Jake by Rian Kelley Page A

married?”
                  “Never. I came close, or so I thought.”
                  “But all the time away from home did that in?”
                  He shook his head. “No. It didn’t help any. But it was me rushing things, always conscious of the clock ticking.”
                  “But now you have a year home?”
                  “About that.”
                  “Then where do you go?”
                  “Wherever they need me.” He gave her hand a light squeeze. “I’ve been through Afghanistan twice. I could be called for a third and thrifty—that’s when we’re deployed as a special unit for a specific purpose, usually temporary.”
                  He paused and Ivy turned so she could see his profile. His face, still bathed in a light sheen of sweat, was tense. She sensed he was about to reveal an important truth and waited.
                  “My last deployment didn’t end well,” he said. “We were already coming up on a year in-country. We were ready for home. But things change there is a heartbeat. Literally. We got the call and moved out within hours. Our last act on foreign soil for a while. We were juiced. Ready. We trained every day, waiting for that command. We knew the danger. Accepted the sacrifice.”
                  His words drifted toward silence and Ivy waited for more. She felt the slightly abrasive rub of his palm against hers, the brush of his arm, the steel strength of his muscles.
                  “One of you didn’t make it,” she said quietly.
                  “I’ve been lucky.” He turned and caught her gaze. “Until that day, I’d never lost a man.”
                  “You did everything you could to keep that from happening,” she said, and she knew it was true. Jake was a man of honor and integrity. Follow-through. She’d known that an hour into hello.
                  “How do you know?”
                  “I’m getting to know you, Jake,” she returned. “No half-measures. No easy outs,” she
    observed. “You don’t have it in you to do less than what’s called for.”
                  His eyes stayed with hers, deepening a gaze that was threatening to pull from Ivy every thought, every secret.
                  “You’re too fast to trust,” he warned.
                  She shook her head. “No, not anymore. Now my motto is, ‘Prove it.’” With Trace, she’d believed words, she’d invested herself in the dream those words had constructed. “I’m all about the evidence. Facts. Big words and cheap gestures don’t move me.”
                  “I’ll remember that,” he promised.
                  “You’re all about action, Jake. So far, what I know about you comes from what you’ve shown me.” And it put the fear in her, because she suspected Jake was the real deal. “But it’s still early yet,” she added, more as a reminder to herself. Proceed with caution . She should be clinging to the words of wisdom that she lived by.
                  They were approaching Jake’s truck, parked a block up from the beach, and he stopped and shifted his stance so that they were facing each other.
                  “Are you worried that I’ll disappoint you?”
                  She shook her head. “I’m more worried that you won’t.”
                  Confusion made him frown. “Explain that.”
                  “Relationships are risky. I’m not very good at them. At all,” she underscored. “If we go by the numbers, chances are I’ll mess this one up, too.”
                  He shook his head. “Not true. Playing the odds, we’re both due for success. Add our mutual growth, changed approach and desire to make it work and we’re a