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“Yeah, just worn out.” He sat down in one of the kitchen chairs he brought to the living room. “I’ve got a proposition for you all.”
Logan sat forward. “What would that be?”
“Jessica and I are working for the government. Logan, I want to offer you, Gage, and Ave a place on my team. Jess will stay on with us to help in the investigation to secure the two missing missiles. What do you say?”
Gage, Logan and Ave exchanged glances. “We would have questions.”
There was a knock on the door and Granny ushered General Harkness into the room. He looked at the gathering and there was no mistaking the satisfaction on his face.
“Here’s the man to answer them all,” Dean said.
* * *
Ophelia woke up alone in Dean’s bed and heard voices. Groggy from the last intense twenty-four hours, her arm throbbing, she pushed back the covers. She wished he was in bed with her now.
She went to the door and opened it, catching the tail end of what Mike was saying.
“We need warriors of steel like you, Dean. Do it for Uncle Sam.”
And she bristled, anger rushing hot and volatile. The absolute recklessness of what he’d done hit her, and her throat closed up with another painful cramp, only this time her vision blurred with tears. Her fists clenched at her sides.
All her uncertainties, all her doubts melted away and the noise in her head ceased to a blissful silence. Her fear that if she couldn’t get unconditional love from her family, how could she expect it from Dean left her feeling raw and vulnerable, but surprisingly strong. Because he did give her his unadulterated, unconditional love.
Swiping at her eyes with the back of her hands, she swallowed against the unrelenting knot. She pulled open the door so hard it slammed against the bedroom wall and entered the living room like a bullet with Mike’s name on it.
Complete silence greeted her as all eyes turned to her. But she singled out the general.
Knowing what she felt for Dean was making her irrational, but unable to stop herself, she said, “Don’t do that. Don’t you dare do that.”
“Do what?” he said, looking just as hard and immovable as Dean had been when he’d saved her life and saved LA. Like her parents when they had tried tomanipulateher into doing what they wanted, usinggood girlandladylike behavioras their rhetoric. Mike had lost touch with what was the most important thing he possessed as a leader—his men and what they were willing to do in the name of duty and honor.
All that was in Master Chief Dean Teller. But there was so much more, and she’d be damned if she didn’t point that out.
Raking her hair back from her face, she closed her eyes and released a shaky sigh. Collecting herself, she fixed her attention on General Harkness, her anger and the violence and near destruction by The Black Hearts making her feel oddly disconnected, as if her mind were separated from the rest of her body.
Her memory of her fear, her relief at seeing him bloody but unharmed came dangerously close to the surface, and Ophelia clenched her fists tighter, her voice breaking badly, “Dean is flesh and blood, bone and muscle, with a heart so…” She looked at him and was overwhelmed by what she felt for him, the panic and helplessness surging back. “…true, so true. He’s human and real, not some caricature of a battle-hardened superman. But you’re right about the steel.” She tapped her temple. “There’s steel here in a formidable will that will never quit, never give up and never let you down. That’s a Navy SEAL.” Her words branded her heart and were as much about her as they were about what he had done for a living. “So, don’tdishonorhim with your gung-ho, metaphoric bullshit.”
“O,” Dean said.
She stared at him, her mind numb, her chest heavy and her vision blurred. Dean was always there for her. Afraid she would break down if she gave into the soft sound of his voice, she let her anger bolster her and waved him off.
She would have her say, even in the face of his humility. “Don’t youdisgracehim into taking your job offer. He has a right to choose because he’s the one putting his life on the line.” She brushed at her cheek, her angry tears salty against her lips. “I watched the man I love choose to give the ultimate sacrifice…and I would—we would have lost so much.” Her throat cramped with the thought of how much she could have lost. She was unraveling from the adrenaline rush, the fear, the stress of what they had accomplished. And the love that she couldn’t lose again. Not to her fear or her anger or her inability to see what had been there all along.
She let out an exasperated growl and turned on her heel and walked out of the loft, slamming the door behind her.
She didn’t get far, her legs wobbly, her insides shaking. She leaned against the wall, folding her arms tight against her chest, trying to hold in all the emotion that was spilling out. All these years, she’d been a fool, had refused to examine too deep, to open herself up to the kind of pain she’d endured the first time they had been ripped apart.
But people were just people. Her parents had a perception of what she should be, and when she couldn’t—wouldn’t—live up to those expectations, they turned their backs on her. The two people in the world who should have nurtured her, let her forge her own path instead of forcing a seventeen-year-old girl to make that awful decision between her freedom and the boy she loved.
Almost immediately, the door opened, but this time closed softly as Dean turned her and pulled her against him.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice quiet.
Blinking rapidly to will away the burning in her eyes, she waited a moment for it to pass and then looked up at him. There was a solemn intensity in his expression as the muscles in his throat contracted.
“Mike’s not the only one picking himself up off the floor from that one-two punch you delivered.”
“What’s with the boxing metaphors? What are you saying?”
