Marry Me, Marine

by Rogenna Brewer

“You’ll get used to it.” He twisted the tops off two bottles, tossed the caps into a bucket by the door and offered her a beer.

  She let the towel drop to her shoulder and reached for the bottle.

  He pulled it away. “You twenty-one yet?”

  “Are you kidding?” She wrenched it out of his hand. “At the moment I feel much older than twenty-seven.”

  “He didn’t mean it,” Hatch said, bringing his bottle to his lips. “You know how he gets.”

  “I know.” She eyed the beer in her hand as if she could forget, and took another sip.

  “Remember your first deployment?”

  Ryder hadn’t recognized her when she’d returned from Afghanistan following that first tour of duty. When he’d realized she was his mother, the same mother who’d left him for a year, he got mad. Balled his little four-year-old hands and would have hit her, right in the airport, if Hatch hadn’t intervened.

  Every time since there’d been a fight both coming and going. Pre- and post-deployment parenting classes helped her to at least identify the problem. Pre-deployment was the “I’m going to hate you now so I don’t miss you when you’re gone” stage.

  The phenomenon happened between spouses, too.

  Similar to what Hatch called nature’s fight-or-flight response, psychologists called it the fight before the flight.

  Coming home, there was always that readjustment period where Ryder tested her, and she was the bad guy while Hatch got to be the good guy.

  Post-deployment was the “why did you leave me if you love me?” stage.

  Or the “prove to me that you love me now that you’re home.”

  The fight after the flight.

  Which made it seem that a lot of fighting went on in military families. Not necessarily. Just a lot of opportunity to become stronger and closer as a family.

  It was all about how you weathered those storms.

  “Was I too quick to say no?”

  “In a perfect world I would have had time to talk you into it.”

  “You think so?” She turned to sit on the porch rail, dangling the beer bottle from her fingertips. “And just how would you have done that?”

  “Well,” he said, putting his boot up on the lower rail right next to her bare foot. “There is the guilt trip. To begin with, you did miss his birthday.”

  “Working good so far.”

  “The rest isn’t pretty,” Hatch said. “There’s begging, pleading and crying on my part. And I’m fairly certain I put him off last year by promising him this year.” He sounded sheepish. “This is the last year he’s qualified to enter in that division. The older he gets the stiffer the competition.”

  “You promised my son he could enter cattle dog trials?” Kind of hard to keep the accusation out of her voice when the guilt trip was working. “And now I have to be the bad guy. Gee, thanks.”

  “The sport’s harmless enough.”

  “I don’t know, Hatch. The Fourth of July—”

  “Isn’t that far off. You must have some leave on the books.” He continued to try to coax her into it.

  She had so much to tell him she didn’t know where to begin. “I cashed out.”

  In militaryspeak, she meant she’d sold back the leave she’d carried on the books at the end of her enlistment. Of course, she and Hatch did occasionally speak the same language.

  He dropped his boot to the porch and straightened.

  “You can’t be that surprised. It’s all I’ve talked about for the past year.”

  “Guess I hadn’t realized you’d reached a decision.” He slid a hand into his front pocket and took another swallow of beer.

  She glanced down at the bottle in her hand before looking him in the eye again. “It’s why I was stuck in San Diego so long after returning from Afghanistan.” Her enlistment had ended before her deployment, so she’d signed a voluntary extension to complete her assignment. “I had to process out of the Marine Corps—”

  That and the adoption process for Char had taken a while.

  “You could have told me all this over the phone. It’s not like we didn’t talk at least once a week.”

  Sometimes more.

  Or less, since she’d met Jake.

  “Everything was still up in the air after I landed. My six years were up. It was leave now or sign on for another six-year hitch. You know the drill,” she said, struggling not to get too irritated with him.

  Because, heaven help her for admitting this, he was right. He spent just as much time with her son as she did. The very least she could do was keep him informed. “I really didn’t know what I was going to do until I had a job offer to fall back on.”

  “You have a job?”

  Now who was getting downright surly? It wasn’t that she’d meant to keep him in the dark. Just that it all happened so fast.

  Jake. The job. The engagement.

  There would never be a good time to tell him.

  So tell him now.

  “Yes, I have a job—”

  “Mommy.” Ryder stood in the doorway, sounding more like the little boy he’d once been than the nine-year-old he’d become. He’d long ago given up calling her Mommy to call her Mom.

  Once again she wondered where the time had gone?

  “Thunder keeping you awake?” She pulled him to her side. She knew better than that. He was just like her. He liked falling asleep to the sound of a storm.

  He shook his head. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I really am glad you’re back.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” she said, giving him a squeeze. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

  Ryder was old enough and independent enough that he didn’t need the smothering. But suddenly any excuse seemed like a good excuse for disrupting her conversation with Hatch. Even tucking her nine-year-old back in bed.

  She put a hand on his shoulder to follow him back inside.

  “Angela.” Hatch brushed her arm.

  He rarely touched her, so that in itself was a surprise. But to feel the voltage his touch generated…

  She looked from her arm to his face.

  “Don’t go.”

  HATCH FINISHED HIS BEER out on the porch alone.

  That was some bullet proofvest she wore. His words hadn’t penetrated. Maybe he hadn’t said them with enough conviction. Should have said, Don’t go—I don’t want you to go.

  What he hoped he’d gotten across in their previous conversations about her leaving the Corps was that she should take some time to think about what she wanted. And was welcome to do it here.

  Too late. She’d accepted a job.

  In San Diego?

  His questions would have to wait until tomorrow.

  For the boy’s sake he’d been hoping she’d find something around here. Ryder had taken to ranching like a true Henry.

  The beginning had been rough. Ryder’d cried himself to sleep through months of bad dreams. Or Hatch would wake up in the middle of the night to find the boy staring at him. Depending on how tired Hatch was at the time, he’d either get out of bed to take the tot back to his room, or give the boy the nod to crawl into bed with him, and hope that he didn’t get a knee to the groin for his troubles.

  Now Ryder looked forward to visiting Wyoming and their time together. No more bad dreams.

  Hatch made his way inside, letting the screen door close behind him. He shut and locked the interior door. Most folks around here didn’t bother with locks. He’d come from a bigger, more dangerous world. Locked doors gave him a sense of security.

  And keeping Ryder safe had been his job.

  He rubbed the back of his neck and wondered how often he’d get to see Angela and Ryder with this new civilian job of hers. After grabbing another beer from the fridge, he went into his office and turned on his computer to work on a new accounting program he’d been trying to learn.

  What a pain in the ass learning something new was.

  He picked up one of his grandfather’s ledgers, which had found its
way to his desk, and opened it to a random page. Every bull, cow, calf and steer accounted for by hand, and it had probably taken the old man less time than if the geezer had used a computer.

  Hatch got up to put the ledger back on the shelf and found himself reaching for one of Ryder’s recordable storybooks. They hadn’t read this one together in a long time, but he still remembered Ryder crawling into his lap with the book. Hatch didn’t really know if it was a single memory or an accumulation of memories over time.

  But he remembered how he felt.

  He’d pushed that button over and over again while they listened to her voice for hours. He never got tired of it. As much as Ryder loved hearing his mother’s voice, somehow the kid had gotten across that he wanted Hatch to stop pushing the button and just read to him.

  Over the years and hundreds of times they’d read together, Hatch had gotten to the point where he’d memorized each of those storybooks.

  Ryder didn’t need reading to anymore, and Hatch hadn’t realized how much he missed that until now. He put the book away and returned to his desk, wondering if Angela ever thought about having another child.

  Instead of settling into learning the new accounting program, Hatch clicked over to indulge in his other guilty pleasure. And wouldn’t the guys give him crap if he tweeted it wasn’t cyber porn.

  “Hi,” she said from a tent somewhere in Afghanistan. “I was thinking about what you said. About how much you miss reading a good book because you don’t have the time.” She paused to lick her lips. Which always got the same involuntary reaction from him. “I thought maybe we could try an experiment. I bought you this book and the companion book on tape, unabridged.” She held them up for him to see. A military thriller, Dale Brown’s latest at the time.

  He’d had to pause the message here that first time or two because that worthless horseshoe ring he’d given her during their wedding ceremony was clearly visible on her left ring finger.

  She never wore it when she came around. But every time they were on Skype he looked for it. And it was always there.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “I made you this tape to summarize each chapter for you. If you lose your place, you can come back to me to help you find it.”

  Closing down the computer, he sat staring at the blank screen. Their long-distance relationship had evolved over the years into a comfortable one. Online or over the phone, they shared a connection stronger than just being on the same cell phone plan to save money.

  But he had to wonder where that was going when she hadn’t even clued him in to the news that she’d become a civilian. Hatch rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  He was always overthinking their relationship. Especially whenever she stayed under his roof. Which, thank goodness, wasn’t that often. Because tonight the ache in his groin had little to do with a kid crawling all over him.

  When he’d found her out on the porch and she’d raised her arms to dry her hair, the gap between her pajama pants and top revealed a flat, toned belly. And nothing on under that tank. Just cold, hard, wet nipples straining against fabric left damp by her hair.

  Twenty-seven looked mighty fine to him.

  The images of their one night together liked to taunt him, but mostly they came back as feelings. Like the one of being buried so deep he wanted to die.

  If she had been more experienced at the time, he might have proposed something more mutually satisfying. Something that didn’t leave him sitting alone in the semidarkness of a quiet house.

  Like sharing a bed.

  But adding those marital privileges would only complicate their already complicated situation.

  The only thing stopping him now was that he cared too much to make it about sex.

  Accounting program all but forgotten, Hatch rolled out the blueprints he’d left leaning against his desk. At one time Hatch’s dad had commissioned an architect, paid a pretty penny for these drawings.

  When he thought he’d stick around. Build a new house and leave Hatch’s mother to hers. Hatch had been thinking about that house more and more this last year and the fresh start it represented.

  The foundation had been laid years ago. Now it was time to build on it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ANGELA CLOSED HER LAPTOP and reached over to turn off the bedside lamp. After talking to Jake, she’d tried to settle in with a good thriller. But she felt on edge. Which had nothing to do with the tragedy of this particular room.

  She liked to believe Hatch’s mother and sister were smiling down on him for all the improvements he’d made to the house and ranch. And that in having done so, he found his past no longer haunted him.

  Hatch and Ryder had made this room over in soft creamy colors for her years ago.

  A nice neutral palette.

  To which she’d added nothing. Not one personal touch. She hadn’t even unpacked her seabag tonight. And she wouldn’t. It would be ready to go when she was.

  Unfortunately, she’d just learned online that it wouldn’t be this Saturday or even next Saturday. It took twenty days from filing to get a divorce in Wyoming. It took sixty days to establish residency in order to even file for divorce.

  Coiling and uncoiling a strand of hair around her finger, she stared at the blank wall across from the bed. To file for divorce would take her eighty days of staying put.

  Hatch had to be the one to file.

  Getting him to agree to that should be easy enough, right? Except, that was where her uneasy feeling was coming from.

  She threw back the covers, got out of bed and went to sit on the windowsill, where she listened to the mooing of the cows wandering close to the fence, and the deeper bawl of the restless bull.

  She couldn’t track the approaching storm from this side of the house, but the air was heavy with it and smelled of rain.

  Closing her eyes, she listened to the rumble outside.

  She’d managed to spit out the news about her job, but she’d yet to spell out the repercussions of it. Plus, she still had to let Hatch know the time had come for their divorce. And now instead of her filing, she had to ask him to do so.

  Don’t go.

  She turned his words over in her mind again. Had he simply wanted her to stay and talk? Which she should have done. Or was he suggesting she put off her plans in favor of letting Ryder stay through the Fourth of July?

  For an instant, when she’d looked into his eye with that current shooting up her arm, she’d thought maybe those words held a deeper meaning.

  As in, stay.

  She knew Hatch didn’t want her to take the job. And he probably thought the job was in California, even Denver. Not London, England.

  BlackWatch had its headquarters in L.A., with satellite offices and operatives around the globe. But they were opening a new overseas division headquartered in London. And Jake anticipated them being there at least a year in order to get the business off the ground.

  What would Hatch have to say about that?

  They’d had this odd friendship for so long now that he felt entitled to advise her in every major decision of her life. Because she’d given him that authority until now.

  What if he said don’t go, and she went, anyway, taking Ryder with her? Would that be an end to their uneasy friendship?

  How would that affect his relationship with her son?

  And what was that relationship exactly? Would a clean break be best? Jake had talked about adopting Ryder once they were married.

  And he did say he liked that she wasn’t a ticking biological clock, like most of the women he’d dated. That it made him want a family.

  So if she’d like to go off the Pill…

  At some point she’d be adding to her family. And although she wouldn’t have said it six years ago, she could see Hatch wanting to start a family of his own.

  He might need a couple years to figure it out, but she imagined he’d find a big old void somewhere around the middle of his chest once he realized he didn’t have Ryder six months
out of every year.

  And he’d get drunk one night, trying to fill it. While some down-on-her-luck stripper, whose name he wouldn’t even remember in the morning, would wind up pregnant.

  He’d marry her because it was the right thing to do. Wouldn’t even ask if the kid was his. And they’d live happily ever after.

  So really, what was the sense in dragging this out?

  The bull wasn’t the only one restless tonight. Hatch had been moving around downstairs for over an hour now. Angela didn’t know how late he planned to stay up. And even though he had to get up early, she should just go down there and tell him.

  But before she could put her foot to the floor, she heard him mount the stairs. Heavy steps meant he was exhausted. Because although a big man, he could move with the stealth of his Navy SEAL training when he wanted to.

  Her heartbeat picked up, the way it always did when he was near. He’d turn right toward his room. But she found herself holding her breath until that moment passed and his door opened, then closed with a quiet click.

  There was a time after that first deployment when she’d listened with her ear to her door for him moving around in his room across the hall, and thought about going to him. What had stopped her then was not what stopped her now.

  While she’d never regretted their one night together, her days of creeping across the hall were over. That kind of intimacy made their marriage vulnerable to the expectations of what a real marriage should be. Hers, at least.

  Like forsaking all others.

  His relationships with other women were none of her business.

  But she couldn’t quite explain the disappointment she felt that he’d never once taken a left to knock on her door.

  And she was no longer free to knock on his. She was engaged. She could only hope that would feel a lot more real after she divorced her husband.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, Hatch returned to the house after morning chores to find a tight little ass in gray yoga pants with her head in his refrigerator.

  She reached in, revealing thong panties and a tramp stamp across her lower back. Whoa, that was new.

  “’Morning,” he said, hanging his hat on a peg by the door. With her earbuds on, she didn’t hear him.