Tempted By Her Husband Twin

7.

Landon

I jolted awake, chest heaving, heart pounding like I had sprinted through the desert with no water pouch. It was the same dream again; desert sand, smoke, a kid screaming for help, and the sharp crack of gunfire.

Except this time, it wasn’t the battlefield I woke up from. It was that silence afterward, the kind that follows you everywhere.

I sat up, drenched in sweat like I had just been poured a bucket of water, dragging a hand down my face. My sheets were tangled like I had fought off ghosts. Maybe I had.

“Well well, Dr. Roxanne’s gonna love this,” I muttered, thinking of my therapist and her patient little nods. “Classic night terror, Captain Booth. Breathe through it.” she would say.

I swung my legs off the bed and went to the window. Morning sunlight spilled across the parking lot, washing everything gold. I should have been out running by now. But after nights like this, I didn’t need the miles, my mind had already done the marathon.

For a second, I thought about going home… our home; the old house back in Illinois. But it wouldn’t feel right. Not with Logan gone. Not with everything that should have been said between us still sitting there like dust on the furniture in an abandoned house.

“You should have insisted, tried harder.” I told myself.

I looked at my reflection in the window; tired eyes, too many scars, and a face that wasn’t just mine.

Sometimes, I still caught myself thinking, that’s him.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand, so I walked back to check what it was about to see it was a text from Roman.

Meet later. 7 p.m.

I texted back a quick Sure, then tossed the phone aside.

That’s when my thoughts went to Lana.

I could remember the quiet fire in her eyes. The way she had looked at me like I was a ghost she didn’t want haunting her doorstep.

I couldn’t blame her, anyway. I would feel the same way if I was in her shoes, a woman who looked so much like the one I married and loved my whole life, I probably wouldn't survive it.

I might have served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Fallujah, and other places, and survived, but maybe not as lucky as to survive this.

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to shake it off, her thoughts, but it didn’t work.

Every time I closed my eyes, it wasn’t the desert I saw anymore. It was her face.

Lana.

The way she had stood in the doorway that day with her chin up, eyes sharp enough to cut through the armor I was trained to always have up, but there was something else under it. Something soft and tired, like she had run out of places to put her grief.

Hell, I knew that look. I had seen it in the mirror enough times myself, more so, since I was told about Logan’s death.

I dropped onto the edge of the bed, elbows braced on my knees, staring at nothing. I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about her, not like that.

She was his; my brother’s wife, the woman he built a life with, had kids with, made promises to.

But tell that to my brain, or worse, my body.

The second she looked at me that day, the air had changed, crackled with electricity. I saw the exact moment she realized who I looked like… and who I wasn’t.

And for one split, disloyal second, I wanted to tell her she could look all she wanted.

Jesus, Booth, get it together.

I stood up too fast, pacing the hotel room like that could burn the thoughts away, and as expected, it didn’t.

The more I tried to shove her out of my head, the more details came flooding back; the way she smelled like lavender and citrus, the way she bit her lip before she said something she didn’t want to. The way her voice cracked when she said “He’s gone.”

That sound hit harder than a bullet.

I stopped pacing, stared down at my hands… my steady, trained, scarred hands that had patched wounds, pulled triggers, dragged brothers out of fire.

Not hands that had any right wanting to touch her.

I blew out a rough breath. “She’s off limits,” I muttered to the empty room.

My own voice sounded hollow.

Maybe it was just the loneliness talking… or at least, that was what I told myself.

After years of bunkers, rations, and sandstorms, a man starts to crave softness. Warmth. Home.

And Lana? She looked like home to me, but that was the damn problem.

I turned toward the bathroom, deciding a cold shower would do what self-control couldn’t.

Just before I reached the door of the bathroom, my phone buzzed again; a notification from my planner.

Ask Lana to dinner, it said, but I knew that would have to pend for now.

My thumb hovered over the screen, pulse ticking at my temple.

Have Dinner With Lana, Huh?

Right. Because what could possibly go wrong if I did that?

My phone rang so loud I nearly dropped it.

The sound ripped through the room like a grenade, jolting me right out of the thoughts in my head.

I glanced down at the screen and saw her name there. Lana.

For a second, I just stared because it was as if my thoughts had dragged her out of thin air, conjured her name right when I was trying damn hard not to think it.

I didn’t move or breathe, and just stood there, watching her name flash on the screen in bright, taunting letters.

Why was she calling me on a Sunday afternoon?

My first thought… ridiculous as it was, was that she knew.

That somehow, she had figured it out. The way my pulse jumped when she was near. The thoughts I shouldn’t be having, ones that kept me up longer than the nightmares ever did.

Maybe she had realized it the way women always do; instinct, intuition, whatever the hell you call it. Maybe that’s why she was calling. To draw a line, to tell me to stay the hell away.

I rubbed a hand over my jaw, eyes fixed on the phone still vibrating in my palm.

“Calm down, Landon. Maybe she just needs something.” I muttered.

Something simple and harmless, but then again, nothing about this situation felt simple at all, or harmless.

“Don’t do it, Booth,” I muttered under my breath.

Picking up meant stepping into whatever this was, but worse, not picking up meant thinking about it for the rest of the damn day.

The phone kept ringing, but I stood there as I kept staring, not sure of what to do. Damn, this was a battle.