by Skye Taylor
“Who the devil is John?” Ben asked Columbo.
Columbo perked his ears forward and tipped his head.
“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Ben told the big dog. “She would never be unfaithful. That’s not who she is. It’s not part of who we are, either.”
Columbo licked Ben’s hand and whined softly.
Who was he kidding? Infidelity was the first thing that had popped into his mind. If Meg had been having an affair during her deployment, she would have been careful not to talk about the guy during any of their Skype chats, and it made sense that he’d never heard the name before. It also made some twisted sort of sense that she’d muttered it unknowingly when she was groggy with exhaustion and mind-numbing sex.
He’d pretty much talked himself out of that obvious conclusion during the hours he’d lain awake. He couldn’t believe it. Maybe it was an obvious conclusion to jump to, but that was not the kind of relationship he and Meg had. Meg was not the kind of woman who could cheat on him and still look him in the eye.
A vision of her coming toward him in the kitchen last night dressed in nothing but that outrageously suggestive nightshirt he’d given her years ago replayed itself in his mind. That seductive smile playing about her mouth and desire hot in her eyes. There had been no guile there. Not a hint of guilt. Meg simply could not have been unfaithful to him and behave as if nothing had changed between them.
“So, who is John? And what is he to Meg?”
“John, who?”
Ben whirled about. He thought he was alone with the dogs and his tangled thoughts. “What are you doing here?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing, Boss.” Mike hung his backpack on a hook and began to climb out of the wind pants he wore while riding his bike. “You’re usually fixing the boys’ breakfast about now and rousting them out of bed to get ready for school.”
Ben looked at his watch. “Damn!” He handed the hose to Mike and headed for the house.
MEG WRESTLED WITH the tangled covers, flung herself onto her back, and then abruptly woke. The smell of coffee filled the air, and a soft murmur of voices came from down the hall.
“But I want to show her my new uniform.” Evan’s voice piped up more clearly than his father’s hushed tones.
Meg rolled over and looked at the clock. How could she have slept so late? It was already the middle of the afternoon in Iraq. Her day there would have been more than half over already. She scrambled off the bed and headed toward the bathroom.
She’d been dreaming in the moments before conscious thought returned. They had been troubled dreams, but the harder she tried to remember what they’d been about, the wispier they grew. Perhaps it was better that way.
She splashed cold water on her face and then studied herself in the mirror. The tender skin below her eyes looked bruised. No wonder Ben had suggested she needed more sleep as he gently brushed his thumbs over the tired-looking skin. But her eyes had looked haunted and in need of sleep for the last two months of her tour. Ever since Scout’s death. She folded a facecloth into a square, soaked it with water, icy-cold from their artesian well, and held the cloth against her eyes.
A sudden raucous barking came from outside, and she flinched. I’ve got to get over jumping every time Ben’s dogs start barking.
Meg squared her shoulders and looked at herself again, decided her eyes were as good as they were going to get, and picked up her hairbrush. She started to pull her hair back into her usual ponytail, but then changed her mind. She let the silky dark curtain fall around her face again. The effect softened her features and diverted attention from her tired-looking eyes.
She was pretty, but not beautiful as Ben claimed.
Ben liked to tease, and it had become a game she willingly played. Often when Ben was in a frisky, amorous mood, he would tell her she was beautiful while his hands skimmed over her body, telling her the same thing without the words. As desire flared she would reply that she was not as beautiful as he was. And Ben would snort and remind her men were not beautiful. Men were handsome. All the while demonstrating his opinion of her desirability with increasingly suggestive fondling. Aroused and breathless, she’d agree, by then doing a significant amount of fondling in return. Semantics! I’m still not as pretty as you are handsome.
Ben always ended the debate with the declaration that they were a right fine-looking couple who made right fine-looking babies before kissing her until her head reeled and every receptive cell in her body was on fire. But occasionally, he’d grow serious and ask when they were going to try for a girl who could grow up as pretty as her mother.
He’d asked that very question just two weeks ago via Skype. They’d played their little game thousands of miles apart without the aid of touching and fondling and still managed to get each other excited. Until he asked her about getting pregnant again.
Meg ran her hand over her flat stomach, watching herself in the mirror. A distinctly unfeminine six-pack gave evidence of the hard active life she’d lived for the past twelve months. No soft curves or even the suggestion of any. She’d lost a lot of weight and probably wouldn’t be able to get pregnant right off even if she was sure she wanted to. She swallowed hard and tried to gaze objectively at the woman she was now. She had a warrior’s body.
And a warrior’s thoughts.
When she’d watched Ben move his hands in a way that suggested giving her breasts a squeeze and responded with an equally lewd gesture of her own after taking a quick look behind her to make sure no one was paying attention, she had been aroused. And she supposed Ben had been as well. But the game had been different, buffered by all those miles and time zones, and strangely unreal.
Then Ben had suggested trying to get pregnant when she got home, and she’d crashed back to reality. He had made her forget about who and where she was for a little while, playing their private little game, but suddenly the transformation from warrior to lover had moved from playful to serious. He was asking her to leave the warrior behind and become a mother again. She didn’t know if she could do it that easily. Or maybe at all.
She loved her sons. Reuniting with them yesterday had been sweeter than she’d ever imagined. Holding their innocent young bodies, listening to their chatter, and tucking them into bed had been part of her dreams for twelve long months, and the reality hadn’t disappointed. But in spite of that, there had been a distance between them that hadn’t been there when she left a year ago. Rick and Evan had not acted as though they felt any remoteness. Ben didn’t behave as though he sensed it either. But it had been there. The distance was inside her head, and she didn’t know how to fix it.
“Mommy?” Evan called her, his footsteps pelting down the hall in her direction.
Hastily, Meg grabbed Ben’s old terry robe from the back of the bathroom door and put it on. “Coming,” she answered as she yanked the sash tight.
Evan stumbled to a halt and straightened, clearly waiting for her to notice and admire his new school uniform.
Meg staggered back dramatically. “Evan? Is that really you?” She dropped to her knees and admired the uniform, patting the shoulders smooth. “That tie makes you look so grown up.”
“It’s not a real grown-up tie,” Evan confided. “It’s a kid’s tie. See?” He grabbed the knot and pulled the plastic tabs free of his collar. Then he dropped the backpack he’d been holding to the floor and carefully inserted the tie back into his shirt. “But Dad says he’ll teach me how to tie a real one as soon as he can buy one my size.”
“Well, I think you look splendid.” Meg pulled her youngest son to her, gave him a hug, then set him away and lifted the backpack from the floor.
“Evan! Hurry up, the bus is coming,” Rick called from the front door.
Meg jumped to her feet and fitted the backpack onto Evan’s small shoulders, then gave his butt a pat as he scurried
down the hall.
She followed, wanting to give Rick a hug as well, but he was already running down the driveway to where the big yellow school bus waited patiently with its warning lights flashing.
Meg waved from the front door as Evan bolted across the lawn to catch up with his brother. A moment later the boys disappeared into the bus, and the doors snapped shut. She stood in the doorway watching as the bus chugged away down Stewart Road toward its next stop.
She turned away finally and found Ben standing in the kitchen archway watching her.
“You should have woken me up.”
“I’m sorry. I guess I should have, but I got a late start.” Ben shrugged. “I was hurrying to get the boys in gear and get breakfast in front of them and their lunches packed. And I forgot.”
As Meg got closer, she realized Ben looked as tired as she did. Her fault. Keeping him up all night making love. That was hardly his usual routine. “I’m sorry, too. I interrupted your beauty sleep.”
“Men aren’t beautiful,” Ben began. A slight smile lit his eyes and eased the tired look.
“Yeah, they are. And you are. Inside and out.” Meg tiptoed to kiss him. He hadn’t shaved yet, and his fast-growing beard glistened in the morning sunlight and tickled her face.
Ben wrapped her in a bear hug. He didn’t say anything, just held her close. He didn’t argue about being beautiful. Didn’t tease. Didn’t kiss her in return. When he set her away from him again, the brief smile was gone, and his exhaustion showed.
“Want some coffee? I made it strong, the way you like it.” He turned and headed toward the counter.
Meg followed.
“Mike asked how come you didn’t come home with your unit, and I realized I never asked. I was too busy being disappointed by the delay to think about the reason for you coming home alone.” Ben poured coffee into her favorite mug. “Don’t guard units get shipped out and come home together, usually?” He glanced at her over one shoulder as he dropped two slices of bread into the toaster.
“They usually do, but I stayed behind to tie up loose ends. John would have, but he was attacked and beaten up pretty bad. They sent him stateside for medical treatment.” Meg slid onto a stool and pulled the coffee mug close.
Ben’s blond brows drew into a questioning knot. “I’m sorry. Who’s John?”
“Captain Bissett. My commanding officer,” Meg answered. He was a lot more than just your commanding officer, the imp on her shoulder reminded her.
“I thought some guy named Nichols was in charge of your outfit.”
“He was, but they reassigned him two months after we got there. And then John got promoted and took over.”
“Do you usually call your commanding officer by their first name?” Ben’s voice sounded curiously flat.
“No,” she conceded. Maybe her guilty conscience was reading more into his tone than he’d implied. “Not usually. But Captain Bissett was . . . John was different. He—he . . .” She floundered. Maybe she just needed to tell Ben the truth. At least some of the truth.
“John’s father died five months ago. He had a massive coronary and died before they could even reach John to tell him. Of course, he was devastated. I just happened to be the one who was there when the call came through.
“I stayed with him while arrangements were being put in place to get emergency leave. And he talked about his father. He told me about growing up and the things they’d done together. The things they hadn’t done so much in the last few years with the reserves being called up so much. John was feeling guilty and upset with himself. I was just being a good listener.”
Meg shrugged uneasily. “That kind of stuff changes things. It was kind of hard to go back to being Captain Bissett and Lieutenant Cameron after that. He was just a man in a lot of pain.”
“I can imagine,” Ben agreed, sliding a plate with freshly buttered toast onto the counter in front of her. “So, you became—friends?”
“After he returned from burying his dad, yeah, I guess you could say that.” Meg bit into her toast, chewed, and swallowed. “He still gave the orders, and I still saluted before leaving to carry them out. But in the down times, we got to be friends. I showed him photos you sent of the boys, and he showed me photos of his nieces. Occasionally we made it to the chow hall together, when neither of us was out with a convoy. We talked, sometimes, about what we wanted to do when we got home again.”
“How come you never mentioned him before?”
Was that a hint of jealously in Ben’s voice? His blue eyes were as unreadable as Rick’s had been yesterday afternoon.
Uneasy guilt clutched at Meg’s gut. “I didn’t realize I hadn’t.” Surely at some point over the last year she’d mentioned him to Ben. Just not in the last two months. “There were a hundred fifty Marines in my unit. I probably didn’t tell you about most of them. But we were all close. We were family.”
“I guess you would. Feel like family, that is. With nicknames like Pudge and Keek. That sounds like the names I called my brothers when we were growing up.”
“They don’t call it a band of brothers for nothing,” Meg said as she reached for a second piece of toast. “Of course, there are sisters mixed in now, too. Meredith got called Boots because she had the smallest boots in the unit.”
“What did they call you?”
“Brat.”
Ben laughed, spraying coffee. He wiped his mouth. “CJ is vindicated.”
“Yeah. Maybe he is,” Meg muttered as the similarity hit her. Her big brother had called her Brat for as long as she could remember. Then her thoughts returned to the brothers she’d spent the last year with.
Being in a war zone created a unique, unusually close relationship between warriors. Right now, so soon after returning home, every face was clearly etched in her mind. The way they moved and spoke. Their loves, their hopes, and their fears. Over time that closeness would be lost, but she doubted she’d ever forget them completely. Nor would she ever forget John. Or the way she’d felt when he held her.
Chapter 4
AFTER MEG HAD gone to their bedroom to shower and start unpacking her duffle, Ben refilled his coffee cup and stood staring sightlessly out the window.
Her remark about her “war-time family” had hit him hard. How much of her life had she left out? What hadn’t she shared with him and maybe never would? The twisting in his gut was jealousy, and it shamed him.
On rare occasions, Philip had shared bits and pieces of the wrenching emotions that haunted his life and those of his friends. His confidences reflected the unbelievably close-knit bond that formed between soldiers serving on the front lines. Baghdad had not been the front line by the time Meg got there, but war today was different. Her life had been just as much in jeopardy every day as earlier generations of warriors had been in the trenches of the world wars or the jungles of Vietnam. Of course she would share the same closeness and loyalties with her fellow Marines that Philip had. Ben’s jealousy was totally out of place.
He had worried about her constantly and been thankful beyond words that she’d come home unharmed. But now he felt left out. Being able to justify it mentally didn’t remove the sting of knowing that for over a year, he had not been the center-point of Meg’s life the way she had remained the focus of his. The way they had both been before she’d gone off to war.
Back when she was just a kid, and he’d expended a great deal of effort reminding himself she was off limits because he was five years older, she had already become the focus of his life. Out of high school and working hard, saving up to start his own breeding program and kennels, he had looked forward to the hours he spent at CJ’s garage restoring his vintage Mustang. Partly because he loved that car, but even more because Meg would be there working diligently on her homework.
The battered desk where Meg always sat was just beyond the ba
y allotted to Ben while he worked to restore the Mustang. Far too often he had found himself, hands idle, watching her as she studied. The silky sweep of her hair added mystery to her face and made him think about things he had no business associating with a girl not yet sixteen.
He hadn’t realized it at the time, but Meg had returned the longing looks when his attention had been focused on his car. Just as well or he might not have behaved himself, despite the fact that she was his friend’s kid sister. The day she turned eighteen, she had asked him out, and he’d reacted like a bashful schoolboy in his surprise.
Ben smiled ruefully at the memory and made his way over to the sink. He turned on the tap, rinsed the coffee pot, washed their mugs out, and propped them all in the drainer. Then he dumped the soggy remnants of the boys’ cereal bowls and put them into the dishwasher along with their juice glasses and the knife he’d used to make their sandwiches. A quick wipe-down of the counter with the sponge, and he was done.
He grabbed his slicker in case it rained while he was out in the training barn and headed out the back door. Memories of Meg, the way she’d once been, followed him.
In the months after they’d started dating and before becoming intimate had been a challenge. He hadn’t understood her hot and cold behavior. She always seemed to enjoy making out in the back seat of his brother’s car, while Will and whatever girl he’d been dating at the time steamed up the windshield, but Ben had been twenty-three and still a frustrated virgin. Not because he hadn’t had a chance to get laid, but because he’d loved Meg, and she wasn’t ready to go there. Every time he’d tried to push the envelope a little, sliding his hand up under her jersey or pulling her hips tight against his throbbing groin, she’d freeze up like a snow cone, and Ben would go home horny, aching, and confused.
Until CJ clued him in.
Meg’s drunken mother’s live-in boyfriend had been abusing Meg when she was barely twelve, and that was why she had hung out at the garage so much of the time. Avoiding unwanted advances. After that enlightening conversation with CJ, Ben had been more patient. However long she needed, he was willing to wait. Ben had occasionally dated other women while Meg was growing up, but none of the women held his interest beyond a date or two. Meg had already become the center of his world and the only woman he had ever really wanted.