Page 39 of Rescuing Josiah
Chelsea let out a sigh of relief that he wasn't going to go and hide in the gym again. She wasn't really something else, she was just a girl who fell in love with a boy, knowing he might never love her back, and hoping she wasn't putting misplaced faith in herself when she believed she could handle it if he never fell for her.
Chapter
Eleven
May 16th
1:35 A.M.
Tonight he felt restless.
Something was going to happen, he could feel it in his bones, he just wasn't sure what.
Josiah was confident that so far their cover had been maintained. They’d been diligent in answering every question the way they’d planned, acting like they were willing to betray their company and step out into the illegal to save Chelsea’s life.
Granted, that was mostly Chelsea, but then again, he was playing himself. All he’d had to do was stand around and glare at anyone and everything.
Easy done.
Because they hadn't been able to talk to anyone on this side of things, they weren't sure what to expect. They’d rescued victims of the ring who had been taken to harvest organs, including Ava, so they knew about that side of things. They’d rescued doctors and nurses who had been abducted and forcedto work for the ring, including Isabella, so they knew about that side of things.
They’d even managed to take alive some of the doctors and nurses who had willingly signed up to work for the trafficking ring for money and power. Those men and women had been more reluctant to talk, but they’d managed to gather some bits and pieces of information from that side of things as well.
But they hadn't located a single person who had bought an illegal organ from the ring, so they had no idea what the next steps might look like. At some point, they knew they would have a meeting at the clinic Dr. Wood had told them about. From there, he had no idea where things would go and he didn't like that.
Didn't like things being up in the air.
If you couldn’t plan for every single contingency, you couldn’t ensure things went the way you wanted.
Of course, he knew in life there were no guarantees, but he’d spent six years now doing everything he could to eliminate as much uncertainty from his life as he could manage. Playing things safe, isolating himself from anyone who could wind up hurt, had been the only way to keep his anxiety in check, and now he was stepping away from both of those things.
The woman beside him meant so much more to him than she realized.
Chelsea still believed that he was never going to love her back, but she was wrong. The issue wasn't whether or not he’d fall in love with her because he was pretty sure he already had.
The issue was whether he could accept those feelings.
They terrified him, because allowing himself to care about another person left him open to losing them. Pushing Chelsea out of his life wouldn't be as logistically easy as cutting off his family had been because they worked together. He could alwaysquit, but he loved his job, it gave him a purpose, a reason to live, and …
Not seeing Chelsea every day would be losing her anyway.
Beside him, she slept peacefully. Sleeping in the bed together had been her idea, he’d wanted to sleep on the floor again. There was every chance that he’d have another nightmare, wind up hurting her again, but she’d asked and he found it difficult to tell her no.
Another time the soft rise and fall of her chest as she took soft, sleepy breaths, and the way her soft chestnut locks tickled his chin might have been all it took to calm him, soothe him enough he might get real sleep without dreams.
But not tonight.
Tonight, danger seemed to hang in the air.
If Chelsea wasn't with him, he’d be happy to wing it, take things as they happened, it was what his life had been like as a SEAL. But since he did have Chelsea with him, he hated not knowing what to expect next from the trafficking ring.
“Whatever happens, I won't let them hurt you,” he whispered to a sleeping Chelsea. Lifting his hand, it hovered above her head for a moment. He wanted to give in to the urge to touch her, but how much more Chelsea could he take before he gave in entirely and told her that her feelings weren't one-sided?
Giving in to the urge, Josiah lowered his hand slowly until it rested against her silky locks. Almost reverently, he smoothed his hand down the side of her head. How could a woman like her ever fall for a guy like him?
She said it didn't have to make sense, and no one had to understand it, but he found himself struggling to accept it because it felt crazy to him. He was about the least lovable man out there, well, for these last several years at least. Before that, he’d just been a regular guy, not really looking for commitment but not against the idea either. It always seemed like if it wasgoing to happen, it would happen in its own time and in its own way.
Now it seemed to have happened, and it felt surreal.
