Page 84 of Silent Threat
God help her, she wanted to walk into his arms and ask for another kiss. She wanted to comfort him, and she wanted to be comforted by him. She was smart enough to know that she was in trouble.
Cole walked the path, staring at the ground in front of his feet. He wanted to be alone in the woods with Annie. He wanted her in his arms. He wanted to kiss her until the hurt and pain disappeared from her eyes.
Trevor’s death had shaken her.
It’d shaken Cole too. He should have paid more attention to the kid.
He swore under his breath.
He’d almost talked himself into believing that the treatment was working. But it wasn’t, was it? Nothing they did at Hope Hill had helped Trevor, and he’d been there for some time. Trevor hadnotbeen helped.
Maybe Cole could have helped the kid, if Cole hadn’t been so focused on his mission and Annie. Those hadn’t worked out either anyway.
He hadn’t been able to protect Annie. And he was letting his mission down too. Failing to achieve his mission objective burned him.
Except ...
He might not have a clue about the traitor, but he was beginning to have a terrible suspicion about the op in general. What if his mission was fake?
Maybe there was no traitor. Maybe his CO had invented the texts to make sure Cole entered rehab. Maybe Cole had been tricked into therapy.
Maybethatwas what he needed to investigate.
Chapter Twenty
Monday
COLE SPENT SUNDAYnight lost in pain—the chopper crashing, people screaming, burning. He woke swimming in sweat and pushed out of bed for a glass of water. Falling back asleep again took forever, and when he finally nodded off, his nightmares thrust him back into endless, bloody torture sessions.
He woke in a dark mood. He insisted on going with Annie to all her Monday feedings and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She was smart enough to know that her safety should come first, so she agreed. But she kept a distance between them that Cole hated.
She’d listened to the radio and updated him on Hurricane Rupert—still out at sea, but causing heavy rains and major flooding in the Carolinas. She refused to talk to him about anything but the weather. Or his father. But Cole refused to talk about that.
He couldn’t wait until the police nailed her stupid ex’s ass. Cole was tempted to nail it for them. Once she was safe, he could leave Hope Hill. He was no longer even sure why he was here.
Both his CO and Cole’s mother had suggested therapy before, but Cole had refused. Of course, when the request for the undercover work came up, he’d agreed in a heartbeat—despite the therapeutic setting. An op was an op. He’d never thought he would get to go on another mission again.
Would his CO trick him like that? Lie?
Or was Cole being paranoid?
For the last couple of days, he’d felt ...
Unbalancedwas the word Annie had used. Cole had been that when he’d first arrived at Hope Hill. But he’d regained some of his balance since, one piece at a time.
Now he felt not so muchunbalancedasunsettled. He kept having the unsettling sensation that he wasn’t remembering something, that something was off. He wasn’t seeing something he needed to see.
When he’d felt like this in the service, he’d known to look at the roadside for IEDs, or at high ground for an enemy sniper. But where to look here?
He sensed a threat.
Real or PTSD?
His nightmares were getting worse and more frequent.
Once Annie’s attacker was caught, once Cole found the traitor—or confirmed that he’d been sent on a fictional mission—he would leave Hope Hill, he decided.
Nothing could keep him here then.
