Page 38 of Blood Game

“My brother taught me to sail.”

“Unusual...”

“For a girl?” she finished the thought.

He refused to let her bait him. “Most people like the speed of fast boats. Sailing is almost a lost art.”

“Mark crewed when he was in college, and competed in a couple of regattas the summer before he went into the military. “

It was the first they'd spoken since leaving Hempstead earlier that morning. After their argument, he'd returned to the flat. He'd thrown things into a backpack and then headed for the door.

“It's a couple of hours drive to Dover, then another hour or so across the channel.” Then he walked out of the flat slamming the door behind him.

Bloody, damned Scot!

“Why theology?” he asked now, and when she looked at him in surprise as the ferry cut through another wave, “Anne mentioned it was your college major, before you went into publishing.”

Safe territory for conversation, she thought.

“I suppose I was looking for answers. I wanted to understand different faiths and the reason people hold onto it when things change around them, the power it creates, and the reason people were willing to die for it.”

“Pretty heavy subject,” he commented, watching the flow of passengers around them, the rental car several decks below.

The choice would have been because of her brother, looking for answers in that logical way of hers when there were no easy answers. He knew all about that.

“Do you believe in God?” he asked.

“We were raised on it,” she replied. “My mother was determined that we have a good Protestant upbringing.”

“But no longer?” he speculated. “Because of what happened to your brother?”

Cate had mentioned it once. That loss had obviously affected her deeply. It revealed a lot about her. Painful loss, wounds that hadn’t healed. He knew about that too.

She stared out the sea window. “It was his last tour. He didn’t have to go back. But he felt that it was important. He could be stubborn.”

“Family trait.”

She looked over at him then, those blue eyes going dark on a memory.

“They went in to rescue hostages, but they'd been moved days earlier. They were ambushed, only three of them got out alive, one of the rebels who was providing them information, one of the guys on his team, and Mark.” And then he went back.

It was too familiar. Out there, they were constantly re-inventing the mission, dealing with bad intel, making things up as they went along. And then the details, read from a press report that came afterward, the edited version the military put out to the media, or no explanation at all.

More often than not, the families never knew the truth. All they knew was the heartbreak of lost sons, daughters, fathers, husbands. And brothers.

He remembered the calls he made afterward, off-the-record, unauthorized, a conversation that meant nothing to those higher up, but meant everything to a mother, father, or wife, trying to understand the last days or hours of a life that had meant everything to them. And it meant something to him, to carry those last words home, and find some way of understanding it himself.

The bigger question that came back in the long hours of the night—did he believe in God? Out there, when things got bad, everything came back to that.

Please God, give me the courage not to let the others down. Please don't let this young man suffer...

“Why did you change your major?”

She shrugged. “Theology didn’t have great career potential,” she admitted. “Beyond teaching, writing a book, or entering a convent. Journalism offered more choices, and I liked the idea of taking something from idea to finished product, something that could inspire people or take them on a journey they might never have taken.”

“You’re not the convent type,” he pointed out.

She laughed at the thought. “That option was off the table my senior year of high school—courtesy of Craig Martin.”