Chapter 3

Chapter Three

S everal students made their way to the front of the room to ask Kira questions before filing out. Rand sat back and watched the woman, who'd transformed while teaching into the person he'd spent a few intriguing hours with last December.

She'd started out timid when they first met too. But once she warmed up, she'd been radiant. It was the same today. He'd enjoyed the metamorphosis when it was just for him, but it was even more impressive to watch her bloom in front of a lecture hall full of strangers.

And now he enjoyed watching her in the one-on-one chats with the students. She laughed, made jokes, and then deftly ushered them out of the room as she packed up her teaching materials.

At last, he had her all to himself.

She nodded toward the door. "I need to drop the room key in my base sponsor's cubicle, which is upstairs."

He followed her through the door into the main corridor. As she locked the door, her flushed, happy face turned somber, reminding him they had serious ground to cover.

The hall was empty, so he launched right in. "I'm so sorry about your father."

She gave a short nod as she tucked away the key and headed toward the staircase. Her gaze was on her feet as she said, "Thank you. I thought maybe you'd reach out before or after he died. I'll admit, it hurt that you never replied to my email."

"The one where you told me to leave you alone? Or the one that said your boyfriend wants me to stop emailing you?"

Her head snapped up. " What? "

He shrugged. "All I know is what I received."

She resumed walking. When she reached the stairs, she climbed one, then turned to face him. The stair gave her a boost, and they stood eye to eye. "I don't have a boyfriend. And why would I complain about emails I never received?"

The confusion on her face was genuine. He'd expected that. But there was no way he could have had this conversation with her months ago, when her father was gravely ill or very recently deceased.

"I emailed you a half dozen times in those first weeks, Kira."

She shook her head. "Not possible."

"I'll show you my outbox if that's what it takes. I don't have my laptop on me, but my house is only twenty minutes outside the gate."

Her gaze dropped to her shoes again. "I had a concussion. In December. My screen time was limited to medical consultations for the first ten days or so, but still, I'd have seen your emails later, when I was back online."

"Someone must have deleted them."

The same someone who sent me emails twice from your account.

He waited for her to make the connection. He couldn't be the one to accuse her recently deceased father.

She closed her eyes. "There's only one person who had access to my computer last winter."

"I presume that person isn't your boyfriend."

She sighed. "As I said, no boyfriend. It had to be my father."

He wanted to ask who Apollo was—when he'd received the email, her cryptic declaration when she'd been semiconscious had come to mind—but now wasn't the time to pull the pin on that grenade.

One hot topic at a time.

"I figured as much when Freya told me about your dad's illness. He made it clear at the hospital none of us were welcome. And later…"

"Later, when he was ill, he needed all my attention. Given that he died seven weeks after his stroke, it wasn't too much to ask."

He nodded. "I couldn't… shit …I still feel awful for telling you this now. But Kira, I couldn't let his lies make you hate me."

Her gaze remained fixed on her feet. "I didn't hate you."

"You thought I ghosted you."

She huffed out a sigh. "I was hurt. But that's not hate."

He placed a finger under her chin and raised her gaze to meet his. "And I hate that you were hurt. More than that, I need you to know I wasn't the one who did the hurting."

Well, except for her seeing him with Staci, but that was yet another grenade to save for when they had more time.

As if she could read his mind, she looked at her watch. "I need to return this key and hit the road."

"What's the rush? I'd like to take you to dinner."

She gave him a sad smile. "Because you're hungry? Or are you asking me out on a date?"

Her words were not an exact echo of what she'd said to him in December, but it was close enough to not be accidental.

"A date, Kira. I want to date you. I have since the day we met."

If he was hoping for a similar confession from her, he was doomed to disappointment. But her smile deepened a bit, so all hope was not lost.

"Another time, maybe. I have an early morning flight out of Dulles."

That surprised him. One of the few things she'd told him was she didn't travel. "Where are you off to?"

"Malta."

"Wow. When you decide to go somewhere, you don't mess around. Why Malta?"

"My father visited there often. I'm following up on one of his passion projects, finishing his research."

"What's the project?"

"I'm sorry, Rand. I really need to head north. I was supposed to fly out this morning, but Diana needed me."

Disappointment hit him in the gut. Was she telling the truth or trying to ditch him? Was he blowing it again? "Promise me we can talk when you get back. When will you be back?"

"I'm not sure. My return ticket says two weeks, but if my research is successful, it could be longer."

The idea of waiting two weeks or more to talk to her was a gut punch, which made zero sense. He was used to long deployments and limited communication. But he'd waited six damn months to see Kira, and now that he had, he wanted more.

Needed more.

Same as it had been that first day, when he'd kept his phone at the ready, waiting for a text from her. Then the text he'd gotten had changed everything.

A single word.

Help

He wanted to touch her. Hug her. Hell, he wanted to kiss her. But she wasn't giving any welcoming signs, and he wasn't about to bulldoze through her obvious walls.

She'd been abducted by a man who'd wanted to own her and who'd never once cared if she consented to his attention. Rand ran a nervous hand through his hair.

Only Kira did this to him.

"Will you let me know when you're back? So we can go on that date?"

"Your girlfriend might not like that."

He shook his head. "I'm not seeing anyone."

She flinched, like she didn't believe him. "I don't know, Rand. I'm really not in a place to consider anything right now. I'm sorry my father put you off. But maybe that was for the best. You…aren't my type."

"Ouch."

"I'm sorry I wasn't clear about that in December."

Actually, she had been. But he hadn't believed her. He wasn't sure he believed her now. But it wasn't like he had a choice.

He turned to head down the corridor to the exit, wondering how he'd screwed this up so badly. Maybe he shouldn't have told her about what her dad had done, but what else could he do? Let her believe he was so callous as to not reach out to her after he'd been the one to find her battered and delirious?

What kind of asshole would ghost her after that?

She'd mentioned emailing him. Not the emails he'd received, sent by a man who didn't want to share his daughter's attention. What had her real emails said?

Did she still want to know if he was allergic to strawberries?

He turned to ask her that, but before the words left his mouth, a shrill alarm sounded throughout the building. At the same time, his cell phone buzzed with the emergency signal.

The Voice of God spoke through the base's public address system. "Warning. Active shooter on Naval Base Little Creek. Shelter in place. Repeat, shooting in progress on Naval Base Little Creek. Shelter in place. Little Creek is in lockdown. Shelter in place."