Chapter 36

THIRTY-SIX

Natalia

When I get the news that Ryan is safe, I hold it together long enough to escape to my room. Then I stand under the shower and cry for a solid thirty minutes. Relief. Anger. Self-pity. Frustration. More emotions than I can possibly deal with overwhelm me, and I know Joe is right about me needing to take a leave of absence before I take the oath.

I thought I was okay, but the truth is—I’m struggling.

Part of me feels shame for being too weak to work through this, but I’m also exhausted, both mentally and physically. I just want to sleep and breathe for a while.

I make the impromptu decision to go home to Vinake. I can sleep in my old room, help my mother around the house, and spend time with Femke. I need to do something that isn’t protecting anyone. Just be a woman, daughter, and sister for a while. I’m currently grappling with what everything I’m going through means. The last three years of my life have been devoted to all things Royal Protectors and I don’t even know who I am anymore. I don’t know when the protector in me ends and the woman starts. Or vice versa.

Until I figure it out, I can’t be a Protector or even someone’s girlfriend.

Even if that someone if Ryan Cooper.

Whom I love more than life itself.

I pack a bag and put in a request to take a vehicle for personal use. There are over fifty in our fleet, so I know it won’t be a problem. Sure enough, I get the approval within ten minutes and the only stop I make is to let Lucianna know what I’m doing.

Then I’m on the road for Vinake.

I turn on some music, grateful for the satellite radio app we use.

Taylor Swift is too romantic for my mood.

I switch the station and grimace at the loud rap beat that fills the car.

No, I’m not down for that right now either.

Somehow, I wind up on an oldies station, playing songs from the sixties and seventies. It’s not what I normally listen to, but Janice Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee” is strangely soothing as I drive. Her struggle to let Bobby go because it’s better for him even though it hurts her.

Am I going to let Ryan go?

I see a plethora of images in my mind’s eye.

The first time we met.

He was my new C.O., and I was incredibly intimidated, but his easygoing demeanor immediately put me at ease. He told me he would be tough but fair, and that if I paid attention and did what was expected of me, we’d get along fine.

And that turned out to be true.

Even before we became intimate, we became friends.

We talked and laughed, played soccer and basketball, and he helped me hone my shooting skills. He also helped me learn to breathe when I felt anxious, and how to rely on the others in my unit, no matter how much I hated asking for help. We truly became part of each other.

He brought so much to my life, the feelings I came to have for him were inevitable.

But those feelings also include fear and sadness and frustration.

Fear when he was taken prisoner.

Sadness when he talked about returning to the U.S. before we could be together.

Frustration that he left this time without a word, even though Sandor and Joe had not only known where he was going but had apparently put a tracker on him. I found all of that out after the fact and it hurts.

Why wasn’t I privy to that information?

They’d asked me to trust them, telling me that Ryan wouldn’t be alone, but Erik had asked them to keep me in the dark. I know that Sandor and Joe keep secrets that have to do with classified information and national security, but this wasn’t that. This was about Ryan. The man I was living with. The man I loved. Whom, according to that stupid text he sent me, loved me too.

Yet I was left out once again.

Everything has come full circle, and I don’t have any answers.

I love Ryan with all my heart, but we can’t be together if things stay the way they are. If I knew how I could change something to make things easier, I would, but nothing about this is easy.

I don’t know what will happen if I decide I can’t be a Royal Protector anymore. I don’t have any other plans or dreams. When I first joined the Limaji military, it was about survival and being able to attend university. Then I signed up to become one of the Royal Protectors and found a purpose.

Now it feels like I’m losing everything.

Including my mind.

I pull into my parents’ driveway and get out, slinging my duffel bag over my shoulder. I don’t know what I’m going to tell them, or how I’m going to explain what I’m going through. They never wanted me to leave in the first place so there will probably be a lot of I-told-you-so’s in my future.

There simply hadn’t been anywhere else I could go where I could just… be. No pressure, no responsibility, no distractions. Just fresh air and my mother’s cooking and maybe some physical labor to keep me from going stir crazy.

“Natalia?” My mother comes out the front door just as I’m about to open it. “What are you doing here?”

“Hi, Mama.” I’m suddenly incredibly emotional. “I…can I stay a few days?”

She frowns but then nods. “Of course. Come in. What’s happened? Are you sick? Is it Lucianna or the baby?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I’m fine. Everyone is fine.”

“Come to the kitchen. I’m making bread. You can tell me what’s happened.”

Yeah. That might take a while.

I sink down at the kitchen table and then drop my head onto my folded arms. I’m so tired. And it has nothing to do with how much sleep I haven’t been getting.

My mother moves behind me, and I feel her warm hands on my hair, gently stroking.

“Are you pregnant?” Her voice is soft, and I can’t stop a laugh from escaping.

“No, Mama. I almost wish I was.”

She sinks into the chair next to mine. “Then tell me. What has happened?”

“Can you just listen? Without saying anything? Can I tell you a story?”

“Yes.” She nods, her eyes searching my face.

So I tell her everything, going back to my excitement about becoming a Royal Protector, my life at the palace, meeting Logan and subsequently dating him, losing him, and then almost immediately leaving for Iraq. I tell her about Passero and Seghin and the other friends I’d made. And of course, I tell her about falling in love with Ryan.

How we met, our growing friendship, and eventually realizing we had feelings for each other. I skip over what we did that last night in Iraq, but I tell her almost everything else, including what’s happening now.

When I’m finished, I rest my chin on my hand and sigh.

“I don’t understand,” she says after a moment. “Ryan is okay? They found the man who was after him and it is finished, yes?” I glossed over the details regarding Yusef.

“Yes.”

“And he is coming back to Hiskale? To you?”

“I think so, yes.”

“This is not what you want?”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“Why? What are you afraid of?”

“Everything.”

“That’s not true.”

“What do you mean?”

“My oldest daughter isn’t afraid of anything. Not snakes, or fast cars, or bullets, or exploring the world. She is strong and resilient. Two months after getting shot, she went back to work. Four months after getting shot, she went on a military mission to Iraq. My Natalia is afraid of nothing !” she finishes emphatically.

“But I am,” I whisper. “I’m afraid of losing people I love.”

“This is the cycle of life. Someday, I will die. Your father. And then, many years later, it will be your turn. Hopefully, not until you have raised many strong, wonderful children just like you.”

“I can’t even think about children,” I admit. “I can’t see beyond today. My future is literally blank.”

“Yes, of course it is. It’s a blank canvas waiting for you to paint it.”

“I thought I was painting it. Then I threw the whole thing in the trash.”

“What changed?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re attached, Natalia.”

“Attached?”

“To your life. To the job. The people you work with. To Ryan . And you’ve learned there can be pain when you have attachments. But there’s also great joy. Without experiencing the pain, you wouldn’t be able to appreciate the love and happiness. Life is an adventure of ups and downs. Some people have more downs than ups—that is your father and me. But you, my lovely girl, are going to have many, many more ups than downs.”

“It doesn’t feel like that.”

“Eh, you are experiencing one of the inevitable downs. And this is maybe a growing pain. You aren’t so young anymore, but the life you’ve chosen if difficult. There will be more death, more heartache, more pain. But I foresee much more light and love and good times.”

I stare at her, wishing I could just take her at her word.

My brain understands, but my heart has other ideas.

And my soul is frozen. Filled with indecision, frustration, fear, and so many other negative emotions. Dr. Saluga would tell me to find the good things. How much I love my job. My friends. The fun we have. Like getting to go to Paris and eating dinner at the Eiffel Tower with the man I love.

That was definitely one of the ups my mother keeps talking about.

But what about him leaving without a word? My bosses keeping secrets from me? I’m sure they had good reasons, but it still hurts because I’m positive everyone else knew.

And until I can come to terms with that, I can’t move forward.

And I can’t go back to Hiskale.

Or to Ryan.