by Rachel Hanna
Silence, then, "You don't think that's a little odd?"
Yes. "Define odd."
"The man keeps running into you in elevators in medical buildings. That's odd."
"He was there with a friend. A business partner, another SEAL, injured and there for PT."
"PT?"
"Physical therapy?"
Silence again, and then Jessie asked, "Are you sure?"
Taylor, sitting on her deck, watching the neighbors palm trees move in the wind, said, "I didn't kick the other guy's bad leg out from under him to test it, but he was a big buff guy with a cane. That means something, right?"
Jessie made a sound that meant she wasn't convinced.
"OK, how about this one - he was the one who went away the first time. If he wanted me back, he didn't have to stalk me."
"Why were you in the elevator?" Jessie asked, suspicious, as if now she suspected that Taylor was stalking Tanner.
So Taylor told her about the kids and the volunteering and the guy with the cane and the conversation in the elevator and the conversation at her house and then, because they were best friends and because she could, she told Jessie all about the sex.
Which didn't make her feel any better when the conversation was over and Tanner was still gone.
"What are you going to do?" Jessie asked, because she believed in Taylor and was sure Taylor was going to do something.
And Taylor, who hadn't given it any thought because seriously she was still kind of shocked, said, "I'm giving him till tomorrow to show up and then I'm going to his office and I'm either going to start shouting or rip all his clothes off and have him on the conference table."
She heard the grin in Jessie's voice. "No reason you can't do both."
Tanner had slid out of Taylor's bed that morning when he woke before dawn, as always, and when his phone had buzzed and Taylor hadn't wakened, he went into the living room with it and called John Knox back.
"We're activated," Knox said.
That explained the no voice mail, the no text.
Tanner went instantly hard and cold. His next moves were orchestrated without having to plan them out more than one time. He double checked the time. He double checked his kit in his Jeep. He took one last look at Taylor's place. He already stood at his vehicle. He wouldn't wake her.
He wouldn't say goodbye.
He'd been right the first time. His life wasn't in the right place for a relationship.
Tanner started the Jeep, backed out, and drove away without looking back.
Fourteen hours after waking Tanner was onboard an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, with Jake "The Wall" Blincoe, John "Knox" Knox, Angel Ruiz – and without Mike Hancock. That felt weird.
It all felt weird. Out of place. Out of time. Like they'd slipped backwards to that last mission, the one where they'd been shot out of the sky.
"Hostages are UN aide workers, there for humanitarian purposes," the mission commander said. He paced the deck of the carrier, buzz cut until he was nearly bald, mirrored sunglasses hiding his eyes. Tall, broad, fit – and ready to washout. This would be his last mission.
He was thirty.
And Tanner was twenty-eight. Maybe it was time to be SEArch & Rescue only.
After this mission. They'd been called up because Special Forces were being stretched thin. Militants had taken hostages across the war-torn country. The missions were happening at the same time, strikes across the country to get people out and get them home. Without casualties.
"Listen up. The hostages are being held in Syrian government buildings. There are sixteen hostages. The militants may have executed one of them in the last six hours. Here's how we're going in."
Tanner's thoughts focused with brilliant precision, watching, listening, memorizing, understanding.
On task.
Ready.
Taylor went to work. She talked to Jason. She did her work. After work she offered to make dinner for Jessie, who was understandably skeptical.
She cooked hamburgers and oven potatoes and had watermelon to go with because seriously green salad just wasn't happening.
Through all her preparations she felt out of sorts and uncomfortable. Like something was actively wrong.
Something was, of course. She'd let her guard down, let Tanner walk back in to not only her life but her bed and he'd walked out again.
"What if it was a joke? Or a contest between guys? Find the most gullible, stupid girl?" she asked Jessie out of the blue and Jessie, being her best friend, said, "You'd know," instead of, "What the hell are you talking about?"
"How would I know?" Because she was starting to think she didn't know a damn thing about anyone.
Jessie waved a hand. "You're not that gullible, hon. He didn't come back because he came back. You two ran into each other again." She paused, hamburger in both hands, and squinted at Taylor. "You weren't stalking him, were you?"
"Not as such," Taylor said, just to get a reaction out of Jessie.
Jessie gasped, coughed, glared as she understood it was a joke, waved Taylor to continue.
"OK, no. I didn't even start off thinking about him. Just thought I'd do some volunteering. Didn't want to anymore. That had been part of the whole Change Your Life plan."
Jessie looked confused. "What whole change your life plan?"
"Oh. Didn't tell you that, did I? When I was on the mountain and thought I might not make it?"
"Taylor!"
"Well, it looked bad. And my life didn't flash before my eyes because I don't have one."
Jessie glared. "Maybe your life didn't flash before your eyes because you weren't going to die."
"Or maybe I just don't have a life. So I was going to volunteer. And then I was going to have this awesome, smoking hot boyfriend. And then I was going to get a less boring job."
It still sounded good.
She refocused on Jessie, who was waiting and not with great patience. Taylor waved a hand. "I volunteered. I lived through it with hell beast children. And I ran into Tanner again. Yes, it crossed my mind once I got there that if he has some kind of ongoing thing I might see him there again. But it didn't before that." She finished, and drank more tequila.
Jessie processed for a minute and said, "My point stands."
Taylor raised her eyebrows. "What point?"
"The one I'm about to make. The point is, he didn't come back. And you didn't go find him. You two ran into each other again and decided to try again."
"And he decided maybe not after all? I don't like this story."
Jessie drained her water glass. "Good. Because it's not the one I meant. What I meant was, something made him run in the first place. And just like your attraction for each other wasn't over, neither was whatever made him run. Might just be the guy gene. Or it might be something more serious."
"Like his job," Taylor said quietly into her margarita glass.
"Hmm?"
"I asked him. When he came back. Why he'd gone." She paused, drained her glass, shuddered at the headache from the adult Slurpee, and said, "He said because he was protecting me."
Jessie considered. "From what might happen in the future? Because nothing was happening, right?"
Taylor nodded, still thinking.
Jessie pursued her point. "So he said he wouldn't do that again?"
Taylor, her eyes starting to focus, looked at Jessie and nodded.
Jessie swallowed. "Then, Taylor? If he as done it again, does that mean something is happening?"
Something might be happening.
Somewhere in the world.
And Tanner would be there.
She made a lot of mistakes at work. That night and the next she lay awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling.
Something might be happening somewhere in the world.
Tanner would be there.
He might never come back.
She might never see him again. She might not even ever know why.
Maybe he had been right to try a
nd protect her.
Maybe it wasn't something she could handle.
* * *
The Chinook choppers lifted off before dawn. There were more than 20 of them in the team, all armed, all seasoned, all ready.
Tanner's mind was on the mission. The aide workers. Find them, get them out. Worry later about the fact that civilians who went into warzones when they didn't have to needed their heads examined and their asses handed to them.
Never mind, because it wouldn't stop him for even an instant from doing his job, getting them out and taking them home.
The choppers landed and they jumped and ran.
Moving in a crouch through a village, weapon ready, eyes and ears and senses on overdrive.
He never felt more alive.
When the gunfire started, it never sounded real. Always like popping. There was screaming.
This time they weren't expected. This time they got all the way in before they were tumbled. The militants started going down. One SEAL took a slug in the shoulder. Another in the leg, missing the major arteries there.
The hostages were on their feet by the time the teams came through the door. So far the body count was all militants. Tanner's mind didn't stray from the mission.
They got the hostages onto the street before the next wave of militants. Surrounded them. Body armor took blows. No one else got hit.
The militants went down. The air at dawn stank of gunfire.
They were on the choppers again, shouting, guns out of the ships as the crafts gained altitude. Missile fire opened up. One chopper was clipped, spraying fuel and limping back to the carrier, but they had the hostages, they had everyone they'd come for, and none of the team was being left behind or carried out dead.
Tanner felt wild adrenaline wanting to fill him. Not yet. Not until the carrier was back in international waters.
Until then, anything could happen.
Taylor made more mistakes. Jason covered for her.
"What's up, girlfriend?"
"Tanner."
That made Jason stop pretending to walk by her station and just stop. "I thought that was over."
Taylor stared at her computer and nodded vaguely. "So did I?"
Jason cocked a hip. "But it's not?"
Taylor looked up at him, pretty, fey, saner than her. "It seems to be re-over," she said.
"Oh, sweetie."
What she wanted to say was that she thought he might be on a mission, might be a SEAL reservist called up from reserve. What she wanted to say was she was scared to death that was it, and if it wasn't, she'd feel more elated than idiotic and more idiotic than she wanted to feel and she'd still be done with him.
Probably.
Shit.
Getting home took longer. The government wasn't in a hurry for them to get home. Tanner had plenty of time to think, despite the team making noise, despite the debrief, despite the hostages, despite the medical exams, despite the reports, despite everything.
Way more time to think than he needed.
He'd just completed a mission while he – at least technically – had a girlfriend. Someone back home waiting for him. Someone who stood the potential of being hurt if Tanner didn't make it back.
Because maybe he'd just left. But there was something there. What he'd just left? It was something.
Taylor wasn't the only one who'd told him it wasn't up to him to protect her like that.
But hers was the opinion that mattered.
If she really thought she'd rather be with him than not –
If she was willing to live with that kind of uncertainty –
Given that he'd just survived a mission and not been distracted by thoughts of her but had, maybe, worked with more precision and caution and been even more on task –
--just like she'd said –
--maybe.
He'd wait and see.
The offices of SEArch & Rescue were empty. There was a message that Mike would be back at one.
Taylor sat down and waited for one.
"I can't tell you where he is," Mike stressed. He looked like he wanted her to go away.
So she did.
Because he had already told her.
Over her shoulder she said, "Can you at least ask him to call me when he gets back?" When he didn't say anything, she turned back to look at him. "Tell him I was here?"
Mike shrugged helplessly. "Honestly, Taylor? He'll know."
Back at work, Taylor scoured the internet for world news.
But he could be anywhere. Doing anything.
She had no way of knowing. And she'd have to wait to see if he reappeared. If she were married to him, or maybe even his girlfriend, she thought the other members of the team would tell her.
That would be better than waiting and not knowing.
Taylor waited without knowing for a week.
She might not want to see him.
He thought that might be harder to endure than the mission itself.
He might not want to see her.
Maybe he'd run like he'd meant to, protecting her. Protecting himself.
Monday morning. No word. All around the world horrible things continued to happen but Taylor was pretty sure about the hostage rescue in Syria.
No casualties but injuries. She clamped down on her feelings as hard as she could. She worked hard. She ran. She talked to Jessie. She walked the dog.
She checked her messages. Her voice mail. Her snail mail for no good reason.
She called SEArch & Rescue and listened to Mike patiently tell her he couldn't tell her anything.
Slowly she realized if this was what it took to be with him, it was what she was willing to do.
"Just please, please, let him come back unhurt," she whispered into Monster's fur in the dark of night.
Maybe if he led with, "You were right" -- ?
But he had a better idea. As long as she was still volunteering in the mornings. He probably could do with a little more PT on the shoulder anyway.
The next morning her car was in the lot at the decrepit medical building. She'd already gone inside.
He leaned against the Jeep in the sun warm morning and texted her.
Taylor was on her way into the doctor's office when her phone buzzed. Probably Jessie. They were supposed to have dinner. Best to answer now. The doctor and her wife kept giving her the hell beast teens.
Taylor stopped in the hall and leaned against a wall, pulling her phone out of her pocket.
She almost dropped it.
Meet me in our elevator.
Taylor started to run. The doors opened just before she got there.
Taylor threw herself inside. His arms went around her. She wrapped her arms tight around him and raised her face to his.
The kiss was long and sweet, and there was no reason to ever end it.
Join the Rachel Hanna private reader’s group on Facebook to find out about new releases and fun contests!
