Page 83 of His Best Friend's Baby

“They were late. Six minutes.” He shook his head and shut his eyes. “I sat at the meeting place waiting for Mitch and the crew to fly in the helicopter for six long minutes. Gomez was barely conscious. He was bleeding out, pressure low, heartbeat faint. He had zero time left. Finally they showed up. They’d taken on enemy fire and been hit. They were leaking fuel. Not bad—” he shrugged “—but enough.”

“Enough for what?” Julia whispered, worried that too loud a voice would scare him away.

Jesse stumbled back, bumped the table and grabbed the Formica for balance.

“Mitch wanted to head to another base. A smaller one—closer, but with limited medical resources.” His laugh was bitter and small. “No medical resources. Gomez would have died.”

“So you said no?”

“Uncle Sam couldn’t afford to have another dead journalist in the media, mucking up public opinion of the war. So I was supposed to break Gomez out of that prison and Mitch and his men were transport and firepower. Gomez was the mission. I thought Mitch was scared and—” he flexed his hand and squeezed again “—I was pissed. I was pissed because I knew once Mitch was fired on, he’d fire back. He was late because he’d engaged the enemy when our orders had been not to engage the enemy, under no circumstances.”

“That sounds like Mitch.”

“I ignored his warnings. He said we were losing too much fuel. That we wouldn’t make it.”

“But you made it,” Julia said stupidly.

“I made it,” Jesse growled. “I made it. We crashed and I got Gomez out but I couldn’t—” He broke off. “They burned. Artie, Dave, Mitch.”

“Jesse, that’s all terrible but it’s not—”

“If we’d gone to the other base, Mitch would be here. Mitch and Dave and Artie would all be here.”

“But Caleb would have died.” She realized that was the equation that tore him apart. Three soldiers or one journalist? His best friend and loyal squad mates, or a man he’d never met before?

Mortal men had no business playing with these decisions. The price was high and cut deep through his entire life.

Failure. Death. Either way.

“Jesse,” she sobbed. “You did the best you could.”

“I chose someone else over Mitch. A stranger. And now Mitch is dead and for what?” he asked, his eyes burning. “To teach Mitch a lesson? Because I was mad?” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and turned away from her, but she didn’t let him get away. She slid her hands over his arms, touched as much of him as she could, held him as close as she could while tears ran hot down her face.

“You followed orders,” she whispered against his back.

“Good for me. I’m a hell of a soldier.” She could hear the sneer in his voice.

“You can’t blame yourself for this.” She leaned around his shoulder to see his face, stunned that he did blame himself for the accident, for Mitch.

“The blame has to go somewhere and I’m the only one here, Julia. I’m the only one alive.”

“Thank God,” she said on a choked voice. “Thank God you’re here.”

He pushed away from her. “This doesn’t change anything, Julia.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I don’t need your forgiveness.” He turned to face her, his expression a stone mask she couldn’t see behind. “You forgive the unforgivable, that’s what you do. It doesn’t mean anything.”

She stumbled backward, slashed by his words. Her chest hurt so much she could barely breathe.

“It’s better this way,” he said. “You wanted to move on. You need to move on—”

She whirled on him. All of her grief evaporated in a white flare of rage. “How dare you,” she whispered, surprised when fire didn’t flare from her lips. “How dare you tell me what I need.”

For a second she thought the knocking sound was simply her heart struggling to erupt from her chest, but then she realized the frantic pounding was coming from the door.

She stomped over to the door and threw it open.

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