Love Runs Deep

by Gail Chianese

  “Excuse me?” She sat there, stunned.

  “Look, apology accepted. Now, can you please leave?” He sat the cat aside and stood, prepared to walk her to the door.

  She stood and didn’t walk to the door, but walked right up to him until they were within an inch of each other. Until he could smell the vanilla and warm sugar that was distinctly Nic without taking a deep breath. He could see the strain lines around her mouth and the faint smudges beneath her eyes.

  “I think that’s the first time you’ve lied to me, Kyle Hutchinson, because your tone says you clearly don’t accept my apology. Your choice, but I’m saying it again. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I was mad and scared and I missed you, so I let my fears and insecurity rule my mouth instead of my head and my heart.”

  He grabbed her arm when she stepped away. “Is that why you practically ran from my bed when your dad called to tell you about the allegation? Because you can’t say you missed me then or that I had done anything to warrant your doubts. If Mace and Bryant hadn’t showed up when they did, I would have been the one on trial for assault and wouldn’t have cared, because he violated you. You were worth throwing my career away for.”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes and he released her.

  She came to apologize, all he had to do was say okay and they could go back to where they’d been before, but he didn’t want a relationship based on great sex and casual friendship. He wanted a woman who loved him enough to throw it all away for him, the way he had felt for Nic.

  Had.

  Were worth.

  Past tense because no matter what he had felt for her or what he might still feel, he’d accept nothing less than a full partner who was willing to invest, sacrifice, and believe just as much as he was in them.

  And the painful truth was Nic was that person.

  She backed away, tears slipping down her face.

  “You have every reason and right to hate me. I don’t blame you either because I did act like an idiot.” She made it to the door and stood with her arm outstretched, hand on the doorknob. “I made a mistake, a huge one, and now I have to pay. Unlike, Stone’s punishment, mine will be a lifelong sentence.”

  By the time his brain registered the words, Nic was out the door and gone before he could ask what she meant.

  * * *

  Standing in the conference room, with a cup of coffee in his hand, Kyle observed the beehive of activity on the pier outside. A twinge of envy twisted inside him. Shore duty was great. What wasn’t to love: regular office hours, going home to sleep in a king-sized bed, picking your own meals, and fresh air and sunshine every day. Ask any submariner, as much as they longed for shore duty, every time a boat pulled out, it took a piece of their heart with it.

  “You’re missing it already.” Mace joined him at the window. “It’s only for a couple of weeks. Ask nicely and maybe your CO will let you join us.”

  “Yeah, doubt that.” Kyle took in his friend’s profile and relaxed stance. “You’ll miss it soon enough. Put your resignation in yet?”

  “Nope and not going to either.”

  Kyle turned away from the window to focus on the man next to him, but not before he caught sight of a slight build in a baggy overalls. She’d lost more weight. He’d have to make a quick call down to Chief Boone. Maybe he could double up on Nic’s cookie supply.

  Mace nodded toward the boat. “Have you talked to her since last Monday?”

  “No, but that’s not important. Why aren’t you dropping your papers? What about your reconciliation with Amber? The baby?” He gestured to the empty seats around the conference table but Mace declined.

  “Turns out I’m not going to be a father.”

  Kyle reached out in support and Mace shook his head.

  “Oh, she’s going to be a mom. I’m just not the father of her child.” His voice wasn’t filled with any of the emotions Kyle expected to hear—anger, jealousy, pain. How could Mace be so zen when his life was falling apart? He started to ask, but Mace looked out the window and down at his watch.

  “Look, I made a mistake and didn’t fight for my wife or marriage. That’s on me. Learn from Uncle Mace. You love the woman. Go after her. Beg her to forgive you, whether you made the initial mistake or not. Forgive her and move on with your lives…together. Or be a bonehead and be miserable for the rest of your life.” He clapped Kyle on the shoulder. “See you in a couple of weeks. I expect chocolate and flowers waiting for me on the pier, unless you smarten up and decide to give them to someone else.”

  Kyle turned back to the window, his gaze instantly seeking out Nic’s form as she gave orders before heading for the boat. She turned once, looked in his general direction—not that she could see him—and gave a little salute.

  He stayed in place until the boat disappeared down the Thames River.

  For the rest of the day he was useless, Mace’s word replaying over and over in his head. Was he making a mistake letting her go? The question plagued him all the way home. Opening the door the smell of pizza greeted him first, then a loud meow from Princess PITA, which must have alerted Keith to his arrival.

  “Good, you’re home. I’m starving.” His brother handed him a bottle of water and a plate. “Long day?”

  “Aren’t they all these days?” He loaded up his plate and sat at the table they never used sensing something was coming.

  “Mom called. They arrested Woody and his men in an early morning sweep. Kenny will stay in the safe house until he’s testified, but the DA is going to do everything he can to keep them all in lock up until then and push the court date up. She and Dad send their love.”

  Right, more like Mom sent hers. Then another thought hit Kyle square in the chest and he pushed the pizza away.

  “Does this mean you’re moving back home?”

  Could Nic have been any more right when she’d predicted that within a week of the trial everyone would be back to their regularly scheduled lives? With Keith out from under his feet, Kyle could get back to his: focused on his career, no cares, and no responsibility outside the job.

  “Aww, you sound like you’d actually miss me, big bro.” Keith smirked and then turned sober on him. “I’m touched, but no. There’s no future for me in Citrus Park. The farms are drying up, there’s no industry, no jobs. I’ve been talking to Nic about what comes next for me. She’s been a big help.”

  “Did you decide to enroll at the community college for fall?”

  “No, I enlisted in the Navy.”

  Kyle chocked on his water. “Excuse me?”

  The smirk returned to his brother’s face. “Yep, signed on the dotted line this morning. You’re looking at a future Damage Controlman.”

  “Subs or surface?”

  “Subs, if they’ll have me.”

  Pride filled Kyle’s chest at his brother’s choice. He’d miss the kid though. Taking a bite out of his pizza, Kyle couldn’t stop smiling at Keith’s news. After the way everything else had been going lately, he was sure his brother would have headed back to dead-end Citrus Park and gotten mixed up with all the wrong people like Kenny. He’d hoped for Keith to enroll in college, but understood it wasn’t the right path for everyone.

  “So, now that we got me settled, what about you?”

  “What about me,” Kyle asked around a mouthful of cheese.

  “Are you going to fix things with Nic when she gets back?”

  “Here I was thinking how much I’d miss you. When do you leave?”

  “In a month. Plenty of time to make sure the two of you don’t screw things up again.”

  Kyle left his brother to the rest of the pizza to change clothes, but what he’d really changed was his attitude. Family wasn’t so bad, sure they could complicate your life and bring about headaches and stress, but they also made you smile and had your back when you needed it. Sort of like a submarine crew.

  Yeah, he’d miss his brother when he left for boot camp, but if Kyle played
his cards right, he’d have a new roommate to keep him on his toes by then. First, he needed to correct a few mistakes of his own.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The underway went smooth as silk…with a few almonds thrown in to keep Nic on her toes. Her first time using the officers’ shower, she might have broken a speed record after she inspected every crack and crevice. Silly, but necessary to keep the anxiety at bay. And bless the crew, they had treated her no different than they had before her world had imploded on the last trip.

  Of course the soft serve ice cream machine had to break, which meant she caught flak from the whole crew and especially the skipper.

  They teased, pushed buttons and played practical jokes on each other. Exactly what she’d expect. The skipper had declared on the 1MC that morning he was proud of the crew and the training patrol had been a success.

  So why then was she sitting cross-legged on her rack dreading the return home?

  Life was back to normal.

  The rest of the crew buzzed around the boat, happy chatter keeping them going as they slipped through the water home. Chief Boone had kicked his cooks out of the galley for a bit and made cookies for the whole crew. Hers, of course, had been twice the size and loaded with chocolate chips and nuts. Every time she saw him, he handed her some kind of fattening treat and her uniform showed the proof.

  A knock on her open door brought her head up and a smile on her face.

  “Doc Corbett, come on in.”

  He pulled out the lone chair and sat with his elbows resting on his knees. “Feels good to be going home, doesn’t it?”

  Not really, but she’d keep that to herself.

  “Is your family meeting you on the pier?” She smiled. “Homecomings, especially seeing the excitement on the kids’ faces always get me. You’d think after all these years I’d be immune.”

  “I hope that never happens, after all, they’re the reason we do this. The sacrifice we make, it’s all about keeping our country and our loved ones safe.” He rubbed his jaw, which was probably sensitive as most of the crew didn’t shave while underway until the day they pulled into port. “I think the wife and kids will be there. What about you? Who’s meeting you on the pier?”

  No one and she had no one to blame but herself.

  Mace and Bryant both tried to talk to her about Kyle, but what they failed to realize was that she had tried to mend the rift between them. Neither accepted her response and called both her and Kyle all sorts of foolish.

  “Not this time. I expect my parents might come up when we return from our next full deployment, but not for training ops.”

  His face scrunched up in confusion for a minute. Maybe he forgot she was single and what it was like for those who didn’t have families nearby.

  “Huh. Well it’s a gorgeous day out and you’ll enjoy the sun as we pull into port. The Captain wants you topside when we do. I pulled the first kiss ticket.”

  He excused himself and left Nic smiling. Lucky guy.

  Maybe someday she’d have some to enter her name in the raffle.

  Twenty minutes later she was topside and watching the pier with all the families come into sight. The skipper had told her she was to disembark after the first kiss and first hug winners. Normally all the pomp and ceremony was saved for deployments, not training patrols, but given how their last time out, she could understand the change in routine. Boost the crew’s morale.

  The tug pushed the boat at a snail’s pace toward their slip. Music blared from speakers set up under a tent and friends and families cheered. There were welcome home banners and bouquets of flowers and balloons. Kids jumped up and down and pointed, waving to their dads. The crew held rank. The closer they got the bigger the smiles on the boat grew.

  She would have rather waited in her stateroom for the rest of the crew to take liberty. Not because she disliked homecomings. She hadn’t lied to Doc about how they got to her. She still cried happy tears when the kids rushed into their dads’ waiting arms, when sailors laid eyes on their babies for the first time or the sweet look of joy that overcame couples when they were once again in each other’s arms.

  Since she’d be one of the first ones off, she’d offer to take pictures for people as long as they didn’t mind a few blurry photos. Then she’d head back to her room and do… what? Get a good night’s rest and start living the rest of her life, that’s what. Somewhere around the halfway point of the patrol she’d decided she could handle the close confines and was able to put the last couple of months behind her, so now it was time to start living. Find an apartment. Make friends. Get involved in the community.

  All the things she’d done prior to BS (before Stone).

  She didn’t need Kyle to fill her time or make her happy.

  At the thought of him her gaze darted to the building he worked in. Was he up there watching them pull in? Did he miss her half as much as she missed him?

  She’d call Keith too. Not to check on his brother, but to check on him and see if he followed through with his plans to enlist. It was also time to call her brothers and put them out of their misery, or maybe that was add to it. After all, it was a sister’s job to harass her siblings. She had left without clearing the air between them and it hadn’t set well during her time away. Pains that they were, she loved them and could only make them pay for so long.

  Not that she expected either to learn a darn thing from the silent treatment.

  Maybe she’d talk her mom into flying up after she found her own place and the two of them could go shopping for furniture and supplies.

  Lost in her own head, making plans, Nic hadn’t noticed they’d docked until the XO nudged her. She went through the motions of asking permission to leave, saluted the two officers and made her way down the gangplank. She smiled at Doc surrounded by his wife and two teenagers, scooted around Petty Officer Wu and his wife, who had won the first hug, and looked around.

  A giant bouquet of flowers came down in front of her. She spun around to tell the giver they had the wrong person only to come face-to-face with Kyle.

  “Welcome home, Lieutenant Riley.” His warm, husky voice made her smile.

  “Are the flowers from my mom or Keith?” Please say neither, she silently begged.

  Seeing him, all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around his neck and beg him to forgive her.

  He looked confused. “Did you want them to be from my brother?”

  She shook her head, not trusting her voice at the moment.

  “A few of months ago I thought I had everything I wanted or needed in my life, and then this amazing woman I met in a bar showed me I was wrong.”

  “Kyle—”

  “Shhh.” He put one finger on her lips. “Give me a minute and then you can tell me to get lost. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ve made mistakes in my life, Nic. A lot of them. The first was running from home and not looking back or thinking of how it would impact my family. I thought leaving would be the best for everyone, but it wasn’t, especially my brothers. Thankfully, my mom forced Keith on me and I was given a second chance to be a big brother.”

  “He’s a great kid who looks up to you.”

  “And you. He told me how you’ve helped him deal with Kenny, the separation from home, opening up to me and his future. Thank you. There have been other mistakes, mostly small, inconsequential ones that have been forgotten over time. But the only other one that really matters is the mistake I made with you.”

  “I think we both made mistakes.” Her voice dropped low. She was afraid that the next words out of his mouth would be that he was leaving.

  “We did and we’ve paid our penance. We were under a lot of stress, and I don’t know about you, but I was scared out of my wits. My career was on the line, I didn’t know how to fix the problem and the woman I loved doubted my moral compass. Not that—”

  “Wait.” She held her hand up. “You loved me?”


  “I did, I do… I love you, Lily Nicole Riley and if you’ll forgive me I’ll spend the rest of our lives showing you exactly how much.”

  She couldn’t breathe. There were too many people around, with too much noise and her pulse pounding in her ears. She had to be imagining words that hadn’t been said.

  “What are you saying, Kyle?”

  “Marry me, Nic?” His eyes sparked with desire and love as he lifted a small gray box up to her. “Open it. Say you forgive me, that you love me. Say yes.”

  Nic bit down on her lip and chewed. Her gaze was glued on the box. Could it really be that easy, forgive, forget and say yes? With trembling hands she took the box and opened it. Inside was a beautiful white diamond set in the middle of a love knot made out of rose gold.

  “Make me a promise and I’ll do the same.” She’d learned a lot over the past few months. Most importantly that life was better with the person you loved at your side, but it took work. “Next time life gets stressful, and we both know it will with our lifestyles, we’ll talk. No shutting each other out. No making decisions without consulting the other. No listening to my brothers. We each have faith in the other and in ourselves.”

  Kyle looked over her shoulder and grinned ear-to-ear. Mace and Bryant were probably recording this whole thing for him. Whatever, she didn’t care; because right now what mattered the most was the man in front of her and his answer.

  “I promise.” Kyle kissed her on each cheek, then her forehead and finally on the tip of her nose. “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes, it’s a yes.” She laughed and threw her arms around him. Looking him in the eyes she whispered for his ears only, “I love you.”

  They sealed the deal with a kiss that left Nic breathing hard and wishing they were back at his apartment.

  “I think maybe I should put the ring on before you change your mind or I before I lose it out here. Then there are some people who want to say something to you.”

  She held up her hand and Kyle slipped on the ring. It was a perfect fit. He kissed her again, framing her face in his hands.