To the Edge (33 page)

She ran her fingers slowly back and forth over the numbers and he had to grit his teeth to keep from tumbling her beneath him. When she lifted her gaze to his, it was filled with a determined but wary curiosity. "Tell me."

He debated for a moment, then decided it was something she needed to hear. "When you go to war, you never know if you'll come back, and if you do, you never know
how
you'll come back. Sometimes the only way to identify a body is by parts. I was just hedging my bets."

Tears shimmered in her eyes.

He steeled himself against the urge to kiss them away.

Using his chest for leverage, she pushed herself up and over him, settling all her warm, damp heat over his groin.

"Make love to me," she whispered, all dewy soft skin and shimmering eyes and a body so damn hot he thought he'd combust.

"Please," she said, bending down and brushing her breasts across his chest, her lips across his mouth.

Defenseless against her as he'd never been defenseless in life, he gave up, gave in. He let her take him deep into her body. Let her infiltrate a little deeper into his blood. Let him to believe, if only in this moment, that everything was right in his world as long as she was in it.

21

Nolan woke up from a dead sleep. His
eyes flew open. His heart pounded like marching feet; his breath soughed out, harsh and choppy.

Even after he realized where he was—not Iraq, not watching Nelson bleed out—the adrenaline still ripped through his blood. He stared at the ceiling, slowly became aware of the slap of the water against the
EDEN’s
hull, of the warm body sleeping beside him, and the nightmare skulked back into the dark.

He breathed deep. And smelled her.

Outside, gulls screeched like rusty gears. In the distance he could hear the muted purr of motor craft negotiating the network of slips and heading out to open water. He closed his eyes, fell back on the relaxation technique he'd used countless times after countless enemy engagements, and finally felt himself level out.

Beside him, Jillian slept, oblivious to his nightmare.

She was exhausted. And why the hell wouldn't she be? If the tension from her stalker hadn't done it what they'd done in this berth during the night had.

And he was getting the hell away from her before he lost his mind again and pushed her past exhaustion and into a coma.

He eased carefully out of bed so he wouldn't wake her. Then he stood there, unable to make himself move away.

Christ. Look at her. He dragged a hand through his hair. Even sound asleep and wrecked on sex, she looked regal, like the princess she was.

It was time for a reality check. Only it felt more like a gut check, because for the first time in his life taking a woman to bed hadn't been all about sex. Yeah, it had been great sex. OK, unbelievable sex. But it had also been more.

At least for him it had. It had been about caring and sharing and... love.

How was that for a kick in the ass? If it weren't so pathetic, it'd be laughable. He could fight it, deny it, lie to himself until Iraq became the fifty-first state, but he couldn't outrun it any longer. The truth dogged him like a shadow, relentless and demanding that he face it.

In the dark of night he finally had. When she'd come to him, small and strong, fragile and determined, he could have stuck to his guns and sent her away. He
should
have sent her away. For her sake.
 

He hadn't. For his sake.

He'd needed her. More than breath. More than water. In that moment and every moment since he'd needed her to take away the emptiness. Needed her to fill the void. Needed her so bad he'd ached with it.

And so he'd taken. And she'd given. Now he had to fix the mess he'd made with his selfishness. She thought she had feelings for him, too. She might even think she loved him. He knew better. Because he knew who he was. She didn't. Once she did, once she saw past the image of him as a protector, she'd realize she was simply caught up in terror of her situation and that he'd become her "savior".
 
When the threat went away, so, eventually, would she. better to just end it now. Cut and run before he sank in deeper, because it was a bona-fide lost cause from where he was standing.

He grabbed his jeans from the floor and headed for the galley. After making coffee and snagging a couple of cookies from the freezer, he hit the head and the shower. He was standing on-deck, soaking up his hit of caffeine and squaring away his arguments, when he heard her walk up behind him.

"Hi," she whispered, wrapping her arms around his waist and snuggling up against his back. "Great morning."

Gently prying her hands away, he put distance between them and turned to face her. "Barely that. It's almost eleven."

She squinted against the sun, then smiled up at him "Then it's almost time for a nap. Care to join me?"

She'd dressed in his T-shirt again and it was obvious by the way the wind plastered it against her slight body that she wasn't wearing anything else.

"I called the hospital, checked on Eddie Jefferies." He tried to drag his gaze to the harbor and out of trouble. No such luck. Even ruined from his hands and his mouth, she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. "He's doing fine. Most likely, they'll release him today."

Relief washed over her face. "Thank you for checking on him. I'm so glad he wasn't hurt any worse than he was.

"Now... about that nap." With a playful smile, she reached for him.

It killed him, but he shook his head, backed away. "Look Jillian. About last night."

Her hand paused midair. She looked at him. Hard. "Wait. You're not really going to give me an
about last night
speech, are you?"

He downed a swallow of lukewarm coffee, tossed the rest over the side of the boat. "You don't want a speech? Fine.
 
I'll cut to the chase. The sex was great. Are you on the pill?"

She looked stunned but nodded.

"Then we're good. I'm healthy. I figure you are, too. So now it's back to business."

Some of the shock had left her eyes. In its place was incredulity. "Gosh and gee-whiz. I'm just bowled over by your morning-after love talk, Romeo."

"Look. You came to
my
bed, remember? I gave you what you wanted. Now I need you to give me what I want."

Her eyes, hard as emeralds now, searched his. "What
do
you want, Nolan?"

He steeled himself against her wounded look. "What I've wanted from the beginning. Distance."

Reeling with shock and pain, Jillian watched him walk away. For all of a second. Then outrage kicked in. "Distance? You want
distance?'

As she'd hoped, her question stopped him cold when he reached the aft deck. He turned and looked at her through bored eyes. Strike that. He looked past her, over her shoulder, because he couldn't look her in the eye and lie to her.

And he was lying. Badly. It all fell into place then. Relief spilled over the frustration. "You are so full of it, Garrett. You don't want distance. You want me ... and it's driving you crazy."

Everything inside her that she'd ever trusted to lead the way screamed at her now to believe her gut instincts. "You want
us
.
You couldn't have made love to me the way you did last night if you didn't."

His jaw worked. His blue eyes iced over. "Why can't you just leave this alone? Why do you make me hurt you? Make
me
say things I don't want to say?"

He swore. Dragged a hand through his hair and pinned her with a hard look. "It was just sex, Jillian. Don't confuse with anything else."

She didn't bat an eye. "I don't believe you. I don't think you believe it, either. You just don't want to deal with the truth because
you don't have control now. What you feel for me does."

She'd fight to make sure he understood that. Then she was going to fight to make him stay. But right now he was running scared and she had to figure out a way to stop him.

"For God's sake, Nolan, do I frighten you that much?"

He studied her face, then gave her one of those /
don't give a damn
shrugs. "If that's what you want to think—"

"Oh, I do," she fired back, Joan of Arc on a mission. She was mad now, fighting mad. "I think you're scared to death. Scared to take a chance on me. Scared to take a chance on you."

Bingo.

In the fraction of a second before he hid his surprise with another one of his patented brooding glares, his eyes gave him away.

He wasn't just scared. He was terrified. And suddenly she knew where to look for the source of that fear. If she'd been reading between the lines when she dug up all that information about him on the Web, she'd have figured it out long ago. If she'd thought a little harder about what Plowboy had said—
You couldn't have stopped it
—she'd have known where to start long before this.

"Who do you think you let down, Nolan?"

Silence—as taut with tension as a lifeline. His eyes cut into hers like lasers.
Back off.

"Who was it?' she pressed, risking his wrath. "Who didn't you save that made you decide you weren't man enough to be a Ranger anymore? Who died and made you so sure you're not man enough for me?"

"You don't know what you're talking about," he said in a flat voice, though she could see his pulse pounding double-time at his throat.

"I know that you have nightmares."

He closed his eyes, then visibly tried to settle himself. "Show me a combat veteran who doesn't."

"And you show me one who can handle everything on his own and still keep his sanity. Talk to me."

He snorted. "What? Are you my shrink now?"

She shook her head, ignored his glower. "No. I'm the woman who loves you."

He pushed out a harsh laugh. "We spent one night in the sack, for God's sake. You can't love me."

"Why? Because you're not worth it?"

"Now you've got the picture."

He turned and headed for the cabin door.

She raced after him, all but ran to catch up as he descended the companionway steps. "Why aren't you worth it? Because men in your squad died in combat? Because you have nightmares telling you that
you
were responsible?"

"Hell yes, men died!" He spun around to face her. Agony, rage. It was all there on his face. "Good soldiers. Good men."

One foot on the step, the other on the floor, she gripped the railing. "Men you think you should have saved."

He hung his hands on his hips, let out a weary breath. "I couldn't have saved them. But I should have—"

He cut himself off. Wiped a hand over his jaw.

"You should have what?" she asked softly.

He whipped his head her way, pinned her with a defiant stare. And then he just sort of crumpled. His shoulders sagged. His face grew slack. In that moment she could see the weight of the entire world pressing down on his shoulders.

"I should have saved Will, all right?"

"Will?"

He blinked slowly. "Will Sloan. He was one of mine. Came through the war zone like Superman. And then he came home... and I lost him."

The cords in his neck worked as he swallowed.

"What happened?"

Weary. He looked so weary. She could see it in the tight lines rimming his mouth, hear it in every breath.

"What happened," he began, turning his back to her, "is that I should have seen it coming. What happened is that I should have stopped him."

Stiff-armed, he gripped the galley counter with both hands, hung his head. "Sara had come to me. She'd told me that even before we'd redeployed to Iraq she couldn't take it anymore. The time Will spent away from her and the boys. The worry. The way he'd changed into someone she no longer knew. She wanted him to go to counseling with her or she wanted out."

"And what part of this is your fault?"

He turned back around to face her. He leaned his hips against the counter, crossed his arms heavily over his chest. "I was his squad leader. I shouldn't have let him convince me they could work it out on their own. I shouldn't have listened. But he was scared. If they'd gone to counseling, his mental health would be questioned. Even a whisper of a problem isn't career safe in the army and Will was career track to NCO. He lived and breathed army. He didn't want to lose it.

"Sara gave him an ultimatum," he continued when Jillian waited for him to let it all out. "And he... snapped. He shot Sara and then he killed himself."

Tears stung her eyes at the raw pain in his voice. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry about your friend."

"Yeah. Tell that to Sara. Tell it to her boys."

"And how would she feel if you told her you felt responsible for his death? Would she agree? Would she blame you?"

He had nothing to say to that.

"She wouldn't, would she? She wouldn't because it wasn't your fault.

"It wasn't your fault," Jillian repeated, going to him. "The only one who thinks so is you."