I reached up and felt for my necklace. But it wasn’t there.
I sat up abruptly and looked around me.
“What are you looking for?”
“My necklace.” I frowned, peeling back the layers of memory to when I had it last. I took it off before I went to bed and hadn’t put it back on. It was still in the cabin.
I started to put on my boots.
“Whoa, what are you doing?”
“I have to get it. It’s too important to leave out there.”
“We can’t go back out there tonight,” Chance said calmly.
“But you don’t understand, it’s the most important thing I own in this world.”
“I know how important it is to you.” He laced his fingers through mine. “But it will be dark soon, and it’s too risky to go now. We’ll go tomorrow, okay?”
It wasn’t okay. But what choice did I have?
I lay back down and pulled his arms around me, letting the warmth of his massive body thaw the frost of my anxiety and eventually lull me into a peaceful sleep.
CASSIDY
I woke up much later in the dead of the night to find Chance sitting on the edge of the bed. In the low light, I could see he was leaning forward, his broad shoulders hunched, his forearms resting on his knees. He was lost in thought. Troubled.
I sat up and slid across the bed, moving behind him to rest my chin on one of his big shoulders. Something was up. He was somewhere else.
Finally, his deep voice broke the shadows.
“When I was deployed, we were sent to a little town in the middle of nowhere to set up camp.” In the dead of the night, his words hung heavily in the air around us. “When you stay in one place long enough, you meet people. You develop friendships.” I heard him swallow. Felt the regret coming of him. “I met someone over there. It was months before anything happened. But when you’re lonely and you’re missing home… war is a different place. She was offering comfort. Something I hadn’t felt in a long time. Something I didn’t realize I was missing so badly.”
“Did you love her?” My voice was not my own. It came out of me before I had a chance to stop it.
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. At one stage, I thought I might be able to if I gave it time.” He turned to look at me, his jaw tight. “Turns out, she was someone we were looking for. Someone capable of some pretty fucked-up shit. I didn’t know until I saw her in my sights and my commander was telling me to take her out.”
In my head, I was picturing him lying on his belly, his face lowered to the scope of his gun, his heart breaking when she came into view. I couldn’t help but wonder what she looked like. Was her hair long? Was it dark? Did he look at her the same way he looked at me?
“Did you?” I asked, my voice just a whisper. “Take her out?”
He looked back to his hands in front of him. “Just before the missile hit the building we were in, I shot and killed her.”
I stiffened involuntarily and he noticed. His brows drew in and his torment was a dark shadow on his face. My heart ached for him. This big man, with his broad shoulders and strong body, was in pain from the leftovers of war.
“Everyone in my team was killed.” He dropped his head. “Everyone except me.”
“Because of your involvement with her?”
He was quiet for a moment. “At first, I thought so. But there was an investigation, and they cleared me. Intel confirmed she and her brothers didn’t know we were there. An insurgent was alerted to our position when one of my team dropped his canteen, and it hit the rubble three stories below and landed beside him. He was the one who fired the missile.” I heard him swallow. Felt his body get rigid. “Another SEAL team was with us. Seven, of their team of eight, survived.”
I ran my hand over on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“I should have told you earlier,” he said.
“Why?”
He turned to look at me. “So you knew who you were getting involved with.”
This right here… this is why he thinks he’s a monster.
I slid my legs on either side of him and wrapped my hands around his thick waist. I pressed my cheek to his scarred back and exhaled deeply against his warm skin.
“I wish you could see me as I see you,” I said softly.
I could feel the violent thump of his heartbeat. Felt his abs tremble when my hands brushed over them.
“I’ll never hurt you,” he rasped out.
“I already know that. I just wish you did.”
He twisted around to face me and reached up to cup my jaw. “I will do anything and everything to protect you. That’s my word.”