Avenged (Hostage Rescue Team Series) (Volume 5) by Kaylea Cross Read Free Book Online

halfway to her mouth. “My dad had a heart attack a few weeks ago.”
    He hid a wince. She and her dad were super close. Nate had spoken to the man over the phone only once, at Joint Craig theater hospital at Bagram after she’d come out of surgery. It was the one thing she’d asked of him on the tense flight back to base, and no matter how beat up he’d been or how heavy his heart, there was no way he could have denied her that simple request. “I’m sorry.”
    She nodded, popped the grape in her mouth and chewed. All that did was draw his attention to her sexy mouth and make him wonder what it would feel like beneath his, or moving over his naked skin. He felt guilty as hell for thinking it, but man, he’d fantasized about her plenty over the past five years.
    “It was bad,” she continued. “Nearly lost him. He wanted to come with me but he’s still recovering, so my brother, Kevin, is there looking after him. I had to order him to stay put, otherwise he’d have been here with me too.”
    “And how’s he doing?” He knew Kevin was slightly older than Taya, and that he was a wounded combat vet.
    “Good. Well, better than he was, anyway. Hasn’t been easy, but we’ve all stuck close to each other and managed to do a lot of healing together over the past few years.”
    Nate nodded, a sudden tightness squeezing his throat. That was the difference he sensed in her now, he realized. That calmness she exuded came as a result of healing, something he hadn’t even begun to do. Not really. How had she managed it?
    The peacefulness that surrounded her was damn near mesmerizing. Even now, tangled up inside and tamping down a dozen emotions rolling around inside him, he could feel it reaching out to him. A warm glow he wanted to wrap himself in.
    She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “It’s a process, as I know you’re aware. Without my family I’m not sure what I would’ve done once I came home,” she admitted with another gentle smile. “What about you?”
    His thigh muscles twitched beneath his hands. He didn’t want to go there. “What do you mean?”
    She gave him a look that said she saw right through him. So wise, way beyond her thirty-four years. She was only six years older than him, but when she looked at him like that he felt like a damn kid in comparison. “I mean, was your family there for you? After Afghanistan? Or when you got out of the Air Force?”
    She couldn’t know that was a sore spot with him, and a topic he never talked about. “I don’t have contact with my family. Not since I was eighteen and enlisted.”
    “Oh. I’m sorry.”
    Nate wasn’t sure if she was sorry for asking, or if she felt sorry for him. He hoped it was the former, because he couldn’t stomach the latter. “It’s all right. It’s for the best, believe me.” His white trash upbringing was something he was still embarrassed about. Not because he’d been poor, but because his mother and half-sister were drunks and master manipulators of both people and the system that gave them their welfare checks every month.
    Cutting ties with them had made him a better person in the long run though. He’d vowed to himself at thirteen to leave that kind of life behind him and never look back, and he’d done just that.
    Taya plucked another grape from its stem and popped it into her mouth before picking up the plate and offering it to him. He shook his head and she set it back down. “Sounds like there’s quite a story there. Maybe you’ll tell me about it sometime.” The way she said it, without pressure or judgment, eased the tension gnawing at him.
    “Maybe I will.” It would be easy to talk to her. Her quiet sincerity made him wish they could spend hours and hours together alone so he could just be in her company. She’d seen him at his lowest point and still admired him. He felt safe enough with her that he knew he could tell her he wasn’t okay, because she’d understand.
    Part of him desperately