Page 16 of Keeping a Warrior

He hadn’t noticed that before, since she’d been wrapped head to toe in Kevlar the last time he’d seen her. About to ask what she’d been up to since that infamous mission, Rhys looked out the windshield, only to let out a gasp of horror. “Holy shit!”

Reflexively, he dug his right foot into the floorboard over and over, as if stomping on a brake pedal, but the view didn’t change.

“What?” Devon snapped. “What is it? Don’t scare me like that!”

“Don’t scare you?” Rhys gaped in disbelief at the back of Matt’s van, which was so close to the front of theirs Rhys could probably lean forward and ask the guy sitting in the very last seat to share his peanuts. “Give him a little room!”

To Rhys’s relief, she eased off, but before he could relax, she crept forward again and held just inches off Matt’s bumper.

Rhys dug his fingernails into the armrest and prayed. They were cresting the mountains east of San Diego, which meant a six-percent downgrade to the valley floor. The highway was dark, with sharp, dangerous curves. Signs depicting skidding, tipping trucks were everywhere.

Despite the treacherous road, Devon drove confidently and with seeming ease. She smoothly changed lanes when Matt did, whipping past the slower-moving vehicles. Rhys didn’t know how she could keep such a precise distance between the front of their van and Matt’s bumper, but she did.

When they finally reached the long, flat stretch of open highway, Rhys let out the breath he’d been holding with a whoosh. “Where did you learn to drive like that?”

Devon’s eyes flashed to him, then back to the road. “Ambush Alley.”

It hit him like a punch in the gut. Of course. They were in a convoy with Matt, and Devon drove like it. In certain areas of a war zone, vehicles drove fast, with only inches between them. Convoy driving was dangerous, and required considerable skill, which Rhys had just witnessed firsthand.

“Well, I’m sorry I doubted you,” he said a little shakily.

“No you’re not.”

When Rhys glanced over at her, he caught her smiling at him. A genuine smile, and one that made her eyes dance with mischief.

All of a sudden he was breathless for an entirely different reason. He cleared his throat. “You’re right, I’m not. You scared the ever-loving shit out of me, I hope you know. It’ll be ages before my balls crawl back out of my body.”

He froze, wondering where the hell that’d come from, but Devon only laughed, a low husky sound that definitely made Rhys’s balls sit up and take notice.

Damn.

“It’s so funny,” she mused, “that people think women in combat is something new. We’ve been in combat since the dawn of time.” Glancing at him, she asked, a distinct challenge in her voice, “How do you feel about women on the teams?”

With no hesitation, he replied, “I’m a hundred percent here for it.” At her skeptical look, he added, “No, really. Meet the standards, do the job. Simple as that.”

Devon chuckled as she changed lanes smoothly once again. “It really is as simple as that, isn’t it? Meet the standards. Do the job.”

“Exactly.”

Completely at ease with her driving now, Rhys stacked his hands behind his head and let out a long, contented sigh. He was starting to drift off when Devon said, “I’m sorry about your fiancée, Rhys.”

About to reply with a semiflippant “Me, too,” it hit him. No one else had given him that short, simple acknowledgment of his pain. Shit, his own dad had railed at him for fucking it up, his SEAL brothers were treating the whole thing with an offhanded amusement, and a lot of his friends had disappeared into thin air, not wanting to take sides.

I’m sorry.

Even coming from a virtual stranger, it was a much-needed kindness that soaked into Rhys’s heart like the coolest, sweetest water.

“Thanks,” he said. “It’s been rough. For a lot of reasons.”

“Yeah.” Her voice was soft, sympathetic. “Doing what we do, it’s definitely not easy. On anyone.”

The ninety percent divorce rate in the special operations community bore that out, for sure. The odds had been against him and Lani from the moment he applied to pararescue and entered the pipeline.

Rhys closed his eyes. If he’d known back then that losing her would be the ultimate result of that decision, would he have still done it?

He didn’t want to think too closely about the answer to that.

Chapter Three