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Hannah gripped her hands tightly around the armrests. He couldn’t help but lay his hand on her forearm and try to soothe her obvious tension. “Is this because you don’t want to go with me?” he asked, hating how shaky his voice sounded.
Her eyes flew open. There was fire flashing in them. “What do you care? You didn’t ask. You just ordered me around like I was one of your little army men.” She wiggled her fingers about like she was moving pieces on a chess board.
He exhaled, his fingers running gently up and down her forearm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… Leaving you here wasn’t an option.”
“Why?” she challenged through gritted teeth as the plane rumbled down the runway.
He gaped at her. “After everything that has happened, don’t you know that I’m going to protect you to the very end of this?”
“Is that all it is though? What happens when I don’t need protecting anymore?”
Will nearly laughed but managed to control his features. In his mind, Hannah would always need protecting. Hopefully, not from international assassins or a crime syndicate plotting who knew what kind of atrocities. But he’d still always want to protect her from creepy landlords and financial insecurity or loneliness.
“Hannah, I don’t know what happens when this is all over… I should have talked to you about coming with us, but I just got a little desperate thinking that you would be left alone. That we wouldn’t get to see where this”—he gestured between the two of them—“is going.”
Her eyes softened. “Where do you want it to go?” she whispered.
His mind created a dozen answers for that question. He wanted her in his house, decorating it with cutesy, encouraging sayings and patterned throw pillows. He wanted her in his kitchen, fixing meals he most certainly would never throw in the garbage. He wanted her in a white dress. He wanted her walking down the aisle and a gold ring in his pocket.
He wanted forever.
And the thought scared the crap out of him at the same time it filled him with a longing he thought he’d long ago managed to squash. But it was entirely possible that any of those answers would have Hannah running for the hills.
“Forward,” he answered instead. “I’m not ready to give up on us or leave you behind.”
Hannah shook her head. She gestured to herself. “This version of me? I don’t want to be this person, Will. I don’t want to need rescued. I’m not a damsel in distress–or at least, I don’t want to be. And there’s a big part of me that is afraid you’ll lose interest when I’m not broke and running from some people trying to, I don’t know, take over the world or whatever. What happens when I’m just a boring girl from Alabama who writes news articles or, heaven forbid, actually gets a job at a newspaper or television station? Will you still want me then?”
Will couldn’t deny the immediate dismay that filled him at the thought of Hannah as another talking head on the news. But then he shook his head. “You’re a dang good reporter, Hannah. And any news outlet would be lucky to have you on their team. I…” He swallowed, searching for the courage to say why he felt that way about her, when for so many years he’d held such deep distrust of anyone in the press. “I trust that you’d do your job with integrity and use your access and influence to make things better—not to make a name for yourself.”
He studied her face, trying to read her expression. She drew her bottom lip in, tugging on it with her teeth. “Why do you hate reporters so much, Will?” Her voice was quiet, and he knew no one else on this plane could hear them over the air and engine noise in the cabin.
He inhaled at the question, caught off guard, though he probably shouldn’t be. It was a natural question. He felt his throat tighten at the idea of sharing the story. He’d never shared it with anyone but Ross.
But this was Hannah. And he needed to share it with her. She’d never fully understand him until she knew the whole story.
“Off the record,” she said with a tentative smile.
Her words made him smile.
“Off or on. It doesn’t matter. I trust you,” he reiterated. “We were in Kabul. I was leading a team for a series of raids against insurgents across the southern quarter of the city.”
If he closed his eyes, he knew he’d be transported back there, grinding the sand in his teeth and sweating through his DCUs before 9 AM. So he kept them trained on Hannah’s innocent face, the smooth skin and soft curves he couldn’t get enough of.
“There was a reporter stationed with us at the base. He was… a friend. Or so I thought,” he added bitterly. “I let him in, got to know him. He even saved our tails one time by spotting an IED we almost missed. We gave him a hard time about using us for information, but usually it wasn’t a big deal.” He paused, not sure he could explain how awful the betrayal had been.
“What happened?” Hannah asked, placing her hand on top of his.
“We had a raid scheduled. We’d been in contact with one of the local women. We handed out a lot of food and supplies, you know? She was always there helping. She was tired of the violence in her home and decided to take the risk to tell us things we couldn’t find out on our own. Like where the insurgents were holed up.”
He ran a hand over his face. “We had a huge raid planned, the biggest one yet, and by all accounts, we were going to land a massive blow to the opposition. We were fired up, and I… I let it slip to Mitchell. It was only a half hour before we rolled off base, so even though I made a mistake, I didn’t think anything would come of it.” He shook his head, still wishing he could undo the day twelve years earlier.
“The moment we left the base, Davis Mitchell was on the horn with his station and made a live broadcast. He gave the insurgents exactly what they needed to evade our attack. And Amira? She was our lookout. I lost five men between the boobytraps and the gunfight before they flew the coop. They brought the entire building next door down on Amira on their way out.” He left out the part where it was her personal home and her kids were inside too. Or how his heart had gotten tangled up in the single mother’s plight for peace.
Hannah’s soft gasp of surprise and dismay gave him a glimpse of her heart.
“You see, sweetheart? When I found out you were a reporter, I was terrified I would make another mistake and share too much. That somehow, you’d jeopardize everything we were trying to do because you were desperate to succeed.”
He felt her stiffen and continued. “But I know you’re nothing like him. You’re good and honorable. And the fact that you were willing to never publish anything about this mission? Well, that was icing on the cake, sealing in everything I already knew to be true.”
