Page 7 of If This is Love

How was this even possible?

But the closer she got to me, the less it mattered how possible it was. Because she was just here in the flesh.

Her.

My imaginary girlfriend.

The woman crossing the creaky, sticky wood floor of the neighborhood bar was a perfectly formed human version of everything I’d been fantasizing about every morning in the shower and before I fell asleep every night for the past six years. And Skye was leading her right toward me.

She was getting closer. I still couldn’t stop staring at her. My dick was having a Pavlovian reaction to the sight of her, and I folded my elbows on the table so that my coat would hide that sudden problem.

Ruth hadn’t even quite gotten all the way to my table when her scent filled my nostrils, replacing the musty scent of the old bar with vanilla and gardenia, andseriously?

She evensmelledexactly like my fantasy woman, and what the actualfuck?

“And this is Gabe,” Skye was saying, “He runs a local construction company, and they’ll be building our facility.”

Ruth offered her hand to me and looked at me through a pair of liquid-amber eyes that I’d totally imagined staring into many,manytimes.

“Hi Gabe,” she said as we gently, quickly shook hands. Her skin was like friggin’ rose petals just like I’d always imagined, andreally? “It’s wonderful to meet you.”

“Likewise,” I mumbled, drawing my hand back while her amber gaze darted to Gunner.

“Oh my goodness, what a handsome boy! I won’t pester him because I can see he’s a working man, but he sure is beautiful.” She smiled at Gunner, and I was suddenly drunk on the scent of vanilla and gardenia flowers that I’d evendreamedabout. Gunner offered her a big grin as his tongue lolled out of one side of his mouth.

“He’s fine,” I said, halfway hiding my mouth behind my hand, and her scent was nowall overmy palm. I jerked my hand away from my face and stuffed it in my pocket with the cookies. “You can pet him.”

Ruth gracefully lowered herself to crouch in her high heels on the tattered old wood floor and rubbed behind Gunner’s ears. She gave a quiet, velvety chuckle as she stroked the side of his head, and he let his tongue hang lazily as he leaned his head into her hand. “Oh my lord, you’re just the sweetest thing, aren’t you?” She rubbed his ear for another second before standing up. “What a good boy.”

“Yeah,” I added automatically, shifting in my chair. Ruth stepped away, following Skye with a swing on her hips toward the table with Brennan, Connor, and Liza, anddamn it.

This was honestly the last thing in the world I needed.

I already knew about Ruth’s professional role with Destination Destiny, Skye’s new non-profit organization. She was the director of the whole damn thing. The one responsible for taking Skye’s vision to save other women who shared her awful experience of being trapped in forced prostitution and trafficking and making it a reality. The person I would be reporting to and working with for the next few months, sonowwhat was I supposed to do?

Show up to work with a boner every day like I was still twelve and had completely out-of-control hormones?

Fuckthat.

Gunner uttered a low growl under the table, and I glanced down at him.

He was making a face; one that only I could read, and my faithful lab was straight-up judging me right now.

“Don’t look at me like that, brother,” I said under my breath, rubbing his soft, floppy ear.

The door to the bar flew open, smacking the wood wall behind it and rattling me to my core, and I blinked, and I suddenly wasn’t even there anymore.

* * *

Al Anbar, Iraq

The air wasnothing but a thick, gritty, brownish hue that made everything look like an aged photograph, and I landed hard on my back.

“Stassar’nt! Stassar’nt!”one of my guys was hollering. His name was Jimmy Miller. He was a Lance Corporal and the same age as Luke. “I can’t see shit!”

Get behind something, I tried to holler back, but the blast had sucked all the air out of my lungs. I couldn’t even breathe. I could only taste the air, and it had a flavor like gunpowder and dirt and metal.

The metallic tang in my mouth was a bad sign, and I turned my head to spit out a mouthful of blood and saliva, forcing myself to roll over and praying to God that my legs still worked. I coughed and hacked on the sandy, sepia cloud, forcing my body to breathe in the air around me that I knew was laced with poison from the chemicals and toxins of warfare. That would probably kill me later, but if I didn’t move, the chaos would kill my guys right then. Probably me, too.

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