Chapter 10

The heavy rain drummed against the A-frame roof, creating a soothing, peaceful rhythm. The atmosphere inside felt warmer, cozier and with Mac's soft body pressed against his, Harm found a surreal happiness he didn't know existed. He could feel the steady rise and fall of her breath as she slept and for a moment, he simply watched her, his heart full, until a sudden clap of thunder broke the peace.

"Shhh." He tightened his hold around her, a hand slipping to her back, gently tracing up and down her spine. "It's alright, just a storm."

Mac stirred, blinking open her eyes slowly, a sleepy smile tugging at her lips as she snuggled closer. "Mkay,"

Harm chuckled softly. She really was lovely despite all her complexities. But something still gnawed at him because he didn't want the lines to blur over what they now were to one another. "Do we need to talk about last night?"

Her eyes fluttered open as the weight of his question shook the comfortable stillness between them. She sighed, shifting slightly but not moving away. "Mmm…no, we don't."

He raised an eyebrow. "A woman doesn't want to talk? That's a first."

She let out another sigh, this one a little irritated because Mac thought she was clear on what her intentions were. "I wanted what happened last night, Harm... Dreamt of it more times than I could count… Embarrassingly so."

Harm's smile softened at the honesty in her voice, though a knot tightened in his stomach. "I have too, but—"

"I'm on the pill, if that's what you're worried about. I wouldn't do that to you."

He hadn't even thought about that topic or their baby deal which was taken off the table the moment she agreed to marry Mic. "No, I'm not worried about that. I trust you… It's just…I mean what happened was wro-"

"Harm," She cut him off and her head raised so she could really look at him. Her eyes were sharp despite the sleepiness that clung to her features. How could he still have doubts? "If you think I have regrets, I don't. I won't. I wanted this. I wanted you, it's not more complicated than that."

His expression gave her no signs, nothing to define the silence from his end. It frightened her to think last night was all in the heat of passion when it meant so much more to her. She took a steadying breath and asked, "Do you have regrets?"

"Plenty," he admitted, but didn't immediately elaborate. There were so many things he wished he'd done differently, plenty of moments he wanted to take back. But none of them had to do with her. "But, I wanted this…I wanted you, too."

Mac's expression softened a bit, and for a brief moment, the tension in the room seemed to dissolve. She didn't need to hear anything more, and neither did he. There was something sacred about this moment, the rain outside their sanctuary, the quiet intimacy of being in each other's arms.

With the storm raging outside, Harm felt a rare sense of contentment. Normally, he would've resented a day off, itching to be back out on the mountain hauling wood. But having Mac in his arms was special and he didn't want to waste a second of these precious moments.

Harm's gaze lingered on her, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "I thought we were through for good. Turns out, you're as stubborn as they come, Marine." He teased and

before she could answer, he leaned in and captured her lips in a firm, deliberate kiss.

"Mmm. Maybe not stubborn enough. We could have had this years ago. So many things could have been avoided if I wasn't so stupid in Australia."

"Talk about regrets. That's a night I want to have back."

"Me too. I should have been more stubborn with you."

"I wish you would have. I thought I'd get another chance…You ditched me for Mic."

Her mind flashed to the sight of Mic eagerly waiting in his pristine dress whites. Pride had propelled her forward that day, making her accept his dinner invitation and, eventually, that ill-fated ring. She hated herself for it, but at the time, she hadn't imagined it would go so far. "He said the right things. My heart was broken and I guess I was an easy target," she confessed.

Harm brushed a loose strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. His touch was gentle and she shivered each time his fingers moved over her skin. "I'm so fucking sorry."

"Not your fault. I should have been stronger but I guess I just gave up."

"And he wore you down, Mac. Worked you. Mic learned everything he could about you…But, I did worse… I hurt you." His voice was full of remorse and regret that he hadn't been man enough to take what she offered him.

"It wasn't just hurt. I felt worthless. Insignificant. It sucks not to feel wanted by the person you care for the most."

Her words hit him like a gut punch, and Harm winced. "I'm sorry," he said softly, his voice raw with regret. All this time, he'd been nursing his own wounds, playing the jealous prick while harboring profound resentment that she had turned to Mic, his rival. He had never stopped to consider her feelings. "I wanted you back then."

"Did you?"

"Yeah, really, really bad."

"Then why didn't you do something? You made it seem like I was the last woman you'd ever want to touch."

He sighed searching for answers that never seemed to come. The truth was, he didn't know why he'd shut down so completely. Maybe the sting of her making the first move, hurt his pride? He certainly didn't expect her to be so bold. "I didn't want a one-time thing."

"I didn't either," she replied, her eyes holding his.

Harm thought of Kate Pike, of how one wild, impulsive weekend had ruined their working relationship. He hadn't wanted to lose Mac that way just because he was attracted to her. "I don't know, Mac," he confessed in a sigh. "I don't have a good reason. Maybe I had too many stupid reasons?"

"You overthink and I overreact. I guess I played into that, too. I never thought marrying him would hurt you so badly."

"It did hurt." He admitted as his mind raced to the mental images of her nuptials. "More than I ever thought it could but that doesn't mean I should have treated you like I did. I was an ass and I'm sorry."

He swallowed hard, his mind working overtime from the truth he'd been hiding. "Mac, I ah…You need to know something. It's important."

Before he could speak she silenced him with a soft kiss. Her lips met his with a resolve that broke him and all he could do was let her. "Do you love me?" She whispered against his skin.

"Yes." The answer came without any hesitation.

"That's all I need from you right now." Mac brushed her fingers against his cheek, tracing his jawline. Even with the beard he was still so handsome. "The rest is just background noise."

She shifted closer, throwing a leg over his, drawing him closer. Her hand took one of his guiding Harm to touch her intimately. "It's raining again." Mac gasped when his finger parted her folds.

"Is it?" His voice was thick with desire as he focused his attention on pleasing her.

"Mmm hmm." She hummed, arching into his touch as her own hand stroked him gently until he was hard as a rock. "Perfect weather for making love."

"Damn." A groan escaped him as he rolled her beneath him, positioning himself between her glorious thighs. "Sarah, what are you doing to me?" He pressed into her, the storm outside mirroring the one within him.

She was his perfect sin, the one indulgence he could no longer turn away from. While another pang of regret crossed his heart, her fingers trailing down his back grounded him to her. Harm knew Mac was right: everything else was, indeed, background noise - at least for now. He could tune it out, he had to.

As her eyes locked on his it burned away the lingering doubt. With each arch of her body and every welcoming touch, the walls he'd built were chipped away. His lie no longer mattered. All that was left was the sound of their breaths, the music of pleasure that blended with the storm outside.

Whatever happened, Harm made a silent promise to himself: he would never let her go again.

Hunger was the only thing that drove him out of bed. Hunger and the cold spot next to him. She'd been gone for a while, evident on how cool the mattress felt. He groaned as he sat up, his lower back had been acting up since his little fight with Dak and making love to her hadn't helped. Nothing a fistful of Advil and a long hot shower couldn't mend.

As he descended the loft he could smell something rather delightful. A strong scent of herbs, spices that made his mouth water. In general, he was the better chef but Mac could run circles around him with various soups and stews some of which were her grandmother's recipes.

His kitchen was always well stocked mostly to prevent unnecessary trips to the bar where he'd spent too many nights. That was a part of David Elliott he needed to leave behind because Harmon Rabb Jr. had never and would never be a drunk.

She wore one of his long sleeve shirts and a pair of sweats that hid all of the lovely curves he mapped out all night. Mac's hair was a little longer. Still short but not the pixie cut he last saw on her. The addition of auburn highlights made her face glow and he appreciated the new look.

"Watcha doin'?" If there was one thing about Mac that always annoyed him was the inability to sneak up on the woman. Female intuition along with Marine training had honed her spacial awareness or maybe he was just terrible at being stealthy?

"I was about to ask you the same thing." He meandered to the bar and took a seat on a stool. She was slowly stirring the contents of a heavy pot, occasionally tasting to add one ingredient or another until a satisfied smile spread on her lips. "Isn't it my job to cook for you in the morning?"

"It's not morning." She pointed out and after a final stir, set the ladle down and came around to his side. "Hi."

"Hi." Her arms slipped around his neck when he pulled her in for a kiss. "You didn't have to cook."

"I was starving and you were dead to the world." She glanced around the cottage and shrugged. "I would have ordered a pizza but I don't know your address and I doubt they'd make it out here anyway." She smoothed her hands over his chest and sighed as his lips came in contact with her bare skin when his shirt slipped off her shoulder.

They clicked so easily like lovers that had known each other intimately a lifetime ago. But then, they'd always had a familiar chemistry eclipsing primal desire that stemmed from mutual respect. Why Harm thought that sex would cause a catastrophic meltdown, he didn't know because after last night the pieces all fell into place.

Sort of.

Careful fingers traced the line just above the cut on her forehead. His frown deepened as he noticed how bruised it had become. He'd apologized at least three times already and swallowed back a fourth, knowing it would only irritate her. "How's the head?"

"Sore."

"Headaches?" His eyes searched hers intently, looking for any signs of a concussion, even though he knew there weren't any.

"No, just tender around the wound." She paused, her lips curving into a faint smirk. "Running a gal off the road is certainly one way to get her to sleep with you."

Harm shrugged casually, though a mischievous glint flickered in his eyes. "My charm wasn't working, so I thought, why not?"

"That's not funny," she said, though a chuckle escaped her lips despite herself. He kissed the corners of her mouth and then pulled her to him in a warm embrace.

Unfortunately, the tender moment was broken by her wayward thoughts that took her back to the engagement party, her wedding reception and all the days between. His crash should have been the turning point for them but all it did was widen the divide, wreck his career and ultimately take him away from her.

Though she didn't ask Harm to fly home for the ceremony, Mac had been visibly upset and had held onto the guilt that the mishap was almost completely her fault. "I'm sorry," she murmured suddenly.

"Why?" he asked, brows furrowing as she backed away and he was able to study her.

Her gaze dropped, her fingers brushing lightly against his cheek, tracing the unfamiliar roughness of his beard. "I stole your life away," she whispered, her voice weighed down by unspoken regret.

"Mac," he said firmly, catching her hand in his. Gently, he kissed the spot on her forearm where the faint scars from old cigar burns lingered, a reminder of wounds far deeper than the physical. "You didn't steal anything."

"It feels like I did and the guilt is killing me." She wanted to atone for it, for everything that happened since Australia. She needed to fix it although Mac didn't even know how to start.

"I chose to leave and have to deal with those consequences. That's not on you."

She wasn't quite convinced. "Maybe it's not on me, but it feels like it is. I keep thinking about all the ways I could've stopped you, all the things I could've said..."

Harm gently cupped her cheek, lifting her face so she could meet his gaze. "Mac, I need you to hear me…We can't go back and change what happened. I left because I thought I needed to. I fucked up." He honestly thought he'd return at some point but the longer he stayed away the more convoluted his life became. "The life I have now… that's on me. Not you."

"I still have all this guilt inside. It's what brought me here. I had to see you, to apologize, and—"

He silenced her with a soft kiss, cutting off her words. His lips lingered for a moment, as if trying to erase the heaviness between them. When he finally pulled back, his voice was quiet but firm. "I can forgive you, but I can't forgive you for marrying him."

Her chest tightened at the weight of his words, but she nodded slowly. "That's fair," she admitted.

"Is it?" he pressed, his eyes searching hers for something she couldn't quite give him.

"You never liked him."

Harm sighed, running a hand through his hair as he took a step back, putting space between them. "It wasn't about me, though. It was about you. He was wrong for you, and deep down, I think you knew it too."

"I thought I was doing the right thing... I thought I could make it work." She had to make it work because, at the time, the man she wanted didn't want her.

"You deserve more than just 'making it work,'" Harm said with heavy frustration. He reached for her arm, gently lifting it, his fingers brushing the faded scars. "You didn't deserve this. None of it. And I'm so damn angry. If I could, I'd kill him for what he did to you."

Harm let her go watching as she returned to the kitchen when their meal threatened to boil over. The tension in the room was suffocating now, and Harm hated it, this side of them, this side of their history. He knew she hated it too.

"I asked you once if you loved him, and you said yes," Harm said, his voice quiet and unsure. "I'm asking again."

Her breath caught as she turned and looked at him, the weight of his question heavier than ever. "What does it matter, now? I'm divorced, we're through and I'm never going back."

"It matters to me," His voice was firm. For reasons he couldn't understand, Harm needed reassurance her scars couldn't provide.

Mac shut off the stove and turned to face him with eyes so sad it broke him a little. "I thought I did. I convinced myself I did. But, it was all a lie I told myself. I couldn't love him, not really. Not when I was in love with you."

"You loved me but married him." He couldn't stop the rough tone of his voice that bristled each time he remembered her walking down the aisle.

She shot back. "You pushed me away, repeatedly."

"You could have waited." he argued, his tone clipped more out of hurt than anger.

Mac sighed deeply and the weight of old wounds was making her heart ache. "Let me guess, 'As long as it takes'?" As she threw his words from long ago back at him she saw his expression falter with shadows of regret crossing his face. "You never gave me a timeline, Harm."

He didn't, she was right but that wasn't what he wanted to hear. "That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have," She replied sadly. He offered no hope, no promises back then and she'd filed away each of his denials no matter how small they were. The sting of unshed tears burned her eyes and she took a shaky breath to stop them from falling. "I don't know how to untangle everything I feel."

"I don't either," Admittedly, he never knew how to navigate his feelings for her. "Never have."

She drew in a shaky breath and forced herself to focus. "Let's eat something," she said softly, hoping to diffuse this new wave of tension. Mac wasn't stupid to think that amazing sex would fix things. Maybe she'd been hasty at falling into bed with him but she didn't regret it. "Let's just... let go of this, for now."

Harm nodded, "Okay."

"You hungry?"

"Starved." He smiled genuinely, moving toward the cabinets to grab some bowls. "Smells amazing."

Mac watched him for a moment, her eyes narrowing with a hint of frustration."You're tiptoeing around me…Don't do that. We have issues, unresolved ones. But I found you and you're alive…for a time I thought you were dead…You don't know how that feels."

Without saying a word, Harm moved toward her, pulling her into a tight embrace that she leaned into. "I'm not dead. I'm right here."

"So, my mom hung her baby boy out to dry," Harm said, shaking his head as he rinsed a plate under the warm stream of water after they finished their meal.

He trusted his parents implicitly, especially given they both understood how high the stakes were. But in retrospect, maybe he shouldn't have been so forthcoming about his alias. A simpler explanation, like work that would keep him out of the country indefinitely, might have sufficed.

Mac sat at the bar, cradling a mug of hot tea as she watched him clean the dishes. There was something comforting in the quiet, even in the most mundane moments. She couldn't help but smile slightly, enjoying the simplicity of it all.

"Not exactly," she teased. "Finding you wasn't exactly easy, you know."

He turned, arching a brow. "Right."

She hid her smirk behind a slow sip of her tea. "I'm just stubborn. Remember?"

"I shouldn't be happy about this but I am glad you found me."

Mac sighed, her eyes scanning the room before landing on a rack by the door. His coat and hardhat hung up and muddy boots were neatly placed on a plastic mat, a subtle reminder of the life he now led.

There were no traces of his military life. No model planes, no dress whites or goldwings or even the navy blue he looked so handsome in. She shook her head slightly, a soft chuckle escaping her lips. "Never thought I'd find you on a mountain."

"It's definitely a change of scenery." He began drying the plates and placing them in the cupboard. "The boys got a kick out of you, you know? Ran me over the coals the last couple of days, too."

The new 'boys club' seemed to have accepted David Elliot with open arms. As much as Mac hated to admit it, he looked the part of a logger or maybe it was the rugged clothes and his knack for excelling at everything he did.

"Do you actually like it here?" she was skeptical as her eyes swept the modest kitchen.

"Yeah," he said with a nod, placing another plate in the cupboard. "The air's clean, the house is small but comfortable, and I don't miss the big city as much as I thought I would." He glanced toward the window, where the dense forest stood in sharp contrast to his old life. "And if I really need a dose of the city, it's not too far. But honestly? This is... easier. Less stressful, even if the work's tougher on the body."

"Is it difficult? Learning to be a logger?"

"It's different and there's one helluva learning curve." He told her about his first week being taught how to properly slice through timber with a chainsaw. There were tricks to get the trees to fall a specific way, some that required wedges and an actual axe. Hidden dangers scared him the most, especially the widow makers that could crash down on a logger and kill them instantly.

"It's an adrenaline rush."

"It is." He agreed. "There's still nothing on the planet like flying an F-14 off a carrier but there's still a rush in logging."

They relocated to the living room, settling onto the sofa. Harm grabbed the first aid kit from the coffee table and Mac leaned back slightly, tilting her head to give him better access to the wound above her brow.

"Do you miss JAG?"

Harm smoothed the tape over the gauze, his fingers lingering as they traced down the length of her jaw. Her question hurt because life could have been so different if he'd had the courage to stay, to fight for something that mattered.

"I missed you. I didn't want to, but I did. I tried so hard to hate you and blame you."

"Did you actually hate me?"

"Yeah," he said softly. "I needed something to hold on to, something to keep me from going backward. I was so pissed, so angry, and when I wound up here, it was easier to hate you than to torture myself over what I felt for you."

His words stung more than his departure ever could. She had always known, of course, that what he said was true. Why else would he have spent two years - an eternity, really - so far away from her, if it wasn't?

"I'm sorry but you need to know the truth."

His apology did little to ease the pain. "Hate isn't something you throw around, Harm. It's... final. It's death. And no matter how much you hurt me, I never hated you. I couldn't."

"I know how bad it is and it consumed me, changed me and not for the better." He drank a lot only to find it wasn't the solution for anything.

"You should have stayed."

"But I couldn't stay. Do you honestly think Mic would have allowed you to be friends with me?"

"Maybe not," she admitted, her voice tight with emotion. "But that should've been my choice, not his. And not yours. And in the end, it didn't matter because when my marriage went to shit and I needed someone, I needed you. And you weren't there."

Harm flinched, her words cutting deeper than he thought possible. "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry for being so selfish." Mac paused, taking a breath to steady herself, her tone softening despite the lingering hurt. "But it's the truth. I was drowning, and the one person I always counted on was gone."

"I was selfish too, and I didn't know how to stay and not make it worse. I was too bitter and angry."

They fell quiet for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts, contemplating the weight of their words, the pain of the past, and the uncertainty of the future. But at that moment, it didn't matter. They were here, together.

"Let's make a deal."

Mac raised an eyebrow, wary despite the glimmer of resolve in his voice. "What sort of deal?"

Harm gave her a small, tentative smile. "We stop apologizing. Because we can't fix the past."

"Deal." She extended her hand, and he took it, their fingers clasping firmly as they shook on it. It was simple, but for the first time in a long while, it felt like the beginning of something real. "But... under one condition."

"Oh?"

She leaned in slightly, her voice low and sultry. "Take me back to bed."

Harm's breath caught, the sudden shift in her tone sending a thrill through him. A slow smile spread across his face as he pulled her closer. "Now that's a deal I can definitely get behind."

Without another word, he guided her up the steps and to the bedroom, the weight of the past forgotten for the moment.