Back in Service

Why was she even considering helping this guy?

Because she, at least, was a grown-up now. Because he was hurting. Because helping people in pain was her job. Because Kendra knew depression, knew how it could sap your ability to get out of bed in the morning, how the idea of having to live the rest of your life seemed an impossibility, how feeling anything but crushing pain seemed a distant dream, sometimes not even worth going after. Didn’t matter what caused the pain, the very fact of its existence meant conquering it should be imperative.

After she’d emerged from the worst of her own grief with the support and help of an amazing therapist Lena had dragged her to, Kendra had decided she wanted to help people out of that same darkness.

For her program, she used the techniques that had helped her the most, starting slow and simple—getting out of the house and back in touch with nature, then gradually resuming favorite hobbies and activities and introducing new ones that had no memories attached. And along with that, listening, compassion and a friendly shoulder—repeat as needed.

Could she offer those things to Jameson Cartwright in good faith? She’d need to make sure she didn’t just want to prove he hadn’t won. To show him how in spite of him and people like him, she’d emerged with self-esteem intact. To parade her slender self, no longer in thick-framed glasses or drab don’t-look-at-me clothes. To show him she had the strength to survive worse than anything he’d ever dreamed of dishing out, a tragedy that put his stupid pranks and arrogance into stunning perspective. To be able to confront him in a situation in which, finally, she held all the power.

Kendra would need to check her baggage and her ego at his door. If she couldn’t be genuine in her approach, she’d do neither of them any good.

A red-tailed hawk circled lazily over a fir tree growing partway down the hill, its uppermost needles at eye level where she sat. The bird landed on the treetop, folded its feathers and stood fierce and proud, branch rebounding gently under him.

When Kendra was in elementary school, she’d found a baby hawk on the fire road below their house—how old had she been, seven? Eight? The creature had broken its wing and lay helpless to move, to fly, terrified of the sudden vulnerability.

In spite of his feeble attempts to peck her eyes out, she’d gotten the creature to the house; her mother had helped her transport it to the Humane Society. Kendra had visited often while the hawk healed, naming it Spirit. The staff had invited her to come along when they rereleased Spirit into the wild. She’d watched him soar into the sky and had felt the deep joy that comes from helping a fellow creature heal.

Kendra had thought of that bird often as she’d struggled through the first year after the crash that left her without family except for the much-older brother she’d never had much in common with who lived abroad. And she’d thought about Spirit when she’d decided on her career path, and when she met people made helpless by grief, and when she was first trying to help people who wanted nothing more than to peck her eyes out. Because she knew something they couldn’t grasp yet. That there would be a moment when she could rerelease them into the wilds of a renewed life and watch them soar.

She picked up the phone and dialed Jameson.

2

WE LIVE IN fame or go down in flame. The line from the Air Force song played endlessly in Jameson’s head. Torture. As if he needed more.

He was stretched out on his buddy Mike’s sofa, staring out the window, sick to death of watching TV. Yeah, he’d gone down in flame. Because this sure wasn’t fame, and it could only marginally be called living.

At least Mike had his back, letting him stay at his place so Jameson wouldn’t have to crawl to Mom and Dad. As if his humiliation wasn’t complete enough, moving back home would have about killed him. He’d met Mike at Maxwell during basic officer training, and in one of those stranger-than-fiction coincidences realized he was living in Jameson’s hometown with his wife, Pat, who was with her new-mom sister in Reno. Mike had been assigned to train at Keesler in computer communications at the same time as Jameson, and offered his place after Jameson’s accident. Couldn’t have worked out better.

His cell rang. Again. He didn’t look at it. He hadn’t looked at it last time or the time before that. It was Dad or Mom or Matty or one of his brothers or a friend. They’d make stilted conversation, Matty and Mom oozing sympathetic cheer, his male relatives masking their contempt with endless advice about how to recover faster than he was, friends who didn’t know expressing shock, Air Force friends going on about all the training he was missing.

He laughed bitterly, throat tight, painful weight in his chest, gazing at the sky. Look out there. No clouds. No birds. No planes. A vast nothing, stretching out over the sea. Perfect metaphor for his days since the accident. Over a month of this limbo, first medical leave, now personal. November 4 today, the accident had happened in early September, then surgery, rehabilitation—felt like forever. And it would be if he was one of the unlucky few who didn’t recover post-surgery stability in his knee. The Air Force couldn’t use a man who couldn’t pass their physical test.

He’d done everything right, everything a Cartwright was supposed to do except want to be a flier. He’d majored in computer engineering at Chicago University, a career field in good demand in the Air Force. He’d excelled in his ROTC training, breezed through basic officer training, in both cases earning the friendship and respect of his fellow officers and commanders. His father and brothers were finally looking up to him, in spite of him being the first Cartwright nonpilot. He was on top, poised to continue at Keesler. He’d ace that, too. What could go wrong?

Everything.

He hadn’t seen the damn cat, but he’d sure heard it and felt it. He’d gone down, twisting to one side rather than crush the little bastard, and had torn his ACL—his anterior cruciate ligament, to be precise—clean off the bone, and also damaged his cartilage. Badly. One second in time, a moment he’d take back and redo a hundred different ways if only he could. But, as Dad liked to say, life gave you no do-overs. You had to get everything very right the very first time.

The door buzzer rang, making him jump and curse the intrusion and the surprise. He’d been in town a few days and hadn’t seen anyone. Only his family knew he was back, and he’d made it clear he wasn’t ready for visits from any of them. This must be one of Mike’s friends who didn’t know Mike was training at Keesler. Where Jameson was supposed to be. Working hard, moving forward.

Two months of stagnation. Many, many more months to come.

He hauled himself off the couch, thinking a shower and shave were a good idea sometime this month—maybe for Thanksgiving—adjusted his knee brace, and limped through the living room and dining area to the front door, where he pressed the intercom.

“Yeah?”

“Lieutenant Cartwright?” A woman’s voice.

He stiffened instinctively. Lieutenant? Oh, man. He should not be caught by Air Force personnel looking like such a mess. Why hadn’t they called first?

He hadn’t been answering his phone.

Crap.

But how had she found him? He’d given out his parents’ address here in town.

Dad. Doggone it.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“This is Kendra Lonergan.”

Jameson did a double take. Kendra Lonergan? From high school? She was in the Air Force? He couldn’t imagine it. There must be more than one Kendra Lonergan in the world. “How can I help you, ma’am?”

“Just checking in. I’ve been sent by Major Kornish.”

His orthopedist at Keesler had sent someone here?

“Yes, ma’am.” He pushed the buzzer so she could enter the building and hobbled into the bathroom, where he splashed water on his face, combed his dirty hair, cringing at the coarse stubble on his face, and reapplied deodorant, ashamed of how he’d let himself go. That done, he hesitated in the doorway, wondering if he could make it into the bedroom for a clean shirt before she got to his door. He was still slow moving, slower than he thought he should be by now, and didn’t want to keep her waiting.

Jameson glanced down. Oh, man. Food stains. Clean shirt was a good idea.

In the bedroom, he’d barely gotten his old one off before the knock came, brisk and no-nonsense, four rapid taps.

Hurry. He yanked the new shirt over his head, part of his physical training uniform, and made it back as fast as he could. Bad sign, this continued pain. He tried not to think about it or what it could mean about the success—or not—of the surgery. Not to mention his chances of staying in the Air Force. Maybe he’d just gone overboard on his home exercises that morning.

“Coming.” He reached the door and opened it.

Holy moly, Kendra Lonergan.

No, this couldn’t be the same woman.

“Hi, Jameson.”

He blinked. The voice was the same. It was her. “What happened to ‘Lieutenant’?”

“Doesn’t suit you.” She stared unapologetically with green eyes he didn’t remember being so big or so beautiful. She was also taller. Or at least thinner. And without glasses. Instead of the short ginger hair that looked as if her mother had cut it, she’d pulled back a long mass of auburn waves into a casual ponytail. In place of the drab succession of stretch pants and long shirts, she wore a short flowery skirt under layered tops in bright colors.

Kendra Lonergan was a knockout. And definitely not in any branch of the military.

“You look...different.” He hid a wince. Could he say anything more inane?

“Huh.” She looked him up and down. “So do you.”

Yeah, well, tough. It was unfamiliar and extremely unpleasant to be ambushed like this. He’d been raised to be ready for anything at any time. “What are you doing here? How did you know where I was?”

“Dr. Kornish sent me. I told you.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What for? What’s your connection to him?”

“May I come in?”

“Why?”

“So I can look around. See how you live, how you’re doing.” With a flourish she produced a clipboard and a pen from an immense purse that seemed to be made of patches of brightly dyed leathers. “So I can report back.”

“To my doctor...”

“Kornish, yes,” she answered patiently, peering past him. He moved back as she stepped in, to avoid her getting too close. He was not at his best smelling.

“Why doesn’t he ask me how I’m doing?”

“Because he’d rather hear it from me.” She walked through the dining area to the center of the living room, turning in a slow circle, taking in the TV, the rumpled couch and the state of the coffee table, which made it clear he’d been camped out in this room for quite some time. “Nice place. You own it?”

“I’m house-sitting for a friend. Why does he trust you?”

“I’m a professional.” She made some notes on her clipboard and moved toward the kitchen.

“Professional what?” He hobbled after her, trying not to stare at the way the flimsy material of her skirt clung to her very fine rear end.

“I help people recover.” She peered into the sink at the pile of dirty dishes. Okay, he wasn’t at his best. It was none of her business.

“If you’re not a doctor...”

Kendra turned back toward him. “I’m not here for your physical recovery.”

“No?” He was immediately hit with an image of her helping him with his sexual recovery, which irritated him even more. “What, then? Spiritual recovery?”

“Something like that.” She moved past him, toward his bedroom. He followed, hoping she didn’t do more than glance at the bathroom. It was not pretty.

“My spiritual views are private.”

“Nothing to do with religion.” She stopped at the bedroom door, flicked him a glance and went inside. Jameson hadn’t open the blinds yet. Or made his bed. Or picked up his dirty underwear. Well, she’d invited herself in. He owed her nothing. Though he wasn’t wild about a description of this mess going into some report.

This was so effed up. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I called. You didn’t answer the phone.” She left his bedroom to glance into the master bedroom, still gleamingly neat because Jameson hadn’t set foot in it.

“I didn’t want to talk to anybody.” He followed her back into the living room, feeling like a damn puppy now, more and more annoyed.

“Hmm.” She planted herself on the black leather chair next to the sofa, looking as if she was going to stay awhile. “That’s a problem.”

“Why?”

“Because you have to talk to me.” She consulted her clipboard. “First tell me how you’re feeling.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “If this is therapy crap, I’m not interested.”

“Just checking in.” She smiled too sweetly, green eyes sparkling. It occurred to him he’d never seen her smile at him. Not that this was a real smile. But damn, it lit up the room even so. “Can I have some water, Jameson?”

“Tell me exactly what you are doing here, what you—”

“Oh, sorry, your knee. I forgot. I’ll get it.”

“Get what?”

“Water.”

Right. He stared after her as she disappeared into his kitchen, keeping his eyes resolutely on the back of her head this time. What the hell? Was she deaf? Crazy?

He made a sound of frustration. No, she wasn’t crazy. She was Kendra, as she’d always been, totally sure of herself and incredibly determined. She’d driven him nuts all the way from elementary school through their senior year, simply because he’d never been able to rattle her. Apparently nothing had changed.

Moving carefully, he maneuvered himself onto the big chair she’d left—staking his claim, yeah, but it was also easier on his knee to sit there.

“Now.” She came back with the water, stopped to peer at a picture of Mike in uniform with his arm around his wife, Pat, then plopped down onto the couch and drank. Jameson found himself staring at her rosy lips on the glass’s rim, the glimpse of white teeth, the pale column of her throat working as she swallowed. Kendra Lonergan was in his apartment, looking like temptation itself. Kendra Lonergan. His brain refused to process it.

Finished, she put the glass down between a coffee mug from four days ago and a plastic tray from a fairly disgusting frozen dinner two nights earlier. She lifted the top page of her clipboard and peered at the sheet underneath.

“I would imagine you’re feeling pretty horrible about all this. A big change, not part of your plan at all.” Her voice was gentle, concerned. “A threat to everything you’ve worked for your whole life—a career as an officer in the Air Force.”

Her compassion pissed him off even more, because it was so tempting to start whining like a baby. “No, no, this is the greatest.”

“Uh-huh.” Kendra didn’t blink. “You’re obviously still in pain.”

“Nah.”

“You sleeping okay?”

“Never better.”

“How is your appetite?”

“Outstanding.”

“Any weight gain or loss?”

“Neither.”

“Energy level?”

“High.”

“Sexual function?”

“Hey.” He glared at her, wondering what she’d been scribbling on her sheet. “None of your business.”

“Okay.” She scrawled again.

“Are we done yet?”

Kendra lifted the clipboard to read. “Subject is exhibiting clear signs of depression, including sleeplessness, minimal appetite, weight loss and lethargy.”

Right on all counts. How the hell did she know?

“He is also impotent.”

Jameson bristled. “I am not impotent.”

“Don’t worry.” She turned that sweet grin on him. This time she was really smiling. It made him want to smile back. Or growl at her. Or kiss her. “I won’t tell.”

“Kendra...”

“Teasing.” Her smile grew wider. “I didn’t really write that you were.”

“You—” She’d gotten him. Fair game. “Is part of your treatment plan to make me want to toss you off my balcony?”

“If necessary.” She capped her pen and tucked it back into the top of the clipboard. “How is your family reacting to your disability?”

“Fine.”

“How is your dad reacting to your disability?”

He felt a rush of anger, first at his dad, then at her. She had no right to question him about any of this. “Dad supports me no matter what.”

She held his gaze for a moment, then nodded slowly. “That’s what I thought.”

Jameson swallowed. He felt a loss, almost a betrayal, as if he assumed she’d be able to see through that lie, too, and offer him—

What? A widdle huggy-wuggums?

For God’s sake, get a grip, airman.

“How are your brothers coping with your—”

“Disability. They are also very happy for me.” His knee was throbbing. He took hold of his thigh with both hands and swung the leg up to rest on the pile of Mike’s GQ magazines he’d arranged so he could elevate his injury. “I mean they are also supportive. At all times.”

“I remember that about your brothers.”

Her tone was quiet, but he sensed the steel in it. A pang of guilt lessened his anger. Kendra knew Mark and Hayden. For years he’d been their puppet, admiring their dadlike toughness and what he’d perceived then as leadership. In college ROTC and basic training he’d learned that a true leader inspired and respected his men. That’s the kind of leader Jameson wanted to be in the Air Force. A new kind of Cartwright.

But it looked as if he bloody well wouldn’t get the chance for nearly another year. Possibly not at all.

He shifted in frustration, causing a landslide in the pile of magazines under his foot. His leg fell, twisting, onto the table with a thud that shot pain from his knee to his hip.

He was dimly aware of Kendra running from the room. She was back beside him so quickly he wondered if he’d blacked out.

“Here you go. This should help.” He felt the chill of a cold pack over his knee, then through the lingering haze of pain, the blessed cool of a wet cloth across his forehead and a warm hand on his shoulder. “Should I call someone? Can I get you meds?”

He shook his head, which was clearing rapidly at her touch. He didn’t need baby nursing. “I’m fine.”

“Oh, yeah, I can tell. You’re in perfect shape.” Her voice was exasperated. “Here. Let me at least do this.”

She sat on the coffee table and gently lifted his leg into her lap, somehow managing not to hurt him or disturb the cold pack.

“What are you doing?” He was unnecessarily snappy from the pain and oddly panicky for some other reason he couldn’t identify.

“I’m going to aim karate chops at your knee until you tell me the location of the missing computer chip.”

What the—

She didn’t, of course. He didn’t expect her to. But he also didn’t expect what she did do. Carefully but firmly, she began to massage his feet through his socks, which, thank God, were clean that morning.

Her touch was magical, finding and tending to places in his toes, the arch of his foot, his heel, places he didn’t realize were in such desperate need of attention. Slowly, the tension and pain in his body started to ease, began to be replaced by relaxation and pleasure.

Wait, what the hell was he doing letting Kendra Lonergan touch his feet?

“Uh, yeah, thanks, that’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Good.” She didn’t stop, moved upward, tackling the tight muscles of his ankles, his calves, along his shins.

It was helping. Doggone, it was helping. That spot...there, oh, yeah.

But it drove him crazy that she still wasn’t listening to him, that he felt, once again, out of control around this woman, out of his element. “You can stop now, Kendra.”

“I know.” She lifted his leg and put it back on the coffee table, leaving his foot and lower leg tingling from the warmth of her touch, aching for more. He didn’t like that she’d come into his house and upended everything about his day and body and attitude in less than fifteen minutes.

He wanted her out of here. He wanted to go back to his bad-assed mood, refining his misery to an art. He didn’t want to cope with people who irritated him, seeing his current poor showing as a human being reflected so clearly back to himself.

“You can go now. You should go now.”

“You think?” She knelt close to him, smelling flower fresh, and put her hands around his thigh, safely above his knee. She started on the tightness his injury caused in his quads and in his hamstrings, loosening the muscles, increasing the blood flow to his leg. Jameson sucked in a breath. Her hands were strong, long fingered, with clear pink polish.

They were very talented hands.

His cock noticed.

He was wearing sweatpants.

Kendra would notice.

Way more humiliation than he should be expected to bear in one day. “Stop, Kendra. Now.”

She stopped, looking up at him with a bemused expression. “We’re done, huh.”

“Done.” He dropped his hands into his lap. She glanced at them as she got to her feet. Of course she’d noticed.

“Better though?”

He nodded stiffly. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” She sat back down, her color high, picked up her clipboard and stared at it for a moment without seeming to register anything. “So.”

“So?”

“We were talking about your family.”

“No.” He shook his head pointedly. “We were finished talking about my family.”

“Ah, yes.” Her smile was back. “So we were.”

“In fact, I think we’re finished talking, period.”

“No, not yet.” She kept the smile on. This woman did not intimidate easily. She did not intimidate at all. He should know that from their past. He’d been prodded into humiliating this girl more than once, though it hadn’t ever quite worked out. Deep down he’d resented his brothers’ manipulation, of him and of her. A part of him had cheered when she’d refused to play the traditional role of picked-on student. That same damn part was still admiring her now.

“You’re on personal leave, waiting to recover, so you can go back to Keesler and be assigned to a desk job until you can pass the physical exam and be cleared again for worldwide duty. Then you’ll be able to resume your specialty training.”

He clenched his teeth. If she knew it and he knew it, why bring it up? “Yes.”

“If your surgery is unsuccessful, you will most likely be honorably discharged. Since you’re planning to be a career officer, how would that feel?”

“Super.”

“Uh-huh. I thought so.” She scrawled something triumphantly. “Okay, moving on.”

“How long is this going to take?”

“You have somewhere to go?”

He held her gaze. “This is an intrusion into my day.”

“Of...”

“What do you mean?”

“Your day of what? Pain? TV watching? Brooding? Unbearable waiting?”

“Yes.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “It’s all I have right now.”

“Doesn’t have to be that way. What are your hobbies?”

“Oh, for—”

“Okay, okay.” Her laughter at his exasperation made him want to smile, too. Instead he glared at her, because that was much safer in a way he couldn’t quite comprehend and didn’t want to. Not while she was in the room smelling like a flower garden and making him hard with a few strokes of her hands, which none of the PTs at Keesler hospital had come close to doing. “One more question.”

“Promise this is the last?”

“Cross my heart.” She made a graceful gesture that brought his attention to the dark shadow of cleavage at her neckline.

He must be going completely nuts. “Shoot.”

She leaned forward, pinning him with her lovely green eyes. He held her gaze, keeping his cold, impersonal, not wanting her to know how she got to him—a weird reversal of their roles in grade school. “What are you most afraid of, Jameson?”

A laugh broke from him. Oh, no. No way. She wasn’t getting that stuff out of him. “That’s easy.”

“Go on.” She looked hopeful, but wary. Smart woman.

“I’m afraid...” He leaned forward to match her posture, ignoring the complaint in his hamstring. “That you’ll never, ever get the hell out of here.”