from Casey Jordan. For a few months with her, he’d let himself believe he could hold her close without getting attached. Then one day, the danger of such a belief hit him from the left. He’d been at her apartment, sitting on the couch with her snuggled beside him, watching some silly rom-com, his fingers toying with the ends of her hair... In the perfect peace of the moment, he’d known a depth of emotion he’d never felt before. It quaked something inside him, and when he’d kissed her goodbye he’d felt a kind of desperate, indefinable something that made him want to cling to her forever.
That night, his nightmares had amped their intensity, walking him again and again through the horrible day he’d been injured and Neil Aiken had died. He’d paced the floor in a desperate blend of guilt and fear that had made him want to claw at his own skin. He couldn’t love a woman like Casey. Couldn’t let her take over his life. He had too much to pay for sending one of his men ahead of him to die.
The next morning he’d texted Casey to tell her they were finished, full of lame excuses, aware such disrespect was the coward’s way out but knowing he could never go through with it if he heard her voice.
Now she’d reappeared in time to bring a deluge of memories with her.
In time to remind him of everything he’d lost when he walked away from her. If anything, she was more beautiful than he remembered. Casey’s gray eyes still had the ability to stop him where he stood, those same eyes that had made other men look twice when they saw her, something she never seemed to notice. Her blond hair had grown longer, though it still didn’t quite touch her shoulders. Shoulders that came to his chest, a fit he’d never known before or since.
But the fit had been all wrong.
Adrenaline and memories wouldn’t let him sleep anytime soon—if at all—so Travis poured a tall glass of soda and only wished for a second he had something stronger to mix in. He’d been down that road after Neil Aiken died, hard and heavy. Drinking hadn’t solved anything, hadn’t brought anybody back from the dead. It had made the memories worse and his thoughts exponentially more morbid.
So instead of wallowing in the past, he’d tried to call Casey. After seeing death charge her this evening, all he wanted was to hear her voice one more time, to reassure himself he’d succeeded in saving her. If he knew she was okay, he could put all of this to rest again and go on with his life without her.
But she wasn’t answering her phone, having Kristin text him instead of doing it herself. It shouldn’t cut, but it did.
She was probably upset with him for going behind her back to call Kristin, but that was fine. It wasn’t like things between them could get worse. She hadn’t spoken to him in months anyway. Not that she should. He’d been the one to walk away. He’d had to, and he couldn’t give her an explanation without making everything harder than it already was.
Travis took a long draw from his Pepsi and eyed the TV. Noise. Distraction. Anything would be better than the racket inside his own head.
His phone screamed from the desk, and he set the drink beside it, answering the call right before it went to voice mail. Casey. Desperate to know she was really still there, he didn’t even bother with a hello. “You doing okay?”
The question stopped whatever she’d planned to say. She stuttered, then fell silent before she spoke. “Yeah, I am now. I wanted to thank you for stepping in.” Her voice was uncharacteristically subdued. “You could have been shot.”
“So could you.” The thought brought those same fears he’d felt the night he’d left her. His leg muscles tensed, and he fought to relax. She really was safe. Things had worked out...this time. “Just the simple actions of your everyday superhero, ma’am.”
She chuckled low. “I see you haven’t changed a bit.”
“I’m proud of that, if it’s a good thing. I promise to change immediately if it’s not.”
“You’re making my point for me.”
He’d keep making it, too, if she’d keep laughing, would keep chasing away the dark. In the past, she’d brought out the better man who lived inside him. Seemed like she still had the same ability. “Sorry I couldn’t save your laptop.”
“No worries. I get to spend tomorrow afternoon resetting my old one after I interview a guy for the article I’m working on.”
“You’re sure your laptop has a password?”
“Of course. It’s mine. I logged into it every day.”
“Good.” He winced. This was all the opposite of how it used to be. When he’d met Casey, they’d clicked immediately, from the moment she’d walked through Lucas’s front door and joined him on a pizza run. This? This was nowhere near the easy way they’d once fallen into. The discordance was his fault, and it stung in ways that made his palms sweat. “What’s your article about?”
“Nothing very interesting.” The way her voice dropped said differently.
“I doubt it. Tell me.” Not that he needed to know, but he wasn’t ready to stop talking and face his empty apartment again. He dropped into his desk chair and propped his feet on the windowsill.
She sighed in what sounded like defeat. “A Joint Task Force North mission on the Mexican border five years ago.”
Travis gripped the phone tighter. The shot was too close to the target for comfort. If she was talking with John Winslow, one of his former soldiers, it meant this was all about his mission. His team. “The one we ran with Border Patrol, when we rounded up enough henchmen to put an upstart cartel out of business?” He struggled to keep his voice level. She knew he’d been a team leader on the mission and she hadn’t even called to ask him for an interview.
No. Instead she’d called John Winslow. Awesome.
But that also meant she was with John tonight not because they were together, but because of her job. Her admission brought a warmth to his chilled bones. Only because she was safe from a self-proclaimed skirt chaser. Really, that was the only reason. Winslow was arrogant. Cocky. He collected women and tossed them aside as soon as he got tired of them, and it was usually faster than most people could imagine.
Travis winced. Kind of like he’d done a long, long time ago. “So tonight was an interview?”
“Tonight was dinner.”
“Oh.” His mood deflated. A date. She’d had a date. With Winslow.
Not only had she been out with a guy unworthy of her, it was one of his former soldiers to boot. The more he thought about it, the faster his fingers drummed the desk. “You could have interviewed me. I led the team.”
“I know.”
But she hadn’t called him. No explanation. No reason. Just I know. Maybe he deserved it.
Maybe it still burned anyway.
“I’m meeting him tomorrow afternoon at his house to go over—”
“I’ll go with you.” He’d take off work if he had to. No way was she going to meet Winslow at his house alone. The guy was smooth, and Casey was trusting. He’d have her head spun around so fast...
“Absolutely not.” Her words
