Finding Carly (SEAL Team Hawaii #5)(11)

Carly stared at him warily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. I don’t know the details, but a man like Shawn doesn’t go from being a model boyfriend to strapping a bomb to his chest to kidnap and torture you in the blink of an eye. And you’re too smart to get involved with someone who treats you like shit. I’m guessing he started out as a good boyfriend. Treated you like a princess. Made you feel great. Then he probably slowly started to change. Make comments here and there that were belittling. Nothing that a quick apology wouldn’t fix.

“From there, he probably said shit about you to his friends and son behind your back…making you feel uncomfortable when you were around them and they starting looking at you weird. Then those comments might’ve continued when you were right in front of them. He’d say something awful, apologize profusely later. The cycle would continue, may even escalate to him getting physical. I’m guessing that’s when you’d finally had enough. But by then it was too late. Shawn had already decided he owned you. That you were his. And thus the need for the protective order and his descent into bat-shit crazy.”

Carly’s mouth was open and her arms had uncrossed and fallen into her lap. She stared at him in disbelief.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Jag asked.

“I…Yeah, pretty much,” she whispered.

Jag reached out and picked up one of her hands again. He held it tightly, resting their hands on the table. “He’s the asshole here, angel, not you. He had something precious and he treated it like shit. He deserved what happened to him, and I’m not in the least sorry that night ended with him being blown to pieces. I hate thinking about what you went through with him, and the fact you had the strength to leave, to tell him to go fuck himself, makes me proud as hell.”

He watched her swallow hard. “He changed so much,” she said quietly. “I never would’ve dated him if he’d shown me his true colors from the start.”

“I know,” Jag soothed.

“I feel so stupid.”

“You shouldn’t. Not at all. Again, he’s the asshole, Carly. The guy who put you in this position. Remember that, okay?”

She tilted her head and said the last thing he expected to hear. “Wait, is that a quote from the movie Speed?”

It was Jag’s turn to look confused. “Um…I don’t think so?”

“I think it is. It’s right after the old woman got blown up on the steps and smushed by the bus. Annie, the heroine—you know, Sandra Bullock? Anyway, she’s upset and driving the bus and Jack, the hunky Keanu Reeves, kneels by her side and says almost exactly what you just said to me.”

Jag grinned. “Yeah?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And did his words help?”

A small smile lit up her face. “Yes. She said something like, ‘Yeah, he’s the big asshole,’ or something like that.”

“I haven’t seen the movie,” Jag admitted.

Carly’s eyes nearly bugged out of her face. “You haven’t?”

“No.”

“Well, that needs to be rectified immediately. You remind me a lot of Jack. Your name even kinda sounds the same. Jag, Jack. He’s brave, selfless, and sometimes funny.”

“I’m not funny,” Jag said with a straight face.

Carly giggled.

The sound shot straight to his heart. He much preferred Carly laughing than looking as stressed out and scared to death as she’d been last night when she’d opened her door.

Jag squeezed her hand. “You aren’t alone, Carly. You’ve got me. And my team. And Baker. We’re gonna figure this out. Together. Okay?”

She nodded.

“But first…you need to finish your breakfast.”

She snorted. “You have an obsession with me eating,” she muttered as she picked up her fork.

Reluctantly, Jag let go of her hand and sat back. “The thought of you being hungry doesn’t sit well with me. So yeah, I’m probably gonna be overly obsessed with making sure you’re getting enough to eat for a while, so you should get used to that,” he told her.

Carly paused with a forkful of eggs halfway to her mouth and asked, “Why do you care so much?”

“You’ve gotten under my skin, angel. And I kind of like you there,” Jag said baldly before putting a large bite of eggs into his own mouth.

She stared at him for a beat, before lifting her fork. She chewed and swallowed then admitted softly, “I think I like being there too.”

They finished their eggs and waffles without any more heartfelt admissions, and Jag had never felt more settled. If this was what Mustang, Midas, Aleck, and Pid felt when they were with their women, no wonder they were so deliriously chipper all the time.

Jag hated that he’d waited so long to try to help Carly. He’d only guessed that Shawn had emotionally and physically abused her, and when she’d admitted he was right, it had taken everything within him not to leap up from the table and head out to find Luke himself. The man probably knew what his father was doing to Carly and did nothing to stop it. That alone made him a shitbag of the highest order in Jag’s eyes.

Abusing women was a close second in the worst crimes someone could do to another. The first was the abuse of children. In Jag’s opinion, nothing would ever top that.