Backblast by Candace Irving (brene brown rising strong .TXT) 📗

tremor comes and goes. There's a good chance it's not so much physiological as psychological. And if you don't take steps now to deal with everything that's happened these past few weeks, there's a good chance it will get worse—especially if it's both."

Anger burned through the relief as Gil's words trailed off. "That's what this is about?" Her so-called mental state? "You still want me to break down and bawl like a two-year old?"

The compassion returned, suffocating the blue. "It just might help."

Since when? It hadn't the night they'd met just over a year ago when Gil had tried his best to stitch her insides back together after some sergeant jacked up on PCP had decided to rearrange them, causing her to miscarry and damned near die before all was said and done. And it certainly hadn't helped two decades earlier when Mommy Dearest had chosen to rearrange her own face with the working end of her dad's .38 backup revolver. "Trust me; tears don't accomplish squat."

"How 'bout talking?"

"We've talked."

"Wrong. I've talked. You haven't even given me the courtesy of listening. You just stare off and nod occasionally—like you're doing now."

She shoved the leather chair into the desk as the grief and the guilt finally broke free. "What do you want from me? You want me to say it? Fine. Art Valens is dead. Because I missed a clue."

"Bullshit!"

That reined her in—hard. Not the curse; Gil's ire. She'd never seen, much less heard him hit that level before. But then she'd never pushed their relationship quite so far. Case in point: her downright insubordinate entrance minutes before. Friendship or not, Gil was still a light colonel; she a warrant officer—trapped in the nether region between commissioned officer and enlisted. Best she remember that.

She licked her lips. "Gil, I—"

He stood as well, looming over the opposite side of the desk. Over her. "No. You don't want to have a genuine conversation? Okay by me. I'll do the talking. Again. But this time, you are going to listen." He stalked around his desk, trapping her between his mahogany bookshelf and a framed pen-and-ink sketch of a skeleton hanging on the wall. "Yes, your old CID mentor and friend is dead, but you did not kill him. Nor are you responsible for Captain Mendoza's death or the six other soldiers from that Special Forces team who succumbed to that goddamned psycho-toxin. And it sure as hell isn't your fault that John Garrison was forced to abandon you in this very hospital three hours after you woke from your own coma to go Heaven knows where and do Heaven knows what. That screw—as you put it so succinctly—came compliments of Special Operations Command and the uppermost brass of the US Army."

He was right. About all of it.

Logically, she knew that.

So why did it feel so wrong? And why did she feel so utterly wrung out and hollow inside?

The tears Gil had been begging her to shed for six days burned at the corners of her eyes. Before she could stop them, they spilled over. No more than a handful. Apparently, it was enough. At least for him.

He cupped her cheek and smoothed the humiliation from her face—but that caused more to trickle down. She stared at the knot in Gil's throat as he swallowed. It jerked so firmly she feared he was suppressing his own ocean.

He cleared his throat. "I meant what I said when I signed your hospital release. You need time to heal. You're CID, for crying out loud. You wade though the worst of the crap our soldiers deal out on a daily basis. You need to take a minute to recoup before you dive back in. Preferably amid the peace and quiet of home."

He was so far off it wasn't funny. If she'd discovered anything this past week, it was that she needed the chaotic, consuming distraction of a new case like a junkie needed a fix. She'd also learned that there was no peace to be found, least of all at home.

Just the endless emptiness and constant recriminations.

"Gil, please. I need to go back to work."

"Rae—"

"No!" Damn it, this was not a case of doctor knew best. She twisted away until she'd retreated around the corner of his desk, poised to make her escape. "It doesn't matter. My hand hasn't shaken once this morning. You heard Chilcote. The man's drooling to get a crack at what's left of my brain. By the time we're done, he'll be so convinced I'm fit for duty, he'll be recommending I be assigned to the secretary of defense's personal staff."

"Wrong." Gil reached out to tap the phone on his desk. "One call, Chief. That's all it would take, and you know it."

"You'd do that to me? Tell your boss I have psyche issues?"

"If I have to."

White-hot silence pulsed between them. That goddamned, unrelenting compassion.

"One more week, Rae. That's all I'm asking. A week during which you talk—to me or someone else. A week during which you sleep. Every single night."

And if she didn't?

She didn't voice the counter challenge. She didn't need to; Gil's next words confirmed it.

"Or I go on the record regarding just how precarious your current mental state really is—whether or not your hand still twitches."

Bastard.

The silence returned. This time it filled the air for a full thirty-one seconds. She knew, because she watched the oversized, twenty-four-hour wall clock behind Gil's head tick them off, one by one.

A phone rang, shattering the quiet. But it wasn't the extension on Gil's desk. It was the cellphone in her ACU pocket. Grateful for the reprieve, Regan grabbed it.

"Agent Chase."

"You fit for duty or not?" Colonel Hansen. Her boss.

Regan stared at Gil and, God help her, she forced her lips to beg.

He held firm.

"Sir, I'm with Lieutenant Colonel Fourche now. He's experiencing…reservations."

"Hand him the phone."

Regan passed it to Gil, straining to listen as he greeted her CO. Unfortunately, she couldn't make out Hansen's side of the conversation. She did know Gil was not happy.