Page 85 of Cowboy SEAL Christmas

“But you don’t?”

“I know what and who I am.” He reached up to pull her hand off his face. It was so much harder than it should have been, but he managed. He managed to pull it away from his cheek, to drop her delicate wrist.

“But what do youwant,Gabe? What does it matter who and what you are if you don’t want anything? Aren’t working for anything?” She pressed her dropped palm next to the one against his chest, as if she were trying to give him CPR.

As though he were dead and needed to be revived.

What did he want? He didn’t want to tell her he didn’t know. That he’d learned to stop wanting things. Stop trying for things. He hadn’t even wanted the SEALs, not for him. All he’d hoped was prove to Evan that he was better than him. Not some morally bankrupt liar who manipulated the weak and vulnerable, but a man who saved them, protected them. A hero.

He’d gotten a certain amount of satisfaction out of that. It had suited him, military life. He’d started to believe he could make life on his own terms.

Then, boom.

Three strikes and a man was out, and he didn’t plan on getting out. No, he’d done his time, survived his explosions. Monica wouldn’t be another one. He couldn’t stomach the thought. If not for her, for the kid and…

“Are you going to get out of my way, or do I have to make you?” he demanded.

“Do you want to know what I want, Gabe?”

“No.”

She just smiled, smiled big and broad as if he’d said,Yes, please. God, tell me every last wish or want, and I’ll make them all come true.

“I want it all,” she said, her hands still there against his chest,pushingas if she could push him into wanting this. “All of you.Us. I want you to come to Denver with me to pick up Colin. I want you to eat dinner with my family, and then I want us to come home and be with our family here. I want you. You in my life. In Colin’s life. I want to bewithyou.”

Boom. Boom. Boom.

I either call the police or you join the army voluntarily.

Geiger is dead.

I’m sorry, I can’t clear you for active duty.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

She wanted to be with him? Under no circumstances could he ever let that happen. “No, you don’t.”

She laughed again, but this one was harsher. “I love when men tell me what I want or don’t. Women are such lucky creatures that way, always being told what we feel isn’t quite right because the men don’t see it that way.”

“Well, this is fun and all, but I’m going.” He moved to step around her, but she only moved with him.

“No, you aren’t. You’re listening.”

“Pass.” He didn’t want to forcibly move her, mostly because he was afraid if he so much as nudged her, he’d want to hold on, fall at her feet, beg her to take this panicked, squeezing horror away.

“You’ll listen to me. You’ll listen to me ask the tough questions, and you’ll listen to me push you when you’re being a concrete wall of… I was going to say stupidity, but you aren’t stupid. You’re afraid. I can’t begrudge you that. Fear—”

“I have faced far worse than you, Monica Finley.”

“Undoubtedly. Undoubtedly.” She swallowed, as if just by knowing he’d faced horrors, she felt some echoes of them. “You’ve seen things that would make me weep, that would cut the legs out from under me, and you have survived all those things because you had to. Because you learned to disengage, to compartmentalize and put it away. But life, real, nonmilitary life, doesn’t work that way. You have to engage. You have to… No, that isn’t even right. You don’t have to. Everything is a choice.”

“My choice is getting out of here. I won’t say it again.” If in any world he could have predicted her next words, he wouldn’t have given the warning. He would have pushed her out of the way and walked straight out, ears plugged and words ignored. But he had no idea and absolutely no warning.

“I love you.”

He opened his mouth to tell her she didn’t. She couldn’t. No sound came out. Her mouth kept moving as if she was speaking, but for a few moments, he only heard the roar of his own heart, some pounding, deafening thing that matched the horrific, splitting pain in his chest.

Boom.

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