Chapter 17
Lying in bed, half on top of a near stranger, half dressed, should feel strange to Hadley.
But it didn’t.
Truth was, Hadley felt truly safe for the first time in a long, long time.
That might’ve been because she knew firsthand that this man would kill bad guys to protect her.
Or maybe it was just because he threw off heat like a campfire and had arms that felt like freakin’ Sequoia branches banded around her. But who knew?
All she knew was that she was safe and warm and comfortable and she never wanted to get out of this bed. “Talk to me,” she urged.
“What do you want to talk about?”
Anything. Everything. “Tell me about your childhood. What did little Cole Clayton want to be when he grew up?”
He snorted. “Little Cole Clayton grew up poor—even homeless for a while—in the South. He would’ve been happy with anything that paid him enough to put food on the table. Choosing a profession was the last thing on my mind.”
Hadley hated that for young Cole. “What about your parents? What did they do?”
“Drugs, I’m afraid. They mostly did drugs,” he said wryly. “So, when the military recruiter came around the high school with promises of free meals and college tuition, I signed up before they even finished their spiel.”
There was a pause while she digested that information and her heart broke for this man who’d grown up to be a hero—her hero—even though he’d never had one step up when he needed help.
But eventually, he sighed and said wryly, “I imagine you wanted to talk so I could distract you from horrible things, not depress you. Why don’t you tell me about your childhood instead. ”
“It wasn’t anything too special. Only child.
My parents divorced when I was ten. I lived with my dad full time because my mom got a teaching position at Oxford.
It was fine, though. We talked every weekend.
And they were mature about the breakup, so I escaped the whole thing without the trauma a lot of my classmates seemed to go through,” she said.
“My parents were better apart than together. I realized that even as a kid.”
His breath ruffled her hair and it felt way better than it should’ve. “Are you still close?”
She shrugged. “As close as we can be, I guess. They don’t really understand me, which makes it hard for us to connect sometimes.”
“What’s to understand? You’re amazing.”
Such a simple statement shouldn’t turn her on. Maybe it wouldn’t have on its own. But in combination with his warm arms around her, muscle-y chest under her cheek, and minty breath ruffling her hair?
Instant arousal. Like Niagara-fucking-Falls.
She cleared her throat. “They’re just old fashioned. They were skeptical when I went to art school instead of business school. They especially don’t understand why I’m not married with a bunch of babies at my big age.”
“Not to be nosy, but…why aren’t you married? I’m sure you’ve had plenty of opportunities.”
His faith in her ability to attract proposals was sweet. Totally unfounded, but sweet. “You might remember the last guy I was dating?” she asked sarcastically. “The one with the broken neck?”
“I meant opportunities other than that asshole,” he grumbled.
“I know. I was just teasing. But honestly, Darren notwithstanding, I’ve had OK luck, romantically speaking. I’ve dated some good guys.”
His muscles tensed a little. “What happened with these good guys?”
He said good guys in a tone most people reserved for genital warts. “They just weren’t the…right guys.”
“What’s the right guy look like?”
Tall, dark hair, slutty little fake glasses, a questionable set of skills. The kind of guy who’d break an attacker in half for you then comfort you after a nightmare.
She squashed that train of thought with a quickness. Having a crush on Cole (and, ok, being more than little obsessed with him) was not the same as being in love with him. Being warm and safe and turned on was no reason to confuse those things.
So, she dug a little deeper for the answer to Cole’s question.
“The right guy is the one who is always there for me when I need him. The kind of man who would appreciate me as I am and never be disappointed that I wasn’t…
more. Someone who’d be happy doing absolutely nothing with me just because he enjoys my company so much that it doesn’t matter at all what we’re doing, as long as we’re together.
Someone who asks me how my day was not because it’s the social norm, but because he genuinely wants to hear about everything that happened to me when we weren’t together.
” She sighed. “I’m looking for my other half, I guess.
And no one I’ve ever dated has been my other half. ”
Cole was quiet for so long she thought he might’ve fallen asleep, so she startled a little when he brushed his thumb over her cheekbone and said, “So, you’re a hopeless romantic.”
“Not hopeless. Hopeful. And unwilling to settle.”
“Don’t ever settle, Hadley Lockhart,” he said quietly. “You deserve everything you want.”
She swallowed hard. “What do you want?”
“Other than to get you out of this mess safely?”
“Other than that.”
“Honestly…I don’t know. For most of my life, I haven’t been able to call my own shots. Not as a kid, not in the military, and not with the CIA. I never really put much thought into what I wanted until I retired. And even then, I can’t say I came up with any kind of plan.”
Which was one of the saddest things she’d ever heard. The government had robbed him of his autonomy, turning him into a tool they’d bring out, use for a while, then toss aside when they were done with him.
Suddenly, her own boring life didn’t seem so bad. “Why did you retire?”
His hand drifted down her spine, landing and tightening reflexively on her hip.
“Good operators—spies—do what’s asked of them without question.
They have to. Their opinions, their morals, don’t matter.
When there’s a job to do, you have to do it.
No matter how…wrong it seems. I got to the point where I couldn’t stop myself from asking questions. That’s how I knew it was time to go.”
She knew better than to ask him to elaborate.
If there was ever an I-could-tell-you-but-then-I’d-have-to-kill-you situation, this was it.
One day, though. One day, she’d ask for more details.
“Tell me something good from your time with the military or the CIA. Nothing classified, of course. Just a positive memory. Something you would’ve wanted to share with me if you’d known me then. ”
He took a deep breath as she cuddled a little tighter into his side, letting her hand come to rest on his chest right over his heart.
Eventually, he said, “I was in Kurdistan, oh, I don’t even remember how long ago.
I was infiltrating a group of smugglers who moved across the Iran-Iraq border.
I was ready for anything except for how beautiful the landscape was.
You know, when you see the news or hear anyone who has been to Iran and Iraq tell stories, you’re led to believe that whole region is nothing but bombed-out, destitute desert.
It’s not, though. There are mountains every bit as beautiful as the Alps, with air so crisp and clean you start to wonder if you’re the first person to ever breathe it.
I came around a bend on a trail one morning just in time to see the sun coming up over a valley that…
” He trailed off with a sigh, shaking his head.
“I’d never seen so many shades of green in my life.
I remember thinking that if there really was a God out there somewhere, surely this was where he liked to sit and admire his handiwork. ”
Hadley’s heart rate kicked up a notch when he laid his hand over hers and added, “I’d take you there if I could.”
“I’d love that,” she said. “Have you ever told anyone else about that place?”
“Who would I tell?”
She frowned. “I was just assuming you told your person about it, and I guess, in a roundabout way, I was asking who your person is?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, your person. The one you list on all your medical forms in case there’s an emergency. The one who’d go to war for you, no questions asked. The one who is on your side no matter what, even if you intend to break bones and laws.”
He snorted. “Can’t say I’ve ever had one of those.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, because damn it, her heart could not take another story about how the world and all the people in it had let this man down. “Then I’m your person now,” she said quietly, flipping her hand over so they were palm-to-palm.
His breath caught audibly. She worried for a minute that she’d overstepped.
She’d dragged him into this bed to comfort her, forced him to talk, and pulled memories out of him he’d obviously had no interest in sharing.
He was probably overstimulated, overwrought, and just over her nonsense in general.
But after a brief pause, he laced his fingers through hers and whispered back, “Deal.”
And just like that, Hadley Lockhart became Cole Clayton’s person.
Her first question in that official capacity was to ask if that Middle Eastern valley was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Too bad she didn’t get the answer. Not because he didn’t want to answer, but because she dozed off before he could give it.
So, she’d never know what he said as she lay in his arms, drifting off into a dreamless sleep.
“It was,” he said as he brushed a lock of hair off her forehead, tucking it behind her ear. “Until now…”