He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “Fear and desperation sometimes make people do things they wouldn’t normally do. Kind of like a social worker turned bail enforcement agent boarding a plane to the murder capital of Central America and hunting down an international drug lord.”
Penny wanted to tuck this moment in her pocket and save it for later. Men like Rafe were a rare breed. Time and training could make a Sunday school teacher a trained sniper. What set him apart was that he genuinely cared. The growls and glares and conceited innuendos were a Band-Aid covering the vulnerable parts. Even if it was only for a split second, he’d taken that bandage off and exposed himself—to her.
It made her happy and sad, jumbled her emotions until she couldn’t figure out which one dominated her thoughts more. He was so much more than he even knew. He was so much more than she could have ever known.
Until now.
Her damn rules. No soldiers. No hero types. No men who sought to save the world one mission at a time. For years she’d lived by them without any second guesses or what-ifs. And then Rafe Ortega walked into her life and made her start to think maybe—just maybe—she’d been wrong.
Maybe there were exceptions to the rules.
And maybe one of those exceptions was Rafe.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
One minute Rafe had been purging his soul, and the next, his arms were empty. He watched Penny pull away, both figuratively and literally, and felt the stab far deeper than the knife that nearly gutted him in that Afghan desert.
Not even his team knew about his time overseas. The only one who did was Trey, and that was because he’d been the one who’d kept his insides from spilling to the ground. But Rafe had told Penny when she hadn’t even asked.
Sharing it with her hadn’t just come easy—it had felt right. At least until he’d watched a mental suit of armor drop into place right before his damn eyes. She thought he couldn’t see through it, but she was wrong. He invented the damn tactic to keep people at arm’s length, and he couldn’t blame her for being wary.
Hell, she’d practically painted the picture for him in permanent fucking markers. No soldiers—current or former. And after getting that glimpse of what her father had put her through, he understood. She deserved to be someone’s first. Not an afterthought, or someone’s second tier. And Rafe didn’t do anything half-assed. If he couldn’t be the man she needed, that she deserved, then it was best that he took a step back.
Later.
Right at that moment he needed to hold her in his arms—for however long they had—and use the time to make her realize that she was a hell of a lot more than she knew. Her words from the tree had been a dark shadow lurking in the back of his mind since she’d uttered them.
She’d left that badass bail enforcement agent in the helicopter, or back in the States.
Like fucking hell.
The fact that she doubted herself even now chafed him raw. When they’d first faced one another on that San Pedro Sula street, she’d been a force of nature. Her gritty determination flowed through an interrogation, the training. Grown men pissed their pants dealing with Diego Fuentes, and she’d willingly, if not eagerly, stepped into the man’s domain without a care for her own safety. The possibility that she didn’t see that in herself pissed him the hell off.
“What the hell did you mean earlier about leaving that woman back in the States?” he heard himself ask.
Penny pulled her gaze from his as she attempted to step away.
He grabbed her arm as she tried to pass. “Red.”
“It meant nothing.”
“I call bullshit.”
“You can call whatever you want, but that doesn’t make it any less true.” Red faced, she tugged her arm away.
“Do you want to hear what an incredible fucking job you’re doing? Because sweetheart, you are. I don’t know a woman—and trust me, I’ve known a lot of them—who would even consider a stunt like this, much less be able to pull it off.”
“I don’t want praise, damn it. And I’m not doing well.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
“Maybe that’s my calling. I bluff a good game.”
“That’s a bunch of fucking shit and you know it!”
Eyes bright with anger, Penny stepped forward until the warmth of her body suffused his. But there was something in the droop to her shoulders. Disappointment? Doubt? He remained rooted to the spot and let her vent. Finally.
“What I know is that I was scared shitless in that alley and would’ve gotten myself killed if it hadn’t been you and the guys who found me. I know Logan pulled punches during our hand-to-hand demo. And you were right…I was lucky that night with Marco,” Penny said, undercutting herself.
“You’re a fucking bounty hunter, Red. You’re not exactly an ivory-tower princess.”
“Yeah, I work bail enforcement,” Penny scoffed. “But did I ever mention that my mentor hasn’t even allowed me to go out in the field on my own yet? In case you didn’t notice before, I have a keen ability to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. All I am is a good bluffer. But the longer I act as though I have a clue about what I’m doing, the more lives I put in danger.”