let go of the air jammed in his lungs, Tristan stood there trying to rein in a flood in his chest. It was as if everything just came tumbling at him all at once. Doc Cross warned him about this. He told him there would be a trigger and then he wouldn’t be able to contain it all. He also said it wasn’t a bad thing, that Tristan had to “deal to heal.”
Doc Cross and his corny sayings.
Force Recon had been one hell of a ride, all right. One that took him places he’d never expected to go. He wanted the constant distraction that being a Recon Marine would give him. There had been times when his aloneness got so big, he felt buried by it. And he had figured he would go to the grave with this awful hole in his chest. Then something happened to change that.
First James had drawn him out against his will. The kids’ enthusiasm, their interests and James’s skill were infectious. Before Tristan knew it, he had let his guard down and allowed himself one of the few friendships he’d had since Rock bulldozed his way in.
Now, there was Amber.
But that wouldn’t help now. She was heading to her well-deserved vacation and he would be going back into active combat duty. He was adamant about not keeping a woman on a string while he was serving. It wasn’t fair to her.
“I’m sorry, Tristan,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not all about James,” he rasped out, and he wanted to bite his tongue.
Her arms tightened. “What is it, Tristan?”
He turned around and faced her, leaning into the table for support. He hadn’t opened up to anyone about this. Not his family, not his buddies, not even Doc Cross. The doctor had prodded and pushed, but Tristan had kept saying he was over it and it wasn’t affecting him. Now he was realizing that Doc Cross did think this was one of the issues he needed to resolve. Suddenly he’d gone from thinking he could handle it to losing it.
She didn’t say anything, just let him have his space. Let him make the decision to share this with her. It was tough to talk about it. Always had been, but with Amber, she just seemed to make everything complicated and easy at the same time.
“That kid got to me.” He blinked several times. “It’s hard, Amber, to make friends in this type of life.”
She nodded, her hand that wrapped around his waist slid up his chest. “I’ve never been in combat, Tris. I’ve seen the ravages of war with the clients I served as a JAG lawyer and as a NCIS agent, but not firsthand.”
“It’s a singular and a group experience. Everyone else in combat is going through the same thing. The gambit of emotion, fear, sense of duty, fear, determination—then there is the individual experience. Fear is, of course, something you train yourself to handle. You have to. Before I was a sniper or Recon Marine, I was a fresh face, a full-of-himself guy who thought I’d make a difference. That was important to me.”
“Did something happen to change that?”
He closed his eyes, his throat working, and Amber sidled closer, her presence calming. “Almost fourteen years ago, after basic, I was assigned to guard the US consulate in Banyan. It’s a small, cold town adjacent to Latvia.”
He shifted and she settled against his hip, her face turned up to his. Her phone buzzed and he glanced down as she pulled it out and checked it. But when she slipped it back into her back pocket, he swallowed hard.
He felt as if he had an entire rock pile in his gut. “I was observant. I rarely missed things that other people overlooked. There was increased unrest in a town over from the consulate. Anti-American type of unrest and I wasn’t quite sure if it was terrorist or just dislike.” He ran his hand through his hair and looked away. “It wasn’t my job to make decisions about the security of the ambassador. Contrary to popular belief, Marines aren’t really stationed at embassies or consulates to protect diplomats. They are there primarily to protect secret information—embassy buildings often process classified information, and many host CIA personnel as well. Marines are there to protect—and if necessary, destroy—any classified information so it doesn’t fall into enemy hands. Foreign officers are told in their initial training not to think of the Marines as their personal bodyguards in case of an