At least that’s what I tried to do. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very successful.
“Hannah.”
Ethan spoke softly behind me, but he might have screamed in my ear for all the effect it had on me. Every nerve fired up in classic fight or flight and my heart beat a hard tattoo against the walls of my chest.
“Morning,” I said.
“Are you okay?” I heard the question in his voice. I probably would have seen it in his eyes, too, if I’d had the guts to turn around and meet them.
“Hunky dory.” Yeah, I tend to wax poetic when I’m barely holding my shit together.
“Hannah.” My name on his lips was like a soft caress. It reminded me of how he had chanted it last night as he entered my body and made it his own. I could feel his heat surrounding me, knew that if I leaned back just the tiniest bit I could fall into it. It was so, so tempting.
But I had to stay strong. I am woman. “Yeah?”
“Talk to me.”
“Nothing to say.”
“Last night - ”
“- was great,” I finished. I’d made up my mind after waking up in a cold sweat that I was not going to make a big deal out of this, no matter how much it was to me. As much as I would have liked to admit otherwise, Ethan had broken something inside of me last night. Not literally, of course, but on a much deeper level. While I’d had sex before, it had always been a physical thing. In, out, push, pull. Pleasant while it lasted but kind of a relief when it was over, too.
Sex with Ethan had been nothing like that. It had been carnal, hot, explosive. From the second he entered me he was really in me. As he rammed himself into my body I felt him entering my heart and my soul as well.
That wasn’t exactly true. He’d managed to slip in there much earlier than that.
Leave it to me to twist casual, consensual sex into one of my erotic romance storylines. All I’d had to do was take a look in the mirror this morning to remind myself that the only reason Ethan was with me was because I was there, willing and readily available. And maybe, just maybe, I’d used him a little, too.
I’d given him a convenient way to scratch his itch. He’d given me a much-needed escape from reality. But no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t let myself believe it was any more than that. Even in the unlikely event that he was interested in something more than an easy booty call, he’d discover the disappointing truth sooner or later. I simply wasn’t wired for casual sex, no matter how good it was. I had already gone and fallen in love with the stupid bastard. Watching him walk away when all was said and done would kill me, and I wouldn’t allow that.
Reminding myself of that, I shored up my defenses and turned around. I couldn’t quite bring myself to look him in the eye, though. I settled for the spot high on his cheek where I could see a tiny ripple of movement from where he was clenching his jaw. It shouldn’t have been as sexy as it was, but Ethan was all barely-leashed male and there were parts of me, I’m ashamed to admit, that responded almost violently.
“It was great,” I repeated, giving my withering womb a solid mental smack down. “You were really great.” I could see him narrow his eyes in my peripheral vision and decided to continue before he could say anything. “And what happened was perfectly normal. We are two grown, consenting adults who found comfort in each other during a stressful time. It happens. Nothing wrong with that.”
His eyes narrowed further; I fought the urge to squirm. I cleared my throat and went on before I lost what little bit of nerve I had left. “And just so you know, I’m not, um, expecting anything. Nope. No expectations whatsoever. So no worries there. And actually, I think it’s best if we don’t muddy the waters.”
He stared at me as if he wasn’t quite sure what to say. That, more than anything, told me I’d been right to wrestle my heart into a choke hold and stuff it unceremoniously into my inner closet along with my howling pussy. My brain could be a real bossy bitch when I needed her to be.
“Jeez, will you look at the time? I have to run.”
He stepped smoothly to the side to block my path. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I blinked up at him, the picture of innocence. “For a run. Didn’t I just say that?”
That muscle ticked in his jaw again. Did I mention that it should not have been as sexy as it was?
“Give me a minute and I’ll join you.”
“No! I mean, that’s not a good idea,” I said quickly. “Someone’s got to stay here in case Dad needs something. That is why you’re here, after all.”
I caught a glimpse of the flash in his eyes (hurt? annoyance?) before I beat feet across the kitchen and did what I had become really good at: running away.
Ethan
Three weeks. It had been three fucking weeks since I’d had Hannah in my bed. Three fucking weeks was too fucking long.
As a soldier and a man, I’d seen my fair share of fear and denial. Hell, after the past year, I was the resident expert. That is how I knew, without a doubt, that Hannah was battling both.
I’d been trying to get her to look me in the eye, to talk to me, to coax her back into my bed. Unsuccessfully. I had to hand it to her, she was almost as good at shutting everyone out as I was. I didn’t give a shit about anyone else, but it was unacceptable for her to shut me out.
All I knew was, I’d had enough. Enough of the dark circles under her eyes. Enough of watching her pretend she was just fine. Enough of listening to her pace in her room through most of the night when she should have been where she belonged.
With me.
In just a few weeks, I’d come to care too much about her to watch her do this to herself anymore.
It was ironic, I realized, that I had probably put my father through something very similar. So that morning, I called him and told him straight up that I was sorry. No bullshit, no excuses. And right after that I told him what I was going to do.
Without hesitation, he agreed to help.
Maybe it was crazy. Hell, I knew it was crazy. But when it was right, it was right, and life was too damn short to waste time analyzing it.
So once he and Angus were well into their chess game, I borrowed Dad’s Jeep and made the trip over to Dixon, the closest thing this area had to an actual city, and set my plan into motion.
Less than an hour later, I was back and tracking her through the woods, grateful for my Ranger training. I’m not sure I would have found her otherwise. I almost turned back at one point, in fact, when the trail appeared to end at a steep embankment. But my instincts were never wrong and when I looked closer, I saw that the exposed roots from several old trees formed a ladder of sorts down into the deep-cut creek bed below.
Over the sound of the waterfall I could just make out the sound of her voice, singing softly from somewhere on my right. I stilled, worried that she might have seen my descent, but she continued on. I followed her voice right up to the waterfall, then realized that she must be behind it.
I stepped around the side of the falls, discovering that the ledge above formed a kind of shallow cave. Hannah was reclining back, her eyes closed, quietly singing along with whatever song played through her earbuds. Off to the right, I saw the remains of a six-pack sitting in the small side pool created by the steady drip of water from above.
“You know, they say drinking alone is a cry for help.”
Her eyes popped open as I helped myself to an ice-cold beer and settled back against the wall next to her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a myriad of emotions pass over her face. Surprise, shock, anger, fear, then finally, resignation.
“This is a great spot. Anyone else know about it?” I asked.
She shook her head no.
“My dad’s with your dad,” I told her, because I knew she worried. “So it’s all good.”
We sat like that for a while. Me, drinking my beer. Her, watching me surreptitiously from beneath half-lidded eyes.
“Why are you here, Ethan?” she finally asked.
I didn’t ans
wer right away. I looked at the bottle in my hands, turned it left, then right. “I’m not sure you’re ready to hear the answer, Hannah.”
“Probably not. Try me anyway.”
I took a long pull from the beer. Cold and smooth, it slid down the back of my throat like silk. This was the way beer was meant to be drunk.
“About a year ago, I was overseas. My unit was sent in to eliminate a small cell of radicals terrorizing one of the villages.”
“Why?” she interrupted, surprising me.
“Why what?”
“Why were the villagers being terrorized?”
I hesitated. No one had ever asked that before. The ‘why’ of it had been lost in the subsequent tragedy. “Because a young man from that village had spoken out publicly against one of the rebel leaders. He made it to us before they could punish him, so they took it out on his friends and family instead.” A mixture of horror and sympathy showed in her face, but she nodded.
“Anyway, it turned out that one of the villagers who was supposed to be helping us was playing for the other team. He betrayed us. He leaked information to the rebels, probably to save his own family. While we were setting up a base camp, they attacked.”
I had to pause for a moment at that point. Other than my CO, I’d never told anyone else what I was telling her now. She shifted, extending her leg so that it just brushed against mine. That slight contact seeped into me like twenty-year-old whiskey, warming my blood and easing the tension in my limbs. I could feel her watching me, but I didn’t dare look up again until I finished. I was afraid of what she might see.
“Half my unit was gone in the blink of an eye. They just... ceased to exist. Their bodies were blown into so many pieces it was impossible to tell what went with whom. The other half of us fared better. We were broken and bleeding, but alive.”
“That’s where you got your scars,” she whispered.
“Most of them, yeah. It’s weird, but when it happened, I didn’t even think about it, you know? I mean, I knew I was hit and that my legs weren’t working quite right, but all I could think about was the other guys. Once we eliminated the threat, I dragged myself over to them and did what I could till the cavalry showed up.”
“Next thing I knew, I was waking up in this hospital in Germany. I knew it was bad when I saw Dad sitting at my bedside. When I opened my eyes, it was only the second time I’d ever seen him cry.” I closed my eyes, swallowing down the emotion that welled up in my throat. “I remember thinking, gee, if my dad’s here, Cecilia must be here, too. But she wasn’t.”
“Cecilia was your wife?” Her voice was careful, devoid of expression.
“My fiancée.” I laughed bitterly. “We had planned to get married after that tour. I wasn’t getting any younger, and I was thinking it was time I settled down and started a family. Turns out Cecilia was more in love with the idea of a family than she was me, specifically. When it was questionable whether or not I’d regain function below the waist, she decided to cut her losses. She ended up marrying the guy she’d been keeping time with while I was on tour. Probably a good thing, since she was already pregnant with his kid.”
I finished off the bottle and grabbed another, but didn’t bother opening it. It was more to have something in my hands than to drink.
“I’m sorry, Ethan,” she said with genuine sympathy.
“I was too, for a while. Turns out she did me a solid.”
“Yeah? How’s that?”
“If she hadn’t walked away, I never would have met you.”
I heard her sharp intake of breath. Before she could say anything, I added, “And that would have been the real tragedy, because now I know what real love feels like.”
Hannah bit her bottom lip as she tried to process my words. “You love me?”
“A bit slow on the uptake, are we?” I teased gently. “Yes, Hannah McGinnis, I am in love with you.”
“You barely know me,” she whispered.
“Something tells me I could spend the rest of my life with you and still not know everything there is to know about you. It is a theory I plan to put to the test, if you’ll have me.”
I took both of her small hands in one of mine -—I was not taking any chance of her running away on me again -—and reached into my pocket. Her eyes grew huge when I held the diamond ring out to her.
Chapter 12
Hannah
Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. I stared at the flawless stone, brilliant even in the relative darkness of my sanctuary. White noise buzzed in my ears. An odd tingling sensation rippled throughout my entire body. For several long moments, I couldn’t move.
“Breathe, Hannah,” Ethan commanded. Before I could even process the words, my body obeyed. I sucked in air, then blew it out. Suck. Blow. Suck. Blow. Suddenly I couldn’t get enough air. Why couldn’t I get enough air? Ethan’s warm hand curled around the back of my neck and pushed my head forward between my knees.
“Slow down. Easy breaths, Hannah. You’re hyperventilating.”
So I was. Ethan rubbed gentle circles on my back as he spoke soothing nonsense in my ear until the panic subsided and I was able to take a full breath again.
“I’m sorry. That’s never happened to me before.”
“Hyperventilating or being proposed to?”
“Both.”
He pushed the hair back from my face, the concern in his expression genuine. “You okay now?”
“I’m not sure.” Inside, I was reeling. Ethan said he loved me. Ethan asked me to marry him. Holy shit. This was a joke, right? I searched his face, but found no evidence of cruelty or humor. Just something raw and powerful and vulnerable beneath those beautiful features, as if he was actually worried about what I might say.
“Need a minute?”
“Or a thousand,” I murmured. “Am I dreaming? Did I get properly buzzed and fall asleep? Or maybe I rolled off the ledge and am broken and unconscious on the rocks below and you are my mind’s way of coping with the trauma.”
Ethan chuckled. “You’re not dreaming, Hannah. And I seriously doubt half a beer is going to give you that much of a buzz.”
I looked at my half-empty bottle. Three unopened beers sat in the cold water, plus one empty and one full one beside Ethan. I did the math. He was right. Huh.
“Unless you had another six pack when you came down here. Or a case. You didn’t have a case of beer, did you, Hannah?”
“No,” I whispered. Which meant that this was all real, and this was really happening. I looked at Ethan and my heart nearly stopped. He was everything I’d ever wanted in a man, even better than the fictional guys I read about. Because Ethan was real, and he loved me.
Me. Despite the fact that I’d done everything I could think of to push him away.
It made no sense to me whatsoever, because while he was like the alpha males in my anthologies, I was nothing at all like the women they fell for.
“You’re thinking too hard about this,” Ethan said. “Give that beautiful brain a rest and answer me this: do you love me, Hannah?”
“Yes.” The word burst from my lips without thought. It was the raw, honest truth. I did love Ethan. I won’t say it was love at first sight, because the truth of the matter was, I didn’t like him very much in those first few minutes after I’d met him. It was much later -—around dinner time that night I think -—that I began to fall hard and fast. Self-denial was a life skill with me, but it didn’t change the truth.
It didn’t matter, though, because I couldn’t marry him, not without him knowing the truth. And I didn’t want to tell him the truth.
“Then it’s all good,” he said, visibly relaxing as he reached for my hand.
“No, it’s not.” I couldn’t bear to look at him.
“What is it, Hannah? You can tell me anything, you know. Nothing is going to change the way I feel about you.”
I shook my head, knowing better. Everyone always said that, but no one could make a promise like that. What if I told him somet
hing really horrid, like I tortured puppies, or ripped off the elderly, or went around at night cutting random brake lines for the sheer thrill of it? I bet any of those things would change the way he felt about me.
I didn’t realize I’d spoken my thoughts out loud until he chuckled. “You don’t do any of those things, Hannah. But you’re wrong. I would still love you, and I’d find other ways of releasing your inner bad girl. Now tell me what’s keeping you from saying yes. I’d like to move on to the celebratory sex.”
I laughed, but the tears came out anyway.
“Hannah,” he said, pulling me into his arms. “Please don’t cry. Talk to me.”
I took a deep breath. God, I didn’t want to tell him. It sounded so stupid. Because it was stupid. It was so beyond pathetic that my throat closed up in an effort to keep the mortifying words from coming out. But he deserved to know. “I’m defective.”
“A little odd maybe,” he said, looking amused, “but I wouldn’t say defective.”
Odd? A wave of indignation started to rise, but it petered out before it had a chance to build up any force. He was right. I was odd. What kind of thirty year old woman was so tightly wrapped she couldn’t get off during sex? Even more important, why did it matter? Did I apply the same kind of warped logic to other parts of my life?
I had to think about that one. My analytical mind ran through various prior experiences, testing my hypothesis.
Test Scenario 1: When I first relocated to the West Coast, I went to Disneyland with my college roommate. It was nice. I had a good time, but it didn’t really do it for me. The crowds, the people, the noise, the smells, the lines. Ugh. I’d rather grab a book and head to the beach for the day. My roommate, who loved Disneyland, was crushed. Our budding friendship fizzled after that. From that point on, when I had a day off, I went to the beach. Alone.
Test Scenario 2: Before I met Stephen, there was this good-looking guy in my microeconomics class. We flirted a little; he asked me out. He took me to a fancy French restaurant, probably in an attempt to impress me. We had expensive wine and snails, along with a bunch of other stuff I can’t pronounce. It was awful. He was so disappointed. He never asked me out again. He must have talked to others about it, too, because the next guy who asked me out treated me to the drive-thru at McDonald’s before he tried to feel me up.
Letting Go: A Contemporary Romance of Snark and Feels Page 12
