Page 30 of Keel

He shook his head. “You weren’t a failure.”

She lifted one shoulder. “Maybe we’re both screwed up. Tell me, and we can talk about it.”

He blew out a breath and turned away. She wondered if he wasn’t going to talk. She had pushed enough. If he didn’t want to talk, she wouldn’t dig for more. Then Keel glanced over his shoulder, his gaze intense.

“Okay, I’ll tell you, but I’m not proud of it.”

“I’ve done loads of stuff I’m not proud of, and you know about a lot of it. Who am I to judge?”

He drew in a slow breath and shook his head. “Just don’t be too harsh.”

“I won’t.”

“So I know I was wrong about stuff, but a while ago I overheard a video my ex, Shana, made. I was out at a restaurant, and the video was playing in the booth behind me. She detailed in a very pointed way exactly how much I’d screwed up. I know I did a lot of stuff wrong, but hearing the two women talk about how horrible the stuff I did was, it kind of hurt. I have huge faults, and I won’t make a good partner.”

Frankie shrugged. “We all have faults, but I’m sure you weren’t the only one in that relationship in the wrong.”

He couldn’t let her defend him. There was a lot of stuff he’d done wrong. “I could have paid more attention to her.”

“Were you that uninvolved?”

He shrugged. “I worked a lot. It wasn’t like I was purposely picking up extra time. I had training in other states, and then I was deployed. She didn’t take it well.” Keel rubbed the back of his neck. “When I found out she was with another guy while I was on deployment, that hurt.”

Frankie stared at him, almost afraid to ask how he’d reacted. Forest used to let his friend have sex with her, then beat her for having sex with his friends. It was sick.

“What happened?” she whispered the question, unease shifting through her.

Keel shook his head and reached out. She would be lying to say she didn’t flinch. Not that she thought Keel would hit her, but the automatic response was to jerk away.

Keel let his hand drop, and she moved to him, putting her hand on his arm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to react.”

He grunted. “It’s understandable. The jerk you were with hit you. Even when I found out Shana had been fucking another guy, I didn’t hit her. I yelled, and then I walked out.”

“Was that before your parents’ funeral?”

He nodded. “Yeah. We’d only been married nine months at that time.”

“Shit, that sucks. Then she had the audacity to act like an ass at your parents’ funeral.”

Keel’s head hung low as he nodded. “Maybe I could have listened to her better. Paid more attention. Quit the Army and been around more.”

She felt for him. He’d been a good guy, maybe not perfect, but good, and Shana had treated him like shit. The man needed to stop beating himself up. He really was a good guy, and his ex was stupid.

“You know, looking back, there will always be things that we could have done differently. That’s in the book you gave me to read.”

She was right, it was in the book. Still, the feeling that he hadn’t been good enough stuck with him. He didn’t want to live forever in his failures, but that’s what he had been doing. He never wanted to get involved in another relationship because he hadn’t gotten over the failures he’d had with Shana. Maybe he hadn’t learned everything he needed to learn from that book.

“My work, the Army, is important to me. I love what I do. Because of the physical requirements, I have maybe eight years left doing what I do. I won’t be around every evening. There are times I have to take off. It’s not always planned. It has nothing to do with how I feel about you. It’s work.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

He turned to her, his heart swelling, almost making it feel like he had something stuck in his throat. He could back away now, take the coward’s way out.

There was something about Frankie that he couldn’t turn from. “We shouldn’t do this, but I can’t walk away from you.”

Frankie sucked in a sharp breath, and for a moment, he worried that she would turn and leave him. That’s what he deserved. It wasn’t that he wanted to put the Army before her, but his job was the kind that took and took, and he wouldn’t leave the job because deep down, he felt they were making a real difference.

Frankie’s hand landed on his arm, and she squeezed, giving him courage to say more.