He wasn’t sure what else to say.
“You obviously did something important,” she said carefully after a moment.
His hand went to his scars, rubbing at the ruined skin before he could stop himself.
She waited, and he could feel her eyes on him, and the kindness that seemed to flow unhampered from her beautiful heart.
He knew he should say more, but the words just wouldn’t come.
She got up a moment later, and again, he waited for her to go to her room.
Instead, she filled the kettle and pulled two mugs down from the cupboard.
Maybe it was because her hands were busy and her back was to him, but his mind cleared a little, and suddenly it felt like maybe hecouldkeep going.
“We were heading out on a patrol,” he heard himself say. “I brought an extra man with us, Isaac Jones, just a kid really, far from home and scared. But he was the kind of guy that you just instantly took to. He had the whole unit cracking up at his jokes from his very first day. I took him under my wing. I thought it would be good for him to get some extra time just observing the other guys before he took his regular position with them.”
He could tell she was listening, but she didn’t stop what she was doing, just grabbed two teabags from the box on the counter and placed them in the mugs. Something about the quality of her movement was almost mesmerizing.
“We loaded up,” he went on. “I was in the vehicle atthe rear. We’d done that route a million other times. The area was supposed to be cleared already.”
He pressed his lips together. There were so many places in this story that made him wish he could just go back in time, find some way to change the ending.
But he couldn’t change it. No matter what he did, he would carry it with him always.
“We were about halfway out,” he went on. “And the truck in front hit an explosive. One minute it’s driving along, the next it’s completely on fire and rolling into a ditch.”
He could feel her moving to him, taking the seat opposite his, and placing her hand on the table, offering comfort.
But there was no comfort for Grayson, there never would be. He could still taste the smoke and feel the bite of the fire on his skin while those screams filled his ears.
“I got as many of them out as I could,” he whispered, willing himself to keep going. “But Jones was pinned underneath and I couldn’t get to him. I tried, but they pulled me away and I couldn’t save him. He wasn’t even supposed to be there…”
Evangeline’s small hand covered his, squeezing hard, and somehow anchoring him to the present, so that he felt the wood of the table under his hand and some link to the present before the past could suck him all the way under again.
If she left now, and he prayed she wouldn’t even though he suspected she would, at least she knew the truth.
She knew what kind of man he really was.
18
EVANGELINE
Evangeline willed herself to remain calm, though Grayson’s story made her want to weep.
She kept a tight hold on his hand, knowing instinctively that if she were to let go he might be on the floor again, falling into the abyss of pain.
And she didn’t blame him one bit.
Everything was starting to make sense now—the way he isolated himself, the way he so often failed to meet her eyes.Thiswas the reason the big man seemed haunted.
And there wasn’t a single thing she could say or do to console him.
Of course, none of it was really his fault. Hewasa hero, a brave man who had been badly injured trying to save his men. And it sounded to her like he probablyhadsaved all but one.
She was sure that Grayson had heard it all before—it had no doubt been said to him a hundred times, and it had been stated officially when those medals were issued.
But looking at him, she could see none of that mattered at all. He didn’t care what others saw. When Grayson Ward looked at himself in the mirror, he saw a monster. Hefeltlike a monster.
