Page 41 of The Lightkeeper

“I also wanted to apologize,” she begged, her body rocking with a shiver.

Shit.

“Come inside,” I ordered, cursing the cold night for making a fool out of my defenses.

“I wanted to apologize for bringing up the gallery show,” she insisted as I closed the door behind her, the room rising in temperature. She tucked the wild curls of her hair behind her ears. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Lou was just so excited, and I thought…”

“Well, you thought wrong.”

She winced, but then steeled herself and kept going. Christ, this woman was perpetually—genetically—undeterred.

“Why don’t you want to promote your work? It’s so good.”

“Because I don’t.” My hand balled at my side.

“Is it because of what happened while you were in the army?”

Goddamn, this woman was bold.I stared at her, wondering if there was ever a time in the last eleven years since I’d been back, that anyone had dared to ask about what happened to me. Even Mom—hell, even Jamie—kept their distance, hoping I’d open up to them when I was ready.

But not Aurora.

She asked because…of course she fucking asked.That was what she did. She poked and prodded, watched and waited. She learned byunobstructed observation.

“I’m not one of your damn research specimens, Miss Cross,” I snapped. “That’s none of your business.”

“Well, of course, you’re not one of my specimens. You’re not in a jar… and you growl.”

I made the noise as if to prove her point.“Do you ever not ask questions?”

“How else am I supposed to learn?”

“Maybe there are some things that aren’t meant for you to learn—things people don’t want to talk about.”

“Do you not want to talk about it?”Another question.“Because that’s not what you said.”

I opened my mouth like I was going to shout “of course, I don’t want to talk about it”but nothing came out. No anger. No defense. No weapons or walls. I’d lived for a decade on the edge of the world, the lighthouse warning people away from my shores, but somehow, she carefully drifted close; she’d touched down and anchored safely along all my rocky edges, climbed into the remote corner of my life, and God help me, she never should’ve come here, but now that she was, I couldn’t make her go.

“Where did the scar on your head come from?”

My spine steeled, and my lips narrowed into a firm line. I strode into the kitchen, grabbed a water bottle, and took several gulps, hoping the prolonged silence would prompt her to say something else.

It didn’t.

She watched and waited, and meanwhile, I was convinced that she was made of more patience and perseverance than any person I’d ever met.

She wanted to know the truth?Fine.I’d give her the truth. Or part of it. Maybe that would stop this… experiment in its tracks. God knew pity had worked in the past to keep people away.

“I was put in charge of a special forces team assigned to covert operations in Pakistan after the Iraq War. We dealt with lingering insurgents, their leaders, and remaining camps as part of the War on Terror.” I rounded the counter and set the bottle on the edge. “I was sent with a new team. Just the way things worked out. Some veteran special forces, but some not. The kinds of things we were tasked to do… they were the kind of situations where if we got caught, we’d be disavowed.”

“Oh.” Her lips formed a perfect circle, and my dick jerked. I shouldn’t have stepped out of the kitchen. I should’ve left the counter between us, but like a fool, I hadn’t.

“Shit ton of danger. Helluva lot more risk. Not everyone can handle it, and… I should’ve seen the signs.” I dragged my hand over my scalp, feeling for the scar like it could tether me to the memory. “We’d just landed in country and had set up camp. The one guy on my team—Smith, he was new, and from the second we got off the plane, he struggled.” I dropped my arm to my side. “I should’ve seen it. His agitation. Lack of sleep. Irritation. Inability to focus. But I chalked it up to it being his first time on a mission like this.

“We were in country three days in order to set up our base,gather and assess our intel, and decide strategy on infiltrating the insurgent camp. The morning of the op, Smith lost it,” I rasped. I could still hear his voice bounce around inside my head. “Yelling. Pacing.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, my eyes squeezing shut. “He went outside the tent, and I wanted to give him a minute—give him space to cool his jets. I turned for one second to grab my sat phone, and shots were fired.”

She didn’t try to hide her audible gasp.

“He’d come back in the tent and started firing his weapon,” I said tightly, my head starting to shake as though protesting the walk down memory lane. “He wasn’t aiming at any of us, he was just firing. Everywhere. Crying. Shouting. Bullets flying—” I broke off with a sharp inhale when a small hand covered my fist that rested on the counter.

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