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I headed back outside with a smile. “You ready?”
“Ready,” he said. “Do you care where we end up?”
“Makes it sound like you have something in mind,” I said.
“I do,” he nodded. “It’s a place a little way down the beach from here. It’s a nice, private place where we can sit and not be bothered by anyone.”
“We weren’t bothered last night,” I pointed out, but he shook his head.
“No, but I still feel like I’m on display at times when I’m back here since all the bungalows in the complex have access to the beach. We’re going to a place where I’ve never run into anyone else,” he said. “But only if you want to. I don’t want you to go there if you’re not comfortable.”
“I’ll be fine if you’re with me. I just don’t want to go to secluded places like that alone anymore. At least, not until I get a dog or something.”
“You’re with me. I’m better than any dog,” he said with a smirk.
“I’ll agree with that,” I said.
He slipped his hand into mine, and we walked along the beach that way. I felt tall and proud beside him, as though we were an official couple. There wasn’t anyone around to be proud in front of, but that didn’t stop me.
I trusted him to know where we were going despite the dark, and with how confident he walked along the beach, I felt he did. We headed around a bend, then over a small swell, then we dropped down into another soft, sandy area that was perfectly shielded from anyone walking along the beach. It was entirely out of sight of the bungalows, even though we weren’t that far away from the complex.
“This place is incredible,” I said as he spread out the blanket.
“I thought you would like it,” he said. “I used to come here a lot to look at the stars.”
“There’s quite a view of them from here. It’s like even getting away from the lights over at the complex makes them that much easier to see,” I admitted.
“Exactly,” he agreed.
We settled in side by side, and I cuddled up close to him. I couldn’t get as close as I’d like, but I was taking what I could get with him. But it didn’t take long for the conversation from the night before to come creeping into the back of my mind, and I felt now was a good time to really talk to him. I didn’t want to force him to agree to things he wasn’t ready for or drag information out of him that he wasn’t ready to give.
But I also didn’t want to ignore what he’d said to me the day before.
“What did you mean last night when you said you didn’t want to rush into anything because of ruining something before?” I asked. “Did you jump into a relationship too fast?”
“I have, but that wasn’t what I was talking about,” he said. “It was a lot bigger than just dating someone.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “I’m really confused, and I want to know.”
“Well,” he said, hesitating. “Okay. Do you remember what I told you last night about the kidnap and ransom work I did?”
“Yes.”
“There was a particular mission I did in Romania. A high-profile figure was taken by a guerrilla group, and it was up to me to negotiate the safe return of this person. As you can imagine, tempers flared, and it wasn’t the best situation. I didn’t think I would be able to get said person out of there alive, and I was shocked with how well the negotiations went,” he said.
“Did you get them out?” I asked with wide eyes.
“They survived, yes,” he said with a sigh. “But I fucked up along the way. I should have been more patient, but with how well the negotiations had gone, I felt I had established a better relationship with the men involved. Now, I never forgot they were terrorists, and they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot in a heartbeat if they felt they should. I guess I lost my head.”
“What did you do?” I asked, hooked on the story now.
“In a nutshell, I moved too fast,” he said. “I put too much trust in the wrong places, and they opened fire. They let the person go, but I guess they were spooked by the rest of the deal and decided the best thing was to get rid of the players.”
“What happened?”
“They opened fire. I got shot along with two other contractors,” he said. “I was shot in the stomach, and the other two were hit in the leg and shoulder.”
“Did they survive?” I asked.
