Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“I’m not,” I whispered. How was it possible to feel so . . . connected to someone I’d only known for a couple of hours? It wasn’t even that he’d pulled me from the river, or that he’d carried me to an ambulance. He’d held my hand the entire way down and never looked away.
I shoved the sweatshirt back into the pack and then inhaled sharply. There, on the tag just beneath the handle on the inside of the pack, in permanent marker, was printed N. Phelan.
My grin stretched my cheeks. I knew his name. Wherever he was or whatever he was doing aside, I knew his name. I could find him, if only to return his bag.
Nathaniel Phelan.
CHAPTER NINE
IZZY
Kabul, Afghanistan
August 2021
“Sergeant Green,” I said the next day. My stack of manila folders was balanced precariously between my hands, cell phone on top, as I walked toward where Nate stood guard at the doorway of the conference room our team had taken over as office space in the embassy. Guess it was fitting to call him an entirely different name, considering he felt like a completely different person.
But he’d slipped those earbuds into my ears yesterday and played “Northern Downpour” to distract me when the helicopter took off. What the hell was I supposed to do with that? It was a glimpse of who we’d been in this dusty, bleak landscape of what we’d somehow become.
“Ms. Astor.” Nate nodded, his eyes trained straight ahead.
“Isa!” Ben Holt came flying through the lobby behind me, dodging the thickening crowd of Americans looking for assistance, and I half expected him to pull a cartoonish skid, but he managed to stop before barreling into me.
“Is something on fire?” I asked, adjusting the folders.
“Did you file your report with Senator Lauren when you got back last night?” Worry creased the area between his brows, and I sighed, already seeing where this was headed.
“Yep. I sent my initial impression from yesterday’s trip when we got back.” It had been late in the afternoon, and I’d been more than a little emotionally exhausted after clenching every muscle in my body during both flights, but work was work. “Kacey is still drafting the pretty version in there.” I nodded back toward the conference room.
“Shit,” he muttered, letting his head fall back for a second. “Do you always have to be so ahead of things?” There was a teasing glint in his brown eyes. “It would help the rest of us every once in a while.”
“Not ahead,” I reminded him as my cell phone buzzed with an incoming call. “Just on top of things. If I don’t get my notes turned in, then the junior aides can’t get theirs started.” My cell moved across the top folder with every buzzing ring.
Jeremy’s name and contact photo filled the screen.
Shit. It was his third call today.
“Let me help,” Ben said, reaching for the phone a half second too late. It fell from the stack of folders, crashing into the shiny floor, bouncing on impact.
Naturally, where Ben was too slow, Nate had the reflexes of a freaking cat, and he caught the device before it could impact again.
I was acutely aware of the rise of Nate’s body next to mine, and if I hadn’t been staring at his face, watching for any possible reaction, I would have missed the way his brow furrowed for a second when he saw the screen. “Just hit decline,” I said softly, my heart pounding at the thought that he’d answer it.
I wasn’t ready for the conversation Jeremy wanted, or the very different one I needed, and I sure as hell wasn’t ready for Nate to talk to him. Nope. No way was that happening.
Nate might not have known Jeremy, but Jeremy sure as hell knew who Nate was. Couldn’t blame Jeremy for hating him, though. I wasn’t keen on fighting a ghost for my fiancé’s attention either.
Except Nate wasn’t a ghost anymore. He was flesh and blood next to me, smelling like that spearmint gum he was obsessed with.
Which meant I knew exactly how he tasted right now.
“You sure?” Nate’s ice-blue eyes rose to meet mine, his finger hovering over the decline button.
“Absolutely.” I nodded, never as certain about anything in my life.
“Man, you’re fast,” Ben noted, leaning around my stack of folders to look at the phone. “Jeremy, huh?”
Nate looked at the phone for a second longer, and I knew he was memorizing every detail about Jeremy in that way he had, filing the information away for later. Then he tapped the decline button, and instead of putting my phone back on the stack in my arms, he slid it into the side pocket of my black slacks.
He didn’t touch me with his hands, but damn, did it feel like he had.
“How’s that going, anyway?” Ben asked like Nate wasn’t even there.