LITMIR.BIZ

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was cooking in the penthouse kitchen or they were ordering takeout. Rita made him a part of it. She poked and prodded at him until she got him to talk about his work, about their tour of The Sea Queen, readying to set sail. She poked her nose into his relationship with his brother, sister and father. Nothing was sacred, Jack told himself. The woman was making herself such a presence in his life, he couldn’t ignore her in spite of how hard he tried.

      And every night, when she was in the guest room and he was alone in his huge, empty bed, he really tried. But her face was uppermost in his mind all the damn time. He closed his eyes to sleep and she was there. The pillow she’d used still carried her scent.

      How the hell was a man supposed to do the right thing when everything in him was demanding he do the wrong thing?

      “Hey, Jack?”

      He closed his eyes and sighed a little. Even shutting himself up in his home office the minute he got home didn’t work. Rita would not be stopped. “What is it?”

      “Someone’s here to see you.”

      What was she up to now? he wondered. Had she brought his whole family over? Hers? Were they all going to sit in a circle and hold hands? Frowning, he pushed up from the desk, crossed the room and stalked out into the living room, half-ready for battle.

      Rita was sitting on the couch, smiling at the man opposite her. Jack stopped dead when he spotted the man’s wheelchair. Kevin. Had to be. His chest felt tight as if something was squeezing his lungs like a lemon trying for as much juice as possible. His gaze snapped to Rita. Had she done this? No. Of course not. He hadn’t even told her Kevin’s last name. There was no way she could have found him and arranged to get him to the penthouse.

      So what the hell was going on?

      “There he is!” Rita shot him a wide, bright smile of welcome. “Jack, look who’s here.”

      The guy in the chair turned to face him and suddenly, time did a weird shift and it was nearly five months ago. The sun felt hot, oppressive. Screams tore at the air and Kevin’s curses were loud and inventive as Jack worked to stop the bleeding. He felt again the raw desperation and the sense of helplessness as he shouted for a medic.

      He was standing in the penthouse and yet he had one foot firmly planted in the past and no idea how to escape it.

      “Dude,” Kevin said on a laugh. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

      In a way, he had, Jack told himself and shook his head, trying to clear the images rising up in his mind. For just a second, he’d seen Kevin as he’d been before that last mission. Tall, strong, laughing. Now reality was back and he didn’t know what to say. “Surprised to see you is all.”

      “Yeah. It’s been a while.” Kevin rested his forearms on the arms of his chair and folded his hands together. His blond hair was just a little longer than it had been in the corps and his blue eyes were sharp, shrewd and locked on Jack. He’d lost some weight, but the real difference was the pinned-up legs of the slacks he wore.

      Kevin Davis had lost both legs on that mission, in spite of the medics delivering fast, heroic care. And Jack hadn’t talked to him since the morning he’d been evacced to a hospital ship. Even then, it had been less of a conversation and more of Kevin damning Jack to hell for saving him. Not something he liked to think about.

      “You gonna say hello anytime soon?” Kevin asked with a tilted grin.

      “Yeah. Sure.” Jack crossed the room, held out one hand and looked down at his friend. “Good to see you, Kev.”

      After shaking hands, Jack sat on the couch beside Rita and asked, “So what brings you here?”

      “Cut right to the chase, no bull,” Kevin said, smiling even wider. “Haven’t changed much, Sarge.”

      For a second, Jack felt a twinge. He’d been in the military for so long that becoming a civilian again had been a stretch. Now he wasn’t sure where the hell he belonged. Then he felt Rita’s hand sneak into his and though he told himself not to accept the comfort she was offering, his fingers linked through hers and locked them together.

      Guilt pinged around the center of his chest like a Ping-Pong ball on steroids. Here he sat. Beautiful, pregnant wife. Elegant penthouse. Successful business. His life hadn’t been shattered. He’d simply stepped back into it and though it hadn’t been an easy adjustment, it had been nothing compared to what Kevin had no doubt gone through. Jack’s tours of duty hadn’t cost him what they had Kevin. And he couldn’t make himself be okay with that.

      His back teeth ground together and he fought against the rising tide of regret within. This was why he hadn’t answered Kevin’s email. Hell, why he hadn’t even opened it. His memories were thick and rich enough that he didn’t need a reminder—being with Kevin in person—to make them even more so. And hell, what could he say to the man? Kevin had lost his legs. Jack had come home whole, if changed. How was that fair?

      How could he look into the man’s eyes, knowing that it was he who had been leading that squad? It was Jack’s decisions that had eventually brought about what had happened to Kevin. If they’d zigged instead of zagged, what might have changed? A man could drive himself crazy with thoughts like that.

      How could Kevin not still blame him?

      Jack had spent months trying to get past the memories of that one fateful day and hadn’t been able to do it. How much more difficult was it for Kevin to try to move past it when every day he was faced with a physical reminder of his own limitations?

      “Jack,” Kevin said quietly, as if he knew exactly what his friend was thinking, feeling, remembering. “You don’t have to do this. Don’t have to feel bad for me. I’m fine. Really.”

      Now, looking into his old friend’s eyes, Jack couldn’t find any blame there, any anger. And that alone surprised him enough that he couldn’t get his head straight.

      Jack felt Rita give his hand a squeeze and he appreciated it. “I can see that. I’m glad for it.”

      “Now all you have to do is accept it.” His friend nodded, kept his eyes fixed on Jack’s. “Took me a long time, I admit it. For weeks after it happened, I’d wake up and try to swing my legs out of bed.” A rueful smile curved his mouth. “Could have sworn I felt them there.”

      “Kevin—”

      “I didn’t come here to make things harder for you, Jack.”

      “Why are you here, then?” He managed to get the question out even though he was worried about the answer.

      “To see you, you damn fool,” Kevin said, leaning back in his chair, shaking his head. “You never answered the email I sent you two months ago. Hell, you never even opened it.”

      “Yeah.” Jack nodded. “Sorry about that. I just—”

      “I get it,” Kevin said. “You still should have read it, though. Would have saved me a drive up from San Diego.”

      Jack smiled at that. He and Kevin had formed a friendship at first because they were both from Southern California. Just a couple hours away from each other by freeway, so they’d had a lot of the same experiences. They’d formed a tighter bond, of course, as all military in combat did, but it had begun on the California connection.

      “So,” Kevin was saying, waving one hand at the chair and his missing legs, “a lot of things have changed. Obviously.”

      Jack watched his friend, looking for some sign of anger or bitterness or blame and couldn’t find any. Instead, he looked...comfortable in his skin. In that chair.

      “But, hey,” Kevin added, smiling at Rita. “Looks like you’ve had some pretty big changes, too. You’re married now, having a baby.”

      Jack glanced at Rita, and when she smiled at him, he felt that tug of guilt again. Kevin couldn’t know that this was a temporary arrangement. And there was no way Jack would let him know. He forced

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