A Soldier's Redemption Read Online Free Page B
Author: Rachel Lee
skin.
But he couldnât figure out why the hell Gage Dalton had brought him to this particular woman. There must be other rooms for rent in this county. Surely.
Well, maybe not. The place didnât exactly look huge. So it could just have been coincidence. But he didnâtbelieve much in coincidence. At some level, conscious or otherwise, Gage had thought of this woman, her terror and her room.
And there was a reason for that, a reason that made the skin on the back of his neck crawl. Coryâs level of fear suggested a long-term, ongoing threat.
And here he was, smack in the middle of a place he thought heâd left behind. A place he wanted to leave behind.
He needed to normalize, to stop being a SEAL and start being a reasonably ordinary member of society again. He needed to stop sleeping with one eye always open, constantly ready for death to lunge out of any shadow or hole. He needed to let his reflexes slow again, at least to the point where someone wouldnât risk death simply by trying to wake him from sleep, or by moving too fast in the corner of his eye. Thatâs what he needed, and that had just skittered out the door of his immediate future.
Because downstairs there was one hell of a scared woman, and she shouldnât feel that way. And a phone call, a simple phone call, had caused her to collapse.
From what heâd seen of Conard County and Conard City so far, he would have called the place bucolic.
Well, that was a hell of a reaction for a bucolic place.
It wasnât normal. It didnât fit.
Apparently he would have to keep sleeping with one eye open.
He could leave, of course, but that didnât even truly appear on his menu of options. He couldnât walk away from her terror.
Someone that terrified needed protecting.
For a change, he decided, heâd like to provide the protection, rather than the terror.
A bitter smile twisted his mouth. That, at least, would be a change. A much-needed change.
And wasnât that what heâd come here for?
Â
The phone didnât ring again, thank God. Cory ate a small salad for dinner, then tried to settle in with the TV. She didnât think she could focus on one of the library books stacked on the small table beside the rocking chair, because her mind seemed to have turned into a flea, insisting on hopping from one thing to another, all totally unrelated. Even the sharpness of fear didnât seem able to get her full attention.
So it was easier to turn the TV on, for the noise, for the visual distraction, for the occasional moments in which she could actually tune into the program, whatever it was.
She noted that her roomer upstairs had grown quiet, utterly quiet. Probably sleeping, but with her senses on high alert, the inability to guess what he was about made her uneasy. Solitude was her friend, her fortress, her constant companion.
But sheâd invited in an invader, and his silence was worse than the noise heâd made while settling in.
She flipped quickly to the weather station, but too late, because the image of a crime-scene team entering a home where a man lay dead, just a reenactment, was enough to set off a string of memories she tried never to visit.
Jim lying there, bleeding from multiple wounds. Trying to crawl to him despite the wound in her own side, gasping his name, knowing somehow as she crawled that he was lost to her forever.
She squeezed her eyes shut as if that could erase the images that sprang to mind. Gentle, determined Jim, a man with a huge smile, a huge heart and a belief in making the world a better place. A man who could talk to her withsuch kindness and understanding, then in a courtroom or deposition turn into a circling shark, coming in for the kill.
A gifted man. An admirable man.
The man she had loved with every cell of her being.
Their last dinner together. Jim had taken her to one of the best restaurants in Tampa to celebrate a positive pregnancy test that very
But he couldnât figure out why the hell Gage Dalton had brought him to this particular woman. There must be other rooms for rent in this county. Surely.
Well, maybe not. The place didnât exactly look huge. So it could just have been coincidence. But he didnâtbelieve much in coincidence. At some level, conscious or otherwise, Gage had thought of this woman, her terror and her room.
And there was a reason for that, a reason that made the skin on the back of his neck crawl. Coryâs level of fear suggested a long-term, ongoing threat.
And here he was, smack in the middle of a place he thought heâd left behind. A place he wanted to leave behind.
He needed to normalize, to stop being a SEAL and start being a reasonably ordinary member of society again. He needed to stop sleeping with one eye always open, constantly ready for death to lunge out of any shadow or hole. He needed to let his reflexes slow again, at least to the point where someone wouldnât risk death simply by trying to wake him from sleep, or by moving too fast in the corner of his eye. Thatâs what he needed, and that had just skittered out the door of his immediate future.
Because downstairs there was one hell of a scared woman, and she shouldnât feel that way. And a phone call, a simple phone call, had caused her to collapse.
From what heâd seen of Conard County and Conard City so far, he would have called the place bucolic.
Well, that was a hell of a reaction for a bucolic place.
It wasnât normal. It didnât fit.
Apparently he would have to keep sleeping with one eye open.
He could leave, of course, but that didnât even truly appear on his menu of options. He couldnât walk away from her terror.
Someone that terrified needed protecting.
For a change, he decided, heâd like to provide the protection, rather than the terror.
A bitter smile twisted his mouth. That, at least, would be a change. A much-needed change.
And wasnât that what heâd come here for?
Â
The phone didnât ring again, thank God. Cory ate a small salad for dinner, then tried to settle in with the TV. She didnât think she could focus on one of the library books stacked on the small table beside the rocking chair, because her mind seemed to have turned into a flea, insisting on hopping from one thing to another, all totally unrelated. Even the sharpness of fear didnât seem able to get her full attention.
So it was easier to turn the TV on, for the noise, for the visual distraction, for the occasional moments in which she could actually tune into the program, whatever it was.
She noted that her roomer upstairs had grown quiet, utterly quiet. Probably sleeping, but with her senses on high alert, the inability to guess what he was about made her uneasy. Solitude was her friend, her fortress, her constant companion.
But sheâd invited in an invader, and his silence was worse than the noise heâd made while settling in.
She flipped quickly to the weather station, but too late, because the image of a crime-scene team entering a home where a man lay dead, just a reenactment, was enough to set off a string of memories she tried never to visit.
Jim lying there, bleeding from multiple wounds. Trying to crawl to him despite the wound in her own side, gasping his name, knowing somehow as she crawled that he was lost to her forever.
She squeezed her eyes shut as if that could erase the images that sprang to mind. Gentle, determined Jim, a man with a huge smile, a huge heart and a belief in making the world a better place. A man who could talk to her withsuch kindness and understanding, then in a courtroom or deposition turn into a circling shark, coming in for the kill.
A gifted man. An admirable man.
The man she had loved with every cell of her being.
Their last dinner together. Jim had taken her to one of the best restaurants in Tampa to celebrate a positive pregnancy test that very
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