Page 56 of Lucky Charm
Duncan rose and shoved the chair back into the corner. “Well, they know where to find you. You get some rest and first thing in the morning we’ll get you back to your quarters.”
Cait watched him leave, then slammed her fist into her pillow. The weak punch gave credence to their conspiracy to keep her here. She didn’t like keeping secrets from Duncan either. They’d been through hell and back together, fought throughtough residencies, bonded over bombings and blood, and shored each other up through every curveball and storm of their service. But she wasn’t ready to share anything about Hunt, wasn’t ready to admit her history with him or the depth of her feelings.
“Hanging out in public with only my dreams. Perfect.” She pulled her blanket close – a blanket that would now be connected with Hunt forever – and rubbed her face on the soft material.
Where was her SEAL when she needed him?
Chapter Ten
“They’re keeping Cait another day.”
Hunt looked up from pushup one hundred fifty-nine, knowing the update from Doogie was an invitation to talk. He didn’t want to. After a long night with Doc, he’d waded through a full day of intelligence briefings, team debriefs, and paperwork explaining the loss of two SUVs. He wasn’t in the mood to talk – even with his best friend. They were alone in the designated exercise area. The lack of team members utilizing the room wasn’t unusual lately because frequent team rotation was a Tetris game.
He nodded to acknowledge the info and kept the rhythm of his reps. Staying in physical shape and maintaining mental readiness for combat went hand-in-hand. If he quit focusing on his workout, he’d walk over to the hospital and kiss her again.
That shook him. She shook him.
Oh, he’d connected his feelings; knew from the protectiveness that he was wading into something he wasn’t sure about, so he’d skirted their depth. Now he was here with time to think and had the reality of her presence imposed over the emotion. This wasn’t a tiny tremor, but an end-over-teakettle, car flipping crash over a rock-littered embankment following by the mother of all tens on the Richter scale for earthquakes. The foundation he’d spent years building, then depending on when things got challenging, was heading for destruction –not just to the core, but to the molecular level. In California, he’d resolved to go after her, but he hadn’t known how his emotions would churn. His entire being begged, and he had to ignore.
What the hell did he know about love? Nothing. And ifthiswas that word, he had no earthly idea what to do.
“What are you up to, man? We got enough physical training on that mountain to last at least a couple days. You’ve been on a tear since we got back.”
“The only easy day was yesterday. 167…168….169.” His bruised back and ribs didn’t like him much, but if he kept plowing ahead, Doogie would go away.
Since he’d been a small boy with his parents beating him to excess, he’d learned to hide all parts of his true self and keep the walls up. It was the only way over fourteen years with his parents that he survived emotionally and physically.
If you could call that surviving. The home base shrink sure didn’t think that was surviving. The man accused him of avoiding and not dealing. But he didn’t get “emotional.” He was the cool one no matter the circumstances because he’d always needed to be.
He’d quit seeking out one-night stands because those moments weren’t worth the complications. Women always expected more of him which he couldn’t and wouldn’t deliver. For the last three or so years, he mostly found other personal ways to release the tension of lust and adrenaline becausehe was sick to death of that struggle. Alone was easier.
Yet he’d gone up in an inferno of lust when he’d met Cait. The connection they’d forged left him jumping out of his skin, and that wasbeforelying naked in a sleeping cocoon on top of a weapon’s cache with her. The months in between hadn’t changed anything.
Since he met her, he’d come to like her humor and her sarcasm, her smarts and her patience. Every mission and tour here for months had him wishing for her back. The damnedest thing was she was inside his walls – yeah, the ones he’d so meticulously built – and he hadn’t needed to consciously work to let her in.
Not even a little bit.
She was justthere.
That was freaky enough. But the out-of-control fear of something happening to her during the mission was enough to make him go berserk.
He neverlost control in the field.
Never.
Except he had.
Killing that motherfucking terrorist who abducted Doc had been a pleasure, a feeling he utterly rejected as too like how he perceived his father’s violence and the lifelong effort he made to be opposite of him.
He’d had six weeks of hellish BUD/S training to examine every detail of how he grew up, what he wanted, and who he was. He did what he had to do and was comfortable with it.
Or was he?
“You look like you’re going to mess someone up.” Doogie shrugged out of his sweatshirt, the resigned look on his face telegraphing he was going to join Hunt instead of going away.
“Preferably you if you interrupt my count again.” He didn’t normally resort to sarcasm. Killer silence said it all. Usually.
“You need to chill, my friend. You’re over two hundred.”
