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She frowned. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
He struggled against how much to confide. How much to share about the turmoil that hadn’t stopped brewing in his gut since seeing a knife pressed against her.
Since not being able to do a damn thing to protect her.
Shaking away the vision, he tried to focus on the positive. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t give me that,” she said with narrowed eyes. “Spill it.”
Sighing, he hung his head. “I felt so helpless earlier. I just stood there and watched Isaac threaten you. Watched him hurtyou. My mind was racing but I couldn’t see a way out that didn’t put you in even more harm. I was useless.”
A light touch on his forearm lifted his head. He stared into Laura’s wide, loving eyes. The blue was so bright, so beautiful.
“You would have found a way to stop him.” She spoke with so much conviction, he almost believed her.
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. Because you’re the best man I know. You’ve done more for me than anyone else ever has. I trust you with my life.”
A familiar punch of guilt jabbed him in the gut. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”
“Why would you say that? Why can’t you see what an amazing person you are? I’ve known it since I was a little girl, showering you with those silly flowers and weeds I picked in the woods. All I ever wanted was for you to notice me. Even then, I knew being in your life would be the most wonderful thing.”
The faces of the men in his unit who’d lost their lives flashed in his mind. Their lives all snuffed out because of him. Emotion clogged his throat. The burden he’d carried around for so many years suddenly was too much—too heavy. “I’m not as good as you think I am. My past is filled with…” he lifted his hands then let them fall as the words failed to come.
“Pain? Trauma? Mistakes?”
He nodded as each suggestion hit him like a missile. “All of that. My choices led to the death of good men.My actionsled to the deaths of good men. It’s my fault. All my fault.” Unshed tears burned against the backs of his eyes. He balled his hands into fists and rubbed them up and down his thighs over and over.
She sat still beside him and gave him the space he needed to catch his breath. A few moments of silence passed before she rested a hand over his fist, stopping the frantic motion before he rubbed a hole through the denim. “I understand self-blame. I understand taking on guilt that’s not yours to take. I alsounderstand sometimes it’s impossible to let go of those things even when logic tells us everything wasn’t your fault. I might not know what happened—and you don’t need to tell me unless you want to—but I do know you didn’t kill those men.”
A wall of heat slammed against him, and the smell of the dry desert invaded his senses. The rumbling sound of tanks on gravel roads vibrated his ear drums. A flash of light followed by an explosion…screaming…silence. “I didn’t follow my gut. I didn’t trust my instincts. I should have turned back. Shouldn’t have kept going down that road.”
Her palm fought through his clenched fist until she twined her fingers in his. “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“I sensed it. That should have been enough.”
Laura wrapped her arms around him and drew him close. She rubbed small circles on his shoulder and pressed her lips to his temple.
No words would ever absolve him of everything he carried, but the comfort and support from Laura melted some of the guilt gnawing at his conscience. Hell, just letting some of his story trickle out loosened the vise that had tightened his chest since the day he’d left the Army.
“Thank you,” he whispered into her ear before pulling back enough to see her face. “I didn’t want to make this about me because it’s not. You’re the one who was dealt a horrible blow today.”
She flattened a palm to his jawline. “Never apologize for sharing. I want to know you. All of you.”
Unable to stop himself, he leaned forward and captured her mouth in his. She tasted like hope—like home. How had she been under his nose all this time? Always a stone’s throw away but always too far to touch.
But not anymore.
Now that he’d found her, there was no way he’d ever let her go.
Laura melted against Cade,savoring the feel of his lips on hers. His hands framed her waist, his fingers skimming her sides. Her skin tingled as anticipation zipped through her body. Her core burned, urging her closer. Demanding she erase any space between them.
The first kiss in the kitchen with Cade had been sweet and tentative and filled with nerves. But this…this was so much more. As though all the walls had been destroyed, leaving them both desperate to take things further.
Never had she imagined she’d feel like this. That she could fall so hard and so damn fast. Yes, she might have held a childhood crush, but her wildest dreams couldn’t have predicted the depth of her feelings for the man Cade had become.
“Oops, looks like I’m walking in on something.” Mrs. Collins’ chuckle followed her into the room.
