“Six months after I left the Teams, Mom called.” His voice had gone quieter. “Said there was a kayaker missing offthe coast. Storm had blown him out past the breakers. The conditions were bad and?—”
He swallowed.
“I went anyway. Offered to help.”
Jen stayed silent, letting him take the space.
“We found him clinging to his overturned boat about two miles out. Hypothermic. Another hour and he would’ve been gone.” He fell silent for a second. “By the time we got him back, he couldn’t feel his hands or feet. Could barely talk.”
He exhaled slowly. “And for those few hours—getting him back, warming him up—I felt like myself again.”
In the silence between them, his bedside clock ticked.
Her throat tightened. She knew that feeling. The relief of being useful.
“I signed up the following week.” He stared at the ceiling. “Told myself it was different.” He released a humorless breath. “Turns out it’s just a different kind of crisis.”
She tilted her head, just enough to look at him.
“Still an instrument,” he said. “Just pointed at different problems.”
His hand resumed its leisurely path over her hip—slower now, as if he was anchoring himself.
She shifted, propping herself on one elbow so she could see his face properly. His eyes went to the ceiling, but his hand found hers under the covers, fingers threading together.
“You don’t have to save me, Wyatt.”
His eyes cut to hers. “I know.”
“So why are you here?”
The question hung between them, and his throat worked.
“Because I want to be,” he said finally.
“That scares you.”
“Yeah.” He drew a measured breath. “Because if I’m not saving you—if there’s no crisis, no mission—then this is just...”He gestured vaguely between them. “This. And I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Want something.” His voice dropped. “For myself. Not because someone needs help. Not because there’s a threat.”
He looked at her fully now, and the openness in his eyes made her chest ache. “Just because I want you. And I don’t know what to do with that.”
His confession settled between them, raw and unarmored. In the short time she’d known him, she’d never heard uncertainty in his voice—never seen him this exposed.
She brought her hand to his face, fingers tracing the strong line of his jaw. Stubble rasped beneath her palm.
“I understand that. More than you know.”
His eyes searched hers.
“When we were planting the charges, you asked me to tell you about my research,” she said. “The real story.”
He stilled.
Jen took a breath. It scraped on the way in, as if her body resisted saying it out loud. She’d learned how to lock things down. Compartmentalize. Move forward.
