I shouldn’t have let that happen.
Jack had promised himself he wouldn’t let his desire for Lisa take over his senses. They couldn’t be together. Especially now, when she’d have to go into hiding. For one instant he’d forgotten all the reasons why they couldn’t be together, why he left her after Dane died and when he was wounded.
He wanted to block all those memories. He worked so hard to try and forget.
Those reasons seemed superficial when he took her into his arms.
When he tasted her lips again. When he lost himself while buried deep inside her.
It was after, with her curled up beside him, her breath on his neck, that the harsh reality sank in. They couldn’t be together.
And he wasn’t even sure she wanted him beyond this one moment.
Lisa said she didn’t need promises of a future, because she knew, like he did, there was no future.
“I better cook the fish.” He reluctantly untangled himself from her limbs. “I’m starving.”
“Yeah, me too.” She grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around herself. “I’m going to have a quick shower.”
Jack nodded as he pulled on his jeans and undershirt, but didn’t look at her. He knew that if he looked at her he’d be tempted again. That’s the way it had always been with Lisa and it was clear, even though the years had separated them, that it was always going to be this way.
And he couldn’t let this drag out.
There had to be a clean break when the Navy came to get her.
“I’m going to get the fish in the oven.”
She nodded and closed the door to the bathroom, while he got the fish on. He was trying to ignore the fact that she was in his tiny shower, naked and wet.
Don’t think like that.
Jack began to pace while their food was cooking. He had to put some distance between him and Lisa or he was liable to barge in there and take her in the shower. His cock hardened with the memory of what had just happened.
He pulled open the door and ran down the path toward the lake. Even though it was summer the lake was still frigid; it was perfect. Jack pulled off his clothes and jumped off the dock, straight into the water, sinking down into the depths of Lake Minichumina.
And, as he looked up to the surface, watching the sunlight dance off the water, he just relaxed, floating there somewhere between darkness and light, between cold and warmth.
“What’re you doing, Crane. Live! Leave me behind!”
Dane’s voice in his head shook sense into him and he surfaced. He climbed out of the water and picked up his clothes, darting back up to the cabin where it was warm. Lisa was still in the shower.
Jack dried himself and pulled back on his clothes, then checked on their meal.
The door opened and she came out.
“That smells good,” she said, and then she cocked her head to the side. “Your hair is wet and you’re shivering.”
“I jumped in the lake,” he said offhandedly, as he brought the pan of cooked fish into the kitchen and set it down on the counter on a wood block so it could cool.
“Wasn’t that cold?” she asked.
“A bit.”
“Why did you do that?” she asked, as she stood on the other side of the counter, leaning dangerously close to him.
“Because I wanted you again.”
Her mouth dropped open and her pupils dilated, then her spine stiffened and she hugged herself.
“Oh.”
“Not what you wanted to hear?” he asked.
“That isn’t it,” she said. “It was something I wasn’t expecting to hear, to be honest.”
“Why is that?”
“I didn’t think you wanted me, not really.”
Jack snorted. “We just had sex, how could you think that I didn’t want you?”
“Lust is different than wanting.” She sighed. “You pushed me away in the hospital, Jack.”
Guilt clenched his stomach, twisting it hard. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t want to push her away, but it was for the best. He didn’t want to saddle her with a deformed, scarred, half-man. He didn’t want to hold her back, have her resent him.
“We’ve been over this,” he said.
“No, I don’t think so.” Lisa crossed her arms. “It killed me when you pushed me away. I had no one, Jack. I didn’t have parents. Dane was the only family I had. When I learned that he died and that you lived, at least I still had you. I loved you.”
He spun around and could see the unshed tears in her eyes. “You deserved more than I could offer, Lisa. So I made the decision to leave.”
“That was my decision to make as well.”
“No, it wasn’t. I told Dane, when he was dying in my arms, that I would always do right by you. Protect you.”
She snorted. “Some protection.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“You left,” she snapped, and this time a tear did slip out of the corner of her eye. She pulled out her dog tags. “I carry this around to remind me not to be so foolish with my heart again.”
Jack stepped closer and took the dog tags in his hand. He could see Dane’s dog tag, hers and his. “Where did you get this?”
“When you left the hospital I went to your place. I was trying to get you to see sense, to tell you I didn’t care about your wounds. They mean nothing to me. But you were gone. All that was left was your dog tag. So I kept it. As a reminder.”
Lisa snatched it back and tucked the necklace back into her shirt, tears streaming down her face. “You left me alone. You promised my brother you’d protect me, but instead you left.”
His heart broke. He hated knowing that he caused her pain, but it was for the best. It had been for the best.
She brushed the tears away and cursed under her breath. “I promised myself that I wouldn’t cry.”
Jack took her in his arms and held her tight, but he didn’t say anything. Didn’t reassure her that he always wanted her. That he would always want her. For her own protection she had to go into hiding. He couldn’t be a part of her life any more.
“I’m sorry,” she finally whispered.
“Why are you sorry?” he asked as he let go of her.
“I told you that if we were together that there would be no strings attached. That it would just be that moment, and here I am blubbering all over you.”
Jack smiled and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “It’s okay.
“It pissed me off you left,” she said, and then cleared her throat.
“I gathered.” Jack dished up the fish and slid the plate to her. “Eat and then I’ll take you out for a walk after. I think you’re having some cabin fever.”
“Thanks.” And she began to eat.
Jack ate his share, but it was hard to choke it down. He knew his disappearing would’ve hurt her, pissed her off, but he didn’t think it would run so deep.
Why wouldn’t it? My love for her ran just as deep. It hurt just as much.
The only difference was, he could bear the pain. He deserved the pain. It was his penance for letting Dane die. For leaving him behind in that sewer under a crumbling city, leaving him to be consumed by the most wicked, potent and destructive chemical agent known to man.
Pain was the only thing that kept him alive.
Pain reminded him of all his failures.
That was what one deserved when living in Hell.
***
Lisa followed Jack through the woods around his cabin. They checked the snare line, but nothing had been caught. No game and no humans either, for which Lisa was eternally grateful. She knew, realistically, she might have to kill on this mission, but before that point she had never trained in combat.
She never entertained the notion of taking a life, until she pulled that trigger.
Don’t think about it.
She knew that Jack and her brother had killed, after all they had been a part of an elite fighting force, but she didn’t know how they dealt with it.
Adrenaline had been fuelling her since they left the lab, but here in the woods, waiting for unit to rescue her and reassign her a new life, one that wouldn’t include Jack or anything about her past, she began to think of the fact that she’d taken a life in self-defense.
Reality was harsh and cruel.
As if sensing the shift in the air Jack stopped and turned to look at her. “You’re shivering.”
“I’m not cold.”
In two steps he closed the gap between them and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. Like he understood exactly what she was feeling.
“Come on, we’re almost to the river.”
“What’s at the river?” she asked, falling in step beside him with his arm around her.
“Perhaps some caribou, maybe bears, though it’s not spawning season, so probably more likely caribou or moose. I like to come down to the river and watch the water. It calms me and it’ll calm you.”
“How do you deal with it?”
He seemed to know exactly what she meant by the question. “Nature helps me deal,” he said quietly. “Living off the land helps too. I like the simplistic nature of it all.”
“Yet you joined the Omega Team.”
Jack shrugged. “I owed Grey one from a long time ago. He saved my keister long before I met you and Dane.”
“Oh?” she asked, intrigued. “Wasn’t Grey a member of the Marines?”
“Yeah, so?”
“And isn’t he older than you?”
“Not by much. Remember I am older than you by ten years.”
“Yes,” she chuckled. “I forgot how venerable you are.”
Jack grinned then, that dimple she loved puckering his cheek.
“So tell me more about him saving your keister,” she said.
“I was cocky and stupid and, at a bar, got into a fight with a guy who was about ten times bigger than I was. I knew I was out of my league but couldn’t step down. No one else would jump into the fray and help, except Grey. Grey helped me get out of a sticky situation and I said I owed him one. So, when I was discharged from the Navy, he sought me out and told me about the Omega team. He had me by the short hairs to join.”
“You didn’t want to join?”
“No, I just wanted to disappear. I wanted to forget.”
A shudder went down Lisa’s spine and she didn’t say anything else. They came to a small cliff that looked down over a meandering river with a long gravel bar. In the distance she could see the mountains rising, their glaciers white against the blue sky.
Jack sat down on the grass and Lisa settled next to him.
“There are some caribou down there, see them?” Then he handed her binoculars and pointed.
Lisa held the binoculars up and watched the magnificent herd down the river, drinking the water and eating the foliage, totally unaware that she and Jack were there. If she didn’t stop and look, she wouldn’t have noticed them.
“How do you just disappear?” she asked, handing him back the binoculars. “Don’t you ever miss your old life?”
“Of course, but you learn how to blend in. You exist every day and soon you’ll just learn to accept it. Staying hidden will come second nature.” He glanced down at her. “Do you regret doing what you did, now that you have to go into hiding?”
“No,” she said. There was a part of her that regretted the fact she would never see Jack again, but she’d done the right thing. Chemical Agent 1157 had to be stopped and she was the only one who didn’t have ties.
Which is why she did it.
“Perhaps you’ll find somewhere you love just as much as I love Alaska,” he said.
“Perhaps.” And her heart sank. Of course he wouldn’t follow her. He couldn’t follow her. Her commander would never allow it. They weren’t married. There was no reason for them to be together in the witness protection program.
Jack had saved her life and gave her this chance for closure.
This stolen moment in time was all it could ever be, and even though it saddened her that she would never see him again, she couldn’t pull him away from Alaska.
“So will you continue to work for the Omega Team once I return to San Diego?” she asked.
“If Grey has jobs for me up here, yeah, I think I will.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “As much as what happened on my last mission pains me, I didn’t choose to leave the Navy. The Navy is the one that honorably discharged me.”
“They discharged you? Why though? I never understood that. Once you recovered you would be fine to go back on active duty.”
“Look at me, Lisa.” He shook his head. “They didn’t want a scarred man on their team.”
“Your scars are superficial, Jack. There had to be more.”
Jack shrugged. “Then I don’t know what it could be. It took a long time for these superficial scars to heal, and ten years ago the doctors didn’t know if Chemical Agent 1157 would do more damage. If I would get cancer or something else. I guess I was too much of a variable to keep on. I didn’t want a desk job. I tried to find out more information about the attack that killed Dane and the others, but there was nothing but dead ends. No answers. So I left.”
“Why Alaska though?”
“I wanted to disappear,” he said. “People wouldn’t look at me when I first came out of the hospital. The scars… It was easier to disappear.”
“The scars aren’t as bad as you think they are.” She reached out to touch his face and, instead of pulling away from her, he let her run her fingers over the scars. The hard ridges of puckered flesh weren’t bad because, like she said, they were superficial. Deep down he was still Jack. She still wanted him.
Still loved him.
There was a roar from above and Jack ducked as a bush plane flew over them. A Cessna painted orange and black, with tundra tires.
“Oh my God, what’s that?” Lisa asked.
“It’s Henry,” Jack said, the relief apparent in his voice. “He’s coming around again to make an off airport landing.”
“Where?” Lisa asked in amazement.
“The gravel bar on the river there.”
“What?” Lisa asked, impressed but also slightly concerned. The Cessna circled again, lower, as it came in for a landing, bouncing slightly on the rough gravel and then coming to a stop just before the water’s edge.
“Text book,” Jack muttered. “Still hate flying though.”
Lisa chuckled. “That much hasn’t changed. Why didn’t he take the float plane?”
“So it wouldn’t draw attention. He might not be here for us. This creek borders his land and he could be here to hunt, but we’ll go down and greet him. Let him know that we’re out and about.”
Lisa nodded and took Jack’s hand as they walked through the brush down the cliff toward the river and to where the Cessna was waiting.
As they came closer the door opened and Henry climbed down to greet them.
“I thought it was you I saw when I was flying overhead, but I wasn’t completely sure,” Henry said when they approached. Henry clapped Jack on the shoulder and grinned. “Glad it was you. No one came out of the cabin when I did a couple of passes.”
“Just out for some air,” Jack said. “You just out here to hunt?”
Henry shook his head and Lisa’s stomach dropped to the soles of her feet. She knew. This was it.
“The Navy contacted me.” Henry turned to her. “I’m to take you back to my outpost and a team is coming for you. They’ll be here within the next couple of hours.”
“Good.” Lisa swallowed hard. She had been hoping for a little more time with Jack in the wilderness, hidden and where she could still be herself.
“Commander Brighton will be coming to get you,” Henry said.
“Commander Brighton?” Jack asked, confused.
“Do you know him?” Lisa asked. “He’s fairly new to this mission. He took over my mission in the middle of it when Commander Faire died unexpectedly from a heart attack.”
“No, don’t know Brighton, but that name sounds familiar.” Jack shook his head and turned to Henry. “No. Did Grey say anything?”
“He’ll talk to you when you get back to my place,” Henry said carefully, and Jack understood there was something Grey needed to convey to him. Something that Henry didn’t want to say in front of Lisa. “He wants you to call him. My line is secure.”
Jack nodded and then turned her to her. “We better get you back.”
“Okay.” She didn’t want to leave. Before, she couldn’t wait until she was rescued and taken back to the base for debriefing, but now she didn’t want to leave the peace and solitude of Alaska. The safety of Jack’s arms.
But she had a duty and she wouldn’t ruin Jack’s life by forcing him to be on the run just because she decided to take this assignment. She knew the consequences of her choice.
“Let’s get in the plane then.” Jack took her arm and ushered her toward the Cessna.
“What about your cabin? Don’t you need to lock it up?”
“I can do that later. Henry and I will come back after you’re safely on your way to San Diego.” He didn’t look her in the eye, just continued to push her toward the Cessna. Obviously relieved to be rid of her.
Glad to be relieved of his duty.
Lisa didn’t say anything further. She climbed aboard the Cessna and buckled herself in. Jack climbed in beside Henry. They put on their noise cancelling headphones, as Henry went over the checks.
And soon they were turning to get a full run of the gravel bar, the plane bumping and jostling as it taxied, getting enough speed to take off, just skimming the top of the bush as it rose into the sky.
Lisa bit her lip and tried not to cry at the uncertainty that awaited her.
At least she’d done her duty to her country.
At least other lives would be saved thanks to her sacrifice and that’s what it meant to serve.
Her life belonged to her country.
And her next life would be hers. Even if she didn’t want that next life, because that next life would be full of loneliness, regret and bittersweet memories.
***
Jack stood away from the helicopter as it landed. He kept close to Henry’s hangar, standing in the shadows, unnoticed, watching. He didn’t want to be noticed or recognized. The name Brighton was sticking with him though and he couldn’t recall where he heard that name before.
And when Lisa’s commanding officer greeted her, he didn’t recognize Commander Brighton at all. It was probably just a name he saw on endless reports or something. A common name that for some reason was sticking with him. Something to focus on so he wouldn’t have to deal with the actual feelings that were nagging at him.
The pain of losing Lisa.
Again.
“Why don’t you go with her?” Henry asked, coming up behind him.
“Can’t.”
“Why?” Henry asked.
“She’s going into Witness Protection. Who knows where she’ll be posted. I’m sure those who are out to assassinate her will know now that a scarred former Seal and Omega Team operative aided her. If they see me with her, they’ll know and it will put her life in jeopardy.”
“It’s not like you’re untrained,” Henry said. “You could protect her. You’ve kept her safe all this time.”
Jack snorted and turned away as Lisa saluted her commanding officer. A pang of longing for the Navy and for his country tugged at his heart.
The day he was discharged they made it clear that they didn’t want him in active service any longer.
“We just don’t know the effect of Chem Agent 1157 yet, Captain. It would be better if you accept your honorable discharge. You will be compensated with a pension for your service.”
“I can serve still.”
“Captain, as we stated, we’re unaware of the long term effects of the Chem Agent…”
“All due respect, Commander but my scars are superficial. There is no trace of the agent in my lungs. If there was I would be dead.”
The Commander shook his head. “I’m sorry, Captain Crane. The decision has been made. You can take the honorable discharge or we will force you out.”
Jack shook his head and saw that Lisa was approaching him. He swallowed the hard lump that formed in his throat, because he knew this was goodbye. Again. Only this would be permanent. He wouldn’t be able to keep tabs on her from a distance like he’d always done.
She’d have a new identity and he’d never know what it was or what would become of her.
“Jack, I…I don’t know what to say to you.”
“Goodbye. Perhaps thanks,” he teased, but it didn’t lessen the pain he was feeling inside.
A wobbly smile broke across her face. “You could come with me.”
He shook his head. “I can’t, Lisa. It’s not safe.”
“I know. It was silly of me. I just…God, Jack, I didn’t get to say goodbye to you last time we parted and this time it’s fucking hard.”
He cupped her face in his hands. “You will be fine.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“You’re a fighter, Morgan. You hear me? You got this.”
She wrapped her hands around his wrists as he held her there. Her eyes closed and she nodded.
“Okay,” she whispered.
Jack leaned in and kissed her on her forehead, because he knew that if he kissed her on the lips he wouldn’t be able to let her go and, for her own safety, he had to let her go.
“Goodbye, Jack. Thank you.” She let go of his wrists and stepped back, before turning back toward the helicopter.
Jack nodded and suppressed the raw pain that was bubbling up inside him. He stepped back against the hangar, back into the shadows, unnoticed as she climbed aboard the military helicopter.
Once she was on board the rest of the personnel climbed in. Including the armed escort. The helicopter’s blades whirred to life and Jack squinted as dust was kicked up. The chopper lifted and disappeared into the horizon.
It would take her to the air force base in Anchorage and she’d board a military flight back to San Diego, where she would be given a new life, free of him.
It was better this way.
Is it?