Page 110 of Keeping a Warrior

“No.” Her voice was thick with unshed tears. “This was all me. I was just using you to make myself feel better, okay? Just go.”

Desire to find Devon clashed with his confusion over what was going on with Lani. Finally, the need to see Devon won out. “I do have to go, but I’ll call you later, okay?” he said gruffly, reaching out to tug on her hand, gratified when she turned into his arms.

As he held her, the tears in Lani’s eyes spilled over, wetting the front of his T-shirt. “I’m so sorry.”

His heart aching, Rhys pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s okay.”

Lani clutched him for one more long moment, then determinedly stepped back and dashed the back of her hand over her wet cheeks. “Go. And please tell Devon I’m sorry, too. I hope I didn’t mess things up.”

Only in that she might already be gone.

Rhys didn’t say that, though, just pulled open the door and grabbed up his ruck. “Let me know if you see that ‘CIA’ asshole again, because if you do, he’s gonna find a bunch of pissed-off Navy SEALs at his door.”

Lani gave a watery chuckle. “I will. Goodbye, Rhys.”

When she’d softly closed the door behind him, Rhys laid his palm over the cool metal for one brief moment, and then he ran down the steps to call an Uber.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Go ahead. Drink all of Shane’s beer. I don’t care.”

Devon glared at Matt as she opened her second Corona. “Don’t mind if I do.”

“I’m telling you, beer isn’t what you need. Let’s go for a run.”

She took a long, deliberate gulp of the bottled brew. “Mmm, so cold. So delicious. And I’m not running anywhere.”

Despite Matt’s belief that the best remedy for everything included lots of punishing exercise, he hadn’t strayed far from her side.

Even as her phone remained stubbornly silent.

“Go ahead and call him, idiot,” he said, slumping into a chair opposite her at the kitchen table. “You know the dude is just cleaning up his mess. He doesn’t really want her back.”

Didn’t he? It’d hurt to watch him hug that tall, beautiful girl—a girl who had a history with him, who in so many ways knew him better than Devon did. She had a hold on him that wouldn’t be easy to break, and now that he was actually with her, he might decide he wanted the safety, the security, the familiarity.

Not the woman who was leaving.

Needing a distraction, she was about to say a run was a good idea after all when Matt’s phone rang. Casting an apologetic look at Devon, he answered it with an eager, “Hey, babe. How’re you feeling?” as he disappeared into the backyard, the low intimate murmur of his voice underscoring Devon’s loneliness.

So what now?

At loose ends, she got up from the table and wandered into the living room, drawn by the various framed photographs resting on a small side table. Peering at one more closely, Devon let out a gasp. It was the blonde woman in the picture Jon had dropped that night so long ago. His fiancée.

In the photo, she was standing next to Shane, the resemblance between them so strong Devon had no idea how she’d missed it before. A dark-haired little girl held Shane’s hand, her smile wide and innocent. Tears stinging her eyes, Devon traced her finger lightly over the girl’s face.

Jon’s daughter. She had to be.

Sudden grief broke through the fragile, protective crust that’d formed over her heart. Like lava spewing from a volcano, it welled to the surface, leaving Devon struggling for air.

“It’s your fault. He was distracted, worried about his relationship.”

Hank’s angry, bitter words.

Hands holding her down, laughing faces, suffocating weight on top of her. Jon watching, a malicious light in his eyes at the sight of her helplessness, her humiliation, after her rejection of him.

“You don’t belong here,” his expression had seemed to say. “This is all you’re good for.”

Then Shane’s voice: “It was the SEAL community’s loss. Not Lex’s. Not mine.”