Page 126 of Never the Same

Insert, clear, snatch the HVT, exfil. Nothing fancy.

I’d covered Alex’s flank and cleared buildings with Echo Four, but my head had stayed back in Charleston, mentally awaiting a text from Julian to give me the green light to reach out to Hollis’s new number.

Every op break, every comms lull, I’d checked for Julian’s go-ahead. Every minute of silence had been a betrayal of my promise to her that I’d fight for her. For us.

By the time we returned Stateside, mission complete without complication, I was exhausted, stinking of cordite and sweat and in need of a shower, when finally his message hit my phone.

Julian: You’re good to text her now.

I stared at his words, thumb hovering and heart racing. In a daze, I shoved my phone into my pocket and went inside.

Chase had already dropped Ranger off, so my Maligator was there to greet me by the door, tail wagging hard and clearly searching for Hollis.

“Not here,” I told him while flicking on the light. I tossed my bag on the floor, locked up, then made my way to my room for a shower.

I stripped, turned on the water, and went still at the memory of her being in there with me last week.

I managed to pull myself together, then hurried to my bedroom to grab my phone from the pocket of my jeans.

Naked, with a dog next to me and my phone in hand, I probably looked like a guy about to lose it, but I sent the text anyway.

Me: It’s Jason. Julian gave me your new number. How are you?

I tossed the phone on the bed and showered in under sixty seconds. Towel wrapped around my hips, water still dripping down my body, I went back into my room, praying for a response.

Hollis: I thought you hated being called by your first name.

I cracked an honest-to-God smile, the first one I’d had in a long damn time, and brought my hand to my rib and over the tattoo.

Me: I do. Unless it’s by you.

Bubbles. Then gone. Then back.

After a few minutes and no answer, I set the phone aside and wandered into my closet in search of clothes. At the sight of the present she’d left there for Audrey’s baby shower, I abandoned my mission for clothes, about to go for the blue box mocking me, but Ranger’s barking stopped me.

He was in my doorway, up on his hind legs. “What is it?”

I tightened the towel and followed Ranger to see what was wrong, anxious to get back to my conversation with Hollis, hoping she’d text soon.

Once in the living room, Ranger barreled past me and jumped straight at her standing by my couch.

The her. My her. A woman who’d quickly become my everything.

Hollis took a knee and nuzzled his nose with her face, and I may have died, because was this real? Did she break in and was now petting my dog?

She slowly lifted her head, her green eyes lighting a match inside me as they locked on to my face. “Hi,” she mouthed. “Figured I’d just answer you this way instead, if that’s okay?” Her gaze worked slowly up my naked torso before finding my face. “I fondly remember the last time I broke in to find you in only a towel.” Her lips twitched into a slight smile. She stood, and Ranger ran happy circles around her as my heart exploded. “I have something outside I need your help with, do you mind?”

Her dark hair was down and wavy over her shoulders, and it only just now registered that she had on my old PT shirt, loosely tucked into her jeans.

A shy blush worked up her neck and into her cheeks; I’d never witnessed Hollis shy in the past before her memories were stolen, and this was the “real” her, so I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Still remaining quiet, I stepped forward, arm falling to my side. I wasn’t prepared to get my hopes up. Not yet. But she was here, so . . .

I ordered Ranger to stay put, and I quietly followed her outside to an SUV parked in the driveway.

Hollis popped open the back, and I rounded the Escalade to see what she had to show me. “How handy are you? Chair-building handy? It’s from IKEA, so it might—”

“Hollis,” I rasped, my heart battling against my rib cage.