Closer by Sarah Greyson Page B

pulled her hair back into a loose chignon, pieces falling, framing her face. Squeezing toothpaste onto her toothbrush, she quickly brushed her teeth.
    She walked back into the bedroom and was once again met by his grin that spread ear to ear. She admired the way he looked in his long sleeve Henley t-shirt. She admired the way the shirt showed off the muscles in his back forming a V.
    In the living room he retrieved his boots. He carried them into her breakfast nook and sat at the table.
    “Do we have time for one more cup of coffee? I usually drink two before I start my day,” she asked as she refilled the mugs from earlier.
    “We don’t have much time,” he said as he stood.
    Walking over to him, her arm outstretched, she handed him a cup remembering to add the cream, just the way he liked it. He took it with a smile and a wink. She blushed. This was just silly. She was being silly. She had to get a grip on her emotions .
    They drank their coffee smiling at each other to pass the time. Walking over to her, he grabbed her coffee mug and placed both mugs in the sink. Then he turned the coffee pot off.
    “We need to get going,” he said as he picked up his bag.
    She put her coat on and buttoned it up. “I’m ready,” she responded. They had to get this over with so they both could get back to their lives.
    “We’ll take my Jeep. It’s parked at the bottom of the hill. You wait here while I go get it,” he commanded as she sat his bag back on the floor. Not more than five minutes later he was walking back into her house and reaching for her bag.
    “I can get it,” she huffed at him trying to take the bag back from his grasp.
    “Don’t even think about it, pretty lady. My mama raised a gentleman,” he winked and went out the door.
    She took one look around her house consciously aware things may go wrong and she may never see her cabin again. She closed the door and locked it up nice and tight. Walking over to the jeep, she was greeted with his smile.
    “Aren’t you nervous?” she asked as she climbed in the front seat and pulled the door shut.
    He put the car in reverse to turn around and answered, “Nope. This is what I do. And I was trained by and worked with the best.” He was pretty sure of himself. Of course, that was something she admired about him, his sexy confidence.
    “What exactly did you do for the Army?” she questioned.
    “I can’t tell you a lot of what I did, as I am sure you can understand. Classified,” he responded briefly.
    A nagging feeling annoyed her. She wanted him to open up to her the way she had opened up to him. “I told you what it is that I do and that is highly classified information,” she argued biting on her thumb nail.
    She placed her hands in her lap twisting her fingers until they were white. Here she was divulging state secrets and he couldn’t come clean about his past work. Her face reddened and she bit into the cuticle of her thumb.
    He took notice of her maddening red face and asked, “What’s wrong, Emma?”
    “I basically told you everything about my work which I was never to tell to another living soul, and you can’t tell me about what you did in the past?” she spouted as she shot him a look of frustration.
    “Don’t get upset. What is it that you want to know,” he asked her to calm her down.
    “The basics would be nice,” she retorted.
    “I was what is known as a Special Forces Engineer Sergeant. Basically, I was responsible for blowing stuff up. Anything that had to do with explosives, I was the guy,” he answered keeping it brief and to the point.
    The color of her face was returning to normal, and she had stopped biting her cuticle.
    He continued, “I was cross trained with the Medic Sergeant, my good friend Rob.”
    “Did you ever have to save anybody’s life?” she asked.
    “I didn’t do the saving, I just patched up a few guys until they could be saved,” he told her, remembering how he couldn’t save his brother Leroy. His