Free Breathless Descent by Lisa Renée Jones Page B

chuckled and took his drink.
    “Wait,” Shay said, leaning forward, flattening her hands on the table. “There was more than one ID debacle?”
    “Not if you don’t know about it,” he laughed and set his beer aside, before adding, “Kent almost talked me into going to the track that day. Said he’d dreamed about a horse’s number. We’d be rich. Man almighty, I was glad I didn’t get sucked into that little fantasy. He didn’t see the light of day for a month, your parents were so angry.”
    “And he made our lives miserable for it,” she said, curling her legs to the side on the booth, one elbow on the white laminate tabletop.
    “Yeah,” he said, and seemed to be thinking back in time before he laughed again. “Yeah, he really did. But those were some good times. Kent and I…we didn’t talk much while I was away, but we’re good now. Just like I was never gone. Last Saturday he slept out at the Hotzone so he could do my Sunday sunrise jump with me.”
    “Mom is beside herself that you’re staying in that beat-up trailer rather than with them, you know. I told her you had reasons.” She made an uncomfortable sound. “I didn’t mention the ‘reasons’ were all about avoiding me.”
    “It’s not about avoiding you, and the trailer isn’t as bad as I’m sure Kent has made it sound,” he said. “I’m officially the only one of the three Hotzone owners who’s still single. Bobby and Ryan both got themselves married up. I’m the logical Ace to take some of the extra workload. And living on-site helps. They’d do it for me if it were reversed, and one day I’ll need time off, and they’ll cover for me. We’re blood brothers. We’ve all saved each other’s lives more times than I can count.”
    Shay sobered sharply on the mix of the tequila she sucked through her straw and the words saved each other’s lives. Her throat constricted, and she barely kept from choking. Shay sat up straight, shoved away the drink, then hoarsely confessed, “I worried about you. I worried a lot.”
    His expression softened, his eyes gently touching hers. “Shay…”
    He reached for her hand, and she pulled back, fiddling with the napkin in her lap. She didn’t want to get emotional. She hadn’t expected to get emotional. But here were the emotions, overtaking her, demanding notice. And the words—his, and now hers—that seemed to flow of their own accord. “The thought of something happening to you, and then not only losing you, but knowing it was because I’d pushed you away—it ate me alive, especially that first year you were gone. After that, I learned to tuck it away, but there were times, especially after you came home to visit and left again—not that you did that all that often—but after a visit, it would start again. The fear of the phone ringing with bad news. Mom felt it. Dad and Kent, too, but they’re too tough to admit it.”
    He sat completely still for several seconds, so still she wasn’t sure he even breathed. And she was pretty sure she’d hit that button—the hot-cold button. The one where he withdrew, where they went back to the not-talking thing they did so well.
    And then suddenly, he was beside her, in the booth facing her, his expression etched with tenderness…and something that almost resembled guilt. “I should have talked to you before I left. I should have made sure you didn’t feel that kind of fear and guilt. You didn’t run me off, Shay. The Army was in my blood—I knew that before I started college and I knew afterward. I always knew it was where I belonged.”
    But not with her, she thought, not with her family. “Then why are you here now? Why did you even come home?”
    He hesitated. “Shay—”
    His hesitation said everything. “Because you didn’t have a choice,” she said tightly, turning to face him fully, arm on the table, back to the wall. “Something happened. Something that forced you out.”
    His lips thinned, telling her before his words