Finding Carly (SEAL Team Hawaii #5)(45)

She smiled up at him. “I don’t know about that, but I have to admit it felt good. After I stopped shaking, that is. There’s something else.”

Jag braced. “What?”

“I saw Beau in the parking lot.”

“What the fuck?” he barked, loosening his hands. He needed to move. To let out some of the pent-up anger simmering over the fact that his woman had finally ventured into the world she’d been fearful of for so long, only to run into two people who scared her just as much…and he hadn’t been there to protect her.

Carly watched him with an anxious expression on her face. “He didn’t say anything to me. I don’t think he even knew I was there until he was about to leave. He was literally inside his car, about to drive away, when he happened to turn his head and see me inside Kenna’s Malibu. He didn’t look happy to see me, but left without doing anything.”

Jag forced himself to take a deep breath. Then another. Then he stopped abruptly and said, “You need to call Detective Lee.”

“I already did,” Carly said.

That stopped him in his tracks. “And what’d he say?”

“Well, not much. I mean, with Beau, there wasn’t even any interaction between us. And he’s not under arrest or anything, and there’s no law about grocery shopping. He was more interested in what Luke said, but again, he didn’t break the law. He did say he’d pass along the info to the detectives who are keeping an eye on him though. The altercation with me might be enough to make him do something stupid.”

“I’d love for him to try,” Jag muttered.

To his surprise, Carly giggled.

He looked at her then—really looked at her. He would’ve expected her to be tense, maybe even have reverted to the scared woman he’d whisked out of her apartment. But instead she looked…calm. Too calm? He couldn’t tell. And that bothered him.

She stepped toward him and put her hands back on his chest. “I’m okay, Jag. I promise. I can’t deny that the last person I wanted to see, or talk to, was Luke, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared it would be. I think I’d built up all these scenarios in my head where I’d see him and he’d attack me, and when that didn’t happen, I finally realized that I was giving him way too much power over me.”

“You can’t let down your guard,” Jag warned.

“I won’t,” she said immediately. “I mean, it’s not like I want to invite him over so we can have a heart-to-heart chat or anything. But I need to stop obsessing over him. And about what happened. I’ll always feel guilty that Kenna almost got hurt instead of me, but like you told me once, Shawn’s the asshole here. He’s the one who was mentally unbalanced. Not me.”

“Fuck, you’re amazing,” Jag whispered.

“It’s because of you,” she said, leaning into him.

Jag’s arms went around her once more, and if he held her a bit too tight, she didn’t complain. “I didn’t do anything,” Jag said with a shake of his head. “If anything, I didn’t do enough.”

“You did. You talked to me. Texted me. Called. Kept me from completely losing myself. You forced me to get out of my own head. You brought me here, which was the best thing you could’ve done. My apartment had become my prison. You gave me Kenna back. You convinced me to go back to the job I realized I actually love. I have money in my bank account again. Not a lot, but it’s better than none. You’ve given me the courage to live, Jag. It’s going to be a while before I’m ready to go anywhere on my own, but if it wasn’t for everything you’ve done, and for hooking me up with Elizabeth, I wouldn’t have been able to face Luke today.”

“Yes, you would’ve. I have a feeling you can do anything you set your mind to.”

“But that’s just it. I wouldn’t have set my mind to it without you pushing me. Without you being there for me. And I feel awful, because I’ve given you nothing in return. I’ve been like a parasite, taking but not giving you anything.”

“You being here is enough,” he said.

“It’s not,” she insisted. “From here on out, things are going to be different.”

Jag couldn’t help but smile at that.

“I’m serious,” she insisted. “I’m gonna be a better friend. A better girlfriend. I want this to be a two-way relationship, and not just you being amazing and me being lame.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” she asked with a tilt of her head.

“Yeah. I haven’t done anything I haven’t wanted to do. I like being needed, if I’m being honest, but since I want this relationship to work, more than I’ve wanted just about anything in my life, including Hell Week to be over when I was in SEAL training, I’ll agree to just about anything you suggest.”

“Well, I certainly hope being with me is nothing like Hell Week. I’ve read some stuff about what you probably went through, and it definitely doesn’t sound fun.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Right, so…starting now, I’m gonna ask you more questions. I want to know everything about you. Your childhood, what kind of kid you were in high school, what your first job was, why you decided to join the Navy and…well, everything.”