Even Sabrina was impressed with how normal she sounded. How unaffected by everything she was. Her performance was almost Oscar-worthy.
“I will,” Jack replied, looking from her and to Teague. Jack’s brother leaned against the countertop, holding a mug of steaming coffee. There was no expression in his face. It was as if he’d already checked out.
Teague cleared his throat and set his mug down. He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and his dark eyes never left hers.
“I’ll see you later?” he asked, his voice low.
A heartbeat passed.
Sabrina nodded. “You know where I am.”
She called Bingo and the puppy ran after her, yipping happily at her heels as she walked across the driveway in careful, measured steps. She didn’t look back—she kept her gaze focused ahead.
Once inside her cottage, all of Sabrina’s bravado seeped out of her like air from a balloon. She exhaled and ran to the kitchen, tossing her coffee into the sink. She gasped. There was no air. God, she couldn’t breathe.
Clutching at the edge of the counter, her thoughts whirled and images attacked her mind, taunting her. Images of Teague and the time they’d shared these past few weeks. Scattered thoughts and images of a future she wanted. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d wanted it until this very moment.
Sabrina slammed her eyes shut and put her fist in her mouth so that the guttural scream inside her stayed exactly where it should be. Buried. And hopefully never heard again.
Chapter Twenty-one
Teague waited until dark to walk over and see Sabrina. It took him that long to get his head straight on account that it had been one hell of a day. Jack had always managed to get under his skin because the man was relentless and could argue for hours.
The arguments he’d posed as to why Teague should stay on North American soil had been impressive. Yes the political unrest posed imminent danger for Americans. Yes Dallas most likely was dead. Yes, he might be a complete fucking moron to even entertain the idea of going back.
But all of that was for nothing because the one thing that Jack couldn’t understand was the one thing inside Teague that wouldn’t let him stay behind. And maybe it was the soldier in him, the Seal who’d had the backs of the men in his unit. Maybe it was the part of him that had seen too much death and destruction. Or maybe it was a fatal flaw in his genetic makeup, a gene that made him seek out danger with no thought to his own safety.
In the end, the reasons for it didn’t matter because the moment Bowen called Teague, he was done.
He had to go.
He paused at the bottom of the stairs leading to Sabrina’s house and stared up at the soft light that fell from her windows. It was early evening and the crickets were out in full force, singing their night song. He caught sight of a bat, swooping low across the upper deck, searching for mosquitos, and watched until it disappeared into the trees.
Other than the insects, it was quiet and he knew that the kids must be in bed or their excited babble and giggles would easily have echoed into the night. Sabrina was up there alone, waiting for him.
And God knows he needed to see her.
Teague climbed the stairs and just as he was about to knock, the door opened. He found himself staring down into a face that he knew he’d be thinking about every single night he was gone. It would haunt him. Comfort him. And hopefully it would be the very thing to bring him back.
Sabrina was in an old sweatshirt that was way too big on her and he was going to assume it belonged to her late husband. Fluffy pink slippers adorned her feet, and he found himself wishing he could see her multi colored toes.
“If it’s too late,” he began but stopped when she moved aside. Teague walked into the house and glanced around. “Kids in bed?”
Sabrina nodded. “They were tuckered out. Had a late night at Allie’s and then all afternoon on the beach in the sun did them in. Harry was falling asleep at the dinner table.”
She fingered the edge of her sweatshirt. “Jack wasn’t very happy when he left.”
There it was. Now there was no hiding.
Teague sighed and shrugged. “No. He doesn’t understand the situation and he sure as hell doesn’t understand me.”
Sabrina was silent for a few moments and then she pointed to the deck. “Do you want to sit outside?”
He almost said yes, but then he realized that the cover of darkness was too easy. This right here needed to be done under the unrelenting exposure of light, because there could be no room for error, no miscommunication. No wishful thinking for an easy fix. This right here was gonna be as real as it gets and aside from his mother, Sabrina was the only person on the planet who he needed to understand him.
Teague didn’t say yes or no. Instead he grabbed her hand and led her to the sofa in the living room. He sat down and waited for her to do the same. When she did finally sit, she kept some space between them. That was smart of her—a form of self-preservation—but he hated it all the same.
She folded her hands onto her lap and glanced up at him, nearly tearing his heart out when he saw the hurt and pain in her eyes. It was gone, so fast that another man might easily convince himself it wasn’t there. But Teague had lived with that kind of pain for a long time now, and he knew what it looked like.
He knew what it felt like. And the feeling sucked. He hated that he’d been the one responsible for it. Sabrina deserved so much more.
“I’m leaving for Syria next week.”
“Jack told me.”
Teague frowned. “What else did he say?”
“Nothing. He just thought I should know.”
Teague wasn’t surprised. His brother had torn a strip off him when he’d realized Teague and Sabrina had been together. Jack had said he was a selfish son-of-a-bitch to get involved with a young widow and two kids.
Teague couldn’t argue with that. His brother was right.
“I was going to tell you this morning and I’m sorry that you had to find out that way.”
Her bottom lip trembled and he reached over, smoothing her mouth with a gentle caress. “Hey,” he said softly. “I wish this wasn’t so hard.”
“I know, but it is.” She leaned into his hand. “Jack doesn’t get why you put yourself in danger again and again. He doesn’t understand what would make a man chase a story that could kill him. It was hard for me to defend you because I have to be honest with you, Teague, I don’t get it either.”
“It’s hard to put into words.”
She attempted a smile but it fell flat. “I need you to try, Teague. I need you to make me understand how you can just up and leave us.”
He tried to speak but she rushed on.
“I’m not naïve. I know that this,” she waved her hands wildly, “whatever this is, had about a five percent chance of lasting more than a few weeks. And up until last night, I thought that maybe I was just some sort of summer fling. A fuck-buddy.”
“A what?” he interjected, not enjoying her version of events.
Sabrina made a face. “A fling. Someone to screw.”
“You’re not that at all.” Suddenly filled with shame, Teague moved closer to her. “If I’ve made you feel that way, then I’m sorry. That was never where my head was at.”
“That’s nice to hear, Teague. It really is. But no matter what you feel or what I feel, you’re still leaving us and I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.”
“Hey,” he said, but she shrugged him off.
“It’s okay, Teague. Whatever drives you can’t be silenced. I think I get that. But last night was….” Her voice caught and he felt like an absolute shit. “I wanted last night to be more than a memory.”
Damned if her eyes weren’t filling with tears. “Bree?” he asked. She tried to tug her hands from his, but he wouldn’t let her. He couldn’t break the tenuous connection they had. Not yet anyway.
What the hell did he say to that? Teague swore under his breath, searching for the rig
ht words.
“This…Sabrina you came out of nowhere. You and Harry and Morgan. I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone and maybe I should have backed off and kept my distance but I didn’t.”
He took a moment, looked for a place of calm, and then the words just sort of tumbled out of him.
“These last few weeks have been incredible. Bree, I’ve never felt a connection to a woman the way I do when I’m with you. I just never have. And your kids, they’re the coolest little people I’ve ever met. But…”
Her eyes were shiny, huge and so goddamn sad that it made him furious to know he was responsible for it.
“But you’re not the happy-ever-after guy.”
Teague swore under her breath, hating the pain he’d caused. Wondering what the hell was wrong with him. Wondering how to explain.
“I’ve never been good at staying in one place for long. This is going to sound weird, but it’s like there’s a part of me that is constantly moving. Spinning out of control. Like it’s a piece that’s searching for the right slot to fit into and the only time it stops spinning is when I’m on assignment.”
“Like you’re missing something.”
She was getting it. Relief flooded him. “Exactly. When I joined the Navy, I thought I found that missing piece but it took me less than two years to realize that I was still searching for that thing. So I left the Navy when my last tour was up and got a gig photographing the slaughter of Rhinos in Africa. I’d found a purpose again. Every assignment I got was a shot of adrenaline and for a while, that need for danger replaced this missing piece inside me.
“But this thing that I can’t even label can be so loud in my head sometimes. It would keep me up at night and the only way to silence it was to go out on anther gig. By then I needed something more dangerous, more intense to keep me going. So I went to Mexico and did stories on missing women and on the drug cartel. I went to Nigeria and covered the political unrest. I photographed stories on human trafficking in the Ivory Coast, and the corruption in Russia. The last story I did with Bowen before Syria was about an international child porn ring and that nearly did me in.”
Her hands crept up over his and she squeezed his palms tightly.
He stopped then, gazing down at her small hands and pain lashed across his chest. It was a pain that was buried so deep he grunted from the pressure.
“Why did you go to Syria?”
How much of this should he share? He looked up at Sabrina, at eyes that were so full of concern and empathy and tenderness, and he knew nothing but the absolute truth would do.
“I was over there with a group of men, some of them Seals and some of them former black ops now working on a contract basis for the government. I wasn’t there as a journalist. I was there as a soldier. A hired gun so to speak. Our team leader, Dallas, was a guy I knew from my Seal days. Our purpose was to gather intel on several militant groups in the area and report back with our findings. Sure it was dangerous as hell, but it should have been a quick in and out.
“It was cold the night everything went down. We were camped out in the hills and had received intel the day before that two British journalists who’d been taken prisoner a few days before we’d arrived, were being held in a town not far from where we were. We were told they were going to be executed that night and got permission to go in and to see if a rescue was possible. It went south pretty fast.”
He blinked hard as the memories washed over him. The gunfire. The flashes of light. The screams of terror.
“In the end we were holed up in a shelled out dump at the edge of the town. The intel was bad, the journalists were nowhere near us, and we were trapped by extremists. Then this kid appears out of nowhere. I had my weapon on him and he looked at me. I remember thinking that he reminded me of Tucker when we were that age.”
Horror flashed across Sabrina’s face and she squeezed his hand even harder. “My job was to watch the exit. To take out anyone who crossed it. I hesitated. Didn’t take the shot and the kid fired a weapon from underneath his clothes. He got Dallas and all hell broke loose. I didn’t hesitate after that. I took out the threat, but it was too late.”
“Teague,” she whispered, leaning forward. “I’m so sorry.”
“That kid haunts me. That kid and the fact that we never saw Dallas again. We were held in a hole in the ground for days and when our guys came and got us out, we left Dallas back there. We left Dallas back there,” he repeated hoarsely.
He saw the question in her eyes and he didn’t hesitate to answer.
“A couple weeks ago Richard Bowen, a journalist I’ve worked with in the past, got a tip that Dallas might still be alive and being held somewhere in Syria.”
“Why wouldn’t your government act on that?”
“The government works on numbers. Cause and effect. Win and loss. They can’t act until they have proof.” He paused because this was the important part. “You understand why I have to go, don’t you Sabrina?”
She hesitated and his spirits slumped.
“I think that you need closure and I think that you need the danger. That it’s part of who you are. I think that adrenaline is the diet that feeds your soul and that one day you hope that piece inside you stops spinning.”
She got it. He felt as if the monkey on his back was finally on the run. She got it.
Her eyes were full of tears and one slowly wove its way down her face. He wiped it away with his thumb.
“And you’ll keep doing what you do even if it costs you your life.”
He had nothing to say to that because it was probably true, so he took a moment and gathered his thoughts and asked the one question that had been haunting him all day.
“Can I come and see you when I get back?”
The pulse at her throat beat crazily as a fresh wave of tears filled her eyes. “When do you leave?” she asked quietly.
“Five days,” he replied.
A heartbeat passed.
“Okay then,” she said, sliding over to him and nestling into his arms. He closed his eyes and inhaled her scent, holding it deep inside him for as long as he could.
“Let’s make the most of them.”
Much later, Teague would realize that Sabrina had never answered his question and by then, it would be too late.
Chapter Twenty-two
The next four days passed in a blur. Sabrina spent every moment that she could with Teague—lazy days on the beach, afternoons out on the boat, and they made love under the cover of darkness, when her children were asleep.
Teague never stayed the night and when he left her alone, she would wrap herself in a blanket that still carried his scent. She would sit on the deck and watch the night stars and think about small things.
She would think about how his eyes darkened when he was inside her. And how cute the dimple was on his right cheek. She’d remember how tender his touch was when he held her in the dark. And how his last kiss before he left her each night was as light as a butterfly kiss.
It was a heavy thing to know that she’d fallen in love with a man who was leaving her, and it had taken everything she had to carry on through the days and nights without breaking down.
And here it was. Teague’s last night in Gravenhurst, and she’d been on the verge of tears all day. They were celebrating the twins birthday even though it wasn’t for two more days.
“Mommy, Tigger picked some flowers for the table.”
Sabrina wiped at her eyes and winced. Shit. Her fingers were covered in onion juice. Morgan’s eyes nearly popped out of her head when Sabrina swore.
“That’s at least a fiver in the swear jar.”
She nodded at her daughter and rinsed her eyes out, before rifling through the cupboards looking for a vase. The wild flowers were gorgeous and she busied herself arranging them, while trying to keep her emotions in check.
“Why are you sad?” Morgan asked, climbing onto the chair beside Sabrina. Her daughter had pulled on her favorite princess dress for Teague�
�s last supper and she was excited for him to see it.
“I’m not sad.”
“You were crying.”
“That was the onions, pumpkin. They always make me cry.”
Morgan’s little brows furrowed and she picked up a purple petal that had fallen onto the table. She rolled it between her fingers.
“I’m sad,” Morgan said slowly, glancing up at her mother.
Sabrina stopped arranging the flowers and tried to keep it together. She counted to five and then exhaled before turning to her daughter once more.
“Why are you sad, honey?”
“Because Tigger has to go away.”
“Well, sweetie. It’s normal to feel sad when a friend leaves us.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Tigger’s one of my bestest friends. I wish he didn’t have to go.”
“I know.” What else could she say to that?
The door to the cottage flew open at that point and Harry, Bingo, and Teague appeared. Her son’s face was flushed and he skipped over to the table. “Do you like the flowers, Mommy?”
“I do,” she answered softly, eyes moving from her son to the man who stood a few inches behind him. “They’re beautiful.”
Teague’s hair was wet, as if he was fresh from the shower, and he wore a crisp white dress shirt with navy slacks. She’d never seen him in anything other than cargos and jeans, and with that slow lopsided smile creeping over his face, the man literally took her breath away.
This was another layer to Teague Simon that she hadn’t yet experienced. Another layer she was going to miss.
“Who are these two handsome men in our house, Morgan?” she asked lightly, hoping all evidence of her tears were gone. She didn’t want anything to spoil this night.
“Mommy you should put on a princess dress too!” her daughter shouted, sliding off the chair. She jumped up and down. “Then you can look like me.”
“Hmm,” Sabrina said, glancing down at Morgan. “I don’t know if I have a princess dress in my closet.”
“Yes you do. The blue one that Daddy likes.”
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