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“Hey,” she said back, smoothing her hands over the back of his neck.
Jesse helped her up, and then they took turns in the bathroom. When she came out, he was sitting on the edge of her bed, his clothes piled in his lap. “Should I go?” he asked, echoing her words from that first night.
She hated that there was even the tiniest moment of question in her gut. But there was. For now, though, she ignored the hell out of it. “Stay.” He pulled her to sit sideways on his lap, making her laugh. “This was how we got in trouble the last time.”
“Baby, if that was trouble it was the good kind.” The smile he gave her was so damn sexy. And, gah, the term of endearment was too.
“Yeah,” she conceded. “It was really good.”
“Tara, I know…” He tilted his head so he could look her eye to eye. “I know you’re not sure about me—”
“No.” She shook her head, hating that he thought that. “My uncertainty is not about you, Jesse.” Doubt darkened his eyes. She needed to make him believe. “It’s not. I promise. It’s about the fact that I struggle with anxiety—as I know you witnessed the other night—and, oh—” Her thought died mid-stream because she realized she hadn’t yet thanked him for what he did. So she cupped his jaw and kissed him. Once, twice.
“What was that for?”
“For what you did for me. Your phone with the song. Being there but also giving me space. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He dipped his chin. “Was worried about you.”
“I was worried about me, too. And that’s at the root of why I feel any uncertainty at all. Ever since my accident, I’ve struggled with anxiety and panic attacks. They’ve gotten a lot better, and I have coping mechanisms that work pretty good. But my accident happened at work, on a dive, and it took me a long time to get myself back in the water. The idea of letting myself be distracted for even a second just…it doesn’t do good things for my anxiety.” Admitting all this unleashed a shiver down her spine.
Jesse reached behind him, grabbed the chenille afghan folded at the foot of her bed, and draped it around her. Taking care of her one more time. “I understand what you’re saying, and I appreciate you explaining it. But we worked together all week. We worked good together.”
He wasn’t wrong, but there was more to it than that. “We did. I know. But I also know that I was worried about you when you skipped your safety stop. And after Jud descended, my mind kept straying to how you were doing. And even though I would’ve been worried about any of my teammates, my concern was deeper because it was you.”
He listened intently as she spoke, and finally nodded. “I hear you.”
“How did you feel when I went in after Jud?”
His whole expression shifted, and it was answer enough.
“See what I mean?”
Jesse laced his fingers between hers and squeezed her hand. “Not because I doubted your ability. I didn’t, not even for a second.”
“I believe you. But you felt different about it than if it would’ve been someone else, didn’t you?”
“Fuck,” he said, rolling them backward so that they lay close together, on their sides facing each other, their arms and legs all tangled under the blanket.
The disappointment in his voice squeezed her heart. “I know. I’m sorry. My brain’s stupid now.”
“Don’t apologize. And nothing about you is stupid, Tara. Your feelings are totally valid.” He stroked her waves back from her face. Tucked them behind her ear. Trailed his touch down her neck until his fingers traced both of her scars. The intimacy of it unleashed goosebumps all over her body. “Will you tell me what happened?”
She nodded, not because she felt like she owed him this story, though she did feel that, too. But she wanted to tell him this because, again and again, he made her feel safe to share the most vulnerable parts of herself. “My team was inspecting damage on a bridge along a critical transport route, and I was in about thirty feet of water inspecting the pilings. One of the supports collapsed, taking out part of the bridge and raining all kinds of debris down on us. A shard of broken cable caught me on the throat. It was a total, freakish, wrong place/wrong time thing. Turned out the bridge’s cable system was completely corroded.”
Jesse’s thumb stroked her cheek as she spoke. “Jesus, Tara, that must’ve been terrifying.”
“The crazy thing is that I don’t remember most of it now, except for the feelings. The confusion, the fear, the panic, the pain…” She swallowed hard against the memory of those emotions, which threatened to stir as she gave them voice. But there was a strength in sharing this with someone else—she totally saw that now that she was doing it. So she kept going. “The blood loss was pretty catastrophic, as you can imagine. Our medic had to do an emergency trach in the field because I couldn’t breathe. And I flatlined twice on the life-flight to base. Three other guys on my team were also injured.”
“A lot of people never would’ve been strong enough to get back in the water after that. And no one would think the worse of them for it, either. You’re so damn brave, Tara. Do you know that?”
His words helped heal parts of herself that even she sometimes picked at—the parts she thought should be stronger, the parts that shouldn’t be bothered by this anymore, the parts at which she wanted to shout, You survived! Get over it!
“I don’t feel brave. I certainly didn’t after Jud’s accident. I totally fell apart.”
“Was that your first rescue since your accident?”
The fact that he guessed that said so much about how well he got her. “Yeah.”
