“I’M THINKING YOU made a great nurse. You have healing hands. Very healing hands,” Ty murmured into the pillow as he lay on his stomach on the bed, enjoying Jess’s back and shoulder massage.

It had become a nightly event this past week. One he looked forward to—among other things—at the end of each day. Currently, she straddled his thighs, and even without seeing her, he knew that the straps on her short black silk and lace nightgown were giving her trouble. The thought of that soft, tan skin made it difficult to stay on his stomach. The massage, however, proved great enticement to stay put. She really did have magic hands.

On the second day after he’d returned, she’d finally quit hassling him about fixing things for her. Not that she’d given in easily. They’d more or less agreed to disagree when she’d finally accepted that he was as stubborn as she was. There were so many things that needed to be done that he never ran out of projects. Today he’d found a gallon of paint in her hall closet marked “Kitchen,” so he’d painted the room for her. The woman had too much on her plate. He liked lightening her load.

And she liked pampering him because of it. A win-win any way you sliced it.

“I saw a float plane buzz the store on the way to the lake today,” he said sleepily. “What’s the story there?”

She squirted more lotion on her hands and went to work on his lower back. “That would be Wade Cummings. He flies charters into fishing camps on Crane and Rainy Lakes. Keeps him busy most of the summer and even into the winter. Some of these guys can’t get enough, so he switches out the pontoons with sleds and flies in groups for ice fishing.”

“He the only game in town?”

“He is now. A guy out of Vermillion, about forty miles south of here, ran his own charter, but he retired last year.”

He didn’t say anything else, but he was thinking. A lot. Maybe someone ought to start another charter business. Maybe that someone should be him. Key West Air Cargo might need to diversify. But it was still early in this game. He and Jess were still getting to know each other—at least, she was getting to know him. He knew all that he needed to know about her.

He also knew that he was falling for her. Falling hard and fast, growing more enamored by the day with this independent, hardworking woman who had taken so much on her slim shoulders and bore the weight without complaint or a hint of self-pity over the hits life had given her. She was a survivor. She was a siren. And he hoped like hell that one day soon, she’d acknowledge and accept that there was no need for barriers between them.

The problem was, they seemed to be going backward in that area. She’d let him into her bed, yes, let him into her home, but she’d made it clear—more in deed than in words—that she was determined not to let him into her heart.

In bed, she was adventurous, exciting, and surprisingly trusting. Out of bed was a different story. Instead of opening up to him, she’d started holding back. It was almost as if she’d realized she was letting herself get involved with him and put on the skids.

OK. Fine. If she needed more time, he had time to give. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not even after he’d accidentally discovered what must have been her husband’s truck lovingly covered and stored in the large shed behind the store. He’d looked beneath the tarp. It was a newer-model Chevy, all tricked out, not even two thousand miles on the odometer. Yet she drove a ten-year-old Taurus with more than a hundred thousand miles on it.

Letting go was not something she did easily. Loyalty was not something she took lightly.

“Tell me about these,” she said softly, as her fingers gently massaged the surgical scar tissue on his lower spine. “And this.” She touched his bicep and the scar there.

He’d felt the softness of her fingertips on his scars often during the night. Had known these questions wouldn’t hold much longer. Actually, he’d been surprised she hadn’t asked before now. A month ago, the day they’d gone kayaking, she’d asked, but he’d avoided answering. He hadn’t wanted to rehash the injuries. But now she’d asked again. He didn’t miss the significance. If she really wanted to erect barriers to avoid emotional intimacy, she wouldn’t have brought it up again. Which meant he needed to bite the bullet and spill it if there was any hope she’d eventually do the same.

It wouldn’t be easy. Recounting the way a man earned a Purple Heart and a Silver Star never was.

“The short of it is, I was flying away from a combat zone with casualties onboard. We were clear, so our air cover had left. Then we weren’t clear anymore.”

Her hands stilled. “You got shot down?”

“Job hazard. An RPG blew the chopper’s tail rotor off. Not the preferred method of meeting the ground from too damn many feet above it.”

“You crash-landed?” She sounded horrified.

“Pretty much, yeah.” With a little maneuvering on both of their parts, he managed to turn onto his back so he could see her face. Her beautiful, troubled face.

He stroked her arms and met her eyes in the dim bedroom light. “Hey. Don’t look like that. I’m here. I’m OK.”

Her hands rested on his chest. “You were hurt.”

“Me and a lot of others. Some more than hurt.”

He’d lost his copilot and his gunner. Wives had lost husbands. Children had lost fathers. She didn’t need to hear that. She’d already lived that.

“Anyway, we had a bit of a hard landing, and the welcome wagon didn’t exactly greet us.”

“And your air support was gone. You had no weapons.”

“We had rifles. And handguns.” Rocks. Pieces of the bird. They’d used everything they could gather to defend their position.

“The scar on your arm. It’s a gunshot wound, isn’t it?”

He felt torn between loving that she felt such empathy for him and concern that she gave too much importance to something that had happened a long time ago. But when a woman had lost a husband to war, there were questions that would always remain unanswered.

“You go to war. You get shot at,” he said, shrugging it off.

Only none of it was as casual as he wanted to sound. He’d survived the crash, but it hadn’t ended there. They’d been sitting ducks. The only reason he was alive today was that the radio hadn’t gone the way of the tail rotor. He’d been slammed through the windshield on impact and thrown out of the chopper. Walking hadn’t been an option—exquisite pain from several herniated discs and a couple of cracked vertebrae made it impossible. So he’d dragged himself back into the cockpit and called in air support. Directed them “danger close”—within two hundred meters with smart weapons and three hundred meters with unguided weapons.

For a while there, he’d been more afraid of friendly fire taking them out than of Saddam’s Royal Guard—although one of the bastards had nailed his arm.

“End result, I herniated a few discs. No biggie. Surgery fixed them, and now I’m good as new.”

More like good as it was going to get, even after two surgeries and months of grueling physical therapy, but she didn’t need to know that, either.

“No biggie? You could have been paralyzed. You could have died.”

“But I didn’t.” He touched a palm to her cheek. “I didn’t die, Jess.”

“No. But your naval career did. The injuries are the reason your career was cut short, aren’t they?”

He breathed deep. He didn’t like thinking about this. “A grounded pilot isn’t much good to the military, and the Navy docs wouldn’t clear me to fly.” Another crash or even a hard landing might cause permanent paralysis. His CO had put the paperwork for a medical discharge in the works before he’d even gotten out of the hospital.

Flying for the military and flying for himself, however, were two entirely different things. He’d had no difficulty passing the physical to get his civilian flight license.

“I’m sorry.” She leaned down and pressed a kiss to the center of his chest.

“For everything there is a season… For every rhyme there is a reason.”

She smiled against his skin. “Making up your own verses, I see.”

Her smile was his cue. Time to lighten things up. For both of them.

“I like making things up as I go. For instance, how about we get rid of this?” He tugged the straps of her gown down her arms. The soft fabric caught on her nipples before spilling around her hips. She was so stunningly beautiful. “Let’s see what else we can make up as we go along.”

Chapter 15