What I Love About You (Truly, Idaho)

by Rachel Gibson

  She felt her cheeks burn hotter as she looked up at him through rounded eyes.

  His gaze followed Charlotte and Sparky’s antics. “When you want to take up where we left off,” he said as if he was talking about the weather, “let me know.”

  “I wasn’t talking about that.” Good Lord. “You yelled at Frankie about his monster junk pictures in front of Brandy. Brandy told all her friends at Truly High and before—”

  “Wait!” he interrupted, and looked down at her. “The school here is called Truly High?”

  “Yes.” Several times throughout the history of the town, someone had petitioned the city to change the name. To no avail.

  Blake chuckled. “No shit?”

  She glanced at Charlotte, who had managed to wrestle the ball from Sparky. “Anyway, now the whole town knows about Frankie’s monster junk pictures.”

  “Isn’t that what he wanted?”

  “It’s not what I wanted.” She placed a hand on the front of her wool coat. “Now everyone thinks that I look at their pictures.”

  “You do.”

  “For quality assurance purposes!”

  “That’s what you say.” He chuckled. “Is your business down?”

  “Not yet.” He seemed as worried about her ethical business practices as Lilah had been. And speaking of business . . . She couldn’t remember what he said he did for a living exactly. He’d said he was a retired Navy SEAL, and some sort of contractor. “How was your job?” she asked as she brushed her hair behind her ear. She was definitely prying.

  “Good. Went down as well as could be expected.”

  That was it? She watched Charlotte run and Sparky chase her. “Where did you go?”

  “Yemen.”

  She looked up at him out of the corners of her eyes. His beard made his lips more noticeable. “Yemen?” She wasn’t exactly sure where that country was located. “What were you doing in Yemen?”

  “Have you heard about John Morton?” He glanced at her, then turned his attention back to Charlotte and Sparky. “The oil executive kidnapped in Turkey a few weeks ago?”

  “Vaguely.” She didn’t watch the news. Sometimes she turned it on while she made dinner and did laundry. She was usually too distracted to pay attention, but she’d have to be dead not to have heard about the American businessman held hostage. “I think he was rescued a few days ago.”

  “Saturday. In a compound in South Yemen.”

  “Wait.” She put her hand on the sleeve of his jacket and he turned toward her. “Are you saying you rescued that guy?”

  He looked down at her hand. “I was part of the extraction team.”

  He was certainly big enough, and the timing of his return matched, but she was a woman who didn’t believe everything a man told her. Just a few days ago, Chris Wilfong had tried to sell her a fake lottery ticket outside the Maverick. He’d wanted only five thousand dollars for a ten-thousand-dollar scratch-off, like she was that dumb. Then there was Michael. He’d lied to her for years.

  “You don’t believe me?” He rocked back on his heels and frowned. “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

  “You swear too much.” She dropped her hand to her side. “I actually don’t know what you do for a living.”

  “I told you I’m a private military contractor.”

  “What does a military contractor do?”

  “We’re highly trained specialists.”

  That still didn’t really answer her question. “What is your specialty?”

  He thought a moment. “I’m tasked with a lot of things, but my specialty is hostage extraction.”

  He could be somewhat charming, but she couldn’t see him sweet-talking kidnappers. “Like a negotiator?”

  “If I’m called in, Natalie, negotiations are over.”

  Oh. “Like a sniper?”

  “No. Not like a sniper.” He scratched his scruffy cheek, then shoved his hand in his coat pocket. “I am a sniper. I told you that.”

  “No you didn’t.” She glanced at Charlotte, then back at him. “You said you’re a retired Navy SEAL. I think I would have remembered the word ‘sniper.’ ”

  He gazed down at her through those watchful gray eyes of his. “Now you know,” he said, his voice lowered on the breeze.

  Yeah, now she knew, but she really didn’t know anything else. She knew he’d lived in Virginia, cooked out of a Crock-Pot, and had a brother. He’d never been married and didn’t ever see himself married. That was pretty much it, except now she knew he was a retired Navy SEAL and a sniper. Somehow it fit him. Sometimes coolly detached. Sometimes intense. Al-ways alert.

  Silence filled the cold air between them and she struggled with something to say. She couldn’t exactly ask him how many people he’d . . . sniped. Kind of. “I’m a fairly good shot with my .22 revolver.” He watched her through those cool gray eyes of his, making her even more rattled. “Well, I mean, good enough to shoot the tail on a beaver target.”

  A wrinkle furrowed his brow as if he was in pain. “That’s not very good, Sweet Cheeks. That’s hardly a flesh wound.” He dropped his hands from his hips and walked toward Charlotte before she could argue.

  Her gaze moved down his wide shoulders to the bottom of his coat and Levi’s-covered butt. Not just every man could make Levi’s look good. Warm lust brushed across her belly and breasts. Some men had flat butts. Like her dad. And Michael, for all his good looks, had always had a disappointing backside. Kind of long instead of perfectly rounded like Blake’s. She lifted her shoulders and buried her nose in the collar of her peacoat. She wondered how many squats he did daily.

  Her attraction was purely physical, and she tilted her head to the side. It wasn’t her fault, really. There were just so many stare-worthy places on Blake, so many yummy, lick-worthy parts, she was afraid she might actually drool.

  Charlotte screamed and Natalie looked up to see Sparky jump on Charlotte’s back and flatten her on the ground. Natalie rushed forward as Sparky bit the horn on Charlotte’s unicorn hat and shook it like a chew toy.

  Blake got to the dog first. “Off,” he commanded, and lowered to one knee. Charlotte’s scream got higher-pitched and she flailed about. He pried the horn out of the puppy’s mouth and asked, “Are you hurt, Charlotte?”

  “Yes!” she wailed.

  Natalie knelt down and rolled her daughter onto her back. “Where are you hurt?”

  “My knee. Spa-ky knocked—me—me down and bit my hat.”

  Natalie turned her attention to Charlotte’s legs and the little hole in her purple leggings. The hole hadn’t been there before, but there wasn’t any blood. “It looks like you fell hard on your knee.”

  Charlotte sat up and tears poured down her cold cheeks. “I think it’s bw-woken.”

  “I don’t think it’s broken.”

  “Uh-huh.” She rubbed the back of her gloved hand under her nose. “It hurts.”

  “Let me see,” Blake said, and put the dog aside. For once, the puppy sat and didn’t move. “I’ve had some experience with broken knees.”

  Charlotte swallowed and managed between sobs, “You have?”

  “Yep. I had to have surgery on mine. I have a big scar.” He lifted Charlotte’s leg and bent her knee a little bit. “Does that hurt?”

  “Yes.” Charlotte nodded. “I don’t w-ant surgery and a scar!”

  Blake’s gray gaze met hers and his mouth twitched a little like he was trying not to laugh. “I don’t think you’re going to need surgery.”

  As Natalie looked into his eyes, at the humor creasing the corners and his scruffy beard on his cheeks, the air between them seemed to change. At least for Natalie. It got thicker and her lungs burned. Her pulse pounded boom-boom-boom in her chest and ears. Blake turned his attention to Charlotte’s leg, and his big hands carefully touched her knee and shin. “That was a pretty nas
ty fall,” he said, and shifted her booted foot from side to side. “Does that hurt?”

  She shook her head and sniffed. “I need a Band-Aid.”

  “Definitely a big Ace bandage. I have four. We can wrap both legs.” He looked so serious, Natalie wasn’t quite sure if he was joking. “Maybe we can find more to wrap your arms like a mummy.”

  “Mom has Tinker Bell Band-Aids. I don’t want to be a mummy.”

  Blake’s deep laugh started low in his chest and worked its way up. It warmed the air around them. At least it felt that way to Natalie as she breathed his laughter into her lungs. It warmed up her chest and burned her heart like a brand. She sat back on her behind as if the wind had been knocked from her and gasped.

  “Are you feeling better?” Blake asked, and she almost answered before she realized he was talking to Charlotte. Before she realized he didn’t notice that the world had shifted beneath them. “Are you going to be okay?”

  No! No, she wasn’t going to be okay. How could he not feel the shift and change? It overwhelmed and pressed in on her from all sides. She was falling in love with a man who didn’t believe in marriage or relationships and had never felt emotion stronger than lust.

  She turned her face away before he did notice. “Can you stand, sugar?” she asked Charlotte.

  “Maybe.” Charlotte wiped the tears from one cheek and Natalie rose and helped her to her feet. “It still hurts.”

  “I know.” She wiped Charlotte’s other cheek with the arm of her coat. She couldn’t fall in love with Blake. It was unacceptable. “But we have to walk home.”

  “I can’t, Mama.” Often it was hard to tell if Charlotte was really hurt or if she was just turning on the tears. Natalie shoved aside the scary feelings entwining her heart and concentrated on her child. Maybe Charlotte was hurt worse than Natalie suspected. She’d been obsessing over the neighbor and was a horrible mother.

  She looked at Charlotte’s knee again, but still didn’t see blood. “I didn’t drive.”

  “You have to carry me.”

  “I can’t carry you all the way home.”

  “I’ll pack her out,” Blake volunteered as he scratched the puppy’s head between the ears. “You can’t weigh any more than a rucksack.”

  There it was again. The unacceptable little shift she was going to completely ignore. “You don’t have to carry her all the way home.” She picked a few pieces of grass from the yarn in Charlotte’s hat, quite sure that if she gave her daughter several more moments, she’d be okay to walk.

  “It’s only about a quarter of a mile and I’ve carried a lot heavier.” He handed over the leash. “I had to sprint a hundred yards with Mouse Mousley on my back during SQT. Believe me, for a SEAL, he was a lard ass.”

  Charlotte gasped. “That’s a bad word.”

  “ ‘Lard ass’ isn’t a bad word.” He turned and motioned for Charlotte to climb on his back. “It’s a sad condition.”

  “Can I say it?”

  “No!” Natalie helped Charlotte wrap her arms around his neck and lifted her as he locked his elbows around her knees. She smelled the cool breeze in his hair and on his skin, and it was all so unreal and confusing. “It’s not a condition. It’s not like cellulite. It’s a bad word.”

  He easily stood with Charlotte like he had indeed carried a lot heavier. Natalie couldn’t recall a man ever carrying her child. Maybe Charlotte’s grandfather Cooper, but not since she’d been a baby.

  Natalie walked beside the two of them, holding Sparky’s leash. Thoughts raced around in her head and she couldn’t control any of them. Any more than she could control her out-of-control heart.

  At the edge of the park, Charlotte’s grasp around Blake’s neck nearly cut off his oxygen. He “tapped out” and they stopped for Blake to lift Charlotte onto his shoulders.

  “Look, Mom. I’m weally weally high!”

  Natalie gazed up at Charlotte, and her laugh mixed with Blake’s. “That’s music to my ears.”

  He wrapped his big hands around the ankles of Charlotte’s Ugg boots. “Your mom’s right. You’re heavy. What does she feed you? Lead?”

  “No!” Charlotte laughed. “Mama feeds me spaghetti.”

  Natalie paused to untangle Sparky’s feet from the leash and Blake waited for her to catch back up. Anyone who didn’t know better might mistake them for a family, but they weren’t. Their closest connection was an unruly puppy. Other than Sparky, there was nothing between them.

  As if he read her mind, he turned his head and proved her wrong. He looked down at her lips and cheeks and finally her eyes. Her skin got hot and tingly, reminding her that there was a whole lot of lust between them. But sometimes lust had nothing to do with love. Sometimes lust was just lust.

  Blake chuckled at something Charlotte said, then turned his smile on Natalie. A charming flash of white teeth and curve of his sexy lips. A warm spark in his eyes that could be misinterpreted for stronger feelings.

  Natalie looked down at the toes of her sneakers. Falling for Blake would be a mistake. A huge one. Perhaps even bigger than believing Michael’s bullshit for so many years. At least with her former husband, she could tell herself that he’d changed from the man she’d married and it wasn’t her fault. With Blake, he’d been unapologetically upfront from the beginning. He was emotionally unavailable, had commitment issues, and didn’t believe either was a problem. She’d known it all along but was falling in love with him anyway.

  No, Blake didn’t have a problem. She had the problem. She was falling for an emotionally stunted, hot, hunky man, and her problem was that she had to figure out how to fall right back out of love.

  Chapter Nine

  His brown eyes melted her heart in middle school. The first time Michael Cooper kissed her, she’d fallen in ooey-gooey love. From her head to her toes, Natalie had loved Michael. She’d loved his hair and the color of his skin and how tan he got in the summer. She’d loved his chest and long legs and that his middle toe was shorter than the others. She’d even loved to watch him breathe in his sleep. Then he’d broken her heart and ruined her life. It had taken years to heal, and now he was back, standing in front of her. His brown eyes watching her and their child, and she felt nothing. No heart-cramping love. No gush of joy, and most surprising, no urge to punch him in the forehead. Not yet.

  “She looks like you.”

  She stood in his parents’ living room with Charlotte by her side. “Yes.” Natalie helped Charlotte off with her purple coat. “She has your weird toe.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Carla took Natalie and Charlotte’s coats and laid them across the arm of the couch. “And she’s smart as a whip. Just like you when you were at that age.”

  Natalie felt a subtle shift in the Coopers’ support of her. It wasn’t anything she could pinpoint. Nothing specific, it was just a feeling.

  “And she loves macaroni and cheese just like you did.” The joy of having her son home lit up Carla’s whole face, and Natalie could appreciate that joy, even if she didn’t share in it.

  Most kids loved macaroni and cheese, Natalie thought as she and Charlotte sat on the old floral sofa that had been in the Coopers’ living room since 1999.

  “Only in the blue box,” Charlotte said, and she practically sat on top of Natalie. “I don’t like the yellow box.”

  Michael took a seat in his father’s leather La-Z-Boy a few feet away. As teenagers, they’d made out in that chair. “Do you like hot dogs cut up in it?”

  “We never had that.” Charlotte looked up at her mom, color high on her pale cheeks. “I don’t like wrinkly hot dogs.”

  Natalie smiled and took her daughter’s hand in hers. She rubbed Charlotte’s back and felt her relax a fraction. “Overcooked hot dogs get wrinkled,” she explained.

  “And ice cream.” Carla sat on the end of the couch beside Charlotte. She had short brow
n curls and a round face, and Natalie could almost see her bubble over with happiness. Michael was her boy. Her only child. “She loves to have ice cream with her papa.”

  Natalie thought Carla might be selling things a little hard. Charlotte was a good girl. She was kindhearted and loved animals and people. She could be overly dramatic, get struck deaf with convenient hearing, and had a freaky little fear of robots, but she was wonderful and irresistible all on her own. Natalie knew all mothers thought their children were beautiful, funny, and gifted. That couldn’t be true of every child, but it was, of course, true of hers.

  “What did you do in school today?” Michael asked, his attention on his child, and Natalie had to wonder what he thought. Could he love Charlotte or would he leave her again?

  “Computer lab and I sang a song about tu-keys.”

  Michael raised his gaze to Nicole’s. “Turkeys?”

  “Yes. Charlotte sometimes forgets to pronounce her R’s, but she’s working on it.”

  “Turrrrrkey.”

  “Michael couldn’t pronounce his L’s.” Carla chuckled. “He told everyone his name was Mich-o.”

  “You told me that already, Nana.” Charlotte sighed and rolled her eyes. “About five hundred times.”

  Michael laughed. “That’s a lot of times.”

  “Well, maybe not that many.” Charlotte crossed her ankles and swung her feet. “Maybe only seven hundred.”

  “Seven hundred is more than five hundred,” Natalie told her. “Like seven is more than five.”

  “Oh.” Charlotte nodded and her little ponytail bobbed. “That’s right.”

  “Perhaps you and I should go in the kitchen.” Carla looked at Natalie while she rose. “Michael and Charlotte need a few minutes to get to know each other.”

  Beneath her hand, she felt Charlotte’s back stiffen. “That’s okay. They can get to know each other with me here.”

  Carla’s lips tightened. Natalie rarely countered Carla’s wishes because there was really no need. She felt her former mother-in-law’s disproval as she retook her seat. The last time Carla had looked at her like that was the day Charlotte was born and Natalie had named her after her great-grandmother and not Michael’s grandmother Patricia. She and Carla rarely butted heads these days, but she suspected that might change.