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“I hope you were someplace safe.”
“Darlin’, no place is safe over there. It’s relative. First time you get mortared, you’re diving under bunks or behind sandbags. But you get desensitized to it. Still, you never let your guard down. That’s when bad shit happens.”
Her eyes widened. “I can imagine.”
No, she really couldn’t, which was the way it should be. “Sorry to bring the mood down. You don’t need to hear all that. Let me get Boss fed so he doesn’t try and steal my lasagna.”
He usually didn’t talk about deployments. Some women got turned on by the danger aspect, others got turned off—for multiple reasons. Elizabeth, however, regarded him for a few seconds as if psychoanalyzing him. There was definitely something appealing about her. He watched the subtle movement of her hips as she walked gracefully away. The woman had class, and a great ass, and fantastic legs.
He wished he knew who had hurt her to make her fearful and so closed off that she wouldn’t date. He’d like to get his hands on that guy’s neck even more than J.R. or the tribal leader assholes who thought it was okay to kidnap young women and force them to be wives—more like sex slaves—to their fighters. His team had rescued some girls, but it would happen again. Sadly, it was a tale as old as time. Virgin girls considered as spoils of war.
His stomach roiled with anger more than hunger. He needed to compartmentalize for now. He went inside and changed out of his uniform and into shorts and a T-shirt and flops, trying to get out of a mission mindset. Their last mission had been turned over to Charlie Company for the next six months. Constant turnover made it hard to gain inroads with the locals, but longer deployments over and over took a toll on his men and their lives. He wasn’t the only one to come home and find his girl with someone else. Someone who wouldn’t disappear for six months, be home a year, then bounce out for another six months. It was why the position with SOCOM appealed to him, though he would miss his team. And life as an operator. But life involved trade-offs.
In the bathroom, he scrubbed the grime from his hands and combed his hair. He’d shaved his beard before coming home from Africa, planning to show up in his dress uniform at Britney’s big event. Since guys in Special Forces didn’t have to adhere to normal Army regulations about facial hair and length, his hair was long enough for a woman to run her fingers through. The way Britney had liked it.
She turned out to be another love lesson in what not to do. Don’t settle for being the rebound guy. She was educated, with a good job, and came from money. He hadn’t realized how much she’d been like his birth mother. Right down to thinking she was too good for him.
Elizabeth didn’t act like that. She appreciated the things he did.
He checked the time. With over twenty minutes before dinner would be ready, it gave him time to peruse another chapter in theFive Love Languagesbook. Maybe he should reread the chapter on acts of service to try and come up with a birthday gift idea. Yeah, like that was his main purpose in wanting to know more about Elizabeth. Something about her shy smiles, the way she blushed when Boss got too friendly, and the sound of her laughing with—not at—him, made him want to get to know her better. Peek behind the wall she had up.
Not quite through the chapter on quality time, he decided to finish it. An idea brewed. Maybe he could experiment to see which was Elizabeth’s love language.
He breathed into a cupped hand. Not horrible, but he went and brushed his teeth anyway. Not that he’d get close enough to Elizabeth for her to smell his breath. Done with his dinner, Boss cocked his head and watched him.
“How do I look, boy? Presentable?”
Maybe too casual. He rethought the shorts, but, hell, he had muscular legs. They were tan from wearing shorts during downtime at their combat outpost. He was going as is.
“No, boy. You need to stay.” John left Boss to pout. Time to experiment.
ChapterTwenty-Six
FIGHTER – Keith Urban & Carrie Underwood
Elizabeth returnedthe lasagna to the oven after adding the top layer of cheese. She opened a bottle of wine and poured herself a glass. As she covered one of the salads with plastic wrap, John knocked on the front door.
He stood on the porch without Boss. “The lasagna won’t be ready for a few minutes. I was going to bring it over to you.”
“Thought I’d save you a trip and see if I can help with anything. Fix some salad or garlic bread. Open a bottle of wine for you.”
“Done, done, and done.” It was thoughtful of him, though. “Would you like a glass of wine?”
“If it’s not against the rules.” He winked at her.
She felt her face flush. “No. It’s fine.”
John wasn’t like any of her prior tenants—at all—but she hadn’t wanted to risk him coming home with a case of beer and anything happening that would make her tenants uncomfortable or require her to kick him out.
He opened the screen door before she could offer to bring his glass to him on the porch. Panic washed over her, but she let it pass, trusting he didn’t have sinister intentions. It was merely her issues causing her to overreact.
“Man, it smells good in here.”
She got out a wine glass as he admired the view out the kitchen’s bay window.
“This is the life. I kinda hate that I’m going to move back into my neighborhood without all this free space and nature. I’m getting spoiled here. Other than the tight quarters.”
“It’s not for everyone. Wren doesn’t like that it’s so remote. But you can’t have tiny houses in most neighborhoods.”
