Page 38 of Cowboy SEAL Christmas

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’re very good at deflecting questions. When you deflect innocuous ones, it only makes me wonder what you’re trying to hide.”

“That the therapist in you?”

She tensed, the fluttery warmth evaporating. This was what he thought of her. Therapist only.

She wanted to be mad or even irritated, but it merely deflated her. It was how she’d thought of herself for so long—therapist and mom. She couldn’t expect people to view her differently than she viewed herself.

But if she wanted to change, if she wanted to explore this unknown part of her that might not exist under any label exceptMonica, then she had to start making strides. Not just beating herself up about it.

“Do you believe in New Year’s resolutions?”

“No.”

She smiled a little at that. She did appreciate Gabe’s straightforward answers that he never attempted to explain away or apologize for. She wanted to find some of that for herself. “That doesn’t surprise me. You don’t seem like the type. But I do believe in them—in setting goals for yourself. It’s never occurred to me to try and just be me. I think I’m going to change that.”

“We are what we are. Sometimes the things we do define us, and that isn’t a bad thing.”

“Sometimes,” she acknowledged, intrigued by the way his body tensed. “But these are things that won’t last forever. Oh, I’ll always be Colin’s mother, but he won’t always need me the way he does now. At some point, I’ll retire from being a therapist. So, what’s left when those things are gone?” She looked up at him, but he was staring hard at the closed barn doors. Jaw tight and eyes blank.

“I know you’ve had to deal with that,” she said gently.

His gaze flicked to hers. He opened his mouth and she just knew it was going to be some scathing thing about being a shrink, so she released his hand and placed hers over his mouth. “Whatever nasty thing you have to say, I don’t want to hear it. I wasn’t speaking as ashrink. I was speaking as a person who understands how hard it must be to lose the things that defined you. Which you brought up, I might add.”

His dark eyes held hers, and he lifted an eyebrow. Belatedly, she realized her hand was still over his mouth. It was like a match striking, realizing she was touching him now, not just shushing him. His lips were against her palm, and her fingers were pressed to the firm line of his smooth jaw.

She jerked her hand away, then felt like an idiot for having such an overreaction.

“Maybe you’ll consider some advice from me then,” he said, back to soft and smirky, like he knew some deep secret about her.

That mask, because he expected her to argue. To scoff at his advice. She didn’t think Gabe suffered from any low opinion of himself, but he did think the worst of people sometimes. It shouldn’t hurt. It probably stemmed from the horrible things he’d seen.

“What you don’t understand is that being a therapist doesn’t mean I think my patients are less. I don’t think I’m above them, morally or psychologically. My job is to help, not think they don’t know what they’re doing. So, yes, I’d love to hear some advice from you.”

“I’m not your patient.”

“And I’m not your therapist, so the belligerent act is getting old.”

His mouth quirked at that. “All right. Don’t wait for New Year’s.”

“But it’s only a few weeks away.”

“And in those few weeks, you’re going to be alone in a cabin without your son and probably without your work. Why wait some arbitrary number of weeks? Seize the moment because you never know when you’ll have another one.”

She thought about that in a few different ways. One being that she would be alone. Colin would be gone, and she wouldn’t have any sessions with Alex or Jack. She wouldn’t be working with Becca, because Becca and Alex were taking a week off foundation work for their stay-at-home honeymoon.

It would just be her. No masks and no protections. Nothing to distract her from herself.

She’d known that, and yet she hadn’t really let it sink in. “What do you do with all the time?” she asked, something like panic making her throat feel too tight.

“What time?” Gabe replied gruffly.

She swallowed, looking up at him imploringly, hoping he understood why she needed to know. Hoping he would take this question seriously when he took so little seriously. “What do you do in the in-between times? When there’s no work to do and you’re in that bunkhouse by yourself? What do you do?”

He stared at her for the longest time. She couldn’t read that expression, except she was pretty sure there was at least a moderate amount of compassion hidden there. If that compassion was a figment of her own imagination, well, so be it.

“I work. I sleep. It’s not that complicated. Not that different from the navy, all in all, except I don’t have to worry about explosives anymore.”

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