Understanding flickered across his face. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he asked, “Can we talk?”
Her chest tightened. “About what?”
“About us. About what happened six years ago.” His gaze held hers, steady but uncertain. “You don’t have to. But I think . . . I think you deserve an explanation. A real one.”
Millie’s heart thudded hard against her ribs.
She should say no. Should protect herself from reopening wounds that had barely scarred over.
But Ruby’s words whispered through her mind again.
He carries a lot of regrets.
Maybe she needed to hear this as much as Caleb needed to say it.
“Okay,” she said quietly.
Milie prayed this wasn’t a mistake.
chapter
thirty-six
Millie watchedas relief flickered across Caleb’s face.
He gestured toward the couch. “Come sit by the fire. It’s warmer.”
She moved into the living room, the heat from the flames immediate and welcome. She settled onto the couch, tucking her legs beneath her, her hands folded in her lap.
Caleb sat in the chair across from her, leaning forward, elbows braced on his knees.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Caleb exhaled slowly and began. “I owe you an explanation. Everything felt so complicated at the time, so I tried to oversimplify it. As you know, I was about to deploy. The mission I’d be on was high-risk. Black ops. The kind where they pull you aside beforehand and tell you to make sure your affairs are in order.”
Millie’s breath caught as she waited for him to continue.
“You probably didn’t know this, but I’d just lost someone,” he continued, his gaze fixed on the fire. “A teammate. A friend. One of the good ones. A few months earlier, he’d been on a similar mission to the one I was about to undertake. He came home in a body bag.”
Her chest tightened, and tears stung the back of her eyes.
“I looked at you,” Caleb’s voice sounded rougher now, “and all I could think was—if I don’t come back, she’s going to go through what my mom went through. What I watched her go through after my dad died. And I couldn’t do that to you.”
“Caleb—”
“I thought the most loving thing I could do was let you go,” he said, finally looking at her. “Give you a clean break so you could move on. Find someone with a stable career. Someone who’d come home every night. Someone who wouldn’t leave you wondering if the knock on the door was going to be someone telling you I was dead.”
Tears spilled over, hot and immediate, and trailed down her cheeks.
“I prayed you’d find someone better than me,” he whispered. “Someone who could give you the kind of life you deserved. Now, I realize what a huge mistake that was.”
Caleb saw the tears streaming down Millie’s cheeks and didn’t know what they meant.
Relief? Anger? Grief?
Maybe all of those emotions all at once.
He’d imagined this conversation a thousand times over the years. Practiced what he’d say, how he’d explain—if he ever had the chance.
