“This.” She gestured vaguely toward his lap and the steel that rested there. “Violence. Always fighting.”
He didn’t answer right away, not really sure what to say.
“I’m sorry if that was too personal,” she said.
He took a slow breath. “It’s not that; it’s just...” He took another breath. “I become what I need to when the moment calls for it.”
She nodded and then moved to sit in the chair across from him. “You seem so different from what I saw in those pictures. You’re more serious, less… the party guy.”
He cocked a brow as he stared over at her, confusion filling him. “What pictures?”
She gave him a weak smile. “A few nights ago, I did a web search on you.” Her smile grew. “Seemed like fair play since you ran one on me. Actually, two as it turns out. I saw everything you accomplished, your commendations, at least the ones they could print.” A grin he couldn’t explain twisted her lips. “I also saw youwith a wide range of ladies—smiling, drinking, laughing. They seemed to enjoy being with you, and you seemed ready to give them whatever they wanted.”
He pressed his lips together as he stared over at her. “That sounds like a judgment.”
She shrugged. “You have to admit it’s not nothing. It’s who you are, a different girl every night.”
He set the gun down on the towel and eased himself to his feet. He ran his hand through his hair, doing his best to control his emotions. “You don’t get it. I spent the first few years looking for you without so much as a breadcrumb to follow. I called every number I had, pestered your extended family until they told me to leave them the hell alone. I drove past your house every morning and night for months, just hoping to find a light on in a window or a note taped to the door.” He shook his head, hands on his hips, as he looked over at her. “The morning you left, I stopped looking for anything or anyone real, just wanting to numb the pain.”
She sat back in her chair, her mouth falling open.
“I didn’t know why you left,” he continued. “So I figured I wasn’t worth staying for. It hurt so damn much that I determined there was no way in hell I would ever make that mistake again. So yeah, wild nights became my world, but no serious connections. I don’t do connections.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” he agreed, his arms shaking. “It wasn’t fair at all.”
Silence stretched between them, thick with everything that could have been if life had dealt them a different hand.
He could see the pain in her eyes, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it. She at least knew why their world had blown up. “I did what I did to stop feeling anything, and you don’t get to judge me for that. You’re the one who left me,remember? You built a company like Obsidian Analytics, but you couldn’t find a way to tell me you were alive.”
“I couldn’t?—”
“Bullshit,” he snapped, cutting her off. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe I loved you enough to go into hiding with you? You never even told me things were happening even before you left. I didn’t know someone tried to snatch you from our school or kept following you.”
“I wasn’t… I mean, you couldn’t… Bobby, I didn’t even know what was happening until it was over. I couldn’t ask that of you. It wouldn’t have been fair to ask you to give up everything for me.”
He took a couple of steps closer to her, his heart thrumming hard behind his ribs. “I would have done whatever it took to keep you in my life. You just never gave me a chance. You made that decision for me.”
“I didn’t even get to decide for myself.” Her breath hitched, and he could see tears pricking her eyes. “I never stopped loving you,” she whispered. “There’s been no one else.”
The words punched him in the heart, and he said not a word, not trusting himself to say the right thing.
Instead, he reached for her, taking her arm and pulling her to him. He leaned down and kissed her hard, his lips lingering on hers. It wasn’t hungry in the way their younger selves had been, but softer with more emotion than heat.
He slid his hands to her waist, pulling her even closer until her palms flattened against his chest. He felt her breath against his mouth, felt the tremor in her fingers.
“Bobby,” she murmured.
He closed his eyes at the sound of it. No one called him by his name anymore, always using his call sign. Coming from her, it sounded like something tender but powerful.
He backed her toward the wall near the window, one hand braced beside her head, the other sliding into her hair. The wind outside rattled the trees, as the world beyond the cabin fell away.
This wasn’t about reclaiming what they had lost. Now it was about choosing each other and putting the past behind them as they staked a claim to the future.
He slid his mouth from her lips to her jaw to her neck. Not frantic or desperate, even though he hungered for her like he had never hungered for anyone in his life.
No, he wanted to savor these kisses like a precious treasure.
