Down Range

Chapter Five

They had just returned to the BOQ after having a Thai dinner at Morgan’s favorite restaurant in Honolulu. The moon was rising in the east, the Pacific Ocean gleaming with a pale corridor of light across the darkened ocean. Jake put the car in Park, the low sulfur lighting revealing a crowded parking lot in back of the building. His hands tightened on the steering wheel for a moment. It was time.

Morgan released her safety belt when he said, “We need to talk.”

When Jake’s voice lowered to that intimate growl, she couldn’t refuse to look at him. Her heart skidded in her breast. As Morgan turned and met his shadowy gaze, he placed one arm across the back of the seat, his hand less than an inch from her shoulder.

“What do you want to talk about?”

Jake compressed his lips. He moved his fingers lightly across her shoulder. It was the first time he’d touched her in two years. “There are some things we need to discuss. Get right between us. We’re going downrange tomorrow morning, and we have to be focused.”

“Yes,” she admitted, her flesh needy as his calloused fingers barely brushed her blouse. Though aching to kiss him, to rekindle what they’d had before, Morgan fought herself. Jake would walk away again, like he always did. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Us,” he said huskily, seeing confusion in her green eyes. “You’ve had an apology coming from me for nine years. Back when we were at Annapolis together. We were twenty years old then.”

His fingers came to rest on her shoulder, as if to steady her in some small way for what he was about to say. With a mix of anguish and uncertainty in his gray eyes, he was being vulnerable with her. The only time she’d ever seen him like this was when they’d made love.

“For what?” Morgan managed, her voice tight with defensiveness.

Taking an uneven breath, Jake plunged in. “Your miscarriage…”

Bowing her head, Morgan shut her eyes, unable to look at him. She’d not seen this one coming. Her heart squeezed with old pain. His fingers became more firm on her shoulder. Steadying. “What about it?” she said in a broken whisper.

“Neither of us wanted it to happen. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” His mouth thinned, and Jake forced himself to go on. “Morgan, when you needed me the most, I wasn’t available.” He felt her tremble. “I’m sorry to bring this up, but I haven’t liked myself very much ever since it happened. I should have stayed at your side after I got the call from the hospital.”

Morgan went very still. He couldn’t even hear her breathing. He braced himself for her reaction, knowing he had coming whatever she wanted to throw back at him.

Hot tears slipped beneath her tightly shut eyes. As much as she tried, Morgan couldn’t control them. Jake moved his hand across her shoulder, as if to soothe away some of her raw pain. At least he wasn’t running now. So many emotions flooded her: the grief over the miscarriage, needing him to hold her in the aftermath, his absence.

She could feel Jake watching her in the thickening silence. She fought with everything she had not to cry.

Finally, Morgan lifted her hands and covered her face. She took several broken breaths. The past overwhelmed her. “I never expected you to say you were sorry,” she whispered bitterly. “Never.”

Jake wanted to touch her hair, to touch her. He wasn’t sure what Morgan would do if he tried. Pain moved through his chest. “I owe you the apology. I’m so damned sorry, Morgan. I’ve had a long time to think about my actions. I was dead wrong.” He did not expect her forgiveness. When she raised her head, turned and stared at him, her eyes were marred with darkness, and he felt as if he’d been gut punched.

“Let me fill you in,” she began hoarsely. “I was a twenty-year-old girl. You were my first and only lover. The doctor had me on the pill, which you knew. I was three months pregnant and didn’t even know it. I felt odd on some days, but I just shrugged it off as the stress everyone was under at Annapolis.” Morgan pushed tears angrily away from her cheeks. “It was February, Jake, and I contracted a horrible flu. I lay in my room with a one-hundred-and-five-degree fever. My roommate, Deanna, wanted to get me to the dispensary, but I refused. I was going to tough it out.”

His eyes narrowed. “I—didn’t know.”

“Deanna wanted to call you, but I said no. All you wanted was a good time, Jake. You just liked me in your bed. That was it. And God help me, I liked being there, too.” Morgan sniffed and went on in a robotlike tone. “Deanna left for a date. I was hallucinating, moving in and out of the fever. I thought I was going to die. I remember going to sleep. I woke up sometime later, maybe near midnight. I felt this awful, tearing pain in my womb, and I doubled over on my side, screaming. The next thing I knew, I had blood pouring out of me. At first, when I looked at myself, I thought I was having a bad nightmare. Deanna came back from her date and found me. She called 911. I remember just before I blacked out she held my hand, telling me the ambulance was on its way and not to die.”

Jake forced himself to hold her marred gaze. “You were taken to the hospital. I knew that much.” Her eyes grew sad as more tears slid down her face.

“I woke up in E.R. A doctor was there and she was very kind. She told me I’d miscarried my baby, that my high fever had caused it. She said I’d be okay. She also said I was on too low a dose of birth control pills and that was why I got pregnant. She gave me a new prescription to ever prevent that from happening again.” She sighed. “Physically, I was fine.”

“Damn,” he muttered, “I’m sorry, Morgan….”

“Deanna called you when I was in the hospital. She told you what happened.” Her words came out shredded with disbelief. “You never came. You told Deanna you had other important things going on and couldn’t make it. I left the hospital the next morning feeling hollow, feeling lost.” She held Jake’s guilt-ridden gaze. “I needed you, Jake. That was our baby! On the way back to Annapolis, I figured out why you refused to see me. You thought by me being pregnant, I would become like an anchor around your feet like your chronically ill mother had been, someone you had to take care of for the rest of your life.” Her fingers trembled as she wiped the tears from her face. “You didn’t want a pregnant girlfriend. You weren’t going to get trapped by another weak, sick woman, were you?”

Sitting back, Jake removed his hand from her shoulder, a mass of grief and misery overwhelming him. Morgan looked like he felt. “It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made,” he managed, his voice low with apology. “I shouldn’t have abandoned you, Morgan. And I did.”

She sat there stiffly, struggling to grapple with all her grief and put it in a box once again, deep down inside herself. Jake’s gray eyes were stormy-looking, filled with remorse. Now that he had finally apologized nine years too late, it didn’t make her feel as good as she thought it would. If anything, she saw an answering grief in his expression. How would he know what it was like to lose a baby?

“The only reason you’re apologizing now,” Morgan said in a quavering tone, “is because we’re going downrange tomorrow. You don’t want anything to make us lose our edge.” She leaned against the car door, as far away from him as she could get. He withdrew his arm from the top of the seat. As Jake lifted his gaze, she could see how miserable he was over her story.

“No,” he rasped, his voice tight with emotion. “Whether you believe me or not, Morgan, I’ve matured since our last encounter.” His eyes grew dark with sorrow. “I’ve carried this guilt over my actions toward you. As much as you believe I didn’t care, I did.” Jake’s mouth tightened. “This was a chance for me to tell you to your face, I am sorry. I was screwed up, Morgan. This doesn’t excuse my choices. I wish in some way I could make up for it, but I know I can never do that.” He held up his hands. “I just wanted to be honest with you, Morgan, because I never was before.”

Morgan absorbed his admission. The silence thickened between them.

“At least you’re finally being emotionally honest. That’s new.”

Wincing internally, Jake sighed. “Morgan, I hope I’ve matured a little bit more.”

His gaze fell to her abdomen covered by the pink skirt. She’d held their child in her body. Their baby. Misery drifted through Jake in a new and unfamiliar way. He’d already lost his son, Joshua. This new grief hit him doubly hard. He’d made so many mistakes with her. “I thought you didn’t want a family until you were thirty or so?”

“That’s true, but when I accidentally got pregnant, I knew I’d want to have the baby,” she muttered defiantly.

“So you would… Would you have kept the baby?”

“In a heartbeat, Jake.” Morgan stared at him. “And if I hadn’t miscarried, that baby would be mine, not yours. You weren’t ready to settle down. You didn’t want to marry me or be responsible for what we created.”

Mouth thinning, Jake tried to absorb her icy anger. “You’re right. I wasn’t ready to settle down.” He would now, but it was far too late.

“Well, things got handled differently,” Morgan said, her voice quavering. “We were both set free to pursue our military careers.”

“Damn,” he whispered, holding her gaze, “I wish…I wish I could go back and change what I did to you. You didn’t deserve it, Morgan.”

She grew quiet. Morgan held on to an even bigger secret. One that Jake would never, ever know about. When they’d had a brief affair two years ago, fate had intervened once again, even with protection. This time, she’d left her team and gone stateside. Emma Boland had been born with black hair and gray eyes, the spitting image of her father. Morgan didn’t dare tell Jake since he might prove twice that he wasn’t ready to be with her. Protectively, she placed her hand across her abdomen. “Don’t try. You cut and run when things get serious relationship-wise.”

“I don’t have a good track record with you, Morgan.” Feeling sad, Jake added, “That was then. This is now.”

Shaking her head, Morgan opened the door and climbed out of the car. “I’ll see you at 0600, Jake. I’m done going over the past with you. Thanks for the apology.” She slammed the door shut and walked off.

Sitting alone in the car, Jake wrestled with so many damned emotions. His SEAL father had died in combat that very evening when Morgan needed him the most. Jake was overwhelmed with paperwork because he was the executor of his father’s will. He’d been at the personnel office wrestling with so many decisions, funeral arrangements and his own grief; he couldn’t handle Morgan’s plea to come to the hospital, too. It wasn’t an excuse. Jake knew he’d been too young, made some bad decisions on that night. If he’d had it to do all over again, he’d have gone to see Morgan, regardless.

As he rubbed his jaw, the prickle of beard against his calloused fingers, his conscience ate at him. In the SEAL community, family, wife and children were just as important as the operators out in the field to the command structure.

SEAL ethos set the family as much of a priority as they did the men going downrange. Studying the light and dark shadows across the parking lot, Jake realized it had been SEAL culture that finally had brought him back into the fold. Made it possible for him to stop running away from relationships. He’d met Amanda and fallen in love with her at twenty-three years old. He’d spent six months in Afghanistan and arrived home just in time to be there for the birth of his son, Joshua.

Jake shut his eyes, remembering the loss of his wife and baby two weeks later to a car accident. He couldn’t share his past with Morgan. It wouldn’t be right under the circumstances. He understood as never before what it was like to lose his child. Just as she’d felt the devastating loss with the miscarriage that he’d run away from. What a mess. All of it his own doing.

As he climbed out of the car, Jake resolved to say no more. He’d done what he could to clear the decks between them. He felt deeply, the past overlaying the present. This was an unresolved situation and he was still trapped within it. God help him, he wanted Morgan. Needed her as never before. But after their long history, he knew she’d never come back to him again.

Jake wasn’t prepared next morning to see Morgan in SEAL gear as he entered Operations. She was in desert cammies, the SIG pistol riding low on her right thigh in a drop holster, a SOG SEAL knife in a sheath in the same position on her left thigh, and wearing dark leather Merrell hiking boots. She looked like a SEAL from a distance. Earlier, he’d found out Morgan had checked out of the BOQ and gotten a separate ride over to Operations.

Her gear sat near the door as she waited to be called out to the C-5 now parked in the revetment area. Setting his gear down next to hers, Jake wore desert cammies, as well. Although dressed similarly, every SEAL liked his gear in certain places. Jake preferred his knife on his left side of his waist.

Still torn up over last night’s conversation, Jake removed his utility cap and walked over to her. Worse, he’d made Morgan cry, and she’d never cried in front of him before. His heart felt like so much pulp, the ache deep and constant.

“How are you doing?” he asked quietly, catching Morgan’s sideward glance. Her profile was beautiful. She was a strong, confident woman.

“I’m fine, Jake. Don’t worry. I’ll hold up my end of this op whether you believe I can or not.”

Okay, the old, defensive Morgan was back. Her eyes were clear, but he could still see remnants of sorrow deep within them. Grief he’d caused. Nodding, he gestured to a sheath on top of her third-line gear, a large desert-camouflaged rucksack with about sixty-five pounds of gear contained in it.

“That’s your AW Magnum?” It was one of the sniper rifles chosen by SEALs to use on certain types of ops. The rifle was covered with a tan nylon fabric sleeve to protect it from weather, dirt and dust.

“Yes.” Still raw, Morgan didn’t want to talk to Jake. She’d barely slept, reliving their conversation all over again. Most humiliating of all, she’d cried in front of him. She wished with all her heart he’d apologized because he cared about her, not because they had to trust each other for this assignment. She pursed her lips, wishing the C-5 would hurry up and allow passengers to load. Then she could get away from him, grab some desperately needed sleep and get her act together.

“You look tired,” he observed, remaining at her side.

“I didn’t sleep much.”

“I didn’t, either.” Jake felt her tension. “Plenty of room on this flight to catch some shut-eye. It will be empty except for the crew of doctors and nurses going over to Bagram to pick up another group of soldiers who are wounded.”

“I hope those guys all make it,” Morgan whispered, thinking of them and their families.

“The U.S. has the best-trained medical teams on the planet,” he told her, resting his hands on the H-gear pockets around his waist. “Those grunts and soldiers have the best chance in the world to survive.”

“When we get on board, I’m finding a hole to bunk into and sleep,” she said. As she searched Jake’s face, Morgan saw the darkness beneath his eyes. He was growing a beard, which was common among the black-ops groups. Without a beard, the men stood out like sore thumbs to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

“Me, too. We have to get rested.”

Jake didn’t want to leave her side. He sensed Morgan’s feelings; he always had whether she shared them with him or not. SEAL sixth sense, he supposed. Or…his heart whispered, it was something more. Something beautiful and profound. And he instantly suppressed those feelings. He’d loved twice in his life, and both times, it had turned into a life-numbing tragedy.

Turning away, Jake ambled over to his equipment sitting on the polished white floor. No, he couldn’t risk his heart a third time. He simply didn’t have the strength to reach out and try to love again. The potential losses were just too great. And no one knew better than he, there was no promise of happily ever after….

He hefted his ruck, swung it easily across his broad shoulders and then belted it up. An M-4 rifle, barrel downward for safety reasons and safed, chamber empty, was strapped on the outside of it.

He watched as Morgan walked over to her gear, not at all surprised she could lift a sixty-five-pound ruck and make it look light as a feather. Yesterday, as she’d walked into the Pacific Ocean in her purple bathing suit, he’d seen just how fit she really was. Maybe a little too thin, he supposed, but she was all firm muscle, not an ounce of fat. He’d winced when he’d seen those recent pink scars on the back of her left thigh.

Jake was sure those were shrapnel wounds she’d received at that village three months earlier. He wanted to touch them, kiss each of them and remove the pain and memory of how she’d received them. Jake knew he could heal Morgan with his touch, his voice and his hands, if she’d give him a chance. He could be tender toward her. She brought out the best in him, made him feel like a man. Leaning down, he grabbed his eighty-pound weapons bag, slipping it into his right hand. An airman opened the glass doors for them, gesturing for them to go to the parked C-5.

The sunlight was bright, the sky a pale blue. A few clouds were in the distance as Jake walked toward the ramp at the rear of the C-5. A number of nurses, doctors and medics were boarding the largest transport aircraft in the U.S. military. Following Morgan, who walked with an incredible confidence, he compared her to the other women ahead of them.

Morgan stood out. Her red hair was caught up in a ponytail, the strands moving between her shoulder blades. There was just something so damned different about Morgan compared to any other woman Jake had ever known. There was no question, she was a combat warrior. It was in her stride, the way she squared her shoulders, her chin tilted slightly up. Despite the bulky cammies, she didn’t look like a man. Not with the sway of those hips of hers and her natural grace.

Once on board, they stowed their gear in a storage locker below the cockpit area of the C-5. The rest of the crew had already boarded. Jake stood near Morgan. Lights went on overhead, revealing three tiers of litters along both sides of the fuselage. Jake wondered what she was thinking as she watched the medical teams prepare to take on newly wounded men once they arrived at Bagram.

“Morgan,” he said quietly, “let’s crash. We need all the sleep we can get.”

Barely turning her head, she absorbed Jake’s calm, steadying presence. His low voice soothed that anguish they’d shared last night. All Morgan wanted to do was turn around, throw her arms around his solid, powerful shoulders and seek solace against him. It wasn’t protection she had ever sought from him. Jake knew how to hold her.