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Chapter 2
“Why is this not negotiable, Maggie?” Brady asked. “I really need the answer to that question.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t look back at him, and it made his heart race, pounding out of his chest.
“Is there something I’m not providing you, something I’m not doing that you need?” he persisted.
Still there was no answer. He drew in a deep breath without drawing attention to the effort, trying to remain calm or at least appear calm—on the outside, even though his insides were shredding.
“I’m happier now that you are back. Anything you do that risks your life—and you certainly have to admit this could risk your health since I can’t be there with you—anything you do like that makes for the greater potential of you being separated from us on a permanent basis, Maggie.”
Her lack of return attention, even though he knew she could hear him perfectly well, was pissing him off now. He did not like feeling pissed off at Maggie. This had to be fixed or his patience would fall prey to his iron will and need to protect her—both his women.
He continued, working hard to make his voice low and calm. Scraping up everything he had to try to sound caring, without appearing to be needy. But, dammit, he was needy. He couldn’t live without her and that scared him.
“I mean, it’s one thing to be separated from me, and I guess I’m okay with that, although it’s not something I want. But Emma—Emma is the one that will really pay the price for your adventure.”
Maggie stirred at this, moving slightly, and staring at her hands folded together in her lap. He could see she was getting ready to say something but was being very careful with her words, and he appreciated her patience. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around how perfect things were now that his two girls were back in life, yet she wanted to go back to Mexico where all the risk was.
She’d almost lost her life. And Brady had thought she’d been murdered. He lived with that for years.
After a long pause, she slowly looked at him.
“I don’t understand it, Brady. I’m being called. It’s like you and the teams. Why is it you can accept your call to do impossible things with teams, but you can’t accept my call to help these poor women and children who are being trafficked—their lives being uprooted, ruined? How can I know this is going on and not do something about it?”
Brady groaned internally, and then he screamed inside his head, trying not to let his eyes pop out of his skull as he heard her words. He knew her argument was logical, but the answers weren’t what he wanted to hear. It was a swan song. She was willing to give up all this… for what? For strangers? He thought of another angle to propose.
“Because, Maggie, I’m trained to get the bad guys. You’re a civilian, Maggie. Yes, a civilian with lots of experience, more experience than most others have, unfortunately. But you’re not trained for war. You’re not trained to deal with cartel members who will not stop at anything, don’t care who they kill or who they hurt. They have a lot of power and money, are well-trained and armed to the teeth, and you aren’t going to affect the kind of change that will stop all this insanity. It’s a blood sport to them, Maggie. They’re wild on the blood of innocent victims. They get off on it. They’re pure evil. The devil does exist. I’ve seen him, and so have you.”
Her very faint nodding of the head confirmed she agreed with some of what he’d said, but her own will was stronger than his logic. He’d been so careful to try to say something that wasn’t going to upset her. But he could see she was. And if she got upset and emotional, it would be over. This conversation skirted around the toxic dump of that black place where they still couldn’t talk freely. He knew she was still wounded.
Well, he was too. After a dozen tours as part of SEAL Team 5 and nearly half more as an independent contractor for hire, he’d carry those scars to his grave.
He did it so Maggie didn’t have to.
“Maggie, sweetheart, I just don’t understand. You know what kind of training I went through to join the SEALs. You know about BUDS and SQT. You know about the sleepless nights, the scars, the wounds. I’m no stranger to this type of situation, dealing with these kinds of people. But I’ve been given the weapons and training to deal with them in the manner in which they deserve.”
He knew she couldn’t deny that.
“Maggie, you have the nerve and the drive to make the world a better place. Your heart is twice the size of mine, although right now mine is about to burst. Please understand me, it takes more than just the will to accomplish the mission here. It takes months and months of training, of failures, of intel both good and bad, and you just don’t have that, sweetheart.”
He came over to her, kneeling in front of her, placing his big scarred paws that had claimed lives and caused so much pain over hers, squeezing and covering those delicate fingers that did wild things to his flesh.
“Please, Maggie. I know you get set in your ways, I know you said you gave your word, but please think about it again. Think about what it means to Emma to be without you. Please think about it, won’t you?”
Her pained expression, silver tears rolling from her eyes, traveling over her cheeks and dripping onto her nighty, told him she was thinking about all that. But he also saw her unflinching backbone, her stubbornness—that part of her was so strong, and he knew he was asking a lot for her to give it up.
He paused and hoped, praying for the impossible. Maybe she would change her mind. He needed a miracle.
As he waited, he knew how he would feel if she asked him to give her all his guns and never consider going on any kind of operation, whether military-sponsored or private. And during his time on the teams, he wouldn’t even think about doing such a thing, leaving innocents unprotected. He thought he’d try something else. After all, she still hadn’t told him to stop talking. So he continued.
“You know how it is when you promise something in hindsight you had no business promising?”
She frowned, scowling at him.
“Maybe that wasn’t the right word. Upon further reflection, you realize someone else was better equipped to handle something you’d volunteered. When you know someone else was made to take over the project you’d agreed to take on. Think about it as not your first thought, which we can’t change, but our second, more logical thought. The one that keeps us out of trouble, or at least lessens the risk,” he said.
She was back to focusing on their entwined hands in her lap. There was no green light in the conversation, only a yellow one. But it wasn’t red. It was still yellow.
