by Vonnie Davis
Dustin sauntered over with purpose in his stride. “Excuse me. Meeting a lot of people at once can be hard on a serviceman after wartime. I’m sure he appreciates your kindness. Right, Reece?”
“Yeah.” The word sounded forced.
“I’m going to borrow him for a while, if you all don’t mind. I need to talk to him about a project. Gina, order his breakfast while he and I take a walk outside.”
Reece stood and glanced at her, his fingertips spread on the table. “Baby, coffee, black as road tar. Double stack of blueberry pancakes, three eggs over easy, and two helpings of bacon, crisp. Order whatever for you two. I’m buying.” His face shuttered in a way she recognized. He’d had enough talking and was shutting down.
“Yes, dear.” Oh no, tell me I just didn’t call a man “dear”?
“He certainly is a handsome young man, Gina. I’m tickled to see him show an interest in you. You deserve someone who will treat you with love and respect. Both you and little Piper.” Fran swiveled slightly in her seat to glare at the judgmental schoolteacher. “And land sakes, I don’t know what possessed Holly Evans to carry on like that. Why, she’s got enough to take care of in her own backyard.”
Love and respect? Gina had to quell Fran’s wild ideas. “Fran, Reece and I are barely more than friends.” I am so going to hell for this lie. “Don’t go mentioning the ‘L’ word in relation to us. You’ll give folks the wrong idea.” Fran could spin the gossip mill in Warrior Falls quite well.
Fran smiled and fiddled with her jangly bracelets. “I see how he looks at you, young lady. As if you hung the moon and seven stars. Don’t be afraid of having a relationship with that handsome hunk. Right, Silver Stud?”
“Right, sweetheart.” Clint waved to the waitress and raised his coffee mug for a refill. She nodded and hurried for the coffeepot. “I was impressed with Reece last night. He was determined to take good care of you and Piper before he went home.” The corners of his mouth rose.
“He was too tired to make the drive.” That’s all Gina was saying. She placed their orders with the waitress, trying her best to be patient as Piper changed her mind three times. She ended up getting a smaller version of Reece’s order.
“Mommy, isn’t it nice to go out as a family? I always wanted to do this.” Piper’s face radiated happiness.
Gina had thought their lives were fine with just the two of them. Piper had always been her top priority. Now Gina could see she wasn’t enough and something foreign wounded her—jealousy, defeat, incompetence. Whatever it was, it attacked her maternal instincts. She nearly broke down and cried.
For to insert a man, any man, into their lives just so Piper had a father figure would be wrong and, perhaps, dangerous to Gina’s psyche. She blinked away moisture in her eyes and looked at Reece’s empty chair. She did care for this man. She couldn’t deny her feelings, but were those emotions enough to trust and perhaps allow to mature into love?
How soon would the waitress be here with her coffee so she could wash away some of her worries?
Chapter 13
“Thanks for rescuing me in there.” Reece leaned against his truck, his foot against the door, and looked at Dust. “How the hell did you know I needed rescued?”
“I went through a bad experience myself the first time I took Kelcee out to dinner. I was done in by a five-year-old boy with a lisp. The one side of my face was a mass of scars at the time and I was pretty self-conscious.” He ran his hand down his smooth face. “Damn, I had to force my ass to enter Sandoval’s Tex-Mex to eat. People stared and I freaked, especially after this kid called me a ‘thcary monthter.’ ”
“If only the ballsy shit knew how lethal you are with a sniper rifle.”
“Hey, he turned out to be the ring bearer at our wedding.” Dust laughed and shook his head. “He wears my SEAL cap everywhere.”
“Kids have a way of getting to you, don’t they? I know Piper’s got me wrapped around her pinky.” He studied Dust’s face. “You have no scars now. Did you have plastic surgery?” Dustin looked great. He barely had a limp walking with his prosthesis. Reece had to admit his SEAL brother gave him hope. Could he have a chance at normalcy, at happiness?
Dust folded his arms. “No surgery. I might go into it all with you sometime. Right now, I’m gonna stick my big nose into your personal business. What’s going on with you and Gina?”
“She needs me. She just doesn’t know it yet. Ms. Independent-Feminist-Marine needs me and Lord knows I need her.” He scowled at Dust. “Anything more is on a need-to-know basis.”
Dust smiled, then sighed. “And I don’t need to know.”
“Fuckin’ A.” Reece pushed away from his vehicle with his foot. “Let’s head back inside. I’ve got blueberry pancakes waiting.”
“Steelhead, did ZQ talk to you yet about his team?”
“His team? Hell, I was on his team, or have you forgotten?” Reece arched an eyebrow. What the hell was wrong with Dust? Some type of memory block? Couldn’t be; he remembered him every time they saw each other. “You okay, buddy?”
Dust rubbed his face. “Sure. Never mind.”
The waitress was walking away from their table when Reece entered the restaurant. Dust patted his shoulder and returned to his wife. Piper spied Reece, jumped off her seat, and pulled out his chair. A sunbeam smile brightened her cherub face.
He leaned and kissed her forehead before he sat. “Thank you, Precious.” Piper curled onto his lap. In an automatic response, his arm held her close. Was she always so lovable? He gently tugged one of her spiral curls. “Better eat before your food gets cold.”
She kissed his chin. “Okay.”
Gina smiled, but sadness whipped at her eyes and lashed tiny lines at the corners of her mouth. Something or someone had hurt her. He’d seen her angry before—hell, he’d been the cause of her anger plenty of times. This wasn’t anger. No, it was pain. What or who had caused it?
“No pancakes for you, Blondie?” He pointed his fork to her plate filled with an omelet. He doused his pancakes with syrup and cut off a bite with his fork. Holding it in front of her mouth, he told her to open. She declined.
“Baby,” he lowered his voice, “open and take a bite of this sweetness.”
“Oh, doesn’t he sound masterful.” Fran elbowed Clint. The vision of her in a black leather bustier forced Reece to whip his gaze back to Gina as she opened her mouth to slide the bite off the tines of his fork. His mind went into a sexual fantasy of her taking his cock the same way. He gulped his coffee, hoping his swollen cock would soon lie down for a nap.
He leaned across the table while she chewed. “Tell me why you’re sad.”
She tilted her head. Had his plan to catch her off guard worked? “Piper’s teacher said I wouldn’t be welcome as a chaperone on their trip to the zoo next Tuesday. I was really looking forward to it. I was also fired as a room mother. A volunteer position, I might add, but I still got kicked to the curb.” Her brown eyes locked on his. A tear formed and trembled on her bottom eyelashes.
Damn the audacity of that tight-assed bitch.
“Why? Because I stayed at your place last night, fully dressed except for my shoes?” He started to stand and Clint patted Reece’s shoulder.
“Know what you’re thinkin’, son. I’d want to do the same thing if someone talked to my Sugar Loaf the way Holly Evans did your lady. But we have to remember Piper has to deal with this woman every day. We don’t want this sweet child to experience a rough school year because of the teacher’s hurt feelings.”
Reece sat, breathed deep, and uncurled his fist. He placed his hand on Piper’s curls. “No, I want to make Piper’s life easier, not harder.” He leaned his head back and glanced at the ceiling for a couple of beats until his tense nerves relaxed. Looking at Gina again, he offered a contrite smile. “I’m sorry I created problems. I’ll back away if you want, but I’ll do it reluctantly. You and Piper have come to mean a lot to me. Some would say too quickly but life changes in an inst
ant for bad and good. It’s the nature of things we often have to accept.”
“Mommy! Not my daddy!” There was panic in Piper’s plea.
Gina smiled at her daughter. “No, I won’t ask him to stop being our friend. Nor will we argue with Mrs. Evans. Everyone will get along.”
Piper was all smiles. “You’re the best mommy in the whole world.”
The rest of breakfast passed in relative silence. As Reece stuffed his face, he tried not to glare at the opinionated bitch of a teacher. She’d upset his woman. His woman. He liked the sound of that—the truth of it.
“When you come to Eagle Ridge to pick up Piper, why don’t you and I go for a walk? We need to do some talking. Wait. Do you ride? I could have a couple horses saddled.”
“I can ride, although I haven’t in years. That sounds nice. I’ll look forward to it.”
—
Reece’s first stop on his morning of shopping was the grocery store. He grabbed a bag of jelly beans and four big rawhide chews for Nance plus a new Frisbee. Her old one was chewed through in one spot.
Stop two was Tillie’s Homemade Taffies and Chocolates. Junebug bragged on the hand-dipped coconut candies in this quaint shop on Waterfall Road. The bell over the door jangled when he entered. He inhaled deeply and a sugar rush ripped through him. He drooled at the display case. Could he afford a dozen of each delicious-looking kind?
A petite, stoop-shouldered lady wearing a pristine white ruffled apron peeked around the corner. “I thought I heard my bell. Welcome!” She extended her pale, blue-veined hand. “I’m Tillie.”
He held it briefly, too afraid to put any pressure on it. She looked so frail. “My name is Reece Browning. Junebug told me this was the place to come for candy. I have ladies to buy for.”
She preened and patted her white curls. “I just bet you do.” Her faded blue eyes gave him the once-over as she batted her lashes.
“First, I need suckers. I want to have fun with a little girl named Piper.”
Her black penciled eyebrows rose and she scowled. “Are you a dirty ol’ man trying to ply an innocent little girl with candy?” She patted her apron pocket. “I’m warning you, I’m packing.”
Kee-ryst almighty! This old lady is liable to bust a cap in my ass! “No, I’m dating her mother, Gina. Do you by chance know Gina’s favorites, too?”
After calming one irate little old lady down, he walked out of the store intact with no bullet holes, carrying a bag with a box of chocolate-covered macaroons for Junebug, a box of both chocolate-covered cherries and chocolate-covered butter caramels for Gina, and taffy suckers covered in purple wrappers decorated like faces for his little girl. And lastly, a smaller box of chocolate-covered nuts Tillie assured him were Kelcee’s favorite.
Reece smirked. Dust would bitch and act all macho jealous.
Bookstore by the Falls was two buildings down the street. This had to be the most beautiful spot in the world. To his left were manicured grass, mulched flower beds, and shrubbery. Beneath tall trees, wooden benches dotted the area leading to a rock-edged pool of water and a stream created by Wounded Warrior Falls. One’s senses were enticed here. Not just with the music and vision of water constantly tumbling down a fifteen-foot-wide and twenty-foot-high expanse of ancient rocks, but the mist kissing his face as the water rumbled into the natural pond. Leaves, the fragile shade of spring green, opened on the large weeping willows guarding the banks. Ferns peeped through the mulch as did other spring flowers. Gray geese honked as they lazily paddled over the water’s surface.
Small buildings housing stores with apartments above lined the street on the right. Kelcee’s bookstore was at the end of the road at a turnaround. Dust had designed and built an architectural office onto the back of her shop.
Reece entered her bookstore to find Dust and Kelcee engaging in some major kissing. “Are you two checking each other for strep throat, or what?”
Kelcee leaned her forehead against her husband’s chest and laughed. Dust called Reece a bastard with no fucking sense of timing. The two were good together.
He set his bag of candy on the counter, reached in, and extracted the small box for Kelcee. He extended it. “Sweets for the sweet.” He planted a quick kiss on her cheek.
“What the hell?” Dust frowned, hands on his hips, feigning jealousy.
Kelcee elbowed her husband in his stomach before she smiled at Reece. “You bought me a treat from Tillie’s? The house of sin!”
Dust tapped his thumb against his chest. “I’ve got your house of sin right here, woman.”
Do I know my SEAL brother or not?
“Pay my husband no mind. He’s sex starved. It’s been five whole hours. Did you come for Piper’s purple long-eared rabbit?” She set the pink box with “Tillie’s” written in fancy script over it on the counter. Reaching beneath it, she pulled out two rabbits. One big and one tiny. “Which do you want? I have them in yellow, too. They made cute window decorations this year.”
“Has to be purple. That’s Piper’s favorite color.” Reece’s gaze flicked from one to the other. “I’ll take both. The cat can have the small one.” Yeah, he was a goner. So shoot him. Gina made him feel alive again, so did Piper…and the damn cat.
—
He eased his truck in the lane, hoping not to attract the attention of one little girl. By now, Gina would have dropped Piper off for the day. He parked, grabbed his shopping bags and prosthesis, and took the long way around the house using the outside door to enter his quarters. He dropped his fake arm onto the rocker. The bags were plopped onto the floor of his closet. He shoved a large rawhide bone under his t-shirt before tucking the hem into his jeans. He cut open the bag of jelly beans and fished out ten purple ones, eating a few handfuls in the bargain.
His treats in place, he went searching for his furry girl and little blondie. He found them outside. “Piper, what are you doing?” She was bent over, carefully scooping dirt over whatever seeds Junebug was planting.
“Gardening.” She glanced over her shoulder and straightened to get a better view. A dirty finger pointed. “What’s under your shirt?”
“Something for Nance. Watch.” Reece put two fingers in his mouth and gave a shrill whistle. The dog stood from her nap, stretched, yawned, and raced toward him. She sniffed around his shirt and whined. “What, baby girl? What do you smell?”
Nance stood on her hind legs and clamped her jaws on his t-shirt, tugging it far enough from his jeans that the rawhide bone fell out. She snatched it and trotted around, proudly carrying her prize in her mouth. Reece chased her. Nance growled.
“Daddy, you’re so funny.”
“Funny, huh? I guess you don’t want to look at my magic beans, then.” He extended his clasped hand.
“Magic beans?” Her curiosity roused, Piper strode the garden row to him. “What do they look like? How do you know they’re magic? Where did you get them?”
The kid was a question machine. This was going to be fun. He stooped down and opened his hand in front of her.
She bent to look closer and then scowled at him. “They’re jelly beans. I thought you said they were magical.”
“They are. These aren’t the type you eat. You plant these in the dirt and they grow into Easter treats.”
Her brown eyes stared at him. “You can’t fool me with nonsense. I’m practically a genius. Where did you get them?”
“I ordered them online.” One little lie. What could it hurt? “Do you want to plant them and see if they really are magical? The instructions say they’re fast growing.” Okay, two lies.
She tilted her head to the side and studied the candies as if she expected them to jump around or start singing. “Well, they are purple, my favorite color. Okay. Let’s try.”
“Junebug, is it all right if Piper and I plant these magic beans in a foot-square portion of your garden?”
The older lady ambled over, wiping sweat from her forehead. “What are you two up to?” Her gaze dropped to his hand and zi
pped to his face. He winked. She nodded in understanding. “How about over here?” She ran the toe of her old gardening boot in the soft soil, marking off a square foot or so.
“Awesome. Thanks, Junebug.”
“Now, Piper, make a hole with your finger.”
She dropped to her knees and punched her finger into the dirt.
“Pick a jelly bean from my hand and kiss it before you push it into the dirt. Your kiss is what releases the magic.”
Her mouth formed a silent “O” and her brown eyes sparkled with wonder. One by one, she kissed the beans, shoved them into the soil, and covered the purple candies. He snapped a few pictures of her going through the enchanted planting ritual. “Do I water them now?”
Reece pulled a medicine dropper from his pocket. “Seven drops of water on each one. Seven is a magic number, Precious.” He took more snapshots.
Once she was done, she ran inside to wash her dirty hands and he jogged to his room for the new Frisbee. They threw it back and forth to Nance. Every few minutes, she’d run to her magic patch and return, her face a picture of disappointment. “No magic sprouts yet.”
Junebug took Piper inside for a snack and a nap. Reece headed for his shower to wash off the grunge from yesterday and today. He yanked on a pair of boxer briefs and flopped across his bed. Before he zonked out, he reached up and turned on his ceiling fan. He needed to be well rested and clearheaded to talk to Gina when she got here.
—
Gina spoke briefly to Junebug before heading to the outside entrance to Reece’s room. She knocked and when no one answered, tried the door. It opened and she peeked in. Her hormones sprang to life and sang “I’ll Make Love to You.” Shut up, hussies!
Sprawled across the bed was a mass of masculine muscle, totally bare except for his fine behind covered by a tight pair of pale blue knit boxer briefs stretched over the tops of his thick thighs.