Rescue Me

waist. She loved him and it scared the hell out of her. “Who’s Wilson?”
    He looked down at her, his brows drawn. “Where did you hear that name?”
    “You called it out.”
    He turned his gaze away. “Pete Wilson. He’s dead.”
    “Was he a buddy?” She grabbed his fist and forced the plastic bottle into his hand.
    “Yeah.” Water leaked out the corners of his mouth as he took several big gulps. “He was the finest officer I ever met.” He wiped the water away with the back of his hand. “The best man I’ve ever known.”
    “How’d he die?”
    “Killed in the Hindu Kush Mountains in central Afghanistan.”
    Anger rolled off him and tension turned his muscles even harder. “What can I do to help you?” she asked. He’d been so good to her the past week. Just when she’d needed him, he’d been there. Driving her and walking beside her with his hand on the small of her back. Talking to her and sometimes not saying anything at all. Rescuing her even when she didn’t ask. Working his way into her heart when that was the last place he wanted to be.
    “I don’t need help.” He stood, and her hand slid down his bare leg. “I’m not a little girl.”
    She stood up and looked into his green gaze. “Neither am I, Vince.” Right before her eyes she watched him draw inward. She didn’t know where he went, other than he was gone. “Vince.” His name caught in her chest, clogged with emotion, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. She pressed herself against his hard, hot chest and rambled, “I’m sorry. It must be horrible. I wish there was something I could do.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you helped me when I needed you. Because I’m not lonely when you’re around. Because you rescue me even when I don’t ask you to.” She choked back her tears, and opened her mouth to tell him that he was big and strong and wonderful. That he was the best man she’d ever known. Instead something raw and new and really horrible tumbled out, “Because I love you.”
    Awkward silence stretched between them until he finally said, “Thank you.”
    Oh God. Had he just thanked her?
    “Let’s get you home.”
    His hands stayed at his sides, but his words felt like a physical push. She’d just told him she loved him and he reacted with a thank-you and an offer for a ride home.
    “It’s late.”
    She dressed quickly in her black dress and shoved her feet into her cowboy boots. Neither spoke much as she grabbed her hat and clutch purse on the way out the door. An uncomfortable silence filled the cab of the truck as Vince drove toward the JH. An uncomfortable silence that had never existed before. Not even the first time she’d seen him standing by the side of the road, the hood of his truck raised.
    She didn’t ask if he would call or text. She didn’t ask when she would see him again. No more declarations of love. She had more dignity than that when the last thing he wanted was her love. He’d always been clear about that, and as she watched the taillights of his truck fade, she knew it was over.
    What had she expected? He’d been upfront with what he wanted. It was what she’d wanted too, but somewhere within the past few weeks she’d started to have feelings for him. Started to feel something more than just lust.
    She’d buried her father, fallen in love, and been dumped all in the same day.

Chapter Seventeen
    T he cool, humid wind brushed Vince’s knuckles and cheeks and ears. The bad dog pipes of his Harley rumbled the air on Morning Glory Drive in Kirkland, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. The back of Conner’s helmet hit Vince’s chin for about the tenth time as the two of them slowly rode up and down the street in front of Conner’s house. They wore matching leather bomber jackets, but Conner’s was tighter on him than the last time the two had driven up and down the street.
    It had been five months since he’d left Washington. Five months that somehow seemed like years.
    The bike slowed as they rolled toward the split-level house with the rental truck in the driveway.
    “One more time, Uncle Vince!” Conner hollered over the reverberations.
    “You got it.” He flipped a U and headed back down the tree-lined street. Vince lost count of how many times they rode up and down the street. When he did finally pull into the drive behind the truck, Conner protested.
    “I don’t wanna stop.”
    He shut off the bike and helped his nephew to the ground. “Next time I’m in town,