His Lover to Protect - Katee Robert Page 0,54
recovery, and the doc sat me down three weeks into it and flat out told me that I’d never regain full motion in my knee, and the muscle damage meant it’d always cause me problems, no matter how hard I worked.”
This part, strangely enough, was harder to get out than the rest. “I went into the military straight out of high school. It gave me a purpose I was missing. It was my everything.”
“You lost your identity and purpose in one fell swoop.”
Exactly. “I’m not proud of it. Seems a man should be more than his job.” But everything about Luke had been wrapped up in the PJs. Without that…What was left? He laid his cheek against her hair as the answer came to him for the first time that he’d been wrong—he was more than the PJs. He was a nephew and a mechanic and a man. More than that, he was a survivor.
And the woman in his arms was the one who’d forced him to realize it.
Chapter Eighteen
Alexis woke up wrapped around Luke. It was a really nice place to be. She took the opportunity to study his sleeping face. His beard was a little longer, and he looked tired even while sleeping, but some of the tension that had become so familiar was gone. It made sense. He’d been carrying around a burden to rival hers for a long time. It was enough to make her shake her head. Someone would have to search to find two people as messed up as they were. And yet…they seemed to fit each other.
Maybe all a person needed was someone to stop long enough to try to really understand where they’d come from.
Luke had done that and more—he’d given her back a part of herself she’d been searching for. And maybe, just maybe, she’d done a little of the same for him. She reached up and cupped his jaw, sliding her hand over the scruff. He opened his eyes. “You were watching me sleep.”
“Guilty as charged.”
He stretched beneath her and yawned. “I guess I can live with that.”
The train chose that moment to slow, nearly toppling her off his lap. Luke caught her before she fell and lifted her back onto the bed. “We’re almost there.”
She looked out the window, her eyes widening when she caught sight of… “Canals. We’re in Venice?”
“I figured Verona could wait a few days, since Venice is on the way. New experiences, remember?”
“This trip is full of them.” She accepted her bag when he passed it over and slipped on her jacket. Then she followed him toward the same door they’d come in. The early-morning sun hit her face, and she couldn’t help smiling. “This is amazing. I’ve only read about this place in one of the many travel books I’ve checked out over the years. Thank you, Luke.”
He took her hand. “Bri must be delighted that one of the Yeung sisters actually darkens the door of the library from time to time.”
The world took a slow turn, and reality slammed into her hard enough to steal her breath. She looked at him, willing the words to have not just come out of his mouth. But Luke only looked at her with an expectant expression, waiting for her reply. She took her hand from his and stumbled away. “You…”
“Darlin’, what’s wrong?”
Everything. She could barely hear him over the pounding in her head. All the times she’d thought his story didn’t quite line up and convinced herself she was being paranoid. She’d been right all along. The only way he could know that Bri ran the library back in Wellingford was if he knew Ryan. Luke moved to take her hand, but she backed out of reach. “Don’t touch me.”
“Alexis, what’s wrong?”
He hadn’t even realized his slip. A small, traitorous part of her wanted to keep her mouth shut and cling to what they had. But she’d be clinging to a lie, and she’d learned the hard way that the truth would use the first opportunity to rise up and punch her in the throat just like it’d done so many times before. Accusations flew to her lips, driven by an anger she clung to because the only other option was to face the all-encompassing loss threatening to take over. “Ryan asked you to come, didn’t he?” It was the only option. No one else in their group had the military background and contacts to call in a favor like this.
Luke went still and then closed