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“Time for what?”
She turned her head and stared back at him, her expression composed, calm. Almost cool.
“I think it’s time to let my husband go. Don’t you, Noah?”
And what the hell was he supposed to say to that? He clenched his jaw, slid the truck into drive, and pulled away from the house.
Let her husband go, his ass. She had a hold on him so damned tight he didn’t know if he was coming or going, and the chance to tell her the damned truth was long gone.
There was no way she would understand now, so many years after his rescue, why he hadn’t sent for her. Why he hadn’t wanted her with him. She would never know the demons that ravaged his mind then, and he thanked God for that. She would never know the nights he spent thinking of her, aching for her. She would never know how hard it had been not to come to her, to take her, to love her as he was doing now.
And still he was holding back parts of the sexual needs that raged at him, that filled his mind, that filled him with dark fantasies. Needs he was afraid Sabella wouldn’t be able to understand if she had any idea who he was, or who he had been to her.
As the silence lengthened in the truck and they drove closer to town, he realized mistakes, too long past, that he had made. Both in his marriage, and later, after his rescue.
She had held on to every aspect of their lives together. And though she didn’t know who he was, still she had moved back into his arms, his dreams, his life, as though she had been born to be there.
“Your husband was a fool,” he finally told her.
She didn’t say anything for long moments before she glanced up at him, her eyes somber, sad. “Why do you say that?”
“Because only a fool would have risked losing his life, and losing you, as he did.” That mission. He had been so certain it would be a piece of cake, though a part of him had known better. A part of him that he no longer ignored. But he had ignored it that time.
She turned her head and stared through the windshield. She didn’t answer him. She studied her fingers in a gesture that he knew was both sad, and lonely. Whatever emotions were twisting inside her, she kept them to herself. And perhaps it was better that way. This was better for her, letting him go, getting on with her life, choosing a lover, letting go of the past.
When the time came that he had . . . That this mission was over. He couldn’t even let himself think of losing her again.
Noah Blake didn’t have to die. Noah Blake could claim Sabella Malone. He could hold her, keep her, he could marry her and move into that house on the hill.
He stopped himself. Noah Blake didn’t even belong to himself anymore. He belonged to the Elite Ops. He had signed the papers. He had given them what he should have given his wife.
His future. And as he had been warned, once he signed those papers he was the property of whatever shadowy organization had paid for his rebirth. The advanced surgeries, the repairs to bone and muscle that no amount of money could have paid for otherwise.
Had he returned to Sabella then, he would have been partially disabled, he wouldn’t have been a SEAL, he would have been a husk of the man he had been.
He had signed away his life as Nathan Malone and resignation wasn’t an option. The only question was, could Noah Blake have a life instead?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The restaurant Noah chose was a new one. The Steak House and Grill was owned by another resident Nathan had known from school. Sally Bruckmeyer and her husband Tom.
Their kids, five in all, worked with them. Sally, two of her girls, and the oldest boy worked the dining room, while Tom and the next oldes
t boy and girl worked the kitchen along with a cousin or two Sabella remembered.
As they walked into the restaurant, it seemed all eyes watched them. Sabella had maintained a very low profile for the six years she had been without her husband; now she was running around town with a bad boy who wore motorcycle chaps and drove Nathan Malone’s pickup. She could hear the gossip now and she didn’t give a damn. She had never cared about the gossip, and being with Noah made it feel right.
A secret they shared, but didn’t. It made the night seem more intimate.
“Sabella Malone, if it ain’t good to see you out and about.” Sally Bruckmeyer was tall, wide, and wreathed with smiles as she came around the checkout and enveloped her in a hug. “And who’s this handsome devil running around with you?”
She was sharply aware of Noah’s hand on her back, his fingers splayed wide.
“Sally, this is a friend of Rory’s and mine, Noah Blake. Noah, this a friend of mine, Sally Bruckmeyer. Her and her husband own the restaurant.” As though Sally didn’t know his name. She bet everyone in town knew who he was and all the drivel Rory had spilled about meeting him in a bar in Odessa.
Her ass!
“Ms. Bruckmeyer.” He extended his hand for a handshake, causing Sally’s eyes to twinkle as she accepted the gesture and looked back at Sabella teasingly.
