Falling Hard (Colorado High Country #3)

by Pamela Clare

  “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.”

  Chapter 20

  “I’m sorry, Ellie. I dumped my shit on you again.”

  It hurt Ellie to see him i
n so much pain. “Please don’t apologize. I don’t think of it that way at all.”

  She’d watched him slip away, watched one emotion chase the next across his face—shock, terror, desperation, anguish. She’d realized right away that he was having some kind of flashback. What he’d described would have been enough to leave anyone traumatized, the desolation he felt coming through in every word as he’d described Christine’s death.

  “I’m not a therapist, but I’ve had some psych training. It’s not hard to connect the dots here. Three times you tried to save a woman—or girl—and three times you couldn’t, despite doing everything in your power. You watched your mother take punches for you. It would be the most natural thing in the world for a child to believe that it was his fault. You tried to save Kayla Fisher, too, but the water was too strong. You tried your best to save Christine but couldn’t. You’re carrying a lot of guilt that doesn’t belong to you, and I’m willing to be that most of it goes back to your parents.”

  It made Ellie want to cry, but she didn’t. For his sake, she couldn’t.

  “It was my job to keep Christine safe.”

  “Was it your job to keep your mother safe? Or was it her job to keep you safe? She wasn’t a child, Jesse. You were.”

  She watched his face and knew he was listening, his brow furrowed as if he were thinking over what she’d said. She gave him a moment to sit with that. “How old were you when that man started beating you?”

  “I don’t know—three or four.”

  “Daniel is going to be three soon. Would you expect him to be able to defend me if an adult man started beating me?”

  Jesse stared at her as if she were crazy. “Of course not. He’s too little.”

  “You were too little, too.”

  Something in his expression changed, and she knew she was reaching him.

  “Think of Emily, Nate’s little girl. She’s eight. Would you expect her to protect Megan? No? Then how can you expect that of little Jesse?”

  When he said nothing, she went on. “As for Kayla—you tried. You did everything you could do. You went above and beyond, risking your life. It’s not your fault that you couldn’t reach her. You shouldn’t have gone into the water in the first place.”

  The furrow on his brow deepened.

  “While it might have been your job to protect Christine, you were ambushed in a war zone. The fact that any of you got out alive…” Dan had been there. Dan had seen all of this happen. It had been part of the life he hadn’t been able to share with her. “They wouldn’t have given you a medal if they’d thought you’d failed in your duty. You hold yourself to an impossible standard.”

  “She died a terrible death.”

  “It would have been a lot worse without you. In an impossible situation, you gave her reassurance. She was suffering, and you dulled her pain. She was scared, and you held her. She drifted into unconsciousness knowing she wasn’t alone.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Somehow, you buried her death in your mind, and the Fisher girl’s drowning dug it up again.” No, it wasn’t only Kayla. He’d had the flashback when he’d been telling her about Dan. “Her death—and talking about Dan.”

  Because Dan was the pilot that day.

  Regret cut at her, made her wish she’d waited or had never asked.

  And then it struck her.

  Maybe this was why he hadn’t told her about Dan. Maybe some part of him had been guarding this terrible memory, doing all it could to keep it from rising to the surface again where it could tear him apart.

  Now he sat beside her, silent, his eyes closed. He was no longer shaking, but he wasn’t relaxed either, tension rolling off him in waves. Any minute now, he would explode, taking shelter in rage. He wouldn’t take it out on her. He would do what he always did, what his parents had done—he would take his anger out on himself.

  “You don’t need this bullshit in your life, Ellie.” He drew his hand away, got to his feet, rage simmering beneath his skin. “You didn’t sign on for this shit show.”

  She stood, too. “I’m not afraid of what you’re feeling. I’m not afraid of who you are or what you’ve seen or what you’ve had to do to survive.”

  He glared down at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  “What scares me…” Tears. Damn it! “What scares me is what you’re going to do in the next couple of hours, what you’re going to do tomorrow.”

  A muscle flexed in his jaw, and then his gaze went soft. “I made you a promise, Ellie. I won’t break it.”

  “Stay with me, Jesse. Please. Stay with me tonight.” She touched a hand to his chest, felt his heart pounding beneath his sweater.

  He rested his hand on hers, and for a moment she thought he meant to pry her hand away. “Why do you want me in your life?”

  “Why don’t you want me to care about you?” She raised herself onto her tiptoes and brushed her lips over his.

  One strong arm slid around her rib cage, drawing her closer, his hand splayed against her back. “I didn’t say that.”

  Then he bent down, his mouth claiming hers, all of the emotion he’d been holding back channeled into this kiss.

  It was rough, almost violent. It was wonderful.

  Her fingers slid into his hair, her tongue seeking his, answering his aggression with her own fierce demands, fear for him transforming into lust.

  They fell together onto her bed, his hands reaching for her zipper, jerking her jeans down her thighs while she reached for a condom. She waited while he yanked open his fly then rolled the condom over his thick erection. And then he was inside her, driving hard, the friction making them both come hard and fast, giving them release.

  They lay together afterward, holding each other, heartbeats slowing.

  “I care about you, Ellie, more than I thought I could care about anyone. I care about Daniel and Daisy, too. But I don’t have it in me to be the man you need, the man you and the twins deserve. For your sake, I don’t think we should make this relationship out to be more than it is.”

  Ellie closed her eyes to keep back the tears.

  It was a bright, sunny Saturday on the slopes. The parking lot was packed, the lift lines long, the lodge crowded. Every patroller was busy, one call after another coming in. A collision with injuries between a twelve-year-old skier and a snowboarder. An injury accident on Snow in Summer. A drunk man trying to grope women in the lift line. A broken wrist at the terrain park. A guy who got stuck in the lift chair when his backpack got wedged between the slats.

  It felt surreal to Jesse to be skiing through a winter landscape of happy, smiling people when his mind was stuck in the hot sand of Iraq. All day, the memory replayed itself in his mind. The sudden onslaught of AK fire and the explosion. Fighting to save Christine’s life. The headlong run toward Crash’s Black Hawk.

  But Ellie’s words were there, too, and he held onto them with everything he had.

  She was suffering, and you dulled her pain. She was scared, and you held her. She drifted into unconsciousness knowing she wasn’t alone.

  He’d tried to warn Ellie last night, done his best to define their relationship so that she would understand he had nothing more to give. Even so, she had kept in touch with him all day, sending text messages.

  HOW ARE YOU?

  He’d replied with a photo of himself drinking coffee.

  PROOF OF LIFE.

  She’d texted again.

  HOW’S YOUR DAY?

  He’d replied with a photo of Indian Peaks from the ski lift.

  SUNNY SKIES.

  Around noon, she’d forwarded a photo her mother had taken of the twins eating French fries with ketchup on their little faces.

  MESS MONSTERS. SEE YOU LATER.

  That made him smile.

  Ellie was worried about him, and this was her way of checking on him. He ought to find it cloying or irritating, but he didn’t. Knowing she was there when he got off work, knowing that she cared, made all the difference.
>
  What had he done to deserve her?

  You’d best hope she doesn’t ask herself that question.

  He’d made an appointment with Esri after work. She kept some Saturday hours for her clients who worked during the week, and although her schedule was full, she’d agreed to set aside fifty minutes for him when he told her what had happened.

  He headed straight to her office from the slopes and found her waiting for him. He got settled in the seat across from her and found himself fighting for words, mind and body revolting against the memories in his head. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

  “You’re right. It won’t be. But I think it will be worth it in the end.”

  He told her what had happened at Ellie’s house, told her about Christine’s death, then shared with her what Ellie had said, how she’d linked his mother, the little Fisher girl, and Christine together.

  “Ellie’s pretty smart. She’s got some psychology training as a nurse, I’m sure. And you know what? I think she’s right. This is why I wanted to talk about the impact that saving a life has on you. You seem to live for it, almost as if—”

  “It makes up for the people I couldn’t save.” He understood now.

  “Exactly.” Esri leaned toward him. “Jesse, you are no longer that little boy who couldn’t help his mom. You’re no longer that helpless child. You’re a grown man, and you’ve done more in your life to help people than most of us.”

  Her words made his throat tight, but fuck if he was going to cry in front of her. “Am I crazy?”

  “First, no, you’re not crazy. From where I’m sitting, you’re completely normal for someone dealing with post-traumatic stress. In fact, you’re in a better position than many. Do you know why?”

  “No.”

  “You’re motivated to deal with it, to face it. A lot of people spend their lives running away.”

  “But how could I have forgotten her? How could I have forgotten Christine? I cared about her. She died in my arms.”

  “The mind works overtime to shelter us from trauma. Think of it this way: Your mind locked that memory away until it felt you were safe, until it felt you could handle facing your feelings about what happened that day.”