Text (Take It Off #4)(34)
Author: Cambria Hebert

But what I did know was far more important.

I knew the type of man he was.

I could spend years with a man and still never learn the kinds of things I already learned about Nathan. We’d already been through the kind of situation that showed what people were made of. We’d already been through an event that totally bonded us.

The rest was just details.

As I mentioned before. I’m a writer. I’m a romantic. Go with it, people.

Nathan was the kind of guy who would literally stick his neck out for someone who needed help. He was the kind of man who wouldn’t run from a dangerous situation. He barely flinched when I told the police what Lex had done to me, and while I could feel the anger that sometimes simmered just beneath his surface, I knew that he would never turn that anger on me.

I was safe with him.

“Nice place,” he said, looking around my simple kitchen with the dark cabinets, dark-green countertops, and black appliances.

“Thanks.” It wasn’t a palace, but it was comfortable, and I was able to buy it off the money I made from my books. Never in a million years did I think my dream would afford me enough to live without having to work a day job. I owed it all to my readers.

That thought gave me a little pang of guilt. Those readers were probably wondering what happened to me.

“Honor?” Nathan asked, watching me closely.

I smiled and extended the knife toward him. “Wanna help?”

“I usually don’t make pie. I just eat it,” he said as he took the utensil.

“You eat, you cook.”

He saluted me. “Aye-aye.”

I showed him the apples. “You can peel these.”

We worked silently side by side. I liked having him here. Even though he didn’t say much, it wasn’t so quiet anymore.

After I rolled out the crust and draped it in the pie pan, I added the sugar and smidge of flour to the sliced apples. Then I reached for the cinnamon and after I added a tablespoon, I went to set it down.

“It needs more.” Nathan observed.

“You like cinnamon?” I asked, intrigued.

He nodded. I grinned. “Me too. I always add extra, but I wasn’t sure if you’d like it or not.”

“Add it in there, woman.”

I added another generous heap.

“That’s the stuff,” he said.

After it was all tossed together, I poured it all in the crust and added the top layer, crimping the edges and cutting a few slits in the top. Nathan watched me carefully as I added an egg wash and sprinkled extra sugar over the top.

When it was done, he held open the oven door as I slid in the pie to bake.

“Want some coffee?” I asked.

Once we both had coffee with generous amounts of cinnamon creamer, I led him into the living room where I settled on the couch. He sat down beside me and I was glad he was close. That’s one of the things I liked so much about Nathan. There was an unapologetic honesty about him. A “this is who I am” attitude. He didn’t sit farther away from me because he was nervous or because he thought it would be more appropriate. He did what he wanted.

I was really hoping he wanted me.

“Wanna tell me about your dream?” he asked quietly.

I wrapped my hands around the mug, letting the warmth seep into me. I think one of the reasons I loved coffee so much was just because I liked holding the warm cup. “Not really.”

He nodded and didn’t press. “How’s the ribs?”

“Peachy.”

He chuckled. “When’s my pie gonna be ready?”

“Your pie?” I asked and arched a brow.

“Do you often make apple pie in the middle of the night?”

“All the time.” I scoffed.

He grinned. He knew I was lying.

“Will the dreams go away?” I whispered.

His smile slipped away. He sat forward and placed his mug on the coffee table and turned his body toward me. “I hope so.”

“You have them too,” I said, knowing his understanding went far beyond empathy.

“Sometimes.”

I glanced at the scars on his face. Then I leaned my cheek against the cushions. “You should tell me about your problems. It’ll make me feel better.”

He chuckled. “Hearing about someone else’s drama will make you feel better?”

“Yep.”

I thought he might tell me to bug off.

“You really want to know?”

“I really do.”

“I work as an armor man in the Marines. I’m in charge of inspecting the weapons, cleaning them, putting them together properly, stuff like that. A couple years ago, my unit deployed to Afghanistan. It’s a rough country. A hellhole really. The Corps’s presence over there was fairly new when I was sent. There wasn’t much in the way of comfort. We hadn’t been there long enough to get things fully set up. We didn’t have phones, the Internet was shoddy, and mostly we slept in tents.”

I listened aptly, taking it all in, and the writer in me constructed a setting in my head that went along with his words.

“I’m not a grunt, meaning I don’t fight on the front lines… but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t danger.”

“I would think being there was danger enough. For anyone,” I said.

He nodded. “For some more than others. It really just depends on the person’s billet—their job.”

I nodded and he continued. “One night the guys were short staffed and due out for patrol. It’s basically routine—some guys go out and walk the perimeter of the base. They check certain areas, make sure our security is still tight. Make sure no enemy threat is lurking or lying in wait.”

“Right,” I agreed and took a sip of my coffee. The sound of his voice was incredible. I could listen to him talk for hours and not once get bored. There was a richness in his tone, a southern lilt that made his words a little more drawn out than most of the people that lived in this area.

“I volunteered to go with them, me and a couple other guys. We got some weapons and all of us headed out, small groups of us going in different directions.”

He got this faraway look in his eyes, and I knew he was going back there, that whatever scene he was reliving replayed vividly in his mind. I scooted a little closer, something pushing me forward, like I instinctively knew he was going to need the comfort.

“It was pretty typical at first, us just patrolling, making sure everything was fine. And it was. Until we were attacked.”

His voice took on a more gravelly tone. “I was out with two other guys, good guys. Young guys. They had their entire lives ahead of them. One of them just had a baby. All he could talk about was getting home to meet his baby girl.”