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I’d known she was the one from the moment I saw her that night, my heart beating so fast inside my chest it was as if I were in the middle of a gunfight, all my senses heightened butonlyfor her. Her eyes, her mouth, her smile before she turned away when she caught me watching her.
But it’s also the reason why I couldn’t ask for her phone number that night.
Once upon a time, I turned to war for solace, to the gunfights and the sensory deprivation of the night no matter what country I was in. As long as I was with my brothers, I was safe. Too bad I preferred them over being at home with Kate who couldn’t handle the waiting whenever I was gone and my impatience to return to the war zone the moment I got home. The year we got married I was home for only 87 days. The year after that, she left on my 200th day away.
It devastated me when she left but only because I’d gotten so used to her being there. In the end, we both stopped caring; the love she once had for me eroded by the long absences of every deployment and the anxiety that accompanied the secrecy of what I did. Knowing there’d be a chance I’d be killed and she’d never even know the details only made the waiting worse. I couldn’t even blame her for leaving. I was simply more at home with my crew than I was being with her.
But something happened when I ran into Claudia again, the moment I said her name in the elevator and she said mine. There was no need to rush and pretend I wasn’t deploying in 48 hours.
This time, I want what we have to last.
“Can you tell me what happened to your leg?”
Claudia’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts and I turn to look at her. “I didn’t realize you were awake.”
“Just a few minutes, but you were preoccupied,” she replies. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about what happened.”
I’ve never talked about the accident to anyone outside of the guys who were there, Quinn and Bennett most of all since the four of us, including King were tight. But with King gone, it simply hurts so we never mention it, not to each other for there’s nothing else to say.
“We were in a Humvee traveling from one point to another,” I begin, my throat going dry. “One minute we were all joking together, teasing King about his upcoming wedding… and the next, we were rolling down an embankment. I somehow got thrown out and the next thing I knew, my leg was pinned down… the metal pretty much went through the bones of my lower leg and ankle.”
When Claudia doesn’t speak, I continue. “They tried to save my leg in Germany, and they did… for a while. Another surgery when I got here and another. Three weeks later, an infection almost killed me and that’s when the surgeons gave me my options. Wear some metal frame for about six to nine months to let my bones knit together, but also live with constant pain and certain complications. Blood clots, infections, scar tissue, unstable joints… you name it, it was on the list.”
“So you opted to have it amputated.”
“That way I could stop feeling sorry for myself every time I’d look at it in some metal frame with pins sticking out of my skin that I had to clean every day and hope none of the pins would get infected. I couldn’t even take a decent shower for months. Or drive for that matter.” I sigh. “I’d always planned to stay with the Teams, make it a career. It was all I knew since I was eighteen, being a Navy SEAL. In one war zone after another, but always with family. My team, my crew.”
“You pushed yourself hard after your amputation.”
“I had to. I wanted to prove to myself that I could get back on my feet in six months. And I don’t mean just getting back on my feet but being as good as I used to be when I could stand on my own two legs. I wanted to go on missions again and do what I was good at.” I pause. “Took me eight months but I did it.”
“And now you’re back to doing what you love again but this time as a private contractor.”
I nod. “Yup, although some days I find myself wishing I took on the desk job instead. I can do that with my skillset. I don’t have to be out there.”
“So why did you agree to travel?” she asks. “When we ran into each other in the elevator that day, you had just come back from somewhere, right?”
“My days of going on missions are long over but that doesn’t mean I can’t fly out there if I’m needed,” I say. “I never want to leave my brothers out there if I can help it.”
“That’s what I thought. You traveling, I mean,” she says as she traces circles on my chest. “Because I have to say you looked like you’d been out in the desert for a while.”
I grin. “You didn’t like my mountain man look?”
She thinks for a few moments. “I’m fifty-fifty about it right now, but I do love it when you trim your beard just right.”
“That’s how I reel them in,” I say as she pokes my ribs and I laugh.
As Claudia resumes tracing lines on my chest, I can’t help but notice how her softness complements all my hard edges. Softening me. Calming me.
“What if you get offered a job out here?” I ask. “Would you stay?”
“It depends on what’s on the table.”
I grin. “Me. Us.”
“Now that you mention it like that, maybe.”
“Sometimes that’s all you need.”
