Chapter Nine #2
A grin spread across his face. “I had two of them stowed in the side pocket of my pack. I like to keep a few MREs on hand, but the tortellini’s not my favorite so I forgot they were in there.”
“What do I do?”
Her excitement was contagious as she opened the MRE—meal, ready-to-eat—and he gave her instructions on how to warm it using the flameless heater included.
She tucked into the food immediately, grinning around the bite.
Hawk watched her…and his heart gave a hard thump.
It wasn’t just her beauty or the way she felt in his arms.
There was something about Sinead that drew people in. A quiet confidence that couldn’t be taught or borrowed. The light inside her wasn’t a candle flickering in the dark.
It was a torch.
She was the kind of woman that people found themselves following before they ever realized they made the choice.
She kept quiet for a while, and he already knew better than to believe her mind was focused completely on tortellini and a side of wild hazelnuts. He ate his own rations, and though the food left a lot to be desired, the company did not.
The realization struck out of the blue, an ambush he never saw coming.
He’d only spent a few days protecting Sinead. But for the first time since he could remember, he was enjoying himself.
When they finished, he stretched out one leg and looped his arm around his raised knee, senses on alert and scanning their surroundings even as his mind worked through tomorrow’s route through the wilderness.
He felt Sinead’s stare on him and looked up to find her studying him. He hoped like hell her serious expression meant she was calculating how to jump him. But he felt more coming like a storm cloud blowing in.
“You went from being an Army Ranger to a college grad to an FBI agent to a mercenary in a little over a decade.”
He nodded, suspicious of what she was getting at.
She tilted her head, making her ponytail fall over one shoulder. “Now you’re a bodyguard with Black Heart Security.”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I was just wondering how long you’re planning to stay with them.”
He hadn’t felt that coming, but her observation hit him like a second attack.
Yet…it was a fair question. One he didn’t have an answer for.
He was only a handful of jobs deep with the team—including this one. He hadn’t exactly mapped out a five-year plan when Carson brought him on. He figured he’d know when he knew.
She seemed to read his silence as his response. But she didn’t press for more. She just continued studying him across the fire like he was some problem in her father’s corporation, a puzzle to work out piece by piece.
She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “You know, Heath most people quit when they can’t find success at something. You find success, and then you run away.”
He sucked in a deep breath, overfilling his lungs to steady himself instead of reacting from a place he didn’t understand himself.
He’d walked away from the Rangers once he proved what he needed to prove. Walked away from the Bureau once he realized it didn’t meet his expectations. Walked away from the mercenary work after he found it didn’t align with his beliefs.
In merely three days, Sinead understood him in a way that few did. Before tonight, even he hadn’t examined his actions too closely.
Failure didn’t drive him out the door—it was a bone-deep restlessness. An unwillingness to stay somewhere once it stopped feeling like the right fit.
He shifted his shoulders to disburse the tension and met her stare, turning over her observation the way he’d turn over a rock to find the smooth spot before skipping it over the water.
This small stone, though…he tucked it away in a private place where he could mull it over later, after they found what they came to find and Sinead was safe and sound again.
The fire crackled, the embers flaring bright in the soft breeze blowing across the rocky shelf. From the trees, an owl called once and went quiet again. The whole mountain settled into a stillness that brought a peace he hadn’t felt in a long time.
She suddenly shivered. Before she could reach for her jacket, he circled the fire to wrap it around her shoulders.
She went still, head turned toward him. She peered up at him through long lashes. “Thank you, Hawk.”
He hooked her ponytail with his index finger, drawing it out of the coat to lie over her shoulder.
Neither of them made a move to recreate their previous night together. But an awareness hovered over the camp as he banked the fire and she crawled into the tent.
She stretched out in her sleeping bag. He followed her a minute later, heart flipping over at the sight of her.
She’d removed her ponytail and her hair lay loose across the nylon of her sleeping bag. Her eyes reflected the faint light of the moon streaming in before he let the tent flap drop closed.
He lay beside her, aching to taking her into his arms, to kiss her—everywhere. To cross boundaries again…and again and again, all damn night long.
His cock throbbed, and he had to force his pounding heart to slow.
“Goodnight, Hawk.”
“Goodnight, Sinead.”
Her question ran through his mind on a loop. How long was he planning to stay with Black Heart Security?
He didn’t have an answer.
But for the first time in longer than he could remember, he found himself hoping the answer was a while.
* * * * *
Sinead lay on her side, facing away from her bodyguard. The tent was inches from her face and smelled a bit musty, like it had seen a lot of nights in these mountains. Beyond the tent, the sky would be thick with stars, the clouds she’d seen gathering in the distance a lighter sweep across the sky.
For long minutes, she considered crawling out just to stare up at the sky, but she forced her eyes closed.
She needed sleep more.
She prided herself on being in good shape, but it had been years since her last mountain expedition—and she hadn’t made it all that far, since the sherpa guiding her took frequent rests.
She’d never been able to explain why she kept chasing the next mountain, the next risk. Maybe it was simpler than she let herself admit that if she couldn’t be the son her father wanted, she could at least be tough enough that he’d stop looking at her like she needed protecting.
But this hike was brutal. Hawk seemed set on getting them off the mountain as quickly as possible, and after the past few days, she understood why. The mountain seemed to want to kill them around every bend and over every rise.
She shifted onto her back, trying not to rustle around too much and wake Hawk. She kept her eyes closed but her mind wouldn’t quiet down. It kept circling back to the mine and the men who’d tried to kill her.
Her thoughts returned to her father’s secret, now threaded through all of it.
And to Hawk.
A place low in her core clenched at the thought of the man lying next to her.
Close enough that she could reach out and touch him.
Kiss him.
Roll on top of him and ride him.
She filled her lungs with a deep breath and let it trickle out slowly, turning her mind to the sound of the forest instead. Small noises drifted to her—a branch creaking as some bird launched off it and the small rustling sounds of a rodent hoping to get away.