Page 12 of Fatal Vision

Theo seemed to realize he wasn’t going to get his way with this, his fingers gripping the blue folder in his hand so hard he nearly bent it in half.

He faced Colton, although he spoke to Shelby. “I’ll be right outside this door.”

The two of them were nearly the same height, but that’s where the similarities ended. Theo was a buttoned-up, classic Type-A overachiever in expensive suits and family money. Colton, his direct opposite, didn’t have two nickels to rub together or an ounce of ambition after six gunshot wounds nearly killed him and ended his career as a Navy SEAL. Outside of being a SEAL—the only goal he’d ever had in life—he didn’t have a single thing he cared about.

Except me.

But then, she’d divorced his sorry ass after the 12 September mission. In the dark recesses of her brain, she knew that was the reason Colton had put himself in the line of fire over and over again in the field, until he’d taken those six near-fatal bullets.

Suicide wasn’t an option for him, but dying for his country was.

In Colton’s arms, the scruffy dog bared his teeth at Theo. Colton showed his too, only his were disguised as that cocky smile.

Theo sent her one more quick glance to make sure she hadn’t changed her mind. She didn’t so much as blink.

Colton didn’t look at her until the door closed behind the ASAC. When he finally did, her heart stuttered in her chest. He looked so strung out, just utterly destroyed as his eyes ran over her—and not just her, herwheelchair—she didn’t know what to say.

Sadness. Intense sadness.

“Please tell me you’re not feeling sorry for me.”

His face softened. “What?”

“You’re looking at me like I’m two steps away from my grave.”

The dog wriggled in his arms. Colton freed it, and he ran right over to her and jumped in her lap.

“Salisbury, get down,” Colton reprimanded.

Salisbury went right for her face, licking her and making her laugh. “It’s okay. I like him.”

“He has absolutely no manners.”

“That makes two of you.”

Colton forced a smile, the action not reaching his eyes. “I’m dog-sitting for a friend.”

“You were always good with dogs. Remember Kala? God, she loved you.”

His face took on that sad-happy countenance when people remembered a beloved pet who had passed away. “I snuck her slices of bologna all the time from the Home. Outside of you, that dog was the only living creature that ever cared about me in this town. And by the way, I wasnotfeeling sorry for you.”

He closed the distance between them, scrubbing Salisbury’s ears as he plunked down on the bed across from her. “I would never pity you, Shelby. You know that.”

She did know, and not just because she was sitting in a swanky rehab place when thousands of his military brothers and sisters struggled with life-altering disabilities and PTSD.

“I’m just tired, cranky, and hungry,” he added. The dog jumped off her lap onto the bed to lick Colton’s face. He wiped the dog kisses off with the sleeve of his shirt. “It was a long fucking drive, and then I get here and asshat out there accuses me of murdering people and shooting you.”

He’d driven straight through. To see her.

I’d lie a thousand times over to protect you.The memory of his voice made her blink.

Had he ever lied to protect her? Her gut said yes, yet her brain couldn’t place when or for what.

Gripping the arms of her chair, she hoisted herself up, balancing until she could take that first step toward the bed.

Colton, suddenly alert, reached for her, but she shook her head. “Let me do it.”

Keeping her gaze pinned on him, she thought of all the good times they’d had as kids. The night he’d proposed. Their honeymoon.