Page 9 of Distress Signal

I snapped to attention. “Guess,” I said as I shucked my boxer briefs and crawled back onto the mattress, capturing her by the waist and tackling her backward. The bed groaned and squeaked, leaving no doubt any neighbors we had would knowexactlywhat we were doing in here.

Let ‘em listen. I planned to give them a hell of a show.

She ran her hands up my stomach, my abdominals bunching under her touch, over my chest, and down my arms. Her palms were cool against my overheated skin. Her fingertips followed the outlines of my tattoos, the mountains and trees on my left arm, the compass, flowers, and map of the world on the other.

“Well, you don’t get muscles like this at a desk job.”

“I work out regularly.”

“I’m sure you do,” she agreed. “But not out of some misplaced sense of vanity.”

“Misplaced?”

“Please.” She rolled her eyes. “You know you’re hot.”

I grinned. “As long as you think so.”

“Your job?” she prompted, not letting me go that easily.

“I’m in the Army.”

I didn’t want to talk about it, so it didn’t make sense to give her more than that, to delve further into the details of what exactly I did on behalf of the United States government. For starters, ninety-nine percent of my missions were classified, and the parts that weren’t didn’t exactly qualify as pillow talk.

“When do you head back?”

“Three days. West and I only managed to get leave because Lane was elected sheriff.”

“I’m kind of the ideal one-night fling then, aren’t I?”

“What do you mean?”

“There aren’t any strings attached to this. You’re leaving. Ilive across the country. You won’t have to go back to war worrying about making some woman back home a widow. After tonight, we’ll never see each other again.”

I blinked in surprise. How had she known that was one of my greatest fears? If something happened to me or West—or, god forbid, both of us—leaving our family behind to mourn us would be one thing. But I couldn’t, in good conscience, put a woman through that—asking her to wait for me, knowing I might never return.

So why did the thought of never seeing Reagan again fill me with so much dread?

Playing it cool, I said, “Better make the most of it before I go back overseas then.”

“My sexy soldier,” she mused, hands sliding to my shoulders and pulling me close.

“Reporting for duty,” I replied, a breath away from her mouth.

She lifted her head and captured my lips.

The rest of the world faded away as we lost ourselves in each other.

three

. . .

FINN

SEVEN YEARS LATER

I clicked my tongue,and the miniature horse I was working with in the paddock next to the barn trotted over to me.

“He’s healing up nice,” Abel, my foreman, said from where he watched outside the fence, his arms resting across the top board.