Page 35 of Dublin Debacle

He chuckled. “There’s not much to know. I haven’t really had a home for a number of years. I don’t tend to stay in one place long enough. Being in the military established that habit. Since getting out, I’ve bounced around the world performing mercenary work until an old army buddy of mine told me about the Brotherhood Protectors and that they were hiring in Europe. It fit my lifestyle. Since I don’t settle in any one place long, I stay in short-term rentals and limit my personal effects to what I can carry in a duffle bag.”

Emily studied him as he spoke. “I don’t know too many women who would be happy with that kind of living arrangement. I take it you’re not married.”

“No,” he said. “I’m not married.”

“Divorced?” she asked, wondering if she was pushing too far. In her limited experience dating, men usually didn’t like to talk about past relationships. “You don’t have to answer that.”

“You’d have to have gotten married at some point to be eligible for divorce.” He shook his head.

Emily stared at him. “You never married? How is that possible?” She waved a hand at him. “I mean, look at you. You’re good-looking, love to travel and served your country. What’s not to love?”

He remained silent.

“Or did someone break your heart?” Emily asked softly.

His jaw tightened. When the light changed, he hit the accelerator harder than was necessary.

Emily’s old Mercedes lurched forward.

She’d touched a nerve, an old wound that apparently had never healed.

For a long moment, she didn’t say anything, feeling bad that she’d pushed that far. “I’m sorry. I can understand why you’d want to avoid falling in love again. Did she make it worse by going off with your best friend?”

Jack shook his head. “Worse.”

“How much worse could it be?” Emily asked.

“She died.”

The flat tone of his voice hit her as hard as his words.

Emily sat for a long moment absorbing his pain, feeling the weight of his loss and having no words that could begin to make it better.

I’m sorryseemed inadequate, so she didn’t bother voicing the empty words.

When her mother had died, people would come up to her and say those words. They’d done nothing to ease the pain. Nothing could ease the pain but time.

“Tell me about her,” Emily said softly.

Jack came to a jerky stop at yet another traffic light and stared at the vehicle in front of him.

Emily didn’t really expect him to comply. He probably didn’t like reliving painful memories.

The light changed, and Jack eased her vehicle forward. “We were both young, with our whole lives ahead of us when we found each other at a forward operating base. She was in supply and logistics. I was an Airborne Ranger. My team performed dangerous missions, rooting out and destroying Taliban terrorists. If anyone was supposed to die, it should’ve been me.”

“What happened?” Emily asked, her voice not much above a whisper.

“I was out on a mission that dragged on longer than it should have. She was scheduled to redeploy stateside within the week. She volunteered to deliver supplies to an orphanage she’d been to half a dozen times before. Her truck rolled over an improvised explosive device. She never made it to the orphanage. When I got back from my mission, her body had already been shipped home. All our plans died with her. We wouldn’t get back together in the States. I’d never get to ask her to marry me. We’d never have a life together.”

Emily reached across the console and laid her hand on his arm. She didn’t speak, just touched him, letting him know he wasn’t alone.

“Because I was on a deployment and we weren’t married, I couldn’t be there for her funeral. I couldn’t saygoodbye,” he said.

Her heart felt like a useless organ, even though it pumped blood through her veins, it didn’t warm her skin or any other part of her body.

“You had no closure,” she whispered.

“None,” he admitted. “My mind couldn’t grasp the fact that she was gone. Everywhere I turned in the camp, I expected to see her. Her face haunted my memories when I entered the mess hall, and her laughter echoed through the lines of tents and buildings. I saw her in the scrawny flowers she’d planted outside the door of the supply tent. Hell, I almost hit a man for stepping on the fragile bits of greenery that had yet to produce a bloom. It was as if he’d stomped on her. I’d never killed anyone with my hands.”

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