"I think you do. Even if we end up in divorce court, we meant something to each other. I do not want to spend the rest of my life wondering where the hell I screwed up."
"How many times do I have to repeat myself?" Her voice cracked. "It wasn't you. You need all the facts?
Fine. Eight years ago, I was dating a man. Ben. We were thinking about getting married. But I imagine my blabbermouth sister has already told you that much."
He didn't bother acknowledging the obvious.
"What my sister didn't know was that over Christmas break, I turned down his surprise gift of a two-carat solitaire engagement ring."
Turned down?
He definitely hadn't seen this twist coming. "So why does this guy still have such a hold over you?" "His possessiveness had become smothering." She forced the facts out on labored wafts of air, but with
shoulders braced. "He didn't take it well. But I was prepared for that and it didn't worry me. After all, I was only a semester away from being a commissioned officer. A warrior. I could protect myself. Or so I thought."
The answer he'd been waiting for roared to life inside him ahead of the rest of her words. He knew what would come next. And no. Hell, no! He wanted to back up this conversation, somehow roll back time eight years to wipe out what he was now certain had happened to his wife.
Bilious rage burned up his throat, only to be frozen into a choking chunk of frustration.
Alicia met his gaze dead-on, warrior strong even when wounded, her face as wind-raw as her words.
"When I told him it was over, he attacked me."
Chapter 5
Alicia held herself still and tall, so brittle inside she feared the building winds might shatter her. Even more than the storm winds, she feared Josh's reaction.
Her gaze raked from the hard lines of his stoic face to his fisted gloves, all the way down to his mukluks planted in the snow, while she waited for him to absorb the words she'd never told anyone. Snow pouring from the sky collected on his shoulders while he waited for her to finish.
Whoever said confiding heartache lessened the burden had been a big, fat fraud. She didn't feel one bit better. In fact, the burden so overpowered her right now, she longed to sink into a drift or climb up one of those towering trees again and hide.
Not behavior worthy of her uniform.
She didn't want to remember that night from eight years ago, much less talk about it. But somehow Josh slipped past her defenses, pushed her buttons, pushed her until the words had spilled free.
Apparently she hadn't kept him in the dark after all. A mortifying thought. She wasn't totally inexperienced. She knew enough to realize Josh was good in bed. Really good. Generous and sexy.
She just wished she could fully benefit, that they both could.
He deserved an explanation. But why did it have to be now? Although something about this stark, ends-of-the-earth landscape echoed the rawness inside her.
Josh's silence left her fidgeting until finally she blurted, "He didn't assault me sexually, if that's what you're thinking. You can relax."
"Relax?" He shook his head slowly, still not moving otherwise. "I don't think so."
What was he thinking? She forced words up her throat, each one scraping like icy shards. "He was...be yond upset. But somehow I still didn't see the first punch coming—"
A rustling sounded from behind her, and how she welcomed the distraction as a chance to gather her thoughts. Her instincts kicked in, and survival thoughts took over.
Josh's head jerked up. He shoved past and ahead of her, predictably protecting. Rather than argue, she decided to watch his back. The man needed it whether he realized it or not.
She dipped her hand inside her parka to pull her flare gun from her survival vest. Steps stealthy, they dodged larger drifts, minimizing the crunching of snow as much as possible.
Her heart pounded in her ears, pumped in her chest so hard surely her jacket must be pulsing. Branches swayed and crackled ahead.
"Down," Josh ordered in a whisper.
She dropped to her stomach beside him. Birch boughs swept wide. She tensed, hand gripping the gun.