Page 98 of Only for Love

“What is it? Like, a security firm?”

“Yeah. They’ve helped me out since I was discharged from Walter Reed.”

“Is that where your truck came from? It doesn’t look like you drove it off a showroom lot.”

I have to laugh at that. The big, blacked-out, chromed-out fuel guzzler doesn’t look very standard. “Yes. It belongs to Titan.”

She gnaws on her lip. “So, you’d be in danger?”

“Maybe.”

“Like, risk your life every day type danger or… I don’t know, something less scary-sounding?”

“If it’s what I think it is, there’d be risks.”

“You’re going to come home from war and just to jump into a job like that?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

She turns her face away and burrows into my arm. “Is it what you want to do, Gray?”

I hold onto her, praying this isn’t a deal breaker. I want to provide for her, and working for Titan would do that—very, very well. I miss the camaraderie of a military team, the brotherhood I can’t explain and yet still crave. “This is the only thing I know how to do well.”

She lies against me quietly as time drifts by. “Anything else you can tell me?”

“There’s probably travel.”

“How much?” she asks.

“Honestly, I have no idea. And most likely, you wouldn’t know where I was going.”

Humming against my chest, she sounds as if she’s considering the idea. “But you want this?”

“Better than bartending at Seven’s or—”

“I hate that place.” She studies my face. “But seriously, after everything that you dealt with…over there,you want whatever this job is?”

“Good question.” My hands smooth over her back. “I have some baggage to deal with.”

“Over your team?”

Mydeadteam. “Yeah.”

“Think you can manage it?”

All of the therapy, the brochures, the stupid pieces of paper where some therapist asked me to circle my emotions that day… there weren’t enough options on the page for me even to begin. But in this little house, with my two girls nearby, I know I can face my demons. “I think I can manage it.”

“Then I can, too.”

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