Second Chance SEAL(187)

Emory was doing everything he could to keep us safe. He didn’t want to see Mason suffering, maybe as much as I didn’t. But he had to balance that with the fact that The Network was still looking for us.

I felt guilty as I rocked Mason, bouncing him slightly. I felt bad that I had put so much pressure on him, put him in the situation where he had to choose between his mission and being a father. I didn’t know what he would have done if I hadn’t pushed, and honestly Mason probably would have been fine if we hadn’t gone to the hospital.

But he’d made the decision that I’d wanted him to make. Crazy as it was, dangerous as it was, I wanted to make sure Mason was safe, and Emory had made that same call.

I wanted to go downstairs and thank him, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave Mason. It was getting late anyway, and I could already tell that I wasn’t getting any sleep. I didn’t need to subject Emory to that same thing. Besides, I still had lingering anger about the whole thing.

I sat upstairs with Mason, reading to him and rocking him, trying to keep him as calm as possible. He ate a little, but not nearly enough, and went back to crying immediately after he was done. Hours slipped by that way, and soon it was nearly two in the morning.

For some reason, Mason’s crying began to taper off and I could tell he was on the verge of sleeping. I softly placed him down in the crib and watched as he drifted off, and finally, for the first time all day, there was silence.

I felt like I could finally think for the first time. I wondered briefly where Emory was, but it took me a second to realize that he would be sleeping like any other normal person.

I should have been exhausted, but for some reason I felt more awake than I had in days. I stood up and stretched, moving around the room as quietly as I could. I didn’t want to risk waking Mason up, not when he was finally getting some sleep.

I left the room, leaving the door ajar, and went to use the bathroom. I couldn’t help but think about Emory as soon as I got in there, though, as the memory of his body pressed up against mine in that room was still very fresh in my mind.

I wished I was confused about the way I felt about Emory, but I wasn’t. My feelings for him were simple: I wanted him, and wanted him badly. The more I got to know him, the stronger the attraction became. It wasn’t just his body and his cocky smiles that drove me crazy, or even what he could make me feel with his tongue and his fingers.

It was much more than that. It was his loyalty, the way he took to taking care of Mason, the way he was doing everything in his power to keep us safe. It was his strength. And we had similar backgrounds, which made me like him even more.

It was the implications of my feelings that were confusing, not the feelings themselves. Feelings were simple, obvious. But what the feelings mean for people could be devious and difficult to come to grips with.

My feelings for Emory were simple, but they were also complex. He was the father of my child and I had no clue what I wanted from him. I felt myself feeling for him more and more intensely, but did that mean I wanted him to be in my life all the time, to help raise Mason? That wasn’t exactly fair, or even likely given his job.

There was no future with Emory. I knew that, had understood it the second I’d learned he was a Navy SEAL. The man was a fighter, a warrior, and he would always be a warrior. No amount of diapers could change that about him, and he’d always crave that action.

I understood that, but it didn’t change how I felt. I wanted that warrior, wanted him to take me, to make me his. But I needed to think about what was best for Mason, and I didn’t know if Emory was best considering how much danger Emory brought into our lives.

As I left the bathroom, my mind a clouded mess of confusion, I heard something from downstairs. It sounded like a creaking floorboard. I looked down the hall and noticed that Emory’s door was open.

Silently, I walked over to it and stuck my head inside. There was nobody in there and the bed looked like it hadn’t been slept in.

Curious, I softly began to move down the steps. He was just probably sleeping on the couch, and I’d just heard him tossing and turning. I got halfway down the steps and looked out over the living room.

But he wasn’t on the couch. In fact, it was deadly silent downstairs, and totally dark.

I felt something strange inside me. My skin began to prickle with goose bumps and every hair stood up on end. It was like I’d stepped into a static field, and my every instinct was telling me to run.

I took another step downstairs and heard the noise again. It was definitely something strange, but it wasn’t a floorboard. I got to the bottom of the steps and silently moved toward the kitchen.