Page 48 of Training Rain
“In Yellowstone, when you wanted to leave, I coerced you to stay.”
Her eyes narrowed on him. “What else?”
He didn’t need to be psychic to see that the trust he had established with her was gone, or at least hanging by a thread. His chest ached with the knowledge that he had caused the rift. The only thing he could do was tell her the truth. He was sick, knowing it wouldn’t be enough.
“I eased your panic when you freaked out in the field that day and convinced you that you could do this. But it was not a lie. You can do this. Look at how fantastic you were this morning. Plus, I only stopped impulses, not what you really want, just kneejerk reaction.”
She pushed off the wall. “How can I trust you?”
He got up and crossed to her, taking hold of her shoulders. “Everything I did was in your best interest.”
“You took away my free will.”
“No. I don’t have that kind of power.”
“I can never trust you.” Her voice cracked.
“Rain, I love you. Don’t do this.” His chest ached as she pulled away, turning her back to him.
“I’ll finish the mission. Then we’ll go our separate ways.”
His throat was constricted painfully. “I wish you would reconsider.”
She stepped out the door and he knew he’d lost the one woman who’d ever really meant anything to him. The problem was, if he had it to do over again, he couldn’t think of what he would do differently. His heart ached at her rejection, but he’d have lost her much earlier if he hadn’t bent her decision to leave Yellowstone. He couldn’t win. He had to find a way.
* * *
Rain squintedin the bright Louisiana sun until her eyes adjusted. Yas trotted over and licked her fingers. Will sat on top of the post-and-rail fence with his rifle across his knees. He didn’t turn as she approached.
“It’s not easy to have both lives.” His words sounded sage, but he still wore the happy expression that was his signature.
She looked up at his square jaw and the angular lines of his face. “Can I ask you something, Will?”
“Sure.”
“How can you be so happy when you do what you do?”
“You mean when my job is to kill people?”
She cringed at the openness of his words and climbed up to sit on the fence next to him. “Yes. Doesn’t it bother you?”
His lips turned down for a moment. “I’m not killing Joe the baker or Jane the schoolteacher, Rain. The people I’m assigned to kill are not good people. I have refused jobs I thought were morally wrong. I see it as protecting my friends and my country.”
“You can kill a man a mile off. You must have some conscience about that.”
“With the right conditions longer than that.”
She couldn’t help being impressed. “How much longer?”
He shrugged. “Mile and a half, maybe with the right wind, temperature, elevation.
It all factors in.”
“You really don’t care about the people you kill?”
“I care, Rain. I separate me from the kill. If I didn’t it would leave me a very unhappy man. I have a skill. A very small percentage of people on the planet can do what I do or what you do for that matter. If I ignore the gifts that were given to me by a higher force, then I deny my purpose for being here. Just like if you stay on the reservation, you would be spitting in the face of your god. You have skills because you are needed to use them. I can shoot the way I do because the world has a need for that skill. I try my best to use my gift for good.”
“You have an interesting view.” She wanted to scoff at him, but everything he said hit home.
