“Hey.”
“A little late to be jogging, isn’t it?”
Luca lowered himself to the step beside her. “I suppose. It’s cooler, though. The heat really saps you down here.”
She let out a laugh. “It does, if you’re not used to it.”
“How was your date,” he asked abruptly. Then he winced to himself. How lame that sounded.
She looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. “It was okay. Had a good steak.”
Beefsteak? In for a penny, in for a pound. “Who was the guy?”
“Sean owns the Ruiz Feeds around town.”
Shit. He was good-looking, probably well-off, and she seemed to have enjoyed herself.
And he had two legs.
That was petty, he knew, but he was feeling out-of-sorts. Actually, maybe the pain in his hand was putting him off. It was literally throbbing, and he could tell that he’d missed some spines because even the air brushing across his skin was enough to send his pain receptors into overdrive.
Being next to her made him happy. There was some kind of perfume drifting on the air, something sweet, and he could tell she was guarded. Which he didn’t blame her for. In an effort to find himself and his own path and prove to her that he wouldn’t be a burden, he’d kind of left her hanging.
“I’m sorry.”
She turned her head to look at him. “For what?”
“For being distant,” he told her finally. “I didn’t want to rely on you so much that I lose sight of myself. I should have been the one looking for opportunities like the PD job, not you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “If I had known that…”
“No, don’t apologize,” he said, reaching for her hand. “It’s just… I was pretty depressed when I was first injured. I mean, not to sound like I’m throwing a pity-party, but losing a leg is devastating. And the burns and the rest of the shrapnel injuries didn’t do anything but destroy my self-esteem. I was a bit of an egomaniac in the SEALs. You kind of have to be to do the things that we do. But that old saying about the bigger they are the harder they fall is so true. Losing my capabilities and looks like that sent me into a tailspin. I was borderline suicidal, I’m not going to lie.”
Her hand tightened on his and she leaned into his shoulder. That small movement was enough to make his throat tighten with tears.
“And a big part of it was the dog. Thinking that I’d killed him with my negligence sent me into that much more of a tailspin. We’d been together for three years and he was a part of me. We slept together and ate together. We literally relied on each other for our lives. The thought of him being blown apart shattered me.”
Luca paused to try to get a hold of his emotions. “Then I get this email,” he laughed. She snorted as well. “And all of the sudden things are looking up a little. Each one was better than the last and suddenly the things that I was facing weren’t so bad now that I knew that Wicked was facing them as well. And taking care of him, being there for him, became my main goal in life. You gave me that motivation. Then you gave me a place to stay with my dog. And space of my own to heal and reconnect with him. You’ve done so much for us. Then you give me that info packet, which is a potential life direction for us. It suddenly hit me that as amazing as you were to us, I needed to stand up and make some decisions about my own life.”
“I think you’re being a little hard on yourself. You chose to come down here,” she reminded him. “You had another option open to you.”
“You’re right. I did,” he mused.
“And you can burn that packet from PPD. You will not hurt my feelings. I just thought there was the slightest chance that you could work together.”
He shook his head, turning toward her on the step. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I appreciate what you’ve done for us, it’s all been spot on. But I need to do my part to make these things happen. That means going back to my training and manning up, getting things in order that I can.”
“I can understand that. So, is that why you pulled away from me?”
“Yes,” he sighed. “A bit. I needed to make sure that what I was doing was for me and not for you.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “Okay.”
He tightened his fingers around hers. “I really like you, Erin.”
He thought her eyes might have filled with tears. “I really like you too, Luca. I’ve missed you the past couple of weeks.”
“I’ve missed you too,” he told her simply, and he wrapped his arm around her. If he kissed her there would be no way he would walk away tonight. “I didn’t like seeing you with that guy tonight.”