“That’s right.”
“So did my father. He did two tours with the Seventy-Fifth during Vietnam. I imagine you two could find a lot to talk about.”
“I bet we could.”
“Matt also says you’re a natural-born athlete, that you learned to climb and made the Team in a handful of months.”
“Matt has a big damned mouth.”
That made Nate chuckle. “We’ll see you up here next Wednesday. I’ll text directions to the ranch.”
“Thanks.” Jesse ended the call, feeling a little lighter.
* * *
Jesse walkedinto Esri’s office, which occupied a set of rooms on the ground floor of an old Victorian-style home on Second Street across from Food Mart. The waiting area was decorated in shades of green, tan, and soft blue—calming colors, he supposed. It had a little fountain in the corner, the tinkling of water mixing with Japanese flute music. A mezuzah hung just outside the front door, a cross hanging on one wall, a dream catcher on another, while a smiling golden Buddha sat on the coffee table surrounded by magazines.
Esri had all the bases covered. Or maybe she saw it all as part of her heritage. What did she tell him she was? Tibetan and Jewish?
He sat, uneasy to be here again. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Esri. She was kind. She was smart. She was also cute—maybe five-two with a feminine face, shoulder-length dark hair, and big brown eyes. But when he was with her, he felt transparent, naked.
He hated that.
The door to her inner office opened, and she stepped out, wearing an oversized sweater that emphasized how petite she was.
She smiled when she saw him. “I didn’t hear you enter. Come in.”
The inner room where she met with clients was cozy, its walls a shade of ivory, the carpeting white, the plush armchairs a soft shade of gray.
She sat and waited for him to do the same. “How have you been? It’s been more than four months since our last session.”
“I’ve been good. Ski season has been busy. I helped save a skier’s life last week after an avalanche buried him.”
“I heard about that. It’s not often you get a happy ending with an avalanche.”
“No. It isn’t.” It wasn’t natural for him to talk about feelings. Maybe some guys found it easy, but he didn’t. Still, he’d had training for post-traumatic stress and knew damned well that there was no shortcut here. “I had the same nightmare last night—the one I used to have all the time.”
“The dream where you try to save Kayla Fisher, and she gets swept away?”
He nodded. “I thought if we talked about it right away, maybe it wouldn’t go back to being a nightly thing again.”
God, he didn’t want that.
“I don’t know that we can guarantee that, but I think you made the right decision.” She gave him a reassuring smile.
“There was a bus crash yesterday. A friend of mine—a woman—she’s a nurse. She got called in to help with the casualties. A little boy she was taking care of died. I heard about it afterward. I wonder if that’s what triggered the dream.”
She seemed to consider that. “It could be. There are some similarities between what your friend went through and what you’ve been through.”
That’s exactly what he’d thought.
“I have a question for you. What kind of emotions do you feel when you’re stuck in that nightmare?”
Jesse didn’t have to think about it. “Helpless. I can’t move fast enough. I just feel—yeah, helpless. And desperate. I would do anything to save her, but I can’t.”
That’s how it had been in real life, too.
“I think anyone who’d been there, who’d gone into the water after her, would feel the same way. So there’s nothing out of the ordinary about your emotions, either in the nightmare or in real life.”