Shay stared at Kira. “I didn’t know you knew Garret.”
Kira managed an abject look at Shay. “I didn’t know he was here. I lost track of him.” She waved her hand in a helpless gesture. “We were both wounded in a firefight. I was sent to Bethesda after being at Landstuhl, Germany, and I lost track of him.” Swallowing hard, Kira held Garret’s unfathomable look. She could feel the bombshell reaction around him, but it didn’t transfer to his face, which remained unreadable. She honestly didn’t know if he was glad to see her or not. A year had passed since they’d last been with one another. A year that felt like a lifetime of pain and anguish to her without his larger-than-life presence in it. Now, he was standing six feet away from her, incredibly handsome, confident, and the same man she knew from the team. His face had deeper lines around his mouth, not surprising given the terrible circumstances they’d barely survived. It told Kira of the suffering he’d undergone, too.
Reese Lockhart ambled out of his office and down the hall. He stopped at the kitchen entrance, nodding hello to Garret. “What’s going on?” he asked his wife.
Shay quickly filled him in.
Reese gave Garret a long look and then his gaze drifted to Kira. “Looks like you two have a lot of catching up to do with one another, then,” he said. “Kira, are you okay still being assigned to Garret’s house? Or would you rather not be?”
Kira looked to Garret. He looked surprised as hell. But then, she saw an emotion in his eyes, a flash for a second that she couldn’t translate. “Well . . . I don’t know. It’s up to Garret—”
“It’s fine,” Garret told them in no uncertain terms. “Kira is welcome to stay with me.”
Relief poured through Kira. For a brief moment, she saw a thaw in Garret’s hazel eyes. Her heart squeezed with powerful emotions and she felt suffused by joy.
They’d always been friends, as she was with all the men of the A team. Nothing more. And she’d held secret her love for this man who was so heroic, a warrior, and a good person, who had helped so many in those three years they’d worked together. It was still her secret. Even now. Probably forever. Some of Kira’s joy dissolved. They had never talked personally about how they felt toward one another. Always friends. Never anything more intimate.
Reese touched Garret’s broad shoulder. “You got the paperwork from those two jobs?”
“Yeah,” he said, rummaging around in the pocket of his sheepskin coat. Garret handed them to Reese.
“Great,” Reese said. “Let’s get business out of the way and then you can take Kira home with you.”
Giving a nod, Garret said, “Sounds good.” And then he looked at Kira. “This won’t take long. I’ll be right back.”
Kira didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She so badly wanted to hug the hell out of Garret, to welcome him back into her life. Shay was watching her with some confusion and she offered, “We were on an A team in Afghanistan for three years.”
“I know Special Forces teams try to stay together for long periods.” Shay searched her eyes. “But you’re a woman. I didn’t know they had women in A teams.”
“It was a top secret operation,” Kira hedged. She could not speak to anyone about it. Not ever. Garret knew because he, like the other eleven men on the team, had signed legal documents swearing to never speak of it in detail to anyone. Shay sat back, digesting the information.
“Okay,” she said, “but is this going to be a stress or pressure on either of you? It looks like you lost track of one another?”
“Yes, we did. I didn’t know he had amnesia. It would explain why he never tried to contact me,” Kira said quietly. She clasped her damp, cool fingers in her lap beneath the table, all her emotions in play. For the last year she thought Garret had chosen to remain out of her life. Now . . . she knew differently.
“You tried to locate him afterward?”
“Yes.” Kira held on to tears that burned in the back of her eyes. She closed them, taking in a ragged breath. “Our team was so tight, Shay. We were family . . .”
“Garret only told us once, during a therapy session, that of the twelve men in his team, only two survived.” Shay gave her an anguished look. “That’s so tragic.”
It hurt to breathe at that moment because it brought everything back to Kira. Avoiding Shay’s compassionate look, she whispered brokenly, “Y-yes, all of the other guys . . . dead. It was—horrible—awful . . .”
“Garret never said the other survivor was a woman.”
“He couldn’t. Legally, Shay, I was part of a top secret operation. It couldn’t be talked about. Not even here, not even with other military vets.”