just? he thought. Just seeing his best friend go down over and over again, his F-18 exploding, showering the other jets with debris, then dropping from the sky in a flat spin, another explosion on impact with the side of a big, brown mountain.

Patrick groaned and fell back against the pillows. He was shaking. He pinched his eyes closed and felt Angie pull the quilt over him, but she didn’t lie down beside him. She gently ran her fingers through his hair, waiting for his breathing to even, to slow. When he finally opened his eyes she asked, “The crash? Jake?”

“Did I yell?”

“No. You said his name. You made a sound. You stiffened and clenched your fists and started panting. And you wouldn’t wake up.”

He gave a humorless laugh. “I was busy,” he said.

“Does that happen a lot?”

He let his lids close gently. “Not since you,” he said softly, opening his eyes again. “It’s been a couple of weeks, I guess. That’s why I won’t stay with my brothers. I thought I screamed. In the dream I scream. It’s like the real thing.”

She shook her head. “You didn’t scream. I might not have known about the nightmare if I’d been in the next room.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Can you talk about it? About what happened that day?”

He gave a shrug. “There’s not too much to tell. We were locating a terrorist cell on the Libya border, flying in low, making our presence felt. There were reports of a terrorist training post. There had been heavy fire from that place—we’d had casualties and fatalities. There had been reports of a lot of grenades, IEDs, gunfire, ground missiles. A couple of sorties to the area reported surface to air Russian-made air heat seekers, which were evaded by jets. There were some close calls, near-misses, and then a NATO helicopter was taken down. We saw the flash, evaded, but the bastard got Jake’s engine. And his plane just came apart—as if it were made of nothing more than plastic. I looked for a chute. I prayed for a chute. We thought we were clear but… We weren’t clear.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Went around, came back in and bombed the shit out of that place.”

She was quiet for a second.

“It’s what we’re paid to do, Angela,” he said.

“I know, it’s just that I can’t imagine seeing a friend crash and then getting right back to the mission....”

“It was the only satisfying thing that happened that day,” he said. But he turned his head away.

She put her fingers on his chin and turned him back. “Have I said how sorry I am for your loss?”

He gave her a small smile and pulled her down beside him. “You’re a sweet girl.”

“You don’t treat me like a girl,” she said. “If I were really a girl, you’d be arrested.”

“But your uncle Jack was right, you know—I have issues.”

“We all do, Paddy. Including Uncle Jack. My aunts, Mel and Brie, have had some issues of their own—really tough stuff to get over. You’re not so different from the rest of us.” She gave his neck a kiss. “Can you fall back to sleep?”

Sometimes he was afraid to sleep, which left him tired and angry. But when Angie was around, things didn’t seem so cold and empty. “Snuggle up here, angel. Rock me to sleep.”

“My pleasure.”

But sleep was not what she thought would comfort him the most. She caressed him—his shoulders, his chest, his belly. She kissed his neck until he rolled toward her and took her mouth with a vengeance. His hands started to move and when she groaned her pleasure, he laughed deep in his throat. Any lingering trace of his nightmare was now gone.

They’d been together such a short time, yet it felt as if he’d known her a lifetime. They certainly got to know each other in a wonderfully intimate way. He grabbed her butt and turned her, fondled her, slipped his fingers into her and over her and got her wriggling toward a cl**ax. She stroked him until he was moaning and reaching toward her.

“I’ll be careful,” he whispered, reaching to the nightstand for his condom.

“Please don’t be too careful,” she whispered back.