Page 17 of Shielding his Legacy (Shattered SEALs #7)

“We’re just gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. Now you know everything there is to know about me, so let’s talk about you.”

She blew out air. “I hardly think I know everything about you.”

“You’ve been to my house. I told you about my mom and dad, my job.” He shrugged. “What else is there?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Men really are simple creatures, aren’t they?”

“We are. Your turn.”

Hitching her heel onto the truck seat, she hugged her knee. “What do you want to know?”

“How about we start with your defensive posture the moment I want to know more about you?”

“So, bears and psychoanalysis?”

“My skills are varied and wide.”

“What do you want to know?” She let her foot fall back to the floor. “I already told you the important stuff—my adoptive parents, foster care before that.”

“What about a boyfriend?”

Her cheeks heated. “What about a boyfriend?” she mirrored back to him.

“Have you ever had one?”

Her nails dug into her palms. “Yes.”

“Was it serious?”

“We went out for two years. He asked me to marry him.”

He held up a hand. “Wait, he asked you to marry him?”

“Yes.”

“And when was this?”

“A couple of months before I met you.”

“Huh.”

“Huh, what?”

“Nothing.”

“What, Gavin?”

He didn’t answer her for several seconds. “‘When we were together… You were a virgin.”

“Yes.”

“I’m just wondering why you didn’t sleep with your boyfriend of two years, but you slept with the total stranger who stopped to change your tire.”

She looked out her window into the darkness beyond and fought the urge to bring her knee back up to her chest. She wished again she were more sophisticated, older than she was.

A wide, rushing river of experience separated her from this man, and the more they discussed the realities of their lives, the faster the current seemed to flow. Working to affect an air of nonchalance, she asked, “What difference does it make?”

“It makes a big difference to me.” He slowed down, pulling over to the side of the road. “Look at me,” he said softly.

Begrudgingly, she turned to face him.

“You were dating a guy who wanted to marry you,” he said. “And you didn’t sleep with him. Instead, you climbed into bed with me on a wink and a prayer.”

The shape of him was hulking in the cab of the truck, his torso silhouetted in the moonlight behind him while the chiseled planes of his face were just barely visible to her straining eyes.

It struck her that she never expected to be this close to him again, never really believed it would happen no matter how many times she’d wished that it would.

Was she dreaming now? Was all of this just a figment of her desperate, sleep-deprived imagination?

“Why, Evie?”

She shrugged, guarding her heart like the fragile thing it was. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. Please tell me. Why did you sleep with a man you just met instead of the one who wanted to share his life with you?”

What did she have to lose by telling him? It wasn’t like he was in love with her, and what she had to say wouldn’t change that. He didn’t care about her, and he never had. She was embarrassed by that, and grateful to have even a piece of him.

It was pathetic, really.

It was also the truth, and she knew all too well that at the end of the day, all she really had to call her own was her integrity. Gavin could have the truth, and he could do with it whatever he chose.

But she would not lie.

“Because,” she said, her fear of his reaction nearly paralyzing her throat, and she worked to clear it. “I never wanted him the way I wanted you.”

The muscles of her body tightened with stress, a pinch of shame, and something that felt a lot like excitement.

She could feel the intensity of his stare fixed on her in the darkness, and it made her brave.

She went on, “You changed my tire, and you were standing there with your thumb hooked into the front pocket of your jeans, and I was downright panicked at the thought of you walking away. I couldn’t let you get back on your motorcycle and ride straight out of my life. ”

He didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t seem to breathe. She wanted him to agree with her, to tell her that he, too, couldn’t bear the thought of her walking away that fateful afternoon, but he said nothing.

When she couldn’t take it any longer, she faced forward and stared out the windshield, her mouth growing dry.

She may as well tell him everything. Then at least when he pushed her away, he’d have a good, solid grip on her shoulders.

He would know exactly who she was, how she felt about him, and everything he was refusing to reciprocate. “You felt like home,” she said quietly.

The words hung in the air, seeming to fill the cabin of the truck with their awkward, pointy shape, preventing her from taking a full breath. Eva slowly let her eyes close, wallowing in the piercing discomfort and hiding in the darkness as sure as if she were hiding behind a tree.

He wasn’t going to answer her.

A new understanding was taking hold, an uncomfortable realization she didn’t want to believe, but had little choice but to accept.

Gavin DeGrey wasn’t her home, he wasn’t her love, he wasn’t her lover. He wasn’t even in her life by choice, but by some twist of fate that exploited their brief connection and landed her beside him in the cab of his truck.

She was just a foolish young woman who’d been swept away by a river.

Tears threatened, but this time, she refused to let a single drop cross her lashes. It was high time her self-respect became more important than her feelings.