by S. E. Lund
MIRANDA: That might be best. I’ll text you when the coast is clear.
BECKETT: Okay. Your knight on a chrome ride will be waiting impatiently…
MIRANDA:
So, I drove down the road that ran parallel to the ocean and parked at a small lot next to another restaurant and waited.
And waited.
About half an hour passed before I saw her walking down the street towards me, her backpack slung over her shoulders, her sunglasses under a wide-brimmed hat.
When she finally got to me, I opened my arms and pulled her into an embrace.
“Pesky in-laws wanting to hang out and talk?”
She laughed. “Yeah. I’ve been gone so much and Scott was curious about my whereabouts for the past few evenings. He tried to sound nonchalant, but he wasn’t fooling anyone but himself.”
I kissed her, pushing hair back from her cheek. “They just want to make sure you’re all right,” I said, trying to be supportive.
“I know,” she replied and forced a smile. “It’s just that I feel guilty…”
“You shouldn’t,” I said firmly, “and that’s not just me being selfish. You said it’s been almost a year.”
“I know.” She sighed and then smiled for real, the smile finally touching her eyes. “Let’s go. I want some of whatever you packed for lunch.”
“I didn’t,” I said and handed her the extra helmet. “I thought we’d do the tourist thing and buy something from a street vendor. You know – mystery meat and fries.”
She laughed and hopped on the bike behind me, her arms threading around my waist. We drove up the island to North Topsail Beach and found a spot to park, not far from a nice restaurant.
There was small public beach with an abandoned lifeguard tower. Once I parked the bike, we walked up to a beach front restaurant and ordered a couple of burgers and fries. We bought a portable beach umbrella from a vendor at the side of the road and then we walked past the small row of dunes to a spot where we set up the umbrella and spread the blanket. Once settled, we ate our lunch, talking about the proximity to Camp Lejeune where I once was stationed when I was with Special Operations Forces.
There weren’t many tourists around at that time of year and most of the beach front was private. Other than an older woman in a floppy hat walking along the edge of the surf looking for shells, we were alone. I took out my cell and put on some music, and we spent the afternoon in the warm sunlight, rubbing sunscreen on each other when the afternoon sun grew hot. When we got too hot, we ran into the surf and then laid on the blanket under the umbrella to get warm again. Luckily, some light clouds rolled in later in the afternoon and offered some respite from the incessant sun.
Miranda came back to my hotel room willingly every night for the rest of the week, and we made love twice or more, the two of us seemingly unable to get enough of each other. I was able to get enough work done on my computer each day while Miranda was working that I felt good about staying the extra week. By the time Saturday rolled around, I felt certain that we would continue the relationship once we were both back in New York. Although I’d be busy with Brimstone, and Miranda would be busy with classes, we would be able to continue to see each other.
Then reality struck home and I realized how unrealistic I was being.
Miranda still didn’t know the truth and each passing day made it all the harder for me to even consider giving her the letters, let alone revealing to her how I got them.
On the Saturday night before I was returning to Manhattan, I suggested coming back the following weekend for a few days so we could see each other before her classes started and enjoy the last week of the summer holidays together.
She said she couldn’t see me.
“I’ll be in Arlington,” she said. “It’s the one-year anniversary of Dan’s death. Scott, Jeanne and I will be driving up to Arlington on Thursday night, staying Friday, and driving on to Manhattan for the 21st. I have to check into my dorm at the New Yorker. Classes start on the 25th.”
I knew then that I couldn’t keep deceiving her. Even if I never outright told her a lie of commission, I was lying to her by omission. I should have told her that I knew all along who she was. I knew when I first saw her that she was Miranda Parker. I should have admitted I knew she was a widow and most of all, that I knew that her husband died.
Most of all, I should have told her that Dan died because of me.
I couldn’t. No details of the reason I was there were supposed to be public nor the response team who came to rescue us. I’d already risked enough letting Brandon and Graham know.
Not being completely honest with Miranda weighed heavily on my mind. It was always there, from the very beginning, but I kept pushing it to the back of my mind, thinking I’d come clean later.
In the end, I didn’t confess to her. Now I could see no way out. No matter what I did at that point, I’d hurt her. If I left her without an explanation, just left the package of letters behind, she’d hate me and feel hurt for a while, but then she’d move on. If I told her the truth, at least as much of the truth as I could, she’d hate me and feel betrayed.
I had to stop what I was doing. I had to stop the deception.
I’d drop off the package of letters to Dan’s parent’s house. I wouldn’t stop in to speak with them. I’d leave the package in the mailbox and return to Manhattan. I’d done the wrong thing from the moment I found that package of letters in the brownstone.
There was no right thing to do at that point. I’d so thoroughly fucked everything up that there was no recovering from it.
All I could do was try to block any memory of Miranda and what we had together. I had a company in crisis and a family of criminals to watch over back in Hell’s Kitchen. As much as I wanted to forget all that and immerse myself in Miranda, lovely Miranda, I knew she’d hate me – and rightfully so – when she found out the truth.
On Saturday night, instead of going back to bed after Miranda took the limo service back home, I put on my sandals and walked down across the boardwalk to the beach. The moon was almost full and shone down on the ocean, highlighting the frothy surf. Above me were the stars, brilliant despite the moon.
I wished… I wished I’d done things right at the start of all this.
I should have found the address in Topsail Beach and just forwarded the package of letters to Dan’s parents, once I knew his identity.
If I insisted on delivering them personally, I should have introduced myself and revealed that I receive the letters in error. I should have given her the letters immediately when I walked into that bar to see if I could find Dan’s parent’s address. I should never have even considered seducing Miranda unless she knew who I was.
I stood watching the surf for a long while, knowing full well that sleep would be a long time in coming.
I went for a long run the next morning, needing to work out some of my frustration. Then, before I left the hotel, I connected to a webinar being held for one of Brimstone’s clients.
It was an important meeting but I barely heard a word. All I could think of was how Miranda would feel when she received the letters. I’d leave right after I dropped the letters off at Dan’s parent’s house. I’d leave a note explaining that I received the letters by mistake and apologize.
I’d discourage her from contacting me. It would be better to hurt her now than have her learn the truth sometime in the future, when the mission was no longer considered classified.
“I’m a dick,” I said when I called Casey during a break in the webinar, having a lapse in my resolve to never see Miranda again. “Tell me what I dick I am.”
“You’re a dick, Beckett,” she said, her tone serious. “A total dick.”
“You really mean that,” I said when I heard her tone.
“I do.”
I sighed heavily and ran a hand through my hair. “What should I do?”
I heard the rustling of pages on the other end of the call. “You already know.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t know. If I tell her the truth, it will just bring up old pain, open an old wound.”
“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion,” she replied.
“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to tell someone that you’re a total dick.”
She chuckled. “No, I had to tell you that you’re a total dick.”
“But you enjoyed it…” I sighed again and rubbed my forehead.
“Come on, Beckett. Tell her the truth. Fess up. You’ll feel better for it. She’ll either tell you to go fuck yourself or she’ll give you another chance. This way, you’re just being a big dick like every other jerk who fucks and runs the moment that they feel something actually human for a woman.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you really think?”
She laughed. “See you when you get back. Let’s do a workout. Maybe I can knock some sense into you.”
“Oorah.”
“Oorah, yourself,” she said and ended the call.
When the webinar was finished, I packed up my gear and drove down the strip to the Lewis house. I quickly dropped off the package of letters in their mailbox at the end of the driveway.
I kept the photos for myself.
I know I should have gone up to the door and dropped the letters off in person so I could shake hands with Dan’s parents and offer my thanks, even if I couldn’t really tell them why, but I didn’t.
I drove off, leaving Topsail Beach with a sick feeling in my gut, wishing I had the sense to do things right instead of fucking everything up so thoroughly.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Miranda
I met Leah that morning for a workout at the gym, and then went back home to have a shower before my afternoon shift.
When I arrived at the house, Scott was waiting for me, a package in his hand.
“What’s that?” I asked, putting down my gym bag.
“It’s addressed to you. I found it in our mailbox this morning.”
I took the package and went to the island in the kitchen. It was a FedEx package that was addressed to me, but it hadn’t been actually sent. There was no return address. I opened it up and inside was a manila envelope with Dan’s name written on the outside.
“It’s addressed to Dan.” I frowned and opened the flap. Inside were two dozen letters wrapped in a blue foil ribbon. I recognized them at once as the letters I’d sent to Dan while he was on deployment. I read the first few sentences of one letter, and then sorted through them – thirty letters, written on airmail paper, in my tiny scrawl. Love letters I wrote to him when he was over in Afghanistan after our wedding. Dated from a week after we were married, they detailed my life while he was away, my plans for returning to class at John Jay in Manhattan, my hopes and dreams for our marriage and new lives together now that we had tied the knot.
There was a smear of blood on the ribbon and on several letters.
I held the letters away from me, for it had to be Dan’s blood.
“What is it, dear?” Scott said, frowning when he saw me with the blood-tinged letters.
“They’re letters I wrote to Dan…”
He took them and saw the blood. His eyes met mine. “Where did these come from? Why is there blood on them?”
I sat on the stool and took the letters back, reading them over, trying to figure out why these weren’t sent back with Dan’s personal effects.
“They must have been lost when they sent his kit back. Someone must have found them.”
“But why the blood?”
I looked at him, my vision blurring. “He said he always carried them inside his uniform when he went on a mission.”
Scott nodded and when tears filled my eyes, he came over and put his arms around me, held me to his chest.
“They must have been misplaced,” I managed to say despite the choke in my throat. “Maybe someone found them and sent them back.”
“I have no idea, sweetheart,” he replied. “I would have thought someone would tell us if they did.”
Jeanne joined us from outside, where she had been gardening, her straw hat still on, her cheeks rosy from the noon-day heat.
“What’s the matter?” She put down her gardening gloves and a bouquet of wild flowers.
Scott spoke, his voice emotional. “Some letters that Miranda wrote to Dan were returned this morning. Someone dropped them off in the mail.”
Jeanne took the letters and the FedEx envelope. “There’s no return address. This wasn’t mailed.”
I nodded.
Then she saw the blood on the letters. “Oh, God…”
She put them down on the island and stepped back, her eyes widening when she realized what they were
“I’ll call his CO and see what he knows,” Scott said. “This is strange…”
I took the package and letters and went to my room, closing the door behind me.
“Are you all right, sweetheart?” Jeanne asked from the other side of the door.
“Yes,” I said, my voice breaking. I wasn’t all right. I felt numb. I felt on the verge of crying my eyes out.
I looked inside the FedEx envelope and found a thin slip of paper adhering to the inside wall. I removed it and saw that it had an image of an old schooner on it. It was from The Yacht Club, the hotel where Beckett was staying.
Beneath the logo was a handwritten message.
I’m so sorry I had to be the one to bring this to you. I know you’ll have questions about how these came to be in my possession. Just know that I received them by mistake. I wish we could have met under different circumstances. Please don’t contact me. You’ve been the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time but for you, I’m nothing but bad news.
That was it.
Beckett brought these. He must have dropped them off at the house this morning. It looked like he was going to send them to me via FedEx, but changed his mind. Maybe he decided to give them to me in person. But he didn’t do that either.
He seduced me instead.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Beckett
The drive home up the coast back to Manhattan seemed to take forever.
I almost turned back several times. When I stopped to gas up, I checked my phone, hoping beyond hope that Miranda had texted me, forgiving me for being such a dick, asking me to come back.
She didn’t and I couldn’t blame her.
How could I explain?
I tried to convince myself that my reasons for not telling Miranda the truth right away were sound but I knew they rang hollow. So my drive back to Manhattan was a long hot and thankless one and I arrived home feeling nothing but regret.
On top of that, the first few days back in Hell’s Kitchen were just that – hell.
My business schedule was so busy with meetings and conferences for the next week that I hoped I’d be able to blot Miranda completely out of my mind, but I failed. A deep sense of regret filled me that I couldn’t shake – not with exercise, not with bourbon – not with anything.
I met up with Casey for dinner after work on Wednesday. She wanted to meet at the gym but I was too busy catching up with work to take time off. I was planning on working late that night but agreed to go to our favorite restaurant for dinner before returning to the office to catch up on some paperwork. We met in the bar for a drink while we waited for a table.
“So fill me in,” she said as she sipped her bourbon. “Tell me what you’re going to do to make it right.”
“I can’t do anything,” I said and downed my shot of bourbon. I sighed as the bourbon burned down my throat, needing the heat. “I fucked it up so totally, nothing can fix things.”
“Nonsense,” she said and punched me lightly on the shoulder. “Everything can be fixed, if you try hard enough.”
I shook my head in doubt. “Not this. What am I going to do – go to Miranda and tell her that I’m the reason her husband died? That he was killed in a horrible accident saving my life? That I went to t
he bar and decided to flirt with her instead of telling her who I was and why I was there? That I kept on deceiving her while I pursued her, and finally succeeded in seducing her, fucking her brains out in my hotel room for ten days, then leaving without a word?”
“Wow,” Casey said and pulled back, giving me the evil eye. “You really did fuck it up.”
“I did,” I said and smacked my empty glass down on the bar. The bartender poured me another glass of bourbon. “There’s no recovering from this.”
Casey sighed. “Do you really like this woman? I mean really like her. Not does your dick like her. I mean you, Beckett. The man. Would you like a relationship with her?”
“I’m crazy about her,” I said, totally honest. “If I could, I’d see her every day.”
“Then, tell her the whole truth and take it like a man,” Casey said, her brow furrowed. “Let the chips fall where they may. If she forgives you, you win. If she smacks you upside your head, you deserved it. If she doesn’t smack you, I will.” She grinned at that, but I didn’t respond.
I stared into my glass somberly. “So I just walk up and ask her to listen to me while I tell her how I deceived her for days and fucked her in spite of who I am? I was there when her husband died. I know what happened. I could answer questions.”
“Yep,” she said. “Be a man, Marine,” she said, growling like Master Sergeant Fillmore. I knew she was trying to lighten the mood, but it wasn’t working.
I said nothing for a moment, wondering how I would do it. If I did it.
“Call her. If she won’t answer the phone, leave a message or text her. Tell her you fell in love with her and let your heart guide you instead of your conscience. Ask for her forgiveness and then leave it up to her. If she can forgive you, maybe something more will happen. If not, end of story.”
I nodded. “I will.”
“Good,” she said and drank down her own bourbon. “Now, that’s enough about Miranda until you can tell me you came clean. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Thursday came, and I woke up with a bad feeling in my gut. I sat up in bed and ran a hand through my hair, trying to clear my head and figure out why I was feeling so negative. Then I remembered the memorial service being held at Arlington on Friday. The one-year anniversary of the crash, Dan’s death and nearly my own. There would be several memorial services held that day for the other fallen Marines. I never had the chance to attend the burial services, since I was recovering in a hospital in Germany and then in New York, but my uncle Colm told me about them, attending on my behalf.