Nori's Delta (Delta Team Three #1) - Lori Ryan Page 0,61

for her response, but she didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew that leaving the base against orders was sure to get you into a lot of trouble.

“You there, Eleanor?” Merlin said on the other end of line.

She gripped the phone with both hands. “I’m here. He’s at the door now.”

“Let him in, Eleanor. Please. Hear him out.”

Eleanor hung up the phone and turned to face the door. She didn’t know if Heath still waited on the other side or if he’d given up.

But she walked slowly toward it. She’d made a mess of things but maybe they could fix this. They were still both headed in completely opposite directions, but at least maybe this time they could say a proper goodbye instead of the way she’d left things.

She opened the door, only then realizing she was still in the fluffy robe with her hair pulled back in a sloppy tail and no makeup on her face.

Heath stood in the doorway, looking a little surprised to see she had opened it.

“Hi.” Wow. Eloquent, Eleanor.

“Nori,” He breathed. He looked wrecked, pain evident in the lines on his face and the sorrow that filled his eyes.

Tears came to her eyes at the sight of him there. She couldn’t stop them. He was here in front of her and there was so much she wanted to say to him. But she didn’t know how to say any of it. She didn’t know how to do this.

“Shhhh. Don’t cry.” He reached for her and pulled her to him and she could feel how gentle he was being as he enclosed her in his arms.

“You came,” she said.

“You were crying. Of course I came.”

She leaned back and tilted her head up to look at him. “What?”

He brushed the back of his hand down her cheek. “On the video call with Zip and Jangles. You were crying. So I came.”

She cried harder at that and his arms went around her again as he shushed her. He lifted her and walked to the armchair in the corner of her small room at the rehab facility. When he settled into the chair with her in his lap, he brushed the tears from her face.

She didn’t want to know what she looked like.

She was worse than a wet, soggy tissue with the way she kept crying but she couldn’t help it.

“Shhh, don’t cry, Nori. Please don’t cry.”

As Heath held her, there was hope sliding into her chest now and she didn’t know if she could handle that. But God, how she wanted it. Wanted him. Wanted a future and possibility and all that came with giving herself to the only man who’d ever been able to claim her heart.

“Tell me why you sent me away.”

His words hit her heart hard but she forced herself to tell him the truth.

“I heard you talking on the phone. You’d started doubting yourself again like you did when we were younger.”

He shook his head. “You heard me doubting myself and that made you send me away?”

She took a deep breath. “When we were younger, you always looked like you knew what you were doing, like you were the king of the high school and no one could knock you down.”

He snorted. “Hardly.”

“Yeah, well that’s the thing. I saw through that. I knew it was an act back then. You were insecure about a lot of things.”

He touched her face again like he couldn’t help the contact. “You always did see through me. You saw it all.”

“When I met you again back in Turkey, you were such a different man. It was clear from the minute you found me at that airport that you were damned good at what you did and you knew it. Not in an arrogant way. Just in a way that said you had no doubt in your ability to keep me safe. To get the job done. And it was clear your teammates knew that, too. They trusted you even when it was clear we had a history.”

He kept his gaze locked on hers. “I didn’t keep you safe.” His voice broke at the words and tears came to her eyes again.

She was causing him so much pain. She hated that. “That’s just it. It wasn’t your fault I got shot. It was my decision to go in there. And my boss approved it. You didn’t make that call, Heath. I did. And I’m not sorry if it meant you and your team had the