“What?”
“You wanted to escape from your small town—and you ended up inScarlet.” That made her laugh.
He could see the humor. “Except that Scarlet is the gateway to the mountains, and there’s nothing small about them.”
She took another sip of wine. “What brought you to Colorado in the first place?”
“After I left the Rangers, I went to New Orleans to live near my sister, but I had a hard time getting back into the swing of civilian life.”
That was an understatement. He’d come back with a head full of death and rage and started drinking. He’d tried to get help from the VA, but the wait times had lasted longer than his sister’s patience. She’d given up on him.
Well, they’d never been close anyway.
“I’d seen pictures of the Rockies and came out to Colorado to try to get Afghanistan and Iraq out of my head. I fell in love with the mountains at first sight.”
He could still remember that moment when he’d caught his first glimpse of the high peaks with their glittering white summits. “I got my first climbing lesson a couple of days after seeing climbers in Eldorado Canyon State Park, and I was hooked.”
Climbing cleared his mind, cut through the wall that seemed to have grown up around his emotions, made him feel whole and human again.
Ellie stared wide-eyed at him. “You’ve only been climbing for a couple of years—and you made the Team?”
He nodded. “It was hard work. I climbed every day, no matter the weather. When I realized I needed a job if I wanted to stay, I took a spot on the trails crew at Scarlet Mountain Resort and then learned to ski that fall, hoping to land a spot on ski patrol.”
She was still staring. “You must be a natural athlete.”
“I guess we all have to be good at something.” Jesse was tired of talking about himself. “Why did you become a nurse?”
She shrugged. “Growing up with a father who was a doctor gave me an interest in the medical field. I wanted to be more directly involved with patient care, so I decided to be a nurse. I worked as a surgical nurse until …”
A shadow passed over her face.
“It’s okay, Ellie. You can talk about him.”
“I was a surgical nurse until Dan was killed. I had just learned that I was carrying twins. He was so excited. I was happy and a little scared. We talked about names over Skype. He liked Otis Henry for a boy’s name and Daisy Mae for a girl. I told him no way could I name a child Otis.” She laughed at this. “The Internet connection was lousy, but he had to go anyway. And then a few days later ... he was gone.”
Jesse knew the crushing weight of grief, knew how deeply it cut. Then he remembered thatthiswas why he’d kept his distance from her all this time. He’d had his own grief to bear and had been certain he couldn’t shoulder any part of hers.
But now, sitting close to her like this and seeing the pain on her sweet face, it seemed as simple as reaching out and taking her hand.
* * *
“It must have been hard.” Jesse’s voice was soothing, his thumb rubbing circles over the back of her hand. “What about Dan’s parents? Did they help?”
Ellie shook her head. “They never liked me. They’re still angry at me for following his wishes and not putting a cross on his headstone.”
“They got angry at you for following his last wishes?”
She nodded. “They wanted me to bury him in Florida, where they live now, but I refused. I rarely hear from them.”
“Lame.”
Ellie twined her fingers with his and held on. “Claire came out to stay with me. If it hadn’t been for her …”
She hadn’t meant to talk about this. She didn’t want to dump this on Jesse. But now that she had started, she couldn’t stop. “I had him buried at Arlington. I felt he deserved that honor. My sister helped me sell our house and move back to Scarlet. I knew I would need help during my pregnancy and after the twins were born. But nothing felt real to me, not even my babies. I would go to my prenatal appointments, listen to their heartbeats, and it all felt…”
“Like it was happening to someone else,” Jesse finished for her.
Her gaze snapped to his. “Exactly.”