Page 65 of Stolen By the Billionaire
Just tell him she’d do anything he wanted, anything, and not tell him it was because he was probably the only available man she’d known for years or would know for many more years, and she had no other choices.
Sarah could tell Blaze it was because he’d rescued her, because his shoulders and chest were broad and hunky, and he moved like a panther crossed with a tank, and because when they’d been running through the cornfield, he’d rescued Charlie and HowNow, too.
Because he spoke to her seriously, like he was listening and understood where she was coming from.
Because he hadn’t tried to take advantage of her even when he could have.
Because she didn’t want to live and die without knowing what it was like to lie in a man’s arms.
Her life was prearranged: the farm, the corn, the livestock, and church.
In thirty years, Abigail would probably find Sarah out in the barnyard with Remi standing guard over her body, lying in the dirt after she died of a dried-up, bitter old heart.
Or Blaze was just down the hallway in his bedroom, where he’d told her he would be, probably lying in his bed, maybe staring at the ceiling.
Sarah twisted and hung her legs over the side of the bed, tapping the cool wood of the floor with her toes.
But Sarah was the good girl, the one who stayed, who didn’t argue and run off, who nursed her parents through the last months of their lives and cared for their farm after they were gone.
The good kid who didn’t get out of bed in the middle of the night.
Sarah tucked her feet back under the covers and lay down, watching the moon rise over the edge of Lake Michigan and flood the water with silver.
20
Blackout
Blaze
Hours later, Blaze was flopped on his back in bed and staring at the ceiling, his mind a roiling mess of strategies and inclinations.
He wore blue pajama pants and a tee shirt as civilized men did. Sleeping in fatigues was only allowable when he was in a theater of operations.
The soft pajamas, the lavender-scented bedsheets, and the soft rushing of air from the air conditioner should have informed Blaze’s body and mind that he was in no danger and that it was safe to go to sleep.
Lines of engagement.
Perimeter.
Alert.
A spate of rain had poured and blown over, but the wind still battered the trees around the pool deck outside.
Another thunderstorm cell must be approaching.
Lightning flashed over Lake Michigan, white lines like phosphorus tracer bullets, and Blaze watched glittering light dart through the glass wall and paint his ceiling white as he tried to quell his racing mind.
Yes, he had worked a minor operation that morning to exfiltrate Sarah Nevaeh Bell from her farm while under fire, but he had endured worse and fallen into a deep, restful slumber afterward many times.
Not this agitated state that occasionally dipped into a few moments of fitful semiconsciousness.
And the dreams—
Everyone who’d served in an active theater had the dreams. When he worked the veterans’ suicide prevention hotline, everyone talked about the nightmares.
His body could fly home on an airplane, but his wounded heart was always in battle.
Another lightning bolt burst like an artillery shell.
