“You’re lying again. God damn it, don’t lie to me.” Tristan clenched her fists until the tendons stood out on her hands and her joints ached.

She wanted to punch a hole in the wall. She’d never punched anything, and always thought it was a stupid reaction, but right now, she wanted to destroy something. She wanted to make some other part of her body hurt besides her heart. “You still love her. I get it.”

“I don’t…it’s not…”

“Never mind.” Tristan took a step back and looked wildly around the room—at the perfectly square stack of clothing on the top shelf of the open closet, at the precisely ordered pile of books on the floor by the night table, at the narrow bed where Jett slept. She knew she’d be imagining herself in that bed, with Jett beneath her, with Jett between her legs, with Jett inside her, for months. Jesus Christ. She was losing her mind. She knew about wanting someone so badly it ate you up inside. She knew now, when it was the wrong woman, and too fucking late to do anything about it. “You still want to fuck her, and it’s eating at you, isn’t it?”

“No. Yes. God, I don’t know,” Jett blurted. “I keep thinking about her. Gail. I keep remembering.”

“Ah, babe,” Tristan whispered. She brushed her fingers through Jett’s hair. “She came looking for you. She must want you.” She laughed, although inside it felt like tears. “She’d be crazy not to.”

“I don’t know why she’s here.” Jett dropped onto the narrow bed and put her head in her hands. While she’d been flying, ferrying the injured back and forth to the hospital, she’d been able to block out thoughts of Gail and why she had come. Now the past had come roaring back, and she was terrified. Terrified of feeling again what she had felt that night. Gail had been kind to her, Gail had been tender.

Gail had touched her. But when she’d touched Gail back, she’d needed something, wanted something, done something to make Gail run from her. And now all she knew was that she wanted Tristan in ways she had never even begun to want Gail. She couldn’t do it again. “I don’t know anything.”

Tristan knelt in front of her and rested one hand lightly on Jett’s thigh, the other on the back of her neck. “You have to find out, babe. Cause she’s still got hold of your heart.”

Tristan kissed the top of Jett’s head, straightened, and went to the hall door. She unlocked it, stepped out, and closed the door quietly behind her.

Jett listened for Tristan’s footsteps, but she couldn’t hear her. She was just gone.

“You’re wrong,” Jett whispered to the empty room. “She doesn’t have my heart.”

Tristan took the stairwell down five flights on the run. She barreled through the door onto the OR floor, punched in her code to the surgical locker room, and stripped down. She pulled on clean scrubs, grabbed a mask and a cap, and walked directly into hell. The OR looked like a MASH unit. Stretchers littered the halls, the floor was covered with discarded tubing, plastic wrappers from IV bags, and half-used rolls of tape. She started down one side of the U-shaped complex, checking rooms until she found one of the senior anesthesia staff.

“I can relieve someone,” Tristan said.

“Uh, I think Christopher in room eight…no, nine…is probably due for a dinner break. Six hours ago. You okay? Where did you come from?”

“I went with the first responders. I’m fine.”

“Go ahead, then. Tell Christopher to grab a couple hours’ sleep after he eats.”

“Sure.” Tristan headed off. She needed to take her mind off Jett.

She needed not to think about the brunette. Gail. A beautiful woman. A beautiful woman who had come halfway around the world for Jett. She stopped suddenly, the pain nearly blinding her.

“It’ll pass,” she whispered to herself. She’d let her guard down, let things go too far. She’d made a mistake. She’d get over it. She’d work, and while she was working she wouldn’t be able to think of anything else. She was too conditioned to give all her attention to the patient to let her mind wander. And when she was done working, she’d make a few phone calls. She’d get over it.

Jett waited until some of the familiar numbness returned, blunting the pain, and then she went into the flight lounge. It didn’t matter how much she hurt, she still had crew members somewhere out in the field.

And she didn’t leave her crew behind.

“Any word from Jeremy?” Jett asked.

“He just radioed,” Linda said, her eyes bright with tears. “They’re grounded in Atlantic City. Jeremy thinks something’s wrong with the hydraulics.”

“All accounted for, then,” Jett said.

Quinn Maguire came through the door. “All our people okay?”

“Yes,” Linda said. “Everyone is fine.”

Jett pivoted and started for her room. “Log me back in at oh-two hundred.”

“Are you sure?” Linda called after her. “You had a really long shift today.”

“I’m fine. I’ll be ready.” Jett closed her door and stretched out on top of her perfectly made bed, fully clothed, her arms straight down at her sides. She stared at the ceiling, dry-eyed, and waited for sleep.

The lights were out in Honor’s office when Quinn returned. She opened the door and stepped carefully inside. The glow from the x-ray light box behind Honor’s desk provided faint illumination, and she made her way to the side of the couch and knelt down.

“Honor,” she said quietly.

“Mmm?”

Quinn stroked her hair. “Time to go home.”

Honor turned on her side and rested her head on her folded arms. She regarded Quinn for a long moment. “I love you, do you know that?”

“I do.” Quinn kissed her. “I love you.”

“I know. You gave me back my life, Quinn. All of my life.”

Quinn kissed her again. “You gave me a life.”

“I guess I should go home and take care of the rest of our life, huh?” Honor sat up.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can to give you a hand with that,” Quinn said.

“We’ll be waiting.” Honor trailed her fingers down Quinn’s cheek.

“What a night.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Jett sat on the wide stone wall ringing the rooftop, her back to the city, her gaze on the empty helipad, listening for the sound of the chopper returning as if waiting for a lover. A faint breeze played through the hair at the back of her neck, drying the sweat that misted her skin. She’d flown most of the last twenty-six hours, slept when she had to, and now she was done until the following night. Three hours to sundown, another eight until sunrise, another fourteen until her next shift. Twenty-five hours to fill. She felt as empty inside as the hours that stretched before her.

She had not seen or heard from Tristan since they’d parted in the middle of the night. She hadn’t expected to. Tristan thought she wanted Gail. Maybe Tristan was right. She hadn’t stopped thinking about Gail, dreaming about her, in all the time since she’d left the service. Not until she’d met Tristan. Smiling, Jett fingered the seam on the inside leg of her jeans, running her fingertips slowly along the ridge. Tristan had shouldered her way into her life, refusing to be ignored. Tristan…

Movement on the far side of the roof caught her attention and she straightened, squinting in the glare off the concrete, hoping to see the familiar figure come jogging toward her. Disappointment, sharp and raw, cut through her when she recognized Linda.

“I thought you might be up here,” Linda said, shading her eyes with one hand against the slanting rays of the sun.

“I thought you left a while ago.”

“I’ve been checking on friends. I stopped by the ER and the OR. Things are slowing down a lot and the relief crews are cleaning up the rest.”

Jett didn’t ask if she’d seen Tristan. Tristan wasn’t coming back. Why would she? She thought—

“So listen,” Linda said, resting her hand on Jett’s knee. “No one really wants to go home. I guess after what happened…after everything…people just want to stay together for a while.”

“I know.”

Linda studied her. “I guess you do. So, my long-suffering partner, God bless her, is throwing together some food and a couple of people are picking up beer. Everybody’s heading over to my place.”

“You came up here to tell me that?”

Linda nodded. “Yes. I did.”

Jett studied her hands, which she’d clasped between her legs.

Linda’s hand still rested on her knee. Linda touched her a lot, and Jett liked her. But Linda’s touch wasn’t like Gail’s, and nothing like Tristan’s. Nothing was like Tristan’s hands on her. “Thank you.”

“Are you okay?”

“No,” Jett said. “Not really.”

“Is there something I can do?”

Jett shook her head. “Thanks, but I think I have to figure this out for myself.”

“Is it about Tristan?”

Jett tensed. “Why?”

“People can be jerks sometimes when they’re jealous. Don’t hold it against her.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Linda colored. “Oh, I thought…she was asking about your visitor earlier. She seemed pretty bent out of shape about it.”

“Gail?”

“Is that her name? The soldier who was here?”

“Yes.”

“I think Tristan thought she was your girlfriend. I’m just assuming…”

“She isn’t.”

“Ex?”

Jett thought about that. What was Gail to her? They’d been friends, she’d thought. She’d thought they’d been more than that—she’d thought what they’d had was special. She laughed, thinking of Tristan and her special friends.

“No,” Jett said. “Just a friend.”

“So are you going to come?”

Jett was going to say no, and then she thought about the twenty-five hours she needed to fill. There would be others at Linda’s like herself, others who had had a bad night, who didn’t want to go home with the memories—unable to explain to those who loved them what they’d seen and what they wanted to forget. She wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. She could sit, drink, let the time go by. She could try not to think about Tristan, but that would be harder. But wherever she was, she was going to think about Tristan, and with luck, she could find some kind of diversion at Linda’s. “I might be late. I need to make a stop first.”