Page 10 of Lacey's Fight

Why was he even thinking this?

He never worried about what a woman looked like.

No need to when you didn’t intend to do anything with them.

“You left without saying goodbye,” Lacey said, a thread of hurt in her tone.

That hurt affected him in a way he absolutely didn’t like, so Ben hardened his expression.

Instead of making her turn away, her expression softened like she read something in him that he didn’t want her to see.

Desperate to get rid of her before he did something stupid, he went to his go-to. Anger. “Why would I say goodbye? The job was finished, no need to hang around.”

Her flinch was almost imperceptible, but she didn’t back down, and he grudgingly respected that.

“You saved my life and don’t even want to know my name?” When she asked the question there was no heat to her words, no anger, just curiosity.

There was no way in hell he was going to tell her that he’d actually asked which sister she was and how she was doing after becoming hypothermic in the ocean.

Better she didn’t know that. Ben had a feeling if she did, she’d use it as ammunition.

“No need to know it.”

Understanding filled her eyes instead of the pain he’d been expecting. “Sometimes it hurts too much doesn’t it? To know the names of victims or potential victims. Eats at you. The ones you can’t save, and the ones you do because you know their journey is far from over. Their open wounds will take a long time to scar.”

Those words resonated with him with their accuracy.

It did hurt too much to assign a person to each of the nameless faces that passed through his life. To hold on to what sanity he had left, he had to keep them nameless. Couldn’t think of them as human beings. If he spent too long dwelling on their suffering, he wouldn’t be able to function.

Because his emotions were bubbling too close to the surface, he kept his tone harsh. Hard, cold, emotionless, that was how his team, the few friends he had left, and his family saw him these days.

It hurt to know he was hurting them by shutting down, shutting them out, but this was about survival.

His survival.

“Are you here for a reason?” he snapped. There was no need for her to be here in the parking lot of the military base. He and his team had done a quick debrief after dropping off Artemis team and leaving them to handle getting the three girls to the hospital and the six young men to jail. Now he was supposed to be heading to his cramped one-bedroom apartment, instead, he had been ambushed by the tiny warrior.

Again, when he’d expected her to lash back out or tuck her tail, turn and run, the woman surprised him by laughing. A sweet, free sound, like the song of a bird. It grated on his nerves because it reminded him of a time when his life had been filled with such laughter.

“I’m Lacey.” She held out her hand, cocked her head, and arched a brow, silently asking if he was going to be rude enough to refuse to shake her hand.

Little did she know he could indeed be that petty.

Anything when it came to protecting himself.

Something drew him to her and compelled him to reach out and take her hand. He hated it and in deference to the compulsion gave it one hard shake before dropping it like it burned.

In a way it did.

For three years he had lived free of any attraction to a woman, pain and guilt overriding anything else.

Was it this woman or simply the passage of time that cursed him into feeling again?

If his brisk handshake bothered her, she didn’t let on. Like she had every other time she simply smiled at his rude attitude. “In answer to your questions, yes, I have a reason for stopping by. I came to see you.”

“Me? Why?” he asked suspiciously. Ben did not like the idea of this beautiful woman tracking him down. That felt way too much like forging a connection with someone when the only connections he allowed were to his team and his family.

“Days like today, they take a toll. Sometimes you need to find a way to decompress,” Lacey said.

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