She reviewed the event in her mind. After they’d arrived, he had a run-in with a crabby woman over a parking spot. But he’d laughed it off and didn’t appear agitated until his mother mentioned a friend keeping an eye out for him.
Audra had assumed the guys didn’t cross paths....
“The person who came to see you at the gallery. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
Sean affirmed her guess by the forceful way he threw more hay off the loft.
“Sean, who was he?”
As he flung another handful, the scenario came together. “He served in the war with you,” she realized.
Sean stopped. Without looking at her, he said, “Seeing the guy’s face ... it brought back memories I thought I wanted. But I was wrong.”
She waited for more, but he shook his head and sat back against the bale he’d been trying to destroy. He took off his gloves and shuttered his eyes, either viewing the scene or blocking it out.
Audra moved down to the floor and settled beside him. “You can tell me,” she said. “If you want.”
After a moment, his eyelids lifted, but he wasn’t seeing the loft, not the bales or barn wall in front of him. This much was clear in his gaze, same for his tone when he spoke.
“We were on patrol in the Humvee, headed to Bagram from Kabul. I was the A-gunner. I’d hardly slept the night before, filling in for another patrol. So I decided to get some rest during the drive. In the rear, you could lay the seatback down and curl up on the floor. I remember Sarge was cracking jokes when I dozed off. Felt like I just blinked before everything exploded.”
His voice gained a slight quiver as he gripped the top of his bent knee. “There was blood and the sounds of screaming, but I was dizzy and couldn’t think. I blacked out after that. You realize I only lived because I was taking a damn nap, right?” He released a low, dark laugh. Then his smile dropped off and he raked his fingers through his hair. “Christ, what the hell was I doing over there?”
Audra had no clue what to say. There was no logic to be carved from a tragic fluke.
Aching with a need to comfort him, she reached out and laid a hand on his stubbled jaw. He flinched, startled from his thoughts. She expected him to stand, craving his private space. Instead he angled toward her. The grief and longing in his gaze were mirrored in her own. She had never been remotely close to a war zone, yet still she understood. It was futile, the struggle to comprehend why you survived when others around you didn’t.
She opened her mouth to say as much, but he leaned in and smothered the words with his lips. His hands rose to her face. He kissed her with power and wanting, and though she was first taken aback, any resistance quickly dropped away.
On pure instinct she ran her fingers over the broadness of his chest and down the length of his shirt. At his hips, she lifted the pool of fabric and reached beneath, seeking the feel of his skin. His stomach muscles tightened and his breath slightly hitched. As he laid her down, his kisses moved to her neck. She caught a sound, vaguely, and dismissed it when his teeth grazed her ear. The pressure of his body set off a charge inside her. But it wasn’t just desire. It was more than that, a sensation she couldn’t describe.
Not caring to try, she rolled her head to the side, an urging for his lips to follow the curves of her neck, to which he hastily complied. His hands had just grasped her sides, the vulnerable slope of her waist, when a voice sliced through the haze.
“Sean, you in here?” a man called from below.
They both froze, their breaths rough and heavy.
“Sean?”
“I’m here,” he answered, collecting his words. “I’m ... just finishing up. Meet you outside in a few.”
“All righty.”
Footsteps shuffled out the barn door.
As reality returned to the loft, Sean’s body lingered over hers before he pulled back to sit up, giving her room to do the same.
“Audra ... I, um ...”
“Yeah,” she said. “I should go.”
He nodded, looking as flustered as she felt. Once they stood, he gestured toward her. “Your, uh, shirt,” he said.
Audra glanced over her shoulder and brushed hay from the back of her clothes and hair. “Thanks.”
“Sure.”
She pasted on a smile, her pulse not yet slowing. “I’ll see you around, then.”
“Yeah ... right.”
“Good,” she said. She went directly to the ladder and climbed down. She didn’t look up or reduce her pace until she was in her car, at which point she promptly zoomed toward home.
For half the drive, Audra couldn’t stop smiling. She wouldn’t be surprised if a blush covered every inch of her skin. She was a teenager after her first make-out session, a game of Two Minutes in the Closet—except a hundred times more exhilarating, aided by experience, and without an ounce of awkwardness. If you subtracted the abrupt ending.