Chapter 7
Rowan
I cook fresh rabbit for dinner stewed with herbs I found on the mountain. The flavour is a bit plain, but Fritha slurps it up hungrily.
Bored with cards, we play I spy and then paper, scissors, rock, and then we just sit and talk.
Fritha’s easy to talk to. I forget she’s only nineteen, but I can’t forget how much I owe her family.
It was her father that dragged me out of the firefight after I got shot. Then Rodney gave me a new purpose once I was recovered. He promised me a job if I got the training.
I’ve been on the mountain ever since. Indebted to Fritha’s family, twice. I can’t repay them by coming onto her.
Which is getting harder and harder to do as our second day in the hut turns to night.
We lie in bed facing each other in the darkness, neither of us sleepy.
Fritha’s so close I can feel her breath on my face and see the whites of her eyes catching the faint moonlight that comes in through the small window.
The rain stopped a few hours ago, and that means tomorrow they should be able to clear the roads, which gives us one more night.
“Tell me about the bullet wound?” Fritha asks.
“How do you know about the bullet wound?” It’s at the top of my thigh and only a small scar. You wouldn’t know a bullet caused it unless you knew what you were looking at.
“I saw it on your thigh when you were getting dressed.”
“So, you were checking me out?”
She snort laughs, which makes her eyes dance. “We’ve been naked in a bed together; we’re past checking each other out.”
I shouldn’t flirt with her, but damn, it’s good to see her smile.
“I got shot in the thigh.”
I hope she’s satisfied with the explanation. I don’t like talking about what happened that day or any other day I was deployed. I don’t like remembering.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
I’m about to say no, because I don’t talk about the military as a rule, but she’s looking at me so innocently with her wide eyes and kissable mouth, and damn it, I want to tell her. I want to share with this girl.
“Your father saved my life.”
Her eyes widen, and there’s a flash of pride. “No. Really?”
“Yeah. I got shot in a firefight and was stuck behind an enclosure. The rest of the squad was on the other side of a courtyard taking enemy fire. Your father saw me go down, and he saw the blood.
“He ran across the open fire zone risking his life to get to me. We were stuck in enemy territory, and I was bleeding hard. He applied a tourniquet to the wound, which slowed the bleeding and kept me from passing out.
“Later, when it was safe to move, I leaned on him as I limped to the helicopter. He got me into the chopper where I passed out. If it wasn’t for your father, I wouldn’t have made it.”
She goes silent, and I wonder what she’s thinking. I wonder what it’s like to have a legend for a father, a man everyone looked up to.
“He was a good man,” I tell her.
“I know.” She sighs and bites her lower lip.
I can’t take my eyes off her lips. I want to kiss her so bad, but I’m keeping a distance between us. A sliver of bed as a barrier. She’s not shivering tonight so I’ve got no excuse to touch her, and it’s agony.
“I don’t think I want to be a lawyer,” she whispers.
I suck in a breath, surprised by her confession. When I met her at her father’s funeral and she was twelve years old, the first thing she said to me was that she was going to be a lawyer one day.
“You’ve always wanted to be a lawyer.”
She shakes her head slightly. “Dad always wanted me to be a lawyer and I thought that was what I wanted too, but I don’t think it is.”
She looks pained by the confession. There’s a battle going on in her that I see in her expression. The little girl wanting to please her daddy and taking on the dreams he has for her, and the woman realising that what she’s been working towards aren’t her dreams at all.
“What do you want to do instead?”
She tugs on her lower lip with her teeth. A sign she’s uncertain, and one I’ll have to remember to look out for next time we play poker.
“I want to stay on the mountain.”
The confession comes out as a whisper, and I catch my breath. Fritha’s always been out of reach. The daughter of the man who saved my life, the granddaughter of the man I work for. I’ve watched her grow into a smart young woman who Rodney was proud to tell everyone was off to law school.
My dreams went off with her. A woman so out of reach that I almost gave up on her. Only now she’s here, so close I feel her breath on my cheeks, telling me she wants to stay on the mountain.
My heartbeat quickens, and I can’t help myself. I stroke her cheek with my fingertips, and her breath hitches at the contact.
“You’ve got to follow your own dreams, pup. You’ve got to walk your own path. I’m sure that’s what your father would want.”
She bites her lower lip and looks up at me from under her lashes. It’s sexy and innocent all at once, and I don’t know if that’s what she intended.
I drop my hand and pull it up to my chest, forming a barrier between us. I’m sure what her father wouldn’t want is for me to take advantage of his daughter like a horny opportunist. The man saved my life. I can keep my dick in my pants for one more night.
“Goodnight, pup,” I say, ending the conversation before I act on one of the hundreds of indecent thoughts running through my head.
“Why do you call me that?”
“Because when I found you, you looked like a lost puppy dog. Wide-eyed and innocent lost in the rain.”
She frowns, which makes her look even more adorable. I close my eyes, needing to block out the sight of her. She’s too close, too real.
I just have to survive one more night. One more night next to Fritha.
“Good night, Rowan.” She says my name with a little sigh that causes hot breath to skate across my cheeks and my cock to jerk in my briefs.
Just one more night. I can do this.