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“Hooyah,” Shawn and Hays quietly repeated.
Jagger swallowed down the emotion and turned to face this next week’s challenge. The door to the plane swooped open, seamlessly forming a staircase. A tall, dark, well-built man with obvious military bearing walked out. He nodded coolly to them and turned back to wait for his counterpart.
Air Force Reconnaissance Lieutenant Paul Braven.
Jagger had taunted and fought with the ever-smirking Aiden Porter, Braven’s boss. Aiden had earned his respect, but they were definitely not buddies. Jagger had grown to like the smiling Nick Jacobs from last week. Great guy. Paul Braven must be the serious friend.
They all waited for the lady to descend. And waited. And waited.
Shawn looked at him and lifted his shoulders.
“Shall I go carry her out of the plane?” Jagger tried to joke.
Paul glanced back at him with a glare.
Jagger raised his hands, feigning innocence. How would Paul make it through the week? Jagger wasn’t even being a jerk yet. That had been a semi-nice line in his mind. At least Aiden and Nick had been able to banter with him and Hays.
Turning back to the plane, Paul extended his hand. A woman placed her small hand in his and finally descended the steps.
Her hair was blonde, her eyes blue, and her face was breathtakingly beautiful. Though her frame was small, barely five-three, she had gained womanly curves in the past fourteen years. She was a Southern lady clear through and would be as comfortable on a horse as she was at the church’s potluck dinner or standing up for what she believed in.
Jagger knew all of this because he knew this woman.
His heart threatened to burst from his chest, and every muscle in his body tightened.
“Bee,” he heard himself moan.
He wanted to dash to her and sweep her off her feet, kiss her thoroughly and praise his angel mother up in heaven for bringing his Bee back into his life. He’d promised not to contact her, but here she was, only twenty feet away.
The other option, almost as compelling as the first, was to sprint in the other direction. He should run turkey like he’d never done and break the promise he’d just made to Shawn. He should quit this week and never have to face his lost love.
Jagger did neither. He froze and let his gaze feast on her perfect and too-familiar face. She’d matured, and it had only made her more beautiful, sharpening the angles of her feminine features and enhancing the curves she’d barely hinted at as an eighteen-year-old.
Her blue eyes were locked on him, like a sniper with him in the bullseye. She hadn’t scanned the area and then noticed him; she’d somehow known he was here, and clearly the only thing on her mind was cussing him out. Her blue eyes shot fire at him. He knew her too well, but any fool could see she was furious with him.
How could that be? She’d turned her back on him, cheated on him with Mike, and broken his heart, not the other way around. She should be groveling for his forgiveness, not coming out stinging like a bee from the start.
“I can’t do this,” he muttered for only Shawn to hear.
“Please,” Shawn said. The word wasn’t one he used often, or ever. “You promised you wouldn’t quit. Remember, it was Mercedes’s dying wish of you.”
“Wait a minute.” Jagger rounded on his friend, not bothering to keep his voice low. “She knew? Mercedes and Julie schemed this up, Julie did her deep-dive research, and she found …” He couldn’t very well admit that Bee was the lost love of his life on the show or especially in front of Bee. “Found Belinda Ralphs, and brought her on this show.” Now he rounded on Hays. “Did you tell her?”
Hays shook his head, his dark eyes sincere. Hays hadn’t ratted him out.
Jagger looked back to Shawn. “You?”
Shawn let out a heavy breath and said in a hushed whisper, “Apparently I mentioned years ago that you were in love in basic, but halfway through A school it imploded. Sorry, man.” He lifted his hands. “I refused to give her a name.”
Jagger clenched his jaw and his fists. He glanced over and could see the lieutenant and Bee in hushed conversation. She looked up at Jagger and their gazes caught and held. Her blue glacier eyes melted, engulfed him like a thermal pool, and Jagger was sunk, held more firmly than with a pair of iron shackles.
The life-giving, joy-filled connection was back. It was like the last fourteen years had been nothing more than a horrible dream. Everything that had ever been between Jagger and his Bee was back—all the love, the memories, the plans and dreams.
Belinda would run to him and he’d pick her up in his arms, kiss her with the fire and passion only they had together. He’d never moved on from her, just like he knew he wouldn’t. She was his perfect match. Of course his Bee could explain why she’d moved on from him.
She had moved on. Cheated on him. Broken him.
The picture in his mind’s eye of her returning Mike’s kiss severed their connection and turned any good memory or hope for their future into dust.
