Page 112 of Cooper

COOPER: I love you. I’ll be home soon.

Yeah, that’s seven words, but who’s counting?

THIRTY-SIX

Natalia

When I getthe news that Ryan is safe, I hold it together long enough to escape to my room. Then I stand under the shower and cry for a solid thirty minutes. Relief. Anger. Self-pity. Frustration. More emotions than I can possibly deal with overwhelm me, and I know Joe is right about me needing to take a leave of absence before I take the oath.

I thought I was okay, but the truth is—I’m struggling.

Part of me feels shame for being too weak to work through this, but I’m also exhausted, both mentally and physically. I just want to sleep and breathe for a while.

I make the impromptu decision to go home to Vinake. I can sleep in my old room, help my mother around the house, and spend time with Femke. I need to do something that isn’t protecting anyone. Just be a woman, daughter, and sister for a while. I’m currently grappling with what everything I’m going through means. The last three years of my life have been devoted to all things Royal Protectors and I don’t even know who I am anymore. I don’t know when the protector in me ends and the woman starts. Or vice versa.

Until I figure it out, I can’t be a Protector or even someone’s girlfriend.

Even if that someone if Ryan Cooper.

Whom I love more than life itself.

I pack a bag and put in a request to take a vehicle for personal use. There are over fifty in our fleet, so I know it won’t be a problem. Sure enough, I get the approval within ten minutes and the only stop I make is to let Lucianna know what I’m doing.

Then I’m on the road for Vinake.

I turn on some music, grateful for the satellite radio app we use.

Taylor Swift is too romantic for my mood.

I switch the station and grimace at the loud rap beat that fills the car.

No, I’m not down for that right now either.

Somehow, I wind up on an oldies station, playing songs from the sixties and seventies. It’s not what I normally listen to, but Janice Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee” is strangely soothing as I drive. Her struggle to let Bobby go because it’s better for him even though it hurts her.

Am I going to let Ryan go?

I see a plethora of images in my mind’s eye.

The first time we met.

He was my new C.O., and I was incredibly intimidated, but his easygoing demeanor immediately put me at ease. He told me he would be tough but fair, and that if I paid attention and did what was expected of me, we’d get along fine.

And that turned out to be true.

Even before we became intimate, we became friends.

We talked and laughed, played soccer and basketball, and he helped me hone my shooting skills. He also helped me learn to breathe when I felt anxious, and how to rely on the others in my unit, no matter how much I hated asking for help. We truly became part of each other.

He brought so much to my life, the feelings I came to have for him were inevitable.

But those feelings also include fear and sadness and frustration.

Fear when he was taken prisoner.

Sadness when he talked about returning to the U.S. before we could be together.

Frustration that he left this time without a word, even though Sandor and Joe had not only known where he was going but had apparently put a tracker on him. I found all of that out after the fact and it hurts.

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