would happen. We’d connect, then I’d have to leave and the cycle would start all over.”
“You do remember who my dad is, right? You do know I am well acquainted with how the Army works—both regular and Special Forces. So don’t give me that crap. I grew up in a military family. One I am proud of and respect. I am fully aware of operational security and when I was with you, I was willing to stand by your side and wait. You wouldn’t’ve had to tell me how long you were going to be gone, you wouldn’t’ve had to tell me where you were going. All you would’ve had to say was ‘Addy, I’m going dark and I’ll be home when I can’ and I would’ve known what that meant and I wouldn’t have asked a damn question and you know it.”
Jake’s face had changed during my soliloquy. He’d gone from pale to red and finally to furious.
“I wasn’t supposed to come home.”
I froze and tried to process his statement. Surely he wasn’t saying what I thought he was saying. The Army didn’t send units out on suicide missions. Dangerous, yes. Risky, absolutely. But certain death—no way.
“Jake—”
“If I’d thought for one second I’d be coming home I would’ve found a way to keep you. But I didn’t. Another reason I had to let you go. I didn’t want our reunion to be held at a cemetery with me in a pine box hosted by the U.S. government.” Then his face screwed up into a nasty scowl and he finished with, “And trust me, I haven’t forgotten who your father is.”
Hold on a minute.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means Jasper Walker’s a hard man to follow. Especially if he blocks the way.”
What in the world is he talking about?
“Now, what does that mean?”
“It means just that. No man will ever be as perfect as him. No man will live up to Jasper Walker. In your eyes, no man will ever love you like he does. And in his eyes, he thinks he knows what’s best for everybody.”
Hell no. Fuck no.
“That’s bullshit. I never compared you to my father—”
“You compared me to him every day!” he roared and I jumped. “And when you weren’t, everyone else was. The great Jasper fucking Walker.”
The chair legs sounded as they scraped on the floor. I felt my chair being pulled back but I didn’t take my eyes off Jake. Not even when I lost his gaze and it went over my shoulder.
It wasn’t shock that kept me tethered to him. It was fear.
Jake Belview was a man undone.
4
I’d been sitting across the café for fifteen minutes when it happened. At first, I’d thought it was my shitty luck I’d see Addy out on a date. It had taken extreme effort not to stare at the couple. But out of the corner of my eye, I could see her. Hell, if I was being truthful, I felt her discomfort from across the room. But it wasn’t until she leaned forward and scowled that I put my sandwich down and pushed my plate aside.
Something was not right.
And a few minutes later, I was proved correct when the guy sitting opposite her slammed his fists on the table and yelled at her. His words rumbled throughout the small restaurant but I couldn’t make them out over my fury.
I was out of the booth and behind Addy before she could get out of her seat. Then she was behind me clutching onto my hips. The asshole who’d yelled at her knocked his chair over in his haste to stand.
“I suggest you move—”
“Do not speak,” I cut him off. “Addy, baby, you okay?” I felt Addy nod against my back but I didn’t take my eyes off the dickhead in front of me. So I witnessed the man turn from hostile to homicidal.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the manager tentatively said, obviously reading the situation correctly and having no desire to wade in, but his job necessitated him to.
“We’re not done talking, Adalynn,” the dickhead said.
“Actually, you are done,” I corrected.
“You have no idea who I am,” Dickhead snarled.
My gaze dropped to his name tab then to his rank insignia.
Sergeant Belview.
The name meant nothing to me.
“I don’t need to know who you are to tell you if you come near Addy again you’ll be spending the last years of your life breathin’ from a tube.”