The Elite: The Complete Series of Boomer and Player (With Bonus) (23 page)

“I think it comes with time,” Rachel replied thoughtfully. “You were right when you said Jack and you don’t have an earthquake proof foundation. That’s just not possible in a week and a half. And to be honest, the fact that he’s overseas and you don’t get to talk to him every day isn’t helping that. You just have to trust the process and wait until he gets back and see if things change once you’re back in the same state and can talk to each other and see each other.”

She stared at me for a moment, reading my expression, and broke into a smile. “I know that’s not what you want to hear. Learning patience sucks sometimes. But, Holly, I think you know that this guy is worth a chance. I think something special is in store for you guys, if you can fight through the next six months. I really do.”

My eyelashes fluttered a few times, frantically trying to blink away the set of tears that Rachel’s words had brought to my eyes.

I nodded, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. “You’re right, Rach. Thank you.”

“Well, you know I can never hear enough of you telling me I’m right.” She paused, giggling. “I’m glad I came for lunch today.”

I smiled at her. “Me too.”

Chapter Six

Holly

After the conversation with Rachel, which had been less like lunch and more like a therapy session—although the fettuccine was delicious—I found my mind clear enough to get through the rest of my work and even finished early enough to get home before the sun went down. I made myself some dinner and took it out onto the back deck with Hunter to watch the sunset from the balcony.

The sun was just dipping down beneath the line of palm trees when gargling, underwater sounds chirped from the speaker of my phone. I lunged for it, nearly toppling my wine glass in the process, and lit up like a Chinese lantern on the Fourth of July when I saw the incoming call was from Jack. I’d been dying to talk to him ever since the conversation with Rachel, and answered right away. “Hey! I’m so glad you called.”

I stared at the phone while the fuzzy image became sharper and sucked in a startled breath at the intense look in Jack’s eyes when his camera finally came into focus. My heart lurched and I immediately wondered if my entire conversation with Rachel was about to be made a moot point. Was he going to break up with me?

He gave me a strained smile. “Hey, I’m glad I caught you.”

“Me too.” I smoothed the palm of my free hand over my jeans, wicking away the sweat. “Is everything okay?”

Jack’s eyes flicked off screen and I couldn’t quite tell if he was looking at someone or something else or if he just couldn’t bear to make eye contact with me before dropping whatever bomb he was holding onto. “Jack?”

“Sorry. My roommate was ducking back in to grab his book. I kinda kicked him out so that we can get a chance to talk without interruption.”

“Oh,” I replied, my voice dull and flat. The hand holding the phone was starting to shake.

“Listen, about earlier,” Jack began, bringing his eyes back towards the screen.

I held my breath, silently pleading with him to give us more time.

He sighed. “I just want you to know that I’m sorry for bringing the mood down like that. I’ve had a lot on my mind since this cruise started, and I’ve basically been in back-to-back meetings every day, and whenever I’m not thinking about work I’m thinking about you and our time together in Holiday Cove and wishing I was back there again. With you. This is the first mission I’ve ever been on, since I signed up that I wasn’t a hundred percent invested in. I feel like I’m not present and with what we’re about to get into—I have to be one hundred percent focused.”

Hot, bitter tears swam in my eyes as my mind filled in the blanks of what he was saying. It was over. He’d all but called our relationship a distraction to his life threatening mission overseas. I was about to interject, to let him know I understood, and that it was okay, and that we could try to be friends. All of the clichéd break-up platitudes. But before I could get out the first word, Jack continued, “Holly, do you remember the promise I asked you to make on our last night together?”

I nodded, still unable to speak.

He smiled and the tightness in my chest released slightly. “Good. I want us both to hold onto that for the next few months. I’ve been so busy worrying that I’m losing you, and that I can’t be there for you in the way I want to be—I lost sight of that promise. I know this is hard and it’s probably a lot harder than you thought. It’s certainly harder than I’d expected it to be. But, I have to know that you’ll be there when I get back, and that we’ll wait until then to make any big decisions about the next step. It won’t be like this forever.”

The breath I’d been holding, escaped in a relieved rush of air. I locked my eyes with Jack’s. “God, you scared me!”

“I did?”

“I thought you were about to say you didn’t want to do this anymore. I thought you were breaking up with me,” I confessed, still smiling with the relief of knowing I’d been wrong. “Listen, Jack, I don’t know how much time you have but there’s something I want to tell you.”

“I’m all yours, baby,” he replied, his voice shivering over my body, leaving trails of heat and desire over my skin.

“I’m so glad.” I paused and took a long, deep breath. “I’ve been struggling with this a lot too, and I’ve been working through a lot of my own issues in the last few weeks and trying to figure out what I want. I had a long talk with Rachel today, and she helped me see some things, and I’m still processing through a few others, but there’s a part of my past that you don’t know about, and I think this will all make more sense if I tell you now.”

“Okay.” Jack’s expression was much more relaxed than when the call had begun, but there was a seriousness in his eyes that let me know he understood that what I was about to tell him wasn’t easy.

“I know I told you that I was married before, and that my ex-husband cheated on me. But, obviously it’s not as simple or cut and dried as all that. The other part of that story—and I don’t like to talk about it at all, but I think you should know—is that my ex was a Marine. And it was while he was on a deployment he cheated on me. We were living on base at the time and one of the other wives, who was a friend of a friend, told me she and a few of her other friends had received explicit messages and pictures from my ex. So, there I was in the middle of a state I’d never lived in before, surrounded by a bunch of people I didn’t really know, and while I was waiting and checking off the days and counting down the hours for my husband to return to me, he was out in some desert and using his internet time to message and exchange pictures, inappropriate pictures with other women.”

“I’m so sorry, Holly.” Jack paused and shook his head slowly as though he couldn’t quite believe what I just told him. “I can’t even imagine how hard that must’ve been. I’ve spent my entire adult life on military bases, and sadly, I’ve seen and heard some of the same types of horror stories. It kills me to know that you had to go through that alone.”

“It’s not a piece of my past that I like to talk about, for obvious reasons, but since we are together, I need you to see all the pieces. I don’t bring any of that up to make you think I’m worried you’re going to make the same choices. I’m not. But I need you to understand that my anxiety and general unease with this whole situation has more to do with the past than it does with the present. I think that not knowing what was going on between us took me back to that dark period of time. And it’s not something that you can really change or something I can snap my fingers at and forget about. It’s just something we have to work out. Hopefully, together.”

“Together,” Jack echoed. “Holly, I want you to know that—”

An ear piercing shriek sliced through Jack’s words. My eyes darted across the screen, trying to figure out where the siren was coming from. After a jarring moment, the look in Jack’s eyes betrayed the answer. The sound was coming from his ship.

“Holly…hold on…” He launched up from his chair and disappeared from view. My heart raced as the seconds ticked by, waiting for his return.

A break in the siren cleared the way for an announcement. A loud, commanding voice interjected, “This is not a drill!! This is not a drill!! General Quarters General Quarters, all hands man your battle stations, proceed up and forward on the starboard side and down and aft on the port side! This is not a drill!!!”

“Jack?” I cried.

He returned to his desk, but didn’t sit down. He braced his hands on the desk and leaned forward, his face close to the camera. The picture was so close that I could see every stress line pulling at the corners of his eyes. His mouth was a hard line, firmly set. “Holly, I have to go.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, unable to keep the panic out of my voice.

He cocked his ear as the message replayed. When his eyes shifted back to mine, they were wide and while he looked confident, there was something about the look that spooked me. “I’m sorry.”

My mouth dropped open, trying to figure out a way to make him stay, to tell me what was happening, but he bolted out of sight, in such a hurry that he left the camera on and the call still running. I stayed there, frozen in place, unable to look anywhere other than the empty screen and the place where Jack had been sitting moments before and wondering when he was coming back again.

Or,
if
he was coming back again.

Chapter Seven

Jack

After getting the call, I raced across the ship and made my way to my squadron’s Ready Room where the leaders for my squad were gathering, ready to launch into action over whatever had happened. With each step against the metal floor, my mind churned over new possibilities of what could be causing the emergency alarm. So far, the voyage had been perfect, every day we covered the exact distance we’d expected, communication with the USS Ronald Reagan had been consistent and there hadn’t been any problems or even any mention of trouble. But, the reality was that we were whizzing over the ocean to a military zone, and would be going into a hostile war zone to take out targets that were known terrorists and threats to our country.

When dealing with that kind of threat, nothing was ever clean cut and simple.

I reached the Ready Room and fell into line behind a handful of other men who’d arrived a few seconds before me. We filed into the room and took our seats. The room was dim to provide a better view of the large screen that covered one whole wall. Currently, there were pictures off to the right side, with detailed Intel underneath each one, and a map of the Middle East taking center stage. Small white dots peppered the map, indicating targets and assets on the ground, as they were tracked in real time from satellite and drone surveillance.

My eyes raked across the map, trying to figure out what the exact problem was, but until it was broken down, there was no way of knowing exactly what was going on. I cast a glance at the other men and women in the room. Most of them were doing the same, studying the map, and exchanging whispers with one another. All of it would prove to be speculation as the people who knew what was going on, and the reason for the alarm, weren’t there yet. They were in a separate room, holding a much smaller meeting, likely on the horn with the station chief for the CIA outpost in the area.

In the spare seconds I had before the meeting started, my mind went back to Holly and the fear in her eyes when she’d heard the alarm called over the speakers in the hallway outside my room. My eyes pressed closed for a moment, wishing I’d had another minute to explain to her what was going on. I dismissed the thought, knowing if I didn’t know what was going on outside the ship, there was no way I’d have been able to explain it to her, even if I’d had more time. But, I could have at least tried to calm her fears. I shouldn’t have left her like that. Without knowing what was going on, her mind was likely to go to the worst case scenario.

It was the one thing I’d hoped to shield her from. Holly was an intelligent woman who obviously knew that my tour wasn’t going to be without an element of danger. I hadn’t lied to her or promised that I wouldn’t be put in harm’s way. However, there was a huge difference between knowing I was in danger, and seeing it unfold before her eyes over the video chat. I’d planned on keeping her more insulated than that, but that plan was obviously blown. All I could do was return as quickly as possible and assure her I was all right.

My thoughts were interrupted when Commander Grissom, my immediate C.O., entered the room and strode to the front, silently demanding the attention of all eyes in the room. He scanned the screen before turning to address the room, his hands locked behind his back. “Ladies and Gentlemen, appreciate the hustle. We have just received word that our troops are taking rocket fire from multiple locations along this ridge.” He paused to indicate the sectors on the map. A smattering of spots that had been white when I’d first reviewed the map, changed to various shades of red, indicating the strikes.

My heart rate quickened, my thoughts immediately going to my brothers and sisters on the ground, taking fire, and the horror of what they must be going through. Whatever had been going on that morning in their section of the map had been shattered and torn apart by the sudden onslaught of the enemy. We had to hurry.

Commander Grissom continued, “The USS Ronald Reagan is preparing their birds. This is a joint operation, The Reagan will take out these targets marked in blue and we’re going after the targets marked in red.,” he gestured at the map, colored spots lit up at the touch of his fingers on the screen.

“This whole region has fallen into rebel hands and is now being controlled by this man,” he pointed at the top picture along the right. “This is Malik Anwar-Idris. He’s the mastermind of the group of insurgents that turned against our troops. The insurgents took the weapons given to them as we were training them to fight against ISIS. What this means is that they have the most advanced military equipment in the world and now are believed to have full control over all military facilities in the region.” Commander Grissom dropped his hands, clasping them in front of himself as he continued to address the room. His eyes were stern, intent, and deadly serious. Everyone in the room was looking at a very angry man. Not with the officers staring back at him, but with the idea that our country had supplied the weapons and resources that were now being used against our own forces.