Waiting for You(41)

He needed to pull out of her and take care of the condom. In a minute he would. But it felt so good to be inside her that he closed his eyes, not willing to separate their bodies just yet, and telling himself he was in no danger of falling asleep.

“You lucky son of a bitch.”

He and Dan were standing behind the dubious shelter of a mud wall, watching the disposal team use a plastic explosive to detonate the IED that should have killed him. They hadn’t figured out what had gone wrong with the device, other than the fact that the damn thing hadn’t gone off when Jake had stepped on the pressure plate hidden in the soil.

The guys in the patrol were slapping him on the back, pumped up that for once, the fortunes of war had turned up pocket aces for one of their own.

He should have felt the same way, should have been the happiest man on the planet. But it bothered him that the disposal team hadn’t found an explanation for why the bomb hadn’t gone off.

Maybe it was because he’d seen too many people die in the last ten years, but he wanted a reason other than dumb luck for still being alive.

Then came another day and another patrol. Most of the men in Charlie Company would cover twenty miles on foot that day, except for two soldiers who would take a helicopter to another base to pick up supplies.

Jake was slated to be one of them. But Dan had just gotten over a stomach bug and still felt like crap, and Jake suggested he go, instead.

Dan grinned. “I’m not going to take your charity. Let’s leave it up to lady luck.” He pulled out a quarter and tossed it into the air. “Call it,” he said, and Jake called heads while the coin was still spinning.

It landed tails.

“Lucky son of a bitch,” one of the other men had muttered while they watched the copter take off.

It rose only high enough to crash.

All Jake could think about as he ran towards the downed copter was the picture of Angie and Paul that Dan had showed him the night before. Dan couldn’t be dead. The crash wasn’t that bad. There could be survivors. If he could get there before the fuel—

The explosion knocked him to the ground.

“Jake! Jake!” He heard someone shouting, but it didn’t sound like his voice. After a few confused seconds he realized that Erin was shaking him awake, her face pale and a red mark starting to show on her cheekbone.

“Oh, God,” he said in dawning horror.

“It’s all right. It’s nothing. You had a nightmare, that’s all.”

But her voice was trembling, and he could see shock in her eyes.

He pushed himself away from her and off the bed. Heart pounding and nausea rising, he stumbled out of the room and into the hallway, finding his way to the bathroom.

He bent over the toilet, his hands braced on the seat, but he didn’t throw up. After a minute he went to the sink and splashed his face with cold water.

How could he have let this happen? How could he have fallen asleep? He knew how dangerous that could be.

How dangerous he could be.

Turning off the tap, he looked at himself in the mirror. He’d taken Erin’s virginity and hit her in the face. It was time to go back and give her the chance to throw him out of her house.

He was a little calmer when he went into Erin’s bedroom again. She’d pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms and a tee shirt and was sitting on the edge of her bed.

The red mark on her face looked worse.

She spoke before he could say a word. “Please don’t worry about it. I flail around in my sleep, too. Especially if I’m having a bad dream.”

A bad dream.

The taste of it was still in his mouth, like dust and ashes.

“It’s my fault,” he said. “I shouldn’t have fallen asleep. I knew I …God, Erin, I’m so sorry.”

He rubbed a hand over his eyes, and then went around to the other side of the bed for his clothes. He kept his back to her as he pulled on his boxers and jeans.

“Can you tell me what you dreamed about?” she asked softly.

“No.” The word was jerked out of him. As badly as he felt about what had happened, there was no way he was talking about the memories that haunted him.

“You don’t have to leave,” Erin said after he pulled on his tee shirt. “It’s not even eight o’clock yet. We can still have dinner. I can cook something if you don’t want to go out.”

“No. I need to head home.”

He had to get the hell out of here. He’d stop by his apartment first, and then leave town tonight instead of tomorrow morning. He’d ride until he couldn’t stay awake anymore.

Once his boots were on he went to the door, and only then did he turn and look at Erin again. Her bruise looked worse, and his jaw tightened. The sight of that mark on her face made him feel sick.