Night Hawk. Lindsay McKenna

saw the confusion in his face. Oh, Kai knew Gil could come clean and take off that damned game face he wore the way Sam had. But where Sam couldn’t let down his game face, she knew Gil could do it. And to her surprise, he was allowing her to see him. That shook her because she didn’t expect it. Especially right now. She saw him struggling, his expression ravaged.

      “No,” he breathed in a gruff tone, “I would not have said anything to Talon. I know how good you are.”

      She straightened, throwing back her shoulders, battling tears she refused to let fall. “I’ll bet.”

      “I owe you an explanation.”

      “Ya think? Gee, Gil, it must have been one helluva shock to you to see me here, huh? I’ll bet you thought life was rosy here on the Triple H until I stepped back into the picture.” Kai jerked off her gloves and threw them down on top of her metal toolbox. “Well, I don’t like this situation any more than you do. But you know what? I earned this position here at this ranch!” She jabbed her finger down at the wooden floor. Her voice was trembling with anger. “And you aren’t going to take it away from me! I’m damned good at what I do! You just need to stay as far away from me as you can get.” She pushed her fingers through her hair, glaring at him. “I don’t intend to tell anyone about us if that’s what got you worried. You go your way. I’ll go mine. I want nothing to do with you.” Her voice cracked. “Do you understand me, Gil? Do you?”

      Gil nodded. “I’m sorry, Kai. It shouldn’t have happened. I know that now.” He gave her an apologetic look.

      “If you think I’m going to stand here and listen to why you screwed me for five days and then left me without a word, you can forget it,” Kai whispered unsteadily. “You’ve hurt me enough, Gil. I was still hurting from Sam’s death. And then you walked in, devastated, asking for my help.” Kai choked, “You used me, Gil! You bastard! You used me!”

      Wincing, Gil rubbed his jaw and his mouth tightened. “That’s not true, Kai—”

      “Get out of here, Gil. Leave me alone! I’ll do my job and I’ll do it well. You’ll have no reason to worry I’ll do anything less than that.”

      He stared at her, the whiteness in her face and the rage in her gray eyes making him wince. Gil knew better than to try to pursue any conversation with Kai right now. Hell, he deserved her rage. Every bit of it. “Okay,” he growled, “you’ll get your wish as much as possible. When I need to see you or talk with you, I will. Let’s keep it civil and we’ll just make the best of it.”

      He stalked out of the barn, the thudding of his boots echoing throughout the building.

      With a little sob, Kai turned away, a hand pressed against her mouth. She bent over, tears rushing down her drawn cheeks. She tried not to cry, but it was four years’ worth of hurt, grief and a broken heart that had built up within her. She crouched down by her toolbox, wanting to hide, her shoulders shaking violently as she sobbed into her hands, trying to stop the sounds from being heard by anyone. Her nose ran, and her tears flooded across her face. Damn Gil Hanford! The bastard knew when to take off his game face and look vulnerable. That is what had tricked her into feeling sorry for him, feeling... Oh, hell, feeling things she had felt guilty for feeling to this day.

      Sam had been dead only a year. She’d grieved deeply for him, cried often and felt torn in half by his loss. But when Gil walked in, his eyes raw with grief and with tears in them, she had opened her heart and her arms to him. Because he’d been Sam’s best friend. And Gil had turned them into lovers within two heartbeats, his mouth curving powerfully across hers, taking her, making her body suddenly bloom beneath his life-altering kiss. No one had ever kissed her like Hanford had. No one. Not even Sam...

      Kai finally dropped to her knees, rocking back on her heels, letting the flood of weeping sweep through her because she knew it was better to get it out than let it sit like a toxic waste dump inside her.

      * * *

      GIL TRIED TO steady his twisting emotions roaring through him. Dammit, he’d caused Kai to cry! He’d stood at the opening of the barn, halting, turning around, wanting to go back to her and explain everything. Take the responsibility for his actions. But when he heard her softened sobs, Jesus, it felt as if the invisible claws of a bald eagle had ripped into his chest and clutched his writhing heart in its sharp talons, shredding it. And he couldn’t go back in there to hold her like she deserved. Like he wanted to. This was such a FUBAR. Rubbing his chest beneath the black leather vest he wore over his dark green cowboy shirt, Gil wavered.

      Just hearing Kai sob like a lost child, the sounds muted, almost unheard, tore him wide-open. His straight black brows drew downward and he felt miserable for her, not himself. Anything she had to dish out was his to take. Wiping his jaw, he sadly turned away, knowing that if he walked back in there to comfort her, Kai would lose it completely. The devastation in her face, the unconcealed hurt in her eyes, made him bleed.

      As he slowly walked down the slope, he searched frantically to somehow fix what he’d destroyed within Kai. She hadn’t deserved this in any way. She’d been a loyal, loving wife to his best friend, Sam. And Gil had seen the love she had for Sam in her beautiful gray eyes. And how many times had Gil ached to see her look at him that way? Rubbing his chest again because the agony bursting through his chest made him feel miserable, Gil knew what he’d done to her had been wrong. It had been utterly selfish.

      He slowed his walk, not wanting to reach the ranch house just yet, his mind and heart back in Bagram where Kai was stationed. She didn’t know how much he looked forward to seeing her when he and his Delta team came off a mission. He would always walk over to the Apache hangars, look her up and casually ask if she’d go to chow with him. He would see her eyes widen a little, a sudden smile blossom on her lips when she’d spot him. And she always was eager to go eat with him.

      Did Kai know how much he looked forward to those special times? To hear her talk, hear her dreams, hear her getting over Sam’s death.

      That’s what they shared between them: Sam Morrison. He was a larger-than-life Delta Force operator. The perfect poster child for the shadow warrior group, the best the Army had. Gil recalled the first time Sam had accidentally run into Kai. It was in an Afghan village. At Bagram, Kai worked with a group of Army people who had started a charity for the children of the Afghan villages. She was with a group of volunteer medics, the only female in the group. The medics, all men, couldn’t talk to the mothers or little girls, but Kai could because she was a female.

      Gil remembered going into the village because they were looking for a Taliban suspect who had run and hidden in it the night before. They’d tracked him by infrared scope on their rifles. Often Taliban would hide in villages to throw them off the trail. Gil couldn’t get Kai out of his mind, his heart or his body after seeing her there. Sam Morrison was leading the team and spotted her. And he reacted the same way toward her, telling Gil he was claiming her.

      Well, Sam had claimed Kai. The guy knew how to turn on the charm Gil never possessed. He watched his best friend sweet-talk innocent Kai. And she was naive at that time. Hell, she still was. Innocent in the sense that she was an idealist. She didn’t see the bad in life. She always saw the good.

      Gil was privately jealous of Sam for getting to her first. He’d been so powerfully attracted to Kai that he couldn’t explain it at all. He’d lain awake in his tent at Bagram, unable to erase her from his thoughts or, worse, his heart.

      Every time they came back to Bagram, Sam would go directly to Kai. And Gil ached to be the one who went to her, instead. But Sam was his brother-in-arms. They had each other’s backs. He would never betray Sam to get to Kai. No way. There was honor in him although as Gil slowly walked by the rusted corrals, he admitted sourly that his morals and values had gone to hell when he’d lost his brother Rob. By that time, Kai had been a widow for a year. Gil had stepped in to be an emotional support for her after Sam was killed. It was his duty, his moral obligation, to be there for Kai. To let her weep unashamedly on his shoulder, clinging to him, the raw sounds of grief tearing out of her. And he’d held her, patted her back, whispered gruff words, trying to make her feel better.