What the Heart Holds Safe (Delta Force Book 4) by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman [Buchman, M. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks, Inc.
Published: 2016-10-11T21:00:00+00:00

Six

It was all jumbled up inside her. She had tried going back to her data, but it was a low priority research project that she still had a couple days on before it was needed. It hadn’t been enough to draw her focus. Cindy had thought about going for a run…and had come to half an hour later still staring at her locked computer screen.

There was no way she could eat.

She didn’t have any really close friends on base, didn’t have any that she could call either. It was like when she found out her brother had died. No one to tell. No one to care.

Except for the man sitting across from her.

He hadn’t been hard to find. She’d just followed the tortured grunts of someone working past their limits, but not acknowledging they had any limits to begin with. Nothing ever stopped Deek. Nothing.

“I didn’t know,” he finally said softly. “I swear I didn’t.”

“Neither did I.”

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“I knew about Jimmy,” her voice drifted softer. “I didn’t know about you.”

He nodded.

But there was more. Her assumptions weren’t the only reason she hadn’t tried to crack Derek Davies’s loner shell. Who could want a girl who had chosen to be raped by her father? Even if it was to protect her brother. Nobody. That’s who. Certainly not the only person she’d ever told about it. Jimmy had to know, to have understood. But he’d never let on. Some things were better never spoken about.

Whereas Deek…

“Oh my god. You’re the one who stopped him.”

“Your dad? Damn straight.”

That took a second to sink in. Another thing she’d never known. Derek—Deek no longer sounded right to her—had protected both her and her brother. She covered her face for a long moment. How could she not have known? It was so obvious now that she thought about. “Friends” had been too strong a word for what they were, but they were all each other had in those times. She looked back up at him, unsure of what she’d see. But he still looked like the same, dirty, sweaty, amazing man he’d always been. Maybe a lot dirtier and sweatier than usual.

He shrugged his shoulders, not in a denying way, but rather as if he wished he could do it again. In retrospect she was surprised that Derek hadn’t killed him outright. He’d certainly had the strength to.

“The photograph. That day.” She’d never connected that either. “That was the day it all stopped.”

He nodded and drank some more water.

“You said it was a day of celebration. That’s why you smiled like that.”

He looked aside for a long moment. “I did that for Jimmy. So that he’d know it was over. It was harder on him than you. He was never half as strong as you are. Maybe that’s what made him try so hard as a Ranger, trying to make up for what he couldn’t do as a kid. I was trying to cheer him up.”

“Whereas me…”

Again, the look aside.

This time she waited him out.

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