Whatever the hell the truth was.
•••
Brittany didn’t expect John to understand. She and Brandon had fought enough about his job as a SEAL for her to know the arguments. But strangely, it seemed as if he understood a little—or at least he wasn’t as vocal as her brother had been in disagreeing with her.
“Thoughtful” wasn’t a word that she would haveattributed to John Donovan, but maybe there was more depth to him than she gave him credit for.
There she went again. Inventing feelings for him and fitting him into that silly, unrealistic, fantasy image she had of looks-like-Mr.-Bad-Boy-on-the-outside-but-is-actually-Mr.-Sensitive-on-the-inside. She had to stop doing that. It was hard enough as it was to keep her head on straight when they were spending all this time together.
Here they were on the run, with someone potentially trying to shut her up permanently, and it felt as if they were a couple on the vacation of a lifetime. He had the uncanny ability to make stressful situations feel not so intense. He defused tension with humor and just by being so utterly relaxed and in control.
She could see why he was a great guy to have on the team—or in the locker room or frat house, for that matter. They all kind of blended together in her opinion as bastions of testosterone, which might have been an instant turnoff if he weren’t so otherwise evolved. She suspected it was because of his upbringing in Berkeley with a single mom. He respected women and their opinions in a way that most guys only gave lip service to.
Every hour they spent together, it was getting harder and harder to remind herself why he was no good for her. She’d laughed more in the past two days than she had in the last year. He was outrageous, charmingly arrogant (she never thought those two words would go together), shameless, and utterly incorrigible. Unfortunately for her and her story, he was also sharp. She’d been trying to get something out of him for two days, but he seemed to see her coming a mile away.
She’d forgotten how considerate and gallant he was. Almost old-fashioned. Hold the door open, help her get out of the car—that kind of thing.
No wonder women fell for his shtick. A genuinely nice guy with that big, protective alpha-male thing goingon—not to mention serious eye candy? He was pretty much irresistible. Female catnip, as she’d said before.
Especially with that uncanny ability to make you feel as if you were the most important woman in the world.
It was exactly the way he’d made her feel five years ago. Except she was wiser this time.
Wasn’t she?
She sighed. She wasn’t so sure anymore. The past few days he’d been chipping away at the protective shield she’d wrapped around her heart, and she had to admit there might be a few cracks. If she didn’t watch it, she’d start believing that this was about more than some kind of misdirected sense of duty. That John might actually care about her.
She looked at him over her glass of half-filled wine as he handed the bill and a stack of kroner back to the waiter who’d come up just after John made his ominous pronouncement about it not being over.
The scruff and longer hair looked good on him. Really good. He smiled at something he said to the waiter, and it was like a shot straight to the heart.
Oh God, what was she going to do?
Even if she could let herself believe that he did care about her, where did that get her? Did she really want to fall in love with someone like him?
It wasn’t just the too many women or the “nothing gets to me—don’t look to me for anything but a good time” personality. As they’d just talked about, could she really see herself with someone who couldn’t tell her anything about what he was doing (which she probably didn’t want to know) or where he was going? She hated secrets. Did she want to be with someone whose job—whose life—was dependent on them?
It would drive her crazy.
And then there was all the danger and stress that came with being a SEAL. Did she want to say good-bye to himevery time he left and wonder if he was ever going to come back? Her brother had been gone for months at a time. One year Brandon said he’d spent less than a month at “home.” Could she handle someone being away so much?
There was a reason the divorce rate was so high among Special Forces guys. They might look and act like superheroes, but being married to one would take heroism of its own. John might make it seem as if nothing bothered him, but how could he not be affected by the things he did and saw? By the deaths of his friends?
She suspected he was affected—far more than he wanted to let on. She saw how much he drank, and she didn’t think he was sleeping much. Last night he’d been restless, and she thought she heard him mumbling something. It had woken her up. She’d tried to ask him about it earlier, but he’d brushed her off, claiming that the room had been too hot.
She didn’t know what was worse: if he really didn’t feel anything or if he did and just bottled it up or tried to self-medicate with alcohol. He’d obviously been drinking heavily for a while, as he could have five or six drinks and not show any effects. He was a big guy, but that was a lot of drinks for anyone.
No matter how many good reasons she came up with for why this wouldn’t work and why she shouldn’t fall in love with him, Brittany knew that if this went on much longer, she might not have a choice.
She had to do something. Staying away from him would be a great start. Tomorrow, no matter how much he tried to entice her away with some fantastic thing that “she had to see,” Brittany wasn’t going to let him. She was going to find an Internet café and get in touch with Mac and do a little more research for her article.
Of course, she had to get through tonight first. And when she returned to her room—their room—and the beds thatmight have been pulled apart but were still far too close for her peace of mind, the night had never looked so long.
It seemed that she’d just closed her eyes, when they shot open again. Her heart jumped to her throat at the sound of a hoarse cry. “I have to try, damn it! I can’t just leave them...” He made another sound, this one more of a low moan. “Oh God. Please... no.”
The raw emotion in his voice broke her heart. She climbed out from under the duvet—apparently they didn’t believe in sheets in Scandinavia—and crossed the short distance between the two beds.
She knew he was having a nightmare—or more likely reliving something—and she had heard enough about PTSD to be cautious. He could react violently.
