What was it she wanted? A last fling? A reminder that she was still young and attractive?
No, she realized sadly, crumpling a dress in her hands that she should have been hanging up. No, what she wanted was to fall in love.
She stood still for a long time, holding the dress, before she returned to her unpacking.
As the time for the video call approached, she tried on different outfits but decided in the end to keep it simple. A feminine cotton blouse and jeans, understated jewelry, very carefully and subtly applied makeup, and her hair just so. She told herself she would do the same for any friend, but she didn’t believe it.
She made a stack of boxes for a pedestal for her laptop so that when she spoke to him the camera would be head-on. She didn’t want to give him an unflattering view from beneath her chin. She made sure everything in sight of the camera was neat and clean and then paced her small stretch of floor until she heard the bubbling noise that signaled a Skype call.
Regan dashed back to her bed, sat down and clicked to connect the call. It took a moment for the screen to resolve into a moving image of the man whose photograph had first caught her attention. Her heart thumped excitedly. It was Mason. And Mason was… Mason. Not some pimply kid in North Dakota, after all.
Behind him she could see a large, sterile looking room full of computers, and something that looked like a ping pong table. Occasionally men passed by in uniform. Regan blinked. Was that Afghanistan?
“Regan?” Mason said, peering at something on his screen. She realized she hadn’t authorized her image to be relayed to him and she did so now. She could barely breathe while she waited for his reaction.
She watched him scan the screen. Saw his sudden grin.
Relief overwhelmed her. He’d seen her and he liked what he saw.
“There you are.” His voice wrapped her in threads of desire, just as it had before. God, she was in trouble.
“Here I am,” she agreed, pushing the thought aside. This was just a chat between two friends. “How are you?”
“Good.” He looked her over and it was so strange to imagine the distance between them and see him right there all at the same time. “What did you do today?”
“I unpacked some things. I just moved to a studio apartment to save on rent.” She shrugged. “I barely have room for anything, so it’s slow going. What about you?”
“Paperwork, drill, the usual.”
“Where are you exactly?”
He looked around. “This is the recreation hall. It’s where I’m at most of the time I’m off-duty. Same with everyone else. There aren’t a lot of options here.”
“Is it dangerous where you’re at?”
He nodded. “Sure. But Bagram Airfield is the safest place for miles.”
His easy answer unnerved her—she noticed he said safest, not safe. “How many more days will you be there?”
Her concern elicited another smile. She liked that smile. Mason was definitely handsome and his grin made him more so. “Thirteen. But who’s counting?”
“Will you go directly home?”
“Germany first for a day or so to be debriefed. Then a few weeks in Virginia. The discharge process takes time.”
He’d probably be out of touch for several days then—maybe more, Regan thought. Then ducked her head in embarrassment. Surely this little flirtation would die out by then. He would pick his brand new mail order wife and she’d get on with getting pregnant. Alone.
“What’s wrong?” Mason asked.
“Nothing. This is just… weird.”
“Definitely,” he said, but he didn’t look unnerved at all by the experience. Maybe that was his SEAL training. He probably found himself in strange situations all the time.
“What should we talk about?” she asked.
“I’d like to tell you about my ranch.” He leaned back in his chair. “Want to hear about it?”
“Sure.” She found she did want to hear about it. Everything about this man fascinated her, from his quiet confidence to the work he did. She’d never dated anyone in the military before. Not that she and Mason were dating.
“It’s a large spread and when it’s running like it should we can carry more than a hundred pairs.”
“Pairs?”
“A pair is a cow and her calf.”
“What about the guy cows?”
Mason made a face and she realized she’d made a ranching faux pas. “Guy cows?” he said. “You mean bulls?”
“Sure. Bulls.”
“We mostly use artificial insemination these days. Male calves are sold for their meat.”
“Oh.” She felt a sudden kinship with the cows, deprived of a studly male to help her get pregnant.
Mason was pretty studly.
She squashed that thought.
“The land itself is beautiful. It’s south of the town—Chance Creek, Montana. You can see the Absaroka Mountains to the southwest. The creek that gives the town its name cuts through our land. You can swim in it in the summer.”
“That sounds nice.”
“The ranch is called Crescent Hall, which is a little confusing to newcomers because the main house on the ranch is also called Crescent Hall. I’ll send you a photo of it. It’s a great house.”
“I saw it on your site. Where did the name come from?” She’d done more than see the house on his site—she’d lusted after it. She’d always had a thing for old houses, and the Hall was positively gothic. Her fingers itched to get to work on it. She could spend years lovingly restoring the place—everything authentic to the time period in which it was built. Restoring homes was in her blood. Her grandfather had made his living that way. When she was just a little girl, he’d take her out to his work shed and show her his latest project. He gave her bits and piece of wood, odds and ends of hardware and let her build whatever she wanted using appropriately sized tools and a special small workbench he’d custom built for her.
It had been so long since she’d built anything other than bookshelves. She knew if she was ever let loose on a place like the Hall, she’d come into her own. She wanted that tower room for herself. Or for her baby’s nursery.
“It’s a combination of our family’s cattle brand and our surname. A play on words. Our brand is shaped like a crescent moon with a capital H in it.”
“Got it. That’s cool, to live in a house that has a name. I’ve always wanted a place like that.” She bit her lip. Darn it, that sounded like a come on.
Chapter Six
‡
Gotcha, Mason thought. So she liked the idea of living in a home with a name—a house that had a history to it. Well, Crescent Hall had plenty of history.
“The ranch was first settled by my ancestors in 1841. They lived pretty simply in a log cabin, but by 1880 they’d accumulated some wealth and built the Hall.”
“You must be looking forward to going home.”
“More than you can know.” What else could he tell her that would pique her interest? “My brothers and I grew up there, and we loved working with the cattle—loved everything about it, really, but when my father passed away, my uncle wanted to move his family into the Hall. So my mother moved us to Florida to live with her sister.”
“You didn’t like that, did you?”
He shook his head. “Those were hard years. My mother struggled with her finances. She missed my father terribly. There wasn’t much left over to get us started in life. Austin had already been talking about going into the military. It seemed to me a good way for all of us to become self-supporting.”
“Your brothers listened to you?”
“I can be persuasive.”
She just bet he could. “Is your mother still alive?”
“Yes—she’s still in Florida. How about your parents?”
“Both are alive and working outside Madison in a suburb called Middleton. My dad’s a chemical engineer and Mom teaches eighth grade. I visit them once or twice a year and they come here to see me and a Broadway show once a year,
too.”
“Brothers or sisters?”
“One sister in Connecticut. We see each other several times a year.”
Mason was quiet for a moment. “I hope my family sticks closer together.” She frowned and he hoped she hadn’t taken that as a criticism. “What are your feelings on the matter?”
“I’m not sure. I guess people go where their work takes them, right? You can’t expect families to stay in one place.”
“Ranching families do. Not always, but often.”
She shrugged. “I guess ranching is a whole other world.”
Damn it, he’d lost her again.
*
Their last exchange left Regan uncomfortable, since more and more she had begun to realize she felt lonely in the city, so she was relieved when she remembered the questions she’d prepared for Mason. She grabbed the piece of paper she’d jotted them down on.
“I figured out how to help you choose your wife,” she said brightly, although the thought of him waltzing off into the sunset with another woman didn’t thrill her. Not one bit.
He eyed her warily. “How’s that?”
“There are a ton of websites that give advice about what to do before you get married. They all have lists of questions you should talk over with your fiancée before you take your vows. I wrote down some of them. I figured you could ask those women you picked out the questions and learn more about them from their answers.”
“Sounds sensible.” He didn’t look too happy, though. “What are the questions?”
She took a breath, because the first question was one that was very near and dear to her heart. Now she would learn that Mason was utterly wrong for her—just like all the men she’d dated in the city. Like them he’d be far too concerned with his own comfort to want to saddle himself with offspring. She held the paper up. “There are ten of them. The first one is: how many children do you want to have?”
Mason grinned. “Lots of them. As soon as possible. Like… now.”
Regan tuned out the rest of his words. Lots of them? As soon as possible? No man in her acquaintance had ever said such a thing. She felt hot and prickly all of a sudden as desire swept through her so strong it took her breath away. This handsome, sexy, mouth-watering man wanted to have children? Lots of them? And here she was just weeks away from getting it on with a turkey baster?
“Wh…what?” she made herself say, aware she’d missed several sentences.
“I said, that’s my knee-jerk reaction. When I think it through, though, several things factor in.”
“Like what?” She hoped Mason didn’t notice the breathy quality of her voice.
“Like the health of my wife, for one thing. Things can go wrong in pregnancies. I don’t want my wife to ever be put in danger. The other factor is what we can afford. I don’t think you need to be wealthy to have kids, but I want to be able to provide for them.”
Regan swallowed past a sudden lump in her throat. These were the answers she’d always wanted to hear from a man. And now it was too late. Almost.
“I’m clear that I want children,” he finished up. “And I want to start right away. How about you?”
“Me?” Darn it—she’d practically squeaked.
“Is that a deal-breaker?”
“Um… no.”
He cocked his head. “No, what?”
“No… I want kids. Right away. In fact… I’m kind of in a hurry.” Her voice trailed off because all she could think about was her artificial insemination appointment.
He leaned on his elbows, coming closer to the screen. “Really?”
Was it her imagination or had her answer interested him? Really interested him. She tingled under his suddenly intense gaze. “Really. I mean… I just didn’t think I’d have a husband anytime soon. To do it that way.” She wasn’t making any sense and she knew it.
Mason didn’t seem to mind. “You’re talking to a potential husband.” Another grin.
“I’m not one of your candidates, you know.” Her voice had gone wobbly and she was unable to look away from him.
He met her gaze. “Yeah, you are.”
Chapter Seven
‡
He’d come on too strong, Mason realized when Regan’s eyes went wide. He scrambled to regain his footing in the conversation. “Tell me another question.”
Regan hesitated for a long moment, then held up the piece of paper and read the next question off her list. She seemed a little shaky. The piece of paper fluttered. He filed that information away for later—having kids was important to Regan. Real important.
Good to know.
“How will you handle money in your marriage? Who is responsible for earning it? Who decides how it’s spent?” She looked up at him.
“You answer first this time.” Mason thought it was time to let her set the pace—she’d feel more in control.
Regan made a face. She looked overwhelmed and he knew he was to blame. Damn it, that was the last thing he wanted to happen. He was enjoying this conversation more than he’d thought possible. He liked watching Regan’s reactions. Liked trying to puzzle out the way she thought.
“This is supposed to be for the women on your list.”
“Fine, if you want to pretend you’re not on that list, then think of it this way; I can use your answers to compare to theirs. Like a ruler.”
She sighed. A tendril of hair brushed her cheek and he wished he could smooth it away. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Regan said. She looked vulnerable suddenly. And beautiful.
Mason straightened. Whoops. He’d been staring. “No reason. What’s your answer?”
“Well, I hadn’t thought about it before. I guess I would handle the money equally with my partner,” she said. “Each month we would add up all the bills and split them in half. Each partner would keep a separate account and handle their personal expenses according to their tastes. We’d agree on big ticket items like vacations, down payments on a house, and so on ahead of time and both save up half the cost. Each person would invest an agreed upon amount of money per year in retirement accounts based on a plan we come up with jointly. That keeps everything simple.”
Mason stared at her. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No.” She stared back at him. “How would you do it?”
“That’s the way New Yorkers do it? Everything equal?”
“Sure,” she said. “That’s what modern couples do.”
“Like hell,” he said. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard of.” He realized his mistake when she jerked away from the screen. Damn it, she wasn’t one of his SEALs—he couldn’t talk to her like that. “I mean—that’s not the way I would do it.” He hoped he didn’t lose her over that one. His manners got rusty when he was on tour.
“How would you do it?” Her tone was positively frosty.
Mason knew he had to repair the damage. He thought about his words carefully, wanting them to come from the heart so they’d ring true to Regan. How would he do it? “When I marry a woman we’ll throw our lot in together. We’re not going to live like roommates. We’re going to commit to our relationship—to our family. We’ll share our money the way we’ll share the ranch work and raising our kids.”
“What if your wife wants a trip to the Bahamas and you want a new tractor?” she challenged him.
“We’ll sit down and look over our finances together and see which is the best choice.”
“What if you don’t agree?”
“The numbers will make it clear.”
“What if your wife wants something you can’t afford?”
He leaned in closer. “I will work my ass off to get my wife everything she wants, but I will also be up front and clear about what she can expect. We won’t be millionaires, Regan, but we could be happy.” He broke off and the moment stretched out between them. “I mean, whoever she turns out to be, I think my wife and I could make a good life together.”
“Maybe you should ask the women on your list all
the things they want out of life so you can see if you’re on the same page,” Regan said.
He looked her square in the eye. “Maybe you better make that list, too.”
*
Regan thought of little else than Mason for the rest of the day as she went for a walk in Central Park and did some grocery shopping on the way home. An image of Mason’s ranch played on a loop in her mind—cattle grazing, mountains in the background, their kids playing in the backyard.
Mason holding her close.
With a sigh, she forced herself to picture reality. Her walking down a New York City sidewalk holding her child’s hand. Clutching it. Eating an ice cream cone. While homeless people ask for change. Heading to Central Park to run and play. Alone, since she couldn’t afford more than one child by herself.
She dropped her purse on the bed to dispel that dispiriting image and fired up her laptop. Mason’s face on her screen made her smile, and she was happy to shrug away her reality to participate in a fantasy for a little while longer. She fished the list of needs and wants she’d composed on a park bench out of her pocket and summarized it for him.
Mason,
Financially, I need to feel like I’m making progress each year. In other words, I need to pay my bills, pay down my mortgage—if and when I get one—and put something aside for retirement.
My wants include a decent wardrobe, my own car, health care, enough cash to furnish my house nicely over time and a fun vacation now and then. I can handle camping trips and state parks most of the time, but I want a few big trips in my lifetime—to Europe, South America and maybe an island or two.
I want children. Four of them. Now.
Regan
She hit send and felt satisfied at how specific she’d been able to get about both her needs and her wants, even if some of those wants were way out of reach. That last bit about four kids was certainly a stretch—a big one—and the idea of a mortgage was laughable, but at least she was able to articulate her dreams. When she had these kinds of conversations previously with other boyfriends, she’d been too shy to be able to express herself so clearly. Was she just getting older or was Mason a better conversationalist?
SEALs of Summer: Military Romance Superbundle - Navy SEAL Style Page 36