“Knox! But he’s kind of an asshole, isn’t he? I mean, good looks are one thing, but—”
Something clattered in the living room, and we both looked up. Knox scooped up an electric razor that had dropped to the ground. He had his duffel bag in one hand and a towel and the razor in the other.
Gruffly he muttered, “Eric said I could do laundry. And I was going to grab a shower.”
Emerald put on a cheery smile. “Absolutely. This is your home now, too. Feel free to come and go as you need. We leave the front door unlocked twenty-four-seven.”
My cheeks burned with embarrassment. Had he heard what I’d just said about him?
Our eyes met for a moment. And the way they scraped across my face told me he’d heardEvery. Single. Word.
Chapter 4
Knox
While I loaded my clothes in the wash, I thought about what I’d just heard, my mind skittering off each detail, absorbing it, memorizing it.
Then I went to the bathroom, locking myself in.
In private, I mulled over Gwen’s declaration to her friend.
She was looking for alifer. A man to marry.
It wouldn’t be fair for me to slip under her dress, even though she’d told her friend that I’d caught her eye.
Hearing that had made me feel good. Out ofallthe guys at the party,Iwas the only one she’d had eyes for.Me.
But that didn’t change the fact that fucking her would be a disaster.
I was staying here due to Eric’s charity. That fact grated on me terribly. But it would be even worse to get kicked out for fucking his wife’s best friend.
Sure, I could get by at a local motel until I got settled on my own. But staying here at his place for a month or two would save me a lot of money. And I was hoping to buy. Not rent.
That took time.
So even if silent sparks were flying between Gwen and me, nothing was going to come of it from either of our ends.
She was the type of woman who’d find a nice, respectable man to marry. One who wore a suit and tie, and came home at five o’clock sharp every night.
Being a ranger hadn’t left much room for a love life.
I was used to working in small units behind enemy lines, doing things that would sound distasteful to the general American public.
A man can’t put himself into dangerous situations like that if he has a sweet Gwen waiting for him back home.
It makes a soldier gun-shy because it’s not justhislife on the line. He has a family to think of, too.
The best rangers were single and fearless.
And that’s how I’d lived my life for a long time.
A woman like Gwen? If I had a woman like her waiting at home for me, Ineverwould have made it through eight years as a ranger.
I sighed and looked in the mirror. Did any of that matter now? I wasn’t a ranger anymore, and I hardly recognized the man looking back at me.
When I’d first joined the army, I’d been a young punk. They gave me a choice of enlisting or doing a short stint in prison for breaking-and-entering.
The decision had been an easy one. Then I bounced around in the army for a while before I got my shit together and landed at ranger school.
