Page 5 of Rescuing Josiah
Slipping her hand into his, he didn't curl his fingers around hers and hold onto her, but she didn't let that stop her. Naïve or not, she was going to be here for this man whether he liked it or not. She wasn't going to leave him alone to drown in a sea of pain.
“I know you hate this. I know you hate … me.” She had to swallow down her emotions as she said that out loud. It was true, but she hated it. “I know you wish I wasn't here, that you were doing this alone, and I'm sorry for changing everything up. But I won't be sorry for caring about you, Josiah, so don’t try to make me. Just like I won't be sorry for caring about Ava and Nathaniel, and Tobias and Isabella, and Teresa and Micah. I care about them, and I want to make this work, which means that we have to find a way to make it look like we’re together. That means you accepting that I get to decide who I care about and you can be mad about it all you want, but you are one of the people I care about.”
Nothing was going to change that.
Maybe she was naïve, and maybe she was a romantic who always tried to see the good in everything and everyone, butshe was also stubborn. Stubborn enough to not let Josiah push her away yet. She could take whatever anger he dished out over these next days or weeks, however long it took to get to Desiree Tilly. She was stronger than she looked, and she’d made a promise to herself the first day she’d met Josiah and been hit by the force of his internal pain.
No matter what he said, no matter what he did, no matter how hard he pushed her away, she was going to be there for him. A steady presence in the sea of his agony, grief, and betrayal. Something he knew would always be there.
He could be rude and angry if he wanted, but she was going to keep meeting his energy with her own patient and caring one.
Chapter
Two
May 11th
8:03 P.M.
Giggling.
Every time she did it, it felt like a hammer hitting his chest.
A weird way to describe someone else’s laughter, Josiah got that, but no one else laughed in a way that affected him.
Pretty much everything everyone did annoyed him. A fact of life since his team had been gunned down around him, and he learned that someone he should have been able to trust had betrayed them in the worst possible way.
How else was he supposed to feel about the fact that his entire team was dead because someone had switched sides? No one else got it. Not his family, not his new team, definitely not Chelsea. Maybe Eagle Oswald did. The man had also been a SEAL until a betrayal had cost him his team and his leg. It was why, as soon as Josiah woke up in that hospital room on the other side of the world, his first call hadn't been to his parents or one of his brothers. That first call had gone to Eagle, and he’d asked for a job.
He hadn't needed anyone to tell him his career as a SEAL was over, he knew it. Had known it when he was bleeding out in the Middle East sand. He couldn’t go back home, take a job at a bank, or a store, or even become a cop. He had to do something that would carry on the work he and his team had signed up for, and working for the world-renowned Prey Security seemed like the best way to do that.
But he never could have anticipated that one of his new teammates would be a pretty brunette, with huge gray eyes, and the warmest smile he’d ever seen. A woman who was always happy, supported everyone, and treated him with kindness when he deserved the opposite.
How was he supposed to fight against her sunshiny smile?
And yet how could he not?
The alternative was letting her charm work, her sunshine wear down his walls, and then she’d be on the other side of them, and he’d be left vulnerable again. Losing someone else was not an option. There was no way he could survive that. So he was ruthless in his endeavors to shove everyone out of his life, including his own family.
“It’s like they took my dream house right out of my imagination and made it a reality,” Chelsea said again, awe in her voice as she walked around their new home. This was where they’d be for the remainder of their assignment. The townhouse was pretty, sure, if you cared about that kind of thing. His apartment was nothing more than a small table with a single chair, and a bed. He spent little to no time in it, and more often than not, slept at Prey so he could focus on work.
Work was what kept him going.
Work was how he honored his fallen teammates.
Work was the only thing that kept him sane.
And yet …
A tiny little voice at the back of his mind whispered a truth he wasn't ready to acknowledge yet. Would never be ready to acknowledge. Something else at work got him through each day, and it was currently giggling as it walked through the living room they were going to share.
The house was fancier than he would have chosen, but Prey had put this together for them. The house was four stories, with a gym in the basement, a living room, dining room, kitchen, and library on the ground floor, three ensuite bedrooms on the second floor, and an entire master suite on the third.
Unfortunately, they would have to share that room.
Chelsea had been right about one thing earlier, he did hate this, but he also had to make it look believable. They could be being watched, and if they were, it had to be clear that he and Chelsea were a couple now. Legally anyway. Nothing more. Never anything more.
“Would you stop giggling?” he snapped, unable to take a second longer of the sweet, musical sound. It was too pure, too innocent, too everything he wasn't, and it continued to chip away at his hardened heart. Which was absolutely unacceptable.
