Page 41 of Secrets in Calusa Cove

“Well, that was incredibly awesome and totally unexpected,” she said.

He chuckled. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

She rested her chin on his shoulder. “So, are you going to tell me about these scars?”

He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “There are too many, and none of the stories are good.” He kissed her forehead. “They don’t make for good after-sex chatter.”

“I think a therapist would have a field day with how we ended up in this bed.”

“Probably right about that.” One thing he knew for sure about him and women, he sucked at relationships. He could get a girl but couldn’t keep one. It all came down to four things.

He was too bossy.

Too honest.

Cared more about his buddies.

And had war wounds that messed with his head.

Not necessarily in that order.

“Are you going to tell me?” she asked.

“You’re like a dog with a bone.”

“How about you tell me about one? Just one. Then I’ll tell you something about myself. Anything you want to know. I promise to be honest.”

Sounded like a fair trade. “Okay. Which one do you want to know about?”

“The burns.” She arched a brow.

“No,” he said. “Any other but that one.”

“Can I ask why?”

He shook his head. “Maybe another day.” No way would he tell her about the day Ken had died, not after just having sex. A wave of guilt hit his heart like a bullet.

Ex-girlfriends had always been off-limits, and this was Ken’s ex. Didn’t matter that it had been sixteen years ago. Or that Ken was dead.

Because the latter was partly his fault.

“Okay.” She tapped her finger on the bullet hole in the center of his chest—the one that had almost killed him. “How about this one?”

“Leave it to you to pick the two I hate talking about most.” He sighed. “But I made you a deal, so this one it is.” He rubbed the old wound. “It was six years ago. The guys and I were sent to an undisclosed area for an unsanctioned mission.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Basically, when shit goes sideways, the government doesn’t take responsibility; we’re on our own.”

“That sucks for you.”

“It does.” He nodded. “I was the team leader. I was responsible for the mission and for the men. We went in with our orders, but things got dicey real quick. I got new intel on the ground and had to make a split-second decision.” Mindlessly, he continued to run his hand over the scar. He hadn’t even felt the bullet tear through his body. “I acted on the information, shifting our plans but not our mission. I had the full support of my team, but in all fairness, they only had about four minutes to either agree or disagree. If we hadn’t acted, we could’ve come home and faced disciplinary actions for failing to follow orders.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not, but it wouldn’t have been the first time,” he said. “Anyway. We executed the mission, only some of the intel was bogus. That was my bad. I put my men in danger.”

“Who else got shot?”

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