Call to Redemption

by Tawny Weber

  “Child? Not children?”

  Why was he so damn perceptive?

  “Why don’t you think you could do all that?” he asked after a few long moments of silence.

  “I suppose because I didn’t have it,” she confessed. Even as part of her gave a horrified gasp, Darby couldn’t stop herself from elaborating. “I had a brother. He was the world to my mom. Smart, athletic, responsible. He was her favorite. Firstborn, boy, all that.”

  “Did that bother you?”

  “Not really. I mean, he was pretty great. And it’s not like I was ignored or treated badly. But there was a clear favorite in our house and I always knew I wasn’t it.”

  Alive or dead, her mother had never had enough room in her heart for both of her children. Her love for her firstborn was too encompassing. Darby liked to think that if her father had lived, they’d have had a good relationship. Not the love and devotion Laura had showered on Danny. Darby knew her father’s career would have always come first. But she liked to tell herself that he’d at least have been proud of her. That because she’d followed in his career footsteps, they’d have had plenty of common ground to build on.

  “What happened?” At her look, he shrugged. “You said you had a brother. Past tense.”

  “He died in, well, I suppose it was an accident,” she said, not able to put the horrible, wrenching agony of Danny’s death into words. “Losing him, it broke my mother’s heart.”

  “Death is hardest on those left behind,” Dominic murmured, his hand rubbing soothing circles over her back. “Each stage of grief is its own circle of hell.”

  Darby let her head fall back, her gaze blurred by hot tears as she stared into the star-strewn sky.

  “It’s easy to get stuck in those circles,” she said, thinking of her mother.

  “Anger, denial, they’re sticky,” he mused quietly, staring out at the black waves. “Blame is easier, I suppose. At least with blame, there’s a focus. A drive to right a wrong.”

  Was there?

  Her mother blamed the Navy. She blamed Danny’s commanding officers, his fellow sailors and even the existence of the SEALs because Danny had wanted to join that elite group.

  As far as Darby could tell, none of that blame had done her mother any good. Grief had destroyed her family and she’d vowed to stay away from all of those stages as much as possible.

  Like the pain of losing her father to a heart attack, Darby locked her grief for her brother away deep in her heart, hiding it there in hopes of dulling the pain.

  She’d never talked to anyone about it. But there was something about Dominic that made it easy. Natural. Maybe it was because he seemed to understand so well.

  “Have you ever lost anyone? Not to age or disease, I mean, but to life?”

  She watched his face, seeing the pain chase itself over his features before his expression cleared to a look of easy sympathy.

  “Yeah. I have. It’s rough.”

  It was only because she was leaning against him that Darby knew he let out a deep, shaky breath with those words. In the moon’s soft light she could see his gaze locked on the ocean, but she wondered what he really saw out there.

  “Your brother was killed on the job. Did he like what he did? His career? Was he good at it?”

  Being a SEAL, that’s all Danny had ever wanted. He’d plastered his preteen walls with posters of frogmen, had played sailor when the other kids played cops. He’d wanted it so much—and that ambition had been enough to overcome his disadvantages. He’d learned to compensate for being smaller than most of the rest of the guys. He’d found ways around his shortcomings, hiding some, overcoming others. It’d taken three attempts but he’d finally graduated BUD/S SEAL training.

  And one attempt at extreme diving, at believing he was a strong enough swimmer to make up for letting his air tanks run low, had gotten him killed.

  “He was as good as he could be,” she finally admitted. “And he was doing what he loved. He’d finally reached what he called the top of Mount Hell Yeah. At least he had that.”

  “It’s the lucky ones who find their calling in life. Who find that something that sparks fire within them, calls to them to excel, to do their best,” he said, his words all the more comforting for their matter-of-fact tone. “It sounds as if he found his. You could take comfort in that.”

  She could.

  She knew she should.

  But Darby was seriously lousy at comfort.

  “I know there really isn’t any way that I could have stopped it from happening. There’s no way I could have saved my brother from dying. But still, I have to wonder.” Darby bit her lip, then, impatient with her unusual hesitance, blurted out, “You said you knew what it was like to lose someone. Do you ever ask yourself if there’s anything you could have done? If there was something you could have said? Like, if you’d just paid more attention you could have stopped it?”

  For a long moment there was only the sound of the wind rustling through the palms and the ocean’s muted roar. Darby wondered if she’d gone too far, poked at a pain too raw. Then she felt his sigh.

  “Yeah. Except I know I could have stopped it. I know exactly what I could have said to keep my friend alive. I know precisely where my attention should have been.”

  When he finally looked at her, Darby wished he’d kept his gaze on the water. Because the pain drenching those midnight eyes was vicious in its intensity. Misery and blame, they went so deep she wondered how he didn’t drown from the agony.

  Wow, she thought as she let out a shaky breath.

  She’d sure districted him from all that talk of kids and life and happy-ever-after.

  Now, instead of romance and laughter, she’d filled the man with pain and regret.

  She really did suck at this relationship thing.

  * * *

  NIC WONDERED AT the emotions playing over Darby’s face. He understood the flash of sadness given the topic, but the frustration and anger? What did she have going on in there that’d caused those?

  Her brother? Nic frowned. What had she called her brother’s career pinnacle? Mount Hell Yeah.

  A term a lot of squids used when they reached the peak and earned their trident as a SEAL.

  He wanted to ask.

  But he didn’t.

  They’d agreed. No questions about their real lives off this island. No discussion, direct or oblique, of their respective careers.

  And as odd as it was for a man who lived and breathed his career, these last five days had been pretty sweet. No tactics, no training, no strategy.

  Just enjoyment.

  One of the first tenets of being a SEAL was silence. A good SEAL was smoke, whisking through cracks, seeping into the night, never seen, never heard. Never taking credit.

  And he believed that. He lived it.

  And that, he knew, was part of the reason behind his almost mythic reputation. A reputation he simply let speak for itself. He didn’t seek acclaim, he didn’t chase prestige.

  But Nic was damn proud of what he did. Of what he’d built. And especially of the team he led.

  Damn proud.

  But just now, when his emotions were raw and the memories too vivid for comfort?

  Just now, he was glad he and Darby had agreed to keep their careers confidential.

  Just now, he wasn’t proud of who he was. Wasn’t satisfied with what he’d done.

  “Are you okay?”

  Put it away, he told himself, a little surprised that he even had to think about it twice. He’d lived most of his life in a classified bubble of silence. He was used to that. He was comfortable with it.

  So why did he want to share with Darby?

  Before he could find the answer, before he could think through the multiple ways that silence was go
lden, he did the unthinkable.

  He opened his heart.

  And, somehow, his mouth opened right along with it.

  “No. I’m not okay. The loss, my friend’s death, it’s still pretty raw. But unlike you, I know I was responsible.”

  He’d commanded the mission that’d resulted in Powers’s death. The man had been his teammate. His responsibility. His friend. And because Nic had misjudged the severity of the operation, had underestimated their enemy, Powers was dead.

  “Responsible, like a work thing?” Darby asked quietly.

  “Work is my life,” Nic said with a sad attempt at a smile. He didn’t know if her wide-eyed stare was because of his sappy saying or because the smile failed on all levels, so he dropped it and said, instead, “Yeah. You could say it was work-related. You could say I was his boss.”

  “That doesn’t make you responsible.”

  “All jobs have a chain of command, a step-by-step process in place to ensure the precise implementation of any assignment,” he explained. “In what I’d thought was the best interest of the, um, assignment, I sidestepped a couple of those chains, circumvented a few steps. That makes me responsible. I was in charge, it was my choice.”

  As the words swirled in the night air, Nic snapped his mouth shut, even as his mind screamed What the fuck? It didn’t matter that they knew nothing about each other’s jobs, had no plans to connect in the future. He never talked about mission details, choices or policies. Not even obliquely.

  “Do you have a boss?” Darby asked when the silence grew painful.

  Thinking of that chain of command and the many, many ranking officers over him, Nic snorted.

  “A number of them.”

  “Were you held responsible by your higher-ups? Did your boss deem your performance unacceptable?”

  “Let’s just say that while what I did wasn’t determined as out of line, my decision still cost a life.” And that was something he’d have to live with for the rest of his.

  While Darby sat next to him, shifting sand from hand to hand, Nic brooded.

  “So your bosses, who probably know their job, decided you weren’t to blame. And your friend?” she finally asked after a long moment. Even as she asked, she brushed the sand from her hands in a clear message to ditch the self-pity. “Did he like his job? Was he good at it?”

  “Nice job tossing my words back at me.” This time the smile came easier.

  “How about tossing an answer back to me?” she suggested, shifting closer. Her hand skimmed, as gentle as air, over his leg.

  Soothing.

  Comforting.

  God, he wanted to close his eyes and lose himself in the solace of her touch.

  “Yeah,” he finally admitted when she shot him an arch look. Nic almost smiled at that look. Who knew being both pushy and sympathetic could go hand and hand? Or that it could be so sexy.

  “He was damn good at his job. One of the best. He was so damn devoted to excelling that he used to joke about getting the word tattooed just to mess with us.”

  “You have a moral objection to tattoos?”

  Morals had nothing to do with it. Identifying marks of any kind weren’t smart when a man operated in enemy territory. Nic had made it clear that his men, his team, were branded by the duty they carried, the excellence they served. Any physical markings would be superfluous.

  “Ahh, so it’s where he wanted it that was an issue?” Her tone shifted to teasing. So did her hands, now that her fingers had climbed a little higher on his thigh.

  He liked the way she lightened the mood.

  “Deciding the where is what kept him from getting it. No clue why he didn’t like our suggestion.”

  “You told him to put it where the sun wouldn’t shine?”

  “That’s what friends are for. Ribbing, razzing and raising hell.” Leaning back on his hands, he stretched his legs out in the sand and grinned at the memory of Mason’s usual response. “He always gave as good as he got. Always.”

  Until he hadn’t.

  Nic’s smile faded, his mind flashing to the image of Mason Powers, Chief Warrant Officer, Poseidon member and one of his best fucking friends, lying dead on the ground.

  In his fourteen years in the Navy, Nic had seen death. Caused it. Escaped it.

  But even now, three months later, he had trouble accepting that image as real. Maybe because instead of a uniform or the battle gear, Powers had bought it in a Denver Broncos T-shirt and jeans, his dog tags the only nod to the duty he served so honorably.

  The duty Nic had assigned him.

  The one that’d netted him a bullet to the brain.

  “We should head back,” Nic said as he started to push himself to his feet. Darby grabbed his arm before he could. He wanted to pull away. From her, from the topic, from his memories. But manners, honed by years of his mother’s nagging and the Navy’s protocols, had him staying seated.

  “Your friend, you knew him pretty well, right?”

  Ten years they’d served as SEALs together. Eleven if you added BUD/S. They’d served together, fought together, trained together.

  They’d been more than teammates.

  They’d been brothers.

  “Yeah. I knew him damn well.”

  “What do you think he’d say if he was here now? If that whole life-after-death thing was real and he could drop down here on the sand and have one last chat with you?” She wrapped her arms around her knees and gave Nic an intense look, one that demanded that he take her seriously. “Would he be pissed? Upset? Would he blame you?”

  That tore a reluctant laugh from him.

  Powers? Blame anyone?

  “No. This is a guy who was almost as cocky as he was decisive. He used to joke that whether things went right or things went wrong, he deserved all the credit.” His eyes focused on the foaming waves as they danced over the sand, and Nic shook his head. “But it isn’t a question of blame. It’s a question of responsibility. And that’s mine.”

  They both lapsed into silence. Nic took comfort from that, appreciating the way Darby simply let him be with his thoughts. Even as he lost himself in them, he was still aware of her next to him, warm and comforting.

  “We should go back,” she finally said, her soft words almost lost on the whisk of the wind.

  Nic knew she was right.

  This wasn’t playful or fun.

  There was no romance, no vacation sass going on here. This was pure sorrow for both of them. Not much of a prelude to seduction.

  But he didn’t want to go back.

  One of the basic requirements to thriving in a military career was self-sufficiency.

  But right now? Right now he needed more.

  He’d needed to lose himself in her. To escape his own thoughts, to hide from the memories.

  He needed Darby.

  His hands tunneled through her hair, gripping the delicate curve of her scalp and tilting her head toward his. He took her mouth in a kiss hot enough, desperate enough, to catch fire.

  “Dominic—”

  “Now,” he murmured, grabbing both of her hands in his to yank her arms overhead. He pinned her there, arms high, back arched. And, oh, yeah, baby, chest high. Nic leaned down to nuzzle her full breasts, his teeth nipping through the fabric.

  Darby gasped and wrapped one leg around his hips, grinding against his burgeoning erection.

  More. Nic wanted—no, he needed—more.

  He stripped them both in record time, hands and mouth never leaving hers as he delighted in her silken flesh laid out in the moonlight. Her golden eyes were a sultry invitation as Nic positioned himself between her legs.

  He shifted her hips higher, grabbing her legs and draping them over his shoulders so he could lose himself in her welcoming heat.
He plunged hard and drove deep.

  Darby’s gasps filled the air, her pants as enticing as the sound of the ocean beyond. She arched, her fingers digging into the blanket as an orgasm ripped through her.

  The feel of it clenching him tight, the sight of her body trembling with pleasure, sent him over the edge.

  The world exploded.

  He heard it detonate over the ocean’s gentle symphony.

  He collapsed against her, dimly grateful to feel her hands soothing gentle circles over the small of his back instead of slapping him away.

  He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, his body drawing comfort from hers.

  He knew it was too long, though, when he had to force himself to move away instead of wrapping himself around her and holding tight.

  But as soon as they shifted away from each other, he wanted to grab her back. To hold her again. He wanted to wrap himself around her and never let go.

  Insane.

  Nic rubbed his hands over his face, reminding himself that he’d long ago vowed that until he made Captain, his career was his one and only priority. There was no room for wanting to hold on to a woman forever.

  But when he glanced at Darby, watching as she pulled that silky bit of a dress over her head, he knew forever with her was damn tempting.

  Too damn tempting.

  What the fuck was wrong with him?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  AS USUAL, NIC woke with the sun.

  What wasn’t usual was not jumping right out of bed, pushing his body to its limits, then reporting for duty. Maybe it was the sexy woman wrapped around him like seaweed. Or rather, the fact that he didn’t want to slide out of her arms and get on with his life.

  Which was reason enough to go, he realized. He was in no position to care about a woman. His emotions were raw at the loss of his friend. His career—his sole purpose for over a dozen years—was a mess. Turmoil might be good for overtaking a country, but it was a lousy time to start thinking about a relationship.

  Muffling his sigh of regret, he slowly peeled his body away from the addicting warmth of Darby and slid from the bed. He gave himself a moment to appreciate the tempting display of golden skin. His fingers itched to slide over that silky flesh. To warm himself one more time.