Page 46 of Montana Freedom

Every action he’d taken so far had been to protect me, even if it was from himself, even if I didn’t agree with him. And right now, like this, I couldn’t stop my imagination from running its course. What would it be like if I twisted my face up and kissed him again, and how would it be if he kissed me back? I couldn’t stop my brain from traveling down that line of thought to something I’d never experienced but always wanted.

But it was more than mere sex and pleasure that drew me to Daniel. It was this life. The good he did and the steadiness of the ranch. He helped people instead of using them, even at the cost of himself. In the short time I’d known him, never had I seen him put himself first. He was always an afterthought.

I wanted to be the one who put him first and made sure he was taken care of in the same way he took care of everyone else. Everything we could possibly have was so close, and I wanted to try. Nothing was certain—I knew that more than anyone—but after all that I’d been through, I also knew you had to try. Life was too short and too brutal not to take a chance on the things you wanted.

And I’d never wanted anyone like this before. Wholly and completely.

“Can I ask you something?” My voice was muffled by his shirt, but he held me tighter instinctively and a part of me soared.

“You can ask me anything, Emma. I’ll never lie to you.”

I didn’t want to, but I needed to see his face when I asked this question, so I pulled away from him. Our arms were still around each other, and it was comfortable. My heart pounded in my chest and my mouth was dry with nerves, but I needed to know. “Do you like me? I mean—” I cleared my throat. “Are you attracted to me?”

Daniel froze. This close, I felt the tension in his body, but he didn’t let me go. And he couldn’t deny it if it was true, not now that he’d said he wouldn’t lie.

Shock was on his face too, and the rawness there did nothing to diminish how handsome he was. His throat worked as he swallowed, and he sighed, closing his eyes. “Yes. I am.”

Pulling away fully, I looked at him. “Then what’s the deal?”

“I—”

“I know.” I waved a hand. “You told me your reasons in Seattle, but I don’t buy it, Daniel. The reasons you gave me aren’t things you get to decide for me. I’m perfectly capable of deciding if someone is too old for me, and I can decide if you’re too broken—which I doubt—for me to spend my time on. But I can’t do that if you don’t tell me the truth.”

He leaned against the counter, and he suddenly lookedtired. Like the weight he held on his shoulders but didn’t let anyone see suddenly became visible. The change was visceral and brutal. “You don’t need to listen to that,” he said. “It’s my baggage, and I’ll be carrying it forever.”

“But you don’t have to.”

“Emma.”

“Daniel.” I crossed my arms and stared him down. “You know a fucking lot about me. Things I wouldn’t just walk up and tell someone. Everyone here knows I was a prisoner, but they don’t know the details.Youdo. You’re holding my secrets with me, and I trust you with them. Let me do the same for you. I know you think you can do it alone, but I see the way it’s eating at you. Right now? You sank in on yourself like you suddenly had one of those two-ton weights from the cartoons drop on you. Even if you don’t…” I took a breath, and the words burned in my throat. “Even if you don’t change your mind and don’t want me, please let me help you. You deserve to have someone help hold your pain just like everyone else.”

The look in his eyes was strange. A mixture of that same pain and the hunger I’d only seen directed toward me. That, and indecision. But the indecision didn’t last long.

“SEALs do a lot of different things,” he said, looking at the floor. “And more often than not, despite being in the Navy, they don’t involve water.”

I smiled, sitting down at the table close to him and listening.

“I’ll tell you what I can, but not everything can be shared. Not because I’m holding back, but because it’s still classified.”

“I understand.”

He glanced at me, his brief smile grateful. But the look in his eyes had shifted to pure grief. “I can’t tell you where we were, but my unit was going after some bad people. While we were there, we became aware that they were holding hostages. A lot of them. And they were like you. People in cages. Starving and dirty. I still don’t know what they meant to do with them. But whether they were meant to be sold or something else, we wanted to get them out.

“It changed the plan, but my unit and I were fine with that. Civilians came first. The people we were tracking, we’d found them once, and we could find them again.”

Daniel paused and crossed the room to the bar. I didn’t speak or ask any questions. This was hard for him, and I wasn’t going to stop him from doing whatever he needed to get through it.

He poured a small drink and knocked it back before turning to face me once more. “There was an informant. We’d been using him for years, and not once had his information been wrong. He told us where the hostages were, how many there were, and how to get to them.”

Dread pooled in my stomach, and as he spoke, it became entirely justified.

“He wasn’t on our side. After all that time, he was working forthem. Feeding us the information they wanted us to have and giving us just enough to hang ourselves. They might have had other plans for those prisoners, but when we arrived, they unquestionably turned them into a trap for us.

“We went in, and I’ll never forget the sight of them in those cages. I dreamed—dream—about them the same way I dream about you. Your face changes to theirs and vice versa. I can still hear the screams. Because as soon as we went in, it was an ambush. Shots and explosions.”

“Oh god, Daniel.”

He kept talking, not acknowledging that I’d spoken, like he was trapped in the memory. “I got lucky. Pinned under some rubble, but nothing broken. They couldn’t see me in the dust and debris. Everyone else…everyone else was gone. My entire team. Every single one of the people in those cages. Just dead like it was nothing, and that’s on me.”

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