Forged in Smoke (Red-Hot SEALs #3)(18)
There was nothing worse than knowing someone was worrying themselves sick over you. It hadn’t mattered how often she’d reminded herself that the situation wasn’t her fault, or how many times her therapists had told her that she wasn’t responsible for her parents’ fear—she’d still felt accountable for the deep crevices that constant worry had etched into their faces.
The guilt had been bad enough prior to the first transplant, but when the initial heart had failed and she’d ended up back on the transplant list with diminishing chances of receiving a second heart in time . . . She flinched, shying away from the memories. The stress had killed what love remained between her parents—miring them in cold silence or endless arguments. The only reason they’d stayed together had been because of her, because of the care she’d required.
After the second heart transplant had returned her to health, she’d hoped they’d seek happiness for themselves, even if it meant being apart from one another. But by then they’d become so fixated on her health they’d let it define them and had hung her heart condition around her neck like some macabre charm meant to ward off death.
She’d chosen a university clear across the country, and remained there after graduation, to escape their obsession over her mortality. After the lab explosion, when the medical examiner had released the news of her death, she’d thought long and hard about whether to contact them with a “Surprise! Look who’s on their fourth life!” But caution had stayed her hand. What if someone was monitoring her parents’ calls? What if her stalkers tracked her location through the phone records?
In the end it hadn’t been fear of discovery that had stilled her fingers on the untraceable cell phone she’d picked up at the mini-mart around the corner. It had been imagining their reaction to finding out she was alive. That familiar guilt had settled thick as quicksand inside her. A reaction made stronger by the knowledge that her parents wouldn’t even be mad that she’d kept them in the dark so long. They’d be so overjoyed to find out she was alive they wouldn’t have room for anger. But eventually their relief would shift to fear, and they’d urge her to return to Augusta, Maine, and when she refused, they’d insist on moving out to the West Coast and that whole passive-aggressive obsession would start again.
Frowning, she glared at the heavy wood door barring her entry. Obviously her quarry didn’t intend to respond to her knock. If she wanted to talk to him, she’d have to run him down herself, which meant ignoring protocol and letting herself into his current haven.
Waving off another swarm of mosquitoes—heavens, the little beasts were thicker than water—she pushed open the door to Rawls’s cabin and invited herself across the threshold. Nerves tightened her belly and tiptoed up her spine one itchy tingle at a time. Like the cabin she shared with Amy, the front entrance opened into a moderately sized room with a sparse kitchenette tucked into the left corner. Thick planks of wood marched across the bare floor and up the bare walls. Tilting her head back, she studied the ceiling, unsurprised to find wood planks there as well. From the furniture choice to the pictures on the walls—or lack thereof—the cabin Rawls shared with Mac, as well as the one she shared with Amy, suffered from a man’s touch.
The furniture, which consisted of a long, lumpy leather couch and two wide, lumpy leather recliners, was old and battered and grungy brown. The coffee table was simply a huge log that had been split in half, sanded smooth, and fitted with stubby log legs. Cheap plastic blinds covered the windows. Rather than rustic charm, the room screamed rural apathy.
The bright sunlight and pine-scented fresh air that streamed through the open blinds and open windows were the cabin’s saving graces. It still surprised Faith how different the air smelled up here tucked, as they were, in the pristine foothills of the Cascade Mountains. Unspoiled. Crisp. It was the clean, pine-tinged scent that countless air freshener companies sought to replicate—with limited success.
And if she allowed herself to spend any more time procrastinating, she’d still be standing here when the helicopter returned with Amy’s kids.
She glanced down the shadowy hall to the right of the kitchenette. The place looked like a duplicate to her cabin, which meant Rawls’s bedroom was somewhere down that hall. His bedroom . . . with his bed . . . What if he’d lain down to take a nap? What if he slept naked? Or . . . what if Rawls had migrated to the bathroom to take a shower, and all those long, lean muscles were streaming with soap and water? An image of wet, soapy, tanned flesh took root in her mind. A prickle started in her scalp, marched down the nape of her neck, and infiltrated her arms.
Heat flashed through her, raising her temperature at least a degree or two. A swollen, moist pressure settled between her thighs. She ignored her endocrine system’s exasperating flailing, something she’d become an expert at since finding herself cornered by a tall blond god in her lab six days earlier. Who would have guessed that the sexy stranger she’d been discreetly salivating over all those months ago at gate C-18 while waiting to board her flight to Hawaii would be the same man to drag her out from beneath Big Ben, and then step between her and her would-be kidnappers when the bullets started flying?
Even in the midst of danger, her hypothalamus had enthusiastically signaled its attraction to the hot, hard muscles protecting her from danger. Good lord, her memories of that night revolved around butterflies, tingles, and chills—along with all the other renditions of sexual excitement. Any fear she felt had taken a backseat to lust, and God help her, that hormonal flooding worsened with every second she spent in his company.