Healing A Hero (The Camerons of Tide’s Way #4) by Skye Taylor

on the very edge of the precipice, knowing what was coming, wishing the intense sensation could last forever.
    “Philip,” she whispered, so wanting to say, I love you, but forcing herself not to.
    “Elena,” he murmured, his breath fanning her face. Slowly, he withdrew and plunged again. “Making love to you is going to be the best memory of all.” He quickened the pace, no longer in control.
    She clung to him as her world began to explode. And then he followed her into the vortex.

Chapter 17
    February 2015
    Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
    PHILIP HIKED HIMSELF up onto Elena’s PT bench, psyching himself up for another painful round of exercises. “Let’s get this over with. I’ve got places to go tonight.” Like the bar to take the edge off the pain minus the drugs and maybe find a couple of hours of sleep without nightmares.
    Elena studied the pad of paper as carefully as if he’d written a thesis.
    “Earth to Elena?” He curbed his impatience, and spoke in a joking tone to get her attention without making her think he was about to have another meltdown.
    When she finally glanced up, her expression was unfocused.
    “Are you okay?” Maybe I’m not the only one having a bad day?
    Her gaze traveled down his bare torso, then jerked back to his face. “You’re still wearing the cross?”
    He stared at her for a moment before the meaning of her question sank in. He touched the battered and scuffed cross that he’d recently returned to the chain with his dog tags.
    “Yeah. I never take it off. Well, almost never.”
    She opened her mouth, then closed it. She reached toward him, but then drew her hand back. Her eyes looked suspiciously bright. His pulse began to race.
    “I thought you forgot about me.” The words were said so softly he almost didn’t hear them. But he had heard them and now he felt a little breathless, too.
    Forget about her? Is she kidding? That cross and his memories were all he’d had to hang on to for a very long time. He forced a lightness into his voice that he didn’t feel. “You are a very memorable woman, Elena. Besides,” he lifted the cross away from his chest, “I see it every morning when I shave. It’s been a reminder of some of the best weeks of my life.”
    He’d never admit how many times he’d fallen asleep with her cross clutched in his hand like a little kid with a teddy bear. He’d never tell her how he always kissed it before going outside the wire, either. Someone else had removed it somewhere between Afghanistan and Bethesda, but he’d never removed it, even after he’d lost her.
    “Why—” Elena began, then stopped as tears slipped down her face.
    Philip reached for her, his efforts to remain indifferent forgotten. Her distress tore him up inside. He folded her into his arms, comforting her in spite of his own aching sense of loss and betrayal.
    She rested her forehead against his chest, her arms still wrapped tightly around herself. Her tears were warm and wet on his bare skin, but she didn’t make a sound. Tears didn’t scare him, but not knowing why she was crying bothered him big time.
    Then Elena shoved herself free of his embrace so abruptly he almost lost his balance. She grabbed a small towel and scrubbed the evidence of her weeping from her face, then tossed it back on the bench.
    “I’m sorry.” She turned away for a moment, then back. “I guess it’s kind of an emotional day for both of us. But we’ve got work to do, so let’s get to it.”
    Without giving him a chance to ask questions or spend any time trying to figure out what had just happened, she got busy. She was brisk and efficient, putting him through a workout every bit as excruciating as trying to write with crayons had been. Occasionally, she asked about his pain level, but she had put a thousand miles of distance between them emotionally. He was no closer to understanding her emotional reaction to seeing her cross still hanging around his neck when he left a half hour