The Top Gun's Return

home where he belongs. It might have taken a while longer than I'd have liked for it to, but the good Lord has answered an awful lot of prayers.'

In the genteel stillness of the guest house lobby, Tristan paused to listen to the rise and fall of Jessie's voice… the occasional rustle of reporters' laughter. Jess's voice. It was hers, yes…the one he remembered but different, somehow. Quietly confident, matter-of-fact. It came to him suddenly, what it reminded him of: the voices he heard every day at the hospital, voices of strength and comfort and encouragement. The cheerful, no-nonsense, reassuring voices of the nurses.

Instead of heading for the elevator, he turned as if drawn by a magnet to one of the multipaned windows that overlooked the front walk. From there, hidden from view by the curtains, he watched his wife face the crowd of reporters alone. And maybe it was seeing her from a distance like that, and hearing her voice that was so much the same and yet so different, but something in his perception suddenly shifted-like one of those optical illusions where one moment you're looking at a face right side up, and the next second it's upside down. She has changed. She's not the same Jessie I left behind.

He hadn't really thought she would be…had he? He'd prepared himself, or thought he had, for her to have gotten older…even to have found someone else. Then he'd found her looking just the way he'd pictured her in his mind, still slim, sunshine blond and beautiful, still a little bit awkward and eager to please him. Just the way he remembered her. Now he knew he'd been kidding himself. Of course she'd changed-in eight years, how could she not? But she hadn't gotten older; what she'd done was matured. And she hadn't found someone else. She'd found herself.

Watching the tall, self-assured woman-a stranger to him-out there on the guest house steps, he felt a stabbing sense of loss. His chest filled with the pressure of grief-for the young, accommodating girl he'd left behind and remembered so well…grief, too, for the impossible dream he'd clung to like a life preserver and that had kept him alive for so long.

Then, as he watched the beautiful, confident woman on the steps, her hair haloed by the television crews' spotlights, he felt something new come and take root in the empty place those losses had left inside him, and slowly begin to grow. Respect. Admiration. And the pressure in his chest was no longer grief. It was pride.

* * *

When Jessie slipped quietly into her room sometime later, she was hoping Tris might have gone to sleep. Instead she found him sitting in a straight-backed chair beside the table. A tissue spread on the tabletop near his elbow held a neat pile of orange and banana peels. The TV was tuned to a soccer game.

'Everybody gone?' he asked as he turned off the television set, stifling a yawn.

She dropped her pocketbook beside the dresser and nodded. 'I think so. For now, anyway. I imagine they'll be back in the mornin'.' Still flushed and, if she wanted to be entirely truthful, just a wee bit exhilarated, she took a deep breath and lifted her fingers to rake them through her hair. 'Whoo-hope I don't have to do that again. That was somethin' else.'

'I think you'd better get used to it,' Tristan said dryly. 'I wouldn't worry about it, though-you handled it beautifully.' There was something in the way he looked at her…something soft and golden in his eyes…that made her pulse quicken.

She went toward him, wishing she could just walk right up to him and put her arms around him, and that he would put his arms around her and pull her into the vee of his legs and nestle his face against her breasts. Once, long ago, it would have been a natural, easy thing.

'You don't look very comfortable,' she said, reaching out a hand to touch his hair, lightly nudging it off his forehead with a finger while her throat ached with longing. 'Don't you want to lie down? Put your feet up, rest your knee awhile?'

'Naw…if I do that I'm afraid I'll fall asleep. I need to call Al…have him come get me. Just wanted to make sure the crowd was gone.' His voice sounded gravelly. His eyes searched her face as if she were someone he'd just met and he was trying to commit her face to memory.

Her mouth went dry and her tongue thickened. The words slurred as she said, 'Tris, you're so tired. Why don't you stay here tonight?'

'You know I can't do that.'

'No, I do not know that.' Primed with new confidence and resolve, she grabbed the second chair, turned it around and sat in it, facing him with her knees almost but not quite touching his. 'I know you tell me you can't, because of some fear you have in your mind that you might do something that's gonna shock me or hurt me or…I don't know, drive me screamin' from the room. Which, if you want to know the truth, I think is just plain ridiculous.'

'Jess-'

'No. You listen to me. In the first place, in case you've forgotten, I am a nurse, and while I might work in a NICU now, I've done rotations in psych wards. I've handled episodes of PTSD before. Believe me, there's nothin' you could do that's gonna shock me. But Tris-' she reached for his hands and enfolded them, stiff and resisting, in hers '-what's more important is, I'm your wife. You understand me? I am your wife. That is for better or worse and sickness and health, in case you don't remember the vows we said to one another. You don't get to protect me from this. This has happened to both of us, dammit. You are not allowed to shut me out.'

Something dripped from her nose. She dashed it furiously away, then stared down at the moisture on the back of her hand. She couldn't imagine how it had come to be there. She hadn't known she was crying.

'Jessie…' Now it was his hand lifted to her face, his fingers wiping away tears.

She caught his hand and held it pressed against her cheek. Eyes closed, she said in a fierce, choking voice, 'Look, all I'm asking you to do is sleep here, in this bed. I'm not planning on ravishing your bones, if that's what's worryin' you.'

'Bones would be the operative word.' His voice was bumpy with amusement.

She opened her eyes and glared at him through tears. 'Really? I'd hoped it was ravish.'

Hunger flared in his eyes and was quickly extinguished, as if someone had slammed a lid over a fire.

If she only knew, he thought, how close to the truth that might be. Since this afternoon he no longer had any doubts that his normal masculine urges, dormant for so long, were alive and stirring again. It was his ability to control those urges he wasn't sure he could trust, and until he was sure, he didn't intend to put himself-or her-to the test.

'If I stay,' he said, closing his eyes, 'you have to promise me…'

'Yes-what? Anything.' Her hands clutched his eagerly, and his lips twitched into a patient smile.

'You have to promise you won't touch me if I, uh, seem to be-if I'm, you know…having a nightmare. Don't try to wake me up, okay? Whatever you do.' He was thinking of the nurse he'd given a fat lip to just the night before, striking out blindly at an imagined attacker. He lifted her hands to his lips and looked at her gravely over them. 'If I start yelling or thrashing around, I want you to go in the bathroom and lock the door. You hear me? I know you're my wife and I know you're a nurse, and you're just naturally gonna want to help me, but I'm telling you you can't. Okay? I have to know you'll get out of my way and stay there. Promise me.' His voice, harsh to begin with, became a croak when he repeated it, gripping her hands too hard. 'Promise me.'

Her eyes swam as she whispered brokenly, 'I promise.'

He let go of her hands and leaned back in the chair, exhaling like a steam valve letting go. He felt inexpressibly weary. And he hoped he wasn't going to regret giving in to the temptation…to the lure of incredible luxury of a night in a private room, in a soft bed next to his wife's warm body. The hospital staff had gone to great lengths to make his room there comfortable and homey, but it was still a hospital. He hated hospitals-always had.

'Do you want anything to eat?' Her voice sounded shaky. She had risen and was looking anxiously at him, hugging herself.

He shook his head and nodded at the pile of peelings. 'I had a little something while I was waiting for you. I think I might just lie down for a while.'

Getting to his feet took the last remnants of his strength. The room whirled and tilted as he started toward the bed, and he felt Jessie's strong arm come around his waist and her shoulder fit itself under his arm. 'Thanks,' he