Page 44 of Lacey's Fight

Talk about making a mistake of epic proportions.

Sex with Lacey was supposed to be a way to help himself let go of his issues with sex.

Okay, that was a lie.

Not why he’d slept with her at all.

The reason he’d had sex with Lacey was because he’d hoped it would get her out of his system not his guilt over his wife’s death.

Instead of achieving that goal, all it left him with was a burning need for more.

More.

More.

Until Ben wasn’t sure he could ever satisfy his craving.

The night was cool, and the sound of his feet pounding across the ground was the only sound. It really was peaceful out here in the countryside. Maybe when his time was up, and he retired from the SEALs, he’d move out to the country.

Who knows, maybe that was what he really needed.

Solitude.

He could become a hermit, and never have to worry about other people. He’d be free to wallow in his pain without anyone attempting to prod him out of it, without gorgeous women who messed with his head.

Although he’d told Lacey he had extra energy he needed to burn off and might hit up the gym, what he’d really needed was space.

For the first time in three years, he wondered if it was time to start moving on.

How much he’d hated that term in those first weeks and months after Jemima’s murder. People had been sympathetic, of course, and understood that he was mired in a pit of grief and guilt that there was no hope of climbing out of. They had been supportive through the trial and when Jemima’s killer was sentenced to life in prison.

But over time those whispers of moving on grew louder.

Time doesn’t heal your wounds, but it does dull them, he’d been told. Jemima would want you to be happy. She wouldn’t want you to waste the rest of your life beating yourself up over her death.

That one he’d hated the most.

How would anyone know what Jemima would have wanted?

And it wasn’t like she had died of an illness or even in an accident. Then it might be conceivable that she would want him to be able to find happiness with someone else, but she’d been horribly murdered. Because of him. If anyone had reason to want him to suffer for the rest of his life it was Jemima.

Then after that first anniversary, his family and friends began to try to prod him onto the road of healing. He hadn’t even been ready to take that first step onto the road let alone walk down it.

Quite simply Ben didn’t want to heal.

Didn’t want to move on.

He wanted to coat himself with enough guilt that even looking at anything that resembled happiness was completely out of the question.

After two years had passed, he could tell his loved ones were starting to get frustrated with him and his attitude. They understood him not wanting to date, but that he wouldn’t attend family dinners, holidays, or even go out for dinner or come over for a BBQ, which was what they didn’t get.

But how could they understand grief and guilt like what he was dealing with?

To be honest, Ben wouldn’t wish this feeling on his worst enemy.

By the time the second year passed and they were in the third, the talks his family and team began to give him basically told him that he needed to accept he wasn’t responsible for Jemima’s murder or he would never be able to be happy again.

Didn’t they get that he didn’t want happiness?

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