Privilege (Special Tactical Units Division 2)

She’d never even imagined herself doing anything like it. Meeting a man. Falling in love with him, falling so deeply in love that she’d willingly make life changes to accommodate his career, because she knew that to ask Chay to leave the military would be like asking him not to breathe.

The real question was, would he ask her to stay? To be with him?

Or maybe the real question was, would he tell her he loved her? Because if he didn’t love her, there was no point in any of it.

• • •

By that evening, Chay had decided he couldn’t stand it anymore.

The suspense.

The not knowing.

The endless wondering.

It was time to ask Bianca, straight out, if she loved him. Because, Jesus, he sure as hell loved her.

The problem was that asking the question was only step one.

If she said yes—if she said yes, step two would be figuring out what to do next

She had a life back east.

He had one right here.

There’d been a time he’d never imagined leaving the service. Leaving STUD. Then Tanner had almost died and, well, Chay had done a lot of thinking. And what he’d thought was that he loved what he was doing, but maybe he’d only do it for another couple of years.

Thirty-four, thirty-five looked like good ages to retire.

He’d still be young enough to start a new, different kind of life. He didn’t want to be one of those ex-military guys you sometimes ran into in bars, guys who talked endlessly abut the good old days because they really didn’t have many good new days.

You could see that they’d never planned ahead.

Never planned something to do with the rest of their lives.

Bottom line? He’d be cleared for duty soon and that was what he wanted. He wasn’t ready to leave STUD. He would be, in a couple of years, but a couple of years was a long time.

How could he and Bianca make that work?

She could stay in the east, he could stay in the west, and they’d spend all their free time together.

Yeah. Right. Like weekends, if he wasn’t deployed. And when he was deployed? He’d leave from the West Coast. Return to the West Coast.

No good.

Okay. He’d explain things to her, say that he wanted to put in another two, three years in STUD, and he’d ask her to move here.

Jesus.

Ask her to give up her career, her position at one hell of a practice, and start all over again in California?

Chay glanced at her as she stood beside him on the deck.

He thought of how she’d dealt with David Epstein. How she’d, man, how she’d punched him right in the belly, put him flat on his back, and told him she’d kill him if he made any more trouble.

He thought of how she’d stopped the blood pouring from his arm.

He thought of what she’d said, that, despite everything, she was glad the man who’d tried to kill her was going to get help for his illness