and he thought she might bolt. But then she clasped her hands together like a little girl at Sunday school. "Okay. I want it all."
He pushed to his feet and threw himself into his desk chair, which screeched as he swiveled to face her. It arrested him a moment, the sight of Jane at his feet, her expression expectant.
Innocent.
Could he tell her and ruin whatever pretty story she'd made up in her head? But it was his dishonesty that had been the beginning of Erica's end.
"Erica and I were...together before we left the States. We met through the assignment, hit it off, so to speak, started seeing each other as we prepared for Afghanistan."
He rubbed his face again. "I thought it was all fun and games, but she..."
"Wanted more."
"I didn't lead her on." Hell, why he wanted Jane to believe that, he didn't know. "At least I didn't intend to."
"But then she started leaving you little notes."
"After the first couple of weeks in Afghanistan, I realized her feelings had turned serious. I should have been honest with her immediately, but Christ, we'd agreed to be embedded with thirty guys for the next twelve months, and I didn't want that kind of awkwardness in the mix."
"Makes sense."
"Makes me an effing idiot. The close quarters meant we weren't having sex - at least I can claim some nobility there - but we were going out every day, getting shot at, being mortared.... It was pretty intense."
In his mind, Griffin heard the high whine of an incoming mortar round, then its thunder-boom and sharp jolt of impact. The smell of it was in his nostrils and on his tongue, rotten eggs mixed with cordite and red dirt. "You never knew if the thing you were doing - eating, on patrol, taking a leak - was the last thing you'd ever do. So I think for Erica, the last man she might ever be with became the man she had to love. The danger gave me a little shine."
"Because clearly you were pretty dull without that."
He waved Jane's dry comment away. "When we first started dating in L.A., I tried telling her how it was. That I wasn't looking for anything serious. I don't do serious with women, never have. But she didn't listen. She didn't listen to anyone about anything."
"You told me what happened to her - the ambush. That wasn't your fault, Griffin."
"She wanted to impress me," he said, his temples beginning to ache. He needed another beer. "That's why she went with the guys that morning, even though I had told her not to do it. Everyone had told her not to do it. I wouldn't have done it. But she went anyway to prove something to me."
"Who said?"
He thought of the note he'd woken to find in his hand. Jane was holding it now. He nodded at it. "She wrote 'You'll see.'"
"You'll see...what? You'll see leprechauns? You'll see Firefly shouldn't have been canceled? You'll see that the coffee stain will come out of your khakis?"
She was being deliberately obtuse, and it made the knocking at his temples intensify. "You'll see I'm good enough to love. You'll see that I'm fearless enough to love. I don't know exactly."
In a quick move, Jane stood. Before he could stop her, she leaned over to turn on the desk lamp. Though the bulb was low wattage, it still felt like an interrogator's tool. He blinked against the light, one hand shading his eyes.
"That's certainly an interesting interpretation," she said.
His hand dropped, and he squinted at her face. The lamplight caught the gold tips of her eyelashes. He looked away from them. "What the hell do you mean by that?"
"Maybe there's another meaning to her note."
"Like what?"
"Have you considered that she was saying 'I'll land this story'? Have you thought for just a teeny, tiny second, Mr. Ego, that maybe she wasn't taking risks for you, but for her job. For her career. For herself."
Mr. Ego. His head pounded harder. "Nice spin."
"Why are you so sure it's spin?"
The annoyed note in her voice pissed him off. "Mr. Ego" pissed him off. There was a cup of pens and pencils on the desktop, and he swiped at it, sending the Bics and No. 2s flying. "Damn it, I don't know!"
Private rushed to his side. Griffin felt like shit for scaring the dog. He stroked his soft fur as the Lab pressed hard against his legs.
Jane crossed to his side too, and knelt on the other side