smiled. “He’s a total badass. I love that about him.”
Cole snorted. “You would.”
“You’re a pretty big badass yourself, Coletrane. I like it.”
“Glad you approve,” he said dryly. “Now, what do you say we get the fuck home and eat some decent food. I wouldn’t feed my dog the shit we’ve eaten the last few days.”
“You have a dog?”
“Nope, but if I did, I’d feed him better than we’ve been eating.”
She laughed. “Can’t argue with that. What’s for supper?”
He glanced in the mirror again as he pulled onto the county road leading away from the airfield. “It’s a perfect evening. I was thinking about grilling some steaks on the back patio and counting fireflies over the pond.”
She closed her eyes and grabbed the image he described. It was so perfect it made her ache. “I’d like that,” she said softly. “I’d like it a lot.”
“Don’t think we’ve forgotten about the hospital bit. Just in case you got your hopes up.”
She scowled and he chuckled back at her.
“I convinced Steele that dragging you now wouldn’t accomplish anything other than making you more cranky than you already are. I promised him I’d get you to Fort Campbell tomorrow morning first thing but that tonight I was going to get you to relax and enjoy a good meal.”
She was besieged by the awkward funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, the one that squeezed her heart and caused butterflies to flutter her insides. She hadn’t felt this silly since her first crush in junior high.
“Thanks, Cole. I appreciate it. I’ll feel much better about taking on Cathy tomorrow.”
His eyebrow rose in question. “Who’s Cathy?”
“My partner in crime,” P.J. hedged. “She’s the one who helped me fly the coop last time. I met her a couple years back. As much as we’re in and out of Fort Campbell, we ran into each other, started talking. She’s probably the closest thing I have to a friend.”
Cole frowned at that. “You have friends.”
P.J. smiled. “I meant girl friends. I don’t have any girl friends. Cathy’s older than I am, but she’s great. She even gives me shit about not respecting you navy guys enough. She’s former navy herself.”
“She gets a hooyah from me then. Although I’m going to have serious words with the woman about busting you out of the hospital. That was a stupid move.”
She didn’t respond to that one. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. But at the time it was what she had to do. She couldn’t very well try to analyze her state of mind at the time because she was honest enough to know she had been a head case. Cathy knew it too, but she hadn’t tried to tell P.J. she was wrong, and for that she was appreciative.
No one had broached the subject of seeing a shrink yet. She was just waiting for it. She knew the wives of the Kelly men, and even Rio’s wife, Grace, had been through some heavy shit. She respected them for it. They weren’t shrinking violets for women. They knew how to kick ass in their own way.
Shea especially had P.J.’s deep respect, and P.J. suspected that she and Nathan’s wife could be friends if they ever hung around each other long enough. Shea had taken a lot of pain and torture on Nathan’s behalf. She’d helped him survive hell and was the sole reason that he was home with his brothers after spending months imprisoned in the Middle East.
She doubted she’d ever fit into the Kelly inner circle. That was reserved for their wives, and the Kellys were fiercely protective of them. But did she want to? Had she reached a point in her life where she wanted to fit in somewhere and have a network of friends to lean on for support?
Months before she would have said emphatically no. She liked her life the way it was. She did her job, she went home, no one bothered her.
But how much of that was a product of what had happened on her S.W.A.T. team? She had to admit, she’d been pretty young and idealistic when she’d landed a spot on the team. Not only had she been the first woman, but she’d also been the youngest recruit ever for her particular team.
She’d had to work twice as hard to earn the same respect as the men, and she thought she’d gotten there. She thought she had their loyalty. She’d been more crushed than she wanted to admit at the time. When she’d