Page 13 of Cold Silence
She snapped to her senses and stepped free. “I’m glad you liked it.”
“Liked it? I loved it! This will revolutionize training. We can give hands-on skills to young recruits on every base and save lives.”
Right. Saving lives. That’s why she’d embarked on this research in the first place. Her career military father had often lamented losing green recruits and wished for better training. She hadn’t been able to do anything to save him from a chopper crash, but she could fulfill his wish.
She took another step back for good measure, earning a raised eyebrow. Too bad. She had to stick to her convictions and finish the job. Not fall for a handsome soldier who looked mighty fine in his uniform.
“I need to review the testing results with my staff before they head home,” she said, making sure her tone was all business. “They’ll have questions for you, and it would do them good to see your enthusiasm for the project. Do you want to get changed first or come to the observation deck with me now?”
He leaned closer. “I’ll change now. If everyone is going home soon, I can’t leave you alone up there while I’m in the locker room.”
She lowered her voice in case the recording was still on. “You can’t honestly think someone will attempt to abduct me right here.”
“It’s not likely, but I’m not taking any chances.”
Julie stuck her head out of the observation room. “You two joining us for the debrief?”
“I’ll be right there,” Claire called out.
She took a fortifying breath and then met Travis’s gaze. “Get changed and meet us inside.”
He saluted her and spun to leave.
She let out a long breath and slipped into the observation room.
Julie looked up from a computer monitor, the glow reflecting on her excited expression. “Check out these stats.”
Claire reviewed Travis’s simulation data and resisted beaming with pride. “He’s good, isn’t he?”
“Good? He’s amazing. He made it all the way through the simulation without taking any kill shots. No one else has even come close to that.”
Kill shots.In real life, Travis came under fire all the time. The longer he served as a Green Beret, the greater likelihood he would be shot. Maybe fatally. The same way his teammate Jeter had been killed. Thankfully, Travis had been by her side working on the simulator instead of on that mission with Jeter—or Travis could’ve died too.
That’s why she’d had to end things with him. She couldn’t have another military officer come to her door with terrible news. Awful news. She couldn’t survive another loss like that. No way. Impossible. Which meant she couldn’t be with Travis.
No matter how much she loved him.
Not that she told him that. He might do something foolish like leave the Berets to be with her, and she knew he would grow to resent that decision. Or maybe he would try to dispel her fear and draw out the inevitable end to their relationship.
That couldn’t happen. Not at all. Better to cut things off right then. So she’d looked for a reason he couldn’t dispute. Her job was the answer. She really couldn’t afford the distraction of a long-term relationship at that stage of the project, and she’d shared her need to focus on saving lives. She’d hurt him, but as a soldier, he couldn’t dispute the necessity of her work. And she was still convinced she’d done the right thing.
And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep on letting him think the same thing.
“Why aren’t you impressed?” Julie demanded.
I am, but I don’t want to be.“Maybe we need to make the training scenarios more difficult.”
“Hah!” Julie said. “One guy out of hundreds who’ve tested CATS succeeding at this level does not mean we need to make it more difficult. We simply need to appreciate Travis’s incredible abilities. No wonder they sent him for the final test.”
Claire didn’t know how to respond without lying, so she clamped her mouth closed.
Julie’s gaze zeroed in on her. “Looks like you’re having a hard time with him being here.”
“A bit,” Claire said, as she didn’t know if it was appropriate to talk about Travis with Julie when Claire was her supervisor.
A fine line they’d walked for some time now.
Claire had met Julie at a conference right after her break-up with Travis, and after common interests forged a friendship between them, they’d become roommates. Then Julie took a job at the institute, and Claire eventually became Julie’s supervisor. Claire withdrew a bit from the relationship and tried to keep the most personal details of her life private. Luckily, it didn’t affect Julie at all. She was such an easygoing person that she readily accepted the change in roles, but decided to get a place of her own when she started making more money.
