On Friday, Ellie was assigned to the recovery room to fill in for a fellow RN who was out sick. She spent eight long, slow hours taking vitals, administering pain meds, and reassuring groggy patients that they were okay. Compared to the ER, it was pretty quiet, giving her time to think—perhaps too much time.

Claire was right. Ellie had been so caught up in the emotions of being wanted and wanting someone again that she’d ignored her guilt about being sexually involved with another man. The intellectual side of her knew that Dan would want her to move on. Hadn’t he made her promise she would?

But three weeks ago, she’d still thought of herself as Dan’s wife. She’d still thought of him as her husband. It was a lot to set aside in such a short time.

Somehow, hearing that Jesse had known him had brought it all to the surface. He shouldn’t have kept it from her, but she shouldn’t have said the things she’d said to him.

You came back, but Dan died in that helicopter.

The memory of her own words made her wince. There’d been desolation in his eyes, as if he felt it was an injustice somehow that he had survived.

God, she hadn’t meant that the way it sounded.

She texted him on her lunch break, wanting to know he was okay, wanting to know that the fragile bond between them was still intact.

How he was getting through the day with what must have been a killer hangover, she didn’t know. Then again, he was a big man, and men metabolized alcohol faster than women. If she had polished off most of a bottle of rum, she’d have ended up in the ER getting her stomach pumped.

She was glad that he was seeing a therapist. She hoped he would mention the drinking. He was self-medicating, and it would hurt him in the end. Everything he loved—climbing, ski patrol, the Team—depended on him staying strong and healthy. Booze wouldn’t fix anything.

He replied five minutes later.

Some of the tension she’d been carrying eased.

She finished her shift and was thrilled that her mother invited her and the kids to stay for supper. Walking through the front door of her parents’ house always felt like slipping into a hot tub of water.

She stepped through the door, a heavenly scent in the air that made her mouth water. “What are you cooking? It smells incredible.”

“Pork roast, potatoes, salad, and green beans,” her mother called from the kitchen. “Pork roasts were on sale at Food Mart.”

Daniel and Daisy came around the corner and ran to her. “Mama!”

She slipped out of her coat and got down on her knees, hugging them to her, the feel of them precious in her arms. “I’m so happy to see you! What did you do today?”

They both spoke at once, the word “horsie” in there several times.

Soon, dinner was on the table.

“I’ve heard a lot about horses today—and a certain Jesse.” Her mother was not one to bother with subtlety. “This is the gentleman who helped you and who needed your father to pay a house call, right?”

“Yes.” Ellie looked over at her father, who seemed to be especially fascinated by the contents of his dinner plate.

“Just be careful—if you know what I mean,” her mother said.

“Mom, I’m a mother, an RN, and I’m twenty-eight, not fifteen.” Ellie knew how to make them change the subject. “Jesse is a former Army Ranger, a combat veteran. He knew Dan.”

Her father’s head snapped up. “He knew Dan?”

“I guess Dan flew him and his men on some of their missions. He said he thinks Dan saved his life a time or two.”

Ellie’s mother reached over, gave Ellie’s arm a squeeze. “What a small and interconnected world it is.”

* * *

“The kid scared the bejesus out of himself.” Matt stood across from Jesse and Kevin, arms crossed over his chest, Boomer at his feet, everyone else gone for the day. “He doesn’t want to be on explosives, and I don’t see how we can ask him to keep doing that. It’s a huge liability issue if anything happens as a result.”

Jesse had no argument there. “If he wants out, he should be out. We can’t have someone handling live charges if they’re spooked. His head would have to be in the game, and it’s not.”

“So, he’s off explosives,” Kevin said. “Do any of our patrollers want the job?”

“Amanda.” Matt looked from Jesse to Kevin. “Amanda told me she wants to learn the skill. She has zero experience with avalanche work. I don’t know how the two of you feel about that.”

“What—you mean because she’s a woman?” Kevin shrugged. “Who cares?”

A sense of uneasiness stirred in Jesse’s chest, the idea of a woman working with explosives troubling for reasons he couldn’t explain. It’s not as if having a vagina or boobs made it harder to light a fuse or throw a charge accurately. He fought back his initial response. “It’s fine with me. I can start training her right away, give her an overview, show her what not to do.”

With that matter settled, Jesse changed out of his gear and headed down to the parking lot. Travis was there with a couple of young women, drinking beer out of a cooler stashed in the back of his pickup.

“I took a call about the guy with a broken nose.” Travis waved to Jesse. “Man, I have never seen so much blood. It was gushing. I thought he was going to choke. The blood froze on the snow.”

The women seemed impressed by this.

“Who’s your friend?” one of the women asked, looking at Jesse.

“Hey, Jesse, come hang. I’ve got very attractive company—and beer.”

“Nah. Thanks. I need to get home.” Jesse had heard of patrollers taking advantage of the job to get laid but he hadn’t thought much about it until now.

The woman who’d asked about him let out a disappointed moan.

“And, hey, Travis, if you’re going to drink, don’t drive.” Jesse climbed into his Jeep and made the drive back to Scarlet, his mind taking the familiar path to the only woman who interested him—Ellie.

She wanted to see him tonight, and he didn’t think it was to tell him to get lost. She’d had that chance already. She’d actually stood outside his door in a T-shirt and jeans in freezing weather to give him her key. No, she didn’t want to end things.

But where was this relationship headed?

Hell, he had no idea.

He had fallen for her. He’d fallen hard. There was really no point in bullshitting himself any longer. He cared about her the way he’d cared about no other woman. He cared about Daisy and Daniel, too. If he was capable of feeling love, then he loved them—all three of them.

Who could have seen this coming?

Not Jesse. That’s for damned sure.

The only way to find out where this would go was to keep moving forward. It was like climbing. You kept going up and up, not knowing where your next handhold would be until you got there, your ass hanging a thousand feet above the ground. The unknown excited him when it came to climbing. But when it came to relationships, it scared the shit out of him.

Well, that’s just how it was. He’d never quit on a climbing route, and he wasn’t about to quit on Ellie.

* * *

Ellie left a note on the back door telling Jesse just to let himself in. It’s not that she didn’t want to get the door. She wanted him to know he was still welcome. To pass the time, she curled up with a book on the sofa. She didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until warm lips pressed a kiss against her forehead. She opened her eyes, saw Jesse looking down at her, his blue eyes soft. He’d showered and shaved and was wearing a black cable knit sweater over faded blue jeans.

She sat up. “What time is it?”

“Nine-fifteen.”

She’d sat down a half hour ago. “I guess I wore myself out today. Can I get you some tea or coffee or some water maybe? I’m going to make some tea for myself.”

She didn’t offer him scotch.

“No thanks. I’m good.”

She walked to the kitchen, words she’d spoken last time he was here still weighing heavily on her. She had apologized, but only in a very hurried way, given that she’d been freezing outside his door.

“I’m glad you came.” She deliberately kept her distance, not wanting to cross the bridge into physical contact again until they had sorted this out. She opened her mouth to go on, but he beat her to it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Ellie. You have every right to be angry. I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you. I didn’t want to tell you that first night, but there were other times, and plenty of them, where I could’ve said something and didn’t. I don’t understand why I didn’t bring it up. I wasn’t trying to deceive you.”

“Apology accepted.” Now it was her turn. “I am so sorry about what I said. Never in a million years would I wish that you had died instead of Dan. I never thought that. I never felt that. But I can see how it might sound like that’s what I meant.”

“I meant what I said. I would change places—”

“Please don’t say that. Dan knew what he did might get him killed, but he chose to do it anyway for the good of others. I’ve had to accept that. He’s gone. You’re here.”

The tea kettle whistled behind her.

She quickly made herself a cup of blueberry tea—something that wouldn’t keep her awake—and they moved to the living room.

“I’ve been wondering…” She hesitated, afraid this might be hard for him to understand.

“Yeah?”

“Can you tell me anything about him? You knew him in a different way. I never saw that part of him—the pilot, the soldier on deployment.”

He got a thoughtful frown on his face. “The man could fly a Black Hawk like no one else. I remember the first time my crew and I flew with him. He dropped us in the middle of nowhere, a few clicks from a village where AQ was stockpiling weapons. He gave us all a big grin and did a little flight attendant routine. ‘We’re going to be flying at ten thousand feet over some seriously fucked-up terrain tonight. If you look on the left side, you can see desert. On your right, yes, more desert.’ That kind of thing.”

Ellie found herself smiling, the person Jesse described definitely her Dan.

“He had a photo of you stuck to his dashboard, but I never got a look at it. He would point to it and call you his angel. ‘I’m on leave next month. I’m going home to see my angel.’”

Ellie’s throat went tight. “That’s what he called me at home, too. His angel.”

She listened while Jesse recounted everything he could remember about Dan—how he liked to poke fun at the other branches of the military, how he’d gotten a reputation for winning at poker, how he’d flown in under fire more than once to get Jesse and his men out.

“There was this time…” The color left Jesse’s face. His eyes lost their focus and went wide. “No. No!”

A chill shivered down Ellie’s spine. She got on her knees next to him, took his cheeks in her palms. “Jesse, talk to me.”

* * *

The IED explosion knocked him onto his ass, bits of rock, shrapnel, and sand spraying around him.

Christine!

Ears ringing, he dragged himself to his feet. “Christine!”

And then he saw her.

She lay gasping for breath about twenty feet to his left, blood pouring from a shrapnel wound in her throat, both of her legs missing below the knee.

Jesse ran for her, sand blowing in his face, AK rounds whining past his head.

He dropped to his knees beside her, ripped his medic kit from his pack. “Stay with me, Christine. Stay with me.”

“Don’t … let … me … die.”

Jesus. Not Christine.

“I’m not going to let you die. I’m right here.”

The ambush had taken them all by surprise, and everyone was pinned down.

He tied a pressure bandage around her throat, holding it in place with one hand while he gave her an autoinjector of morphine with the other. Then he tied tourniquets around what was left of both legs.

Thudthudthud.

AK rounds hit the sand behind him in rapid succession.

Fuck.

He reached into his kit again, pulled out a twenty gauge IV needle. She’d already lost a lot of blood, and she would die if he couldn’t get fluids into her. He turned her head to the side, searching for that external jugular, blood from her neck wound soaking through the bandage.

Son of a bitch.

“Hang on, Christine.”

A Black Hawk passed overhead, guns opening up, raining death on the enemy. Crash was here with his crew to haul their asses out of this mess.

Jesse got the line going, hooked it up to a bag of lactated ringers, and let those fluids run. “Stay with me, Christine. We’re going to take good care of you.”

Out of it on morphine, she smiled up at him.

Holding the IV bag between his teeth, he scooped her into his arms and ran through the hail of weapons fire toward the extraction point, trying to shelter her small body with his. Sand churned beneath his boots, making it hard to build up speed, wind-driven sand biting his skin.

The Black Hawk began its descent, landing two hundred meters ahead of him.

Hang on, honey.

The rest of his element was heading toward the bird, too. He could hear their M-4s laying down suppressive fire behind him, keeping these motherfuckers off their backs.

Just a little farther.

Two men leaped out of the Black Hawk, ran toward him, taking Christine’s weight from his arms, lifting her into the bird. Jesse jumped in right behind them.

But it was too late.

Christine was gone.

* * *

The memory washed over Jesse, shards of dread and pain piercing his chest, his stomach churning. “No.”

Someone squeezed his hand, arms sliding around him, holding him tight, a voice cutting through the waking nightmare.

“Jesse, I’m right here. Listen to me. I’m right here.”

“Ellie?”

“Yes.” She stood beside him now, her arms drawing him close, his head pillowed against her breasts. “I’m here. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

He was trembling, his whole body shaking. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Let’s go to the bathroom.” Ellie took his hand, led him down the hallway to the bathroom, her palm cradling his forehead while he threw up. “There you go. That’s good. You’re okay.”

When he was done, Ellie gave him a glass of water to rinse out his mouth, then flushed the toilet.

He sank to the floor, his back against the tub. “It should have been me.”

Ellie touched a cool washcloth to his forehead and cheeks. “You’re okay, Jesse. Whatever happened—it’s over. You’re here with me now.”

But Ellie didn’t understand.

“It was my job to protect her. It should have been me.”

“I’m sure you did the best you could.” There was worry in her green eyes.

He buried his face in his hands. “Jesus.”

“The floor can’t be comfortable.” She helped him to his feet, led him to her bed, and sat down beside him, her hand holding his, her touch an anchor.

Still shaking, he told her. “Her name was Christine Brown. She was a first lieutenant, part of a Cultural Support Team. CSTs we call them. Her job was to talk to the women in a community. We’d go out on a direct action, take one or two of the women with us. After we’d secured the place, they would go in, talk to the other females.”

“I think I’ve heard about CSTs.” Ellie still kept up with military news.

“She hated being called by her last name, said it was part of the army’s stupid macho culture, so I called her by her first name. We hit it off. I was a staff sergeant, and she was an officer, so it was nothing like that. She was young—only twenty-three. She felt like a little sister to me.”

He told her the rest of it. How Christine had gone in to do her job after he and his element had cleared the farm, not knowing that bad intel had set them up for an ambush. How the place had exploded with gunfire moments before an IED had knocked him on his ass. How Christine had been badly wounded. How he’d done everything he could to keep her alive. How she’d died in his arms while he’d run through the sand toward Crash’s waiting bird.

“They pinned a medal on my chest, but I’m no hero. I left the army after that—resigned, went home, fell the fuck apart for a while. Then I came out here.”

“Oh, Jesse.”

Don’t let me die.

“It should have been me.”