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ADDISON MADE coffee, and they took it out to the enclosed back porch.
She sat in an old wicker chair. He stretched out on an equally old wicker sofa. They talked about the ranch, the sunset, and then Jake cleared his throat.
“Adoré.” A muscle knotted in his jaw. “I need to talk to you.”
Her heart skipped a beat.
“You can talk to me about anything, Jacob,” she said quietly.
He sat up and held out his hand. “Come and sit with me.”
She went to him and he tugged her down next to him.
“We have to get things straight,” he said, after a minute. “The hero thing, I mean.” His voice was low. “See, I’m not any kind of hero.”
What he’d said might have been modesty or humility, but Addison knew it was more. She bit her lip, determined to keep quiet until he’d finished.
“I told you that I flew Blackhawks.”
She nodded. She could feel the tension radiating through him.
“Blackhawks are big. Tough. They can handle mostly anything you ask of them. My men were the same. They were a remarkable bunch of guys.”
Were. He kept saying were.
“Our work was dangerous. Not all the time. Sometimes, it was boring as hell. Anybody in that kind of life—cops, soldiers, firemen like your dad—can tell you that. One minute, you’re up to your ass in adrenaline and the next, you’re struggling to keep awake.”
“There must have been times that were terrifying.”
“There were. Only a fool isn’t afraid, Adoré, but you don’t really think about fear. You think about your mission. Getting in and getting out. Philosophizing about war is for historians. Talking about it is for politicians. Surviving it is for soldiers, and that means you and the guy beside you fighting to keep each other alive.”
Addison waited. At last, she put her hand on Jake’s thigh.
“But something went wrong,” she said softly.
He nodded. Put down his glass. Rose to his feet. Walked to the windows, stared blindly at the scarlet sun.
“A squad went out on fairly routine patrol. They were heading back when some old man waved them down, told them a high-level al Qaeda operative had taken refuge in a village maybe six, seven klicks away.”
Jake jammed his hands into his pockets.
“They called in the info. Problem was, waiting for backup could mean losing the target.”
“So they went in themselves.”
Jake nodded again. “Straight into an ambush.” His voice was so low she had to strain to hear it. “In a narrow mountain pass. They were being cut to shreds.”
Addison got to her feet. “Jake,” she said, “you don’t have to—”
“I do,” he said gruffly. “You need to know. Or maybe I need to tell you. Either way, it’s time I talked about it.”
She stood next to him, wanting to put her arms around him, settling for laying her hand on his arm.
“We went in after them.” He flashed a bitter smile. “It’s called an extraction. I guess that sounds better than the reality, which is that you’re going after men who are often already dead or dying.”
“You rescued them.”
“We got the wounded. And the lucky ones who hadn’t been hit. We got the dead, too. We got them all … at least, we thought we did.”
