by Hill, Teresa
“What is it?” the guy asked.
“Uhh … Cops, I think.”
“You called 911?”
“No!”
“Told somebody inside that some guy in the parking lot was hassling you?”
“No! I said it was a little accident. I grabbed some bottled water and wet towels and came right back here. I guess … Someone might have seen us and … You know. Thought it was something else.”
She watched in misery as the cop car came closer and slowed.
“They’re stopping, aren’t they?”
“I think so.” All hope was gone when they turned into the lot. “Yeah. They’re here.”
“Great. Perfect end to a perfect night.” He eased off the bed of the truck, pulled the towel off his face and held his hands in the air, fingers spread wide, palms facing forward. “Do me a favor. Slide about five feet away from me and try not to look scared. It’s dark, and they’re armed. I’d rather not have another misunderstanding, especially one that ends with me getting shot.”
She did as he said, her face, maybe her whole body, flushed with humiliation.
She’d let a bunch of twenty-something war widows make her so sad she pounded shots and made bad decisions, still letting Aaron control her life even though he was dead.
How could she explain?
This probably nice man probably thinks I’m a slut. Go ahead and call me that. It would be the least of my problems. I think he was trying to help me and now … Here we are.
The patrol car stopped right in front of them. The cops — a man and a woman — had their hands on their holstered weapons as they got out of their car and approached Dani. She suddenly realized she didn’t even know the name of the man she’d Maced.
The male cop dealt with him. The woman, Officer Hayes, led Dani ten feet away and asked her what happened. Dani wished she and Aaron’s friend had had time to get their stories straight. She kept glancing over at him, wondering what he was telling the other officer and what she could say. She winced when she saw how red his eyes were, still watering like crazy, and how inflamed the skin on his whole face looked.
“Okay, it’s just you and me now. What happened here?” Officer Hayes asked.
Was there a least-humiliating version of events that was still true enough to satisfy Officer Hayes and her partner? Dani doubted it, but she had to try. “Look, this was all a big misunderstanding.”
“Honey, it always is,” the lady cop said.
Meanwhile, Nico the bartender came outside to see what was going on. So did a handful of customers. The male cop gave a snort of laughter that said he didn’t believe what he was hearing, and found it funny.
“It’s Senior Chief Daughtry?” the cop asked.
“Yes, Sir,” Dani’s would-be rescuer said.
“And Commander Taylor’s your CO?” he asked.
“Yes, he is.”
The cop whistled.
“I don’t understand,” Dani told the female cop. “What’s going on?”
“We hardly ever see someone of his rank causing trouble. We’re more likely to call a Senior Chief to come pick up younger sailors when they get in trouble, if we decide to cut them a break, rather than arresting them.”
“Oh, right.” Aaron had mentioned his chief to her.
The chief said this.
Chief’s on my ass.
Chief saved my ass.
Dani’s cop smiled. “My dad’s a retired Master Chief. Backbone of the Navy, he’d tell you. You respect the chiefs and do what they say. This one seems young to be a chief already. He’s probably very good at his job, promoted again and again as soon as he was eligible.”
So, a good man.
“But we got a call about a man assaulting a woman in this parking lot,” Officer Hayes said.
“No! He really didn’t do anything.”
The male officer laughed uproariously. Dani heard him say, “She Maced a guy named Mace?”
“Go ahead. Laugh,” the guy — Mace? — said.
“And you’re okay with me calling Commander Taylor?”
“Why not? He’ll get a good laugh out of this, too, and I’m sure he’ll hear about it, one way or another.”
“Dani,” Nico said, “you did this to him? I sent him out here to make sure you didn’t get into a car with those guys, and that they didn’t drive themselves home.”
“I’m sorry,” Dani said.
“I think she was trying to help,” Mace said.
The cops laughed again.
“What’s so funny?” Dani asked. “He needed help. Two guys against one. That’s not fair.”
“Honey, if he’s under Commander Taylor, he’s a Navy SEAL. He wouldn’t have any trouble taking down two guys at once,” Officer Martin said.
“You mean, like the guys who got Bin Laden?”
“Right. Those guys. I mean, he could be support staff assigned to help the SEALS, but judging by the body on that guy, I’d say he’s the real thing.”
“Oh.”
Aaron had talked about the SEALS with hushed awe and excitement. He’d been thrilled to spot one walking around the base from time to time. Or, at least, a guy Aaron thought was a SEAL. They tended to keep quiet about who they were and what they did. Aaron would tell her some guy heard something, and told some other guy, who told Aaron about what one of the SEAL teams had supposedly done, and she could always hear the admiration in his voice.
Dani felt even worse. She headed toward the male police officer. “This wasn’t his fault. I had more to drink than I should have, misunderstood the situation and overreacted. I could explain the whole thing but it’s really embarrassing. Could you just let it go? Please?”
The two cops looked at each other, communicating without words, and the man finally said, “I guess we could do that. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“Someone needs to call the guard gate at the base about those two guys in the truck, assuming they make it back to base without causing an accident.” Mace turned to Nico. “Sorry about that. I had their keys, but I must have dropped them at some point — ”
“When I pepper-sprayed him,” Dani said. “They grabbed the keys off the ground and took off.”
“It’s a white truck, Ford, single-cab.” Mace rattled off the license tag number. How did he catch that in the middle of everything and in the dark?
“Got it. We’ll call it in,” the male officer said. He looked back at poor Mace, with his eyes more irritated than any she’d ever seen, a nose red that was still draining. His face looked sunburned, like it might blister before it healed. “Chief, would you like us to call EMS for you? They could flush out your eyes, at least.”
“No, thank you. I’ll get some saline solution on the way home.”
“Yeah, about that. Did you both drive here? Because neither one of you is in any shape to drive home. We clear about that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mace said.
“Yes. Thank you,” Dani said.
The cops drove away. Nico offered to give Dani a ride home and call Mace a cab, but Dani said she’d share the cab with Mace, if that was okay.
Mace stared at her for a moment, then said, “Sure,” and put his wet towel back over his face
When Nico went back inside, she touched Mace’s arm gently. “I feel terrible about this.”
He laughed.
“Are you going to be in trouble with your CO?”
“No. He’ll think it’s hilarious.”
“And your name really is Mace?”
“Nickname, but it’s all anybody calls me, except my family back in Texas.”
“I know you’re still hurting. Can I do anything else to help?”
“I’ll be okay. Like I told the officer, I’ll grab some saline solution on the way home and some milk — ”
“Milk?”
“Home remedy. It’s supposed to be better than water at getting this stuff off skin.”
“You’re going to walk into a
store looking like that?”
“I’ll be fine, Dani.”
“Yeah, but I could help. I could go in the store for you and help clean you up.” Before Aaron had ripped up her heart, she’d been a nice person. She could still be helpful. Everybody needed help sometimes. She certainly did. Not that she trusted many people to give help her any more.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
“I know. I offered.”
He’d gone to all this trouble to find her. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he wanted to tell her about Aaron, but she wasn’t sure she could handle not knowing, either.
In the first few weeks after Aaron was killed, she’d thought about contacting some of the men and women in his unit. She’d had a few names of friends he’d mentioned in his e-mails. With that and a unit number, she’d probably have been able to get in touch with them. But she hadn’t been sure what she wanted to ask them, and she’d worried that the answers might hurt her more than what she already knew.
He’d broken her heart and left her feeling like a fool.
Would she always wonder why he did it? Was there an answer that might help? Some explanation? But she felt stupid for thinking he might have had some reason for treating her the way he did, just so she wouldn’t feel so angry and bewildered.
Mad was better anyway. If she could stay in that space, she wouldn’t have as much room left for the loss that had smacked her so hard when he died.
Their cab arrived. Mace gave the driver his address, and Dani gave him hers. “We need to stop at a grocery store, too,” she added. “There’s one a few blocks from my house.”
The driver looked leery about Mace and his ravaged face. Dani tried to smile reassuringly. The driver said Mace’s address was closer and wanted to drop him first, but Mace wanted to make sure Dani got home okay first.
Really? Make sure she got home okay? Who was this guy? He didn’t even seem mad.
He’d been firm but calm in dealing with the two guys trying to talk her into going home with them. When he was hurting, at worst he’d been irritated. He’d still been polite and even smiling with the cops and Dani.
The cab parked outside a grocery store. Mace pulled out his wallet and then some bills. “I can’t tell what they are. Do you see a couple of twenties? Take two.”
She felt bad about taking his money, but forty dollars was a lot to her right now. “Milk and saline solution? Do they sell that at a grocery store?”
“With the contact lens stuff. Some of it’s contact cleaning solution, but some is plain saline. Get six big bottles. Two gallons of milk. Some dishwashing liquid. Not for a dishwasher. The wash-by-hand stuff.”
She hurried through the store at first, but she still wasn’t steady on her feet and the faster she tried to move, the more nauseous she felt. She had to slow down while she found everything he wanted and climbed back into the cab and handed him his change.
Dani rented a room in a tiny house with another girl who was new to the area and one who had a boyfriend Dani found a little scary sometimes, but she’d moved in at the last minute and didn’t have much choice.
Aaron had died seven weeks before she started teaching here. He knew the area and was going to help her find a place, but his leave got extended, and they went to Greece. Then he was gone.
This place was cheap. She had student loans to repay, and she didn’t care where she lived.
Mace lowered the towel from his face and took a long look at the small, sad house, then another at her. Dani shrugged. This wasn’t the best place, but it also wasn’t the worst she’d ever lived in.
“I feel bad about your eye. I don’t know how you’re going be able to clean it out on your own. Why don’t you come in and let me help?”
“Please tell me you don’t … ” He lapsed into annoyed silence for a moment. “You shouldn’t invite strange men back to your house in the middle of the night.”
Nor two complete strangers. Nor consider going home with them.
Mace sounded genuinely concerned. Maybe there were a few nice guys left in the world.
“I have roommates,” she said. “I see their cars. They’re home. If you tried to strangle me or something, I think I could make enough noise to wake them up. They’d help me or at least call 911. Although I hope we get through the rest of the night without anymore encounters with the police.”
The cab driver’s head swiveled at that. He wanted them both out of his cab.
“Oops,” Dani muttered, fighting off a giggle. This night had already been disastrous. If she started laughing now, she might not be able to stop.
Mace flashed a smile and chuckled. It did funny things to her insides. She thought about what he’d looked like before she pepper-sprayed him. If she remembered correctly, he’d been really cute.
She felt instantly guilty, like she was cheating on Aaron. But it was impossible to cheat on Aaron. Nothing he’d said to her had been real.
“In or out?” the driver said. “I’ve got another fare to pick up.”
Dani got out, then leaned into the car to look at Mace.
“I’ll be fine,” he said.
“You can’t even see what you’re doing. Come inside. I’ll call you another cab when we’re done and you can go home.” That should tell him she wasn’t trying to get him into her house for a different reason.
“Yeah. Okay.” He asked the driver how much they owed.
“I have money,” Dani said.
“No. I’ve got it.” Mace held his wallet out to Dani again. “But you’ll have to actually pay the man.”
She did, adding a generous tip. She knew what it was like to get by on them, and Mace seemed like a kind-hearted guy. She handed him back his wallet and tried to grab the grocery bags, but he already had them.
At the door, she fumbled with her keys as she felt him behind her, tall and looming. The lock finally gave way, and she walked inside the quiet house and into the kitchen. It was a bland, dark, depressing place, but these days, she didn’t care. At least she and Leah kept it clean.
“Wait here. I’ll be right back with a couple of dry towels.”
When she got back, he was peeling off his shirt.
Wow.
He’d turned on the overhead light, so she could see clearly that he was in awesome shape. Broad-shouldered and muscular, in a long, lean way. He even had those killer dents and swells in his abs that made some women stare and make fools of themselves.
Surely she wouldn’t be one of them. Surely she’d learned something from Aaron.
He’d been in good shape, being in the Navy, but his body had still been more of a boy’s than a man’s, narrow through the shoulders and more bony than muscular. She’d thought he was perfect, of course, back then, and ever since he died, she hadn’t cared what any man looked like.
But Mace, stripping in her kitchen was impossible to ignore. She glanced up from his perfect abs and saw that he’d caught her staring. He looked uncomfortable. Did he think she was hitting on him? Asking him inside this late? Or maybe just that she’d happily trade the two men from the parking lot for one — him?
She closed her eyes and vowed not to look at all that pretty bare skin in front of her. “How do we do this?” she asked.
He asked for a garbage bag to put his shirt in so he wouldn’t spread any pepper spray to anything in her house. She pulled one out and held it open for him.
“I need a bowl,” he added. “A big bowl. Fill it with milk, and I’ll soak my face for a few minutes. There’s something in the milk that counteracts the sting.”
Okay. She pulled out a big, plastic mixing bowl, emptied a gallon of milk into it and draped a towel over his shoulders. It was awkward, but he left the bowl on the countertop and bent over it, took a deep breath and dunked his facet. He could hold his breath for an amazing amount of time. When he raised his face, he looked relieved for the first time since she’d sprayed him.
He dunked his face some more, dried off and poured
the milk down the sink.
The other gallon, he wanted to dab on his skin to clean off any pepper spray that was left.
Dani put him in a chair in the middle of the kitchen, holding the big bowl under his chin as she soaked the end of a hand towel in a smaller bowl of milk and went to work on him.
He spread his legs wide, and she stepped in between them to find her face mere inches from his. He had to be six-two at least. The man definitely knew he was good-looking and charming, but he wasn’t overly flirtatious. Still, guys like him probably weren’t capable of not flirting at all. It was just who he was, as much a part of him as his blue eyes or all those muscles.
Heat radiated off his body, the pleasant heat that made a woman want to curl up next to him just to enjoy the warmth of his body. There wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t feel something when she was this close to him, she decided. It was a simple, biological fact. Put a male specimen like this in front of women, and it did something to them. It just meant she was a woman and alive, like taking note of some perfect actor’s body. Of course, it was nice.
But nothing was going to happen between her and all that perfection.
She kept wetting the cloth and dabbing at the most irritated-looking skin, while she braced a hand on his shoulder, sometimes put her hand on his chin to tilt his face this way and that. She tried not to breathe because she was all too conscious of his breath — minty and cool — skimming across her lips and her cheeks as she worked over him.
Damn all pretty men anyway.
She let out a sad-sounding sigh.
“What?” Mace whispered, startling her with the word and his poor, red eyes, which were suddenly open and staring at her.
“I’m an idiot,” she muttered.
He smiled with easy charm. “Why?”
“I don’t want to list all the reasons.” She’d always known Aaron was too good to be true, but she’d ignored all her instincts. She grabbed the first box of saline and started unwrapping it. “Tell me what you need me to do with this.”
“I can do it.”
She just glared at him.
Mace put a kitchen chair in front of the sink and then sat. He tilted his head to the side as close to a ninety-degree angle as he could, and held his now-empty bowl beneath his head. He asked her to very slowly squeeze the saline so that it dribbled from one corner of his eye to the other, and down into the bowl. If he kept his eye open, the saline should flush out the pepper spray.