Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
“My parents should’ve checked the perimeter. They should’ve …” I should’ve done better. For my girl. My girls …
Rebel? Where was she? Somewhere hiding beneath the stairs? My Rottie wasn’t a people person. But I’d just set eyes on something that made me want to resurrect Rocket and shoot him again.
Blood.
A sticky, red trickle ran between a crack in Jordyn’s bottom lip. Forcefully, I snatched her face towel from the rack, waited for the water to warm, then rang out the towel. I pressed the cloth gently to her scraped chin, wiping away the blood with reverence. Made a silent vow always to keep Jordyn safe and submitted it to heaven.
I then tugged her shirt from over her head and pulled off her pajama pants. Goosebumps ran over her flesh. I hurried to grab another pair of clothes, not wet with snow or soiled with dirt.
“Let’s get you warm.” I took the greatest care of dressing her, then held her close as I carried her into the bedroom.
The dim orange glow flickered across the wooden walls. I placed Jordyn in the bed. Shot Enzo a quick text.
ME
Make yourself at home, bro. Know you’re always hungry, so the kitchen’s all yours. If you find an empty bedroom, take it. If you don’t, my bad.
ENZO
Don’t worry about a bed, fra. If I can’t find blankets, then we’ve got a problem.
Jordyn hadn’t spoken another word. The last thing she mumbled had something to do with a meat tender … At least, that was what I thought she’d said when her voice trailed off mid-sentence. Then it hit me. We had standard and custom weaponry in the military. Mam had her own devices.
I stood in the doorway, torn.
Every part of me needed a shower. Grit lined my skin like a memory—remnants of violence and justice against Hagarty. But I couldn’t make myself leave her.
Not like this.
She lay on the far side of the bed, facing the wall, curled around a pillow like it was the only thing keeping her from unraveling. Her silence screamed louder than any sob. Grief without sound. Wounds without fresh blood.
I tugged into flannel pajamas and hovered awkwardly at the foot of the bed.
Sand. Mud. Concrete. That was where I slept. Where I belonged. Even here, in the comfort of a cabin, I hadn’t claimed a mattress since I was a kid. The Marine warred in me—a true operator denies himself comfort. That still held rank over the rest of me.
Until her voice broke through the stillness.
“Please …”
The sound of that single word cracked something open in my chest.
Her voice was soft. Hollow with the sound of tears. “I already feel dirty when—when stuff like this happens. I understand I can’t have you until we get married. I respect that.” Jordyn inhaled shakily as if the next words cost her more than she had to give. “But if you don’t hold me … that will break me even more than I already am.”
I didn’t move. Not at first. Jordyn’s words struck deeper than I could brace for. Because she didn’t ask me to fix anything. Make the pain go away—truly. Maybe I thought I could do that all this time. Make the pain go away. She didn’t ask me to prove something. She asked me to be here. To bear the weight of this moment beside her.
This was true intimacy. The kind no one had taught us when we were trying to survive.
She’d just cracked open the disconnect between us. The place where she reached for physical reassurances, and I hesitated—not from a lack of love, but from a lifetime of guarding it. She had learned to equate touch with proof. With safety. With value. And here I was, loving her with restraint when what she needed most was not distance.
She was trying. Trying so hard to unlearn what others had weaponized against her. And I needed to meet her there without fear of breaking my own vow of celibacy to God.
For the first time in years—since war zones—I, Jamie MacKenzie, slipped beneath the covers. Not as a Marine. Not as her protector.
As her man.
I pulled her into my arms from behind, holding her close. Jordyn’s body responded like a taut thread that finally had a reprieve. She let out a broken breath and curled closer.
She was alive. Safe. In front of me. Right where she belonged. Something in my soul—long dead and probably just as cold as she’d perceived over the past five months—stirred. Awake.
“Thanks. Didn’t mean to be so dramatic.” Her voice was hardly above a whisper. “I dunno. I’m supposed to be used to … this.”
“No!” The side of my fist slammed against the headboard. “No, you’re not supposed to be used to a man trying to rape you! And I’m not supposed to allow this to happen to you, JorJor. It shouldn’t happen.”