Page 79 of Cowboy SEAL Christmas

“No amount?”

She shook her head. “Maybe it’s because I’ve never had to live in real poverty, but I can’t imagine any sum that would assuage the guilt I would feel. That being said…I can’t say I’d never do it.”

He frowned at her. “You can’t?”

She lay back down on the pillow as if considering her words. She looked downright angelic with her blond hair spread out all over the pillow, her blue eyes wide and serious.

“Maybe I’ve watched too many episodes ofLaw & Order, but I can think of a few situations where I’d capitulate, mainly involving any threats to my loved ones I couldn’t circumnavigate.”

“Most people would just say no, they wouldn’t do it.”

“I’m under no illusions that I’m a saint, Gabe. Or that I wouldn’t do something that repulsed me under the right awful circumstances. Maybe that comes from working with military men. Maybe I’m just too practical to fancy myself the most noble. Sometimes people have to do ugly things they never thought they would. That I do know.”

No one he’d ever spoken to had articulated it quite like that, even Alex and Jack. They didn’t discuss the things they’d done, the questionable choices they’d sometimes made because of war. Because they’d had to.

But she’d put it all into words that shifted something inside of him.Sometimes people have to do ugly things they never thought they would.

He knew in that moment she’d understand. All of it. The darkest pieces of himself, and she’d assuage all that guilt, all that wrong and warped. She’d say he was fine, and she’d mean it—another terrible realization in a long line of them. Because no matter that it was irrevocably true, that he was one hundred percent certain, it didn’t change basic facts.

She’d always love her husband. Colin would always come first. Hell, being a therapist would always come first. If he hadn’t lived through hell, maybe he could believe he could contort himself into the spaces that were left.

But he’d tried that too often and too much as a kid to think it was possible. There was only so much room a person had in their life, and she didn’t have much of any.

He wouldn’t cut himself to pieces to fit into them.

* * *

It was an odd thing to have this conversation while actually touching each other, practically being on top of each other. While he spoke, thought, breathed, Monica could feel the tension in him. The way he held himself still or purposefully relaxed. She couldfeelall that emotion roll through him, and it made it all more honest somehow. Connecting.

She shouldn’t want that, but after last night, she was under fewer and fewer illusions she had any control over this thing between them. She’dcriedin front of him, sobbed like a baby. He simply undid her completely, and she knew he wasn’t trying to.

But very much against her will, she’d shown him a million vulnerable sides of herself, sides she’d held under lock and key so long she’d forgotten they existed. As if it was second nature, he’d opened that lock and Monica had poured out. Not the mother or the therapist, just a person.

She hadn’t been smart enough to ward it off, strong enough to walk away from all that. She’d fallen in love with him knowing nothing could come of it.

Cannothingreally come from it?

She didn’t know. She wasn’t sure she was ready to answer that question. She certainly wasn’t anywhere near ready to ask it. So she focused on the other questions.

“What’s your second question for me?”

“Second?” He narrowed his eyes. “That was not my question, cheater.”

She shrugged in that same negligent way he always did. “It was a question. I answered it.”

He scowled at her, and she wanted to press a kiss to it. Press herself to him. She wanted to forget questions and realities and the future. For the first time maybe in her whole life, she wanted to dwell in a moment, relish it, and not worry about what was next.

But he asked his question.

“Cats or dogs?”

She huffed. “That is not your question.”

“Oh, but it is. A very serious, important question that will tell me all I need to know about you.”

She rolled her eyes. Well, if he didn’t want to take it seriously, that was fine.Shestill would, and she’d answer his questions with complete and utter honesty. “Dogs. Cats creep me out.”

He laughed way harder at that than he should have.

---