Page 47 of Fiery Romance

“And which one do you fall under? The good guys or the bad ones?”

“Depends on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you.”

“Deep, probing existential questions seem a little above our pay grade, don’t you think?”

“I’m asking for Regan’s sake. I want to know what kind of father she has.”

He mulls it over. “Fine. I think,” he adjusts his fingers on the steering wheel as he finds his words, “I’m not afraid of doing bad things for good reasons.”

“Are you trying to say that you’re one of the good guys?”

His lips curl up. “Men who have to say they’re the good guys, usually aren’t.”

“Then why do I get the feeling you’ve had to say that before?”

His expression doesn’t shift at all and yet, I can tell that he’s feeling sad. Wistful, even. “That’s how I know that calling yourself the good guy doesn’t make you one.”

It’s a strangely poignant confession. It makes him seem almost… human.

I swallow hard and face the road. “I,” I let out a breath, “I guess I should thank you for your service.”

“You guess?” He glances over with an almost-smile.

“You broke into my shop, towed my car and threatened my livelihood. ‘I guess’ is me being a saint and compartmentalizing the havoc you’ve wreaked on me personally.”

Amusement is etched into his smile.

“I heard you lost your wife,” I say.

The smile is fleeting.

The muscles in his jaw work. I think he’s not going to talk about it and I’m surprised when he does.

“She was KIA.”

My eyebrows hike. “KIA?”

“Killed in action.”

His words make the car tilt hard. All of a sudden, the world is a much darker place. And I realize some people have more at stake than a simple power flex from a bunch of misguided neighborhood boys.

“She was a soldier?”

It suddenly makes sense why Regan was so vehement about her nanny not being her mother that first day we met. And why she mentioned that her mom was a superhero.

Bolton nods. “She was.”

“How did she die?” I ask. Then I realize that might be overstepping and I quickly backtrack. “You don’t have to answer that.”

Sunshine pours over his eyes and turns them to gemstones. “She was transporting supplies out to a combat unit that day.” His voice is stable, but there’s something in his eyes. In the shifting of his jaw. In the way he blinks rapidly. “There was an ambush on the Humvee. They were outgunned. It would have been better to surrender, but they were an all-women unit about to be captured. And in war…”

“What?”

“Like I said, good guys and evil guys are everywhere. But when you’re the enemy soldier in a battle to the death and there’s only a thin line between you and the end, sometimes right and wrong and human decency don’t feel as important.”

“You’re talking about killing?”

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