Page 56 of Her Faithful Protector

“I’m a Navy SEAL, baby. Our mission was to go into the jungle and bring all of you out alive.”

“Oh yeah, you wanted to be a Navy SEAL like your dad was. So you did it.”

“Yeah, I did it,” he nodded.

She closed her eyes, so many memories came flooding back to her at the mention of the Navy. She remembered flying into Chicago and going to the Navy Training Center, only to be sent away. She remembered calling and calling and sending letter after letter, only to have them come back return to sender.

He’d cut her out of his life like some kind of cancer.

“Hey, don’t go there,” Nic pleaded.

“Don’t go where?” Camilla asked bitterly. “Don’t remember your utter and total rejection of me? You threw me away. I was eighteen and I loved you desperately. I wanted to make a life with you. I wanted to marry you. I would have followed you anywhere, done anything to stay with you, but you abandoned me.”

“Cami, be fair, I always said we weren’t going to get married until you finished college.”

It was a hit. It was a hit and she wouldn’t acknowledge it. She’d planned for every contingency. She’d arranged everything. She’d had every school lined up, why couldn’t he have just gone along with it? She was back in her eighteen year old body, wrapped up in her young tender emotions and it killed.

“You abandoned me.” Her voice sounded so young.

“I was always going to come back to you. Always.”

She blinked, her eyes cleared and she saw the man in front of her. “But you didn’t come back to me.”

She saw the panic on his face and it made no sense.

“Cami, I tried to explain in my letters. Why didn’t you at least open them?”

She laughed, and regretted it, as pain shot through her chest. “There were no letters Nic. And if there were, shouldn’t I have just sent them back return to sender, wasn’t that how it was done?” She heard the pain in her voice, and it wasn’t from her injuries.

She was watching him closely, and the metamorphosis was profound, he went from panicked to resolute.

“There were letters, there were ten of them. You’d just finished your junior year. I know because that was when I got my trident. And you did send them all back to me, return to sender. I explained everything to you. Why I made the choice I did, and how I hoped we could make a future together. I laid my heart bare.”

She stared at him confused. She knew Nic, he’d never been a liar. Not ever.

His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. They needed to talk this out, it was important. She rolled to her side so she could sit up.

“Ahhhh,” the pain hit like lightening she pressed down on her right side.

Nic crouched down beside her in an instant, helping her roll to her back.

“Jesus Cami, what were you thinking?”

She couldn’t think, she could only feel. And whimper.

“Honey, I’ll be right back with a nurse.” Suddenly the room was empty. Her eyes were wet as she tried to think through everything he had been saying through the mist of pain. Ten letters?

The door opened, she didn’t recognize the nurse who came in before Nic but it didn’t matter, Camilla knew she would do something for her pain. The entire time she fiddled with her IV tube Nic watched on in solemn silence.

“Thank you,” Camilla said as the nurse started to leave.

“It’s no problem. Don’t forget, you have a call button by your bed, you use that any time you need to.”

Camilla nodded.

Then she and Nic were alone. She knew she didn’t have much time before the pain meds started working.

“I didn’t get any letters Nic.”