The Military Wife (A Heart of a Hero, #1)(41)

“You didn’t want kids?”

“No, I did, just not on the same timeline as Noah. I ended up giving in, though.”

“You don’t seem the type to give in or give up. No offense.” His lips quirked into what qualified as a smile for him.

How much to admit? “Every time your team deployed and came home safe, it was like cheating Fate. Like it was only a matter of time before something bad happened.”

“I felt like that at the beginning of every mission, too.” His soft admission was threaded with understanding.

“I tried to keep that pessimistic side of me hidden from Noah.”

“Why?”

“He wouldn’t have understood. He comes from a long line of happy, optimistic people. Eventually, I couldn’t stand myself. I was being selfish. A baby would make him happier than anything, and I wanted to make him happy more than anything.”

“Do you regret it?”

For the first time, she spoke the truth aloud. “Not anymore. Not after how everything turned out. I can’t imagine my life without Ben.”

He flinched at the sound of her son’s name.

“Does it bother you?” she asked.

“What?” The wariness in his voice betrayed him.

“That my son is named after you.”

He shook his head and rolled to his back, throwing his arm over his eyes. His jawline was prominent and hard, his mouth pulled into a tight line. “Not bother. It humbles me. He was a good man. I did my best to protect him.” His voice had thickened. “It wasn’t enough.”

“I don’t blame you for what happened, you know.”

“Maybe you should.” He presented her his back and pulled the covers up around his ear.

She stared at the back of his head so intently she expected to see his hair catch on fire. He didn’t move. He wasn’t asleep, though. His body was too tense and his breathing unsteady. “What was your nightmare about?”

The silence that followed her question was oppressive. Finally, he asked, “What nightmare?”

“The one that woke me up earlier. You called out.”

“What did I say?”

“I couldn’t make it out.”

“It was nothing.”

“Liar.”

The huffy sound he made turned the tension down from incendiary to uncomfortable. “An old dream. This cabin … the ceiling is so low. It’s dark and smell makes me think of a freshly dug grave. Unless the weather is particularly nasty, I avoid staying the night.”

She ignored the niggling guilt over her wimpy survival skills. “Did something happen on one of your missions in Afghanistan?”

“No.” The word was barely a whisper.

She moved close enough to feel the heat radiating off his broad back. “Growing up in foster care then?”

“Yeah.”

She waited. If she pushed, he would retreat.

After a few minutes listening to the fire crackle in the silence, a soft rumble of words emerged. “I was eleven and on my third foster home. Early enough that I still had hope I would land with a good family that would want to keep me.”

“They weren’t good?”

“The parents were okay, but they had two kids. Both boys. Teenagers. I was big for eleven, but not as big and strong as they were. It started small. A few shoves. Blaming me for messes they made. Fighting back only made it worse. One day, I threatened to call Social Services on their asses. I wouldn’t have, of course, but they got scared and locked me in an old cedar chest.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough to pass out.”

“Oh my God, Bennett, you could have died.”

He’d been eleven. Still a child. Between his mother dying from an overdose and his stark existence in the foster-care system, Harper couldn’t help but think of Ben. It was her job to protect him and she’d do it with her life. Bennett hadn’t had a champion.

Without thinking beyond the moment, she scooched closer and put her arm around him from behind. It was like hugging a gargoyle, and she half-expected him to shove her arm away as if comfort were a communicable disease.

He didn’t. As the seconds ticked off, his body lost its edge. His hand glanced across hers and she caught it, linking their fingers and squeezing.

Her hug was an offering to the eleven-year-old Bennett. Yet the longer it went on, the less innocent the touch grew. She hadn’t been this physically or emotionally close to a man since Noah.

She was older—wiser was up for debate—and Bennett was more complicated than Noah had been. With Noah, she’d kept her own complexities and warring emotions under wraps, but she had a feeling that Bennett would not only sympathize but also empathize.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Who was she apologizing to? Herself? Bennett? Or Noah?

“No. I’m sorry for saying anything. It’s not important anymore.”

If it weren’t still important, he wouldn’t have had a nightmare twenty-five-odd years later. Instead of calling him on his BS, she snuggled closer, their fingers still entwined, and held him tighter.



* * *



Harper popped her eyes open. Daylight suffused the cabin. The fire had burned down, but her body was warm under the covers against Bennett. She’d been dimly aware of changing positions throughout the night like a dance, ending with him on his back with her head pillowed on his shoulder. Her hand was sandwiched under his on his chest, his heart tapping a steady rhythm.