And I do for a moment. I scroll through pictures of dirty-faced children playing ball in a dirt parking lot, of women at the market with their arms around small children while armed soldiers stand nearby. Groups of shots of men gathered around a table, playing a card game, and wasting away the afternoon.

She focuses on eyes and facial features, wrinkles etched in skin that tell a story all on their own. I get so lost in the images that I forget to question when she took them until I notice in the background of one of the images a minaret a few miles from the outskirts of town. The picture was taken near dawn, the sun rising over the mountains behind it and a group of men kneeling on their prayer rugs.

At first I notice the unique perspective of the shot; then I swipe the digital touch screen of the camera to get more details on the picture. And when I see the date is from two days ago, I immediately think the camera must have the wrong time stamp. It has to.

And then I become almost obsessive, going through the pictures on the camera card again to look at the time stamps. Again I see the wrong date that can’t be right. Once I’m done with the pictures on that camera, I pick up the one beside it and start the process all over again. Normally I’d get caught up in the new images that are just as incredible as the ones the first camera held, but this time around my mind is running a million miles an hour.

By the time I’m done, I’ve noticed that the time stamps on all of these images fall on the nights that Beaux didn’t spend with me. I’m immediately taken back to how I felt day one with her, like I’ve been played – and yet I know she isn’t playing me. She’s explained this all to me… but then in the same breath she promised she wasn’t going to go out on her own anymore.

What the fuck?

My temper is rising. The restless energy I felt earlier after Sarge’s call returns with a vengeance so that the minute I hear the key in the lock, my posture is stiff and I’m primed for a fight.

Beaux pushes open the door and startles when she sees me sitting in her room with a look of complete disdain aimed solely on her. My elbows are on my knees, hands clasped in the center, and my eyes are laser focused on hers.

“Argh!” she yelps. “You scared the shit out of me!” I remain still as I wait to see how she’s going to play this because all that worry I felt is still there, but the anger and frustration are a hundred times stronger.

“Sorry,” I say, my voice lacking all emotion.

“Did something happen? Do we have a story? Why do you look so upset?” She asks the questions in rapid succession as she sets her key on the dresser and takes a step toward me.

“Don’t.” The one-word warning reflects so many things I feel inside me right now. Don’t come closer. Don’t bullshit me. Don’t think you can lie to me. Don’t make me feel like this: angry, confused, worried, conflicted, wanting to pull you close because now I know you’re safe and wanting to hold you at arm’s length because I don’t want to get hurt by you.

“Tanner?”

The cautious nature of how she says my name tells me she knows I’m pissed, but the confused look in her eyes and parted lips tug on the sucker side of me. And no one likes to be a sucker.

“Where were you? And don’t tell me you were downstairs in the lobby.”

“I was… out. I went for a walk, needed some fresh air.”

“Was the fresh air so thick that you couldn’t hear your cell ring?” Her eyes widen, but her mouth stays shut. Smart woman. I lower my head for a moment, stare at my hands as I try to rein in the urge to shake the truth out of her, but I know it won’t do any good.

“Whose idea was it to take nights off?” I ask, referring to our agreement to not spend every night in each other’s bed as I lift my head up to meet her eyes again. I see that the change of direction in the conversation throws her by the furrow in her brow.

“I don’t remember. It just kind of came up, didn’t it?”

“You tell me.” I honestly don’t remember because my brain was probably fogged up from the incredible sex we’d just had when the topic arose as we lay spent and panting a few weeks ago. But right now, I have a deep, unsettling feeling that she’s the culprit of starting the conversation. That she created a way out to have nights to herself to get away and do whatever the fuck she does.

“I don’t know. Maybe I did. I honestly don’t remember.”

“Convenient,” I snort.

“What’s so wrong with not wanting to smother each other? With knowing a damn good thing when I see one and not wanting you to get sick of me? Of wanting to keep this thing between us healthy for both work reasons and for whatever this is between us? I don’t understand where you’re going with this, Tanner.”

“Where I’m going with this?” My voice rises in volume for the first time since she’s entered the room although it feels like I’ve been screaming in my head the entire time. “Where am I going? How about where are you going? That’s a more fitting question.” When she just stares, her eyes blinking and fingers hanging over the edge of the dresser where her hips lean, I continue. “You promised me you weren’t going to go out anymore at nighttime.”

“Yeah…”

Letting the silence hang between us, I give her a chance to fess up even though I know from her eyes there is nothing to tell because she thinks she did nothing wrong. I gesture nonchalantly to the cameras on the table beside me. “The pictures on the cameras… they’re good. When’d you take them?”

C’mon, Beaux, don’t lie to me. I need her to be up front with me, need to know that I mean enough to her to come clean now even though she lied to me when she left to take them. It’s screwed-up logic at best but something I need to hang on to.

“When I was out.”

“Can you be a little more specific?”

“About?”

“Well I sure as hell wasn’t with you when you took these pictures.”

“True.” She raises her eyebrows and crosses her arms over her chest like she’s losing patience with me, and all I can do is chuckle at the irony in her body language. “Why don’t you just come out and ask what you want to ask, Tanner?”

“Did you go out by yourself to take pictures?”

“Not since the last time you told me not to,” she lies as she makes a show of looking at her watch, “which was two minutes ago.”

Her sarcasm infuriates me even though a part of me admires her all at the same time. It’s a fucked-up mix, and that I respect her for standing her ground makes me even more pissed. The goddamn woman is going to be the death of me. “You’re a horrible liar.”

She just lifts her eyebrows in a “yeah, so what” gesture that causes me to grit my teeth.

“And I believe you promised me you weren’t going to go out by yourself anymore, let alone at night, and yet the time stamp on these pictures says you did just that.” I wait for a reaction, wait for her to disagree with me, offer an explanation, but she doesn’t. She just stands there and ever so slowly nods her head in agreement with my statement. “What the fuck are you doing, Beaux? Trying to get yourself killed?” I can’t contain my frustration anymore. I push up out of the chair, shove my hands through my hair in a useless gesture, and pace the floor in front of her to abate some of the restless energy that feels like it’s eating me alive.

“Tanner… you’re overreacting.”

“Don’t Tanner me, and don’t you dare make light of this! It’s not like you’re out on some goddamn Sunday stroll.” I stop walking and square my shoulders to her with my face inches from hers. And she just continues to hold my stare but doesn’t give me an inkling of what she’s feeling on the inside and damn it to hell I want to know. “This isn’t some city back home, rookie, wherever the fuck you’re from that you aren’t telling me about. Not by a long fucking shot. Do you have any clue what…” I stop midsentence as I realize what I just said to her. As everything comes clear over why I’m so pissed at her disappearing into the night by herself in this dangerous city. That it’s not just her going out by herself, no, but rather having these feelings like I did from when Stella disappeared churned up in addition to everything Beaux’s still keeping from me after all of this time we’ve spent together.

How I still feel like I know so little about her since she continually changes the subject any and every time we talk about home.

My anger collides with my insecurity and makes me realize just why I’m so upset. No one likes to be made to feel like a fool, and right now it’s exactly how I feel. My life, my past, my everything, has been completely opened to her, and while I don’t expect her to give me a blow-by-blow of her past, shouldn’t she at least offer more than the generalities that I do know?

I run a hand down the back of my neck while I stare into those deep green eyes of hers, needing to step the fuck away from her so that I can gather my thoughts and figure out where my heart and head are, because obviously they are a hell of a lot more invested than hers are.

“Just forget it,” I tell her in a voice eerily similar to her emotionless tone.

I walk from the room without another word and head up the stairwell, needing my space to clear my head, take stock, and be by myself. Too much, too damn fast.

I can’t help but laugh, though, the sounds dying in the heat of the day as I shove open the door to the rooftop and make my way to my sanctuary. Stella was so damn right, it’s comical. I sure as hell feel a lot more than just lust for Beaux right now, and even though I refuse to say the L-word that Stella was so damn fond of using, it doesn’t mean my head doesn’t see it lurking on the horizon.

“Fuck!” I bark to no one, knowing it’s going to be hotter than hell up here right now and not caring, because I just need a few moments, some time not to feel so fucking scattered.

First of all there’s Beaux and her lack of emotional investment in this. And the minute the thought crosses my mind, I reject it just as quickly because that’s a total bullshit statement. I know she’s invested in what’s between us. I can see it in her eyes, feel it in her touch. I just wish I knew what the fuck it is that’s keeping her from opening up to me. Whatever it is that’s holding her back is so damn strong, it’s almost tangible.

Maybe I’ll call Rafe and ask him more about her. It’s not the first time the thought’s crossed my mind, but I keep telling myself I need to wait her out, let her tell me in her own time. The question is, how much longer do I wait? At what point will I have to step back to prevent myself from getting hurt?

Except I have the sinking feeling I’m pretty much all in at this point, or else I wouldn’t have just reacted like I did.

I scrub my hands over my face. This emotional overload like I’m a damn teenager can stop anytime now.

Fuck. I close my eyes and lean my head against the wall behind me as I take refuge in the tiny bit of shade from the wall the mattress is pushed up against. I haven’t been this worked up in a long time, and I feel stupid yet validated in my feelings.

“Tanner?”

“Go away, Beaux.”

“We need to talk.”

My mind flashes back to the last time I was up here with Stella and the talk we had that led to the kiss.

“No, we don’t. You’re stubborn, clearly going to do whatever you want without any worry for your own safety, and I just… I’ve already lost one person I cared about because of that lack of caution, and I can’t go through that again. Simple as that.”

Silence settles around us as if she really heard what I said and recognized the sincerity in my tone. “Is that what this is all about?” She lowers herself beside me on the mattress, yet I refuse to glance over at her.

With so many emotions churning within me, I shouldn’t be surprised that I just gave her an insight into Stella’s death. And I recognize that was just the tip of the iceberg in a sense, because it’s time I finally talk about it. How can I expect her to want to be open with me when I can’t be with her?

“This is about you wanting to be partners, but you shut down anytime the discussion turns to you. This is about you promising me one thing and then going out and doing the opposite. This is about losing my best friend because she got caught up in an idea and never saw danger coming until it was too damn late.” I shake my head, needing to purge all of my explanations at once, and yet the last one is harder to readily admit than the others. “This is about the fact that you mean something to me and yet you have no regard for your own safety.”