Page 2 of Protecting Bree
“No, stay. Don’t get up,” Smiley ordered. He couldn’t stand seeing the small wince she made when she’d tried to move. To his relief, she settled back on the cushions and snuggled into the blanket he’d given her earlier.
“How long, what?” she asked.
“How long had you been visiting Kelli? Here at my place?”
Bree shrugged. “About a week. Not long.”
“Why now?”
“You know, you’re a big boy, you could use your words. More of them, I mean. It would prevent me from having to ask for clarification every time you ask me something,” Bree said with another small grin.
Even that little twitching of her lips made satisfaction swim through Smiley’s veins.
“Why reach out to menow? After all this time. And why didn’t you come directly to me when you found out I wasn’t staying here, that Kelli and Flash had moved into my place because of their situation? What changed?”
“Right, so…that was maybetoo manywords,” she joked.
But Smiley wasn’t amused. He felt itchy and unsettled. He needed to understand this woman, and right now he was so far from understanding it wasn’t even funny. “Bree,” he said, his tone communicating that he wanted answers.
She sighed. “I don’t know.”
Smiley scoffed.
“I’m being honest. I admit that I came to Riverton because you were here. That awful night in Vegas, I remember you telling me your name, Jude Stark, and that you were a Navy SEAL stationed in Riverton. When things got…intense back home, the first place I thought to go was here. Whereyouwere. Except once I got here, I had no plan, and no idea how to find you. And I realized how ridiculous it was to come. You didn’t know me, and I didn’t know you. We’d met once for like five seconds. So I felt stupid. But that didn’t stop me from hanging out around the gates of the naval base in the hopes I’d get a glimpse of you…and I did.”
“So you followed me.”
Bree shrugged. “Yeah.”
Smiley was glad she wasn’t prevaricating. Wasn’t trying to lie about what she’d done.
“Honestly, it kept me sane. Living out of my car was boring. I didn’t have much money, so it wasn’t as if I could go out to eat or stay in hotels. Ihavemoney, I’m just afraid to use it because I have a pretty good idea that the guy who thinks he owns me can track me that way. So I watched you. Figured out who your friends were. Followedthemas well. You can learn a lot about a person by watching them without their knowledge.”
Smiley should be upset. Pissed that she’d spied on him. But for some reason, he wasn’t. “What did you learn about me and my friends?”
“That you’re loyal. And kind. And that you work hard and play harder.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“So why’d you come to my place? Kelli said you came right up to the door and knocked.”
Bree snorted. “Not my finest moment. For all the watching I’d done, I hadn’t even realized you weren’t here anymore. Stupid. And I thought she was your girlfriend at first, so I was mortified.”
“Why?”
Bree stared at him with tired eyes. Then she took a deep breath and blurted, “Because in all the time I’d watched you, I hadn’t seen you with a woman. I had this little fantasy in my head that I’d knock on your door, you’d be thrilled to see me, would solve all my problems and find out you like me in the process and we’d live happily ever after.” She finished by rolling her eyes.
Her words were a little defensive and a lot sarcastic. But they still sent an electric buzz shooting through Smiley.
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, holding eye contact with Bree as he spoke. “Thereissomething between us,” he said simply. “I wouldn’t have spent the last several months of my life doing everything in my power to find you if there wasn’t.”
She stared at him for a long moment, the air between them charged. Smiley had never felt anything like it before. The hair on his arms and legs felt as if every strand was standing straight up. Something was happening here. Something he didn’t understand. But he’d learned through his time as a SEAL that sometimes you just had to go with the flow. Even if what you were doing made no sense whatsoever…if it went against everything you’d been taught.
“I was going to leave, but Kelli was…persuasive. And she lured me inside with the promise of a shower and a meal,” Bree said a little quieter. “I used to take showers for granted. And when I was hungry, I ate. They weren’t even questions in my head. Just things I did. But when you get to a point where you can’t just go to a bathroom and turn on a shower, or go to the pantry and grab a snack, you realize how important those things really are.”
“Yeah. It’s not the same, not at all, but after a two-week mission, where we’ve been crawling through a jungle or walking through miles of sand, or even swimming hours in the ocean…there’s nothing better than that first shower or meal.”
Bree nodded. “Right. So, I came inside when Kelli invited me. Then I found myself coming back. I knew I shouldn’t. That I should just leave. Go east. Somewhere.Anywhere. But Kelli was so nice. And being in here, surrounded by your stuff…it made me feel normal again.”
