Embattled SEAL by J. M. Madden

that actually happening are so slim. And I realize that going from running a million miles a minute, saving people, shooting guns to suburban home life is a devastating change. I had hoped that the training job would be a good transition between the two, but it didn’t seem to even have a bearing.”
    “It did have a bearing,” he disagreed. “I had started to slow down. But you’re right. It’s so hard turning off the war machine. Over there you expect to be shot at. You expect to lose your best friends. When you sit in the dirt to talk to a guy and watch his head explode in front of you, it’s hard not to be that way.”
    Tears flooded her eyes and ran down her cheeks at the harsh visual, but Harper just breathed through it. Cat tightened her arms around his back, hoping her presence could help him in some small way. “I’m sorry.”
    He turned to look at her. “I’m not telling you this for sympathy. I just wanted you to understand how drastically different our lives were. I had to find a way to adapt to all those changes. Dr. Singh is helping me do that. And I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
    He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’m amazed at all you’ve had to put up with and humbled that you’re willing to put up with more. For a while there I wondered if just letting you go wouldn’t be better for everyone.”
    “It wouldn’t,” she murmured, resting her head against his chest. “You are a part of us. We can’t let you go like that.”
    His heart thudded beneath her ear and his arms tightened around her but he didn’t say anything more. She didn’t need him to. Just the fact that he’d opened up to her so much was incredible. He’d never done that before. At least not without the situation falling into a screaming match.
    Harper jostled her a little. “Come on, there’s something I want to show you.”
    He pushed up from the rock then gave her a hand up. Cat picked up her sack and began to follow as he started down the trail, away from the house. “Wait a minute. What do you mean you have something to show me? How do you know where you’re going, Harper?”
    Grinning at her over his shoulder, he didn’t pause. “I may have reconnoitered a little.”
    Cat felt her mouth drop open in shock and she stopped dead on the trail. “You did what? You just got out of the hospital. You went hiking? When?”
    Harper kept moving but she jogged ahead of him, holding a hand out to stop him. “Answer me, damn it!”
    Harper paused, jaw clenched. “I went out the second day. Not too far. And I’ve been solid on my feet for a while now.”
    Cat looked at him, aghast. “You weren’t solid the second day we were here. That was the day you fell on your ass in the kitchen. What would have happened if you’d tripped on a damn rock out here or something? I never would have found you.”
    Anger sparked in his eyes. “That was a chance I was willing to take,” he snapped. “I had to make sure we were safe here.”
    Cat rocked back on her heels, surprised that he’d snapped at her, as if she were the one in the wrong. But when she looked at his expression, he seemed to realize that he’d been in the wrong.
    He just hadn’t been able to help himself.
    Her anger cooled. As a SEAL he was used to pushing himself beyond everything. If she were honest with herself she was a little surprised he hadn’t gone out the first night after she had gone to bed. That was just the kind of guy he was.
    Anytime they went on a family trip he would scout out the area. And as a sniper he always went for the high ground—rooftops, fire towers. He had taken her word for their surroundings at the hospital, but she should have known he wouldn’t be content with that forever.
    It was why he’d had to mount the little cameras and motion detectors that had arrived this morning from his boss in Denver. There were wires running along the floor of the house and into the den because