Page 112 of Trusting a Warrior

Ash had helpfully attached a pic of his erection, in case Geo missed the point.

With a laughing sigh, he texted back his regrets. Another time, hot stuff. I wouldn’t be good company tonight.

An almost immediate reply. You know sex doesn’t have to be on the table, G. Nick and I are always here if you just wanna talk.

He texted back a kissy-face emoji before putting his phone away, thinking that he’d go back to the barracks and grab a shower before seeing if he could take Ari for ice cream. Thank God that night at the game ended up being the breakthrough Renae had been waiting for.

“She’s opening up to her therapist more and more,” Renae said tearfully one night over FaceTime. “It’s like a floodgate. She’s held so much in, and she’s been blaming herself the whole time. I had no idea. None.”

With all his heart, Geo hoped their little family was finally on its way to healing.

As he rounded the corner toward where he’d parked his motorcycle, a slight movement to the left caught his eye. There, parked at the curb, was a little blue Nissan, one that looked a lot—his heart gave a twinge—like Lani’s car.

Great. Now he was gonna see her everywhere.

“Hey, sailor.”

The sound of a familiar husky voice had Geo snapping his gaze toward his bike, his breath catching in disbelief. Lani stood next to it, fingers twisted tightly together, a tentative smile on her lips. She wore a short denim skirt, some cute cowboy boots, and—his eyes widened—his fucking Metallica shirt!

“Hey, I’ve been looking for that,” he grunted by way of greeting. His heart threatening to pound its way out of his chest, he dropped his backpack to the ground and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

When he didn’t immediately approach her, her smile faded, and with an effort Geo kept his face stony—damn if he was gonna make this easy for her. “What’re you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

The soft answer shimmered between them like a fragile bubble, until it was popped by the sharpness of Geo’s one word—“Why?”

She bit her lip. “Because I wanted to show you the sign I made.”

It was only then that he noticed the piece of posterboard lying on the bike’s seat, and even as he watched, she grabbed it and held it up.

There was no embellishment on it, nothing fancy, just the simple block letters: I’M SORRY.

Already shaking his head, he spun away, the pain and uncertainty he’d suppressed for the last three weeks crashing down on him with the force of a tidal wave. Gritting his teeth, he forced out, “Sorry for what?”

“For everything.” Her voice was whisper soft.

He whirled back around to face her. “I want to hear you say it,” he said fiercely. “What are you sorry for? Packing up my shit like you were getting rid of a transient sleeping on your porch? Throwing my ass out of your house like an unwanted pest?”

“Yes, to all of those things.” Tears glistening in her eyes, Lani let the sign drop to the ground. “Especially for—” she swallowed “—for letting my fear get the best of me.”

The simple honesty blunted the edges of his anguish a little. Of course he’d known her actions that night arose out of fear, but hearing her admit it—

He blew out a long, slow breath. “I would’ve talked about it with you, you know,” he said more quietly. “We could’ve worked it out. I thought, silly me, that we were in this together.”

“We are in this together.”

“Are we?”

“I want to be.” She took a step closer. “Despite the way I acted, I want to be in this with you. Whatever the future holds for us, I want us to decide it together.”

With nothing more to lose, he said harshly, “I can tell you right now what the future holds. It holds four more years of this.” He waved at the airfield behind him. “This isn’t a job I can just quit, you know.”

“I know.”

“You need guarantees? I can’t give ’em. You want to count on me? You won’t always be able to. It’ll be life with Rhys all over again, Lani, except this time you’ll be doing it with a child.”

She flinched, but said, “I know that, too.”