Never Been Kissed Read Online Free Page B

out of this bed to get her friend. This woman … she would have been a hell of a Marine. Fierce. Strong. Loyal. Smart. Like General Mattis said, “No better friend, no worse enemy.”
    Mattis could have been talking about her.
    “I’m trying to find her,” Harrison said, approaching the bed.
    Brody was a big man and he took up a lot of space so he turned aside. Trying to give them as much privacy as he could.
    You should leave,
he told himself.
The job is over. There’s no reason to stay.
    He was highly attuned to when he was in the way, and he was absolutely in the way now. He’d done the messy part, the thing he was good for.
    It’s time for you to go.
    “Harrison,” she whispered.
    “Hey,” Harrison whispered back. Brody could hear the smile in his voice. “There you are.”
    Out of the corner of his eyes Brody watched as she lifted her arm, reaching for her brother, and Harrison bent over the bed, smiling at his sister, despite the tears on both their faces.
    Brody was good at watching family from the corner of his eyes. His own. The ones he guarded.
    But watching the Montgomerys, he had to look away, out the window to the black night, the shadows of palm trees.
    “I’m so sorry,” she cried. “I’m so sorry—”
    “No,” Harrison said, fiercely. “No. Don’t even say it. You’re my sister and you’re safe. That’s all that matters. That’s everything.”
    “Don’t you have a campaign to run?” she asked.
    “Like any of that is as important as you,” Harrison said.
    Brody could hear the sheets rustling and imagined her shaking her head. He closed his eyes, wishing he were anywhere but here.
    “Thank you,” she whispered.
    “Shh, Ashley,” Harrison whispered. “Shhh, you need to rest. Get better, so we can get you home.”
    “Brody?”
    Brody jerked, surprised to hear her ask for him; he glanced at Harrison, who quietly backed away.
    A wrinkle appeared under the stitches on her forehead and her eye filled with tears again. “Brody.” Her voice cracked, thready and thin, as if just remembering what kind of hell he’d pulled her from.
    Hours ago, when they got to the hospital she wouldn’t release him and he’d let her cling to him.
    Now he started to reach for her, but stopped. Despite all they’d been through in the last day, it didn’t seem right. He couldn’t quite forget her as a seventeen-year-old kid breathing the rarified air of an American princess. Untouchable on so many levels. Every level, really.
    He stepped back from the bed and crossed his arms over his chest so he wouldn’t brush the hair from her forehead.
    “It’s me.”
    There was no room between them for words of comfort now so he fell back to a familiar position. His job. And the distance required to do it well.
    “Do you know where you are?” he whispered. Her eye was clear; as it glanced around, there was no confusion.
    “A hospital. Nairobi?”
    Smart girl.
He bit back a smile. “Any idea what day it is?”
    She blinked and shook her head, but then winced at the motion. “I was in that camp for three weeks. It’s August, right?”
    “That’s right. The fifth.”
    Her eye fluttered shut but she struggled to open it back up.
    “It’s okay,” he told her. He dropped a finger to touch the long brown curl that hung over the side of the pillow. She couldn’t know. Couldn’t feel it. Her hair was still matted, crusted with Somali dust. They needed to get that off of her. “Go to sleep,” he told her. “You’ll be home soon.”
    “Don’t … go.”
    “Where am I going? You’re my ride home,” he whispered and she smiled even as her eye slid shut. Lamp light fell across the bed, making the bruises and the stitches and the red swelling look exactly as bad as it was.
    He was totally aware of every single mistake he was making. The lines he was crossing. And he told himself this was all just an anomaly. In a few days he’d step off the Montgomery family jet and vanish back into his old