A SEAL's Courage (Military Match #1)(65)
He stared at her for a beat, eyes reaching and searching. Whatever he looked for, he seemed to find, for he cupped her chin in his palm and stroked her skin with his thumb. The tension in his body dissipated. “I’m alive and otherwise whole. It’s just a foot.”
She rolled her eyes. “Leave it to you to make a joke of it. Clearly you haven’t changed.”
He dropped his hand and held out his elbow instead. “Walk with me?”
She nodded, took his proffered elbow, and they started off, following the trail leading around the lake. All things considered, he walked well, with the same smooth, lanky gait he’d had years ago. If he hadn’t shown her his prosthesis, she wouldn’t have suspected.
“I lost the leg in Iraq, a little over four years ago. My third stint over there. I was on a truck at the end of a convoy that was hit by a bazooka rocket. We were acting as support for the local militia when we were ambushed.”
“Did it hurt?” Another stupid question, but she was having a hard time with this one. She couldn’t stop picturing him on that truck—the rocket exploding through the men, him being hurled from the vehicle. Her chest constricted and tears filled her eyes all over again.
“Oddly enough, not at first. It’s how I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t feel my leg. Hurt like a bitch when I came to in the hospital, though. It was a lot of physical therapy and learning how to walk again. Now…” He shrugged. “I’m used to it. It’s just another part of me, I guess.”
“You were nervous, though, telling me.” She glanced up at him, offering him an apologetic frown. “I’m sorry about my reaction. It wasn’t the leg. It was just…a shock, I guess. I’m still picturing you running circles around me and teasing me for being so slow.”
They’d originally met because they’d run the same loop around the University of Washington campus. She’d passed him every day. One evening he’d jogged up beside her and started a conversation that launched a thousand others.
“I can still run circles around you.” He playfully bumped her shoulder; then somberness settled over him again. “You’re not the first person I’ve told, but it’s never easy to do. I never know how people will react. Some people can’t handle it.”
She squeezed his biceps. “I am sorry. I should have stopped to think about how that would seem to you.”
“Forget about it. The look on your face told me what you were thinking right then.”
She let out a quiet laugh. “I’ve never had a great poker face.”
He glided to a stop and turned to her. The quiet, all-too-familiar intensity of his gaze made her shiver in spite of herself. “Apparently we’re stuck together for the evening. How ’bout some dinner?”
She shouldn’t. Since her breakup with Alec, she hadn’t had anything resembling a normal relationship. When she’d agreed to this date, she’d wanted a middle road, a first step, and history told her that nothing with Gabe would ever be uncomplicated. He was here, though, and she couldn’t deny that for eleven years she’d been dying to catch up with him.
She smiled. “Sounds great.”