Page 4 of Don't Look Back

And she was. Now. She fully expected to fall apart later. After Malta. After she had answers.

Then the grieving could begin.

She stared at the phone for the awkward moment of wondering if the conversation was done or if she needed to say “bye.” The joys of group chat with people one didn’t know well.

Her stomach growled. She had only forty-five minutes for lunch. She’d figure out the rules of texting with one of the SEALs who’d saved her life another day.

She didn’t know if she’d ever quite be comfortable around Chris Flyte, and he wasn’t even the SEAL who’d found her lying on the floor, battered and at her worst.

She still shuddered at the state she’d been in when Lieutenant Commander Randall Fallon had found her. She knew she’d regained consciousness. If it could be called that. She was pretty sure she’d said something to him, but had no clue what.

Later, she’d told her father to send him and the others who waited at the hospital home. She couldn’t face anyone.

By the time she was ready to face Rand again, he was gone. Then he was deployed. Or maybe he’d been avoiding her. She’d never be sure.

And then her father had the stroke. Still, two weeks after he’d returned from the hospital, with her father’s encouragement—some might even call it nagging—she decided to leave him home alone and attend the baby shower for Morgan’s second child.

She arrived more than an hour late, and as she parked her vehicle, she spotted Rand up against his car with a petite, gorgeous Latina woman Kira had met once at FMV’s offices. Staci was a grad student in cultural heritage preservation who’d been a coworker of Morgan’s when they both waited tables at Double D, a restaurant known for its busty, scantily clad servers.

Staci was beautiful and bold and everything Kira wasn’t.

She wasn’t sure if Rand and Staci had kissed, but regardless of whether or not lips were involved, there had definitely been a moment between the attractive couple. Then Rand opened the passenger door, and Staci climbed inside. Kira ducked in her seat as Rand drove by. She’d waited until they were gone, then she started her engine and drove home to her ailing father. She didnothave the energy for peopling after witnessing that.

She’d missed her shot with Lieutenant Commander Randall Fallon when she turned him down that fateful December day, but she couldn’t regret it. He’d accepted her no, but he’d left the door open by entering his number into her cell phone. That act had probably saved her life.

She’d textedHelpto Rand in the seconds before she was kidnapped. Without her message, no one would have known she’d been abducted, and Diana wouldn’t have taken an enormous risk that led to her being found before the man who’d paid for her abduction had the opportunity to rape her.

She’d done the right thing in turning Rand down then. It was just a shame that by the time she was ready tomaybegive him a yes, he’d met someone better.

She let out a sigh.Of coursehe was on her mind today, given she was teaching on his base and had just exchanged texts with one of his teammates. Thankfully, no SEALs were slated to take these classes. Diana had another series of lectures just for special operators that would begin next month.

Kira locked the classroom and headed to her car. She’d grab lunch at a drive-through. The car line was long, however, so she parked and went inside the fast-food restaurant.

A young Black woman in front of her in line did a double take, then smiled and said, “Dr. Hanson. I enjoyed your class this morning. You won’t believe how many times I’ve had to tell some dumbass on deployment to leave artifacts on the ground or that buying an artifact from a rando on the street is funding the very terrorists we’re there to stop.”

Kira smiled. “It’s an endless battle. Thanks for taking it on. Many choose to look the other way, especially when the person doing it is a friend or peer.”

“I’m planning to study archaeology when I’m out of the Army. I want to specialize in Black history.”

“There are a lot of opportunities in programs focused on decolonizing archaeology and anthropology.”

“I’m two years out, but I’m already searching schools and programs. Any you recommend?”

“I’m more familiar with art history programs in general, and when it comes to anthropology, I’m disappointed to say that efforts to decolonize the profession at the university level began after my time, so I’m not current with the most effective professors and schools.”

“But you’re so young!”

Kira smiled at the familiar refrain. “I’m older than I look. I got my PhD ten years ago.”

“When you were what, twenty?”

“Closer to thirty.”

“Wow. What moisturizer do you use?”

Kira didn’t want to say it was probably more about a life spent indoors and out of the sun than a good skin regimen, so she smiled and said, “Just good genes, I guess.”

At least thetoo much time indoorsthing would change with the trip to Malta. She was going for family research, but she’d have plenty of time to wear a bikini and swim in the Mediterranean. She’d walk along the walls of forts that were nearly five hundred years old and would feel the warm Mediterranean breeze on her skin as she looked across the water and tried to imagine what the sea had looked like as the Ottoman Empire attacked and eventually captured Fort St. Elmo during the Great Siege.

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