The Top Gun's Return by Kathleen Creighton

Author:Kathleen Creighton [Creighton, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fiction, Romance, General, Erotica
ISBN: 9780373273324
Google: e4tlwLnjWGcC
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2002-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Jess didn’t say much in the car as they were being driven to the plane. Although Tristan knew there were two good reasons for her reticence—Al Sharpe at the wheel and Lieutenant Commander Rees beside him in the front seat—he still had the feeling the reason for her silence was that once again he’d let her down. Since the news conference he’d felt her disappointment like a physical touch; her unanswered questions were an incessant tapping behind his temples.

But explaining to her why he couldn’t give her the answers she wanted seemed utterly beyond him, and eventually he put his head back against the seat and pretended exhaustion. He didn’t have to pretend much, and the headache he had was real enough. Evidently, he wryly told himself, the aftereffects of a little too much Altbier.

It wasn’t until they were in the Air Force jet somewhere over the North Atlantic that Jess finally broke a long, droning silence. Out of the blue—so to speak—she said, “It might be better if you talked about it.”

Tristan had been dozing, drifting in and out of shadows. Shaking off their wispy remnants, he turned his head to look at her. Her luminous eyes, filled only with compassion and concern, were to him a silent accusation. Pretending to misunderstand, he yawned, grinned and leaned closer to murmur huskily, “I’d a whole lot rather do than talk about it, sweetheart. Told you I was gonna make it up to you. Soon as I get the chance.”

He could almost feel the heat of her blush, but her gaze didn’t waver. She said breathlessly, “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. Tris, what happened to you…you can’t expect it not to have—I mean, PTSD isn’t something to be ashamed—”

He made a sound somewhere between a snort and a sigh and rolled his head away from her. “God, Jess, don’t you start. I’ve heard it all from the military shrinks, believe me.”

“Then why—”

“What’s the point?” His voice, though barely above a whisper, was explosive, like an air gun letting go, and he paused for several breaths to force himself to ease up. “Look,” he said when he felt calm enough, “who do you think’s going to understand? Nobody can understand. Nobody. I can talk about it until the cows come home and it’s not gonna make anybody know what it was like. Ever. Okay, Cory Pearson’s a journalist, he’s gonna write about it because that’s who he is. It’s what he has to do, I guess. But not one word he writes, I don’t care how good he is with words, not one word is ever gonna make anyone feel what we felt. So what’s the point in talking about it?”

“That’s not what it’s for—talking about it.” Her whisper had a sticky sound. “It’s to help you.”

“Oh, yeah? Help me do what? Remember?” He fought against the sudden stabbing urge to tell her everything. About the pain, the cold and the hunger, the humiliation, the sense of utter powerlessness, the fear, the isolation, the constant expectation of death.

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