Always a Warrior(22)
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “She’s infinitely curious. When she wants to know something she asks. If she thinks something, she says it.”
“I’m a Navy SEAL, not a cop,” Damien insisted. “There’s nothing simple about it.”
“You and I know that.” Laurie eyed him intently. “As far as Stacy is concerned, you’re a hero.”
“I don’t want hero worship.” His dark eyes narrowed and he scowled. “I don’t always help people.”
“She only knows what she sees. You’re helping us. Otherwise, she’d be terrified.” Laurie paused, looked into his eyes. “What do you tell your children?”
He flinched, looked away, and then speared her with his harsh glare. “Nothing.”
“Do they know?” she persisted, clenching her hands under the table.
“Drop it,” he ordered coldly. “I’m not a hero—to anyone.”
Puzzled, trembling from his abrupt change in attitude, Laurie reluctantly abandoned the subject of his children.
“Not hero worship,” she murmured. “Stacy depends on you to keep her safe. I know it simplifies what you do, but she’s only a child. Please, don’t confuse her more than she already is.”
The tension radiating from him seemed to ease as understanding softened his expression.
“She’s handling it remarkably well.”
“I know. I’m surprised,” Laurie admitted then lowered her voice. “She trusts you, Damien.”
She watched him through the lingering silence. He looked pole axed, dazed. She let out a weary breath and closed her eyes, wishing with all her heart she had Stacy safely back home.
* * * *
The full implication of her statement hit Damien like a sucker punch to the gut. She didn’t say she trusted him, too, but it was there in the way she spoke and in her eyes. Normally he did not care what he did to accomplish a mission. He did whatever necessary, used any means ALWAYS A WARRIOR Patricia Bruening
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handy, to get the job done. But this time, staring at Laurie across the table in his mountain retreat, the deception stuck in his throat.
Will the end justify the means, he wondered bitterly? Is catching Crawford worth the hate and betrayal in her eyes when it’s all over? He scowled. Self-doubt was something Damien did not experience, not when it came to his job. He hated it now.
“What’s wrong?” Laurie’s tentative question broke into his thoughts.
He pushed his plate and his doubts aside and stood up. “I’m going outside—alone.” He snatched his jacket off the hook by the door and left the cabin.
Laurie watched him go and wondered what she had said wrong. She stared at the door for several long seconds after he had closed it loudly behind him. Confused, apprehensive, she cleaned the kitchen automatically. Her gaze strayed frequently to the windows, seeking a glimpse of him. The cabin stayed quiet, peaceful. She flipped off the kitchen light and found the book she had started reading the previous night.
She read at the kitchen table, determined to stay awake until Damien returned. But she failed to concentrate on the story. Damien invaded her thoughts. The crackling fire in the woodstove kept the cold night at bay, making the cabin cozy, even romantic, in the expectant silence. As she read, her overactive imagination turned herself and Damien into the book’s lead characters.
Lulled by the story and the atmosphere, she got sidetracked from the written words. Her own erotic fantasies, spurred by the memories of his kisses, spun through her mind. After reading the same page three times, she closed the book. Conceding defeat, she propped her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands, and let her thoughts wander.
Her mind stayed relentlessly on Damien. She sighed dreamily. He was gorgeous, with those dark good looks that made any woman look twice. Those dark brown eyes smoldered with barely leashed passion or glinted hard as steel. Tall, strong, muscular—another dreamy sigh escaped her. He intrigued her with a streak of controlled violence that was erotically appealing.
He could also be gentle, patient, and compassionate.
He could be harsh and uncompromising. He was danger personified tempered by a tender side she suspected he rarely displayed.
His touch shot sparks of desire through her. His kisses overloaded her senses and short-circuited her brain. Her lips tingled with the memory of his mouth on hers. Her breasts yearned for his hands, his possession. Her body ached for him, for the ecstasy she knew instinctively he would bring her. He drew her in a way no other man, even Stacy’s biological father, ever had.