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“Your bracelet isn’t inconsequential, sweetheart. How many times in your life have you been given a gift? That gift means something to you, and it should. When you pack up your things, make certain you bring that with you.”

“You make it sound so easy, Diego. I doubt that my commanding officer is going to just let me go after all the work they put into my training.”

“You aren’t a member of the military. They may have trained you, but they failed to make you part of the military. Had you been captured on one of your missions, they would have denied you were any part of them.”

“Naturally they told all of us that. Wouldn’t the military do the same thing with the GhostWalkers?”

“They do when we’re going on certain missions, but we have the backup of the other GhostWalker teams. We have certain advantages, and those advantages are growing. You’ll be one of our advantages.”

Diego stated the last with so much certainty she couldn’t help the wave of exhilaration that raced through her. He just gave her so many compliments, although he didn’t act in the least as if he had. He acted as if everything he said about her was a fact. Was it? If she could see herself through his eyes, maybe she would begin to have self-worth. She wanted to have a good image of herself in order to give Grace feelings of self-esteem. She wanted her daughter to be confident in every aspect of her life, not just as someone who knew how to hunt and kill.

“Nice to think I’ll be an advantage. I hope you feel that way if you take me home and find out I’m not all that good with household things.”

“Such as?”

“I’m organized, so I’m fairly neat. But I looked around and you’re a neat freak. I might drive you crazy if I don’t put everything in its place. I forget to add half the things I need to my list most of the time. Sometimes I can’t stand to have the windows and doors closed. I feel like I can’t breathe. That could make you crazy.”

He burst out laughing. The sound was rich and had that underlying velvet tone that caught her every time.

“That’s it? That’s what you’re worried about? I have a list of things longer than your arm that are going to drive you crazy. Hopefully, I can find ways to make my shortcomings up to you. I’m good with paperwork. Rubin despises paperwork, so I got very good at it. Lists are a specialty. You want all the doors and windows open; we’ll make sure we have good screens. The swamp can be very humid, and insects seem to like to invade our homes there. I happen to like space, so it won’t bother me to have the house as open as possible.”

“Doesn’t it bother you that you have an answer for everything?” She set her plate down on the little table and picked up the water glass. It wasn’t her smartest move because her hand trembled. She wanted to put it down to weakness, but she wasn’t certain that was the reason. He was freaking her out just a little bit with his absolute certainty.

“No, does it bother you?”

“I don’t know. I think you should have more concerns. You don’t know me that well.” That was honesty, not having low self-esteem. At least she thought it was a legitimate reaction. “No one can predict if a partnership will work out or not.”

His eyebrow shot up, and that slow grin of his took her breath. “I learned from a very young age to be decisive. I’m fortunate in that I have a mind that works very fast and processes information at a rapid speed. You do as well, although you tend to take your time to think something through. I have a little experience on you, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t going to catch up with me rapidly, because you are. You just have to learn to trust yourself.”

“Are you ever wrong?”

“Rarely, but it happens. No one is right one hundred percent of the time, and I’m well aware of it. The mistakes I’ve made have been monumental when I’ve made them. Hopefully, I never repeat them. I also am an excellent listener. I’ve had to be in order to better protect Rubin and the others in my unit. If I make mistakes with you, I’ll want immediate communication so I can modify my behavior. I haven’t really lived with anyone for a long while. I eat with Nonny often, but I try to fade into the background if possible. I don’t interact as much with the others as I appear to. That means I’m bound to make mistakes in our relationship, but I can promise you I’ll only make them once.”

She didn’t quite understand how asking him if he was ever wrong had led to him making assurances to her. She was doing her best to caution him about her shortcomings, but he kept turning the subject around to assure her.

“Diego, I have no doubt that you believe we can be good together if we both make that commitment and want it enough to work at it.” How could she explain to him how confused she was feeling without pushing him away? She wanted to be with him, but it was disconcerting to her when she’d never had those kinds of affirmations in her life. How could she believe in him? She had Grace to think about. She knew no other way of life than the one she had.

She didn’t like her life. The only bright spot in it was her daughter and Marcy Chariot, the commander’s wife. Leila wanted to be with Diego, but she barely knew him. Her instincts had always been good, and the chemistry between them was explosive. She liked him. But. Wasn’t there always a “but”?

He stood with his easy grace and took the plate she’d put on the table along with his and carried them to the sink. She caught a glimpse of his face, and he was back to that expressionless mask she knew he showed the world. Her heart sank. She’d most likely sabotaged the best thing that could have ever happened to her.

She wasn’t a coward. She never had been. For the first time in her life, she wanted something solely for herself. She wanted Diego. She just wasn’t certain how to go about it.

“You know, Leila, you’re right. I shouldn’t push you so hard. There are a lot of things to consider, especially since you’re a mother.” He glanced at her over his shoulder, his dark hair falling across his forehead.

“Diego, I don’t feel pressured by you.” He could make her heart stop with that one look. “I really don’t. You’re saying all the things I want to hear.”

“You don’t really see me, Leila. The truth is, no one sees me. That’s on me. I’m good at deception. I thought with you I could be different. I want to be seen by my partner. I doubt if anyone else will ever know me. I wanted that with you, but pushing you when you’re not ready isn’t a good idea.” He gave her another faint grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “I suppose that could be considered a form of bullying.”

“I didn’t feel bullied. Believe me, I’d tell you if I did. I felt as if someone—you—cared for me for the first time in my life. I feel that way every time you talk to me or do anything for me. It isn’t because you saved my life; it’s because I do see you.”

“Maybe you only think you do.”

She had to find a way to get him to be open with her again. He had closed himself off. He still had that low, gentle tone with her, but he wasn’t using the voice—the one she instinctively knew he had reserved only for her.

“You mentioned your mother a couple of times. What was your father like?” She truly hoped he’d been a good man who loved his wife and children.

Diego leaned one hip against the sink, half turned to face her. Again, that dim light seemed to wash over him, putting shine in his hair and casting his face in a shadow. His eyes held a peculiar glow to them, almost as if he were a wolf or a large cat of some kind. Hunter’s eyes. Eyes that could see in the dark. Eyes that could look inside you and expose your soul.

“My father was a very stern man. He and my mother were extremely religious, and just about everything was a sin. Telling my sisters stories of fairies and fantasy was a sin. Missing a deer with a single bullet was a sin. Pretty much everything was.” He went silent.

Leila’s heart sank. She had hoped for a good memory of his father. He had to get his code somewhere. It hadn’t been from his mother.

“On the other hand, there was a lot more laughter in the house with my father around. He cushioned my mother all the time, although he was insistent on having children. He believed it was her fault that she had so many girls when they needed sons. Rubin tried to tell him he was responsible, but my father didn’t take kindly to a very young child telling him anything about the reproductive system. He could never quite accept the fact that Rubin was brilliant. My mother, as sick as she was, recognized it.”

Leila wondered why neither of his parents saw the genius in Diego. It was there for anyone with half a brain to see.

“My father may have been exacting, but he taught us how to survive. To fish, hunt, track, to live off the land. If we hadn’t had him, Rubin and I wouldn’t have made it.”

She saw through the little he told her about his life. He’d lived under harsh conditions and simply accepted it. His childhood was where he’d learned that calm acceptance.

“Tell me something no one knows. Not even your brother.”

He dried off the plates and returned them to the cupboard. “I’ve done a lot of things, sweetheart. Most of them aren’t things to discuss with someone you’re courting.” He sent her another enigmatic smile. “Perhaps a year or two after we give Grace a brother or sister.”

Leila allowed her gaze to drift over him. She couldn’t help feeling a little possessive. And she liked the idea that he wanted more children. He seemed to accept Grace as much as he accepted her.

“Have you been around a lot of children?”

“A couple of the GhostWalkers in my unit have families. Wyatt and Pepper Fontenot have five little girls.” His mischievous grin came back, this time lighting his eyes. “They have triplets and twins. Those little girls, the triplets, when they first came, were really intelligent, but just tiny toddlers. They’re very venomous, and when they were teething, it was quite a circus. We had a few nicknames for them, ‘the Little Vipers’ being the most prevalent. That didn’t go over well with Pepper.” He laughed at the memory.

Leila loved that he’d shed that hard edge he usually wore. She didn’t want him to have it around her.

“Then there’s Trap and Cayenne Dawkins. They have twins, a boy and a girl. Trap is on the spectrum and so off-the-charts smart it’s scary. Cayenne is as lethal as hell but is totally devoted to Trap. I have no idea how they work, but they do. You rarely see one without the other. Trap has even managed to be a good father. I suspect Wyatt works with him. The two of them have always been tight.”

“Do they live close to you?”

He nodded. “Wyatt’s grandmother has lived out there in the swamp for years. She welcomed every single one of us. Until I met her, the only other woman who had an impact on me was Lotty, Luther’s wife. She was very much like Nonny, a woman who was a full partner with her man and very devoted to her family.”

“I’m glad he had that,” she murmured. She knew he heard the note of exhaustion in her voice because he immediately lifted her, cradling her close to take her to the bathroom.

“Let’s get you in bed and we can continue the conversation. It’s been a long day, and I think we both could use some sleep.”

For some reason she liked that he admitted he was tired as well. She didn’t feel quite so much of a burden. He had a spare toothbrush, which was especially nice, and once she was under the covers, she felt quite comfortable. He hadn’t put her in the loft, instead choosing the room she knew he most likely used. Rather than leaving her alone, he tossed a sleeping bag on the floor and stretched out after extinguishing all the lights.

Out of the darkness, Diego’s low, velvety voice brushed over her. “You really want to know something about me no one else knows?”

“Only if you’re okay with telling me.” She wrapped her arms around herself, holding her breath, hoping he would share a part of his life with her he’d never entrusted to anyone else—not even his brother.

“After my father died, my two older brothers, Caleb and Abel, left in search of work in order to provide for the family. When they didn’t come back and things got tight, our mother insisted I go hunting for food. It was a particularly hard winter, and the snow just kept coming down. We were pretty damn young to go out in a blizzard, but I guess she was desperate. Rubin didn’t say a word, he just caught up a rifle and stalked out. I followed him. I’m not sure either of us believed we’d be back. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, and it was cold. Have you ever been so cold you honestly thought you’d freeze to death and someone would come months or years later and find your body perfectly intact because the cold preserved you?”

Leila could tell he was really asking. He wanted to know about her past as much as she wanted to know about his. “I was ordered to slip into Siberia during one of the worst cold spells they had. The information was that Akim Sokolov, a known arms dealer, was hiding out there. I was to eliminate him and get out of the country without being seen. Akim Sokolov was reputed to be best friends with Artem Kozlov, a known member of the Russian KGB. That explained why he was being protected, why he was allowed to hide from all the law enforcement hunting for him.”

“You went in alone? No backup?”

Was there a thread of anger in his usually calm voice? She had a strange reaction to that note, her body suddenly completely aware of him. She was grateful for the darkness.

“Yes, that is how I work best. I have never been so cold before or since. It felt like my blood had turned to ice. It took time to locate Akim and then plan out what my course of action would be. I would have preferred to do so in the warmth of a house, but I needed to do reconnaissance on Akim’s residence if I was going to be successful.”

“My little warrior woman. Unsurprisingly, you persevered no matter the circumstances.”

She laughed softly, sharing that moment with him. The darkness made it so much easier to be natural with him. “I wasn’t going back with a failed assignment hanging over my head. The men barely respected me, and falling down one time would have put me in a much more dangerous position.”

There was a small silence. “Dangerous?” he echoed.

She shouldn’t have used that word. It was the truth, but she should have known he would take exception to her being in any kind of danger from her fellow soldiers.

“I was able to get to my target and eliminate him,” she assured. “And I made it out of the country with no one the wiser. What happened with you and your brother in the blizzard?” She blatantly changed the subject, although she genuinely wanted to know.

“Rubin and I were able to get meat for the household, but during the hunt, we discussed why our older brothers hadn’t returned. The plan had been for them to get work in the nearest town and bring home supplies to the family. They’d been gone nearly two months. We both knew they would never have stayed away if they could help it. Rubin thought they were dead. I was sure our mother thought so as well.”

“But you didn’t?”

“I did, but I wanted to know for certain. I needed to know. At night I’d lay in bed and think about it. It seemed so wrong to me that we just assumed they were dead, and we left them as if they didn’t matter. As if because they hadn’t contributed the way she wanted, our mother thought it was no big deal to write them off.”

Her heart went out to that little boy who struggled with the knowledge that his mother thought they were expendable. That he was expendable. She wanted to put her arms around him and hold him close.

“The longer I lost sleep over it, the more important it became to me to find out where they were and what happened to them.”

He turned his head toward her. She imagined that little boy determined to find out what happened to his brothers in order to put things right. In the dark, his eyes appeared much like that of a large cat. Those eyes, glowing the way they were, sent chills skittering down her spine despite her heart going out to the child he had been.

Diego fell silent again, and she needed the sound of his voice to keep her grounded. “Tell me what happened.” She whispered the plea because the night seemed to be taking on a sinister feel.

“I didn’t want Rubin to know what I was doing, so I waited until he was doing his early morning chores and I snuck away. The snow was coming down heavy, and I knew it would fill in my tracks. I had an idea of the route Abel and Caleb would have taken toward town. I knew it would be impossible to actually track them after two months and a couple of blizzards, but I’d reached a point that I didn’t always need physical tracks in order to follow someone.”

Once again, his eyes found her in the inky dark, sending that same chill down her spine. It wasn’t a threat, but his statement felt like one. She had a strange talent for finding her targets, one she couldn’t explain, but she instinctively knew this man would be far superior at tracking. Once set on a course, he wouldn’t stop until he succeeded. That was both good and bad for her, especially since he appeared to want her.

“Did you find them? Find out what happened to them?”

He turned away from her. “Yeah. I did. They were traveling the way I figured they would go when they suddenly veered off course and started up toward the old mine. After two months, there were no tracks and the snow was very deep, covering the ground so I couldn’t tell what had caused them to leave the main track and head up toward the mine.”

“Someone chasing them?”

“I think it was a something. And I think one of my brothers was injured. I believe they went to the mine for shelter.”

Leila thought about what it would be like for the two young teens to hike through the forest, knowing their father had just died and they had to support their family. “What do you think happened to them, Diego?” She couldn’t help the compassion in her voice. She felt terrible for those two boys. And worse for Diego. He had been so young.

“Sweetheart.” His voice came out of the night, stroking over her skin like the touch of fingers. “I didn’t tell you this to upset you. I wanted to share something with you I’ve never talked about to anyone, but I should have chosen some other experience, not that I had many in my childhood better than this one. And most of the time, Rubin was with me.”

She understood what he was saying. Rubin knew most of the things that had happened to Diego as a child. “I want you to tell me. I asked you, remember? I do feel terrible for your brothers and for you, at least the child that was you. When Marcy first told me she had overheard her husband and some others talking about Whitney and what he’d done to my sister, I knew I had to find Bridget and get her away from that madman. You had two brothers you were looking for and you already knew they were dead. At least when I set off looking for Bridget, I knew she was alive. Please tell me the rest of what happened.”

“There isn’t too much more to tell. I found their skeletons just outside of the mine. Caleb clearly had injuries to his leg. It appeared as if he’d encountered a bear. At least I thought it was a bear. The break was severe, with obvious trauma to the bone. There were more signs on both of them of an attack by a large predator. It would be unusual for any bear to attack so viciously unless they had disturbed it in some way. It had clearly followed them.”

She rubbed at her thighs. Her muscles didn’t like her lying around in bed so much. “I’ve not heard about bears attacking people.”

“As I said, it would have been highly unusual. The bear could have been injured. For all I know they could have shot it, thinking to bring back the meat for the family.”

For the first time, Diego’s voice wasn’t so matter-of-fact. His tone gave away the fact that he felt a deep sorrow. She was very tuned to him and definitely reactive to him. Those notes in his voice sent the need whispering through her to hold him close. To comfort him. She doubted if Diego had experienced very much comfort in his life. That made it all the more important to her to be the one to give him the things he needed.

“In any case, I found their remains and buried them deep. I didn’t feel my mother deserved to know what happened to them. That was wrong of me, but at the time I was still holding on to anger with the way she treated all of us. I knew if I told Rubin, he would tell her. He always did the right thing, no matter what his feelings were. I honestly wanted to be more like him and not Satan’s apprentice, as my mother called me, but I had too many anger issues to always do the right thing. I didn’t even want to. On my way home, I came across a doe who had broken her leg. I was able to bring that meat home to the family. I was still punished for leaving without permission, but I escaped the worst of her wrath. And it helped to conceal from Rubin what I’d really been doing.”

“You feel guilty.”

There was a small silence. “Perhaps a little. I laid them to rest and marked the grave site carefully so I would know any time of year exactly where their remains were. I wanted to be able to go get them and bring them home. I don’t know why I never did. I think it was because I didn’t want to admit to my brother what I’d done.”

“Diego, I hate to admit this to you, but I probably would have done the same thing. I didn’t experience the things you did, and I find myself angry with your mother. I wouldn’t have wanted her to know I’d found my brothers and laid them to rest.”

“I should have told Rubin. I didn’t even leave him the information when I had all my affairs in order.”

“You had your affairs in order? For what reason?” She didn’t like the sound of that.

“I’m a soldier, Leila,” he said, his voice gentle. “I always keep my affairs in order. But if I’m being honest, and because I want a real relationship with you, the truth is, I suffer from depression. It’s a mental health issue I’ve been unable to overcome. It doesn’t hit that often, but when it does, it drags me under deep and fast. I’ve always struggled to get back my equilibrium. It doesn’t ever happen when I’m working, but once I’m on downtime, I can fall into a dark hole. Unfortunately, that’s something you’ll have to take into account when you’re making up your mind whether you want to take a chance on me.”

“Do you go to counseling?”

“Nope.”

“Do you take meds for it?”

“Nope.”

“Diego, you’re a doctor. You know better.”

“Yeah,” he admitted, “I do.”