The Elite: The Complete Series of Boomer and Player (With Bonus) (46 page)

“Navy, right?”

I nodded. “Not anymore, obviously, but yeah. I was a fighter pilot. Just like Boomer.”

“Boomer?”

“Jack McGuire.”

“Oh! Right. I don’t know why I didn’t make that connection. So you were a fighter pilot, and now you run the museum?”

“Actually I own it. It was my father’s business. He started it after his own Navy career ended. He passed away, a little over two years ago.”

“I’m sorry.” Gemma placed a hand on the top of my fingers that stuck out from the hard cast around my broken wrist. Her touch was soft, almost like a tickle, and yet, it sent warmth all over my body.

“Thanks. Uhm…when he passed, Boomer and I were overseas. I flew home, buried my father, took over the museum, and moved into his house. Kinda took over his life, I guess.”

“I think that’s really admirable.” Gemma kept her hand on mine. “I can relate actually. My old man was Army, and so I followed his steps too. Well, kind of, I spent four years as a trauma nurse with an aviation unit. I did two tours in Iraq before I got out. Spent a year after that in an ER up in Chicago.”

“Wow. Impressive. How’d you get from Chicago to Holiday Cove?” I asked with a laugh. I couldn’t think of two more opposite cities.

“To be honest, I finally figured out that while I thrive under the pressure and chaos, it was taking more out of me than I was willing to give. At least, long term.”

“Makes sense.”

“What about you? Do you miss being in the Navy?”

“Yes and no. I miss my buddies. That feeling of belonging is hard to replicate. Or, at least that’s been my experience. When Jack lived at the base, about an hour from here, it was a little easier. But now, he and Holly, his girlfriend, live over in Germany for another two and a half years. They promise they’ll come back and stay in California after that, but who knows. People change their minds on stuff like that all the time.” I paused and shrugged at her. “But it’s all good. The museum keeps me working like a dog, so I usually don’t have enough down time to get too bored.”

I left out the part about how I usually spent all my free time…in between a different pair of thighs every other night. And hers were looking pretty tasty.

“I haven’t been up to check it out yet,” Gemma confessed. “I’ll have to remedy that soon. Maybe you can take me up, when you’re all healed up,” she said, pointing at my wrist.

My chest tightened at her suggestion.

Gemma must have noticed my dark expression, because she quickly added, “I know that right now you’re probably thinking you’ll never fly again. But, from experience, I’m sure you will.”

“Yeah.” I dropped my attention to the swirling contents of my cup.

Gemma patted the back of my hand. “I see it all the time with people involved in traumatic car crashes. They get out of here, and the last thing they want to do is get behind the wheel. I mean, sure, there are probably some that’ll never do again. But I think that’s a small percentage. Most of them drive again once they get over that initial fear.”

“Yeah? Well how many of them killed someone in their car crash?” The sharpness in my tone startled me as it echoed back.

Gemma wasn’t fazed. “More than you’d think.”

“Well, they’re different than me.”

She didn’t argue, but she stood from her seat beside my bed. “You’re right, they are different. I have to go make my rounds. Call if you need anything, okay?”

“When can I get out of here?” I growled at her retreating form.

“Probably another twenty-four hours.”

I grunted my acknowledgment and she disappeared from the room, leaving me to stew in my self-loathing.

Chapter Five

“Aaron! Aaron! Help me!” Talia’s screams wailed through the space between our seats like an air raid alarm. “Aaron!”

I jerked my head to look at her and my stomach plummeted at the panic in her dark eyes. She clawed her hands up my arm, clinging for a handhold, but just as she latched on, the side of the plane hit the bluff and split open and she was sucked right from her seat, falling into the dark night.

Her screams echoed through my mind.

“Aaron!”

The voice changed. It sounded far away now. And…softer.

“Aaron.”

A bright light flashed and I jolted awake. My eyes squeezed closed until the light faded.

“What the fuck!”

“Sorry.”

It was Gemma.

I opened my eyes again, this time finding the room around me softly lit with only the light from the bedside lamp on the wall. “Where am I?”

The answer came back to me before Gemma could explain. My head throbbed and my body was slick with sweat. I hadn’t been able to shower since the crash and I’d never felt grimier in my life. And that included the months overseas in the desert.

“Are you okay? Your heart rate and blood pressure spiked and triggered the alarm on your monitor,” Gemma explained, her eyes studying the numbers on the screens for a moment longer, before dropping back to meet mine.

I sucked in a deep breath, willing things to stabilize. “I’m okay. I was dreaming. Well…nightmaring…to be more accurate.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

I pinched my eyes closed. “Can I get some aspirin or something? My head’s killing me.”

“Yes. I can get you something.”

Gemma’s footsteps faded from the room and I got myself back under control in her brief absence. The dream had been so real and vivid. The only other time I’d had a dream that clear had been after I’d witnessed a street market bombing overseas. A suicide bomber had detonated his vest in the middle of a busy market. I hadn’t even been on the ground. I’d watched the whole thing from the feed a drone was providing over the site. But even then…it had stuck with me as though I’d been standing among the bodies and rubble. It had taken months to stop those terrors from coming for me at night.

“Here you go,” Gemma’s voice stirred me and I opened my eyes to find her holding out a couple of small, white pills. “It’s ibuprofen, they won’t interact with anything else you’re taking.”

I nodded my thanks and took them with the small paper cup of water she held out in her other hand.

“You want to talk about it?” Gemma asked, sitting beside me.

“Not really.”

She nodded and folded her hands in her lap. “What do you want to talk about?”

I sighed. “I have no idea. You got any cracking ideas?”

Gemma smiled. “I think I’ve pretty much been brain dead for the last two hours.”

“That’s comforting,” I said, an edge of teasing in my voice as I met her eyes.

She laughed softly. “It’s been a crazy day. Or, at least, crazier than most of the ones I’ve seen here.”

“Fair enough. I’ve got a question.”

“What’s that?” She tilted her head, waiting for me with a look of curiosity crossing her beautiful face.

“Do you fuckin’ live here in the hospital?” I asked.

She laughed softly. “Sometimes it feels like it. I’m actually off duty. I was using the gym.” At her comment, I looked over and realized that she wasn't wearing her scrubs with the white coat that she'd been wearing every other time she’d visited my room. Instead, she was wearing a pair of tight black shorts, a white tank top, and a black athletic jacket, with long sleeves held over her hands with loops on each thumb. Before I could stop myself, my eyes roved down her shapely thighs, and I wondered how the hell I’d missed the fact that she was practically half naked sitting beside me on the bed.

"Feeling better?" she asked, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips as she watched my wandering gaze slide back up her thighs.

"Much," I replied, feeling more myself since the crash.

"You know, I'm not sure that ogling my legs is really an official therapy, but hey, whatever works.”

I laughed, her joke in stark contrast to all the other interaction we've had so far. Gemma had always been polite, and very attentive, but I hadn't picked up on the lighter side of her personality up until that point. And definitely not any flirtation. Unlike several of the other nurses, who had paraded in and out of my room like it had a revolving door. There were two nurses in particular who’d made it their point to check on me—at least during my waking hours—every half an hour. They always came in as a pair, and judging by some of their comments, I'd come to the conclusion that they did other things in a pair as well—and that was fine by me.

"Well, thanks for bringing them by,” I replied, holding her gaze, wondering when she’d break away. She didn’t. “Speaking of, what are you doing still hanging around if you’re off duty? You just had to see me one more time before leaving for the night, huh?"

Gemma rolled her eyes. "A decision I'm starting to regret."

“Now, now. That's cold, baby," I tossed back, grinning wider. "In all seriousness though, I appreciate you taking such good care of me."

Gemma nodded, and I waited, expecting her to call our time to a close. "Actually, there was something I wanted to tell you.”

“Shoot.”

“I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for before."

My eyebrows raised, not understanding what she was talking about. I’d only seen her once that morning, when we’d shared the coffee. After that, the other nurses had been the ones to check in on me.

"For what I said about you flying again. I shouldn't have pushed you so hard.” She dropped her eyes to stare at her hands, twisting a silver ring on her middle finger. “Everyone processes traumatic events at their own pace and it's not my place to force my opinions on you like some kind of therapist. I was out of line and I want you to know I'm sorry. You've gone through something I can't even imagine and instead of letting you work through it, I tried to shove you ahead.”

Her words left me dumbfounded. I was so used to people subjecting their opinions on me—and immediately disregarding them—that what Gemma had said hadn’t even phased me. It had obviously weighed on her a lot heavier than it had on me.

I shrugged. "Don't worry about it. You were just trying to help."

"Thank you."

"And, hey, for what it's worth, I hope you're right. Flying has always been my life, my therapy, and I'm not sure what I would do without it. Before all of this, giving up flying, wasn’t something I would've even considered. I always imagined I'd be this kick ass, ninety-nine-year-old clinging to my pilot's license with everything I had," I said, smiling up at her.

Gemma's eyes sparkled as she laughed at my colorful depiction, the gray lifting like fog. "Well I hope you will. I’d like to learn to fly and it seems you’d be a hell of a teacher."

I gave a hollow laugh. All things considered, I wasn’t sure if that was the case.

“Like I was telling you this morning, I used to be a nurse with the Army. I did a lot of in-flight stuff, and sometimes, I wondered if I’d missed my real calling. There was something about being a pilot that…I don’t know…it kinda spoke to me.”

“Not enough excitement in the back, huh?” I’d never personally flown a medical chopper, but I’d heard enough horror stories from a few guys who had, to know I hadn’t missed out on anything I wanted to be a part of. Between going into the worst of the worst to retrieve injured soldiers, there was also a heightened amount of stress to not only get out safely—but do it as fast as humanly possible or else you’d be flying a hearse instead of an ambulance.

There was pressure, and then there was just insanity.

I’d never been much for choppers anyways. Jets were my passion. Old, new, rusty, whatever. I loved them all the same.

“Plenty of excitement. Sometimes—most of the time—more than I really wanted. But, I loved it. I was never the type of girl to sit behind a desk.”

“I can see that,” I said, letting my eyes wander towards the hospital corridor outside my room. “Why haven’t you taken lessons? If you’re seriously interested?”

She shrugged. “I haven’t had the time. I got out of the Army, took a position as a triage nurse in Chicago, and after a year of that, got the offer to come out here.”

“Got it.” I nodded, processing what I’d learned about Gemma so far. She had so many layers it was hard to know where I wanted to start unwrapping. She was a beautiful woman, no doubt about it, but there was something else that had me hooked. A depth and history that intrigued me. "So, I know you worked your ass off with the Army, you’re a crackerjack doctor, and you obviously put in your time in the gym," I paused, a flicker of amusement at her subtle blush. "But what else? What else does Dr. Gemma like to do?"

"Well technically, I'm not a doctor, but that aside, I’m not sure yet."

"You're not sure you know what you like to do?" I raised an eyebrow at her.

"No, no. Not necessarily. I just mean that I'm new in town and I'm still figuring out my routine. I just moved here from Chicago about a month ago so I don't really know anybody. I haven’t even finished unpacking. All the stuff from my apartment in Chicago is still boxed up, and I kinda open boxes as I need stuff. It’s a little pathetic.”

“That’s not pathetic. Unpacking is the worst.”

“It really, really is!” She giggled. “Anyways, I've been spending what little free time I do have, soaking up the sun and the sand. After all, that was the big draw that got me here in the first place."

"A beach bunny in the making," I said with a grin.

"Something like that."

"Well, I'll be out of here soon enough, and I make one hell of a tour guide." I waggled my eyebrows at her, smiling even broader when she burst into her melodic laugh. "What? That's not a convincing enough offer?"

"It is," she hurried to reply, still giggling. "I was just picturing you in one of those safari getups, you know the khaki shorts and the broad brimmed hat to match. Like the guy from Curious George."

"Shit, that's even colder, baby."

Gemma’s giggle faded, but the amusements still glimmered in her eyes. "You're right. Just for that, I’ll agree to go on your grand tour."

"I don't know if I want to take you anymore," I said with mock disapproval.

Gemma punched me lightly on the shoulder and I cradled the spot as though she’d dealt a mortal wound. "Hitting your patients? I think I'm going to need to speak to your supervisor, young lady."