Snowbound - Harlequin.com

218 SNOWBOUND
despite the gloves both wore. “You’re not a hunter, I
take it.”
“Me?” Recoiling, he sounded repulsed, reminding
her of how fresh bloodshed was for him. “God, no.”
The shadow of horror in his eyes was something he
usually hid from her.
“I suppose you’d have lost your taste for it even if
you had been a hunter,” she said tentatively.
“I never was.” He let her hand drop and said, “We
should start back.”
That night, her sixth there—with only four more to
go—she felt bold enough to ask him about Iraq. It
took a little coaxing, but he did talk about life there for
the soldiers: the rec center with ping-pong, foosball
tables, computers with unreliable Internet connections
and free movies every night. The Hajji shops run by
locals where you could buy anything from bootlegged
DVDs to Welcome To Iraq postcards. The state-ofthe-art
gym, the food, the ups and downs of laundry
service. Telling stories, John was occasionally funny
and seemingly relaxed.
It was only as she settled into sleep that Fiona realized
he hadn’t actually told her anything important. Not about
what he’d felt, or done every day. Certainly not about
friends he’d lost. He made a joke about how often the
gym closed down because of mortar attacks, but had
nothing to say about what it was like to live day-to-day
knowing you weren’t safe even walking to the dining hall.
And, of course, he said nothing whatever about
getting wounded.