Page 94 of Sniper's Pride

He’d told himself that he was doing everyone a favorwhen he’d coldly walked away from the life he’d had there.

But it had taken him all these years to understand that he’d been lying to himself all along.

It wasn’t civilians or civilian life in general that wasn’t for him. It wasthat life.That particular life.

He hadn’t loved Gabrielle. Not with any kind of intensity or intimacy. He hadn’t shown her the truth about himself, and he’d had no intention of ever doing so.

There in his silent cabin, it was as if he’d ripped off his own skin. He felt stripped naked and vulnerable, and he hated it. God, how he hated it.

But hating it didn’t make it any less true.

He hadn’t felt even a fraction for Gabrielle, the girl he’d asked to marry him, what he felt for Mariah—the woman who’d walked away from him. It wasn’t any kind of contest. It wasn’t even close.

In the end, as Mariah had told him in Georgia and he’d denied to himself ever since, this had always and ever been about his pride.

Gabrielle had wounded his pride, never him. And Griffin had built himself a glorious temple made entirely of walls to keep the world away, the better to nurture that pride. He had abandoned his family, walked away from his life, and done it all with his self-righteousness dressed up like concern for others.

He had never been a machine. He was good at what he did, but that didn’t make him inhuman.

The sad truth was that all this time, he’d been hiding from himself. From the simple, uncomfortable reality that his ex had embarrassed him. With his best friend. And instead of dealing with that, he’d locked anyfeelings he had about it away and told himself he didn’t feel anything at all.

Ever.

When it was actually a lot messier. He shouldn’t have asked Gabrielle to marry him when what he’d really wanted was the idea of somebody waiting for him. And he should have let her go the moment he’d understood that he cared more about the Marines than he did about her. That what she’d really been to him was one more way to make it clear he couldn’t and wouldn’t follow in his father’s footsteps.

Instead, it had been a lot easier to wrap himself up in all his lofty talk of compartments and ice.

And all it had taken was one blue-eyed blonde with a drawl like honey, and he’d been exposed for the liar he was.

No wonder he felt like he was falling apart. He was finally seeing the truth about himself, and it was jarring.

And she was here.

She was here.

Griffin had always prided himself on never surrendering, to anything—

But it seemed to him as he stood in his lonely cabin, in the remote and stark life he’d built to exalt the lies he preferred to tell himself, that he had finally run out of alternatives.

He could keep trying to pretend that he didn’t feel the things he did, but that was going to ruin what he truly loved about his place in Alaska Force. His brothers would only take so much. And one of these days, if he kept on the way he was, he was going to dare Isaac to fire him, and Isaac was going to rise to that challenge.

And that might truly kill him.

He knew it would.

Griffin also knew exactly whose fault it was that he was in this situation in the first place.

And she was here until morning.

Twenty-two

Mariah left the Fairweather with a smile on her face, pushing through the door and out into the long, still-bright Alaskan evening. It was ten o’clock at night and yet light outside, and that simple reality was so... exhilarating.

Just like the fact that she could walk herself back to her hotel room. All alone and perfectly safe.

It had been a lovely week. Grizzly Harbor was exactly as she remembered it and possibly even better, now that no one was chasing her. Now that there were no questionable shadows or strangers at her door in the middle of the night. The charming town looked even more like a postcard in the sunnier weather of almost-summer. And it was still filled with interesting people, quirky and strange in all the right ways, and most of them surprisingly accepting of an Alaska Force client turned tourist.

Well. The tourism was a side benefit. The real reason she was here, as she reminded herself daily, was becauseshe’d decided to make a career out of the one thing she was good at—investing money and making more of it—and Everly was her very first client.

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