Shelter In A Soldier's Arms

She flung herself at him. With an ease he wouldn't have believed possible just a couple of months ago, he set down his suitcase, bent low and picked her up, swinging her into his arms. She clung to him.

'Don't go,' she said, her big blue eyes filled with tears.

'I have to. This is about work. But I'll be home in about a week.'

'A week is a very long time.'

'I know. I'll miss you.'

As he spoke he looked over her head toward Ashley, but the woman who had so changed him wouldn't meet his gaze. She sat at the table, carefully stirring her coffee.

Maggie rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. She was so small, he thought uneasily. How could she possibly survive? He found himself wanting to stay, to make sure that she was going to be all right. But he couldn't. He had a job to do.

'I'll bring you something,' he told her as he set her on the floor.

She brightened immediately. 'A kitten?'

'No. Mommy and I have to talk about that first. But something nice.'

'Something for Mommy, too?'

He looked at Ashley. She was still staring intently at her coffee. 'Yes, something for Mommy.'

Jeff hesitated. He wanted to say something that would make things better between them. He wanted to heal the breach, but he didn't know how. In the end all he did was pick up his suitcase.

'I need to get to work. I'll guess I'll see you in a week.'

'Will you call?' Ashley asked without looking up.

Phone her? He'd never considered the possibility. But he could. Staying in touch would be easy. 'Sure.' He calculated the time difference. 'Say the early evening, after dinner?'

She nodded. 'That would be nice. Thank you.'

He wanted to go to her and pull her to her feet and into his arms. He wanted to beg her to tell him that she wouldn't give up on him, that it wasn't over between them. He wanted to know how he was supposed to make her happy when everything about their relationship confused him.

Instead he said nothing. He turned on his heel and walked out of the kitchen.

Maggie called after him. 'Mommy and I love you.'

He could only hope it was still true.

* * *

Six hours later he pored over the diagrams of the villa one last time. The private jet would take off from Boeing Field at four. The team was already assembled, the equipment checked.

'I can't believe you're doing this,' Zane said as he walked into Jeff's office.

'What are you talking about?' he asked his partner.

Zane stalked over to the table and stabbed at the papers. 'I can't believe you're really going to do this.'

'The job? It's my responsibility.'

'No. It's our responsibility. I'm a partner in this, remember. I can do this job.' Zane glared at him. 'It was bad enough when you wanted all the glory for yourself, but now you have a family to think about.'

Glory? 'Is that what you think?' Jeff asked. 'That taking the most dangerous assignments is about glory? I never wanted my name in the papers. None of that mattered.'

Zane's dark eyes were bleak when he spoke. 'If it's about the dead, don't you think I have some ghosts of my own? Just because I was a sharpshooter doesn't mean I wasn't involved. Killing from a distance is still killing, Jeff. When I had to plan operations, the numbers of the dead weren't faceless. I studied the recon photos afterward to see how my plan had been carried out. I could see what I'd done in every shade of color.'

Jeff stared at his partner. 'I hadn't realized,' he said.

Zane shrugged. 'Before, it wasn't important for you to know, but things are different. You have Ashley and Maggie now.'

And the baby, but Zane didn't know about that yet. A family. That's what his partner was saying. Jeff had responsibilities for more than the job. At one time he would have agreed, but not now. Ashley might claim to love him, but he doubted it was true. She loved parts of him. The parts she could admire. But the true blackness of his soul was beyond her. He thought she understood who and what he was, but he'd been wrong. She was already pulling away.

What he couldn't admit to Zane, what he could barely think to himself, was how much it hurt. He'd allowed himself to believe. When she'd heard about his nightmares and hadn't turned away, he'd experienced his first spark of hope. Later, instead of being frightened off by the executive retreat, she'd had fun. He'd told her more details about his past and still she'd stayed, eventually claiming to love him. And he'd believed her because he'd been desperate to keep her in his life.

But in the end, she couldn't handle what he did. She wanted him to change, to take a job that wouldn't put him in danger. She wasn't willing to love all of him.

'I don't think Ashley and Maggie are going to be sticking around much longer,' Jeff said, gathering up the diagrams. 'Ashley doesn't approve of these kind of missions.'

'Can you blame her? Who wants to see someone she loves facing down a bullet?'

'It's what I do.'

'That's complete bull and you know it. You chose how you participate in the assignment. You hire the best and train them to be better, then instead of letting them get on with their job, you meddle.' Zane took a step closer to him. 'You know what I think, Jeff? I think you're afraid. You care about Ashley and her daughter and that scares you. You've never had to care before. Suddenly, after all these years, you have something to lose. What if your edge is gone? What if at the last minute you don't want to take the bullet? But instead of celebrating the fact that you have a chance at a normal life, you walk away.'

Zane glared at him in disgust. 'You're an idiot. Don't you get it? Chances like this don't come along very often.'

'You don't have anyone in your life,' Jeff said, trying to ignore the truth of his friend's words.

'You're right. Because the one person I was supposed to be with died. There's not a single day that goes by without me thinking about her, wishing things could be different. I lost my chance. What's your excuse?'

Jeff wasn't sure what to say. 'I'm sorry,' he mumbled. 'I didn't know.'

'Yeah, well, now you do. So quit being a jerk who would rather take a bullet in the back than admit he might have fallen in love.'

* * *

Ashley couldn't get Jeff's words out of her head. She kept telling herself that he was wrong, that she hadn't betrayed him. She was the injured party. But no matter how many times she told herself that, she couldn't quite make herself believe it.

She paced the length of the kitchen, ignoring her open accounting books. While she knew she should be studying, she couldn't stop thinking about Jeff. Thinking and watching the clock. His plane would take off in less than two hours. After that she wouldn't see him for a week… or maybe not ever again.

'I can't go through this,' she said, squeezing her eyes shut. 'I can't sit around waiting for him to die. All I wanted was someone to love me back. To want to live for me and love me more than anyone. An unconditional love.'

She opened her eyes and stared unseeingly out the window. Jeff was never going to love her that way. She wanted to scream her frustration. She wanted to throw something. She knew in her heart she wasn't as angry about his work as she was about the loss of her dream. She'd thought they would have a chance, but she'd been wrong. Damn the man for not loving her on her timetable and in the way she'd always imagined. Didn't he know he was messing with her lifelong dream? Ever since her sister had died, she'd ached to feel safe again. But with Jeff running off to throw himself in front of a bullet, she could never feel that way.