Watching him teach Aggie how to shoot baskets had nearly turned Jenny into a puddle. He wasn’t just devastatingly handsome, with his dark brown hair, those pensive green eyes that could see right into her heart—or most of it—but he had a rescuer’s heart.
She’d always known that, birthed in the days she’d watched him deploy and rescue soldiers working in-country in Afghanistan as a pararescue jumper.
Yes, Orion was a hero.
But he was downright dangerous to her heart. Because inevitably—and shoot, she should have known this would happen—he’d want more.
Marriage. Family. Children.
It wasn’t until she saw him with Aggie that that last truth had clicked in and destroyed everything.
“Are you finished, ma’am?” A waiter gestured to her half-finished chicken cordon bleu, asparagus, and mashed potatoes. She nodded and turned to listen to the speaker just being introduced.
Presidential candidate Isaac White’s running mate, Senator Reba Jackson. An impressive woman with blondish-red hair, tall, striking, dressed in a white pantsuit with a blue-and-white handkerchief around her neck. She had taken the podium after the welcomes and talked a little about how the Red Cross had saved lives after the Hurricane Lucy disaster in the Keys. And how, once she and White were elected, they would continue to support the work of the Red Cross, blah, blah, blah . . . Jenny had tuned her out, every cell of her body focused on Orion and his comments to Pete during today’s introductory training.
Comments about how Pete had invited him to work for his Red Cross Rescue team.
She liked Pete. He had a charming smile, wore his blond hair long and behind his ears, and exuded a slight Montana aura, maybe due to his western drawl. He sat with his arm propped on the back of his fiancée’s chair. Jess could have been a model, with her tall, willowy figure, a peacock-blue dress that could stop a crowd, and her blonde hair left long and golden. But she had real SAR chops, showing up today to work with the K9 team Pete had assembled, led by a woman named Dani Masterson. Pete and Dani showed them some cool new tech they used with the dogs to track their searches, like Kevlar paw protectors and orbital cameras, and that was interesting, but her ears perked up when Pete suggested Orion join his team. Ham and Pete had a good-natured verbal tussle over Orion, and she simply tried to stay calm while her heart tried to leap, screaming, from her chest.
Please. No. She’d joined this team because of Orion. Because she wanted to be in his life.
Because he gave her a fresh start, and because, most of all, she felt whole with him.
Until, of course, being with him made her realize she could never truly be whole. Wow, she so didn’t see that coming.
God sure knew how to blindside her. And deservedly so. She should have realized the truth before she dove into a relationship with this amazing man.
She had no business dreaming of the kind of future Orion wanted. He deserved better. And she would not be the cause of his leaving.
Jackson finished her speech and introduced her running mate for president, Senator White.
He started in on his speech, more blah, blah, blah about the Red Cross, although probably super interesting if a gal wasn’t fine-tuned to everything Orion was doing.
Leaning back in his chair. Sighing deeply, as if in pain.
She couldn’t take it. Wadding up her napkin, she got up, ducked her head as if trying to remain unseen, and left the room.
The room was half-darkened, but as she slipped out, walking past six hundred or more eyes, she drew in a full breath, every bone in her body thin and brittle.
Outside, she leaned against the wall of the hallway, pressed her hands against it.
“Jenny, are you okay?”
The voice surprised her—mostly because Scarlett Hathaway might be the last person Jenny thought would follow her. The communications expert had joined the team just recently, and even then this had been her first training event. Still, Jenny liked her. Petite, with short dark hair and dark brown eyes, she seemed tough, no-nonsense, and just the kind of person they needed to direct verbal traffic during a rescue.
Now, Scarlett wore a simple black-and-silver sequined dress that caught the lights of the room, something spunky and surprising.
Maybe Jenny should have tried harder than her simple black dress, her hair in a braid down her back . . .
It didn’t matter. The more Orion noticed her, the more the pain sharpened between them.
She sighed. “I’m not feeling well. I think I need to go back to my room.”
“I’ll walk you.”
“No, that’s okay—”
“Listen. White already has my vote. And . . .” Scarlett made a face. “I know I don’t know you that well, but is there something going on between you and Orion? Because, I thought you two were dating—”
“We broke up.” The words slammed into her. We. Broke. Up.
Had they? Probably. But suddenly her eyes filled and her throat tightened, and shoot, now she really needed to escape to her room.
She pushed away from the wall.
“Jenny?”
“I . . . I just . . .”
“Want to talk about it?” Scarlett had stepped back but kept her voice low. “Because I know a little bit about loving a teammate, and the ways it can go south.”
Jenny looked at Scarlett, frowned.
“Ford and I used to be on the same team, sorta. And . . . well, we’re still working it out, but we had our dark moments.”
“Orion asked me to marry him.” Oh, she didn’t know why she said that—it just burst out of her.
Scarlett’s eyes widened. “And?”
“I said no.” She winced, her hand covering her mouth.
“Okay, yes, we’re talking.” Scarlett grabbed her hand and marched her down the hall to the elevators. “Are you on the eleventh floor too?”
Jenny nodded.
Scarlett practically pushed her into the elevator, and Jenny pressed her fingers under her eyes to stop the stupid flow of tears as they rode up. “I’m fine, really—”
“I know,” Scarlett said, looking at the numbers. “The kind of fine that needs a room-service pizza and maybe a pint of chocolate ice cream.”
Jenny gave a pitiful laugh-cry that dissolved into weeping.
Scarlett took Jenny’s tiny clutch out of her hand, opened it, and pulled out her key. “Which room?”
“1101.”
She headed down the hall, opened her room, and dropped her bag on the bed. “Comfy clothes, pronto. I’ll call room service.”
It felt a little like being back with the military, but Jenny obeyed, changing into a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt.
By the time she came out of the bathroom, Scarlett had taken off her shoes and was scanning through the television channels. She settled on Cake Boss, muted the television, and curled up on the blue Queen Anne chair, pulling her feet up beneath her.
Jenny sat on the bed and grabbed a pillow.
“Should we start at the beginning, or just the moment when you decided to tell the man you love that you won’t marry him? And don’t tell me you don’t love Orion, because not only did I see the way you looked at him tonight when he walked in, but hello, he has hero written all over him. Orion is one of the sweetest, most thoughtful—”
“Generous, giving, and brave men I know. And more. He’s a man of faith, he’s a rescuer, he would be a great husband—”
“And father?”
“Yes, absolutely. And that’s the problem.” Jenny took a breath. “I don’t want kids.”
A beat, and then she looked at Scarlett, who was nodding. “I get it, I guess. Kids complicate things. Orion and you would probably have to choose between the team and your family—”
“No, it’s not that. I mean, I . . . I really don’t want children.” She made a face. “Truth is, I guess I never really admitted it to myself—more of a feeling than an absolute, but . . .” She sighed. “When I saw the way Orion reacted to Aggie, I could
see him with a child—a bunch of kids, really, and I knew he would be a great dad. And he deserves to have a child.”
“And you don’t?”
Jenny looked away. “I just don’t think I’d be a very good mom.”
“What? Why?”
She shook her head. And no, she didn’t know Scarlett well enough to dive into all of it, so, “My mom didn’t really want to be a mom, and she tried, but it was a big fail. I was more of a mom to her than she was to me.”
“Oh, I had one of those moms,” Scarlett said. “I was raised by a single mom, and she tried, but she was a disaster.” Oddly, her eyes filled. “She died recently, but it’s made me wonder about the whole mothering thing too. Although, that probably won’t happen for a while, with Ford’s lifestyle.”
“He’s an active-duty SEAL, right?”
“And we also have a slight complication. My little brother is in foster care, and lives with me once in a while. But Ford comes from this big family, and my guess is that someday— ”
“There’s probably not a someday for me.”
Scarlett nodded, took in her words. Then, quietly, “Just because you had a bad mom doesn’t mean you’re going to be a bad mom.”
“I think maybe it does. And it’s not fair to Orion. He needs to move on and find someone who can give him the family he wants.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“I completely freaked out. I didn’t see the proposal coming—I don’t know why. When he suggested visiting the Marshall family farm—”
“The Marshall family—wait.” Scarlett leaned forward. “Ford is a Marshall. His family lives in Montana.”
“Garrett and Jenny Marshall were my foster parents. They run a winery in Minnesota.”
“Oh. Different Marshalls.” Scarlett leaned back. “The Montana Marshalls live on a ranch in midwestern Montana.”
“Garrett and Jenny are great people. I went there broken, and living with them healed me in so many ways. Garrett is like my father in a way. But I never dreamed that Orion would ask him if he could marry me. And then, suddenly there he was, down on one knee in the pizza parlor and I just . . . I panicked. I said no and ran out of the restaurant.”
“Oh.”
“I was crying when he caught up to me at the car, and I just couldn’t tell him . . . I knew he’d tell me it was okay, that we didn’t have to have children, and frankly, it would just make it worse. So I got into the car and just . . . I just haven’t—”
“He doesn’t know why you said no? Oh Jenny. You have to talk to him. The guy is in pain.”
“I know!” She covered her face with her hands. “I don’t know what to say.”
“What are you so afraid of?”
“I don’t know.”
“He loves you, right?”
“Yes. And I love him. I don’t want him to give up his dreams for me.”
“Even if it means breaking his heart?”
“It’s the best thing for him. In fact . . .” She finally looked up. “I think I should probably quit the team.”
Scarlett pursed her lips, then nodded. “I get that. But quitting isn’t going to make this hurt less, for either of you. You need to talk to him.”
“He’ll just . . . he’ll look at me with those beautiful eyes, and I’ll lose my head, and suddenly we’ll be at some wedding chapel heading for disaster.”
“Or a happy ending.”
Jenny looked away. “I think the best thing for me to do is hop on a plane for Minnesota and put us all out of our misery.”
Scarlett said nothing.
Jenny got up, went over to her closet, and pulled out her suitcase, putting it on the bed.
“Wait—what, now?”
“I’ll go to the airport. Sometimes Spirit has these red-eye tickets you can buy at the counter—”
“Jenny, c’mon—” Scarlett had gotten up, but Jenny had already wound her dress into a ball, thrown it into the bottom of the carry-on along with her shoes.
Jenny went over to the drawers, pulled out her workout and training clothes, and gathered them into her arms.
“Don’t run, Jenny. Give Orion a chance to fix this. You don’t know what he’ll do if you don’t give him a chance.”
She dumped the clothing into the suitcase.
Stared at the mess.
She was running. Her classic move, and one she’d perfected on Orion so many years earlier. She was past this. He did deserve an explanation. And maybe, just maybe, they had a chance to fix this.
“Okay. Yes. I’ll talk to him in the morning.”
“Good girl,” Scarlett said. “After ice cream.”
Jenny smiled. “And pizza.”
A knock sounded at the door. Jenny headed to answer it. Yes, a pizza would help her think more clearly.
Or maybe not, because as she opened the door, her heart simply stopped.
Not room service with a deep-dish pepperoni.
Orion stood in the hallway, his eyes fierce in hers, his hair a little disheveled as if he’d been running frustrated hands through it.
Her mouth opened, but she had nothing.
Apparently, neither did he, because he stared at her, then glanced past her, to the bed, and frowned. Looked back at her.
She didn’t think it was possible to hurt him more, but real pain edged his eyes. “Of course you’re leaving. Without telling anyone.” He shook his head, swallowed. “Maybe you should turn your phone back on.”
Right. She’d turned it off before the event. But she didn’t have a chance to explain because he continued, almost without a breath. “Before you vanish, Ham is calling a quick emergency meeting. Maybe you could stick around long enough to keep your commitment to him.”
Then he turned and headed down the hall.
Signe very rarely allowed Ham to step inside her dreams, roam around, pull up the past, and remind her of the what-ifs. But she was tired, having traveled with an eye over her shoulder for the past thirty-six hours. She’d crossed four borders, ridden on so many train cars she’d lost count, and frankly, she just didn’t have the strength to keep him away.
So, yes, she let Ham walk into her dreams, behind her closed eyes as she leaned her head on the window of the Paris Métro, the C line looping up along the Seine toward the safe house just across from the Eiffel Tower.
Where she might actually get some sleep and untangle the questions in her brain, like, how had they found her, this rogue group who wanted the NOC list?
But not right now.
Right now she wanted to climb on the back of Ham’s Kawasaki 650, her hands around his waist as he drove them up dirt roads, the moon rising above the farmland, the scent of autumn thick in the night air.
He smelled like the fresh shower he’d taken after the game. She’d waited for him until he came out of the locker room—not a groupie, thank you, but his best friend.
And more. Oh, she wanted more. But he hadn’t given her even the slightest hint that tucking herself close to him had any effect.
But she could hardly breathe around him, especially since he donned football pads three years ago and started playing quarterback.
Now, with the senior homecoming dance just a week away, she was holding her breath for . . .
Except, what if they destroyed this thing they had? This easy, fun camaraderie?
What if she became one of the many girls who traced Ham’s name into their notebook, wishing?
So she leaned back and put her hands on his shoulders and let the wind take her hair as he turned them toward their farms.
She noticed, however, that he didn’t turn in at her driveway. Or at his. He drove them up the dirt road that ran behind their properties, up the hill, and stopped at a balding rock that overlooked the Mississippi.
“The sky is so clear, I thought . . . well, I have to talk to you.”
He reached out and took her hand. A familiar gesture, but it sent a warmth through her that had nothing to do with friendship. They climbed up o
n the rock and he let her hand go, lay back, his arms behind his head.
Okay. She did the same, the chill of the rock seeping through her volleyball letter jacket and finding her bones. Overhead the spray of stars cast a trail through the dark night sky, winking down at them. In the distance, the river glittered with the lights from shoreline homes. The wind shuffled the dry maple and oak leaves, casting them down.
“My stepmother wants to send me to military school.”
Every bone in her body froze. “What?”
“Yeah. She’s convinced that I’m a bad influence on Kelsey, so she wants to send me away—”
“Kelsey is seven years old. And you’re the best big brother she could ever have.”
Ham said nothing, took a breath. “Trisha hates me. I don’t know why, but she’s convinced my father that I need to leave.”
She couldn’t breathe, an anvil on her chest. “You remind her that your father loved someone else.”
“He married her because of me,” Ham said. “Said I needed a mom.”
She reached out and wove her fingers through his again. Squeezed. She’d feared someday it would come to this. Ham’s father had married the woman, a widow, less than a year after Ham’s mother had died. They’d had baby Kelsey almost nine months later, to the day. Signe was old enough to figure out the math on that one.
Trisha had made Ham’s life a dark place every day since she’d walked into it. Maybe it was best for him to leave.
Except, it would scoop a chunk out of her soul.
“Can you talk to your dad?” She rolled over, propping her head on her hand. “You only have six months left of school . . . and now you’re a big football star.” She poked his shoulder.
He grinned at that. “Two touchdowns tonight. I wish my dad had been here to see it.”
“Me too.” He looked at her and she made a face. “His choices are not your fault.”
“Feels like it. Feels like I did something—”
“Ham.” She touched his face, moved it to meet her gaze. Let go. “You didn’t do anything. She’s just . . . I don’t know. Like my grandmother.”
“Broken?”
“I was going to say mean.”
He laughed, then his grin faded. “I don’t want to leave you, Sig.”
The Price of Valor Page 6