Juliet came up the wooden stairs after her trip to the head and resumed her position on the couch while Finn had remained in his corner.
“I was just wondering,” she said, settling her back against the cushions and pulling the blanket over her legs. “What generally sets off a person with PTSD? I mean, obviously, that car backfiring that night on the street sounded like gunfire—and even I had the instinct to duck—but Avery only started to get wiggy when she was in that restaurant as it began to fill up with customers. At L’École, she began to shake when her classmates crowded around, wanting to know the details of what happened to J-P.”
“My guess is those were scenes that mirrored the moment the shooters entered the crowded restaurant and opened fire. Her brain went right back to relive that moment.”
Juliet nodded slowly. “If you don’t mind telling me,” she asked, titling her head to one side, “what other kinds of things can set you off, for instance?”
She saw that Finn took a deep breath and appeared to come to some conclusion. In a low voice, he began to describe the triggers that still had the power to affect him.
“Loud, unexpected noises, mostly, which I trace back to the blast when my helicopter was hit. I had a busted up leg, of course, that hurt like hell. Later—probably because my head got pounded in the crash—I developed ice-pick-in-the-brain headaches for a year, which finally went away.”
“But you got past a lot of that, and were even able to go to Nevada to fly drones, so why did you suddenly retreat to Paris?”
A long pause became total silence between them. Finn looked over his shoulder, toward the stairs leading down to his stateroom, appearing for all the world to Juliet as if he wanted to bolt. Instead, he slowly turned his head back and met her troubled gaze.
“After a year, I pretty much recovered from the physical damage as far as the VA doctors were concerned, but... then I entered those unmarked trailers in the American desert and shook hands with the devil.”
“What do you mean?”
“The very first week I was there I had my first drone kill.”
“And... ?” she asked, careful to keep her tone neutral.
“And... just as I released the Hellfire missile on what were termed ‘high value targets’, a little boy came chasing after his dog who had run around the corner of the compound.”
“Oh, no...” she whispered.
“Once you push the button, the missile takes fifty-five seconds to reach its target. The drones taking off in the Middle East have mounted cameras on the unmanned plane. Our monitor screens in Nevada showed everything that happened in the target area.”
“Oh... God...” she moaned.
“I sat there in that cushy leather chair, knowing that in a few more seconds that six-year-old kid would be blown to particles so small, no one could identify him.”
“Finn...” Juliet said, her throat tight.
“Then I watched on that damn screen as the child’s mother, who was a block away, came screaming and crying down the street when she saw her house had been flattened and was burning white hot. We saw her arrive on the scene and dive into the ashes, searing her hands and arms, frantically trying to find her little son.”
“Oh, Jesus...” Juliet murmured, her eyes filled with tears.
Finn continued to lock glances. “Right then, our shift was over and the next team walked into the trailer. I went back to my house at the base where Kim happened to have invited people over for a barbeque that night. She was annoyed that I was late. She wanted me to cook hotdogs on the grill and pass out the beer.”
“And you weren’t allowed to say anything about what had happened that day? You couldn’t tell her you’d just blown up a—?”
“You got it,” he interrupted harshly. His own eyes were moist. “I watched the charcoal burning white hot beneath that meat... and I think I lost my soul that day.”
Juliet reached across the sofa and seized his nearest hand that felt cold as a cadaver’s.
“I know it’s not much comfort, Finn, but I am so, so sorry you had to go through something like that.”
“I’m not the only one who went through it.”
Finn abruptly withdrew his hand and rose from the couch to cross over to the windows, staring at the mirror image of the Eiffel Tower glistening in the river below it.
“Did you ever finally tell your wife about this? About what happened that day, and how it made you feel afterward?”
His eyes remained glued to the tower reflection as he shook his head. “By that time, after those tours of duty and the months in the hospital, and then flying unmanned combat drones on high target missions... I didn’t really understand what was happening to me physically or emotionally. I just kept going to work and doing what I was told. I was numb, I guess. Everything was so macho on the Creech airbase that, when my symptoms got worse and I had new ones, I knew nobody really gave a damn. And besides, I just... well... withdrew. And then Kim—”
“What new symptoms?” Juliet cut in.
Finn looked at her over his shoulder. “I was irritable. I had these flashes of anger over little stuff. And... I was depressed. Some mornings I could hardly get out of bed, put on my uniform, and go back into those trailers. Some guys could just shrug it off. ‘Hey... fewer rag heads to kill our men,’ and they’d laugh. It’s the new kind of warfare—since nobody wants the draft to come back and the politicians fear voter backlash when there are casualties that come with the boots-on-the-ground way of fighting,” he said with bitter sarcasm. “But none of those justifications worked for me. I started to worry about the enemy getting hold of our weapons systems and using drones on us. I was pretty crazy, there, for a while.”
“It’s a Pandora’s box, isn’t it?” she said barely above a whisper. “The North Koreans or some other rogue state someday could target downtown San Francisco with a drone...”
Finn nodded. “The more I thought about what I was doing, the more I just felt like a weakling and a jerk. So when my commitment was finally up, I didn’t tell anyone, but I quit. I just walked out of those trailers, put in my resignation, and waited for the paperwork to come through. Once it did, I got on a plane, and never looked back.”
“You just left? What about Kim? Didn’t you at least explain to her what you were going through?”
Finn cast her an odd look and said curtly, “It would have made absolutely no difference.”
Juliet reared back on the couch. “You didn’t tell her? Ever?” she asked, incredulous. “About the missile killing that little boy and his dog? About your worries about drones hitting America one day?”
“I obeyed orders and kept my word to keep my mouth shut.”
“Screw orders!” Juliet fumed. “This was your life! Your family! How do you know you couldn’t have worked through your problems in your marriage if Kim understood what was torturing you? How fair was that to her not to tell her?”
“It would have made no difference!”
“You’ll never know, will you?” Juliet shot back.
By this moment, Finn was obviously angry, too, over their exchange. Suddenly, she was not only shocked, but also worried that their heated conversation might set off serious emotional fireworks. In as dispassionate a tone as she could manage she said, “Look, I can see that talking about this upsets you. I-I’m sorry if I overstepped the boundaries, but since you told me about the drone strike and that little boy—”
Finn took a step toward the sofa and she felt herself flinch. However, his expression was contrite. ‘Juliet... I’m sorry for being so testy, just now. The truth is, my wife basically left the marriage first. I guess it’s still a pretty raw spot, on top of all the other stuff I was dealing with. It’s no excuse for my rudeness just now, but maybe it explains it.”
Juliet relaxed her grip on the blanket that covered her legs. “Well, I can certainly understand that you both were obviously dealing with some very tough circumstances, but not to tell her anything... .”
When Juliet left her sentence dangling, Finn shot her a speculative look.
“As it happens, the ‘circumstances,’ as you so politely phrase it, were excruciating... but that’s enough about me.” He glanced at the brass ship’s clock on the nearby shelf. “It’s getting late, but first, I want you to tell me something. Who did you leave in San Francisco? You’re a very intelligent, talented, lovely-looking woman. Is anybody waiting for you when you get home?”
Startled by this U-turn in their conversation, Juliet bit her lip and didn’t answer right away. Finally she said, “I have what I guess you’d could call a ‘boyfriend’ back home—which sounds pretty lame when one is thirty-six.”
Finn cocked an eyebrow. “What’s his name?”
“Jed Jarvis.”
“A serious boyfriend?”
“My mother hopes so,” she joked, adding, “and I supposed the betting money among family and friends is we’d get engaged at some point. He’s a whiz at designing and programming software, though, and I’ve been dating him officially for about a year.” She offered Finn a steady gaze. “And since I’ve been in Paris, I know now that I don’t want to be in a relationship with him anymore.”
She was inordinately pleased to see Finn’s shoulders relax slightly.
“Want to tell me why you feel that way?”
“Actually I do,” she said, holding his glance. “He’s not the kind of guy who pays much attention to anything but himself. He isn’t the sort who has your back, you know what I mean? I can’t count on him for much of anything, and frankly, I’ve kinda been the same way with him. We never have real conversations. Not even close to the ones you and I have had since I’ve been here. I never tell him how I feel or what’s really going on with me, because—frankly—I don’t think he’s very interested. And he can be clueless and thoughtless and—”
“So why has it taken you a year to figure this out?” Finn demanded.
Juliet felt strangely elated that Finn was showing the telltale signs of jealousy just hearing about Jed. Then, she was ashamed and reminded herself Finn was still married to a woman who had no idea of the agony he’d been through—because he hadn’t told her.
“Look, I know it sounds ridiculous,” she allowed, feeling lost in a sea of contradictory emotions, “but Jed’s been my eldest brother’s friend since grade school. When I hit thirty-five, last year, he came on to me at the big birthday party my parents held for me at the hotel. I... we... just sort of drifted together after that night. I should have seen right away we’re not right for each other, but I was swamped with work once Avery left for Paris, and he was... well, enmeshed, I suppose is a good word, with our family and my brother’s company. He was a convenient escort, I guess I’d call him—a fact which doesn’t cast me in a very attractive light.”
“And your parents are in favor of this... match?”
Juliet scoffed. “My mother is in favor of any match. She doesn’t seem to want a spinster daughter on her hands who still lives in the family hotel. Getting away from San Francisco as I have, I can see everything much more clearly. I’m a creative type. Jed’s one of the techies in our company. We see everything differently. He’s the one who developed the specific encryption software original to Sky Slaughter and he’s going to make millions off it, along with my elder brother.”
“This Jed guy sounds like a good catch to me,” Finn declared. “Lifetime security. A friend of the family. That would certainly be very convenient.”
Juliet felt her pulse speed up and was cut to the quick by Finn’s mocking judgment. “You don’t know me if you think I’m a person who’d back a horse merely because I think he’ll pay off across the finish line.”
Finn gave a brief shake of his head, as if angry with himself.
“Apologies again. I don’t even know the guy and already I don’t like him, but that was a stupid crack. It’s sounds to me as if you just floated into the deal with Jed, pretty much like I did with Kim.”
Mollified by this, Juliet replied, “Since November thirteenth, making a fortune in violent video war games seems pretty obscene to me. I can’t do it for much longer, or be with a guy like that just to keep my family off my back about my ‘future.’”
“And your father? What does he say?”
“He says nothing. He hardly ever takes on my mother once she has an idée fixe. I can see, now, it was purely wishful thinking to hope my dad would side with me if I said I didn’t want to be with Jed anymore.’’
Finn shot Juliet a hard look. “Why is it you’re only just now recognizing all this?”
“I’m only just admitting it to myself, and now I want to do something about it. As my Grandmother Thayer once said to me, ‘Darling, nothing in pants is sometimes preferable to something in pants.’”
“Present company excluded, I hope?”
Juliet stared at him blankly.
“That’s a joke.”
Embarrassed by the thought that, perhaps, Finn thought he was the reason she had come to the conclusion to dump her boyfriend, she took her courage in hand and spoke her mind anyway. “Present company definitely excluded. But, seriously, Finn, knowing what I know, now that I’ve been to Paris since the attacks, it makes me literally sick to my stomach to have been any part of the video war game industry. Maybe it’s fine for other people. Maybe it doesn’t warp young minds like I think it does. And I’m sure there are ‘good’ games and ‘positive’ electronic games. Maybe they teach dexterity and motor skill—or whatever! But the truth, for me, anyhow, is that I realize how much I hate games, period. I can’t go back to that life ... not after what Avery and the Grenelles and all Parisians have gone through, to say nothing of the relatives of the 9/11 victims.”
Finn crossed to the couch and stood gazing down at her. “And so, like me... all paths of self-awareness led to Paris?”
She cast him a sad smile. “One way or another—or so it seems for the two Americans on board this vessel. And, in one sense, I’m grateful to have gained some perspective having come here, although I so wish it hadn’t been at the expense of Jean-Pierre and Avery.”
Finn took another step closer to the sofa and startled her by bending down and once again cupping her face in his hands. She wondered if he was feeling the same jolt of electricity she did each time they made physical contact. His blue eyes seemed almost black and all she longed for was to stay with him aboard L’Étoile, study landscape painting, and set out on a new path leaving all her worry and troubles behind.
This time his kiss was brief. Seconds later, he stood straight and stated flatly, “But despite these ah-ha moments, you’ve decided to head back to San Francisco, am I right?”
A shocking sense of desolation filled her chest. “Yes. I have to go back. I can’t believe that my plane leaves in less than twenty-four hours. I don’t want to go, but—”
“Then don’t.” Finn’s response overrode her own. “I don’t want you to go, either.”
Juliet looked up at him from the couch, stunned to hear these words. He held out his two hands, pulling her to her feet. The blanket that had been covering her legs fell on the floor between them. She made no resistance when he pulled her into his arms once more, their bodies aligned, their lips inches apart.
“It’s so strange the way our paths crossed,” she whispered, “and no matter what happens, I don’t think I’ll ever be the same after coming here.”
“Then stay.”
It almost sounded like a command. He leaned down and kissed her with such renewed intensity, she felt as if he were imprinting himself upon her so that if she did leave, she would never forget this moment. She felt a crooked grin creasing his lips, but she could only break their kiss and shake her head in a kind of despair.
“Oh, God, Finn... why do we have to live six thousand miles apart?”
“Didn’t Bogie say to Ingrid Bergman, ‘We’ll always have Paris?’”
He was teasing but his voice was hoarse and his breathing sounded ragged around the edges.
“I hate that line in Casablanca!” She leaned in and now it was she who was kissing him. She despised how weepy she felt. Finally, she pulled back once again. “They both were so noble... so self-sacrificing. I couldn’t stand that scene when they said goodbye!”
“I wanted more for them, didn’t you?”
She couldn’t believe the tears that had started to blur her vision.
“You and I can’t have more. Not right now. Not with the mess we’re both in.”
And with her stark statement, reality came back with a crash. She wiped her eyes with the back of her fingers. “Listen,” she said, holding tight to his hands as if willing him to understand her next words, “I love what I feel with you tonight when we kiss, and what I feel whenever we sit in the corners of that couch, but what impacts everything for both of us is that we happened to have met at exactly the wrong moment.”
“No, don’t say that! We can just take this a step at a time.”
“How are we going to do that?” she demanded. “I leave tomorrow!”
He shot her a sly grin. “Maybe a perfectly reasonable next step is to forget being so noble and head down the ladder to my stateroom. Then, the next step is cancelling your flight and—”
Juliet shook her head vehemently. “No more jokes. And it’s not just that you’re still a married man,” she explained urgently. “For me, what’s weighing against just about everything is what’s going to come crashing down in San Francisco. My family’s entire financial net worth is enmeshed in this world of war games. All our assets of the last five generations—my dad’s savings... the hotel my ancestors built—everything we have is now tied up in this stupid joint enterprise. I don’t want to be a part of Brad’s crazy empire anymore—and that definitely includes his right hand man, Jed Jarvis. I can see that, but Finn,” she implored for his understanding, “I can’t just plunge into a major life change and move to Paris in a flash. I have to go back home and figure out how to untangle myself from everything and hopefully help my parents get untangled if there’s any way to do that.”
She pulled Finn’s hands upward and laid her cheek against the back of this fingers, silently praying that he would accept the complexity of the issues confronting the two of them. After a few moments, she released his hands and continued in a low voice. “I can’t even legally sell my company stock, yet. I can’t just abandon my mother and father at their age—even though persuading them that they should bail out of Brad’s company is probably an impossible task. Even so, I have to give it one more shot. I have to figure this out, Finn, or at least try to... and I have to return home to do it. The heck of it is, I don’t have a clue where to begin or how to make any of this happen.”
Finn remained silent during this long explanation. Then he pulled her against his body, wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and just held her. The strength and warmth of his embrace told her that he did, indeed, understand their dilemma.
Juliet pointed to the stairs that led down to his stateroom. “But just so you know, I would like nothing better than to dive into that double bed of yours and—”
She felt herself flushing. When had she ever been so honest with a man, especially a man to whom she now realized she was attracted on so many levels?
“And do what in that bed?” he murmured into her ear. “’Fess up, so we’ll know what we’re missing.”
“Make love with you. One, wonderful night in Paris.”
Finn reached for her hand and laid her palm against his cheek. Gazing down at her, he bestowed a smile weighted with sadness and regret... and even a ray of hope.
“Maybe there’ll be more than one, wonderful night if you go back to San Francisco tomorrow to do what you feel you need to do, and then come back. I see, now, how it all makes a kind of upside-down sense, and our sleeping together tonight doesn’t. I get it, but what a loss.”
“Don’t I know it!” She melted against his chest again and tucked her head under his chin.
“Well, isn’t this nice?” he murmured. “My consolation prize?”
“Best I can do, under the circumstances,” she mumbled into his neck. “But please be clear about one thing: I think you are truly something else, flyboy.”
“Maybe, one day, I’ll be able to prove it to you, but there’s no question. You’ve got some hard choices ahead, just like I have.”
Puzzled, she asked, “Haven’t you already made those tough decisions? You left the military and now you’re living here.”
“No...” he said with a slight shake of his head, “I haven’t made all of my decisions. Not yet.”
“But, you’ve cut off all ties with your family.”
“I cut them while I figure out the future for myself... and while I try to get past the worst of this PTSD stuff. That is, if I can.”
Juliet took a step back, her arms still wrapped around his waist. “So you might... well... you might mend some fences, in the end?” she asked, thinking of Kim. Her heart clutched at the possibility.
Finn looked away. “I’m at a point in my life when I don’t think it’s smart to make any predictions, so I won’t. There are too many loose ends that still need tying up.’”
The mood between them had suddenly shifted and Juliet felt a distance had bloomed in the silence that filled the pilothouse. What did he mean “loose ends?” Something other than the divorce? But what? She sensed he was holding back on something and was struck by the unhappy thought that it was probably a huge blessing that she was heading back to San Francisco before she got in too deep with this enigmatic man. Major Finn Deschanel had dark corners in his life she knew nothing about, places he was obviously not willing to share with her—unless poked and prompted. Not until she’d finally pulled it out of him had he even admitted the very crucial fact that he had a wife back home—however estranged they might be.
Composing herself as if she were leading a contentious meeting in the conference room at the office, she took a step back and heaved a small shrug. “It looks like we both have a lot of cleanup to do on these littered paths of ours...”
“I’d have to say, yes, we do,” he agreed, his tone equally neutral.
She gestured toward her suitcase on the floor beside the sofa.
“Well, I still have to pack and then I’d better get to bed.”
Finn glanced toward his stateroom below deck. His expression had become a peculiar mix of unhappiness and concern.
“Right. But before you end this conversation with that light-and-polite look on your face... can you promise me one thing?” His voice was gentle, now, and it stopped her cold.
“What? Promise what?”
“That there won’t be a permanent moratorium on kissing you?”
Her lips formed into a prim line. “Obviously there should be,” she retorted, meeting his glance.
Ignoring her last words, Finn closed the space separating them and pulled her into his arms again. Before Juliet knew what was happening, he kissed her until she could barely breathe. To her surprise, and despite the intensity of feeling behind his unexpected actions, she felt no fear, no sense that he had turned into some raging madman. Rather, it seemed clear to her that he was trying to express to her in a way his words could not that he was drawn to her as seriously as she was to him, and that he hugely regretted the confounded complications that stood in their way. Her body responded, even though she couldn’t find words to express the uneasy feeling she had that he hadn’t disclosed everything that was troubling him.
As if he could sense she was disturbed, he murmured in her hair, “I’m so sorry my life is such a mess.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, my life’s a mess, too. And this—right now—is getting dangerous.”
“For me, too.”
“You’re married, Finn. You and Kim share a long history. Facts are facts.”
“Which fact are you talking about?”
She stepped away. “That isn’t funny!”
Finn stood with his hands by his sides. “I’m sorry. Again. You’re right. None of it’s a joke. We probably should declare a moratorium. I couldn’t think of anything else to say because... just now, I wanted to scoop you up and carry you down to my stateroom like a cave man heading for the hills.”
She heaved a sigh of finality. “Well, we can’t do that.”
He gave a short laugh. “Good call. At least one of us is keeping our heads.”
And within seconds, he disappeared from the main cabin, firmly shutting the teak door between his stateroom and the pilothouse above.