Barefoot in White (Barefoot Bay Brides)

by Roxanne St Claire

  Made by him.

  “Nick? If you don’t tell me, I’m going to imagine the worst.”

  “Imagine it. She’s dead.” He closed his eyes and leaned back. “That’s not the story I’m telling, Willow.”

  “But that’s the one I want to hear.”

  He puffed another slow breath through rounded lips, long and noisy. “No, really, it’s not…that interesting. It’s not…”

  “Happy? I realize that, Nick. But I still want to know what happened.”

  “I’ve never told anyone the…truth.”

  “Really?” She barely whispered the question. “You mean you’ve lied about what happened to her?”

  “Oh, no, that’s not what I mean.” Everyone knew what happened to her. They just didn’t know his role. “If you knew the story, you’d see there’s no reason to lie, but no reason to tell every person I meet.”

  “Nick.” She took his hand. “I’m not every person you’ll meet.”

  He looked at her, the truth of that weirdly comforting.

  She added a squeeze to her touch, increasing the comfort level. “Deep, dark secrets always hurt to share. That’s why we keep them in the deep dark.”

  He regarded her for another minute, taking some time to appreciate each pretty feature, but getting lost in her eyes, as usual. There was something there…something hidden that he very much wanted to uncover.

  “Do you have a secret down in the deep, dark basement, Willow?”

  For a flash, he saw her think of it, a millisecond of an expression, before she looked away, and he knew the answer.

  “Hey, Willow.” He dipped his head a little so she was forced to look at him. “If you tell me your deep, dark secret, I’ll tell you mine.”

  She laughed. “Sorry, my secret is not deep or dark. It’s ordinary, and inconsequential.”

  “Then you wouldn’t keep it a secret.” When she didn’t answer, he touched her chin and turned her face back to him. “Come on. Let’s share. It’ll be intimate.”

  She closed her eyes when he whispered that word. “God, you’re good.”

  “So you promise?”

  “Only if you don’t…”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” he assured her. “I won’t throw it back in your face. I won’t make you sorry you told me. And I know you’d promise the same thing to me.”

  She smiled. “None of those are what I was going to say, but that’ll work.” She slid her bare feet up on his lap while she settled back into the cushions on the armrest. Resting the beer bottle on her stomach, she eyed him from under her lashes. “You first, Lieutenant.”

  Shit. Now he had to tell her.

  But deep inside he knew he’d wanted to tell her everything.

  Maybe she knew, too.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nick leaned his head back and closed his eyes, looking relaxed and at ease. But there was nothing relaxed about his grip on Willow’s ankles. His fingers were strong, sure, and tight enough to let her know he was bracing for his confession, whatever it might be. From her vantage point against the armrest, she watched him, slowly moving her beer bottle to the coffee table so nothing could disrupt her view of his profile.

  Had she ever noticed that his nose was not quite perfect? Or that his jawline slanted ever so slightly downward? Had she ever noticed his temple had the tiniest blue vein, one that pulsed lightly right now? Did that mean his blood was stirred?

  By the touch of her skin or…the memory of another woman…or the pain of his past?

  Maybe she’d come over here hoping for a different kind of intimacy, but right at that moment, she was as deeply invested in this relationship as if they were making out and stripping off clothes. Sinking deeper into the sofa cushions, she studied the shadow of his whiskers, the thick cords of his neck, and an Adam’s apple that rose and fell with a strained swallow. And waited, a little breathlessly, for his secret.

  “She should never have been there once, let alone twice,” he finally said. “But Charlotte Blaine did not understand the meaning of the word ‘can’t.’”

  Charlotte Blaine. She had a full name now. Willow mulled it over for a second while Nick took a long pull on his beer. She sounded smart. Adventurous. Razor-thin, of course. A woman who blazed into war zones probably didn’t go to battle with German chocolate cake on a regular basis.

  Don’t hate her, Willow. She’s dead, and you’re on the sofa with Nick.

  “On her first trip, she got embedded with an Army unit, some boots on the ground in Baghdad. We had to come in and do some backup in a pretty bad situation with some well-armed insurgents. It wasn’t until we got them out of the thick of it that we found out the Army unit had an embed.” He glanced at her. “Embedded journalist.”

  She nodded. “I’m picking up the slang and shorthand while I read.”

  “Too much of it?” he asked.

  She smiled, always touched when that hint of vulnerability shadowed his eyes. “Just right.” She wiggled her foot. “Keep going.”

  Another swig, then he dropped his head back and looked to the ceiling, remembering. “She became my problem from the very beginning.”

  “Just like in the book.”

  He nodded. “I can’t say I hated it, because she was easy on the eyes and…droll.”

  So that hadn’t changed from real life to the book, either. The character of Christina had a dry wit and…what had he written? Eyes “the color of aged whiskey”? A color that had inebriated him.

  “But she didn’t like to follow orders and…” He closed his eyes. “She liked me. A lot.”

  A hot little ball of jealous rolled around in her stomach. “What’s not to like?” she teased, hoping her voice came off lighter than she felt.

  It must have, since the tiniest smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “You manage to find things.”

  “Keep talking. So, did you kiss in the observation post like they did in the book?”

  “Yeah.” He turned and narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t go quite as far as things did in the book.”

  “And the whole river thing happened?”

  “Pretty much as written,” he acknowledged.

  So, there’d been a heavy make-out session. “And then she left? She had to go back to the States?”

  “Yep. Back to New York.”

  That’s where “Christina” had gone in the last chapter, after some blazing-hot kisses, and not-so-empty promises to someday see each other again.

  “But she comes back,” he said softly.

  The present tense threw her. “In the story or…”

  He turned to her. “She came back in real life, and…I haven’t decided yet, in the story. It complicates the whole insurgent-spy plot, which, I’m here to tell you, did not happen in real life, but I like the idea of it for the book.”

  “Ahh.” She smiled and finally sat up to sip her beer. “So not everything is autobiographical.”

  “I told you, Willow, it’s fiction. There’s some stuff that is taken from my experience, but it’s a novel, not a memoir. I swear.”

  The beer was cold and a little bitter in her throat, which was surprisingly dry. She took a second sip, then put it down on the table and fell back on the cushions. “Okay, let’s forget the fiction for a minute. Let’s go totally IRL.”

  He frowned. “Not a military acronym.”

  “In Real Life.”

  “Isn’t a muse supposed to stay focused on fiction?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, I’ve never had the job before, but if you don’t tell me what happened with this woman, I’m going to scream.”

  He gave in to a slight smile. “Are you jealous?”

  “Indescribably,” she shot back. “You never did tell me if you were in love with her or not.”

  His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I thought you were being facetious. You are jealous.”

  “Were you?”

  “No.” The straightforward, simple honesty of the syllable was as cooling as the drink
of Bud. “I liked her. I was fascinated and frustrated by her. I admired her. I was even a little in awe of her, but it wasn’t love.”

  “Well, it sure sounds”—what would it be like to be fascinating, frustrating, awe-inspiring to a man?—“like more than a casual fling.”

  “Obviously that works for a book, but IRL, as you say, it wasn’t even a fling. I would never risk my military career by being that stupid. She was completely my responsibility, and that would have been a gross misuse of my position. So, no. No flinging.”

  She smiled at the euphemism, which she was pretty sure was not in the Navy SEAL slang handbook.

  “But we had feelings for each other. That much was real.”

  “So what happened, Nick?” She leaned up, her own feelings of attraction fading as she imagined this admirable, adventurous woman with a gorgeous, protective SEAL lost in the dust bowl of Iraq. He was right about one thing. It made for a compelling story.

  “We were headed into a blind mess that came up out of nowhere. Sniper fire trapped some Marines searching for weapons caches in a farmhouse, and they called in for SEAL help. Trust me, that doesn’t happen unless shit is getting real.”

  He shifted in his seat, his grip tightening. Willow’s whole body grew cold at what she imagined she might hear next.

  “We had to go in, and all hell was breaking loose. They needed every one of us, which meant leaving Charlotte at the COP, the combat outpost, we were using. As we were scrambling to get out of there, we got another report that another band of insurgents, including suicide bombers, were coming up from the south, planning to cause some damage to the outpost while it was undermanned.” His voice got very soft, and then trailed off completely as he stared ahead.

  For a long, painful minute, he didn’t talk.

  Very slowly, Willow sat up, waiting.

  He swallowed, forced to let go of her ankles as she repositioned. “I made a bad decision.”

  It wasn’t what she was expecting. “What do you mean?”

  “She could have gone on one of three helicopters out of there. I picked the last one, stealing those additional few minutes with her. She wanted me to, but I’m not blaming her. I took a chance to have more time to say good-bye.” He turned to her, his eyes misted. “She was certain I was going to get killed. For some reason, she was just sure of that, and she didn’t want to leave until the last possible minute. So we put her on the last bird, and…”

  In the silence, all Willow could hear was the thumping of her own pulse.

  “It got shot down.” He whispered the words. “I saw the fireball in the sky. I saw it. The other two helicopters made it out in one piece. If only I’d put her on one of those.”

  She reached for him. “That wasn’t your mistake. It was bad luck.”

  He closed his eyes. “I kept her longer than I should have. I…I…” He dropped his head forward, letting it thump into his upturned palms. “I should have put her on the first one.”

  “Other people made the same decision and got on that helicopter,” she said.

  “But I made it for selfish reasons. And I rationalized it because I thought that’s what she wanted. One decision. One choice. One…woman’s life, over.” Clearly, the decision still haunted him.

  She reached out to comfort him by placing a hand on his arm. “Anyone could have made that decision.”

  He whipped around to face her. “But I made that decision, and I was charged with protecting her, and I fucked up.”

  “Any of those helicopters could have been shot down.”

  “I know.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his brow. “And that’s why I want to rewrite history.”

  “You think that’s going to free you from this guilt?”

  He didn’t reply, his head still down.

  “It might,” he finally said.

  “But it might not.”

  After a second, he pushed up to stand. Without a word, he strode out of the room toward the French doors and disappeared out onto the patio.

  Willow didn’t move, stunned by his sudden exit, and still humming from the details of his story. She stared at his open laptop, the screen dark now, and imagined the woman who made him feel all that pain.

  The woman or the decision? She wasn’t sure where the source of his misery lay, but all she wanted to do was help him get rid of it.

  * * *

  Damn it. Damn it! Nick marched out into the night air, sucking in a lungful and eyeing the pool, looking for a place to hide. Why did he tell Willow that? Not only did he sound like a man who second-guessed himself—which he was, and he hated it—but now she’d want to make him put the truth in his story, and he wasn’t going to do that.

  He turned away from the dark hole of the pool to face the west, looking out to the Gulf of Mexico, nearly black now, but for the white streak of moonlight down the middle. That’s where he wanted to swim, not this bathtub. He wanted to go deep and dark and stay under until he couldn’t stand the pain in his lungs.

  That always got rid of the pain in his heart.

  “I know a little about changing history.” The sound of Willow’s voice pulled him back to the moment, making him turn to see her silhouetted in the doorway. “My approach is to try to delete it completely rather than rewrite it.”

  “And that’s working for you?”

  “More or less. It’s a shaky strategy, though. Especially when”—she took a few steps onto the patio—“someone from said deleted history shows up and makes you remember that the past is never really gone. Some memory is always lurking right around the corner.”

  He had to get off his secrets and on to hers. “So, your turn.”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “Mine will really kill your mood.”

  “Precisely. I’d like this mood killed.”

  She took a few steps closer. “I think that writing it out is really smart and will help you. You need to see that you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s no different than if you take an extra ten minutes to say good-bye and then get into a car accident. Would it have happened if you hadn’t taken that time? It’s just…what happened. You need to let go of your guilt and, honestly, I really think in the process of telling this story, you’re going to realize that.”

  Was he? He didn’t know yet, but he wanted to think Willow was right. Standing there in the moonlight, her eyes soft, her heart full of compassion, her words soothed him. “Thanks,” he said. “For not judging me too harshly.” He reached for her hands and pulled her closer. “Now, won’t you let me return the favor?”

  She thought about it for a second, then slowly shook her head. “Tonight’s probably not the best time.”

  He eased her closer. “It’s the very best time. Plus, you promised.”

  Lifting a shoulder, she let out a laugh that was supposed to be casual, but he knew better. “Nah, my secret is so…mundane.”

  “Because no one died?”

  “Yeah. No one died.” She gave his hands a squeeze. “Thanks for the beer and secrets, Lieutenant. I appreciate both.” She tried to drop his hands, but he clasped tighter.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do. You need to write. You know exactly how to fix your problem now. You can tell the truth, and the story will be that much stronger. A total tearjerker. My muse advice is always going to be the same: Tell the truth.”

  He shoved the advice away and pulled her closer. “You promised me a secret.”

  “My secret won’t help you.” She gave a soft, wry laugh. “Just the opposite, I’m afraid.”

  Curiosity burned. “I have to know,” he admitted, releasing his hands to let his fingers walk up her arms and settle on her shoulders, already knowing there was another place he could hide from the pain. In Willow’s arms. “And you’re going to tell me.”

  She bit her lip and gave her head a little shake, and that only made him want to know more.

  He tunneled his fingers into her hair. “You are breaking a promise.”

>   “I didn’t swear to tell you.” She shrugged into his touch, laughing as he got her closer. “And you can’t kiss it out of me, either.”

  He angled his head one way, then the other, planning the kiss. “I can try.” He didn’t wait for her to respond, taking the kiss easily. At first, she stiffened, but after a few seconds, he felt her whole body soften into his.

  “Tell me your secret, Willow,” he murmured into her ear.

  “Mmm.” She let her head fall back enough to entice him to her throat, peppering her silky skin with light kisses. “No.”

  He laughed lightly and worked his way back up to her mouth. After a long, sweet, wet kiss, he lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “Okay, you don’t want to tell me. I get that. But will you tell me why? Even after I promised you I’d never tell anyone or tease or ever, ever use your secret against you?”

  “Oh, I know you won’t ever tell anyone or tease me, and you’d never use it against me because…” She nibbled that lip again, this time like she was trying to keep the words trapped in her mouth.

  “Because why?”

  “Because you happen to be the reason I have this secret.”

  He froze for a moment, his mind blank. “What? How is that possible? I haven’t seen you in more than ten years.”

  She stared at him, one eyebrow slightly raised, the message clear: He should know. He forced himself back to the past to figure out what he should know. They’d been casual acquaintances who lived in the same dorm, he remembered. They had a few conversations, mostly about her father. And then she’d kissed him one night and asked him to…

  “You’re figuring it out, aren’t you?”

  Not even close. “I don’t know how I could cause you to do anything or…”

  “Or not.”

  He frowned, still blanking out. “Willow, what…”

  “Or not do anything,” she said slowly, as if trying to give him a really obvious hint.

  Not a clue yet. “Just tell me.”

  “I can’t say it out loud.”

  “What?” Her secret that he’d caused was so bad she couldn’t say it out loud? “What did I do? I didn’t touch you, Willow.”