Page 26 of Montana Silence

Chapter9

Liam

At one o’clock sharp,I pulled up to Mara’s house in my truck. I’d been ready for hours, and waiting to see her felt like torture, but I’d made myself wait until the time we agreed on. We were spending the whole afternoon together—there would be plenty of time.

Now that we were giving this a shot, I needed to fight against wanting to make up for everything we’d missed. There was no missing anything. Everything was still in front of us.

I lifted my hand to knock on the door, and it opened before I could. Mara was standing there, and I was stunned into silence. She wasn’t smiling, her face nervous, but she was absolutely fucking breathtaking.

After all this time, I knew Mara well enough to know when she was relaxed and when she wasn’t. There was tension in her body, but when I reached out for her, she didn’t pull away.

Waiting until she gave me the okay, I kissed her. The tension in her body melted away, and it was going to be a long day. Because her reaction hadmybody reacting, and as much as I wanted every part of her, I would wait an eternity until Mara was ready.

When I pulled back, Mara was smiling. It was enough to tell me I wasn’t the reason she was nervous. “Hi,” I said.

“Hi.” Her voice was soft but clear. I took her hand, and she shut and locked the door behind her.

I helped her up into the truck and closed the door before going around to the driver’s side. Reaching across the seat, she put her hand in mine immediately. Her small smile told me she was excited. Even if she was a little nervous.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Do you want to know?”

As she pressed her lips together, I recognized the motion as one of her thinking. Then she blew out a breath. “I trust you.”

“Thank you.”

Pulling out of the ranch, I aimed away from town. It was a far drive, but it would be worth it.

For a while, we rode in silence, just hand in hand. But there was nothing awkward about the quiet. It was just as peaceful as the moments we’d shared when we ran into each other on the ranch.

But I could give her a hint about where we were going. “Working at Resting Warrior, have you learned much about how Navy SEALs train?”

Mara looked over at me and shook her head.

That made sense. It wasn’t our focus on the ranch and not something we always talked about. “Well, I’m not going to bore you about all of it, I promise. But if you could guess, what would you say was my favorite part?”

After a moment, her fingers fluttered in my hold. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “Something with water?”

I smiled, loving the sound of her voice. “A lot of people guess that. Especially because it was the Navy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a good swimmer. But it was actually the air training I loved. By all rights, I probably should have gone into the Air Force, but I wanted to be a SEAL.”

“Why?”

Shrugging, I squeezed her hand. “They’re the best of the best. I wanted to be the best at something.”

Her curiosity was plain, and a time would come when I would tell her all about my past andwhyI’d always wanted to be the best. But that was a bit heavy for a first date. As it was, taking Mara two hours away from home was already pushing the first-date protocol.

“But it was the air. As soon as they told us we’d be parachuting, it was like everything made sense. The first time I jumped out of a plane, my whole mind went quiet. Everything feltfreeand right. I can’t really explain it except to say I fell in love with flying, and I miss it every day. Some of my teammates used to joke that I must have been a bird in another life.”

Mara smiled. I saw when I glanced over. “What kind of bird?”

I chuckled. “Not sure. Depends on who you ask. If it were any of my team, they might say a bird of prey. Falling from the sky and dealing death from above. But I’m not sure my life now resembles that. Maybe a mockingbird. Or a crow. A bird with a sense of humor.”

The road passed us for a while before I spoke again. “What kind of animal would you be?”

She thought again, her mouth twisting up. Then she spoke. All this time, her voice had been quiet, and it still was. But there was an ease to it now. “I don’t know what other people would say. But I would like to be a cat.”

“Stealthy and fierce?”

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