My head spun as I stared down at the paper, the ink blurring together the more I stared at it.
“Gemma, did you tell anyone else about this? Does anyone know where you were this afternoon?”
She shot me a dirty look. “I’m not stupid, Aaron.”
I sighed. “I know you’re not.”
“Well then stop assuming I’m going to fuck this whole thing up. I think I just proved that I can be more of an asset in this mess. You don’t have to keep treating me like a liability. All right?”
I held her gaze, my eyes desperately searching hers for the right way forward. She wanted me to stand beside her when my natural inclination was to stand in front of her. Not because I thought I was better than her. Quite the opposite. Gemma was rapidly becoming the best part of me.
A part I was desperate to protect.
“I don’t see you as a liability, and I do appreciate this information, but that still doesn’t mean you’re safe. O’Keefe is not opposed to using any kind of leverage he can find and right now—that would be you.”
“Aaron,” she sighed and sat up, her breasts flattened against her thighs as she curled her legs up and wrapped her arms to tuck them in tight. She stared straight ahead at the wall. “I thought we just went over this…”
I grabbed her hand and gripped it tightly. Her eyes moved to mine, widening at the intensity of my hold on her. “Gemma, I can’t lose you,” the words came out in a strangled whisper, getting caught in my throat. “You’re not weak. But right now, you’re my biggest weak spot. If he threatened you—which, he already did, verbally at least—I wouldn’t be okay and as it is, I’m barely hanging on over here.”
The statement sank into the space between us. Weighty and heavy.
“You’re not going to lose me, Aaron.”
I reached for her and she melted against me. As I held her in my arms, safe and secure, I was overwhelmed with how raw and exposed I felt with my true emotions on the table. The closer we got, the more evident my old scar tissue became.
“We’re going to make it out of this, baby. I promise.” I dropped a kiss to her forehead, tasting the sweet saltiness of her skin.
As we huddled together on the edge of her bed, I wished I could find some way to freeze the moment and stay there forever. But we had to get back to my place where I was on my own turf. Safe and sound.
34
When the sun rose the following morning, I was awake and alert—despite having a rough night. All of the tossing and turning had reminded me of my first tour overseas. As a low ranking officer—brand new to the ship—every single noise was enough to jolt me from sleep and got my heart rate sky high until I got used to the sounds.
Now, I wasn’t in a tent, or in the desert, but up on the bluff it was quiet enough that each sound was pronounced and distinct. I usually slept through it all, no problem. In fact, most of the time I slept with the windows wide open to hear the soft roar of the ocean and the rustling of the wind through the trees. I’d never worried about my safety.
There was a gate at the end of the drive, that had been built to keep tourists out once the museum was closed, but half the time I didn’t even bother with it. I’d never had a problem with strangers showing up outside of business hours and the location was remote enough that there weren’t people trying to illegally camp out or park their RV.
But the night before, every whistle or rumble threw me from sleep into a cold sweat. I couldn’t even recall how many times I’d jumped out of bed to check the perimeter with a nine-millimeter and a flashlight. The most terrifying thing I’d found was a tag team of gulls who’d decided to come out for a midnight snack courtesy of a trash can lid thrown open in the night breeze.
“Did you sleep at all last night?” Gemma’s voice stirred me back to reality from my exhausted, glassy-eyed stare at the ceiling, watching the sunlight moving along the white surface.
“Not so much.” I heaved over onto my side and brushed a hand along her face. “You?”
She blinked a few times, clearing the sleep from her eyes. “Sorta.”
“The sooner this is over, the better.” I smiled at her, hoping that my attempt to project confidence and control would come across as more comforting than it felt. “If I should be up all night, it should be because of something a helluva lot more fun than chasing seagulls out of the fuckin’ trash cans.”