him.
The man sitting beside him in the back seat touched his arm. Al Sharpe, the air force major assigned as his escort, or “shadow,” asked quietly, “Would you like me to see you inside?”
“Thanks, I’ll take it from here.” Tristan’s attention was engaged with employing the cane he’d been given to lever himself out of the car. He wasn’t happy about the cane, but the knee he’d injured punching out of his exploding Hornet eight years ago never had healed properly, and the unaccustomed activity of the past few days seemed to have aggravated it. The doctors had told him that, with good physical therapy and possibly some surgery, he’d likely get most of the use of it back. Eventually.
Most of it. Eventually. He wondered what that meant, and whether it applied to other things he’d lost. Eight years with his wife…watching his little girl grow up. The person he’d been. Nobody was ready to assure him so easily and carelessly about his chances of getting those things back.
Upright, he flashed Major Sharpe his out-of-practice smile. “This is one mission I’d like to fly solo, if you don’t mind.”
“I understand. We’ll be back here for you at twenty-one hundred hours, then.” He paused to hold Tristan’s eyes for a long moment. “Remember what I told you—don’t expect too much of yourself. One step at a time. And meanwhile, if you need anything, you just give me a call.”
“I will. Thanks. I’ll be okay.” He nodded at the airman, who saluted briskly, then shut the door and got back in the car.
As he watched the Mercedes drive away it occurred to Tristan that for the first time in nearly eight years he was on his own. Completely alone. Unsupervised. It was a strange feeling. He turned and made his way slowly along the walkway to the door, thinking about the fact that those limping steps were his first without an escort since he’d regained consciousness in an Iraqi desert to find himself surrounded by gun-toting soldiers with hatred in their eyes.
A cold, sick feeling washed over him. He knew the feeling well; he’d lived with it in many forms, the past eight years. Fear. Strange, he thought, I’m about to see and touch the one person I dreamed of seeing and touching for all those years…the one whose face and voice in my dreams I think at times were the only thing keeping me alive. And I’m scared to death.
At the door he paused, turning to let his gaze sweep once more over the parking lot and the new-leafed trees and red-tiled roofs beyond. The sky was overcast, the sun breaking through the clouds in rays, like fingers. Beside the walkway, planters bright with more tulips, daffodils and hyacinths gave off a heady scent. The air was cool and seemed thin and light in his lungs. So different from prison air, which was thick and heavy. Prison air weighed a man down.
I don’t know who I am, after breathing that air for so long, he thought. I know I’m not the same man I was when I left her. Nowhere near.
And he let them come, then, the questions he’d tried so hard to hold at bay: Will she love me still? Will she want this man—this shell—that I’ve become?
He closed his eyes and filled his lungs with the scent of flowers, and from long habit, her image came to fill the blank screen of his mind. Jessie’s face, so vivid he felt as if he could reach out and touch it, every detail etched in his memory as if in stone. Her lips, curved up at the corners, and her nose, crinkled across the bridge with her smile…
But she’ll have changed, too, he reminded himself. They’d warned him to expect that. In eight years, how could she not have changed? And yet—he caught a quick sip of the winey air, as if to give himself courage—she hadn’t remarried, they’d told him. Why, when she’d been told he was dead? Did that mean— What did it mean? It could mean everything. It could mean nothing.
He realized his heart was pounding so hard it was making his chest hurt. He rubbed the spot ruefully as he reached for the door handle. Whatever it was waiting for him beyond that door, postponing it wasn’t going to make it easier to face.
For the life of her, Jessie couldn’t make a simple decision. She’d spent what seemed like hours deciding what to wear, not that that was an unheard-of thing for a woman, but it hadn’t ever been a particular problem for her before. She wore wash-and-wear pants and smocks for work, jeans and sweatshirts or shorts and T-shirts or tank tops at home, depending on the season of the year, and when something more sedate was required, dressy slacks and a blazer, with a sweater or shell, again dictated by the season and the weather. She owned a couple of dresses, basic and eternal in style, which were pretty much reserved for weddings and funerals. What was to decide?
Today, though, she’d stood before the mirror in her room for what seemed like hours, helpless and on the verge of panic. Nothing looked right to her. The blazer she’d worn on the plane seemed too formal, too stiff. The sweater she’d finally chosen was lavender, which used to be Tris’s favorite color. Was it still? Would he remember? Was she trying too hard? Had she put on a few pounds? God, she thought, I look old.
And her hair. She hadn’t had time to shampoo and blow it dry. Should she wear it loose on her shoulders anyway, the way she knew Tris preferred, even though it was definitely looking limp and travel weary? And the gray mixed in with the blond at her temples—oh God, he’d have to be blind not to see that, no matter how she wore it.
She couldn’t decide where to wait for him. Her room—their room—with its hotel-type arrangement of bed, sitting area and desk-table workspace with a separate bathroom, was at least assured of privacy. And the guest house staff had gone out of their way to make it homey, with fresh flowers and a huge basket of fruit on the table. The sweetest thing—there was even a Teddy bear wearing a yellow ribbon around its neck propped on the bed pillows. But, oh, that bed—Lord, it seemed to Jessie it took up most of the space in the room—it dominated…it distracted. She didn’t want Tris to think—she didn’t want to think—her stomach knotted and quivered and she pressed her fist against it to quiet the butterflies. I won’t think about it now.
In the end, she’d decided on the guest house’s common room, just off the lobby reception area and next door to the dining room. It was a gracious, hospitable place, with a gas log fireplace and comfortable furniture arranged for intimate conversation or reading the paper, or settling down with a good book. It was fairly private, being empty at the moment—the house had only a few other occupants besides her, since most of the casualties from the Persian Gulf were being shipped stateside as quickly as possible—but there was no guarantee it would stay that way. So far the news media hadn’t caught up with her, but she knew it was only a matter of time before they did. She also knew the guest house staff, as well as Lieutenant Commander Rees, would do everything they could to shield her until she felt ready to face the onslaught. As she would have to, sooner or later. She’d just as well prepare herself.
Prepare myself? Who am I kidding?
Right on cue, she heard the click of the front door opening, the polite trill of a buzzer announcing someone’s presence in the lobby. I’m not ready, she thought in panic. I’m not ready.
She could hear the receptionist asking if she could be of assistance. The murmur of a masculine response. And—oh God, it was Tristan’s voice. For the first time in more than eight years, she was hearing her husband’s voice.
Her heart leaped like a fractious Thoroughbred in the starting gates, yet inside her head she felt…quiet. Her mind kept touching on unimportant subjects—what she was wearing, what she looked like, her hair again, the photo album, Sammi June, arrangements for dinner, the fire on the hearth, even the furniture in the room—like a nervous housewife waiting for guests to arrive. But when she tried to think of Tristan there was only blankness, like
