Carlise wasn’t sure what to say. She simply stared at him.
“I want to know why you were out there, Carlise. Why you were lost in my backyard. What’s put that wary look in your eyes. Why, with every howl of the wind, you look as if someone’s going to storm in here and hurt you . . . despite being nowhere near Cleveland.”
Shit. She was right. This man didn’t miss much.
“But now’s not the time. I feel as if I’ve known you forever, but in actuality it’s only been a few hours since I’ve been conscious enough to know where I am and what’s going on.” He grinned slightly. “And you don’t trust me yet. I can wait until you do. I want you to talk to me, to let me help you, but I want you to want that too. Not just tell me what’s going on in your life because you feel as if you have no choice. So for now, how about we warm up, and we talk about less threatening stuff?”
Carlise sighed in relief. She wasn’t ready to talk to Riggs about Tommy. About how scared she’d been of her stalker . . . that he’d escalate from petty vandalism and threats to something more physical. “Like what?”
“How old you are. Where you grew up. What you do for a living. That kind of thing.” He turned to the small table next to the couch and handed her a mug of steaming tea.
Carlise had no problem sharing more general things about herself. Mostly because she was just as curious about the man sitting next to her. Now that he was coherent, she wanted to learn more about him. More than the fact that he had scars all over his body and a cute beauty spot on the side of his neck, just under his ear.
She cupped the mug and inhaled the scent of cinnamon and apple before saying, “I’m thirty. Grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and I translate books from French into English.”
Riggs turned and grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch, shaking it out before turning to her. “May I?” he asked, gesturing with the blanket.
Carlise nodded, and Riggs gently placed the blanket over her lap, tucking it in tightly.
“You warm enough?”
“Perfect,” she told him. And she was. She felt more relaxed right this second than she’d been in days. Weeks.
“I’m thirty-four, but there are days I feel decades older. I grew up in Macon, Georgia, and you know that I’m a tree guy.”
“What branch of the military were you and your friends in?” Carlise asked as she took a sip of the delicious tea.
“Army. We were Special Forces.”
Her eyes widened. “You were? Like a SEAL?”
He chuckled. “Well, SEALs are navy.”
“I knew that,” Carlise said quickly.
“Yes, like that, but for the army.” Riggs sighed and reached for another blanket. He covered himself, then settled into the other corner of the couch. Carlise felt his foot brush against hers on the cushion, but instead of pulling away, she pressed her foot harder against his own.
He smiled slightly, then sobered. “On our last mission, everything went wrong. Our intel was bad, the soldiers with us panicked when shit hit the fan, and in the end, my team and I were captured.”
Carlise gasped. “Oh no!”
“Yeah. It wasn’t a good time. That’s when we decided we were done. That when we got home—if we got home—we were going to go into business together.”
“I . . . were you hurt?”
Riggs nodded. “Yes.”
“Your scars,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, they aren’t pretty. But we all got off pretty lucky compared to Cal.”
“Wait . . . Callum Redmon, you said? Why does that name sound familiar?” she asked.
“He’s originally from Liechtenstein, and yes, that’s a real country. We all gave him a rash of shit about making up the name of some fictional country, but it turns out it’s legit. He grew up mostly in England, even has the English accent, but he’s fluent in German—that’s what his people speak—and also knows a bit of French. He’s the fourth son of the fourth son in line for the crown . . . or something like that. I can never keep it straight,” Riggs said.
“Holy crap, I remember now! There were videos on the internet of him being tortured.” She gasped and her eyes got huge. “Wait—you were there too?”
“Yeah. Our captors loved that they had royalty in their clutches. He got the worst of their attention.”
Without hesitation, Carlise leaned over and put her mug of tea on the floor, then moved toward Riggs. She hugged him, resting her head on his chest and clutching him tightly in her arms. “I’m so sorry.”