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“I did.”
“Why?”
“Why did I kiss you or why did I leave?”
“Both.” She shut his office door behind her and stood watching him as though terrified of the answer. Damn, this woman. She really had no idea the kind of power she had over him.
Logan drew in a deep breath through his nose before answering.
“I kissed you because I couldn’t help myself,” he said quietly, eyes watching hers as they flared in surprise. “And I walked away because I’m not okay.”
She blinked slowly at that. “You’re not okay.”
She said this more as a statement than a question and he got the sense she was acknowledging a fact they’d both known for some time now.
Logan repeated the sentence over in his head.I’m not okay.
He hadn’t actually said that before and he felt a small blow at the acknowledgement. Both a blow, and in some ways, a relief. It was as though saying the words to her somehow helped him to move forward, no matter how small a step it was.I’m not okay.
In the Teams, anyone diagnosed with PTSI got pulled from any assignments requiring security clearance. It was so ingrained in him not to ask for help, not to admit there was a problem, it was hard to do so now, even though his clearance and status as a SEAL was no longer in jeopardy.
Saying the words relieved some of that, though. The stigma was still there, but he could breathe, suddenly.
“And what are you doing about that?” Sam’s question threw him off guard.
“Excuse me?”
“What are you doing about that?” Sam repeated in a tone that told him she thought he was an idiot for not having some plan to address this issue.
But how could he address it? What the hell could he do to get back to, well … he didn’t even know.Normalwas what he guessed he should be striving for, but he didn’t even really know what that was. And, he knew after the things he’d seen and done, normal wasn’t an option anymore. Not for him.
“What am I doing about it?” he asked and he felt about as stupid as he sounded.Just keep parroting her words back to her. Freaking brilliant.
Samantha’s face softened and she smiled at him, but there was a sad patience to the smile. “What are you doing to get yourself okay?”
He wanted to get angry, to storm at her and tell her where she could take her suggestions that he simply do something. But he couldn’t.
When he looked at her, he saw she waited with no judgment on her face. Simply watched him as though she expected him to have a plan. When one wasn’t forthcoming, she tilted her head.
Were he not fighting the turmoil her questions seemed to have let loose in him, he might have thought the move adorable. Instead, he just fought the rising tide of panic inside him.Don’t do this, Sam. Don’t go there.
Whether she saw the panic in his eyes or simply knew him well enough by now to know this conversation wouldn’t end well, she turned to leave.
She stopped with her hand on the doorknob and looked back at him.
“You know, Logan, you deserve to be happy. You might not be like a lot of your buddies you talk about with families to feed and no prospects for a job. You might not be fighting critical injuries or learning to walk with a prosthesis or two, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be happy. You have every right to the same counseling and help they do. You need to stop punishing yourself for landing this job with Jack. You need to stop thinking you don’t matter just as much as every one of the men you fought with, even the ones who didn’t come home with you; who won’t ever come home. You deserve peace and happiness and everything you fought for overseas for all of us to have back home. You get to have it now, too. That’s part of the deal.”
Well, damned if she didn’t cut right through all his shit, straight to the freaking issue.
And then she walked out.
Well, hell.
Logan stared at the closed door for a long time and tried to figure out what he was feeling. He didn’t really have a clue, but he knew one thing.
If getting help, if finding a way to be okay again, meant he could have a life with that woman—even only a shot at a life with that woman—he wanted it.
He picked up the phone and dialed Chad’s extension.
