Running Wilde by Tonya Burrows Page B

Figured I’d do my four and get out…but I found my place there. And then when I joined the SEALs, I found a second family and a steadier support system than my brothers were able to give. It was exactly what I needed.”
    She glanced away because the love she saw in his eyes when he spoke of his two families was so intense, so genuine, it hurt. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to have so many people to love and so many people to love you in return. She couldn’t imagine what it felt like to experience emotions as deeply as Vaughn did, and it astounded her that this hard man was willing to open himself up and bare his heart like he was now.
    “I lived on the streets for a while,” she blurted almost before she’d made the decision to tell him. But it was out now, so she sucked in a fortifying breath and forged ahead. “That’s the closest I’ve come to camping.”
    “Oh, vixen,” he whispered, not looking at her, still staring into the fire. “It’s not even close to the same.”
    “Good.” She attempted a laugh, but it came out all wobbly. “Because it’s not something I ever care to repeat.” She followed his gaze, watched the mesmerizing twists of orange and yellow playing over the wood, and tried not to relive those horrible months. Alone. Scared. Hungry. Cold.
    She swallowed the lump rising in her throat. “After I dropped my real identity and before I assumed Violet Smith’s…I was nobody. I had no name, no home. Definitely no family or support system. It was terrifying.”
    “But you survived.”
    She lifted a shoulder, let it drop. “It’s what I do. Survive.” But she didn’t live , and it was starting to get to her. She wanted more than mere existence.
    Vaughn said nothing for a long time. “Are you ready to tell me your real name now?”
    She wanted to. She even opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her tongue would not form the name. Too many years on the run had trained her to push it out, push it away, pretend she’d never been that person. At this point, she wasn’t even sure her birth name was her real name anymore.
    The silence stretched too long, broken only by the crackling flames.
    Vaughn shook his head and grabbed another handful of pistachios from the bag. “I’ll take that as a no.”
    She thought of Marcus’s text. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
    “I don’t want to find out. I want you to tell me.”
    “I can’t,” she whispered.
    “You won’t,” he corrected.
    “Okay. Won’t.” She shifted to face him. “I survive. And the only reason I have is because I’ve never told anyone who I was. That woman? I left her behind when I ran and haven’t been her in five years. Honestly, I don’t know if I want to be her again.”
    “Who do you want to be?”
    She sighed and reached into the bag for a handful of pistachios. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

Chapter Ten
    Morning poured over their little campsite in dappled golden light, accompanied by birdsong. It was one of those perfect camping mornings, crisp and cool, with wisps of fog floating along the river below them.
    Vaughn had woken up sporadically throughout the night to rebuild the fire, but now it was down to smoldering coals, and the morning dampness had settled into his bones. Moving was going to be a bitch.
    Sometime in the last few hours, Sage had snuggled up against his body. Probably just to keep warm, but he still let himself savor the contact as he lay there staring up at the gently swaying leaves of the forest’s canopy, trying to convince his aching muscles it was time to move.
    Last night had been…intimate. More so than sex ever was. He’d told her more about himself than he’d ever told anyone, his brothers and brothers-in-arms included, and he wasn’t sure why. If he tried, he could convince himself it was a tactic to get her to open up about her past, but that hadn’t been the reason. They’d always had an easy rapport, so maybe he could chalk it up to that, but