"Isn't love grand?"
Love? Of course, right. She'd said she could love him. He should be punching the air with a victory shout. This was exactly what he'd hoped for with his strategy of using their time together. He'd won.
Oh, damn. Realization hit. He hadn't said it back.
He scoured his memory and...no. He really hadn't said it. Dumb ass. Hell, he'd told her he loved her at least a hundred times before they'd tied the knot in Vegas. But he'd held the words inside ever since.
Because she needed space, right? He didn't want to scare her off. Okay. Logical. So why not say it now when she'd opened the door wide?
The answer nailed him nose-on like a missile hit. Their marriage rocked him as much as it did her.
He hadn't held back the words for her. He was doing it for himself. He'd denied any deep-waters crap because he was scared as shit of risking a repeat of losing someone he loved.
Damn it all. He did not need these kinds of thoughts seconds before flying into combat. Thank God none of the other crew members could peek in his head or they'd be booting his butt off the truck onto the tarmac.
Plane drawing nearer, he worked to get his head on straight. All right. So he loved her. Really loved her.
The hell of it was, acknowledging the emotion didn't make him feel one bit better. But it sure made the prospect of flying into combat a lot less daunting in comparison.
"You gonna eat that?"
Monica stared across the chow hall table at Crusty already scooping up her chocolate-chip cookie. "Not anymore."
Not at all, actually, since her stomach was turning flips, but Captain Junk Food didn't need to know or he'd clean her out of even the things she might be able to choke down tonight.
"Thanks," he said as he jammed the whole cookie into his mouth.
Sitting beside him, Max Keagan ate silently, moving his cookie to the far side of the tray away from Crusty while the rest of the medivac crew and medical staffers took their seats in the nearly deserted mess hall. Quiet that should have been peaceful only served as an echoing reminder of crews and Rangers in the air. Monica shoved her tray aside.
Across the room, a lone figure peeled away from the food line with her meal. Yasmine stood solitary, holding her tray with her guard three steps behind her.
Did she have to look so damned pathetic searching for which of the hundred empty seats she would select?
Ah, hell. Monica sighed long. Hard. "Yasmine."
Her sister turned.
"Come on and have a seat with us."
"Is that an order or a request?''
Ungrateful brat. "It's a request."
"Thank you." Yasmine moved with that spooky silent walk of hers and glided into the seat beside Monica. At least she had the sense not to talk.
Crusty tore into another roll, his third. "So, Tiara, what're you going to do after we get out of this shithole—" He paused, glanced at Yasmine. "No offense."
"None taken."
Monica tamped down the irritation over the Tiara comment and answered honestly, "Sleep. For two days straight."
Cancel the divorce proceedings.
Then what? She'd finally given Jack the green light and he hadn't said he loved her back. A man who'd said it so often in the past hadn't dredged up a single word now—much less those important three. Because of the upcoming battle. Had to be. Which still didn't make Jack's omission hurt one damned bit less.
Crusty chewed through his roll. "Hey, Max? You got plans?"
"Darcy and I are going to head out to the beach cabin for a while, get away from the world. We haven't been in the same country together for more than a week in two months. What about you?"