“I lost my best friend, Laura. She and I were surgeons together in Afghanistan. One evening, we got called out to a nearby village. There’d been some fighting and the wounded couldn’t be transported. We went and did our best. Two of the six died.” She rubbed her eyes, and Gideon almost told her to stop talking, but before he could, she went on. “We were almost back to base when insurgents attacked. It was fast and brutal. Laura and I were in the same vehicle when an IED exploded. Our ride flipped and rolled, and I was thrown out. Gunfire erupted from every direction. Our escorts fought back, and when it was finally over, Laura was ...critically injured.” Her voice had fallen to a whisper, and Gideon had to strain to hear. “Anyway, shockingly enough, I had no injuries other than the breath knocked out of me. I managed to get to Laura, and she was—she was...”
He wanted to stop her, to hold her, tell her that time would heal, but he didn’t dare move. She’d chosen to tell him and he’d let her. “I’m so sorry.” He said the words so soft that he wasn’t sure she heard him.
“I did my best, of course, but all the training in the world wouldn’t have been enough to save her. So I held her and lied to her. Told her she was going to be fine, and she smiled at me.” Her gaze met his. “She smiled and reassuredme.Said she would be just fine, and everything was going to be okay. I held her and prayed over her as bullets flew all around us. And then she took her last breath.”
“Maya...” he whispered.
“So that’s what I dream about. I dream about not being able to save the ones I love. About failing. About not living the kind of life I should, having been spared to return home.” She swallowed hard. “I just want my life to mean something. And I want it to mean that I did everything I could to help other people.”
Her words punched him. Hard. For a moment he couldn’t breathe. He could only feel the impact.
“It’s better now,” she said, “but sometimes, something will trigger that day, and I ... well, it’s bad.”
“PTSD.”
“Yes. The memories are bad enough, but the full-blown episodes are ... hard.”
“I know.”
She met his gaze. “I know you do.”
Nine
MAYA LAY IN BEDearly the next morning, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the conversation from last night. She needed to get up and head over to the clinic, but for a moment, she just wanted to savor waking up and knowing Gideon was in the same space. After she’d confided in him, she kissed his cheek. “I’m going to sleep. Make yourself comfortable.”
He nodded, and she’d shut the door to give him some privacy. Time to think. After all, that was why he was here. She hoped he was finished thinking and had concluded she was a safe confidante. She finally got up, took her shower, and put herself together. She could hear Gideon in the kitchen and smelled the blessed scent of fresh coffee.
She walked out of the bedroom and watched him for a moment until he noticed her. Would today be the day that he returned the trust? Told her the parts of his story that he’d left out?
He looked up and met her gaze with a smile. “Good morning.”
“Morning. Sleep okay?” she asked.
“Like a baby.”
She snorted. “That’s not saying much. Some babies don’t sleep.”
“Well, I slept like one who does. No nightmares, so that’s saying something. You?”
“Same. Which is kind of weird, but I’ll take it as a gift.”
He passed her a cup of coffee, and she took that first sip that always started her day right.
“You think we’ll get out of here today?” she asked.
“It’s possible, I suppose, but it’ll take a while to get the big machines up here to dig us out, so I’d say it’s more probable sometime tomorrow.”
“That’s fine. I’m not really worried about it except for the person trying to kill me.”
A sound from the French doors in the den jerked his head up. “Get down,” he said. “Right there, behind the counter. Be prepared to run out the front door straight to the officer who’s waiting.”
She froze for a second, then dropped as he’d ordered. He bolted to the light switch on the wall and plunged them into darkness. She peered around the edge of the cabinet while he made his way over to the doors and stood to the side. He’d automatically reached for the weapon he no longer carried, so once again he snagged the fireplace poker and gripped it while she strangled on the breath in her throat and searched for a weapon.
Maya rose, grabbed the biggest knife from the block, and gripped it. She’d trained with knives, and while bringing a knife to what might be a gun fight wasn’t the ideal scenario, she’d take what she could get.
Gideon pushed aside the curtain, and she waited while he scanned the area. “Nothing on the porch,” he said, voice low. “An overturned chair.” He unlocked the dead bolt and opened the door, leaving the light off. “No snow on the deck, so no prints.”
“They clean it off every morning,” she murmured, walking up behind him, still gripping the knife. They also scraped the walking path that led to the front of the cabin, so someone could technically come up on the porch and not leave any sign they were there. “Could have been a raccoon or another critter. They’re all over the place here.”
