“You’re in love with her!” Doc kept on. “And she’s in love with you! You know that, right?”
For a couple of minutes, as the plane lifted into the air and the engines screamed, Mason said nothing. It was only after Romeo leveled them out, and the sound in the fuselage dimmed from a deafening roar to a low hum that he turned to Doc.
“She only thinks she loves me ’cause she’s sweet and idealistic and has never been hurt before,” he admitted wretchedly. “She hasn’t developed the emotional scars or the sixth sense for self-preservation that would let her see me for what I really am.”
A line appeared between Doc’s eyebrows. “And what are you?”
Something snapped in Mason. His voice cracked when he said, “Broken! The rest of you just slid into this civilian life with no problem, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t!”
Doc was shaking his head before Mason finished speaking. “So you’ve got a little PTSD? Good. Great. Join the club, asshole.”
Mason’s chin jerked back. He knew his face showed his astonishment when he asked, “You?”
“Yeah, me. Me and Romeo and Bran and all of us. War is war. Killing is killing. There’s no coming back from it. But that doesn’t mean we all can’t still have a life.”
Mason clung to his denial like a life raft. “It does for me,” he grumbled low. “I couldn’t do that to Alex. Inflict myself and all of my baggage on her. She deserves something good and sweet and unbroken.”
“For God’s sake.” Doc rolled his eyes. “Here you sit, reeking of hearts and flowers and good intentions, willing to sacrifice yourself and your shot at happiness, and for what?”
“For Alex!” Mason’s temper erupted again. Doc had scrambled his brains, which made him have doubts. And for whatever reason, those doubts brought hope with them.
“You’ve been carrying your past around like a disease for years now.” Doc’s voice was annoyingly even in the face of Mason’s outburst. “But I’m here to tell you that you can make peace with it. That you deserve to make peace with it. And if you’ll allow her, Alex will help you with that.”
Mason opened his mouth to argue, but Doc pressed ahead. “I care about Alex. If even a tiny part of me thought for one minute you couldn’t be everything she needs, I’d be the first to tell you to screw off and leave her alone. And yet here I am telling you to go for it.”
Mason stubbornly shook his head. “My scars are too deep.”
“You only get scars when you’ve healed.” Doc snorted. “What you have, my friend, are wounds. If you pull your self-sacrificing head out of your ass, Alex will help you heal them.”
Mason once again opened his mouth, but Doc lifted a staying hand. “Nope. I’ve said my piece and have no interest in listening to more of your chin music.” Closing his eyes, Doc reclined his seat and folded his hands over his flat stomach.
Mason turned toward the window, his eyes blind to the cerulean waters stretched endlessly toward the horizon. His mind was filled to the brim with doubts. And hot on their heels?
Ya-huh. You guessed it.
Hope.
Terrible, terrifying, torturous hope.
Is it possible Doc is right?
* * *
Alex worked the easternmost section of the underwater search grid. Using a venturi pump—basically an underwater Dirt Devil—she sucked sand from one location and deposited it somewhere else.
It was taxing work, made more strenuous by the watery environment and the constant push and pull of the waves as they piled up against the reef. But she didn’t feel the burn of her muscles or the pressure in her lungs.
Because her mind was on Mason.
She’d had butterflies in her belly ever since Romeo begged off dive duty so he could fly to Key West to pick up Mason and Doc. All she could think was Today is the day I find out if my bruised and beaten heart gets broken once and for all.
Suddenly, a dull flash of black appeared in the void created by the venturi pump. Adjusting her mask, she waved away the swirling sediment. A gentle kick of her swim fins and she was floating two feet above the object.
She flapped her hand, creating currents that further revealed the dark mass. It was covered in crustaceans, making it impossible to discern what it was or if it was of any importance. Nonetheless, goose bumps broke out over her arms.
After clipping the pump to the grid so it wouldn’t catch a current and tumble away, she kicked toward the surface. Once there, she pulled out her regulator, popped her goggles atop her head, and put her fingers between her teeth. Her whistle was shrill and piercing. It immediately drew LT’s gaze.
Their fearless leader stood on the deck of the salvage ship. Alex knew they would need one of its cranes to bring up whatever she’d found. Because it was big. But also because the ship came equipped with a laboratory where they could house artifacts in saltwater tanks.
One of the challenges of bringing things up that’d spent centuries underwater was that exposure to air caused them to dry out and crumble like old parchment paper.
She waved at LT and then pointed to the water below her. He turned to yell something to Bran, who was piloting the vessel. Then he whistled to Chrissy, who was floating in the dinghy a little further down the search area.
Lifting her hand to shade her eyes, Chrissy followed the direction of LT’s point and nodded when she spotted Alex bobbing at the surface. Two minutes later, Alex tossed her fins into the bottom of the rubber boat and handed her tanks to Chrissy.
“What have you got?” Chrissy asked as Alex hoisted herself aboard, dripping salt water over everything.
“Something big,” Alex told her, her heart thudding with excitement. “Something metal. We’re going to need the crane to—”
The sound of a floatplane’s engines revving in the distance cut her off.
Lifting a hand against the glare of the sun, she watched as Romeo expertly piloted the Otter in. The pontoons missed the exposed reef by inches before touching down in the still waters of the lagoon. And then, like a duck coming in for a landing, the plane skied to shore.
When Alex lowered her hand, it was to find Chrissy watching her closely. “Are you going to do it?” Chrissy asked.
“Do what?” Alex frowned, those butterflies in her belly going buck wild now that Mason was home.
“Tell him you love him?”
Alex let loose with a long, beleaguered breath. “Already did that the night the Iranians came. It just sort of slipped out.”
Chrissy snorted. “That’s why I do Kegels.”
“Gross.” Alex wrinkled her nose, but felt a smile tugging at her lips.