Defending Morgan (Mountain Mercenaries #3)(16)

The water cooled off, and Arrow used his foot to turn on the hot water, warming it up once more. He did this twice more, letting out water before turning on the tap each time.

Finally, Morgan said, “I’m ready to get out now.”

Arrow’s body was stiff from lying in the cramped tub, but he didn’t let one groan escape his mouth as he stood. He grabbed a towel and held it out for Morgan. He turned his back, giving her privacy, and pulled off his soaked undershirt. He dried himself as best as he could and waited for her to indicate she was dressed once more before looking in her direction.

“I’m decent,” she said softly.

Arrow turned—and his breath caught in his throat.

She was beautiful dirty and disheveled, but clean, and with her skin pink from the warm water, she was gorgeous. Her hair still needed a lot of work. He could tell Morgan had done her best to shampoo it with the small bottle provided by the motel, but some of the mats would have to either be cut out, or very carefully and slowly dealt with.

She looked up at him with her big green eyes and waited for him to say, or do, something. The towel was wrapped around her torso, and she was holding it closed with one hand. He could see the space where it didn’t quite meet along her side.

Reaching down, Arrow picked up his other shirt. It wasn’t exactly clean, but it smelled a hell of a lot better than her clothes did. “You can wear this if you want. I’ll wash our things in here while you go get settled in bed.”

When she didn’t move, but simply continued to stare at him, Arrow said, “I know there’s only one bed, but trust me, there were supposed to be two. I guess the clerk really bought our newlywed story. I’m sorry. I can sleep on the floor, or I can go down and ask for a different room if that would make you feel more comfortable. I—”

“The room is perfect,” Morgan interrupted. “I don’t want you on the floor. I’d feel safer if you were on the bed with me.”

“Then that’s where I’ll be,” Arrow told her.

“I . . .” She paused, then licked her lips uncertainly. “I can wash my own things.”

“I know you can, beautiful. But let me do this for you. I want to take care of you.”

“You are. You have,” she told him. “But I’m not weak and helpless, regardless of what just happened.” She gestured to the tub behind her, but didn’t take her eyes from his.

Arrow couldn’t help it. He chuckled. At the confused look on her face, he quickly explained, “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at the fact you could believe for one second that I’d think you were weak or helpless. Morgan, please believe me when I tell you that you are amazing. I’ve seen more than my fair share of women who have been in your shoes, and most of them didn’t handle things well. I don’t blame them for their reactions, not at all, but many were hysterical. Crying, shaking, not listening to what we asked them to do for their own safety. And, God forbid, if something went wrong in their rescue, they completely broke down. You’ve done everything right. You haven’t panicked, you’ve kept a cool head on your shoulders, and even when you were scared, you still held it together. The last thirty minutes has actually made me feel much better about your mental state.”

“How does me breaking down make you feel better?” she asked, clutching the towel harder.

“Because you’re reacting. You’re feeling. I hate what happened to you, and I don’t even know what happened to you. But suppressing all feelings about it won’t help in the long run. If you need to cry, you cry. If you want to rage against the unfairness of what has happened, I’m here for you to smack around. If you want to talk about it, I’ll listen. But shutting down all your feelings isn’t the best way to get through it.”

“It sounds like you have personal experience with this kind of thing.”

“I was a Marine, beautiful. I saw some shit and did some shit that has fundamentally changed who I am. It took a long time, but I learned that if I talked about it, unloaded the feelings that were festering inside me, I felt lighter. Talking doesn’t change what happened, but somehow it made me realize that the things that happened to me and the things I did don’t make me a bad person.”

“I’m not ready to talk about it. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready,” she admitted.

“Give it time,” Arrow said gently. “Now’s not the time or the place, but eventually I think you’ll come to a point where you need to purge it from your system. But I don’t ever want you to think that you aren’t strong or that you aren’t handling things well. You are. You’ve been amazing. I’m so fucking proud of you, I can’t even put it adequately into words. And the fact that you let me comfort you, in even that small way, goes a long way toward helping me deal with what I do for a living as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t go through what you did, but I see the aftermath all the time. Broken women and children who have been abused beyond anything the average person can imagine. I’ve experienced them pulling away from a simple touch of my hand. I’ve seen them shrink from me when I tried to meet their eyes. Me and my teammates are often treated with distrust and disdain. We don’t blame the victims, not in the least, but it’s tough, especially when we have the utmost respect and sympathy for those we’re helping.”