Page 70 of Nuclear Option (Owens Protective Services)

A flush crept over her cheeks, spreading down her neck. I almost followed the trail with my tongue, but now wasn’t the time for sex. We had issues that had to be dealt with first.

“I should have told you about what happened with Jones.”

“Why didn’t you?”

There were a million reasons why. The things that happened in war were never easy to talk about, but then there was the fact that I would be laying myself bare to another person, allowing her to see all my faults, and possibly hearing the judgment that came with that. Then there were the constant reminders that I may have made a mistake with Jones. Despite what I felt was right, I still took the decision out of his hands.

“The easy answer is that I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“And the hard answer?”

I shifted beside her, pulling her closer to me. Somehow, touching her made it seem easier to talk about. “The hard answer is that I didn’t want to see the disappointment on your face when you heard that I couldn’t pull the trigger.”

I felt her breath huff out over my shoulder, then her hand came to rest on my chest, almost like she was trying to ease what I was feeling. “I had the chance to kill my step-father, and I couldn’t do it. Do you think worse of me?”

“Of course not. But the difference is that you were a kid.”

“Taking someone’s life shouldn’t be an easy thing, no matter who they are.”

And that was the crux of the problem right there. I could have kept my mouth shut, but if we were going to have a chance of making this work, I had to be honest with her. “See, that’s what I didn’t want to talk to you about.” When she shifted to look at me, I met her gaze straight on. I didn’t back down from anything, and I never would, even if it meant keeping her. It just wasn’t who I was. “You know I was a sniper.”

“Yes.”

“You said it shouldn’t be easy to take a life, but it was for me. It’s what I was born to do. I was never more at ease than when I had my rifle in my hands. The men I took out were dangerous and they were trying to kill men I served with. There wasn’t a single time that I felt any remorse for what I had done.”

She sat up, leaning on her elbow as she looked at me. “But doesn’t that eat at your soul?”

I shrugged. “Maybe, but I haven’t felt it yet. After the shit I’ve seen, I’m not sure I believe in God or a higher being. I believe in the people around me and doing the right thing. Whether or not that affects me when I die, I’m not sure. But I have this one life, and a code I live by. That’s all I can count on day to day to make sure I’m living my life like I should.”

I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Her eyes flicked away from me, and she almost seemed deflated, which I didn’t think boded well for me. Then again, I wasn’t as good at reading people as Rae, but I wasn’t about to ask her to come join us for this conversation.

I brushed my fingertips through her hair, tucking the wayward strands behind her ear. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m honestly not sure. It’s hard to swallow that you could take a life so easily, without any remorse. But at the same time, don’t there have to be people like you out there? That can do what needs to be done?”

I didn’t say anything, just laid there waiting for her to process what I’d told her. She laid back down, shifting her arm into a more comfortable position. I helped her adjust the strap on the sling so it wasn’t pulling at her neck. Then I laid back and waited for her to speak. It took longer than I wanted, and the whole time I was sweating bullets.

“There’s something I don’t understand. If you take lives so easily, why couldn’t you do it when Jones asked you to?”

“That’s something I’ve asked myself every fucking day since it happened.”

“And what have you come up with?”

I let out a deep sigh. I hated talking about this shit, but I was smart enough to realize that if I didn’t talk to her, I could lose her. And that wasn’t an option.

“He wasn’t one of them. As I watched him dying, I didn’t want to hear his pleas for help. You’re right when you said I thought I knew better. I assessed the situation, and I knew that if someone arrived in a certain amount of time, he would live.”

“But he knew he would lose his leg. That’s what he didn’t want,” she said, almost accusatorially.

“But he would live,” I said quietly. “We never leave a man behind, and I couldn’t do that, not when there was a chance he would make it through. And…”

I cut myself off. It felt like an excuse to say it, even if it was true.

“And what?”

Her hand clasped with mine, and my body relaxed into the bed. Just her touch had the power to undo me.

“And he grew up Catholic. I’m pretty sure he’s not a practicing Catholic, but I kept thinking that it was sin to take your life, even if you were asking someone else to do it.”

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