Page 89 of No More Secrets
He prowled the room like a jungle cat in captivity.
“Mission after mission. We were good. We were tight. There were close calls. A lot of them. But we had ops down to a science. One night we were given orders to take a target in a small compound outside of Kunduz. He was in hiding with a small security team and we were to extract them.”
Carter paused, hands on hips. Staring as if looking back through time.
“It all went like clockwork. We breeched both buildings at the same time. He was in mine and I was going to find him. We cleared the front room. There was no furniture, just trash everywhere. He was squatting in this place.
“The back room was locked. Just a flimsy hollow door. We were in in seconds. Me and Ramirez. And there they were. Two of them both holding pistols. We had him. We had them. But there was crying. I looked down.” Carter looked down at Summer’s bed.
“She was seven. Curled up, crying. Dirt on her face. Bare feet. Terror. The terror in those huge brown eyes. I tell Ramirez to grab her and then —” his voice broke.
Summer tightened her hold on the pillow to keep herself from going to him.
“The target shot her. Right between the eyes.” His finger grazed the skin at the top of his nose. “Started screaming that he would rather have her dead than with American pigs.”
“I shot him six times before I fell. His buddy got me twice before Ramirez took him down.”
Summer clasped her hands over the sob that tried to claw its way free.
“I laid there on the dirt floor, staring into her dead eyes and watching our blood pool together.”
She went to him now. Offered him the only comfort she could. Summer wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his back.
He forged on. “When I came home, I was a mess. I couldn’t sleep because of the nightmares. I felt like I was never going to drag myself out of the abyss. The hate that I felt for that man scared me. I ended his life. I ended the hate that spewed out of him like a river. Sometimes the only thing that made me feel better was walking through those six bullets over and over again.” He let out a shaky sigh and Summer placed her lips on his back, tasting her own tears.
“And then I realized that me hating him was no different than him hating me. Fighting hate with hate gets you nowhere. That man was taught to hate his entire life. But me? I had a choice.”
“You chose a better way,” she whispered against his hot skin.
“I chose a better way,” he repeated. “And things got better.”
“But you still have the dreams,” she said.
“Balance and control became very important to me. So sometimes, when I feel my control slip a little or when I get to feeling an intense high or low, the dreams come back. It’s a weakness that I’m working on. I’m a work in progress.”
She pressed her forehead into his back. “Carter, it’s not a weakness. You’re healing. There’s a difference.”
He was calmer now. His heart beat slower, but she still felt the tension in his muscles. Remnants of the dream, shards of a memory so sharp it still bled.
And she knew it as the truth before she said it.
“I love you, Carter.”
She heard it. The intake of breath. And then he was pulling her around into his arms.
“I know it’s too early. I know we just decided to see where this will go. We’re supposed to wait months and really get to know each other before we say something crazy like this. But I love you, Carter Pierce. I love who you are and how you got to be you. Every story, every secret, everything I learn about you makes me love you more. And more weeks or months aren’t going to change that.”
He cupped her face in his hands.
Tears blurred her eyes until she couldn’t see him through them. “You trusting me with this —” she clutched at her heart, at the ache in her chest. She started again. “You are the best person I know and I love you.”
Carter gently wiped her tears.
“Summer.”
Her name on his lips carried so much emotion, so much weight she had to lean into him. She saw the scars on his chest and torso and gently laid her lips on them. Once, twice. And then she pressed them to his heart.
“What took you so long?”
