Page 86 of Cowboy SEAL Christmas

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Monica let out a shaky breath. She wanted to laugh. Hysterically. There’d been no forethought. Those three words needed more buildup, more…tact. She’d meant to lay a foundation. She’d meant to get a ball rolling.

Instead, she’d blurted out an avalanche, and he stood there looking horrified. Assaulted, maybe. Buried under a sudden metric ton of snow and rock.

But it was true. She loved him, and boy, did Gabe need to hear that. Monica might not be particularly fond of this horrible, naked, vulnerable feeling, but she also understood it was a step. Because whether he reciprocated or accepted or anything remotely positive, those were her feelings.

Love. So much love for him, and so much hope for them. Her mother had taught her something about the resilience of love, the hope of it. It would be some kind of insult not to believe in it here and now. No matter how vulnerable she felt, the way it twisted inside of her so she felt sick to her stomach, she knew Gabeneededthis and deserved it.

Love.Herlove. Even at her pride’s expense. “I know that isn’t what you want to hear.”

Still, he didn’t say anything. She wasn’t even sure he heard her. She’d dealt with enough men in trauma situations to know sometimes they went somewhere else when facing something hard. She’d seen waking nightmares, fugue states, total shutdowns.

She wasn’t sure what Gabe’s was—maybe all three. It wasn’t exactly clear to her why somethinggoodwould make him shut down, but she supposed it all connected to his fear.

But there was no going back. No pretending. There was only a future she could see, a man she loved, and even though he was so…hurt, broken, she was so very sure he felt the same. He just needed more time to work through it.

Talking. Time. Love. Those were the only true things that could heal, so she had to believe and trust in them.

“Gabe?”

“I don’t…” He shook his head, and some of that shock cleared. Unfortunately, it cleared into that blank, dead thing he did so well.

Her stomach sank even as she reminded herself to hold on to hope. Patience. She reached out, and he all but scrambled backward. In any other circumstance, she might have found that funny, that she could cause an ex–Navy SEAL toscramble.

But it only sliced at her in this moment, all the ways people had failed him. All the ways love had failed him. She wouldn’t, and her love wouldn’t. If she could reach him.

“I take it that was a bit of a surprise. I mean,Iwas surprised at how… I didn’t expect it to happen, certainly. But it did. Do you want me to tell you why?”

His eyes widened in horror. “No. God, no.”

“Then maybe that’s what you need to hear.”

“I don’t know what you’re doing,” he said, his voice rough. “I don’t know what you’re thinking.”

“I just told you.”

He inhaled, held it for a second, and then it was as if a switch had been flipped. He was done stuttering. Done faltering. He opened his mouth to speak, but she couldn’t let him.

“I know you’ve got a ways to go. Some demons to face, maybe. Scars to heal, certainly, but I think you love me too, or at least…you could. So I don’t want you to say something you’ll regret,” she said all in a quick rush.

“No, I won’t regret anything I say,” he returned flatly, and his gaze was on hers, dark and empty and the thing she didn’t want to see at all.

Certain.

“Ask me what kind of trouble I got in that my stepfather had the pull to threaten me with jail or demand I join the army.”

“W-What?”

“Your question,” he said, calm and blank. “Ask me: What prompted jail or the military?”

There was no way she wanted to know this. Whatever it was, he was using it as a weapon, and she had to remind herself that’s all it would be. No matter what he said. No matter how awful. It wouldn’t be a lie, because Gabe wouldn’t lie. But that didn’t make whatever came next the truth.

“All right,” she said, trying to find her own calm. “What happened that gave Evan the opportunity to manipulate you that way?”

“He found me with his daughter.”

“Gabe, I hardly think—”

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