She folded the towel in her hand slowly and hung it on the rack. “Oh, wow. I didn’t know you’d been in the... I’m not sure which branch is special forces.”
“In this case, army,” he said. “I love the farm. Love my family. But I wanted to get out. See the world. See what else I was capable of.”
That made sense. He had a quiet, understated strength and confidence about him that would’ve been honed in the military, much more than it ever would’ve been on a farm.
“Did you like it? Why did you get out?”
“I was good at it. But I liked being my own boss, not having to follow orders blindly. So I got out after six years.”
She smiled as he gestured toward the living room, and they took a seat on the couch. “Did you get to see the world like you wanted?”
“I did. All over the place. The only continent I didn’t make it to was Antarctica. I have this huge collection of postcards from all these different places sitting in a box at home.”
“You didn’t mail them to anyone?”
He smiled and it caused a bloom of warmth in her chest. Near her heart. “Some to my mom, but no, mostly I just collected them. Never really had someone I cared about enough to want to share my life with. How about you, ever married?”
The warmth immediately froze. It wasn’t an unreasonable question. Funny, last week she wouldn’t have even known how to answer without knowing if she was lying. Brandon and Andrea had at least given her that truth. “Um, yeah. Once. A while ago. It ended.”
“I’m sorry.”
She wasn’t. “Some things die. Aren’t meant to survive. Better just to let it stay buried.”
How badly she wished she could let her marriage be buried. To put it truly behind her with no hold on her anymore.
Thankfully, Ren changed the subject. “So, you said you’re between jobs. Relocating. To Saint Louis?”
“No.” God, how much should she tell him? She didn’t want to lie to Ren since he’d been so friendly, but if those Omega Sector people came to question him, she didn’t want him to have any information. She would give him what she could without any specifics. “Honestly, I’m not sure. It was just time for a change. I’ll get a job when I get to wherever I’m going.”
“And what kind of job will that be?”
The same as before, she guessed. Whatever she could get being paid under the table. Dishwashing, cleaning, maybe lawn work. She shrugged. “Whatever I can get. I’m not really picky.”
He smiled again, stretching his arm along the back of the couch, and her heart tripped over its own beat. “Not trying to become a millionaire?”
“No, money’s not important to me.”
“You sound pretty sure about that.”
That was one of the few things she could say with absolute certainty. “Oh, I am. Some of the years when I was surrounded by the most money—a huge house, fancy cars and meals—were the most miserable I’d ever been in my whole life.”
His fingers tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I always wanted to travel places, like you did. But...my ex-husband had other interests.”
Ren shifted closer. “What sort of interests?”
She shrugged. To this day she still didn’t know much about Damien or what he did business-wise. She knew he’d stolen money, and that was how he’d become rich, but by the time she’dfigured that out she’d been too deep in his clutches for it to make a difference.
“His work.”
“Was that bad? What did he do?”
She shifted in her seat. “I know this sounds so stupid, but I really don’t know every pie he had his fingers in. I never did. I married him really young. I lost both my parents when I was eighteen and didn’t have any other family. I was sort of lost. He swept into the art studio where I was working, made me feel like the most talented and important person in the world, then married me six weeks later.”
And put her in a cast six months after that.
“He never traveled with you anywhere? Even with all that money?”
