He gave me a healthy dose of side-eye from the exam table, his leg stretched out on the paper liner. “It’s a good thing I love you.”

I blew him a kiss. “You look sexy in PT shorts.”

There was a knock at the door and a cursory pause before it opened. “Lieutenant Walker,” the flight surgeon said, glancing over his chart.

After introductions, Dr. Ortiz got right down to the exam, keeping it focused on his injuries and not how he’d received them. I did my best to keep my eyes off the sculpted lines of his chest and abs when he removed his shirt. I failed. Miserably.

After the exam, Dr. Ortiz sat on her stool to face us. “Laceration on your thigh looks good. No infection, and not swelling too badly. You need to keep off it for another week.”

“Staples?” Josh asked like a kindergartener.

She rolled forward, looking over the wound. “Another four days, and then I’ll take them out. How does that sound?”

“Like four days too long,” he answered.

She rolled her eyes in my direction. “He always like this?”

“Worse,” I answered. “He hasn’t asked you about getting on the ice.”

“Skating?”

His eyes lit up. “Soon?”

“Maybe once that cast is off your arm, Lieutenant.” Man, this woman had the mom look down pat.

“How long will that be?” I asked, putting the notes into my cell phone.

“Another five to six weeks, if I had to guess. We’ll get you in for an X-ray with ortho next week and see how it’s healing.” She jotted more notes in his chart. “Splenectomy incision looks good, too, healing remarkably fast.”

“Good nursing care,” Josh said with a smile, and gave me a wink.

Dr. Ortiz laughed. “Looks like it. He giving you trouble?” she asked me.

He has nightmares. He won’t talk to me. He won’t take pain meds. “No, ma’am. Just keeps trying to test his limits.”

“That’s a pilot for you,” she answered. “Okay, that brings us to your shoulder. Are you keeping the stabilizer on?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered. “How long is that going to be a part of my life?”

“That’s going to be up to ortho, but my best guess, seeing your chart…another three weeks in a sling, and then rehab. We’ll see if we can get you into a below-elbow cast for that arm before we yank the sling, eh?”

Josh nodded, his eyes darting back and forth on the floor like they did whenever he was analyzing something, working out a problem. “Okay, so staples out this week, and then how long for full recovery of my leg?”

Dr. Ortiz tilted her head. “Probably six weeks, if it continues healing how it is. Keep it dry for draining, then we’ll take out the staples and let you heal.”

Josh nodded. “Six weeks total for the arm.”

“Yes.”

“Stitches over my eye this week, too, right?”

“Yes.” Her eyes narrowed at the same time mine did.

He nodded again, calculating, I could tell. What the hell was he trying to figure out?

“Lieutenant, you’re in for a little rehab on that shoulder, your arm, the muscle in your leg, and you had major abdominal surgery. Take it easy. I’m putting you on thirty days of convalescent leave to start with, and then we’ll see where you’re at.”

He’d have thirty days of leave. Thirty days that I could take care of him before he’d be put on a desk job with the rear detachment. The relief that rushed through me, relaxing my posture, was almost embarrassing.

“Okay. How long until I have an up-slip?”

All that relief died a swift, painful death, and my stomach turned, nausea rolling through me. He wanted his wings back, the permission to fly. Five days. It had been five days, and he wanted back in a fucking helicopter.

My eyes bored into him, willing him to turn, to see my face.

He kept his eyes locked on Dr. Ortiz.

She turned toward me, but he didn’t. Fevered rage mixed with ice-cold fear, and I disengaged, leaning back in my chair as I realized he wasn’t asking my opinion. As much as I loved him, in that moment I hated him a little, too.

But maybe he’d need a year, right? Pilots had to be perfectly healthy to fly. Hell, even a sinus infection kept them grounded. If not a year, then maybe six months?

“Let’s get you into rehab first, see about range of motion, and then we’ll discuss an up-slip. You’re at least twelve weeks out.”

Now I hated her a little, too.

Chapter Nineteen

JOSH

“Yeah, thirty days of leave,” I told Mom over the phone before dinner. I ran my fingers alongside the staples on my thigh. Just a few more days and this shit would be out of my body.

“I don’t mean to be all mama-bear, but I’d really like to see you,” she said, her voice heavy with emotion.

“Yeah, of course. I have some things to take care of here in the next couple of weeks. Do you want to come here? I’ll pay for a ticket if you want.” I looked up where Ember was chopping lettuce, and she gave me an approving nod before turning her eyes back to the greens.

It was the closest thing to communication I’d gotten since the doctor’s appointment hours ago.

“Oh, a plane? I don’t know.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. “Planes are safer than cars, Mom. By about forty-three thousand to thirteen.”