Pulling the Trigger. Julie Miller
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Chapter Two
“What are you doing here?” Ethan asked, anchoring his boots to the floor and holding himself still against the impulse leaping through every muscle of his body. Fly across the room and scoop her up in a fierce hug.
But another part of him had grown wiser and more cautious over the years. One, they had an audience in the form of Officer Bates at the security desk. And two, even if they were all alone, he wasn’t too keen on getting his ego smacked or his heart crushed again.
He’d seen plenty of death and destruction in his years as an army ranger and his two tours of duty in Afghanistan. He’d dealt with loss in his work as a search-and-rescue team leader. But nothing had ever hit him as hard or left him feeling as powerless as watching Joanna Kuchu’s tearstained face when she’d scrambled out of his truck that last warm spring night on the rez.
“There are no good memories for me here. I have the chance to leave and I’m taking it. Goodbye, Ethan.”
She was barely eighteen and he was only twenty-one, but he’d known in his bones that they were supposed to last.
But boom. They were done. She was gone.
And he was the man left behind.
“I’m working the Julie Grainger murder investigation,” she explained, clutching a thick investigation file against her chest. Her fingers fiddled with the edge of the manila envelope in a subtle revelation of nerves. But they stilled almost as soon as he noticed the unconscious movement.
Always guarded, always with a plan, always thinking two or three steps ahead of everyone else in the room. That part of her personality hadn’t changed.
“I knew there was a good chance I’d run into you. We should get this meeting over with so that it doesn’t cost either of us more pain than it has to.” She pointed over his shoulder. “You’re getting wet and so’s the rug. Why don’t you close the door? I’m sure we can find a private place to talk.”
No good memories. Not even him. Them. She’d been through hell those last few months—and the years before hadn’t been much better, so he’d never held her need to leave against her. But she’d never even let him try to help. She’d refused his offer to go with her. And his love hadn’t been enough for her to stay.
Ethan pushed the door shut behind him. He might not hold her obsessive drive to escape Mesa Ridge and the reservation against her. Didn’t mean he had to let her fillet his heart open and char it over the flames of false hope and misguided passion again, either.
“I’m just here to deliver this to a friend,” he explained, holding up the purse he carried.
“Elizabeth?” She inclined her head toward the main hallway, exposing a swanlike expanse of neck that beckoned to randy memories from the past. “She’s in the break room making coffee. I’ll walk you back.”
Though this sure as hell wasn’t the homecoming he’d once wished for, spending a few impersonal minutes in her company could no longer hurt him. Ethan shortened his stride and fell into step beside her. “Time has treated you well.”
“You look good, too.” She arched an eyebrow and gave him a glimpse of the hesitant smile he remembered. “Your hair’s a lot shorter. And you—” her long, agile fingers gestured in the air “—filled out. Got big. You’re taller and broader both, it looks like to me.”
More than six years of elite army training and service, plus the rugged outdoorsman life he led, did that to a man. “I guess.”
“How’s Kyle?”
It made sense that she’d ask about his younger brother. They’d been classmates and good friends. Of course, she and Ethan had been so much more than friends, but she didn’t need him to point that out. “He’s good. Married. Two kids. Lives in Cortez now.”
“Still a man of few words, I see.”
“No sense wasting them.” Stopping at Elizabeth Reddawn’s desk, Ethan set down the purse and unhooked his collar and loosened the black string tie he wore, silently assessing the changes in Joanna’s appearance as she turned to face him.
Despite the warmth of her olive complexion and dark brown eyes, there was a brittleness to her ramrod posture and polite words. He idly wondered if a stroke of his fingertip across the nape of her neck could still make her shiver, or if the touch of his lips against hers could break through those invisible barriers she wore like body armor and unleash the warmth and softness and eagerness to explore her own sexuality he remembered.
The black-as-midnight hair she’d pulled back into a sleek ponytail was shorter than the wild horse’s tail of a hairdo she’d worn through high school. She’d grown, too. Maybe it was the high heels she was wearing—he’d never seen those on her feet before—but the top of her head was just about even with his chin now. The curve of her lips sported a sheer berry tint that hadn’t been there fifteen years ago, and her tailored suit was a far cry from the jeans and tees she’d lived in back then. The beautiful woman standing in front of him looked as polished and businesslike and cold as the gun holstered at her waist.
The curious, coltish tomboy who’d tagged along with him and his younger brother, Kyle, on their adventures around the reservation had vanished. The years apart had erased the young woman with the shy sensuality and big dreams whom he’d patiently coaxed into loving and trusting him. Pity there was no sign of the fire within that had once drawn him like a moth to a flame.
But idle thoughts were as useless as idle words.
“You’re FBI?” he asked.
She nodded. “I made it into the program at Quantico after graduating with my master’s in psychology. Made it all the way to Washington, D.C., where I’m assigned now as a behavioral scientist and criminal profiler.”
“Good.” That was what she’d wanted—to move East, to put the entire country between her and the memories of her parents’ deaths and the compounding tragedy that followed. She’d longed for urban landscapes and busy, diverse city streets instead of the endless red-rock terrain and isolation of the reservation and the small mountain towns like Mesa Ridge and Kenner City. She’d wanted to carry a gun and take down bad guys and give the victims like herself, who’d been denied a voice, a champion who could save the day. She’d wanted things he couldn’t give her. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
So she’d finally gotten what she wanted. On some noble level, he was happy for her. But deeper down, somewhere between his battered heart and old man’s soul, it had always felt like unfinished business between them—as though fate and her stubborn will had seen fit to deny them the wonderful possibilities of loving each other.
Just punishment, Ethan supposed. He hadn’t protected her well enough back then—hadn’t even sensed how badly she’d needed his protection until it was too late. He’d been more interested in getting in her pants and making her see the world—and their future together—through his eyes.
Yeah. More than anyone he knew, Joanna Kuchu deserved to have her dreams come true. Even if those dreams didn’t include him. He was glad that she’d finally found her place in the world.
After moving on for a while, he’d come to realize that he was already where he needed to be. He’d come home from that last hellish deployment to the land whose spirit flowed through him like his own blood. He needed the open space and quiet the way she needed the bustle and technology and new faces around every turn in the big city.
When the silence stretched on long enough for her coffee-dark gaze to drop to the middle of his chest, Ethan knew there was no sense prolonging their would’ve-could’ve-should’ve-been reunion. He smoothed his hand over the top of his cropped hair and down the back of his scalp, taking away a palmful of dampness with it. There was no good way to let this woman go. He just had to do