Free Hunter - Big Girls & Bad Boys by D. H. Cameron Page B

activist and a Marine find common ground? Maybe we didn’t have to. Maybe our feelings trumped everything else. Maybe we could make it work not despite our differences but because of them. Maybe, like Hunter said before, we really weren’t as far apart as it seemed.
     
    I sat on the sofa, my hands still in Hunter’s hands, and tried to clear my head. I didn’t weigh my options, I didn’t try to figure out how it could work, I just listened. I listened to my heart. Did I love Hunter? Yes, no, maybe...I don’t know. I’m not even sure I knew what love felt like. But I did enjoy his company. I did find him attractive. But most importantly, I didn’t feel whole without him. He had filled a void I didn’t know was even there, or maybe he created it, but without him in my life, as brief as our time together was, the emptiness couldn’t be ignored.
     
    “I tried really hard. I tried to not think about you,” I said, looking at my lap finding it hard to speak what I felt. But I looked up into Hunter’s eyes before I went on. “It didn’t work for shit,” I said. He laughed.
     
    “I had a few spacey moments myself thinking about you,” Hunter admitted.
     
    “I’ve had a spacey few months. Hunter, I...I...,” I said, the words there on the tip of my tongue but refusing to come out. I wanted to say them but had I come to terms with the consequences? I hadn’t. My life would certainly change. I had the freedom that Hunter didn’t. He was subject to the whims of the Marine Corps. I wasn’t...or at least I wasn’t yet. I didn’t know where this would lead, not yet, but I knew I’d be the one that had to adapt, at least in the short term, to make this work.
     
    But did I love Hunter? I wasn’t sure. Maybe the ache I felt when I left him was love. Maybe the thrill I felt when Daisy told me he had come back to see me was love. Maybe the way he made me feel about myself or the way my priorities reshuffled themselves for him or maybe, just maybe, the way he made love to me was love. Maybe all of it or none of it was love. But I was running out of time and chances to come to terms with how I felt.
     
    I just didn’t want to feel like I did without Hunter. Maybe that was all I needed to know. Life was short, a point Hunter’s career made me keenly aware of. He was certainly aware of the unspoken possibility. Death stalked us all but not as closely as it stalked men like Hunter. He told me he loved me because he might not ever get the chance again. That applied to me too, right? I might not get this chance again if I passed on the opportunity.
     
    I exhaled and it all became so clear. I no longer hesitated. I had this one chance and I wasn’t going to pass it up. I couldn’t. I didn’t know what would happen when I said the words but I knew I couldn’t live with the consequences of not saying them.
     
    “I love you too, Hunter,” I said. He smiled, let go of my hands and cupped my face in his palms. He kissed me and I remembered suddenly how much I liked that. I loved him. There was doubt, I suppose, but nothing tangible, nothing that could overcome the feeling of having that void filled.
     
    However, I thought that was it. We’d professed our love and we’d work it out somehow. We’d send letters, Skype, whatever, while Hunter was overseas and pick up where we left off when he returned. That was the rational and logical thing to do.
     
    I was wrong. Professing our love was just the beginning.
     
    “Then marry me. Tonight,” he said. I pulled back and stared blankly at Hunter. He was kidding, right? Right? His expression told me he wasn’t. I became aware that suddenly we weren’t alone. I glanced over at the kitchen and just barely out of sight, Penny, Indigo and Sandy waited for my answer. I looked over my shoulder and as expected, Nate was on his ladder outside the front window working away, oblivious to the drama inside. I looked back at Hunter.
     
    “I don’t know what to say,” I told