As the jet came into view, I had the sickening feeling it was coming in too quickly. But I should have known better. As it landed, blowing everything in its path including my hair and the cream sundress Caroline had let me borrow, I squinted to keep the debris out of my eyes, but wouldn’t dare close them all the way. I would get the first glimpse of Adam. When I saw the door open, I started running. There he was. My husband, my world, everything I wanted and needed.
He was in his combat uniform and boots, his arm in a sling and a cane in his hand. I ran to him, my tears nearly blinding me. I threw my arms around him, he threw his one good arm around me, and I kissed him like I’d never stop. He might have been pick thin and badly wounded, but he was still Adam. He was still that strong, confident man I had fallen in love with in line at the post office.
I could feel my tears and his tears mingling together like ingredients in a saucepan, could taste them between our kisses. I wrapped my arms around his middle so tightly he groaned, which is when I remembered his broken ribs. Poor guy. “Sorry,” I said.
But he smiled at me. “I don’t care,” he whispered into my ear. “You’re here, Sloane. I’m here. We’re together.”
I barely remember the ambulance ride or entering Walter Reed. I know there was paperwork and rustling and doctors and nurses, and then Adam was in a bed and a doctor was talking about taking him into surgery in the morning. I couldn’t process any of it, because he was home and we were going to spend the rest of our lives together just like we had planned. I had never felt a glee this pure. It was a high I didn’t know a human could experience.
At last, when we were alone, I finally noticed how gaunt and gray Adam looked, the exhaustion in his eyes, the new lines in his face.
I ran my hand along his sunken cheek. “Honey,” I said, “what happened to you?”
He shook his head. “Sloane, I’m alive. One of my men lost his life. An innocent kid lost his.” I had never, in all his deployments, seen my husband this raw, this vulnerable.
I felt myself bristle when he said “innocent kid.”
“What do you mean?” I whispered, my stomach already turning, not truly wanting to know the answer.
“A seventeen-year-old kid, one of the sons . . .” He trailed off, and I waited patiently. “He helped us escape,” he said, his eyes filling with tears.
“What?” I asked, truly stunned. “I thought it was a Delta Force operation.”
Adam bit his lip. “Well, it was, technically. And thank God. If they hadn’t been on their way, we’d all be dead. No question.” He swallowed hard, and I took his hand, rubbing it. He teared up and said, “I’m sorry.”
I kissed his forehead. “Don’t be sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“If we’d just waited ten more minutes . . .”
I wasn’t surprised by his emotion necessarily, but it unnerved me all the same. I had never seen him like this.
“This brave little kid got us out.” He looked around and continued. “If we had just waited, if we had just been patient, that kid would still be alive. His father wouldn’t have killed him for being a traitor.”
I put my hand to my mouth. I felt sick. Sicker than sick. But my job here was to soothe my husband. “You don’t know that, Adam.”
He nodded, tears in his eyes. “I saw him fall. And it will haunt me forever. I can’t help but feel like it was my fault.”
I remembered the drone footage, the man running and falling. That wasn’t a man at all. He was a child. A teenager. A son. I wondered if his mother was grieving, if she was alone in her grief. “It’s not your fault, Adam,” I said. “It was God’s plan. We can’t control it.”
“It was a sucky plan,” he said under his breath.
“Adam!” I scolded.
“I thought we were all dead, Sloane. I swear I did. And I wanted to stay alive and be there for you and the boys, but I knew I’d rather be dead than spend another second in that hellhole.” He cleared his throat. “I felt the vibration even before I heard it. I thought I was hallucinating. But then I started to hear it and I knew it was real.” He paused. “I looked up, and there it was, a Black Hawk. We were being shot at and running for our lives, but when I saw it, I knew we were saved.”
My heart was pounding in my chest now, torn between the terror that my husband had nearly died and the swelling pride that God had saved him. I knew there had to be a great purpose behind that moment. Adam was here for a reason.
“They saved me, Sloane. They saved us all. I wouldn’t be here.” He rubbed his chin and kind of half smiled. “Those guys from the 160th and Delta Force are such badasses.”
I laughed. “They have great hair, too.” Members of Delta Force needed to blend in with their surroundings and, as such, generally had longer hair and beards. They stuck out like sore thumbs when compared to the clean-shaven faces and clipped heads on post. “I
