Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Danger!
Danger!
Fight!
Come up swinging!
The orders in his dreams jerked him awake and just as his internal voice warned, Gunnar came up with his hands already moving, reaching for the figure hovering over him in the dark.
His fingers wrapped around her throat. It took a freaked out muffled scream and the feel of a female body lying on top of him as he jerked the figure forward before the nightmare receded enough for him to recognize who he was strangling.
“Shit.” He immediately released her. “I’m sorry.
I didn’t recognize you. Did I hurt you?” He wrapped his arm around her waist and where her fingers touched her throat with his.
“I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” he asked again.
This was one of the many reasons he didn’t get involved with women, and certainly didn’t sleep over when he did.
“I was dreaming…” The longer it took for her to answer, the more concerned he got.
He shifted them on the couch so he could roll off without dropping her on the floor. “Ice… I’ll get you some ice.”
He got to his feet and flipped on the small light on the table at the end of the couch.
Fuck! I didn’t mean to hurt her.
He berated himself as he opened the freezer and wrapped a bag of ice in a towel.
Despite what his ex-wife said, he’d never gotten his jollies out of hurting women.
Assholes and tangos, yes. Women, absolutely not.
Yet here he was proving everything she’d splashed all over her social media pages true.
He brought the ice to where Jorja still sat on the couch.
“Let me see.” He crouched in front of her. “Did I hurt you?”
She slowly lowered her hands and shook her head. “No.”
“Thank fuck.” He studied the red marks for less than a second before he covered the evidence of his stupidity with the ice. “This will reduce the swelling.”
“Thank you.” She covered his hand with hers, holding the towel in place. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Are you shitting me? I hurt you, not the other way around.”
“Yeah, you did. But I should have known better than to startle you awake.”
At least she wasn’t trying to take all the blame. If he could kick his own ass, he’d do it. He made a mental note to tell Talon not to go easy on him when they sparred tomorrow.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.” If she asked him to take her back to Marco’s sister’s hotel right now, he’d give it serious consideration. Given the circumstances, she might be safer there.
“Will you tell me about them?” She moved the ice to the other side of her neck. “Your nightmares.”
He sat back down on the couch to buy himself some time.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to discuss the reel of horrors which visited him in his dreams. There were way too many to even pick just one or two.
He dropped his head onto the back of the couch and stared up at the ceiling.
“It’s usual shit for me,” he said finally.
“All soldiers have nightmares. Some worse than others.” He turned his head to see the profile of her face as she stared straight ahead at the darkened TV.
He could tell something was bothering her, but didn’t know her well enough to figure out what it was.
He was just about to ask when she spoke first.
“What branch did you serve in?”
“Navy.” He could tell her that much. It was probably the only bit of his career which wasn’t classified at this point.
“Yeah, that’s what your records said. But when you said soldier instead of sailor, I was confused.”
He squinted at her for a second before understanding dawned. “You’ve seen my service records?”
“Redacted ones, anyway.” She moved on the couch until she too was leaning against the back next to him. “It’s all I could find online.”
“I’ll have to tell Remi that he’s slacking,” Gunnar muttered. “None of our records should be available online. Where did you find them?”
“I figured as much. I’ll show Remi where to find them tomorrow. He can plug the gaps.”
“Thanks.” Silence settled between them. He was expecting it to be somewhat awkward, but somehow, here in the room where the only light came from the small lamp, it wasn’t. He didn’t quite know what to make of it.
“Will you tell me a story from when you were in the Navy?”
Disappointment creeped through him. People always asked for stories. He hadn’t pegged her as someone who wanted to know if he’d killed anyone or what his body count was. He opened his mouth and snapped it shut again when she continued.
“Nothing gory. Something funny. If there is something funny,” she clarified.
Thank fuck. She isn’t like the gory seekers.
That mattered more than he wanted to admit. “Lemme think.” There were so many funny stories he could tell, but most of them probably weren’t fitting to tell a woman who was sat on your couch, wearing only your t-shirt with an ice pack to the throat you’d bruised by almost choking her.
“No rush.”
He thought about it for a full minute before inspiration struck. “There was this one time in Kandahar when a cook lost his shit over strawberries.”
“Strawberries?”
“Yeah, Kayce was a wizard at getting his hands on the hard-to-get stuff that most of us missed from home.”
She made a noise in the back of her throat which went directly to his balls as she shifted on the couch, making herself more comfortable.
“There was this one time he managed to get us strawberries.” Gunnar remembered that day so clearly. If he closed his eyes, he could almost smell the strawberries. “He was gonna melt down chocolate bars and make something to give us for dessert.”
“You can never go wrong with strawberries and melted chocolate.”
“I agree. Anyway, Kayce had the strawberries all laid out on a table he’d made out of a couple of barrels and some boards. He was guarding them like a momma wolf with her cubs.”
“So, you guys didn’t help yourselves before he got to making his dessert?”
“Yeah.” Gunnar snorted out a laugh. “Kayce didn’t figure on a RPG coming in and hitting where the strawberries were drying. It blew them all over the place.”
“Ouch, that’s scary.”
He understood it was for most people. But when you were down range in those places, RPGs were just a fact of life.
“We started getting some insurgents that were trying to probe our wire.” He was going to ignore the fact her eyes were closing as he was speaking.
For the first time ever, he wanted to finish a war story.
“Kayce was so upset that the strawberries got hit, he wound up jumping behind a machine gun in a guard tower, and I mean he wound up smoking like six guys and ended up getting a NAM with a V.”
“I don’t understand. What’s a NAM with a V?”
“A ribbon bar of the Achievement Medal with "V" device the Navy gives them for combat bravery,” Gunnar explained. “Kayce is the only cook I know that has ever gotten a valor device. He just went crazy over those strawberries.”
“You don’t mess with the strawberries.”
He froze when she patted his leg. He didn’t think she even realized she’d done it. “Nope, and never attempt it if the cook is called Kayce.”
Somehow, a truce had been called between them. He didn’t understand it, or why it had happened. But it was much better than them arguing all the time. So, he was taking it as a win. “Do you mind if I turn on the TV and turn out the light?”
“No, not at all. I can get the light, it’s closer to me.”
“Thanks.” He reached for the remote, flipped on the TV, and flipped through the channels until he found one playing some mellow music just as the room darkened when she turned off the light.
He’d expected her to disappear back into his room and was pleasantly surprised when she once again sat next to him on the couch.
Shit, I can’t think of any other stories to tell her.
There was an awkward silence for a couple of moments. Gunnar glanced at his watch, trying to figure out if he should offer coffee or something else, but decided as it was almost five AM, coffee was a viable option. “Would you like some coffee or breakfast?”
“It’s not been that long since we ate,” she replied. “Coffee is enough. I have nowhere to put any more food.”
He got to his feet. “Remi forgets that not everyone is a hound when it comes to serving sizes.” He padded into the kitchen.
“Do you want Italian or American coffee?” He opened a cupboard, searching for the device he thought his mom might have left here the last time she visited.
“Or I have a whipper,” he knew that probably wasn’t the right name for it, but figured she’d know what it was when he held it up for her to see, “and can make you some frou-frou coffee?”
“It doesn’t matter what kind of coffee it is.” She tugged the blankets out from under her and covered her legs with them. “As long as it has enough milk to make it look like a mix between a vanilla and chocolate milkshake.”
“You got it.” He went about making her drink, all the while conscious of her watching him. At least the fear had left her eyes. He’d take it. Once their coffees were ready, he carried them to the couch and handed her the mug. “Careful, it’s hot.”
“I got it.” She smiled up at him. “Thank you.”
He’d heard of smiles which warmed people from the inside out, but had never experienced one from anyone but his mom before.
“You’re welcome.” He was careful when sitting back down on the couch that he didn’t jostle her and add spilling her coffee all over her to his list of sins, and just enjoyed the morning with her at his side as the sun slowly turned the sky red as it woke from its slumber.
“It’s so beautiful.”
“I agree.” He reached for his phone as it beeped. “It’s good for the soul to see the sun rise over the complex.” He scanned the message. “Remi is back in the war-room and said for you to go on down when you are awake.”