Page 13 of Sniper's Pride

“At first we didn’t fight at all. There was nothing to fight about. Then, later, we had discussions about various points of contention. I wouldn’t call those fights because I always saw David’s point of view.”

Because he had known so much more than she did, about everything. Because it was his world and she knew—she knew and he knew and his family knew and all of Atlanta knew—that she would never really fit in. Because he was the one with the college degree from fancy Vanderbilt. Because everything she had, he’d given her.

“Everybody takes orders, princess.” She didn’t know which was harder, Griffin’s voice or the way he was looking at her. Like he’d heard every single thought she’d just had. Or maybe she’d shouted out the way she’d scrubbed her own self out of existence right here in this disconcertingly cheerful café. “The difference between you and me is that the man I take orders from is a man of honor. I would lay down my life for him in a second, and he would do the same for me. I take orders from him because I choose to. Because I trust him with my life. Is that what your marriage was like?”

“I believed it was,” Mariah said quietly. “Or I wouldn’t have married him.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

There was a slap in that, but Mariah couldn’t do more than frown, because the woman he’d called Caradine was back, all sharp edges and a scowl, thunking down big mugs of coffee on the table between them.

“Food will be another minute,” she said in a voice that, again, wasn’t remotely friendly.

But Mariah wondered if she was simply used to the South. Everybody sounded friendly all the time back home, especially when they harbored nothing but black and abiding hatred in their hearts. For all she knew, this Caradine woman was simply neutral, but Mariah was too Southern to tell the difference.

“The first thing you need to know about my marriage is that I loved my husband,” Mariah said after she’d taken a deep, head-clearing chug of her coffee. She was delighted to find that it was good. Really good. And strong. “It took him years to chip away at that. I was under the impression we were in it together, from hispolitical aspirations to our fertility issues. When I caught him sleeping with other women, it wasn’t business as usual. Because it wasn’t ever a business to me. It was real. I thought it was real.” She took another pull from her mug. “And most of the women in my position stay. They stay and they make it work, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. By the end, the marriage wasn’t what I’d imagined it was when we started, but I never would have left him if he hadn’t cheated on me. I wanted it to work.”

“If you say so.”

“I know so.”

“You married an older man with money, but sure. It was love. You were head over heels for the guy. Not his bank account, his big house, his expensive toys. You would have loved him the same if he’d had none of those things and wanted to sweep you away to the house down the block.”

Griffin didn’t actually call her a gold digger. He didn’t really have to.

Mariah concentrated, fiercely, on cupping her hands around her mug and lacing her fingers together.

When she raised her gaze again, she’d gotten control of herself and of the pain he didn’t deserve to see. “Who ripped your heart out and stomped on it?”

Another man might have flinched. But Griffin’s dark gaze only got colder. Just as he got even more dangerously, lethally still.

“Excuse me?”

“You seem to have a lot of opinions about a stranger’s marriage. In my experience, that kind of thing usually comes from a person’s own ugly stuff bubbling up.”

“I don’t have stuff.”

She smiled. “Okay.”

“I don’t have stuff, princess. And Marines don’tbubble.”

“That sounds like a whole lot of stuff. And I’m not a princess. If you know my husband swept me off my feet and let me pretend to be Cinderella for a while, you know that Cinderella doesn’t start off with a coronation. I was dirt poor. I came from nothing and expected a long life of the same. There’s not a royal bone in my body.”

Griffin eyed her for a moment that went on much too long. So long Mariah felt herself start to get much too hot. “You look like you got used to having more than nothing.”

“My goodness,” she murmured, like the Southern belle she wasn’t. “I had no idea that I’d be running from murder attempts to character assassinations. That really should have been included in the introductory email.”

But if she imagined beautiful, deadly Griffin would be abashed, she was mistaken. He leaned forward, his face set into a stern expression that she tried to see as commanding and very, very scary. When really she wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch him.

Instead, she clenched her fingers tighter around her mug until the heat of the ceramic burned.

“I’m not assassinating your character,” he said, his voice cold enough to make her shiver. She tried to hide it, but she knew that he saw it. The same way she knew he saw everything else. Inside her. Inside this café. And out on the streets of Grizzly Harbor, too, she had no doubt. Hisawarenesswas like a Southern gentleman’s chivalry. Knee-jerk and constant. “I’m trying to figure out if you’re a liar. Delusional or dramatic or anywherein between. Or maybe you’re a run-of-the-mill rich man’s first wife, who didn’t like getting tossed aside for a newer model and suffered through a round or two of self-induced shellfish poisoning to point the finger at the ex. Believe me, we’ve seen it all before.”

“If that’s supposed to make me feel better about being the potential delusional drama queen in question, it doesn’t.”

“I’m not here to make you feel better. If we decide to handle your situation, our goal will be to neutralize the threat, not concern ourselves with your emotional state. You should probably get your head around that now.”

“I have to say I’m amazed that a super-secret band of heroes hidden off in the hinterland, who roam about solving crimes and saving folks, would choosethisas their marketing approach. Do y’all actually have any clients?”