Page 56 of Single Mom's Firefighter SEALs
Calder’s standing on the porch in a black jacket and jeans, his dark hair tousled from the wind, his face shadowed and serious. He scans me quickly as soon as I open the door. “Everything okay?”
The concern in his voice warms me against the chill air as I step aside to let him in. “Yes. I just … wanted to see you.”
He comes in quietly and closes the door with care. Even in the dim light from the lamp by the couch, he seems to take up all the space around him. He carries himself with a restrained stillness that always makes me think of something powerful being held tightly in check. I noticed it long before Ifound out who he was.
His eyes search my face as he pulls off his shoes. “You sure you’re okay?”
I give him a small nod. “T.J.’s asleep.”
“Okay.”
I needn’t have warned him, because he was already keeping his voice low, and something about the way he adjusted himself to my house automatically makes my chest tighten.
“Want something to drink?” After he takes off his jacket, I start leading him to the kitchen automatically, but when he shakes his head, I change my mind and turn toward the bedroom.
He follows me without question.
The light in my room is low, with only the small lamp on my dresser on, and it’s darker still when I close the door and twist the lock. When I sit on the edge of the bed, Calder remains standing.
“Come here,” I whisper, and he does.
The mattress dips under his weight when he sits beside me, and for a moment, neither of us speaks. Eventually, I say, “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what you told me.”
He goes still, and I reach for him before I can overthink it. I lay my hand over his and warm his cool skin.
“I’m angry,” I whisper without looking at him. “At them. At everything they kept from me. At how much you’ve all been carrying alone.” My throat goes dry. “It all seems senseless.”
He flips his hand over so he’s holding mine in his. “You get to be angry,” he says quietly, and being understood helps more than comfort would.
I draw my feet up onto the bed and turn toward him fully. “Do you have nightmares?”
His eyes drop to where our hands are joined, then he looks back at my face. “Yeah.”
“I keep thinking about how long I’ve been holding everything together because I didn’t have another option,” I say. “I’ve had to be fine. For T.J., for work, for everybody. Then the threats started, and the fires … I don’t think I even realized how much I was carrying until you said all that to me yesterday.”
He’s quiet, listening in the way he always does, without trying to rush in and fix things too fast.
“What are they like?” I ask after a second. “The nightmares.”
Calder’s jaw goes stiff, and I almost tell him he doesn’t have to answer, but then he starts talking.
“Depends on the night. Sometimes it’s the mission, sometimes just pieces of it. Fire, metal, sounds.” His chest expands with a heavy breath. “Sometimes I wake up already moving. Sometimes I don’t know where I am for a few seconds.” He glances at me. “Sometimes I know exactly where I am, and it doesn’t matter.”
“How often?” Iwhisper.
“Enough.”
I move higher on the bed and stretch out on one side. After a second, he stretches out beside me, both of us on top of the covers, facing each other. The intimacy of it feels perfectly right in a way I’m not expecting.
I study his face from inches away, remembering the way his dark good looks had always caught my eye in town. Up close, the lines life has etched are more apparent, and he’s even more attractive. He’s holding himself too still, though, as if he can’t afford to make a wrong move.
“You’re not too damaged for me,” I say.
His gaze flicks away, then back. “Elena?—”
I cut in, my voice low, but firm. “Don’t try to tell me what I can handle. I’m telling you what I see.”
When I reach out and touch his face, brushing my fingertips over the rough line of his jaw, he doesn’t pull back, but he doesn’t lean in, either. He holds himself there, like he doesn’t know what to do with the contact.
