Wordlessly he followed her inside and stood by the door while she disarmed the security system. She didn’t bother trying to conceal the code when she punched it in because she hadn’t changed it since they’d been together.
After setting her bag down on the tiled entry floor she headed to the kitchen with him right behind her. He sat at a barstool at her small kitchen island while she went for the cupboard where she kept her medical supplies.
“Bad headache?” Liam asked.
“Killer,” she answered, pushing up on tiptoe to reach the bottle she needed. “So how long are you in town for?”
“Few weeks if all goes well. Maybe longer. It was a last minute decision to send us back for a joint training exercise, that’s why I didn’t tell you sooner.”
So he’d likely be back overseas within a month. “Ah.” Taking two extra strength tablets out, she filled a glass with water from the tap and used the time it took to swallow them and drain the glass to clear her head and brace for what was coming.
Turning back to face him, she barely smothered a gasp and reared back to find him just steps away from her rather than over at the island. No, no, no, she couldn’t stand for him to touch her. God, she hadn’t even heard him move.
At the way she recoiled Liam stopped dead, hurt flickering in his eyes for a moment before he masked it. Studying her with that piercing gaze of his, he finally slid his hands into his front jeans pockets and nodded toward the stairs. “Go on up and take a bath.”
Her heart beat an erratic rhythm. “I’ll be fine when the meds kick in.”
“Which could take up to half an hour, and I can tell how bad this one is because your eyes are all glassy. Go. This can wait. But I’m staying until you feel better.”
Part of her wanted to argue that she could take care of herself, but she was in too much pain to bother wasting her breath. She knew he’d stay no matter what she said, to make sure she was okay. “’Kay,” she relented, glad for the reprieve. “I’ll be down in a while.”
He held her gaze. “Take your time.”
Temporary stay of execution granted. Head pounding, she walked past him and fled up the stairs without a backward glance.
****
Sprawled out on Honor’s living room couch, Liam tried to focus on the show he’d flipped to on the TV and couldn’t. He was too aware that she was upstairs naked in her master suite tub right now. So close but thousands of miles away from him emotionally. He could feel her detachment and it scared him.
From the outset he’d known this wouldn’t be easy. He’d hurt her again and again and now the tables had turned once more: him wanting to reconcile and her wanting to keep her distance. Full fucking circle in the giant mess he’d made. There was a certain bitter irony to it that even he couldn’t miss.
The e-mails he’d sent her hadn’t been the greatest way to open up communications, and yeah, the apology he’d written probably didn’t hold much weight, but he’d needed to start somewhere. She hadn’t responded—not exactly a surprise—and he’d been sent on mission after mission so he’d waited until they touched down on U.S. soil before sending her the text that he was back. Her chilly reception to that news had gone pretty much as he’d expected, so he’d commenced phase two in his plan to win her back.
After a week of going the traditional courting route and still getting nowhere, he’d enacted the next phase: coming over to talk to her face to face. While he hadn’t expected her to be overjoyed to see him standing on her doorstep, her almost resigned expression when she’d noticed him had dimmed the hope he’d been nursing over the past few weeks.
Seeing how much pain she was in had changed things though. Honor tended to get headaches whenever she was stressed and he felt bad about adding more of it. The fact that she’d taken medication for it told him it was a really bad one, even before he’d seen her eyes up close.
He’d wanted to help her. But when he’d gotten up with the intention of going over to rub the muscles at the back of her neck, which usually helped when she got a headache this bad, her almost frightened reaction to his approach had been like a kick to the gut. He knew he’d hurt her, but her clear distress of having him close had cut him deeply.
Soft footfalls on the carpeted stairs drew his attention. Honor came into view wearing sweatpants and a long sleep shirt. The casual clothes did nothing to hide the sexy shape of her body and even without a drop of makeup on she was still beautiful to him. There was a tiny frown between her eyebrows and her mouth was tight.
“Still there?” he asked, staying where he was this time.
She nodded. “Yeah. Better though.” She crossed to the edge of the family room and paused there, wrapping her arms around herself, her expression neutral.
He wanted to get past the wall she’d erected in the worst way. He was the reason she’d put it up in the first place. Hell, he’d practically slapped mortar between the bricks. “Come lie down,” he said, gesturing to the couch as he rose and sat on the edge of the coffee table. Giving her space, but not too much of it.
Still watching him warily, she crossed to the couch and sank down on it with a sigh.
“How’s your shoulder doing these days?” he asked, wanting to ease the fine lines of pain and fatigue on her face. His fingers itched to touch her, stroke across the softness of her cheek.
“All healed up.” She shifted, tried to cover a wince.
“Been getting a lot of these lately?”
“A few. Lots of stuff going on at work.” Meeting his gaze, she let out a breath. “So let’s have it. What do you want to talk to me about?”
Like she didn’t know. “Us.”
She snorted softly. “There is no us. You made that perfectly clear at Bagram.”
He inclined his head, not about to argue because she was right. “I was looking for closure.”
“And what, you didn’t get it?”
“No.”
Her expression remained closed. “Sure seemed like you did to me.”
He shook his head. “I’ll admit I gave it my best shot, but it didn’t work.”
She studied him for a long moment, still not giving anything away. It made him twitchy. “So what, you’ve suddenly decided you want me back again?” Her voice dripped with derision.
“Not suddenly, no. Starting after the base attack I’ve been thinking about us a lot, what you said about you and your family. Then we got together that night and I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind since.”
She arched a brow, her eyes cold. “The sex was just too good?”
He resisted the urge to drag a hand through his hair. “No. I mean, yeah, of course it was good, but that’s not—”
“Because that’s not happening again.”
He held up a hand in self-defense. God, he was fucking this whole thing up. “I didn’t expect it to, and that’s not why I’m here.”
She shifted, kept staring at him with that eerily blank expression. He hated that she’d shut herself off from him so completely, but he understood why she was doing it.
Liam blew out a breath. “Look, I went to see one of our wounded at the hospital the morning you left.” He swallowed, thinking of Blinksi. “It was bad.”
Now she frowned in concern. “Is he going to make it?”
He nodded slowly. “Physically he’ll live, but I don’t know if the rest of him will.”
When she kept watching him without saying anything further he rubbed his palms over his thighs and continued. “As soon as I walked out of that room, it hit me hard how short life really is. I was mad and hurt about everything that happened between us before and I swore I’d never let you in again. But that morning I realized… I’d never really let you go in the first place,” he finished in a rough voice.