Page 41 of Hazard

Gathering what courage she had, she held his gaze, knowing she had to face this head-on. It was the only way, and as she said, she couldn’t go back to who she had been before.

“My mother is worse, so much worse. All she knew how to do was belittle me at every turn all the while trying to bend me to her will. I gave in because I was young, and I needed my parents’ love. I didn’t know what that would cost me,” she murmured. “So much.”

Leigh looked down, the ache in her throat so intense that she was afraid she was going to cry. She waited for the knot to ease, her voice soft and uneven. “They are pretentious, rude, and condescending, to name a few things about them.” She shrugged, a humorless smile lifting one corner of her mouth. “I was celebrated for what I accomplished, not for who I was, but for who my mother and father wanted me to be, and I was young and foolish.” After a long hesitation, she continued. “They groomed me from the moment I was born to enter Harvard and then Harvard Law School. They expected me to carry on the greedy family name and go into corporate law.”

There was a strained silence, then, his voice warm with compassion, Hazard said, “And you did?”

“Eventually.” She shrugged, a humorless smile lifting one corner of her mouth. “I wasn’t over being young and foolish.” She released a heavy sigh, unable to meet his gaze. “I fell in love with a Marine, James Summerfield…Jamie. He painted this beautiful picture of the life we could have, how I could do as I wished, and we could be happy. I bought it hook, line, and sinker. He said there was going to be a troop withdrawal, that the coalition forces were done in Afghanistan and the war was over. The president was drawing down. He died in a terrorist bombing at the Kabul airport.” She huffed out a hard breath and swallowed past the growing lump in her throat that always came with memories of Jamie. “Seven years before Abby Gate.”

Hazard sucked in a breath and went rigid. She turned to look at him, and the horror in his eyes made her curl her hand around his biceps. “What did I say?”

“Abby Gate.” He closed his eyes, and she could see how he struggled against what had to be very unpleasant memories.

“Oh, God. You were there?” Her insides shriveled up at the thought of this man being on the same ground where Jamie had died. She watched, as did many US citizens, as the chaos and heartbreak played out in the news. She squeezed his arm. “I’m so sorry.”

He swallowed hard. “No, don’t be. The memories from there are pretty potent. It’s only been three years.”

She nodded but didn’t let go of his arm. She clung to him. “Anyway, after he died, I was devastated. All my hopes and dreams had been shattered, and when I graduated, I took a job my mother got me at a law firm in DC.” Her voice had grown raspy, and the back of her eyes stung. She’d been such a copout. “While there, I got involved with one of the partner’s sons, and we got engaged. Then I tried on the wedding dress, and I broke out in hives.” She leaned her head back. “It was a wake-up call. I’m not proud of how I acted.”

“Hives. Wow, that was telling.” His big hand slipped into her hair, and he pressed her face into his throat.

She nodded, breathing in his scent, and it gave her a measure of comfort. “Exactly.”

“What did you do?”

“I bolted out of DC to a place my family owns in Aspen and told him I couldn’t go through with it over the phone. It was the same day I tendered my resignation from the firm and applied for a job in the Boston DA’s office. I never looked back.”

“I still think you’re beautiful, and now I think you’re brave and tough.”

She turned into his arms, and he hugged her to him. “I’ve had a very lonely life, and most of that is my own fault. After Jamie, I never wanted to give up my power like that. I needed to be independent, and of course, my parents were horrible about my broken engagement and my change of job. I got texts like you wouldn’t believe. It pushed me to work harder to show them that making money wasn’t as important as they thought.”

“Did it change their minds? Your success?”

“Ha, my success. To them I’m not much better than a doorman or street cleaner. Serving, even if it is the lofty cause of justice, isn’t what Waterfords do.”

“It’s what this Waterford does,” he murmured.

She looked up at him. There was affection, sensual hunger, and a deeper emotion that made her heart skip a beat. A blend of trust and caring she’d been so scared to believe in.

“I think that whatever you do or not do is what is important, not other people’s expectations,” he said, cradling her cheek in his big, warm palm, forcing her to confront the emotional connection between them that scared the living daylights out of her. “Validation only means something if it comes from within. Who gives a shit if people agree with you, or praise you?—”

“Or give you medals?”

He scoffed at that. “Yeah, or give you medals. What you do is what validates you. Everything else is just…noise.”

She gritted her teeth, shying away from the ease with which he scratched the surface of her painful truth. He’d gotten much closer than anyone had in her life, including Jamie, and she had loved him with all her heart, but in retrospect, she might have been harboring resentment toward him for dying, something she might have suppressed for a long time and carried that resentment over to all men in uniform.

“You think you’re pretty smart, Archer.” She covered his mouth, his lips so soft against the pads of her fingertips. “Don’t answer that.”

He grabbed her hand and placed a soft kiss in her palm, closing her fingers around it. “You can count on that when you need me. I’ll be there, Leigh.”

It was those words that she found the hardest to trust in, even though her heart wanted so badly to believe in Hazard—the honorable man he was and the promises he made. Tears gathered in her throat and stung the backs of her eyes. Not wanting him to witness her weakness, her greatest fears, she plowed her fingers through his hair and brought his mouth down to hers.

She kissed him deeply, hungrily, desperately, striving for mindless pleasure to chase away her doubts and uncertainties, something he’d asked her about before they’d had sex. Sliding her hand down his belly, she cupped his erection in her palm and stroked him. He grew harder from her touch, and she started to move over him to straddle his waist, needing him in ways she couldn’t define. Physical need was so easy. What wasn’t easy was all the other emotional chaos swirling within her that made her feel as though her carefully guarded life was spinning out of control.

He caught her around the waist before she could crawl on top of him and eased her back to his side. She made a small sound of frustration, and he deliberately slowed their kiss, soothing rather than arousing her with the slide of his lips against her soft yielding mouth. Then he grasped her wrist and rested her palm right over his rapidly beating heart and held it there.

He ended the kiss and nuzzled her cheek, her hair. His shaft pressed against her hip, but it was obvious to her that he didn’t intend to do anything about his hard-on. “Let me hold you, Leelee,” he whispered in her ear.

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