Defending Hearts

by Rebecca Crowley

  Oz propped his ankle on his knee and studied the seam on his sock, nodding thoughtfully. “I told you they met at Jack and Caitlin’s wedding. Nedda certainly had some strong opinions about our compatibility.”

  “Sounds like she felt threatened. She thought you might…” He shot forward in his seat. “You had sex with Kate, didn’t you?”

  Oz threw up his hands. “Do I have a sign on my forehead? How is everyone figuring this out without my saying a word?”

  Yusuf whistled. “Wow. This is serious.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Oz sighed, exasperated. “It’s serious, and I don’t know if it should be.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m worried.” He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, finally giving voice to the thoughts that had been plaguing him for days. “I think I might be falling in love with someone I don’t have a future with. We’re so different, and that’s good, but maybe it’s also insurmountable. Like we’re two gears that don’t quite fit together, and for a while we can rub along and make a big noise and smooth each other out, but ultimately the whole machine is broken and we’ll never click enough to push anything forward.”

  “You can’t know that, not yet anyway. Look at me and Hajra,” he said, naming his wife. “You and I grew up with parents who see Islam as a broad set of guiding principles, a framework for making ethical and moral decisions, but not really a code of conduct for everyday life. They drink wine, they don’t pray, and the house is full of art that fundamentalists would consider obscene. But Hajra’s parents? They still ask her when she’s going to quit her job now that she’s married.”

  “You’re talking about parents, though. The two of you are aligned even if your families aren’t. I’m not sure Kate and I are in sync.”

  “Not so fast.” Yusuf raised a stalling finger. “There’s plenty of stuff we disagree on. Big stuff. Critical stuff. Our different levels of devoutness. Whether Islam can be about culture as much as belief. How we’ll raise our kids in the Muslim faith. But with compromise, respect, and commitment, we make it work. It’s not always easy, but it’s worth it. We love each other. And we both want to be together more than we want any of the things that could tear us apart.”

  Hope and optimism stirred in Oz’s chest, but he wasn’t ready to surrender to them. “Kate and I aren’t as convinced about one another as you two.”

  His brother lifted a shoulder. “Fine, you’re less certain. So what? That’s not a reason not to try. If it doesn’t work out, you’ll know you gave it your best, and you’ll come out a different person.”

  “But wouldn’t that be a waste of time?” Oz asked.

  Yusuf’s expression grew skeptical. “You’re twenty-seven. And you’re reaching. What are you afraid of, truthfully?”

  He linked his fingers together and stared at them, unable to meet his brother’s eyes. “I don’t want to end up like Erdem.”

  “Erdem? What does he have to do with any of this?”

  “You saw what happened after his wife left.” Oz shuddered as his uncle’s sallow face loomed in his memory.

  Yusuf stared at him for a few seconds, then nodded slowly. “That’s why you’re so hung up on the future. You think she likes who you are now, but she may not like who you’ll be in ten years.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Özkan,” Yusuf said softly, “What happened to Erdem won’t happen to you. He chose a woman who didn’t care whether he lived or died as long as she got paid. Plan or no plan, you’ll never be with a woman like that.”

  He shook his head. “I know Kate doesn’t care about the money. It’s the pain. I’ll love her harder and harder and it’ll be so painful when life rips us apart.”

  “What if life doesn’t rip you apart?” Yusuf countered.

  “And what if it does?”

  His brother’s silence was thoughtful. When he finally spoke his tone was soft but firm, signaling that this would be his final word on the subject.

  “You’ve never been afraid of pain. You’ve spent your life flying higher and higher, never looking at the ground, never worrying about how far you might fall. Don’t start now.”

  Oz couldn’t speak. He could barely think. He knew his brother was right, but that didn’t make the situation any easier. In fact it made it harder.

  Now he couldn’t say no one told him to fight for her. The responsibility was all on his shoulders. If he gave in to fear, capitulated to uncertainty, ran from the best woman he’d ever met and never found one as perfect for him, it was no one’s fault but his own.

  He couldn’t avoid risk, but he had to decide what he wanted to put on the line—his future or his heart. Did he take a chance on being lonely or having his heart broken?

  Yusuf said he’d never been afraid to fly, but that’s because he’d always carefully constructed safety nets—his education, his backup plan, his constant awareness that soccer careers don’t last forever. There was no soft landing when it came to love, and the sudden drop would come with far less warning than the end of a contract.

  As his brother quietly let himself out of the room and he was alone with his thoughts, he changed his mind. Yusuf was wrong. He did keep an eye on the ground, he always had, until he met Kate. For the first time in his life he was running blind, with no sense of how much distance he’d covered or how much farther he could go.

  That wasn’t him. Not at all. The stakes were higher than ever and he’d gotten so caught up he’d lost track of how deep he’d gone. He had to regain control of his life, of his emotions, of the heart he’d so brazenly laid open.

  Then he’d make the hardest decision of his life with the same ruthless precision to which he owed everything.

  Chapter 21

  Kate pressed the doorbell, then stood back and waited. It was a big house—it could take a while to get to the front door. Anyway, she didn’t mind the extra few seconds to compose herself.

  They’d exchanged plenty of texts in the couple of days since Saturday, but it was clear something had changed between them. In some ways she felt like they were back to the beginning, dancing around each other, cautiously sidestepping whenever the conversation became too personal.

  At first she worried that Oz’s detached politeness would open the door for that old, insecure version of herself to creep back into her thoughts. It didn’t, though, and no matter what happened tonight, or tomorrow, or five years down the line, she was confident that timid, self-conscious Kate was gone forever. Even if Oz dumped her as soon as she stepped inside, she’d always know that a man like him had almost loved her once, and that she’d deserved every second of his affection.

  She heard beeps on the other side of the wall as he disarmed the alarm, then the door opened and he stood framed in the light of the entryway.

  He smiled, and it was so exquisite she almost burst into tears.

  Wordlessly he wrapped his arms around her and held her firmly. She closed her eyes against his sternum and breathed deeply, losing herself in his scent, his warmth. She linked her hands at the small of his back and clung to his narrow waist.

  For several minutes they simply stood in silence, their bodies pressed together. Kate luxuriated in the steady rise and fall of his chest, the softness of his cotton T-shirt stretched across hard muscle and harder bone, the slow thud of his athlete’s heart.

  If she had to pick a moment to stay in forever, she decided it would be this one. Life couldn’t be better.

  Until he put his finger under her chin, tipped her face to his and kissed her.

  I love him. Awareness washed over her with the unstoppable, breath-stealing force of an ocean wave. Strip away all the external stuff, his career and her past and his money and her future, and the truth was bright and clear. She loved him. Oz the man. Oz the lover. Oz the best friend. She didn’t care about any of the rest of it, the fame or the house
or the car. She wanted him and him alone, more than she’d ever wanted anything.

  But not caring about the material things didn’t make them go away. Nor did wanting to be with him mean doing so wouldn’t come with a price.

  Reality settled heavily in the pit of her stomach as she leaned out of his embrace.

  “We should shut the door. We’re letting bugs in,” she told him, trying to force lightheartedness into her tone.

  He closed and locked the door after she preceded him inside. Then he reset the alarm, including the motion-sensing beams that ran across each side of the house.

  The heat she’d absorbed from his skin dissipated as she followed him through the ground floor. Their physical separation brought back the emotional distance between them, and grim expectation tightened the space between her eyes. This wasn’t going to be a fun, flippant, sexy reunion. Something still undefined was pulling them apart, and they had to talk about it before they lost all sight of each other.

  “Are you hungry?” He started opening cabinets in the kitchen. She took a seat on one of the stools at the island.

  “Not really. I had a late lunch.”

  “Same here. My stomach’s still on Swedish time.” He set a tub of hummus and a box of whole-wheat crackers on the island and took a seat across from hers.

  “How’s the jetlag?”

  “The flight last night was delayed, which didn’t help, but I’ll be fine by tomorrow morning. How was the interview?” he asked, referring to the early-morning meeting she used to justify not seeing him when he arrived in Atlanta the night before.

  “I think they’ll make me an offer. The money’s nowhere near what I was making at Peak Tactical, but it’s a steady paycheck every month. No sales targets.”

  “Remind me what this one was for?”

  “Another private-security company, but in dispatch.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure it really maximizes my skill set, but then I’m not totally clear on what my skill set is.”

  “What about companies that advise businesses on security for their overseas operations? Like oil companies, mining companies, anyone sending employees somewhere unsafe. You’d be great at that.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” she agreed. “I’ll look into it.”

  He looked down at the island’s surface. She braced herself.

  “Speaking of career changes.” He trailed his index finger along the grain in the granite. “I had a meeting in Stockholm. One of the clubs in Spain put an offer on the table. They want to buy me out of my contract with Atlanta in the winter transfer window. I’d start playing for them in January.”

  He dragged his eyes up to hers and she simply stared. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but it wasn’t this.

  “Wow,” she managed finally. “Is it a good offer?”

  “Yes and no. The money is better, and the club is prestigious.”

  He paused. She prompted, “But?”

  “But I’m pretty sure they want me as a backup, not a starter. They have one of the best left-backs in the world and he’s not much older than me. Unless he got a serious injury, I’d probably only play a handful of times each season.”

  “And if he did get injured?”

  “I’d start against some of the best teams in Europe, for one of the game’s most legendary managers.”

  She exhaled. “Big decision.”

  He nodded.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure. I have time to think about it.” He cleared his throat. “How would you feel about going with me?”

  Shock swelled into disbelief, blacking out her thoughts like drawing a curtain over a window. “What?”

  “I’m not asking for a decision tonight, obviously, but I thought I’d put it on the table.”

  “That’s a big step, Oz.”

  “More like a leap between two buildings. I know.” He shot her a feeble smile. “I’ve given this a lot of thought—it was a long flight. It would be easy to say let’s just wait and see, that I wouldn’t leave before Christmas anyway so we might as well give it until then to decide. And if you need that much time, fine. But I don’t like ambiguity, so I’m putting this out there. If I go, I want you to come with me.”

  She wasn’t sure how long she’d been shaking her head when she finally realized she was doing it. “This is insane. I came here thinking you were about to break up with me.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t go to Stockholm. And then Emily—”

  He reached across the table and put his hand over hers, warm and reassuring. “That’s exactly why I’m saying this to you now. This probably sounds strange, but when you chose your family over me, and once I got over myself about it, I respected you more. Speaking to Emily confirmed what I already knew, that you’re loyal and know the importance of family.”

  “That’s also why it would be hard for me to move thousands of miles away from them. I’ve been so far away for so many years, and I’m only just getting settled back into their lives.” She took a steeling breath. “This is what I wanted to tell you on Saturday night and didn’t get the chance. I’m at a point in my life where I need to make my own decisions. Be independent. Do what I want, not what I’m told.”

  His expression faltered slightly, and she could sense him fighting not to shut down. “I’m not telling. I’m asking.”

  She balked, unsure how to answer, and then the piercing shriek of the alarm cut through the quiet house, sending her heart into her throat and her pulse into overdrive. Oz stared at her, wide-eyed, and she snapped into business mode.

  “Your phone,” she commanded. She jumped from the stool and armed herself with a knife from the block on the counter as he pulled his phone from his pocket to check the system-monitoring app she told him to install.

  “Front beam,” he called over the clanging alarm.

  “Stay here,” she instructed, but inevitably he followed her across the house to the front door. She peered out the windows on either side of the frame but couldn’t see much.

  “Maybe it’s just a—”

  The alarm automatically shut off at the end of its sixty-second cycle, plunging the house into sudden silence.

  “Cat,” Oz offered.

  “Where’s the patrol car? They should be here by now. And dispatch hasn’t called you?”

  His expression turned sheepish. “I may have had some strong words for Roland about Peak Tactical after they fired you. They lost the Skyline contract the same day. He’s still going through the bids from new providers.”

  “So no one’s coming.”

  He shook his head.

  She swore under her breath and reached around him to disable the alarm so it wouldn’t go off again when she opened the front door. Then she eased the door open and stepped outside, every one of her senses on high alert.

  She’d barely made it to the edge of the front porch when she saw a shadow disappear around the side of the house.

  “Call 9-1-1,” she told Oz, adjusting her grip on the knife. Oz’s face broadcast his oncoming protest and she shook her head firmly, hissing, “Just do it.”

  She heard him murmur into his phone as she slunk along the wall of the house, summoning years of military training. She breathed slowly, stilling the frantic beating of her heart, and focused her awareness on what seemed out of the ordinary.

  The beams were set high enough not to be triggered by animals, and the shadow she saw was distinctly human. Someone was on the property who shouldn’t be, and so help her, she was going to stop them from getting any closer.

  She slipped around the corner of the house, freezing as she caught sight of a man hunched over and rummaging in a sports bag near the back door.

  She flexed her fingers on the knife handle, shoved aside her fear and shouted, “Hands out of t
he bag and up where I can see them.”

  The man looked up in surprise, and although the hood of his sweatshirt was tightened around his face she recognized Wayne Seibert, the Citizens First leader who’d thrown road flares on the pitch.

  “You son of a bitch,” she seethed, self-control buckling under the weight of white-hot fury.

  She lunged for him. He dropped the bag and jerked out of her reach. In the second it took her to regain her balance he sprinted past her. She pivoted, the knife slipping from her hand as she chased him around the corner of the house, sprinting as fast as she could.

  She rounded the edge of the garage just in time to see Oz step out from the wall and into Wayne’s path. They collided hard, chest to chest, then in a single motion Oz used his foot to destabilize the bigger man’s ankles and pushed him over. Wayne landed on his back, the sound of the air leaving his lungs testament to the power of Oz’s shove.

  Kate leapt on the downed man, pinning his arms with her knees. He stared at her defiantly and she realized he was younger than she thought—young enough not to be the product of a hateful time, to have been raised in an America where diversity was embraced, celebrated, taught in school.

  Young enough to know better.

  His hood had slipped off, revealing reddish-brown hair that didn’t yet have any of the gray in his beard. He wasn’t bad-looking. Certainly wasn’t a guy you’d glance at twice if you saw him loitering on the sidewalk. The hate hadn’t marred his face, not yet anyway, and for an instant she almost felt sorry for him. Maybe something terrible happened to make him like this. Maybe he still had time to change.

  Then his mouth twisted. “You’re a disgrace to your country, sleeping with this sand-rat terrorist.”

  “I served my country for eight years. You’re the disgrace.” She kept her voice level, but her body started to tremble.

  “And now you’re fucking the same hajis you were sent out there to kill? You’re right, you’re not a disgrace, you’re a traitor.”

  She hit him. Then she hit him again, and again, and again, and when her right hand stung she switched to her left, and then back to her right, bone meeting bone as she barely made out his grunts of pain over the roaring in her ears.