Work out harder than he ever had in his life.
He put the bar back in its notches and sat up, his breathing labored and his heart pounding. Both were a comfort to him when he worked out, a familiar reaction.
Unlike the cold sweats that woke him and left him unable to catch his breath.
Yeah, he preferred a tough workout in the gym to his night terrors any day.
He used the gym’s towel to wipe the sweat off his forehead before he lay back for another set. He raised and lowered the bar and, beyond that, focused on a small spot in the white tile ceiling.
A huge shadow obstructed his concentration.
“Boss!” The unmistakable voice of Chief Warrant Officer Miles Mikowski echoed through the weight room, and Max sat up. He offered Miles his hand.
“Warrant!”
Max was a Navy Commander, an officer, and Miles was former enlisted. The two of them were bound by a fellowship no one wanted to be part of—that of injured warriors. Max liked Miles because, like him, Miles was a survivor and still believed that he’d held the best job in the whole world as a U.S. Navy sailor.
“What are you doing, boss?” Miles looked at Max with one brow arched, his gaze raptor-sharp as usual. Max knew his friend didn’t miss a thing, from his sweat-stained gray T-shirt to the amount of the weights on the bar.
“Weren’t you in here yesterday, too, boss?”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t enough. I needed to burn some more today.”
Miles always called him “boss,” even though he’d never worked for Max. It was a sign of respect that humbled Max. Miles had lost more than he had in the war.
“You should be doing cardio, boss. Too much lifting’s not good, you know that.” Miles might call him “boss” but Max heard the tone of an older brother in his voice. They were close to the same age—Max guessed that Miles was around thirty-eight, four years younger than he was. Miles had come into the Navy later in life, after college. But he hadn’t originally sought a commission—since he’d wanted to become an expert in all aspects of Explosive Ordinance.
Miles and Max had gone through much of their reentry therapy together and they both knew that pushing too hard wasn’t part of the combat recovery process.
Max was well aware that breaking down his muscles more than he needed to wasn’t recommended by any medical professional. He knew the risks of wearing down his immune system. But he wasn’t overdoing the weights, no matter what Miles thought. And even if he was, that was better than ending up with a panic attack over Winnie’s reappearance in his life.
She’s got another kid, for God’s sake.
“I’ve got some extra steam to blow off. What are you doing here?” Max looked pointedly at Miles’s weight belt. “You sure you put the right leg on?”
Miles gave him a wide grin and tapped his prosthesis. He’d lost his left leg on the same day Max had intercepted the suicide bomber. Also in Afghanistan, but Miles had been in a remote area conducting land-mine removal ops. The military medics were the best in the world but even they couldn’t save a leg an IED had blown to bits.
“I’m trying this one out for the lab techs. The walking one is great, and the running leg lets me go for a good couple miles before I need to give it a rest. But I needed something sturdier for the weight room.”
“You’ve got a bigger selection of legs than I do sunglasses, Miles.” They smiled at each other. Miles had been Explosives Ordinance and Max an EA-6B pilot, but that didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was that they were both still here.
If you tell yourself this every morning and click your heels together three times, maybe one day you’ll believe it.
“What’s got you worked up, boss?”
“Not going to drop it, are you, Warrant?”
“I wouldn’t be a very good sailor if I let my shipmate get away with doing the absolute worst thing for himself.”
“There are worse things than overworking muscles.”
“I’m not worried about your muscles, boss. It’s your head I’m thinking about. What aren’t you dealing with? More nightmares?”
Max sat up and looked across the weight room at the reflection of himself in the wall mirror. The image was familiar, but still fresh to him. It was the “new” Max, the one with more gray than brown in his hair and less body mass, as evidenced by the scrawny legs that straddled the bench. He’d never be as fit as he once was. Not just because of the war but because he was getting older. He wasn’t twenty-five anymore.
Still, did forty-two have to feel so old?
“Nothing out of the ordinary. I did have a conversation with someone who knew me before.” His voice cracked on before and he cleared his throat. “It’s the first time I’ve seen her since I was, well, since before I went to war.”
“How’d she act toward you?”
“Fine. No different, really.”
“Can I ask, boss, is this a former girlfriend? A wife?”
Max forced a smile. “You know I’ve never been married. And Winnie, well, she’s my best friend’s widow. We lost Tom five years ago—EA-6B Prowler crash. I was the CACO.”
Miles shook his head and let out a low whistle. “Sorry, boss. That sucks.”
“It’s part of our business, isn’t it?” Max rubbed his chin. “It did look like there might be something between us a while back. But it was just a lark.” Images of that Air Show weekend had been flashing across his mind ever since Winnie drove off with that dog.
“How long ago was that?”
“Ahh, let’s see. That was the summer before I took the squadron on deployment, so…” His mind leaped onto an unexpected tangent with lightning speed.
No way.
“Boss, you okay?”
Not possible.
“Yeah, I’m…just figuring something out.”
One of the condoms broke. Did you forget that?
Miles’s strong hand wrapped around Max’s upper arm. “Buddy, you sure as hell don’t look okay.”
How old is her daughter? What’s the timeline?
“I think I’ve done it again, Miles. I’ve been shoving so much down—”
“And now your gut’s spewing emotions everywhere, isn’t it?”
Max couldn’t help laughing. It eased the tightness in his chest, a tightness that had nothing to do with bench presses and everything to do with what Winnie had revealed to him.
And what she hadn’t revealed.
“Yeah, you could say that.” He wrapped his towel around his neck. “I’m good, Miles. Thanks for sitting with me. Now I’ve got to go burn this off in a healthier way. You’re right about that.”
“Anytime, boss, anytime.”
Max walked out of the weight room with a feeling he hadn’t had since before the suicide bomber leveled the spirit he’d taken for granted. He didn’t have to report to anyone else, didn’t have to ask what he needed to do. He knew his next move.
He was going to Winnie’s. He’d get her address and if it was unlisted, he’d drive through Coupeville house by house if he had to.
Winnie had some explaining to do.
CHAPTER