Navy Rescue by Geri Krotow

Author:Geri Krotow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SHE HAD TO give Drew credit. He waited almost three weeks after she’d returned before he pounced.

“You’ve got to get back in the saddle, Gwen.”

“I’m not ready.”

He looked at her over his bowl of rice crisps. Sometime between when she’d left and now, Drew had switched from sugary cereals to rice crisps.

“Gwen, stop avoiding the inevitable. You’ve been holed up in this house for most of a month.”

“The doctors—”

“I don’t care what the doctors say. Sure, take six months off, whatever. But you thrive on being a leader, on being in the cockpit. You can’t expect to get better without having it in your life.”

She swallowed a gulp of coffee and winced when it hit her stomach, its acidity not mixing well with her nerves.

“It’s not like anything I’ve ever gone through before, Drew. I’ve already missed six months of my command tour. They’re doing fine without me. I see no point in going back for the remainder of the squadron’s shore time.”

“That’s the whole point. You have to go back. If you don’t, you’re letting the circumstances that put you in that godforsaken place run the show. You’re telling your team you’ve given up.”

“I failed them. I should never have ditched.”

“What?”

“I could have made it to Manila, Drew. If I’d listened to the intel reports more closely, if I’d been more conservative in our flight profile, that bird might still be flying.”

“You’re playing God now, Gwen, and it’s not very becoming.” Drew stood up and rinsed out his bowl at the sink. “I may just have served out my minimum commitment but I was in the cockpit often enough to know that the P-3 is an old bird that turns into a witch at times. You should’ve had the P-8, but you were stuck with that old frame.”

“Doesn’t matter. It was flying fine for the entire workup to deployment.”

“Are you kidding? Is it worth the energy you’re spending to spit out this BS? Because it’s clear to me and any experienced naval aviator that you had no control over when that plane was going to get hit by a missile, much less fall apart. It happened to be on your watch, on your flight, on your mission. That’s the way the dice rolled.”

She knew Drew wasn’t just blowing smoke up her butt, as the junior officers were fond of saying. He was a man of deliberation and didn’t shy away from the truth as he saw it.

She also knew he’d always been her strongest supporter; their divorce hadn’t changed his professional esteem for her nor hers for him.

“They’re champing at the bit to see you, Gwen. Go back where you belong.”

The phone calls and meal drop-offs at their front door had started in earnest last week. After the initial few weeks of privacy she’d requested, the squadron didn’t hold back their love and support for her. There were no fewer than two dozen casseroles in the freezer and refrigerator, and the kitchen counter was covered with plates of cookies, banana bread, fruit trays and smoked salmon.

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