She came back and settled beside him, her leg against his, warm. Familiar. Almost easy.
Dial back time.
He reached over and tapped the box. “I’ve been there. Was stationed there for a bit during training, then spent six weeks at Ramstein after...”
Oh. Woops, he hadn’t meant to say that.
“After what?”
Outside, the storm battered the cabin, but in here, everything had gone quiet.
Finally, “Combat rescue mission gone wrong.” His shoulder suddenly ached with the memory. “A couple airmen went missing. We tracked them down into the mountains. I should have seen the sniper, but I was focused on getting to the guys. Atlas”—his voice caught—“my dog saw him, barked a warning right before...”
Slowly, deliberately, he unbuttoned his shirt collar, pulled it aside to reveal the twisted scar tissue just below his collarbone. Her sharp intake of breath seemed loud in the fire-warmed air.
“I took the first shot. The second one got my dog. By the time our backup arrived...” He let the words trail off, rememberingthe taste of blood and sand, the way Atlas’s fur had felt under his fingers, already growing cold.
“Oh, Jericho,” she said, her voice gentle. “I’m so sorry.”
He closed his shirt. “Yeah. Well, I can’t escape this idea that no matter what I do, it’s the wrong decision. Or maybe I’m just not enough, I don’t know, but someone always gets hurt.”
“Jericho. Really. You can’t save everyone.” Her eyes reflected firelight, shiny, beautiful.
“I can try.” And that just sounded sappy, but he couldn’t help it.
She shook her head, but there was a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. Not pity—understanding. “I was wrong. You haven’t changed at all, have you?”
Oh. But, “Neither have you.” He reached up, brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Still running toward danger instead of away from it.”
“I never...” She swallowed then, as if the words surprised her. “Even after ... everything. You were always there, in my head.”
“Like a bad dream?” He tried for lightness, failed.
“Like someone to hold on to when I felt so alone.” She made a face, then, looked away.
Oh.
So she wasn’t the only one.
She opened the puzzle box and spilled the pieces out on the table, leaned up to spread them out, turn them over.
Orlando’s soft snore mingled with the pop and hiss of burning pine.
Her shoulder brushed his as she reached for a puzzle piece, her blond hair falling free.
“I never forgot you either, Harley,” he said, unable to keep it in any longer. “How could I?”
She turned, and the firelight caught in her eyes, turned the loose strands of hair to copper and gold.
“You were like the other half of me, the other side of the coin.My best friend and then somehow”—he couldn’t stop himself from reaching up, touching her cheek—“I lost you.”
Her eyes glistened.
“And in a way, I lost myself.” And yes, again sappy, but he didn’t care. And he didn’t stop himself either, when he wrapped his hand around her neck and pulled her to himself.
He let the impulse take him, and he kissed her.
The first brush of his lips against hers shook him to his core—soft, questioning, barely a touch at all. But then her hands touched his chest, and her fingers curled into his shirt and held on.
