“Steve keeps telling me not to give up hope,” Kai admitted, staring down at her clasped hands. “I keep telling him I want a guy just like him. He’s so kind, so sensitive and, yet, he’s a man and does a man’s work. I don’t think there’s another guy like him on this earth. Whoever he falls in love with is going to be the luckiest woman alive. I’m almost jealous.”
“He’s thirty-one now?”
“Yes, he is. I warned him time’s slipping away. Part of it,” she admitted, giving Gil a glance, “is that my father is ill. He got prostate cancer when Steve was twenty-five. The doctors are saying he doesn’t have much longer.” Her voice trailed off. “Steve and I think it’s because dad could never let go of his grief over my mom’s death. He never talks about any of it. Steve helped me get through it.”
“Steve was able to cry?” Gil remembered how many times after making love to Kai, the sobs tore out of him whether he wanted them to or not. Having sex with her made him completely vulnerable. He’d always trusted Kai with himself and she did not disappoint him. Gil imagined she held him in her arms and rocked him just like Steve had once held her as a child and allowed her to cry out the loss within her soul. He sure as hell had given his soul to Kai. And she had been there for him, caring for him, whispering sweet words of comfort, her hand stroking across his hair, his shoulders, being present and a witness to his grief and loss of Rob.
Laughing a little, Kai said, “Oh, yes. I’d start bawling in his arms and pretty soon, he’d join me. By the time we got down with our cloudburst, our shirts were soaked with our tears. I never thought of Steve as being weak. I was glad he could cry. It helped me. It helped both of us to slowly heal from the loss of Mom.”
Uncomfortable, Gil wanted to say more, wanted to pull the truck over and talk with Kai. Talk like they had when they were together. Nothing had been off-limits between them at that time. He could tell her anything and she’d absorbed it, no judgment, no censure. She’d just listened. “Was Steve a good listener?” he wondered.
“Yes. He is to this day.”
“Do you stay in close touch with him?”
“I talk to him weekly. We can lean on one another and I trust him with my life.”
Again, Gil felt his heart twinge with anguish. Kai had trusted him that way until he’d broken her trust. And her heart. He swallowed hard, his throat tightening. “I’m glad you have him in your life, Kai.”
“Me, too,” she said softly, leaning her head back, eyes closed. “I couldn’t have gotten through Sam’s death without him. Steve was there for me. He was there at Arlington Cemetery for Sam’s funeral with me. I cried so hard and he stood there and just held me.” Struggling, her words were strained. “I don’t know what I’d do without Steve in my life. It’s like he carries around a box of bandages and tissues, and whenever I get hurt, he’s there for me.” Her voice grew fond. “I told him he had to get tired of always taking care of me when a crisis hit, but he just laughed and said he wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Gil dragged in a slow, ragged breath. They were outside city limits now and on a four-lane road, heading down toward the Triple H. “I hope to meet him someday. Thank him.”
“I’m trying to talk him into visiting, but with Dad ill and him having to keep the ranch going, I don’t think it will be anytime soon.”
“Maybe you can visit him?”
“I don’t know… When I left the ranch at eighteen to join the Army, my dad disowned me. He said a girl had no right to join the military. That it was the wrong place for any woman. That a woman should get married, settle down and have children.”
Wincing, Gil muttered, “Your dad is a real throwback to the nineteenth century.”
“Ya think?”
He grinned a little, meeting her amused gaze for a moment. Kai’s gray eyes were so large and shining with life in their depths. He wished he could see them grow stormy looking, because they became that way when he was making love to her. “How long does your dad have?”
“The doctors give him six months, but you know doctors. It’s a guess. Dad is stubborn and he’s strong in spirit. He’s fighting the cancer, but it’s still spreading.”
“How are you taking all of this, Kai?” Because Gil could see the heartbreak ahead for her if she didn’t get square with her father before he passed on.
“As well as I can. A part of me wants to drive over to see him. But we can’t talk. He always gets upset with me. He yells. He accuses. I—I can’t take that, Gil.”
Gil nodded. “My dad,” he began awkwardly, “was a tought man, too.” He glanced over at her and saw surprise flare in her eyes. He had never spoken about his family, but something was forcing him to reach out to Kai, to try to help her, in his own obtuse way, get through what he knew was coming for her to deal with. “He was always hard on Rob and me. But he didn’t believe in physical punishment if we screwed up.” He saw Kai nod, understanding in her eyes. “My mother, Janet, was the other strength in our family. When Wayne, my father, had a heart attack at forty-nine, he nearly died.”
“That should be no surprise,” Kai said. “You black ops guys nearly all had some kind of near-death experiences. And it does change you. I know when Sam got wounded and nearly died a year after we were married, I saw a huge change in him.”
“There is a change,” Gil admitted in a gravelly voice. “And you’re right, it does. Forever.”
“Is your dad alive today?”
“No,” he said hesitantly. Gil gave her a look of apology. “Rob died. And then I was called out on a long-term op over in Pakistan with my team. I was ordered deep undercover for what was supposed to be one year. It ended up being a three-year assignment. After that mission was completed, before I was coming back stateside, my father had a second heart attack. I had to fly home to be with my mother, to support her. My father never recovered fully from the first heart attack and the ranch was going down because he could no longer manage it and the wranglers he’d hired. When I got there, things were a mess. My father died a week after I returned home.” He took a long breath and added, “I took a medical discharge from the Army because my mother needed me there to get the ranch back on its feet.”
Kai stared at him, her lips parting. “Y-you were undercover for three years?”
He heard the disbelief, the sudden emotion in her voice, knowing Kai was calculating his suddenly being missing in action in her life following their five days together. “Yeah,” he rasped. “It was impossible for me to contact anyone,” he said, and held her widening gaze. “I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you, Kai. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know. And then, my father dying, our ranch teetering on the edge of bankruptcy…well, I had to go home. I had to save the ranch and help my mother. It took me time to get that ranch back on stable footing. My mother met a nearby rancher and they fell in love. I was able to leave the ranch in good hands with her.” He saw the words hitting Kai like bombs raining down on her.
Gil hadn’t meant to talk today about why he’d left her. When they talked, there had always been an ease between them. And it had magically happened just now. He saw the shock in Kai’s expression, her lips parting, putting his unexpected absence in her life all together. Damn, he wished it had been someplace else other than in a truck when he had to drive and concentrate on the road ahead.
To hell with it.
Gil pulled the truck over on the berm and placed it in Park. He turned, elbow on the steering wheel, the other across the back of the seat as he held Kai’s stunned look. “I didn’t mean for all of this to come up right now,” he said. “I was trying to find a way…a time when you weren’t pissed off at me, Kai, to tell you why I never came back into your life. I tried once out in the barn last week, a day after you arrived at the ranch, and that didn’t work. Until the deep undercover work our Delta team was ordered to undertake was completed, I could not break cover and make a call or send an email to anyone. We were in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, one of
the worst places on earth, hunting down HVTs, high value targets. Because of our looks, the fact that we all spoke Pashto and Urdu, we could fit into the population. That mission was beyond top secret.”
He saw tears gathering in her eyes, her lower lip trembling. “As much as I wanted to contact you, I couldn’t.” He opened his hand on the steering wheel. “Believe me, I wanted to, Kai. I didn’t mean to leave you in the lurch, not knowing anything. But every man who was chosen for this mission was single. The Army didn’t want anyone who was currently in a present relationship. They had no idea how long it would last and we didn’t, either. They wanted men without attachment and who spoke the local languages.” His voice lowered. “And one of those men was me…”
Gil gave her a searching look, a lump forming in his throat. “I’m sorry as hell to this day, Kai, that I walked out of your life and never returned to it. I wanted to, but too many things happened in between that were out of my control.” Anguish filled his words. “I’m so damned sorry I hurt you like this. I never meant it to happen. I’d rather take a bullet than have done this to you.”
Kai sat there, staring at him, shock rippling through her. She saw the raw, abject apology in Gil’s weathered face, the deep regret in his blue eyes, heard it in the heaviness of his unsteady voice. “I was confused, Gil,” she began hoarsely. “I didn’t understand why you left me without even a note. Nothing…” Kai swallowed hard.
How badly Gil wanted to reach out to her, touch her hair, stroke her shoulder and give her some kind of solace. “I got a call from the CIA, and I went outside the room where we were, to answer it while you were still sleeping, Kai. They ordered me on a flight out of Bagram an hour out, and they didn’t allow me to say anything to you. I wanted to—I argued with them about it—but they ordered me to keep my mouth shut. I’m sorry.” Sorrier than she would ever know.
“Okay, what about later? When you came out of Pakistan on that mission? Why couldn’t you contact me then? Why did you leave me hanging, Gil?”
He avoided her sharpened gaze, the emotion trembling in her voice. “Because by then, I knew how much I’d probably hurt you and you’d never want to see my face again. There wasn’t anything I could do or say to make it right between us, Kai. And there was no way that you would forgive me for doing what I did to you…”
“Jesus,” Kai muttered, rubbing her face. She stared at him. “So you just gave up on me? On us?”
The raw hurt in her voice made him wince outwardly. “I never meant to hurt you, Kai. You have to believe that. I know it doesn’t prove out, but you understand Delta Force takes on these types of deep undercover black ops.”
“Yes,” she muttered, “I know that.” She stared at him. “You just figured that whatever we had for those five days was it? That there wasn’t something more serious between us?” She choked, fighting back tears.
Giving a shake of his head, Gil said gruffly, “Try to look at it from my side, Kai. You were a widow for a year. I needed you… After Rob got killed, I was in shock. I know it’s not an excuse for what I did, but I needed you. I needed…” His voice dissolved. Giving her a pleading look, he whispered, “I know what I did was wrong. I don’t know how you had the strength, the care, to take me in when I showed up at your barracks at Bagram. I know you were still grieving the loss of Sam. I don’t, to this day, know why I came to you. But I’m grateful for the love and care you gave to me when I was the most down in my life. Rob was like the other half of me. We got through the first eighteen years of our life by leaning on one another because our father was more tyrant than parent. We relied so heavily on one another and when he got killed, well, I fell apart.” Gil stared at her, his voice charged with barely held feelings. “And I showed up and I asked for your help.”
Bitterly, Kai looked at him. “And I gave you everything I had, Gil. Everything. I never asked for anything in return. I knew you were hurting. I knew what losing someone you loved was like two times over. It was easy for me to extend myself to you.”
“I had no right to come to you like I did,” Gil admitted heavily, holding her tearful gaze. “None.” He saw her battling the need to cry, saw that backbone of hers, the internal strength that had always been there, that had drawn him to her from the beginning. Kai might cry, but damn, she’d held him like an oak in the greatest storm of his life after he’d lost Rob. She’d been steady, strong and constant, holding him, allowing him to weep out all the anguish and pain over losing his brother. Never once had Kai wavered. Gil saw the strength in her face. She was part strength, part delicate, but that didn’t mean she was fragile. No, Kai was a beacon who drew him to this day. It was a secret that would go to his grave. Gil could only imagine what it would do to Kai if he spilled his torn heart out to her now. She’d been hurt too badly by him to ever think he could walk back into her life, to ask forgiveness and love him.
“I’m sorry, Kai. I know I apologized before, but you need to hear it again.”
“Did you mean to walk away from me eventually, Gil?” she cried softly, searching his face.
Closing his eyes, Gil gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened. God, he wanted to tell her the truth. But he knew she’d never believe him. And even if he spilled out how much he’d always loved her, she’d have assumed he was jealous of Sam for taking her away from him; that all he lusted after was her body, not her. Not her heart, which, God knew, was so large, nurturing and maternal. Kai had kept him together, knitted him back into coherency, after the grief overriding him in every possible way. He had not been able to cope with it alone, that much he knew deep in his gut. Gil never realized what grief could do to a person, never really understood it until Rob had suddenly been ripped out of his life, forever. And it was Kai’s strength and her beautiful, giving body, as well. Gil had always felt a deep connection with Kai. It was sex, of course, but much more than that. Something…precious. Fragile. And he’d destroyed it.
His throat ached with tension as he slowly opened his eyes and stared at her, the silence thickening in the cab between them. “I was hurting so much, Kai—you were the only one I wanted to turn to. I needed you. I knew, somehow, you’d be strong, when I was weak.” That was the truth. Gil couldn’t stand to tell her a lie—that he’d used her, that she meant nothing to him. Because nothing could be further from the truth. God, he’d ravaged her life enough already. The torture he saw in her face, the tears brimming in her eyes as she angrily fought them back, hacked into his chest.
“Were you ever going to tell me the truth, Gil?” Kai waved her hand angrily around the truck cab. “Or was this a slip?”
“No, I was going to talk to you, Kai. I tried at the barn, but you weren’t ready to talk with me. You deserved that much from me, at least. I was just trying to pick a time when things between us weren’t like a war going on, is all. I hadn’t meant to bring it up today, but it just happened…”
Rubbing her wrinkled brow, she whispered, “Just get me home, Gil. I—I can’t discuss this anymore with you. It’s just too much to take in…”
CHAPTER EIGHT
KAI TRIED TO focus on getting the tractor to work. Gil had dropped her off at the main ranch house. He looked miserable. She felt miserable. As she double-checked her work from one end of the John Deere to the other, her heart was in free fall.
She should have felt some relief that he’d been called on a top-secret black op. Kai understood what that meant: no communication between Gil and those he loved or who were in his life. When she was married to Sam, he sometimes went on deep undercover ops and she wouldn’t hear from him for two or three months at a time. It had been a terrible stress, not knowing.
So why did her heart ache so much? Why did she feel sudden elevator-like sensations of joy crashing up against her grief? Was his explanation enough? That he honestly thought she would be angry and never want to see him again because he had disappeared out of her life? Kai knew there was no real connection other than those five blissful days with Gil. She’d never
known he was personally interested in her before that. Not once. He had always been respectful of her, but had never given her an indication of anything more until that afternoon he appeared at her barrack’s doorsteps. And he’d looked so devastated that it had made her automatically reach out to him. At that time, Kai had no idea where it would take them.
It just happened.
Moving the damp cloth across the seat of the tractor one more time, Kai stood still, feeling her way through what had happened. Okay, so she’d wanted Gil to kiss her that day he appeared at her barracks. She didn’t know who was more surprised when she’d initiated that first kiss between them. Gil’s suffering triggered her own grief where Sam was concerned. His ability to cry for Rob’s death. It was so confusing. Gil was there, a fellow Delta operator, Sam’s best friend. And when their kiss escalated, Kai suddenly found herself wanting Gil in every possible way. They were like two lost, hungry animals that had somehow run into each other by accident, and they couldn’t resist one another. It was that powerful. That life-changing.
“God,” Kai muttered, rubbing her brow where a headache was forming. Why had she lost her sense? She had never done anything like that in her life. She’d been utterly loyal to Sam. In her previous relationships, they were long-term and she’d never strayed to another man.
But Gil had walked into her life and turned it upside down. Moving the cloth slowly over the seat, she tried to think her way through the why of it. Had Gil been a replacement for Sam in that blinding moment? That she was missing Sam so much, the loss so great? A last goodbye to her warrior husband? Had Gil needed sex in order to get through the shock and grief of Rob being killed?
Kai knew that the pressures on the operators were tremendous. She was no stranger to being around Delta guys. Those that were single were always looking for a woman to bed. And when Sam came off an op, he was more than hungry to have Kai in bed. As if…as if sex were some kind of mediator, a way to take the edge off his anxiety, the pressures and stresses of undercover work.
Night Hawk Page 10
