by Laura Kaye
The memory of Tara’s words squashed Jesse’s personal reactions dead in their tracks. This was the bullshit she was talking about and it made him feel protective. “I just see a diver doing her job.”
“Yeah, man, of course,” Bobby said, zipping him into his suit. “Hunter’s wicked smart. Team’s lucky to have her.”
Well, he couldn’t argue with that. Her experience, competence, and expertise were clear in everything he’d seen her do. And fuck if every one of those things didn’t make him feel more of what he was supposed to be trying to ignore.
Want. Need. Connection.
Shaking off the unwanted thoughts, Jesse forced himself to focus. Their routines and processes here were all familiar to him, but every team had its idiosyncrasies and he wanted to be fully prepared when it was his time to get wet. He put in his earpiece in time to hear the team’s comms come to life.
Suddenly, Boone’s voice was in his ear. “Okay, divers, let’s dive safe and conservative. Surface marker buoys have been deployed. Jud, you’re clear to descend. Run time starts now at oh seven twenty-one.”
Jud doublechecked the dive computer on his wrist and gave a thumbs-up. On a whirr, the diving stage descended, carrying both diver and survey equipment to the bottom. George ensured the smooth entry of the umbilical, which supplied their air from the surface. Tara was busy on a laptop, monitoring the output from Jud’s dive computer and recording the data into his dive profile that logged every dive each of them made.
Curious about whether Jud was sending any observations back yet, Jesse moved beside Tara. Their computers were pre-programmed with common messages, and just then one popped up.
Moderate visibility
Not surprising. Storms stirred sand and debris up from the bottom, choking off the light already limited during descent.
“He’s at thirty feet,” Tara said, laser focused on the details of Jud’s dive. “Forty. Fifty. Okay, he’s down at fifty-eight.” She made a quick calculation using the dive tables, then typed out a message to Jud.
34 minutes before reqd deco
Jud’s replies came in quick succession:
Roger
Survey underway
Admiring her work, Jesse nodded. Compared to the navy, commercial diving played it safe in determining the amount of time you could stay down before requiring decompression stops on the ascent. But then again, nothing was gained by taking risks or being aggressive. While diving posed some hazards, nothing here was life or death, unlike the navy.
And Jesse was fucking grateful for that. Because he’d had enough life-or-death for a lifetime. He wore those losses on his skin, where he’d inked one star for every fallen friend and teammate. Twenty-two in all—twenty KIAs and two suicides. So enough was e-fucking-nough.
Forty minutes later, Jud was back on the GD. Taking off his helmet, his first words were “You gotta love life in flippers!”
Jesse chuckled despite himself. They were complete opposites—Jud was blond and gregarious and good-humored if a little ridiculous, while Jesse was dark and reserved and moody, which he had to own. But he liked the guy a lot. And he could probably use more ridiculous in his life anyway.
Jud was all business after that, giving Jesse the rundown of what he’d accomplished and where Jesse needed to pick up. Game plan in place, Jesse was ready to go.
He checked his computer, gave a thumbs-up, and grasped the railing as the diving stage descended. Even with his thermals, the water was cold as a motherfuck, but it had him smiling behind his viewport.
He might’ve let down too many families for not being able to bring all his guys home and that might’ve made him bad for the EOD field. But this? This he could totally do.
* * * *
“Good first day?” Tara asked as they hosed down their dry suits late that afternoon.
Jesse smiled as he hung his suit to dry. “Great first day.” It was true. He and Jud had finished more than a third of their zone, putting them a little ahead of schedule. And being back in the water had given Jesse an adrenaline high like he hadn’t experienced in too damn long.
His satisfaction in that was about more than him just being an adrenaline junkie. Since he’d retired, one of the biggest challenges in transitioning to civilian life had been learning to live without threats and crises. After twenty years in some of the navy’s most dangerous jobs, his brain was hardwired to operate under the expectation of the worst-case scenario coming true. Normal life sometimes felt like an illusion that would shatter at any moment because, for most of his life, the snafus had been his reality.
But in the water, he felt more centered. His brain and his body and his instincts felt more at ease, more like he was in his element.
“Feels good to get back in the water, doesn’t it?” Jud asked, hanging his suit up next. “After I got out, being a landlubber about drove me nuts.”
“Hell, yeah, it felt good,” Jesse said. He waxed his suit’s zipper, a key to maintaining its function.
Jud clapped him on the back. “Awesome to hear. See you in the mess. I’m fucking starving.”
Jesse nodded, his belly aching with a hunger born of a good day’s work. Exercise had always been one of the things that had kept him feeling balanced—or at least as balanced as he got—and he’d kept up his routine even after he retired. But there was nothing like ten hours of ocean swimming and battling the elements to exhaust you in all the best ways.
Well, except maybe sex, of course.
Like the thought had drawn her, Tara appeared at his side. Obviously his wishful thinking was alive and kicking.
She stretched onto tippy toes to hang her cleaned suit. “One of my best days ever was my first dive with CMDS. I never wanted out of the navy in the first place. Commercial diving gave me back the water at least.”
“I got it,” Jesse said, hanging it for her as his gut filled with surprise and curiosity. If she hadn’t wanted out, had she been medically discharged? And if so, how had someone like him made it twenty years with only a few minor injuries, while people like her and the men he wore on his arm hadn’t been so lucky? “I didn’t want out so much as I thought it was best that I got out.”
He could hardly believe he’d given voice to the thought, but she’d shared something important, so it made him feel like he could do the same.
She hugged her sweatshirt to her chest. “How long were you in?”
“I did my twenty.”
Her eyebrows lifted as if he’d surprised her. “If you made it to retirement, I’d say you more than did your duty, Jesse. I knew a lot of EOD guys and more than a few burned out way before that.”
When he’d found a pretty, funny girl at the bar last weekend, he’d never imagined that he’d also found someone with whom he could talk about things like this. “Yeah, well, I felt my fair share of that, too.”
“I don’t know how anyone could do that job and avoid feeling that way at least sometimes. Something that intense with so much always on the line and so many losses….”
He swallowed hard. “Yeah.” It was all he could say in the face of such fundamental understanding. He’d never talked about feeling like he’d let his guys down. Not even once. Even though working in a relatively small community with such high casualty and suicide rates meant they literally lost someone every single week. And yet, it felt like Tara knew. He had to clear his throat.
For a long moment, they stood staring at each other, and that familiar sensation of the world closing in surrounded them. It was exactly how he’d felt before he kissed her that first time.
Suddenly, Tara hugged him.
Arms around him, her face on his chest, her embrace stole his breath. For just a second, it nearly knocked him on his ass. It was an utterly perfect moment, one even more meaningful than a kiss. Tara pulled back just as quickly, so fast that he’d barely been able to react.
“What was that for?” he asked, already missing the feel of her.
“Just looked like you needed it.” A gust of wind had
her rubbing her arms, and she peered around as if scanning to see if anyone saw them. “I’m gonna go get cleaned up. See you at dinner?”
He nodded and watched her walk away, gobsmacked because he had needed it. And somehow…somehow she’d known.
Chapter 9
Tara stumbled into her cabin feeling the good kind of tired. She’d enjoyed her first day back on the job and now she had a full belly. After getting so little sleep last night, she couldn’t wait to climb into her berth.
The GD had five crew cabins—a captain’s quarter for Boone and four small two-berth cabins for the rest of them. There were also cabins for visitors, like the scientific teams they sometimes worked with. When she’d joined the team, Boone had given her the choice to sleep where she was comfortable. Not wanting to be separated out from the team, she’d taken the open berth in Bobby’s cabin—which lasted approximately two hours upon learning that he snored like a chainsaw, which was why he slept alone in the first place. That night, she’d moved to the unoccupied cabin, which had led to a great deal of hilarity the next morning at breakfast.
But on a night like tonight when she was so bone tired, Tara didn’t mind sailing solo at all. Killing the overhead light, she fell into the bottom berth and tugged the curtain closed around her little bed. The rock and roll of the boat was comfortingly familiar. She got her pillow and her blankets and her position just right and let out a long sigh.
Her eyelids fell closed. And behind them she saw Jesse.
Tara groaned. “Not again, stupid brain.”
Except what she saw wasn’t exactly like last night. Not that she could forget the image of him going down on her. But after today, she had a whole host of new images of the man.
Of him in the form-fitting black thermals that outlined every muscle. There was just no help for the fact that some men in any kind of uniform or gear were just sexy—and Jesse was definitely one of them.
Of his utterly breathtaking smile when he ascended from the water after his first dive, clearly exhilarated.
Of the unspoken pain on his handsome face when he’d talked about feeling like it was best that he got out of the navy. She’d known so many people who internalized the guilt of other sailors getting injured or dying, and it made her chest hurt to think that Jesse might do that to himself.
And then there was the hug. Tara hadn’t meant to do it. It’d been pure instinct. She’d pulled back so fast she hadn’t even let him react. But behind that instinct had been her conscious mind yelling, You were the one who said nothing should happen again!
Right. She had. And she’d had good reason. But their first day on the job had proven that she could focus and work with him. So maybe he wasn’t the problematic distraction she’d thought he would be?
No. Nope. Don’t even take the chance, Tara.
She sighed in the darkness. Fine.
With that renewed determination in mind, Tara didn’t cross the line at all the next day, and things were totally normal between them. No awkwardness over her unwise hugging at all. The team had come together like clockwork, even as the weather worsened and the seas got choppier. Jud and Jesse had accomplished their survey of another third of the zone, leaving them less than a third tomorrow. At that rate, they’d finish right on time.
By the end of the day, it felt like Jesse had been part of the team forever. The group’s chemistry felt natural, easy, and it made Tara happy for him. At dinner, Jesse was telling stories and joking around like the rest of them. Chowing on Boone’s famous beef stew, he said, “That sunken ship outside our zone? It’s the USS Arthur Radford. Spruance-class destroyer. Longest ship ever reefed in the Atlantic. Over five hundred feet long. Imagine having served on that.”
George nodded. “I had a buddy who did. I think it would feel weird as hell. May she rest in peace.”
Jud pointed with his spoon. “Better that they sunk her on purpose than it being a wreck.”
“It would be weird to have served on it, but at least it has a new purpose.” Tara thought back to the reading she’d done when she’d spent a long weekend over here last October. “I think there are eight ships that’ve been sunk off the coast as part of an artificial reef program. There’s even a sub—the Blenny, I think. And there are some wrecks around here, Jud, so beware the ghosts.”
He smirked. “I ain’t afraid o’ no ghost.” Groans and laughter followed.
“There’s a German U-Boat south of here, too,” Mike said.
“Shit, I didn’t realize that,” Jesse said. “Must be some killer recreational diving here then.”
“There is,” Tara said.
“Fantastic,” Mike said at the same time. They laughed. “There’s a two-hundred-foot World War I vessel in 80 feet of water that’s one of my faves. Like a playground for divers.”
“Too bad the weather isn’t clear enough to stick around and take a peek at any of these,” Jud said. “Tomorrow’s going to be fun.”
Boone shook his head. “If by ‘fun’ you mean ‘challenging’…” One of the things Tara really liked about her boss was how concerned he always was for their safety, so she wasn’t surprised that the worsening weather was weighing on him. “I’ve been thinking we should stay the weekend and finish on Monday.”
Jud frowned. “You’ll lose money if we do that. Jesse and I can handle it.”
Nodding, Jesse said, “I’ll defer to your call, of course, Boone. But I’ve worked in worse. I’m not concerned. And we’re ahead of schedule so we might not need as long tomorrow.”
“See?” Jud said, helping himself to seconds of stew. “We got this.”
Tara’s belly went on a little loop as she scooped the last bit of the rich soup from her own bowl. Not because she doubted her teammates, but because any heightened risk poked at her anxiety. But risk couldn’t be entirely negated from diving. Even if seas were calm and visibility was perfect, there was always some danger. Equipment malfunctions, loss of diving weights, a suit blowup, stings, diver panic—not common but not unheard-of either. “Count me in,” she said. Bobby agreed.
Boone got seconds, too. “I’ll make the call at oh six hundred so I can let the AWE team know one way or the other. They’re also keeping an eye on things.”
That evening, a few of them stayed in the mess hall to play poker for a while. “You boys ready to part with your cash?” Tara asked, directing her teasing gaze first at Jud, then George, then Jesse.
“Oh, now, listen to this,” George said.
“Do I need to be scared?” Jesse asked, grinning at her. She did a few tricks as she shuffled the cards, and his eyes widened. She raised an eyebrow at him.
Jud sat on his chair backwards. “Yes. Very. Fucking cleaned me out last time.”
“Then why are we playing with her?” Jesse chuckled.
Holding out his hands in exasperation, Jud said, “Luck’s gotta be my lady some time.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Tara said to a round of laughter. “What do you gentlemen want to play?”
Jesse looked to the guys. “What is she worst at?”
George gave him a droll stare. “Nothing.”
Jesse’s gaze got more appreciative with each new revelation, and Tara was quite enjoying it. “It’s true,” she said, thanking her dad for the millionth time for teaching her how to play poker—and play it well. Her nerd’s brain loved thinking through the statistics and odds of it all.
“Texas Hold ’em, then,” Jesse said. As Tara started dealing, he arched a brow. “So you have an encyclopedic knowledge of sunken ships, you’re a card shark, you worked SPECWAR, and you belong to a fight club?”
The reference to information she’d shared when they’d first met unleashed butterflies in her belly. “Yep.”
“Wait, you belong to a fight club?” Jud’s gaze cut up from his hole cards.
“It’s not really about the fighting,” she said. “But, yeah.”
Jud scratched his chin. “How’s a fight club not about fighting?”
Tara peeked at her cards, quite happy with her pocket kings. “It’s called Warrior Fight Club. It’s only open to veterans. They train us in MMA as a way to help people deal and adjust, post-service.”
George tilted his head. “Like a kind of alternate therapy?”
Heat filtered through Tara’s cheeks, even though it only took one look to know something bad had happened to her. “Yeah.” She laid down the three cards of the flop—a king, a three, and a ten. Annnd now she had trip’ kings. Excellent.
Sure enough, Jud glanced at her throat. “Huh. Sounds cool. Anyone can come?”
Tara looked at him. “Yeah. You interested?”
They did a round of betting, and George folded. “When does it meet?” Jud asked.
She dealt the turn card, the three of diamonds, which created a pair of threes in the community cards. Tara now had a freaking awesome hand—a full house, kings over threes. “Saturday afternoons. And then a bunch of us usually go out to dinner.”
Jud bet aggressively, and Tara guessed he had the other king. The poor guy thought his two pairs were a winner. “Sure, I’m interested,” he said. “What d’ya say, Jesse?”
It was Tara’s turn to bet next, and she raised Jud’s bet.
“Fuck.” Jud glared at her. She just smiled.
Jesse shook his head. “I’m gonna let you two fight over that.” He folded his cards. “Sure, I’ll come check it out.”
Tara’s belly was back to doing loops again. She was actually excited to bring people she knew into the club, but it would mean even more time spent with Jesse. As it was, her body needed no convincing that she liked him, wanted him. Whether she should or not. “Great,” she said, dealing the river card after Jud met her bet.
The three of hearts—putting trip’ threes in the community cards.
Oh. Oh. In her head, she was yelling, You don’t want to do it, Jud!
But then, of course, Jud did it. “I’m all in.”
Tara’s poker face was good, so she sat calmly as he pushed his whole stack of quarters into the pot. Then he smirked at her so hard that she lost all her sympathy for him.
