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“Take me upstairs, Silas. Please?”
CHAPTER TWO
Silas moved the cursor over the send button but couldn’t seem to click.
In his previous line of employment, there’d been no room for hesitation. You take action or you risk losing a limb or your life. But he wasn’t a SEAL anymore. And maybe that was the problem.
Without sending the email, he moved the mouse on his computer and clicked back to his latest game of Battleship with Thatch. Narrowing his eyes, he read the grid on the screen. As usual, Thatch thought he could outwit him by putting his destroyer in a diagonal formation.
“Nice try.” He clicked the F8 square and blew up the ship, but Thatch wasn’t around for him to gloat. His friend had taken the day off and headed to Jackson to run some errands. And God only knew where Aiden was. He’d been taking some extra-long lunch hours lately. Seeing how Aiden was engaged and had recently moved in with Kyra, Silas never asked questions.
And it wasn’t like things were overly busy at Cowboy Construction right now. They were in between projects, and Silas knew where he’d want to be if he had a fiancée. Definitely not sitting in their office blowing up battleships.
When he, Thatch, and Aiden had first moved here to help Tess run Dry Creek Ranch after they lost their best friend Jace on their last mission, Silas had felt that same sense of duty, loyalty, and responsibility that had driven him when he’d served. But now… well, Tess didn’t need them around as much. She’d gotten back on her feet and had hired some extra help. Meanwhile, his sense of purpose had been fading.
He’d never lived anywhere this long—not even as a kid. The confinement had started to mess with him. He had too much time to think. And he’d gotten too close to a certain woman. Sleeping with Tess two weeks ago—with hisdead best friend’s wife—had woken him up. He’d gotten too comfortable and let his guard down. He’d failed. He’d promised Jace he’d always protect Tess, and instead, he’d dishonored the man who had been a brother to him.
Yeah, it was time to skip town. He clicked back to the unsent email, scanning over his response again. When his old Navy buddy had contacted him about filling in on a government-contracted mission to locate and extract a missing US diplomat in Afghanistan, Silas had almost said no. Two years ago, he would’ve said no. Hell, six months ago, he would’ve declined. But he’d slept with Tess. And now, every time he saw her, the details came rushing back to him—how her lips had felt grazing his, how she had run her fingertips down his back…
He understood all too well now. The only emotion more powerful than guilt was desire. And he couldn’t let his craving for her overcome his promise to his dead best friend.
Kneading his forehead, Silas scanned his response on the screen again.
I’m open to it. Let me know when we can discuss the details.
Before he lost the nerve, he clicked the send button and the email whooshed away. Accepting this offer would be for the best right now. This mission would give him some space, some distance so he didn’t fool himself into wanting a life he could never have.
A life he didn’t deserve.
And on that note… he stood up and strode across the office to the putting green. No thinking. No dwelling. He had to line up his next shot and move—
The door crashed open and Tess stomped in, her dark curly hair in disarray and her cheeks splotched with pink.
“Hey.” The putter fell from his hands and he looked away from her before she could read the mess of want and guilt in his eyes. He wished he didn’t know. How her lips tasted. How her silky curls felt beneath his fingertips. He wished he didn’t know how soft her skin was or the sound of her low throaty laugh when he’d kissed her neck…
“Where’s Aiden?” Tess demanded, looking around the room with her soft brown eyes ablaze.
“Uh. Don’t know.” Silas moved swiftly back to his desk and opened his laptop so he could focus on something other than the woman’s face. He’d seen that face too often in dreams as of late. “He hasn’t been around in the middle of the day this week. Probably working on wedding plans.” Though Aiden and Kyra’s big event wasn’t until September.
“Well, that’s just great.” Tess uttered a groan of frustration. “Of course he’s not here. Damn it. I need him right now.”
Silas forced his gaze away from the Battleship grid and had to brace himself to look at her. He and Tess had seen each other since That Night but there’d always been other people around. “Uh. Well… what’d you need? Maybe I can help.” As long as he could assist from a distance. He didn’t trust himself around Tess anymore.
The woman eyed him doubtfully. “I just rode up to the high meadow and there was some jerk in a UTV shooting at—”
“What?” Silas lurched out of his chair so fast he knocked it over backward. “What the hell? They were shootingatyou?”
“Not atme,” Tess corrected. “I think they were shooting at the herd of wild horses.”
Easing out a lengthy breath, he did his best to pick his heart up off the fucking floor. “You saw someone shooting at the horses?”
“I didn’t see them.” Her chin lifted stubbornly. “I heard them. And then the horses came tearing through the meadow. They were scared. I could tell.”
Okay.Silas swallowed the fireball in his throat. She wasn’t in danger. She hadn’t almost gotten shot. Tess was fine. “You really think some of the horses got shot?” It was a federal crime to shoot a wild horse, but he guessed that didn’t stop some people. Those horses stirred up quite the controversy with some of the local ranchers who thought they were destroying the cattle-grazing lands in the region. “Maybe the UTV only backfired or something.”
“They were gunshots.” Her glare dared him to disagree. “You know what? Never mind.” She spun and headed for the door. “I have to get back up there and make sure none of those horses were shot.”
Whoa.He met her in three quick steps. “Not by yourself.”
