Her breath caught at how fiercely protective those words sounded.
“Going out is overrated. I’d rather stay in, play Diablo, and order a pizza.”
“My kind of girl.” He chuckled.
And for some inexplicable reason, that statement made her heart stutter.
The door opened behind them.
“Sorry,” Marc said. “But Peyton’s out cold on Danny on the sofa, so Beth and I are going to bed. Will just left.”
“We’ll get out of your hair, man,” Corey said and stepped out of her arms.
Corey pressed the ignition button to start his car, and the truck roared to life. Taran had been quiet since Marc had walked out onto the patio, so he left the radio off, hoping they could talk.
There was something he should ask her about, but he’d been leery of hearing the answer. If her fiancé had died recently, he needed to back off, and shit, he didn’t want to. Maybe it was better if he just ripped the Band-Aid off again. It had worked with the dating topic.
“How long ago did Jeremy die?” he asked and winced at how badly that came out.
Taran turned and raised a single eyebrow.
“Sorry, I probably should have eased into that more.” Nerves had him cracking his neck.
“I’m just shocked you know his name.”
“Why? You told me.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “That’s right, playing Diablo. I can’t believe you remember that.” She turned to face him and tucked her hair behind her ear.
He didn’t understand why she’d think he could forget anything she told him. All the little details, be it her allergy to roses, how she loved the smell of cut grass, or that she would only sleep in satin sheets because she loved the feel against her skin. That one had kept him up at night.
“He died two years ago,” Taran said, finally answering her question. “In Syria.”
He paused. Will had told him she was with Nick two years ago.
“You were there?” he asked, and he heard her sigh out a breath the size of Texas. When she didn’t answer, he turned his head to glance at her. Her eyes were closed, and her jaw was clenched. He had no idea how deep the rabbit hole they might be heading down was. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
“Yeah.” She sighed again. “We do. I was there covering a story about Jeremy’s SEAL team. It was supposed to be for the AP, but the story ran all over. I can’t mention names because DEVGRU is classified.”
“Hmm.” Corey filed away the fact that Taran was with the team Nick led, meaning Nick was the former leader of the highest trained special ops that existed.
“I probably shouldn’t have said that since you know Nick.” She shook her head.
“I’m a vault,” Corey assured her.
“I went out with the convoy because it was a supply run, supposed to be stupid easy.” Taran took a breath. “We were dropping water and canned food off in town. I was going to get some good pictures of the men handing out supplies to the women and children. Feel-good story.”
She swallowed, and Corey reached over to take her hand in his.
“We were barely out of the city when the convoy hit a massive roadside bomb. Jeremy was one of the four men who died on impact. Another two didn’t make it through the hours it took us to get out of the cars, get cover, and call for help.”
“Nick almost lost his leg that day. Were you hurt?” Corey asked.
“No, I’m one of those stories where everyone in my car died, or almost died, and I walked away.” She swallowed. “I think that helped a bit.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jeremy was so mad when I told him I was coming to stay with his team for two weeks.”