Down Range (Shadow Warriors - Book 2) (18 page)

The walls were washed light green. There was a window with venetian blinds across it near his bed. The beeps and sighs of monitoring equipment finally caught his attention. A dark-haired, brown-eyed nurse in dark green fatigues quietly entered his room.

“You’re at Bagram air base, Lieutenant Ramsey. How are you feeling?”

Jake swallowed, his throat hurting. “Where’s Morgan? How is she?” he demanded, his voice hoarse.

The nurse stopped and pulled his chart from the bottom of his bed. “Captain Morgan Boland?”

“Yes.” His heart started to pound; his head ached like hell.

“She’s still in surgery, sir.” And then she gave him a sympathetic look. “You passed out from blood loss in the E.R. shortly after you got done with your phone call. Dr. Thornton, your surgeon, repaired your right calf. You’re going to be fine.”

His emotions roared through him. “How long has Morgan been in surgery? Did they save her leg?”

The nurse checked the IV and said, “Seven hours, now. And I don’t know about her leg.”

Closing his eyes, Jake felt anxiety. “I need to see her, then.” Had his call to General Stevenson worked? Panicked, he hoped she’d been able to get to the right people here at Bagram in time.

“That’s impossible, Lieutenant. I’m sorry.”

“I need to be with her. Even if it’s the damn lounge on the surgery floor. Get me up there.” Her cheeks colored at the hostile tone in his voice.

“I’ll ask Dr. Thornton.”

“Screw all of you,” Jake growled, throwing off the covers. He saw his lower right leg bandaged. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he quickly pulled the IV out of his arm and dropped it on the bed

“Lieutenant! You can’t do that! You can’t take out your IV! It has morphine in it to stop your pain.”

“SEALs deal with pain all the time. Where are my clothes?” Jake demanded, standing in the light blue gown that hung to his knees. The pain in his heart wasn’t something he could combat, his love for Morgan transcending any physical pain he might have. Someone had washed him, all the dirt and grime gone. The nurse started to panic.

“I, uh…I have to get the doctor!” She ran out of the room.

Muttering a curse, Jake limped unsteadily over to the closet. Jerking open the door, he found a clean pair of desert cammies in there. His dirty boots were on the floor beneath them, still bloody. Morgan’s blood. His blood. He grabbed the gear and headed to the bathroom, urgency pushing him to get to her side. He worried they’d amputated her leg.

By the time Dr. Thornton arrived, Jake was sitting on the chair, lacing up his second boot. The doctor was in his forties and pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up on his dark hair. “Lieutenant Ramsey? You in a hurry?”

Jake noticed the young nurse peeking out from behind the tall doctor. “Either you tell me what floor surgery is on and which surgery theater Captain Morgan Boland is in, or I’ll go find her myself.”

He smiled a little. “Nurse, get Lieutenant Ramsey a wheelchair? We don’t want him opening up that bullet wound that I just worked so hard to close for him.”

Jake met the man’s dark blue eyes. “Thanks, Doc.”

“She was your partner?” Thornton guessed.

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded, pursing his lips. “Just to warn you, there’s FBI and CIA crawling all over that surgery floor. They’re telling everyone they cannot discuss the fact a woman in combat gear, wounded in a firefight, is here at our hospital.”

Jake stood, feeling pain drift up his leg. “That’s right,” he ground out. “It’s top secret.”

The nurse brought in a wheelchair. Thornton thanked her, dismissed her and brought it over to Jake. “Lieutenant, I’ll take you up there. Normally, I wouldn’t do this, but we’ll go up to the observation room in that surgery theater. That’s as close as you can get to her. Fair enough?”

Grateful, Jake nodded. He didn’t trust his voice. He felt as if he was going to cry. Fighting the urge, he sat down. Without a word, Thornton turned the wheelchair around. The nurse opened the door and he pushed Jake out into the long, busy hallway.

Jake’s heart started to pound hard as Thornton eased the wheelchair into the observation room above the surgery theater. A lump formed in his throat. Below, he could see Morgan, her bright red hair against the white cradle where her head rested.

She was on oxygen, an anesthesiologist monitoring her functions. Her body was draped in blankets and sheets. There was a medical team of ten people around her. Anxiously, his gaze moved to her thigh. Relief showered through Jake. Morgan still had her leg! No longer was the bone sticking out.

Tears stung Jake’s eyes, and he fought them back down deep inside himself. General Stevenson had reached out and made sure the surgeon wouldn’t amputate Morgan’s leg. He was grateful to the woman.

“What’s happened while I was unconscious?” he demanded of Thornton, who stood behind him. “I’m a combat medic for my SEAL platoon, so can you give me her medical lowdown?”

“She coded two hours ago, Lieutenant Ramsey.”

Jake’s breath jammed in his throat. That meant Morgan’s heart had stopped beating. He stared at her, desperation mounting in his chest.

“They worked hard to bring her back,” Thornton quietly assured him. “She’d lost nearly three pints of blood. No one really knew just how much blood she’d initially lost. They’ve been replenishing her blood type ever since then.”

“And now?” Jake croaked, leaning forward, unable to tear his gaze from her.

“Stable.” Thornton patted his shoulder. “She’s going to make it, Lieutenant. We weren’t so sure two hours ago, but we are now. Jackson, the aircrew chief on your medevac, really saved her life. I don’t know if you knew this, but he’s an 18 Delta combat medic. The best we have. He used two IVs to replace missing blood. If he hadn’t…”

“What’s going on now?” Jake demanded, his voice strangled with emotion.

“Cleanup. There are probably twenty or so bone splinters and fragments they have to find and then remove before they can close her up. She’s lost about thirty percent of her femur, but with time, physical therapy, the bone will grow back. Tomorrow, you’ll both be on a C-5 flight to Landstuhl medical center in Germany. She’ll undergo further surgery there. We’ve saved her leg, but there’s a lot more to be done and they have the facility to do it. We don’t.” The surgeon’s voice dropped. “She’ll never be able to do what she did today again, Lieutenant Ramsey.”

Leaning back, Jake felt utterly exhausted. He closed his eyes, gripping the wheelchair arms, his knuckles whitened as he tried to keep his emotions in check. Morgan would live! And her leg had been saved! He didn’t give a damn if she ever saw combat again. He loved her. He wanted her safe, dammit. And as far away from Afghanistan as he could get her.

“Listen,” Thornton said, breaking the silence, “I need to place a call to Jim and Cathy Boland. They know their daughter was wounded, but they don’t know if she is going to live or die. Would you like to speak to them instead? I think you’re a lot more involved with Captain Boland than most people would guess.”

Jake opened his eyes. He twisted a look up at the doctor, who smiled slightly. “Yes, I would like to talk to them. I’m sure they’re worried sick.” He wanted to personally reassure them.

“I’ll take you down to my office so you can call them.”

Morgan was going to make it. Jake felt like a dying man who had been granted a new lease on life. With a deep, uneven breath, he muttered, “Yes, let’s go.”

The doctor smiled and turned the wheelchair around. “You SEALs are something else. You know that?”

“SEALs stick together,” Jake muttered defiantly. “They’re our family…. We leave no one behind….” And he’d have willingly given his life for Morgan’s. In a firefight, they were an unbreakable, unstoppable team. And they would always take care of their own, no matter the life-and-death consequences. All that mattered was that Morgan was going to make it.
Oh, God, thank you…for everything….

Jake tried to compose himself in the doctor’s office. Thornton had left him alone so he could make the call to Morgan’s parents. He stared at the black telephone, the number for the Bolands before him. Never having met them, he tried to think what he was going to say. He knew Jim and Cathy Boland had been in the military, been in combat. Cathy Boland had nearly died in a firefight, if not for Jim coming to rescue her in time to save her life.

As he rubbed his face tiredly, Jake felt exhaustion so deep he could barely think beyond his wildly fluctuating emotions. Thornton had told him that the Marine Corps had called her parents to say she’d been gravely wounded in combat, but nothing else.

Jake took a deep breath and dialed the number. It would be seven in the morning at the Boland household. The phone rang. Jake’s fingers tightened around the receiver, his eyes closed, trying to steady his emotions.

“Jim Boland speaking.”

“Mr. Boland? I’m Lieutenant Jake Ramsey. I’m calling about your daughter, Morgan.” His heart started to pound, and tears threatened to overtake Jake. He heard the wariness and worry in the man’s voice at the other end. “I want to tell you your daughter is going to live. She’s going to make it.”

“Thank God…”

“Yes, sir. I know you were expecting to talk to the surgeon, but I wanted to call you myself.” Jake took in a shaky breath. “Sir, your daughter and I were out on an op I can’t discuss. She sustained a very bad leg injury, her left femur broken by a bullet.” The scenes played out behind Jake’s tightly shut eyes. And the tide of feelings roared up through him as he remembered the blood spurting out of a severed artery in her leg.

Compressing his mouth into a thin line, Jake thickly added, “She’s critical but stable. The ortho surgeon said we’ll be flying by C-5 tomorrow morning to Landstuhl medical center in Germany. Morgan will undergo more surgery at that time.” He wouldn’t go into the details about how her leg had almost been amputated. They didn’t need to know it at this point.

“Is she conscious, Lieutenant Ramsey?”

“No, sir. They’re inducing her into a drug coma until they get her past the second surgery at Landstuhl. Once that is done, she’ll become conscious.”

“I see….”

“She’s going to live, sir. That’s what I wanted you and your wife to know.”

“That’s very kind of you to call us, Lieutenant Ramsey.”

Jake heard the silence grow on the line. He wondered if Morgan had ever talked to them about him. He took a chance. “Sir, you probably don’t know this, but I care very deeply for your daughter. We’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship for the past nine years.” His voice lowered with emotion. “I love her, sir. And I will do everything I can to be by her side through all of this.”

Jake knew in his heart that he could never have the relationship he wanted with Morgan. Even if his heart wanted, his head knew better. They were fated to remain apart.

“Lieutenant, my daughter has spoken a great deal about you to us.”

Jake didn’t hear any censure in the man’s voice, and relief fled through him. “That’s good to know, sir.”

“I don’t know if you knew this, Lieutenant Ramsey, but our daughter never stopped loving you. We know you two have had a rocky relationship.”

Tears leaked out of his tightly shut eyes. Jake drew in a ragged breath. “Sir, if I could have given my life for hers, I’d have done it. I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t. You were in the Recon Marines. You know black ops.”

“Yes, I do, Lieutenant. Listen, stay with Morgan. Can you call us after she comes out of surgery at Landstuhl? We’re trying to arrange flights to get there to be with her.”

“Yes, sir, I will. I won’t leave her side, sir. Things are moving fast here.” Jake blinked, wiping the tears away with his hand. “I heard one ortho surgeon say that as soon as Morgan is stabilized in Germany, they’re looking at sending her home, to the U.S., to the Bethesda medical center on the East Coast. I’d hate for you to fly to Germany and she’s already gone. Let me see what I can find out as things unfold? In the meantime, I’ll be in touch with you.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jim Boland said. His voice grew emotional. “Thank you for saving her life. Morgan couldn’t have had a better partner than you. I hope, someday, we can meet and I can thank you in person, shake your hand.”

Jake tried to steady his voice, the exhaustion making him vulnerable to his normally suppressed feelings. “If it had been me who got hit, she’d have turned around and saved my sorry ass.”

Jim Boland managed a chuckle. “Well said, Lieutenant. How are you doing?”

Jake hadn’t expected such concern or care from Morgan’s father. It made him choke and pull the phone away for a moment. Desperately, he collected himself. “I’m good, sir.”

“You’re a SEAL. Why would I expect any other answer?”

It was Jake’s turn to grin a little. “Yes, sir, I guess that says it all.”

“Just know Cathy and I will be forever in your debt and grateful to you. And thank you for calling us. You have no idea how much better we’ll feel now. We won’t be worrying and wondering. My wife, Cathy, is still sleeping, so I’ll tell her the good news when she wakes up.”

“I’ll be in touch, sir. Goodbye.”

Jake hung up the phone, rubbing his hands tiredly across his face. His beard was rough, and now he could shave it off. He slowly rose, feeling the stiffness and deep bruising his body had taken during combat. Maybe he could find the doctor and persuade him to give him a watertight bandage around his calf so he could stand under a hot shower and get rid of the bone aches and stiffness.

Chapter Nineteen

The world was
full of sounds, but Morgan couldn’t identify any of them. Her consciousness came and went. She was vaguely aware of pain drifting up her left leg. Mouth dry, she moved her lips. They felt cracked and sore. Her throat, when she tried to swallow, hurt like hell. The only thing she could focus on, despite the sounds, smells and moments of nothingness, was a warm, strong hand holding hers.

And sometimes, she’d feel him lace his fingers between hers. It was intimate. Tender. Morgan felt cold, and he felt so warm. Moving her head slowly, she wanted to open her eyes, but her lids were so heavy. Voices intruded. A man. A woman. No one she recognized. She recognized Jake’s low, deep voice. He was so close. People were talking around her.

Their excitement was evident even though they were whispering to one another. Her attention remained on his hand as Morgan struggled to surface from the drug state. Jake’s fingers closed gently around her own, as if to silently reassure her. Her anxiety began to dissolve.
Jake.

Her mind wasn’t working. Just bits, pieces, but his hand was her only anchor.

The voices left, and something squeaked, perhaps a chair? The hand would shift around hers, which made her panic. And then his fingers gently stroked her hair, moving strands away from her cheek. Her lashes fluttered; the gesture was one she knew so well. Jake was so close to her.

Morgan thought she could feel his moist breath flowing across her brow. As he pressed a light kiss on her forehead, her anxiety ebbed even more. She sighed and relaxed, still unable to surface. But Jake was with her and nothing else mattered.

Jake was sleeping,
his head resting on his arms against the bed where Morgan slept. It was nearly three in the morning, and he was exhausted.

They’d flown Morgan out of Bagram the next morning and he’d been on the flight with her. At Landstuhl medical center in Germany, she’d undergone another six more hours of surgery to repair her shattered femur. He’d been allowed to wait in the lounge until they’d wheeled her out of surgery. He’d been grateful that they’d had a chair waiting for him at her bedside in a private room at the military hospital. Morgan had been heavily drugged, and the doctors had assured him, she would slowly become conscious.

Jake had paced the room for hours. Thinking. Remembering. Replaying the firefight. The terrible flight in the Black Hawk back to Bagram, never knowing from one moment to the next whether Morgan would go into cardiac arrest and die before his eyes or not. And there would be nothing he could do about it. Absolutely nothing. The emotional phone call to Morgan’s parents had gutted him in a new way. They
did
know about him and their relationship. Jake had heard no censure or judgment in Jim Boland’s voice toward him, which had been a huge relief for him.

The hours in flight from Afghanistan to Germany had made Jake take a hard look at his life. At his love for Morgan that had been there from the very first time he’d laid eyes on her at Annapolis. He’d always loved her. He’d been too full of himself to realize it. Until it was almost too late. Finally, at two in the morning, he’d pulled the chair over to her bed. Jake had placed his arms on the bed near her right hip. The moment he laid his head down he’d fallen into a weary, tense sleep.

At one point, Jake had jerked awake. Like any SEAL, he awoke instantly, completely alert. Sitting up, he heard Morgan moan. She was moving her long fingers across her stomach. Taking a swift breath, Jake pushed the chair out of the way. He placed a hand on her shoulder. Her lashes fluttered. Her lips moved, incoherent sounds slipping from them. Looking over at the monitors on the other side of the bed, Jake noticed her blood pressure, pulse and temperature were all normal. A smile cracked his exhausted features. Morgan was becoming conscious.
Finally…

When Morgan’s lashes slowly opened, even with the bare light from the monitoring instruments, Jake could see her eyes were murky-looking. He gently massaged her right shoulder. “It’s all right, babe. It’s Jake. And you’re coming out of anesthesia. You’re all right. Just keep fighting to come back to me….”

Jake’s words rang around in her head as if it were an echo chamber. Morgan released a sigh of relief. His hand resting on her shoulder oriented her. It became a focus to fight out of the cottony world that tugged at her. Finally, an hour later, Morgan lifted her lashes and looked up…up into Jake’s darkly shadowed face. It was his gray eyes, glittering with tears, that sheared through her world of morphine. He tried to smile but failed, his hand tightening on her shoulder.

“Welcome back, babe. You gave us one hell of a scare….”

By the time dawn arrived, Morgan was fully conscious and aware. There had been a parade of nurses and doctors coming in to check her, run the light across her eyes, monitor her heart, listen to her lungs. Jake remained quietly in the background as Morgan was informed by her ortho surgeon, Dr. Ruth Cramer, about the state of her broken femur.

Morgan stared up into Dr. Cramer’s blue eyes. “What do you mean I won’t be able to do what I was doing?” Panic ate at her. The doctor’s eyes turned kind.

Reaching out, she touched Morgan’s shoulder. “Captain, thirty percent of your femur is gone. It’s going to take it a while to regrow. And even if it does, it will never be strong like you need it to be to do what you were doing out there before this injury occurred.”

Morgan digested the sentence. “But with physical therapy?”

Dr. Cramer shook her head and patted her hand. “Morgan, your combat days are over. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but it doesn’t matter if you were a man or woman, it would be the same diagnosis. You’ll need physical therapy, for sure. And we’ll make sure you get it. For ninety-nine percent of whatever you choose to do with the rest of your life, your leg will be strong and reliable.” She lowered her voice, seeing Morgan’s face grow pale. “We’ll talk more about your recovery plan tomorrow. Right now, Lieutenant Ramsey is going to be your big, bad guard dog. He’s been with you every step of the way.”

Morgan rested wearily against the slightly raised bed. Her left leg was beneath a tent. There were metal screws holding the bones together, and anything that touched the pins sent her through the roof with excruciating nerve pain. She gulped a few times, her breathing uneven as she considered the doctor’s diagnosis.

“How are you doing?” Jake asked, coming over to her bed after the surgeon left. Morgan’s hair glinted with copper highlights in the early-morning sunlight lancing through the blinds at the window. The slats threw themselves across her bed. To Jake, they looked like symbolic prison bars after hearing Dr. Cramer’s diagnosis. He knew it had rocked Morgan’s world in a way she’d never expected.

Morgan laced her fingers with his. “Not so good,” she whispered, trying to choke back her emotions.

“I know….” Jake tried to put himself in her place. What if he’d been so badly wounded that he was told he could never be a SEAL again? It would devastate Jake because his ego, his whole life, was centered around being one. He squeezed her fingers, seeing the anguish deep in her shadowed green eyes. “I’m sorry, babe…so sorry….”

Morgan lay there wrestling with this news. His voice quieted her, soothed her. Jake was steady when she was not. She loved him. She drowned in his softened gray gaze. “I never thought we’d get out of there alive, Jake. I really didn’t.”

“Neither did I, babe.” Jake compressed his lips for a moment, watching her wrestle with the bad news. “You know what? You’re the bravest, most courageous fighter I’ve ever met. You saved my hide. You took out Khogani.” He squeezed her hand. “You’ve done so much, Morgan. The world will never know about it, but the Generals will know, and I’ll never forget what you did. Maybe—” Jake tried to smile but failed “—you’ve done enough? Other things are coming full circle in your life, and they should take on more importance now?”

If he only knew the whole truth. Her mind and emotions clashed. How badly Morgan wanted to tell Jake about Emma, but she wasn’t thinking rationally. She needed to talk to her parents, whom she’d call for the first time in the afternoon. They would let Emma talk to her on the phone. Of course, her daughter couldn’t know how badly she’d been wounded. But just to hear their voices would ground her. Maybe Jake was right. Morgan felt incredibly weak and overwrought. The trauma had stolen her normal mental toughness and powerful physical endurance. Jake was her strength right now.

“I think you’re right,” she whispered. And then Morgan ventured a bold request, understanding Jake would never be a permanent part of her life. “Kiss me? I’ve missed you so much, Jake.” She raised her hand, slipping it upward across his chest.

Without a word, he leaned over, searching, finding her mouth as she raised her lips to meet his. Her lips brushed across his mouth. Morgan was very fragile. Jake eased his hand along the line of her jaw, gently angling her to deepen the contact.

The warmth of Jake’s breath, his roughened hand against her cheek, made Morgan moan and hungrily kiss the man whom she loved with every cell in her body. She craved his closeness, his love. The trauma had broken her in a new way, one that she’d never experienced before. Jake had been wounded before. He knew the ups and downs a person went through after surviving intense combat. Jake was here for her in every way.

He moved his mouth gently against hers, nothing rough or jolting. Just…tenderness. His fingers eased upward, caressing her clean hair, inhaling her scent as he continued to slowly worship her lips and welcome her back to the land of the living.

As Jake eased his mouth from hers, he drowned in the green and gold of Morgan’s eyes. Moving his thumb across her eyebrow, he whispered unsteadily, “I never got to answer you out there on the ridge. You told me you’d never stopped loving me.” Jake smiled brokenly, holding her gaze. “I’ve never stopped loving you, either.” He laid his lips against her mouth and breathed his breath into her. “I love you, Morgan. I’ll love you until I take my last breath.” And that was the truth. Jake just didn’t know if they could ever, really, be together.

His arms slid around Morgan, gently holding her. It was the first time they’d had time to be alone. He pressed her face against his chest, and his solidly beating heart saturated her with hope. “We have so much to talk about, Jake.”

“I know, babe. I know….”

The door opened.

Jake released Morgan and instantly went on guard. It was his nature. His eyes widened.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude,” General Maya Stevenson said, quietly shutting the door. She stood in cammies, a cap in her left hand.

Blinking twice, Morgan couldn’t believe the General had come to visit her. Yet, the tall, black-haired woman who stood before her smiled. “General Stevenson…”

Jake came to attention, his hand leaving Morgan’s gowned shoulder.

“At ease, Lieutenant Ramsey,” Maya murmured, coming over and standing on the other side of Morgan’s bed. “Officially, I’m not here.” She gave Jake a pointed look that spoke volumes.

Jake relaxed. In a way, he wasn’t surprised the General had turned up because he was positive she was Morgan’s mentor. “Yes, ma’am,” he murmured.

Maya reached out and gripped Morgan’s left hand. “You’ve had a tough haul. How are you doing?”

Morgan lay back, her heart beating hard in her chest from the interlude with Jake. “I’ll make it, ma’am.”

As she released her hand, Maya’s smile disappeared and she looked across the bed to Jake. “And you, Lieutenant Ramsey?”

He managed a sour smile. “I’m good. A bullet in my leg hasn’t slowed me down much at all, ma’am.”

Nodding, Maya rested her hands on the side of the bed. She returned her attention to Morgan. “Has he told you what happened after you arrived at Bagram?”

Confused, Morgan glanced over at Jake. His face went dark, his mouth becoming a thin line. Something was afoot. What?

“I’ve said nothing to her, ma’am,” Jake growled. He worried about the timing and saw the General was going to tell Morgan anyway. “She’s fragile,” he warned the General in a low voice. Jake didn’t want Morgan thrown into another emotional storm.

“Hmm, so I see.” Maya nodded. “Lieutenant Ramsey, I have your report. It’s very thorough, and I appreciate the time you took on it. You left no stone unturned on this op. Well done.” The woman’s green eyes glittered with warmth toward him.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Jake moved his head slightly in Morgan’s direction. “She saved my ass. Literally.”

A smile pulled at Maya’s lips. “So she did. She’s saved a lot of people out there.” Maya held Morgan’s gaze. “I’m putting you in for a Silver Star, Morgan. You’ve earned it.” She pulled two small boxes out of her left pocket. Opening the first, she pinned the medal on Morgan’s pillow. “And you’ve also earned a Purple Heart.”

Jake came to attention as the General moved around the bed. She pinned on his medal.

“Lieutenant Ramsey, you’ve done your country a great service. Thank you.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Maya stepped away. “Lieutenant Ramsey, would you give us a few minutes alone? My two assistants are outside the door. Why not invite them down to the cafeteria for some coffee? They won’t want to leave, but make them. Use your SEAL persuasion?”

Jake glanced over at Morgan. Her face was flushed, and she appeared wan. He didn’t want to leave her, afraid the General didn’t understand the extent of Morgan’s emotional instability. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, opening the door and leaving.

Maya pulled up a chair and sat down, facing her in the quiet. “How are you really doing, Morgan?”

Folding her hands in her lap, Morgan admitted, “Up and down, ma’am.”

“I’ve been wounded before. I know what it’s like to come back out of hell.” Maya searched her face. “I didn’t know you and Lieutenant Ramsey had a relationship?”

Morgan chewed on her lower lip. “We go back a long ways, ma’am. Nine years, to be exact.”

“And it didn’t interfere in this op?”

“No, it didn’t.” Morgan cleared her throat. “We’ve loved one another through hell and high water. Never could make it work until…now…maybe….” Nothing was forever, Morgan knew from too much experience with Jake.