The Shiloh who was staring up at me didn’t understand her worth. And I knew she didn’t learn that shit from her brothers. They adored their baby sister. They all pitched in and took care of her and each other. They’d created the family their parents didn’t. No, it was her parents who taught her she was worthless—easily tossed aside and left.
Fucking assholes.
My hand moved from her hip, pushing up the tee she wore, then I started gliding my fingers against her soft, warm skin.
“Tell me, baby, why wouldn’t I love you?”
“Because you deserve something—someone—better.”
“I deserve it?” I asked and Shiloh nodded. “First, no one deserves anything. No one is entitled to life’s good offerings. Nothing in life is free or given. You have to earn it. And you should understand that better than most. You were dealt a shit hand, yet you worked to overcome the obstacles your father built around you. You worked to earn your place as a cop, then you worked and earned your place on SWAT. You worked and earned respect. Don’t discount your accomplishments. You’ve struggled, fought, and preserved to earn every damn one of them.
“I know what I’ve done in my life to earn the love of a good woman. And make no mistake, Shiloh, I’ve worked my ass off my whole life to be the sort of man who can look at himself in the mirror and do it with pride. That’s not to say I haven’t slipped up. I have and my slip-ups were huge. The biggest one nearly cost me and Trey our lives. I put my team at risk. And I’m goddamn lucky I’m not blind. I lost my place in the Navy and spent way too much time feeling sorry for myself. But I snapped out of it. I worked to forgive myself and let go of the guilt. Hear this, Shiloh; I’ve earned you. I’ve worked my ass off to be the man you need. And I didn’t start to be that man when I met you; I’ve been working at it my whole life, waiting to give it to you. There is no one in this world better for me than you. And I know down to my soul there is no one better on the planet for you than me. No one can ever love you the way I do because you are mine. Your insecurities are mine. Your imperfections are mine. Your strength, your loyalty, your humor, your beautiful eyes, your body, your intelligence, your heart, your love. All of it belongs to me. You can wrap that up in your bitchy attitude when you’re scared. You can try to shut me out when you’re afraid to face something. And that’s okay because your fear is mine, too. I will not leave you. I swear it, Shiloh. I will love you through whatever life throws our way.”
Her fingers digging into my side suddenly loosened and she clumsily scrambled to climb on top of me. My hands went to her hips to steady her when she pitched to the side in her hurried effort to burrow into me.
And for the second time that night, I held my woman while she cried.
Shiloh’s body rocked with her tears. I slid my arms around her as tight as I could get them. And that was how we stayed. Her shaking and me absorbing her pain.
She finally broke the silence when she said, “Clive has to stop sending me letters.”
Thank fuck.
“I should’ve stopped him after I got the first one.”
Fuck yeah, she was getting it.
“At first I thought it was a grieving father’s right. His way of healing after he lost his daughter the way he did.”
No doubt Clive Hutchinson was grieving but that never gave him the right to hurt Shiloh. I didn’t remind her of this. Instead, I remained quiet.
“And, yes, part of me thought I deserved to read what he was saying about me in those letters. Part of me welcomed the pain. You were right, I was torturing myself. I read every letter. Some of them I read twice. I gave myself those nightmares so I wouldn’t forget her.”
Shiloh lifted her head and sat up astride me. There was still plenty of sadness in those pastel eyes but there was something new and it looked a hell of a lot like hope. Her hands went to my chest for balance and mine went to her thighs pressing tightly against my hips. I said nothing as her gaze roamed my face. I stayed silent when she brought her right hand up and traced my jaw with her fingertips, then my lips, then over my stubble until she cupped my cheek like I did with her.
So fucking sweet.
“I know you won’t agree with this because you love me. But if you think about it logically, like the warfighter you are, you’ll understand. I didn’t have all the information about Simon Abbot.” With the mention of that asshole’s name, my muscles tightened and I braced. “Information my team could’ve used. We would’ve responded differently if we’d known where his head was at. His mother was at the end stages of her illness, he was facing going back to prison, and knowing that, he was playing out a fucked-up scenario of suicide by cop. We might have been able to save Penelope from going down if we’d known. We didn’t. And then I used Penelope’s death as a reminder of how fragile life is. How important it is I’m the best I can be at my job. I didn’t do that in a healthy way. I did it ugly, and twisted her murder into my personal failure. But the thing is, when there is loss of life, when we lose a hostage or an innocent civilian dies, it is a failure. And it has to be viewed as such so we can learn from it. I failed. My team failed. A young, beautiful, sweet girl with a bright future paid for that failure.”
Most of what Shiloh said was good, she was untwisting shit in her mind. But she was still wrong.
“I get you.” I gave her thighs a squeeze and continued. “And you’re correct; each mission, each call out, every new situation is an opportunity to learn. What went right. What went wrong. And what adjustments need to be made. But, baby, they’re only failures if your team doesn’t learn from them. You cannot control every outcome. Your team cannot predict what a suspect is going to do with a hundred percent accuracy, a hundred percent of the time. It’s just not possible. And if you keep looking at them as failures, keeping track in your head, and ticking a column every time you’re called out, you’re going to actually fail. You won’t be effective. You’ll second-guess yourself, you’ll second-guess your team, and someone will get hurt because instead of following your instincts you’ll be too busy overthinking the ending. The other option is you’ll become ineffective in a different way, and you’ll go off the reservation and become a maverick. And that only has one ending—your death.”
Shiloh’s gaze stayed glued to mine and I hoped to God she heard the last part. I’d seen it happen in the Navy. The heavy load of losing teammates. The feeling of failure that turns into a burn that leads a man astray. Helplessness that turns into a suicide mission to right perceived failures.
“I wish I had you when she died.”
Christ, that felt good.
“I was struggling,” she admitted. “I should’ve reached out to my brothers.”
There it was.
“Yeah, baby, you should’ve. Asking for guidance and wisdom is a sign of strength. But that’s in the past, too. Moving on from here, you’ll remember turning to those who love you is not weakness it’s the ultimate show of trust and love.”
“What?”
“Shiloh, we all see it. We all know you got it going on, girl. You’re tough, you’re competent at your job, in your life. You got mad skills. We see it, we know it. So when a woman like you who’s taken life by the balls, earned her place among the best, reaches out, it shows you trust the person you’re reaching out to. You seeking their wisdom means you respect their opinion. It also shows your trust is shrouded in love.”