Page 21 of Cowboy SEAL Christmas

“This is ridiculous.Youare ridiculous.” He’d somehow taken all the anger out of her and all she had left was that soft spot of hurt. “You can’t know what it’s like to watch your kid struggle with a nightmare. To not be able to do anything about it.”

“No, I don’t.”

There were a million things left unsaid there, and she was tempted to slap her hands over her mouth so the questions piling up in her head didn’t escape. She’d already fallen intotherapist questionsa little too easily with him, and he’d made clear again and again that he didn’t appreciate it.

So she wouldn’t say anything about nightmares or war or PTSD. This wasn’t abouthimafter all. It was about Colin. Herchild.

“Something on your mind, Doc?” Gabe asked with that fake laziness that only ever sounded like a hard-edged bitterness to her ears.

“Nope.”

He leaned forward, so close she could count the dark eyelashes framing his dark eyes, count the whiskers he’d missed when he’d apparently shaved this morning. She could feel his breath against her cheek as he spoke.

“Ask it.”

She knew he was trying to be threatening. Trying to prove a point. Trying to intimidate her so she didn’t ask again. But shehadn’tasked. He was the one putting words and questions into her mouth, so she lifted her chin and ignored the fact the last thing her body felt wasintimidated. “Do you have nightmares?” she asked flatly, dispassionately, with none of the therapist care she usually infused into those type of questions.

He looked her right in the eye, far too close for comfort. “No,” he said, enunciating it with relish.

Chapter 6

Some tiny voice somewhere in Gabe’s brain was encouraging him to back off and calm down, but Monica had stormed intohisplace and started laying accusations at his feet, and then she’d had that patented shrink reaction.

Maybe she’d kept her mouth shut, but Gabe had known what her considering look meant.

What he didn’t know was why something sharp felt like it had been lodged in his gut. Something like betrayal, but that was damn stupid, and he wasn’t stupid. So it had to be something else.

“Okay, no nightmares,” she said, that blue gaze of hers calm and never leaving his. “Good to know. Anything else you want to demand I ask you?”

Why the hell do you think I want to hurt your kid?But he wasn’t about to admit that hurt his feelings. So much so he wasn’t even going to throw the fact she’d asked him to push things when she wanted to be overprotective in her face.

Hell, she hadn’t just asked him—she’dthankedhim for it.

“I gave him a choice. And we kept him away from the composting. I thought it’d be a good experience if he’s spending the next eight years or so on a ranch.” Why was he explaining himself to this woman so bound and determined to chew him out? But the thought of Colin having nightmares over it…

Well, maybe that’s where the sharp, horrible pain in his stomach stemmed from.

All of the anger that had propelled her to stomp over here, then throw verbal darts at him, it had leaked out of her. Instead of looking like some kind of angel warrior, she looked shaken and hurt.

“I…” She sucked in a breath and let it out, all dramatic like. “I apologize.”

It was too easy. Gabe didn’t trust it. “Do you now?” he drawled, and he didn’t move away from crowding her, no matter that there were new thoughts in his head about how she smelled like soap and syrup.

How was he supposed to keep his thoughts straight when a woman smelled like maple syrup?

“I let my anger get the best of me. I knew I shouldn’t, but…” She sucked in another breath, slowly letting it out. “Well, it did anyway. This is no excuse, but I was up in the middle of the night with a crying child,” she continued in that maddeningly calm voice. How Jack and Alex talked to her as a therapist, Gabe didn’t understand. He wanted to shake her until he saw that fire again.

“I wanted something to blame that nightmare on, that pain, and the horrible feeling I couldn’t do anything to protect him from it. That wasn’t fair. Especially coming from me.” She kept eye contact the whole time. It wasn’t that he doubted the sincerity of her apology. It was that he didn’t understandher.

“They teach that in shrink—”

“Would you stop saying ‘shrink’ all the time?” she snapped, and it was wrong that he was glad to see some of that color back in her cheeks. “I’m a therapist. Trained and licensed and damn good at my job. I have helped both your friends deal with their problems, and at some point, you’re going to have to respect that, even if you don’t want it for yourself.”

Fair enough. “I do.” He watched the shock register and rolled his eyes. “I respect that you’ve helped my friends. I don’t need it for myself.”

She took that in without getting huffy about it, which was something of a surprise. Even more surprising was her expression going soft, almost imploring. “I’m not out to get you,” she said quietly, with shiny, emotive blue eyes.

“And I’m not out to hurt your kid,” he replied, more than irritated his voice sounded rusty when it should have been hard and uncompromising with no sign of weakness.

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