The Top Gun's Return

Chapter 10

Because she was half-awake, Jessie ignored it at first. Tristan had always drunk beer. The taste and smell of it on his lips seemed natural to her, almost comforting in its familiarity. And besides, his mouth was warm and vibrant, and after a little murmur of surprise and pleasure, responsive. For a few joyful seconds she allowed herself to sink into the sensations she'd been without for so long.

Then…something in her brain said, Wait. Beer? But he was at the hospital.

He must have felt her awareness-the slightest flinch, an instinctive recoil-because when she pulled back to stare at him, his jaw had a set, defensive look to it. "Sorry to be so late," he mumbled, peering narrow-eyed past her at the clock on the nightstand. "Didn't think you'd still be up…stopped downstairs for a beer. Thought it might help me sleep…I'm so damn tired, but my body clock's screwed up…time change, and all."

Jessie thought, One beer and how many more? But she only nodded and murmured, "I know, mine, too."

With one arm still draped around her shoulders, he groped his way into the bedroom and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. While he was struggling to free himself from the top half of his jumpsuit, she knelt and pulled off his shoes.

"Stand up," she ordered curtly when he continued to sit, zombielike, and he obeyed like a sleepy child. She tugged the jumpsuit down to his ankles, setting her jaw and clenching her teeth at the sight of his scarred and desperately thin legs. She pulled back the bedclothes and guided his swaying body down onto the waiting sheets. He toppled sideways into the pillows with a sigh, and his eyes were already closing as she pulled his jumpsuit off and drew the covers up to his shoulder.

"I'll make it up to you…" he mumbled on a long, sighing exhalation. "I will…I promise."

"I know…I know…" Swollen and achy with held-back tears, Jessie combed her fingers lightly through the silvery hair on his temples. "You just go to sleep now…that's right…sleep."

His only reply was a gentle snore. Moving stiffly, shivering and goose bumpy under her T-shirt nightgown, Jessie picked up the jumpsuit and hung it carefully over a chair, then went around to her side of the bed and crawled between the sheets, leaving the light on. She was cold, but didn't dare snuggle up to her husband's body for warmth. Instead she lay curled on her side with her back to him and stared at the luxurious and unfamiliar room while she listened to his unfamiliar snores. It was a long time before sleep came.

Tristan awoke with a vague sense of self-disgust. That feeling evaporated rapidly, however, when he realized that once again he'd slept the night through without dreams.

He raised himself on one elbow to gaze down at his sleeping wife. She lay on her side, facing away from him with her cheek pillowed on her hand, and her hair streamed past her ear and across the pillow like a river of molten gold. He thought of her neck and its lovely, vulnerable nape, now a warm and humid hollow that would smell of her hair and her skin and her femaleness. He thought about burying his face there and tasting the velvety textures with his tongue…sucking strongly to make his mark on her skin. His newly reborn ardor rose in him like a fountain, shivering his skin and warming his belly, and he nearly laughed out loud with the thrill of it. To feel like this again!

But his mouth tasted foully of the beer he'd drunk the night before, and a glance at the clock on the nightstand told him he'd better get cracking if he wanted a shower before Al came to collect him and haul him back to the hospital-for the last time, he prayed.

Reluctantly he leaned down to brush her cheek with his lips, the thought of how lucky he was to be able to do that tiny thing nearly stopping his breath-and then he saw something that robbed him of it completely. A smudge…a tiny purple mark the size of a thumb print…on her cheekbone. It could have been makeup, or the imprint of her hand made while she was sleeping. But he knew it wasn't. It was a bruise, the one he'd made when he'd struck her in his sleep.

He closed his eyes as the passion-heat in his belly turned once more to cold disgust…and a hardening resolve never to let such a thing happen again. He'd had too much to drink that night but it had been the nightmare that had made him hit her. Last night, drunk, he'd slept without dreams. If getting tanked is what it takes, he thought grimly, so be it. The morning-after beer taste in his mouth didn't seem quite so vile as he eased his body out of bed and limped stiffly off to the bathroom.

When he came out, Jessie was sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing her hair. She smiled at him and said, "G'mornin'," but the smile involved only her mouth. The forced brightness of it, and the veiled hurt in her eyes, were all too familiar to him. Boy, did he remember that look. She'd been wearing it, he recalled, when he'd told her he was going to the Persian Gulf, that last time. When he'd tried to explain to her how important it was to him, that this was his last chance at flying combat missions, which was what he'd trained his whole life for, and that it was something he felt he really needed to do.

She'd accepted it, of course-she'd always accepted-but he knew she hadn't understood. Any more than she would understand now if he tried to explain about the darkness and the shadows in his mind, and the filth and the pain and the fear that wouldn't let go of him, that still kept a part of him-maybe the best part, the most important part-locked up in that Iraqi prison. She wouldn't understand that he was never going to be free, that he'd never be home again until he'd found a way to heal the pain, cleanse the filth and banish the fear. And most of all, she'd never understand that she couldn't help him do those things. Nobody could. That was something he had to take care of himself.

"Your dress uniform came," she said. "It's in the closet."

"Oh, yeah?" He didn't look at her as he zipped himself into his jumpsuit. "Great. What time's our meeting with the president?"

"Four o'clock." She got up, walked over to the dresser and laid her hairbrush down. "I thought I might go shopping this morning while you're at the hospital." She said it without turning, carefully not looking at him. "To buy a dress. I don't think I should be wearing slacks to meet the president, d'you? I was thinking maybe Sammi June and I could go."

"Good idea. Don't worry about the money, either. I've got a whole lot of back pay coming-" The phone rang, shrill and jarring in the molasses-thick atmosphere that had come between them. "Oops-that'll be Al-gotta go." Shamefully relieved, he ducked his head and swiftly kissed her cheek. "Buy something pretty," he stupidly said, and as he left her he was mentally shaking his head.

Meaningless noise. It was the kind of thing he'd say to a stranger. Which is what she is, he realized, suddenly feeling bleak as he strode through the early-morning stillness of the hotel corridors, his footsteps soundless on thick spongy carpeting. A stranger in his wife's body.

"I think I like this one," Jessie said, turning in front of the three-way mirror. "What do you think?"

Sammi June spared the lavender sheath with its matching boxy embroidery-trimmed jacket a disdainful glance. "It's okay."

Jessie's shoulders sagged. "Okay? I'm going to meet the president, I don't need 'okay.'" She paused to consider, head to one side and lower lip outthrust. "So, what's wrong with it? It fits, it's your daddy's favorite color." And the price is right, she thought, fighting once more to quell the resentment that had flared when Tris had made that little comment about his back pay. And isn't that just like a man? As if I needed his salary in order to buy myself a dress. As if I hadn't been keeping myself in clothes and everything else for the past eight years, and very well, thank you! "It looks good on me."

"Yeah," said Sammi June, "if you're fifty. Come on, Mom, you're not even forty, and you've got a great bod. You should show it off. Look-how 'bout this?" She held up something black that slithered and floated when she shook its hanger. "Basic black-can't beat that, right? Plus, it's bias cut-it'll cling like a glove, and this sweetheart neckline? Very retro-that's so in right now."

"It looks like something your aunt Joy would wear," Jessie said with a slight shudder. Joy Lynn was known to shop for her vintage clothing in thrift stores and on Ebay-though on her, Jessie had to admit, somehow those old-fashioned styles always looked fantastic.

"Okay, then, how about this one? It's a great color for you, it's got a jacket…long sleeves…your comfort zone, right?"

"Hmm…well…" Jessie fingered the rich deep-plum fabric, then took the hanger and held the jacket in front of herself as she peered at the mirror. "Jacket's nice. Where's the skirt?"

"Right there, Mom. Underneath…see?"

"Good Lord. Sammi June-"

"It's only a couple inches above the knee, Mom. That's not too short. Anyway, you've got great legs. Go on-try it on at least. I dare you."

With a sigh and an eye roll, Jessie headed for the dressing room, followed by a smugly triumphant cackle. As she unzipped and stepped out of the lavender sheath, she was thinking about past clothes-shopping trips with Sammi June and how their roles seemed to have flip-flopped suddenly.

A few minutes later mother and daughter met again in front of the three-way mirror.

"Well," said Sammi June after a thoughtful silence, "what do you think? Was I right or was I right?"

"That skirt is definitely too short," Jessie said, staring pointedly at her daughter's sleek bare thighs.

"I wasn't asking about me. Face it, Mom. That is a stunner. That's not an 'okay.' That is an 'Okay!'"

No question about it, the color was great on her, and the jacket fit like a glove, in a long elegant curving line from shoulder to midthigh. "I don't know. It's kind of low here in front…maybe I should wear a blouse."

"No, no, a great necklace, that's all. And high-heeled sandals with ankle straps. Now me…okay, what this needs is some great boots. Up to about…here. What do you think, Mom?"

What do I think? I think you've grown up way too fast for me. As she stared at the two images in the mirrors, Jessie saw only one…taller than she was and willow-reed slender, shoulder-length blond hair cut in that spiky, waifish way so popular with the younger set nowadays. And now, wearing not the familiar jeans and T-shirts but a sophisticated chocolate-brown pin-striped suit with a jacket longer than the skirt, that could have come straight out of a fashion magazine. She wasn't looking at the images of a mother and her daughter, she realized, but of two women…two women who were physically very much alike, maybe, but in fact very, very different.

"Sammi June," Jessie said, hating herself for bringing it up and knowing she had to and wouldn't be able to help herself. There was an aching tightness in her throat. "I heard what you told the SECNAV. About wanting to be a pilot."

"Yeah? So?" Sammi June pivoted, studying the effect of her outfit from the rear.

"So…when did you come up with that idea?"

"It's something I've been thinking about for a while, that's all." Sammi June still wasn't looking at her. "Look, it's no big deal."

"If it's 'no big deal,'" Jessie said carefully, "then why didn't you say anything to me about it?"

Sammi June threw her a look, then closed her eyes and gave a put-upon sigh. "Because I knew you'd react this way. Look, Mom, it's not like I'm planning on flying Tomcats and going to war and getting shot down or something. I just want to be a pilot-commercial aviation. What's wrong with that?"

"What's wrong-"

"Just because Dad-"

"This has nothing to do with your dad!"

"Oh, no? Then what? I've got news for you, Mom-women can fly airplanes. They do it all the time. It's no more dangerous than…than…I don't know, just about anything else you can name. Driving a car to work every day is more dangerous than flying an airplane, did you know that?"

"Statistically, maybe," Jessie muttered. Then she waved a hand distractedly and reverted to the Southern woman's tried and true defense. "Oh…let's don't talk about it right now, we're just gonna get each other upset." I'll think about it tomorrow; tomorrow is another day. "Are you gonna get that outfit? Because I think I do like this purple thing, and besides, we're runnin' out of time, and we still have to look at shoes…" I can't deal with this. Tris is drinking and won't talk to me…and now Sammi June wants to be a pilot. I can't. Not now. It's just too much.

Trembly and flushed, Jessie fled to the dressing room.

Sammi June was hiding in the White House rose garden. Not literally, of course; the garden was crawling with people, roughly half of whom she estimated were security personnel of one kind or another, the other half, except for Sammi June and her family, being more or less famous. Sammi June had shaken hands with the president and the first lady, and had had about all she could take, for the moment, of being awed, impressed and overwhelmed. Like a small boat in choppy waters, she had chosen to drop anchor in a familiar harbor for a while to ride it out.

This was something she'd learned how to do growing up a military brat, moving around a lot, at least for the first ten years of her life. The technique had served her just as well after she'd settled down in one place only to become "the kid whose daddy got shot down and killed." In either case, she'd always been the one who was different and struggling to fit in, which she'd discovered was easier to do if she could find something that felt familiar to her and focus on it. In this case, roses. A rose was a rose was a rose, she figured, whether it happened to be growing in the White House garden or climbing over Gramma Betty's front porch.

It was a warm, sunny spring day-already May, Sammi June realized. Finals time was fast approaching! And the roses were in full bud, some even opening. She watched a small black butterfly wallow drunkenly past, then, after glancing over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching, ducked her head to sniff a half-opened blossom. She was disappointed to discover it had no particular scent. Her lips were forming a pout when a voice spoke softly from somewhere close by, making her heart jump and adrenaline squirt through her veins.

"Try this one. It's got a nice smell to it."

Because her pulse was skittering in wild and jerky rhythms, Sammi June made sure to pivot lazily, as if she'd known someone was there all along. With her hands clasped behind her back, she tilted her head in order to study the man who had spoken.

He was tall and thin, probably taller than she was even in her high-heeled boots, which meant he had to be over six feet. He had dark hair, lighter than her dad's, maybe the color of mink. A long, angular face with interesting hollows and creases, a sensitive, smiling mouth and dark-blue deep-set eyes behind rimless glasses. It was a compassionate face…an interesting face, Sammi June thought, which in her opinion was way better than handsome. But since she was annoyed with him for startling her, and with herself for being startled, there was no way she was ever going to let him know she thought so.

He began to stroll toward her casually, as if he just happened to be going in that direction. "Cory Pearson," he said, pausing when he was within handshaking range, though he didn't offer to do so, and instead reached out with his eyes and held on to hers with an intensity that seemed much more presumptuous. And personal. "I was-"

"I know who you are," said Sammi June, giving her head a slight toss and setting her chin a notch higher. "I've seen you on television. You're the reporter who was in Iraq with my dad."

He nodded, and his eyes seemed to darken and retreat deeper into the shadows behind his glasses. "Yes. And you're Sam-"

"Samantha," she inserted in a breathless rush, wondering why.

"Samantha." He acknowledged it with a wry smile. "Tristan talked about you a lot, but I have to tell you, you're not…exactly the way he described you."

"I'm sure," said Sammi June dryly. But she felt an odd little vibration behind her breastbone, and although it was a very warm day, her skin had shivered in a way she found rather pleasant. Even…exciting. "The last time he saw me I was, like, ten. I had ponytails. Soccer was my life."

"Wow." He made a soft, ambiguous sound. "I guess you have changed a lot." And his eyes flicked in a particular way that made something inside Sammi June warm and swell and blossom…something uniquely feminine in nature. Though he'd stopped himself from doing it, he'd wanted to look down, at her. At her body…specifically, at the bare stretch of skin between her skirt and her knee-high boots. She was sure of it. And with that assurance came an unfamiliar sense of power…uniquely feminine.

"Not so much," she said in a husky purr, finally conceding him her smile. "I still play soccer. It's just not my life."

He returned her smile, while his eyes continued to study her with that unnerving intensity-unnerving and yet it made her feel as though she were the most fascinating person on the face of the earth. "And…what besides soccer fills up your life these days, Samantha?"

It must have been his eyes, she thought later. Or maybe it was just something-a gift, a knack reporters had for worming secrets out of people. Because Sammi June definitely wasn't the sort to go blabbing her life story to strangers. But somehow, right there in the White House rose garden, she was telling him about her life-all of it-her college classes and her pain-in-the-neck roommate, even the sort of new idea she had about becoming a pilot.

"Ah," he said, nodding. "Because of your dad?"

"Not really…" She lifted a shoulder defensively; that assumption always irritated her. And then, for some reason, she heard herself saying, "Well…I don't know. Maybe. Do you think something like that can be inherited? Like, it's in my genes? I mean, my grampa Max-Dad's father-worked his whole life for Boeing. So Dad grew up around airplanes. I grew up around airplanes…" She shrugged. "Maybe it's just natural?"

"What does your dad think about you flying?"

"Actually…I haven't told him yet." Her brow knit, and she looked away, studying the rosebud she was fondling. "We haven't really talked that much since he's been back. Not that there's been time. Everything's been so…" Her throat tightened.

"This must be hard for you," Cory Pearson said softly. Sammi June threw him a quick, hard look. He was gazing at her with those shadowed, compassionate eyes…and it seemed to her they could see into her very soul. "Having your father come back into your life so suddenly. You grew up without him…spent all those 'little girl and her daddy' years without him. And now that you're all grown-up…" He left it hanging. Sammi June turned her face away from him and stared fixedly at the rosebuds, which were bobbing gracefully in the afternoon breeze, as if in sympathy. She didn't even try to speak.

"Have you told your mom-about flying?" He said it in a lighter, starting-over tone, and Sammi June threw him a grateful glance and a quick, wry smile.

"Sort of. I mean, I didn't exactly tell her. We were having lunch yesterday with the secretary of the navy and a bunch of other people, and the SECNAV asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up, so I…told him. And…I guess my mom overheard." She made a face and added ruefully, "She was not happy. Like, she thinks I'm going to wind up like my dad, or something, I don't know."

"She's got a lot to deal with right now," the reporter said, and added mildly, "You probably could have picked a better time to spring it on her."

Sammi June sighed. "I know. Like I said, I didn't mean to. I wish I hadn't, but…" She paused to watch the toe of her new boots poke at the grass before she added softly, "I know she has a lot on her mind. I think she's worried…about Dad."

He didn't answer, and after a moment she turned to look at him. For once his eyes weren't studying her. He was staring into the distance at something she couldn't see, and his eyes seemed a hundred years old. Her heartbeat quickened.

"Was it…really bad…in that prison?" she asked, the question halting and breathless, forced bravely past the fear that had kept it locked up tight inside her. Until now. Odd, that it should be a stranger who'd give her the courage to voice it. And then, realizing how dumb a question it was, she hurried quickly past it, hoping he wouldn't notice. "Sometimes I try to imagine, you know? What it must have been like for my dad…"

"You can't." The words were hard and blunt, but when she looked at him, startled, she found that his eyes were kind and his mouth gently smiling. "But that's all right. Nobody should ever have to. Especially-" But he didn't finish it, and instead turned abruptly so that he was facing the same way she was, toward the roses. He reached out his hand and lightly touched the curled petals of a half-open bud, much the same way she was.

"They only had me for four months," he said softly. "They accused me of being with the CIA…tried to get me to admit it. Every day I expected to die-especially considering what happened to that other correspondent in Pakistan. Four months-" he took a deep breath "-it seemed like four years. And they had your father for eight years. Eight years. That's something I can't even begin to imagine. What kind of person must it take to survive something like that?" He shook his head, and his face held a look of awe. "Your dad is one very special man, Samantha-that's all I've got to say."

"Mom says he doesn't want to talk about it," Sammi June said slowly, watching his finger stroke the velvety rose petal. "About what happened to him over there. He hasn't said anything, not to her, anyway. He wouldn't at the press conference, either." A warm breeze drifted through the rose bed and languidly touched the bare places on her thighs…the deep vee at her throat…just like that caressing finger, she thought…and was instantly ashamed and dismayed at the behavior of her treacherous mind. To atone, she threw him a look, flipping back her hair, and said in an accusing tone, "You talk about it. All the time. You must've been on…I don't know how many TV shows."

He withdrew the hand that had played such havoc with her imagination and tucked it, along with its mate, out of sight between his arms and sides. "I'm not all that comfortable talking about it, either, actually," he said, gazing across the rose bed. "If they ask me, I try to answer, but what I'd rather do is write about it. That's what's helped me more than anything, I think." He paused and after a moment, shook his head. "You dad just has to find his own way of dealing with it. Everybody's different. He has to find what works for him."

"I guess." She, too, turned away from the roses and folded her arms across her chest. In spite of the warm sunshine and friendly breeze, she felt chilled. "But…some people don't, do they? I mean, some people never do make it work. It's like…last night my grampa-grandfather-Dad's father, Max, and I went to visit the Vietnam Memorial, and there were all these people there. Some of them seemed kind of raggedy and…I don't know…lost. Like, you just knew they'd been there. And you had this feeling they never did find their way back." She gave a short, self-conscious laugh, once again wondering what was making her tell these personal things to this man-a stranger. And why, even though she wondered, she couldn't seem to stop herself. "When I was in high school," she heard herself say, "and we were studying the Vietnam War, I used to imagine-oh, it's stupid-"

"I seriously doubt that," Cory said, smiling in a way that made her believe he meant it. "What did you imagine?"

Sammi June considered, then threw it at him defiantly. You think I can't be stupid? Think again, mister! How's this? "Okay. I used to tell myself my father was alive and being held prisoner, like the ones in Vietnam. And that someday he'd come home-" Her voice deserted her, this time her laughter sounded high and desperate.

"You see? It wasn't so stupid after all, was it?" His voice was so gentle. Sammi June looked at him through a protective curtain of hair, precarious, teetering on the edge of disaster.

"That's not the worst of it," she said, her voice growing quiet and husky. "Sometimes I'd even wish for it on the Evening Star-you know…'Starlight, star bright, first star I've seen tonight…' like a little kid. And I must have been…fourteen?"

"That old?" said Cory, shaking his head. "Shocking." Sammi June gave him a playful shove. He caught at her arm, laughing and off balance, and then, looking beyond her, dropped his voice to a conspiratory whisper. "Oops-I think we're about to be formally introduced."

Following his gaze, Sammi June saw her mom and dad coming toward them across the expanse of manicured lawn. She tried, but couldn't think of anything flippant to say. She was feeling so weird. All shaky and shivery inside…heart beating too fast and cheeks too warm…annoyed with herself for sounding like an idiot-or worse, a child-in front of this man, this stranger. And even weirder was the fact that she, who was seldom afraid of anyone, was more than a little afraid of the man…a kind and compassionate man with a knack for drawing secrets out of people. A man with eyes that could see inside her soul.