Chapter Two
NATE
I wanted to go see Ana. God only knows how badly I wanted to go with Chase and Jordan to see her. But from what Jordan had told me, Ana was still in the midst of some pretty intense post-traumatic stress and she didn’t even know who I was. To Ana, I was nobody. Sure, she knew I was Chase’s brother and she knew I had helped with the rescue of her and the other women. But Ana didn’t know me, and I didn’t want to add to her fears by imposing on her.
Most of my life, I hadn’t worried too much about other people and their feelings, unless I was being paid to keep them safe. In my job, sure, I cared if someone felt unsafe of if they needed me to do something a certain way for them. But I didn’t care like that in real life.
Maybe I hadn’t been around a woman who was right for me before and that was why I hadn’t felt like I needed them to feel safe. But whenever I thought about Ana, I wanted her to feel safe and I wanted her to know that I would do anything in my power to help her have that safe feeling.
I had nightmares about what I envisioned Ana had gone through at the hands of Stephano. I could only hope that my nightmares were worse than what really happened to her, but I had no idea. I didn’t even think that Jordan knew yet what had really happened while Ana was forced to be with Stephano.
Plus, I have always had a tendency to be a giant ass. It was part of my nature, and as much as I tried to calm my ass down and behave myself, I always went back to my old ways. It had taken me months to learn to watch my mouth around Jordan. My natural tendency was to let a beautiful woman know just how much she turned me on. It was a cockiness that I fell back on whenever I met women. They liked it. I had spent many nights with women after openly saying what was on my mind. But I couldn’t be like that around Ana; I knew this and it scared the crap out of me. My sarcasm and forwardness were just part of me—a part that I couldn’t show around someone as delicate as Ana.
It was hard to get back to my normal life after everything that had gone down while rescuing Ana, which was really unusual for me. Being a Navy Seal, I had learned to control my emotions and stay focused. Ana had totally thrown off my focus. I couldn’t stop worrying about her, thinking about her, wondering if I should reach out to her. But I wasn’t confident that I could keep my mouth under control around her just yet. Jordan told me Ana didn’t remember much about her rescue and I knew I had to try and stop thinking about her. Ana hadn’t felt that chemistry like I had.
“Nate, you’re starting to look like a lumberjack,” Chase said as he walked up the steps to my cabin.
“No need to look like a normal person out here. No one to impress.”
“Well, we just talked to Ana, and she’s on board with coming to stay with you when she leaves. You should clean up,” Jordan said.
“What? I thought you said she didn’t remember me?”
“I think she does a little. Anyways, she agreed it was the best place for her. Your place is secluded and quiet. Just give her a room and make sure there is food here. She just needs some time to relax. You can take jobs and travel; she’ll be fine here.”
“How is she doing?” I asked, full of trepidation.
I wanted to just wave my hands over Ana and make everything she had been through disappear for her. I couldn’t imagine what she was going through and I didn’t want to have to imagine it. I just wanted her to feel better.
“She’s doing really well,” Jordan responded as she looked at Chase.
It was a telltale sign that she was lying. Every time I called and asked how Ana was doing, or we talked about her, the answer was always the same. I didn’t know if they were just trying to keep the truth from me or if she really was doing well, but I did know that Jordan was keeping something from me at that moment.
Part of my military training involved facial expression recognition. It was fascinating to learn how the micro expressions of our face can give away absolutely everything. You can tell when someone likes you, if they are attracted to you, if they are lying—all through the way their face reacts, before their conscious mind tells them how to react.
I had used my skills at clubs to pick up women for many years, but they were valuable in other areas for sure. Many of the skills I learned in the military were valuable in other areas of my life. My physical fitness that had been required of me in the military was also what kept me sane during my down time. I loved working out in the gym I’d built for myself in a shed in my backyard. My ability to deal with alone time in a positive way was also something I gained in the military. I had so little alone time during those years that I cherished it even more when I finally got it.
But I hated being lied to. Especially since I was going to have Ana at my house. I needed to know what the heck was going on with her or I wasn’t going to be any use to her at all. I hated going into situations blind and wanted to avoid that as much as possible. I preferred going into a situation with my eyes open to what exactly I was in for. I didn’t care what the reality was, only that I knew the truth and could prepare for it.
It was the same with my current contracting job. Sure, we were often sent to jobs without proper intelligence information and without proper equipment, but if I knew that was going to be the case ahead of time, then I was prepared to deal with that right when we arrived. Being knowledgeable about a situation was much more important to me than having everything be perfect. Perfection had always been a myth to me.
“Jordan, if Ana is going to come here, I need to know the truth. How is she doing?”
There was a long, awkward silence as I looked from Chase to Jordan and back to Chase again. He knew I didn’t like important information being left out, and I knew he could see that I wasn’t happy with what was going on right at that moment.
“Man, she isn’t doing well,” Chase admitted.
“Chase!”
“What? She’s jumpy and shaking all the time. She yells at you for no reason and then hugs you so hard I don’t think she will ever let you go. We have to be honest with him, Jordan. She’s not doing well. I see where Nate’s coming from and I want him to have all of the information before he makes his decision on if she should come stay with him.”
“Don’t listen to him, Nate. She’s doing better and better each time we are there. She let us visit with her this time, and she’s just going to need some time. Ana made it through the hard part. The detox is over and she just has to deal with the mental aftermath of everything. That’s why here will be so good for her.”
“I don’t know. I’m not really the lovey-dovey type. I’m used to going out to the bars and picking up women. I can’t have her sitting around the house when I come home and ruining my game with the ladies. Is she going to need twenty-four hour supervision?”
The way Jordan and Chase were talking, it sounded like Ana was much sicker than I thought she would be. But it was a total lie when I said I was going out to the clubs. I used to go around picking up women, but not anymore. I hadn’t felt like heading into town and going on the prowl for months. Renovations around my cabin had been consuming my time and I hadn’t had any contracting jobs that I felt compelled to accept. Not enough money, bad location, crew I didn’t want to work with: there were plenty of reasons that I had refused jobs. Luckily, I had the financial stability to do what I liked when it came to my work. Sure, if I was ever going to start my own protection business, I was going to have to get back in the game, but not just yet. I wasn’t interested.
“Well, we already told her she could come here. So, maybe you should go visit her and discuss things,” Jordan said with her sweet smile. “I think you two will get along great. I saw that chemistry between you guys when we flew home to Atlanta.”
What Jordan didn’t understand was that in those initial hours after the event with Stephano, Ana was still in shock. Sure, we talked a little and I felt chemistry between us, but Ana was just trying to survive minute by minute at that point in her life.
I knew exactly what Chase saw in Jordan, though. Jordan was brilliant and ravishingly beautiful, but if that wasn’t enough, she was also extremely caring toward others. I already loved her like a sister and couldn’t imagine Chase not having her in his life. She really had helped turn him around and practically saved our family business. Chase had been a rebel who wasn’t interested in running the family business and our father was about to give it to some shmuck who worked for him. Luckily, that didn’t happen, and Chase and Jordan had the company running stronger than it ever had.
“I’ll try to make some time to go see her.”
“Make some time? Nate, you’re not working and have enough time to grow out your beard as if you’re in some old western. Get up there and talk to her before she comes to stay with you. It will put you both at ease.”
“Since when did you become the big brother around here?” I asked him with a stern look.
“I don’t know, but I blame Jordan for this new responsible side.”
Chase and I both laughed at how the roles in our brotherly relationship had twisted and turned over the years. Chase had been the troublemaker, the one who no one ever thought would stop partying, and I had been the responsible brother. Joining the Navy Seals with Jackson, taking on high-risk jobs as a contractor afterwards were all part of my taking on responsibility in life. But as I sat there looking at Chase, I felt like he had his life together and I was floundering to figure out where I fit.
“I’m really not the babysitting type. Chase can tell you. Did you tell Jordan what happened when I was supposed to babysit you as a kid?”
“She doesn’t need a babysitter, Nate, she needs a friend,” Chase said without hesitation.
The anxiety that was building up in my body was something I had become very familiar with over the years. It started in the tips of my fingers and I felt it move up my arms and to my chest. This is where I would remove myself from a situation and avoid whatever it was that was giving me the feeling of being out of control.
Handling stress in a war zone was so much easier than handling stress back home though. There were many situations that I could remove myself from, like grocery stores and shopping malls, and there were many situations where I needed to sit through the anxiety and try and find a way to deal with it, like having Jordan at my house. The emotions of dealing with people who cared about me were much harder to navigate than just shooting at an enemy.
“Okay, whatever. I’ve got things to finish,” I said as I stood up from the table and walked out the door.
I needed a break from our conversation. For me, it was better to get up and take a break than to let myself get too out of control. There was a fine line with this and it had taken me years to learn when to stay and when to get out of a conversation; I knew Ana would be going through something similar as she recovered.
“He’s almost exactly like her. Are you sure they will be okay here?” I heard Jordan ask Chase before I left the house.
I didn’t stick around long enough to hear Chase respond, but I knew what his answer was going to be. He was more than familiar with my PTSD struggles and knew that I lived out in the woods of Georgia because I couldn’t stand the loud noises and chaos of the city. Chase and I had some heartfelt conversations over the years about the role my various women had played in keeping me distracted and preventing me from living what he called a real life. But even though we didn’t always agree, Chase let me handle things my own way and I appreciated that. He didn’t run after me or try to get me to talk to him. He knew I just needed my space.
The idea that I was going to have to be in charge of helping Ana deal with her traumatic event was not funny. I didn’t deal with things: I avoided them. Sure, I could teach Ana how to avoid her issues and move on with her life, if that was what she wanted. Every person had to learn how they could deal with their own PTSD. It was different for everyone and I would certainly explain to Ana how I tried to deal with things, but I really did want Ana to come and stay with me. I couldn’t explain the pull toward her; I just knew I was going to say yes to her staying.
But I didn’t agree to have her because of Jordan or Chase; I agreed because I thought it would be best for Ana. Despite a small part of me still feeling like it was too much for me to take on and the wrong decision, I was going to let Ana come stay with me. The haunting look in her eyes when I pulled her out of Stephano Copal’s house was still vividly in my memory. The way her arms held on around my neck like I was the only other person in the world, that was something I just wasn’t willing to turn away.
Even when we finally made it to the hotel and I carried her up the stairs and to her friend Jordan, I felt an energy from Ana. I could feel that she was beaten but strong. There was an inner fire in her that wasn’t going to allow the events of that day to break her. I needed to feel her strength again. Even if that meant I would have to deal with my own issues.
I didn’t feel like I had done very many great things in my life, but I would always remember that moment when I helped her and the other women out of that situation. I carried other women out of that building and didn’t feel the same pull toward them as I did with Ana. It wasn’t just because I had rescued her. There was something deep down in our souls that pulled us toward each other.
I knew that having her at my house wouldn’t mean anything sexual, although I had all of those feelings toward her as well. Most of my adult life, that had been a primary driving force in why I had any sort of relationship with a woman. But with Ana, it was different; if she never wanted to have such a relationship with me, I would still be there for her. She needed me and I wanted to do whatever I could for her.
But I couldn’t bring myself to go and visit her before it was time for her to come home with me. I had made plenty of plans to drive up to her facility and I had made just as many excuses for why I couldn’t go that day. Then before I knew it, the day had come to pick Ana up and I was driving up there without even having talked to her.
It wasn’t the best situation to show up as I was, and I knew it. I knew I should have driven up and talked to her before; it was just another way I had avoided the reality of what I needed to do. It was a crappy way to introduce myself to Ana, but she might as well know how excellent I was at avoiding situations when I wanted to.
There was a lot about me that wasn’t perfect, but those same things were why I was understanding of what Ana would be going through. I knew that she wouldn’t want to hang out all the time or talk all the time. I knew she was going to want time to herself and to just deal with everything that was going in her head, and I was all right with that.
My major positive trait was my ability to go with the flow and I knew that would help when dealing with Ana. I didn’t care what she did and I was going to be happy to adjust things to help her get through her ordeal. It was a job for me, a mission to help her feel better, and I always worked better when I had a clear mission.
Although I had a lot of anxiety about seeing Ana and getting her home, I was also very excited to see how she was doing. Jordan and Chase had tried to fill me in, but it wasn’t the same as seeing her with my own eyes and seeing just how she was doing. I also couldn’t wait to see her for other more selfish reasons. I had fantasies about her all the time, but I couldn’t remember what her body looked like. I always remembered her face and her arms as they had held onto me, but my mind just couldn’t remember the rest of her and I needed that memory to complete my fantasies. The thoughts that ran through my mind were just for me and I didn’t have to ever react to them, but I wanted them to be complete.