Travis's eyes widened. He brought our hands up and softly kissed the backs of my fingers. For a moment, I was sure he was going to tell me he wished he could help, but that was a line he couldn't cross. And if he'd said that, I wouldn't have blamed him.
Instead, he whispered, "Nothing leaves this room. I promise."
I held his gaze. My heart was going even faster now-after keeping this all bottled up for so long, under strict orders to never breathe a word of it, I wasn't even sure I had the vocabulary to talk about it.
Acid burned my throat. "It was . . ." I closed my eyes and pushed out a ragged breath. "It was about three years ago now. We'd been monitoring this target for months. By the time we got the green light to strike, we knew every inch of that building and who was occupying it. When they came and went, when and where they shit, what they ate, what websites they were using . . ." I looked at Travis. "There was nothing about those guys we didn't know."
He nodded slowly, a silent go on.
"So we got the order-take out the building and everyone in it. Everything went smoothly. The ground crew over there turned the drone's controls over to me. We flew in, we bombed the shit out of it, and flew it back. Handed the controls back, and we were done." The acid in my throat burned hotter. I swallowed, trying to tamp down some of the queasiness.
Travis put a hand over my forearm, but he didn't speak.
I tamped down the nausea. "It wasn't until the next day that we knew something had gone wrong." I leaned against the headboard. Staring up at the ceiling, I went on. "I don't know how the enemy knew, or if they did, or if it was just horrible luck. All I know is, when I took out that building I had every reason to believe it was full of high-ranking enemy combatants . . ." My mouth went dry. I combed a shaky hand through my damp hair. "The only bodies they found afterward were civilians."
Travis's breath hitched.
"Fifty-seven civilians. Mostly women and kids." I forced back a fresh wave of nausea. "They didn't recover a single combatant, but even if they had, I mean . . . fifty-seven civilians."
"Jesus." He gripped my hand even tighter.
I coughed to get my breath moving. "My command tried to hem up everyone involved, but after the investigation, it was obvious we had no way of knowing. They combed through every shred of intel, and agreed we had every reason to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that our targets were in that building." I rolled my stiffening shoulders. "So, after that, we went back to work. And the next time I tried to fly a mission, I choked. I couldn't do it."
"Is that why you came to Adams?"
"Not . . ." I closed my eyes. "Not right away. They moved me into an admin position. Kind of like what I'm doing now. It was supposed to be temporary. Something to keep me working-first while they investigated me for wrongdoing, and then while I recovered from the trauma." Even queasier than before, I met Travis's gaze. "But recovering . . . I mean, how the fuck was I supposed to recover from something like that?"
He traced his thumb alongside my hand. "I don't guess you had a lot of people you could talk to."
"There was no one. Absolutely no one." I moistened my lips. "The crew involved in the incident didn't want to talk about it." Rubbing my eyes, I sighed. "During the debrief, we had to sign even more nondisclosure forms than we'd already signed, and our chain of command reminded us a hundred times that even chaplains and therapists were off-limits, no matter their clearance."
"Is that . . . is that legal?"
"I don't even know anymore. Anyone I asked just told me to keep my mouth shut." I dropped my hand and met Travis's gaze. "I couldn't tell a shrink. I couldn't tell my wife. I couldn't tell anyone. And it was eating at me. One of the guys I worked with, he said it was like an invisible cancer. It's there, and it's killing you, but you can't tell anyone about it. Not even a doctor. You just have to sit there and pretend it doesn't exist until it finally finishes you off."
"Shit," he said. "That's unreal."
"And I shouldn't have even told you." I made myself meet his gaze, and damn my voice for shaking as I whispered, "But I can't carry this by myself anymore."
"You shouldn't have to."
"Not that I have much choice." I pushed back some fresh nausea. "I'm telling you, I never knew there could be such a fine line between collateral damage and a war crime. And when you're the guy pulling the trigger . . ." I shook my head. "I don't think that line really exists. Or if it does, it doesn't matter."
Travis ran his thumb back and forth along mine again, but said nothing.
When the silence started getting unbearable, I went on. "It was like a switch was flipped. One day I had this job that was stressful and taxing, but it was doable. And the next . . . the next I was all kinds of fucked up. After that, I hid in a bottle. I'd walk in the door after work, and I wouldn't even change out of my uniform before I was pouring something." I rubbed the back of my sweaty neck. "And things went downhill from there."
"I can't even imagine," he breathed.
Except he could. After what he'd gone through, crashing into the carrier and being pulled from the water, I didn't think anyone would begrudge him if he spent some time in a bottle. That was a level of danger RAPs never had to worry about.
"And yes, people think . . ." I paused. "They can't see how this job fucks people up. They don't get it. Being thousands of miles away from the war zone doesn't make it less traumatic to fire the weapon."
He tipped up my chin and kissed me softly. "War is our job. It's going to affect all of us, even if we're not right there at the front lines."
"I know. But it . . ." I stared at my wringing hands. "We're working with people who are close to the front lines. Drone warfare keeps our guys out of harm's way, but not all of them. There's a ground crew over there. They're not right in the middle of the shit that's going down, but they're a hell of a lot closer than the RAPs." I turned to Travis. "How do you tell one of those guys you're as fucked up as he is when he had to sleep in a tent or a shipping container in hundred-degree heat, knowing he could get bombed during the night?"
"Clint." He covered my hands with his and stilled them. "Even if somebody is more affected than you, like to the point they can't even function, it doesn't negate what happened to you."
I exhaled hard. "Thank you. And it's . . . it's a load off my mind just to be able to talk about it."
"I believe it. You shouldn't have to hold on to that by yourself."
"It's hell," I whispered.
He pulled me in for another kiss. "I don't doubt that at all. I'm sorry you have to deal with it."
I didn't speak. Just talking about the incident and its fallout had left me numb, but looking in Travis's eyes woke up some feelings. It was this bizarre sensation, like talking about it for the first time had been a way of reliving it, and when I was done, I was still alive. My life wasn't in the chaos and shambles it had been after the real thing had gone down.
I was alive. I was here. I was sober.
And Travis was still looking at me the way he always did.
"You know, to be honest . . ." I moistened my parched lips. "Now that it's off my chest, I don't really want to think about it anymore tonight."
"What do you want to think about?"
I didn't answer right away. I wasn't exactly sure how. What did I want to think about tonight?
Then, heart thumping, I touched his face. "You."
Travis said nothing. He wrapped his arm around me, tilted his head, and pressed his lips to mine.
And all I thought about after that was him.
I hadn't been in the mood all day, but now that he was pressed up against me, heat radiating through our clothes while our lips frantically moved together, my whole body responded. If Clint wanted something else to think about, that was one thing I could definitely do for him. I couldn't erase what had happened to him, or the way it had all but destroyed his life, but I could make damn sure he felt good tonight.
I kissed him like it was the first time-hungrily, breathlessly, pushing him down into the mattress as he held on to handfuls of my hair and my shirt. An annoying spasm knifed its way along my spine, but Clint was panting and shaking, so I ignored the pain and kissed him some more. Despite my stupid back and everything that had been churning inside my skull since last night, losing myself in his kiss relaxed me. All the apprehension about what this was and what we were doing and what I might do to fuck it up-none of that mattered right now.
He tugged my shirt free from my waistband. Once it was loose, he slid his hands under it, and we both sighed as his palms ran across my bare skin. Jesus, I needed to feel more of him. I came down a little, so my chest touched his, and kissed his neck. He tilted his head back. His fingers curled against my sides, almost enough for his nails to bite in, and goddamn, even through our clothes, I loved the way his hard-on felt when it rubbed mine.
In fact, I loved how his skin felt against mine, and right now, there was too much in the way. Carefully, so I wouldn't jar my stupid back, I sat up, still straddling him. I peeled off my shirt, tossed it aside, and reached back to disconnect the TENS wires, but Clint caught my arm.