Page 6

I didn't go directly into the academy, though—due to extenuating circumstances. Meaning, Mom died in a car crash the summer after graduation, and that just absolutely wrecked Dad and Tania. Me too, but there was this unspoken yet very real expectation that I’d keep it together. Which I did. I took care of Dad, took care of Tania. I finished my commercial PPL and stayed fit for the academy.

And then in the Navy, downtime is…a luxury. Especially for an officer and someone like me—driven to succeed at all costs and relentlessly motivated to be the best, at all times, at everything.

We Tiernans take perfectionism and make it an art.

So now, I'm alone and have nothing to do for the rest of the day, and it's…I look at my watch: Three-thirty in the afternoon.

Lovely.

I'm going to go fucking insane.

I managed to kill an entire hour just walking around the Ketchikan boardwalk area. I popped into a coffee shop and got a black coffee and a cinnamon roll to go, and I sat on a bench overlooking the bay or whatever it is between here and the island where the airport is. I think it's on an island? I don't know. I should—I spent enough time looking at charts as I planned our route in, but we landed at the privately owned heliport north of town rather than the public airport.

I walked around some more, got another snack out of sheer boredom, sat and watched the water a bit more…

What are you supposed to do for fun when your hobby is your career?

I went to the heliport, of course. I worked over the helo with the mechanics, then got invited to sit in on a tourist flight, which was a lot of fun once I got over the urge to take the controls myself.

That killed a few hours, taking me to just past eight by the time I got back to downtown Ketchikan, at which point Linus finally reappeared with keys for a bed and breakfast…where he, his daughter and her fiancé, and her parents were all staying as well.

I don't like the feeling of being pulled into Linus's familial orbit. I don't orbit and I don't family.

Holidays with the Tiernans are a stiff, formal, awkward, uncomfortable affair that we all, by unspoken agreement, merely get through and escape as soon as possible…and I, being on deployment more often than not, have missed most of them, thank god. I mean, how many silent Christmas dinners with Dad, Granddad, Tania, and Tania's flavor-of-the-year boyfriend can you sit through? No one talks, or laughs, or tells jokes or stories. We all just sit there, eating in silence. Without Mom, there's no joy in the season. No decorations. No cookies, or wreaths, or lights, or candles, or any of that. Just a single tree small enough to fit on a side table…pre-decorated and lamer than the thing in that Charlie Brown Christmas Special.

Yeah, fuck that.

I'll take a meal in the mess deck with the crew, thanks. At least on board an aircraft carrier or at a FOB, there's some type of levity. We joke, roughhouse, give each other gag gifts, include each other in things. That part of being in the military is the one thing I know I’ll miss: the camaraderie, the sense of family that I’ve just never had.

I just couldn't stay in any longer, not after what happened to Luke.

Fuck.

I pushed that line of thought aside as I peeled out of my flight suit and took a shower; thoughts of Luke and the mission from hell never led anywhere helpful. I scrubbed clean, got out, dried off, and lay in bed naked, reading a book on my Paperwhite. It's a long, boring book on naval aviation history—I read it specifically because it’s so dense and dry it puts me to sleep faster than anything else.

Usually.

Tonight, it doesn't work.

Tonight, my thoughts were dominated by a square jaw, broad shoulders, thick arms, piercing brown eyes like molten chocolate, and an easy, teasing grin.

I tossed the Kindle aside and scrubbed my face—I shouldn't be thinking of Jax Badd. At all, let alone like that.

He's a passenger, nothing more.

Eventually, I did manage to fall asleep, but even then my dreams were all mixed up—in one, I was piloting my Huey over Afghanistan, looking for Luke's missing body, and Jax was in the seat beside me, except he was shirtless and sweaty and kept winking at me, for some reason.

Weird.

To be clear, Luke's body isn't missing. I brought him back myself, and watched him get interred with full honors at Arlington, where I jolted and sobbed at each sharp concussive round of the 21-gun salute.

Fuck.

I woke up sweating and crying. It took me almost half an hour of deep-breathing exercises and naming and numbering things around me before I could even leave the bed. At which point it was…drumroll please…four in the damned morning, because fuck my entire life.

The bed and breakfast was an adorable little house in a neighborhood a few minutes from downtown Ketchikan—it reminded me of a gingerbread house, being an A-frame sided in cedar shakes with elaborately carved white trim. Once I'm awake, I'm awake for good, so after regaining my emotional equilibrium, I decided the only thing to do was have coffee and go for a run. I dressed in the navy-blue shorts and eye-wateringly bright yellow tee that is Navy PT gear, laced up my battered and beloved Brooks running shoes, and snuck downstairs, earbuds and phone clutched in one hand as I browsed my music app for a rousing, high-energy playlist.

I smelled the coffee before I hit the landing and followed my nose to the kitchen where I found Linus clad in a thick gray robe he'd obviously purchased from a day spa at some point, the room dimly lit by a single fake three-wick battery-powered candle on the granite counter, his face lit blue-white by a laptop screen.