Page 83 of Trapped with the Covert Ops Soldier

He’d put himself in harm’s way, forher.

“Of course I let him catch me,” The words came out in a growled shout, like he’d been holding them in for far too long. “He had you.”

She blinked. His hands were wrapped around the steering wheel and his knuckles were white. He was furious... with her.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared, I was fuckingterrified,” he snarled, squeezing and twisting his hands around the steering wheel.

He was going to break it if he kept that up.

“That old man had lost the last of his marbles and he was quite happy to take as many people as he could with him into his last dance. You made it out of there by the skin of your teeth, Abby. Cut up, bleeding, and bruised.” He glanced at her and his expression was an accusation. “I’m beginning to think the sheriff is right. You seem to look for ways to hurt yourself.”

Wait just a second. “Are you telling me that if our positions were reversed you would have done something different?” She narrowed her eyes. “You would have invited me along for the ride, giving the shooter another target? You wouldn’t have left me in a safe place? You wouldn’t have delt with the problem on your own? Is that what you’re telling me?”

He pressed his lips together so tight they went white.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m waiting for an answer.”

“There’s a difference between you and me,” he ground out from between clenched teeth.

“Oh, really? Is it because you have a penis and I don’t?”

“It’s because I’m a trained soldier,” he snapped.

“So. Am. I. Maybe I’m not as trained as you are, but I know how to add and subtract. The more people I involved in this, the more targets I gave the shooter.”

“There was more to the situation than math. It’s my job to protect you.”

They arrived at her house, and he parked out front. Her parents were still there along with her brothers. They were keeping people off the property, and it looked like they had the backyard blocked off with her riding lawnmower and a couple of wheelbarrows.

She ignored them and met Smitty’s fierce gaze with one of her own. “It’s a good thing I’m not taking applications then, isn’t it? Because until you see me as something other than part of your job and a person in your care, you’re never going to see me as an equal. As a partner.”

He opened his mouth, but she shook her head. “No. Listen to what I’m saying, damn it. I knew that if I took you with me, you’d take too many risks to protect me. You’re an all-in kind of guy, Smitty. But I’m not interested in a guard dog. I want someone to share my life with. A companion, a lover, a mate.”

His jaw dropped and the shock on his face doused the anger that had been keeping her awake. She knew he wasn’t thinking long term, but ever since they’d made love the first time, the state of their relationship had been running through the back of her head.

Nearly dying had just crystalized things for her.

Glancing at the worried faces of her family, Abby sighed. “I don’t need your protection anymore. Don’t come back unless you’re willing to offer me everything. Because that’s all I’ll accept.” She opened the door, slid out, then closed it behind her.

Her mom enveloped her in a tight hug, her arms shaking a little. Her father and brothers asked if she was okay, asked what happened, and wanted to know if Virgil had really died in a cave under her root cellar.

“Yes, to Virgil dying in a cave,” she said as she pushed through her family to walk to her front door and open it. “He thought there was gold down there.”

“Is there gold down there?” one of her brothers asked as he followed her inside.

She rubbed her face with one hand. “All that’s down there is dirt and death.”

“Great dodge, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

She waited until her entire family had followed her into her kitchen. “Fine, here are some details for you. It was dark, dirty, and I was scared out of my mind. I was looking for a way out, not surveying for gold. I did find some bodies, people killed in a cave-in a long time ago. Right about then it became clear that the whole damned cave was unstable. Rocks kept falling from the ceiling.” She turned, grabbed a glass out of her cupboard and filled it with water.

After drinking, she continued. “When Virgil discovered that Smitty and I were gone, he came down into the cavecertainwe’d found gold.” The wall of gold, the memory of how it reflected the lamp light, rose like dawn in her mind, with all the possibilities of what she could do with that kind of wealth. But it was nothing more than fool’s gold. A mirage that would disappear, leaving behind a desert of unfulfilled good intentions and false hopes.

“He was willing to kill anyone in his way,” she said, her voice tired and sore. “No one and nothing else mattered to him anymore.” She stared at her brother. “So, even if there were rooms stuffed with it down there, I’d still say there wasnogold.”

“Were there rooms stuffed with it?” one of her other brothers asked.

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