“Other military or families. There are several variables under consideration.”
“I figured.” She didn’t look back at Atlas but she was tempted to pull down the vanity mirror so she could see him in the reflection. “Things have been moving so fast with him. I hadn’t thought about where he’d go next. Hard to imagine what it’ll be like to see him go.”
She felt a sinking feeling in her belly. She wouldn’t just be saying good-bye to Atlas.
“You might be able to visit him,” David offered. “Depends on who gets him. I plan to try to stay in touch.”
With her, too? She didn’t ask. Maybe later, but things were too…new. She wasn’t sure where they stood yet.
“Maybe. I think he’d like a new forever home with a family. It might be awkward for me to pop in, though.” She struggled to put the empty feeling into words then gave up and tried for a different direction. “Did you ever want one?”
“Want what? A dog? I have all the dogs I can fit into my life back at Hope’s Crossing.” There was happiness in his voice. Pride. It made her smile.
“I meant a family.” Now that she’d said it, she sort of wanted to take it back. The good humor left his face.
Damn. Just when he’d started to come back to a cheerful mood.
“No. Not in a conventional sense.” He said it slowly. Carefully. “While I was active duty, I had my own demons. Every deployment was another chance to work through them. Only I picked up new ones every time I went out there. I figured it’d be the worst idea in the world to have a wife and kids waiting for me at home, wondering and never knowing if I was going to make it back. And depending on the wife, my kids might never understand why I was always away. She might not understand it either. I’ve seen too many marriages filled with constant fighting over that. I didn’t want that for anyone.”
Had her stepfather? She tried to remember. But her perception of him from her childhood had been of a stoic man. Stern. Immovable. She’d spent a long time thinking he hadn’t cared at all.
This was the first time David had said so much about his past, though, and she wanted to know more about him. “What did you do in between deployments? Go home?”
He snorted. “Nah. Not because it was bad or anything. I just didn’t fit in.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know what to say. “That’s hard.”
“Well, my parents divorced while I was a teenager. High school angst doesn’t get much worse than what I had. I was angry. At my dad. My mom. Myself. Just always angry.” He opened and closed his hands on the steering wheel. “Mom left. Dad remarried. I got angrier.”
She reached out, touched his thigh with her fingertips. Not sure if it’d be welcome but it seemed more than trying to come up with words. He dropped his right hand from the steering wheel and took hers in his. Warmth enveloped her hand and tingles ran up her arms and along her skin.
Wow, it didn’t take much. His touch had her so finely tuned to him. Aware.
“I enlisted right out of high school. Basically took my diploma in hand and went straight into the Air Force. Some of my other friends went Army or Navy, but I knew what I wanted to be.”
She cocked her head to the side. “And you’ve always gone to do what you set out to do?”
He squeezed her hand. “Basically. It took a while, but becoming a PJ was worth every second of hell to get there.”
“A PJ?” Her favorite pajamas popped into her mind. And then she wondered what he tended to wear to bed.
Bad Lyn. Bad.
“Para rescue jumper.”
That made more sense. “Ah. Must’ve taken a while.”
He lifted one shoulder and dropped it in a half-shrug. “Longer than I wanted, not as long as most.”
Not too prideful, not too humble either. She smiled.
“Any time I did go home, the house was full of half-brothers and -sisters. All way younger than me. Dad had rebooted his family life. He didn’t make me feel unwanted, but it was awkward.” He paused. “His new wife was nice enough but we never clicked.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not even a thing.” He lifted her hand and kissed the back before placing it back down on top of his thigh. “Mostly, the kids like me just fine while I’m buying them video games or whatever is on their online wish lists for birthdays and Christmas.”
But he didn’t have a home to go back to. “Didn’t they even think about it, though? Sure, you made it comfortable, easy for them. But they left you outside their world.”
That made her furious.
“My choice to leave,” he reminded her. “And I don’t need to be angry with them. Plenty of other things to work through all on my own.”