But Jake had wanted Daisy Owen.
Crash had seen photos of Daisy that Jake had taken back when they'd first met—back when he was a young Navy SEAL on his way to Vietnam, and she was a teenager dressed in cotton gauze she'd tie-dyed herself, selling her drawings and crafts on the streets of San Diego.
With her dark hair cascading down her back in a wild mass of curls, her hazel eyes and her bewitching smile, it was easy to see how she'd caught Jake's eye. She was beautiful, but her beauty was far more than skin-deep.
And at a time when the people of the counterculture were spitting on the boots of men in uniform, at a time when free love meant that strangers could become the most intimate of lovers, then part never to meet again, Daisy gave Jake neither disdain nor a one-night stand. The first few times they'd met, they'd walked the city streets endlessly, sharing cups of hot chocolate at the all-night coffeehouses, talking until dawn.
When Daisy finally did invite Jake into her tiny apartment, he stayed for two weeks. And when he came back from Vietnam, he moved in for good.
During their time together, at least during all the summer vacations and winter breaks Crash had spent with the two of them, he had only heard Daisy and Jake argue about one thing.
Jake had just turned thirty-five, and he'd wanted Daisy to marry him. In his opinion, they'd lived together, unwed, for long enough. But Daisy's views on marriage were unswerving. It was their love that bound them together, she said, not some foolish piece of paper.
They'd fought bitterly, and Jake had walked out—for about a minute and a half. It was, in Crash's opinion, quite possibly the only battle Jake had ever lost.
Crash watched them now as Jake kissed Daisy again, longer this time, lingeringly. Over by the window, Nell's head was bent over her sketch pad, her wheat-colored hair hiding her face, giving them privacy.
But as Jake stood, Nell glanced up. "Is it my turn or yours to make lunch, Admiral?"
"Yours. But if you want I can—"
"No way am I giving up my turn," Nell told him. "You get a chance to make those squirrely seaweed barf-burgers every other day. It's my day, and I'm making grilled cheese with Velveeta and bacon."
"What?" Jake sounded as if she'd said "arsenic" instead of bacon.
"Vegetarian bacon," Daisy told him, laughter in her voice. "It's not real."
"Thank God," Jake clutched his chest. "I was about to have a high-cholesterol-induced heart attack just from the thought."
Crash took a deep breath, and went into the room.
"Hey," Jake greeted him on his way out the door. "You just missed the morning art lesson, kid. Check this out. What do you think?"
Crash had to smile. Calling the object Jake had drawn an aardvark was too generous. It looked more like a concrete highway divider with a nose and ears. "I think you should leave the artwork to Daisy from now on."
"Tactfully put." Jake blew Daisy a kiss, then disappeared.
"Billy, are you here for the day or for longer?" Daisy asked as Crash gave her a quick hug. She was definitely much too skinny.
Focus on the positive. Stay in the moment. Don't project into the future—there would be time enough for that when it arrived. Crash cleared his throat. "I had the last of my debriefings this morning. My schedule's free and clear until the New Year, at least." Scooping the puppy into his arms, he glanced at Nell, changing the subject, not wanting to talk about the reasons why he'd arranged an entire month of leave. "Is this guy yours?"
Nell was smiling at him, approval warming her eyes as she put away her sketch pad and pencils and stood up.
"This guy is a girl, and she's only here on loan from Esther, the cleaning lady, unfortunately." Nell reached out and scratched the puppy's ears. She moved closer—close enough that he could smell the fresh scent of her shampoo, and beneath it, the subtle fragrance of her own personal and very feminine perfume. "Jake was afraid that you were going to be sent on another assignment right away."
"I was asked, but I turned it down," Crash told her. "It's been over a year since I've taken any leave. My captain had no problem with that." Especially considering the circumstances.
Nell gave the puppy a final pat and her fingers accidentally brushed his hand. "I better go get lunch started. You're joining us, right?"
“If you don't mind."
Nell just smiled as she left the room.
The puppy struggled in Crash's arms, and when he put her onto the floor, she scampered after Nell. He looked up to find Daisy watching him, a knowing smile on her face.
'"If you don't mind,'" she said, imitating him. "You're either disgustingly coy or totally dense."
"Since I don't know what you're talking about—"
“Totally dense wins. Nell. I'm talking about Nell." Daisy kicked off her shoes and pulled her legs up so that she was sitting tailor-style. "She's giving you all the right body-language signals. You know, the ones that say she wants you to jump her bones."
Crash laughed as he sat down on the window seat. "Daisy."
She leaned forward. "Go for it. She spends far too much time with her head in a book. It'll be good for her. It'll be good for you, too."
Crash looked at her. "You're actually serious."
"How old are you now?"
"Thirty-three."
She grinned. "I'd say it's definitely time for you to lose your virginity."
He couldn't help but smile. "You're very funny."
"It's not entirely a joke. For all / know, you haven't been with a woman. You've never brought anyone home. You've never mentioned so much as a name."
"That's because I happen to value my privacy—as well as respecting the privacy of the woman I'm seeing."
"I know you're not seeing anyone right now," Daisy said. “How could you be? You were away for four months, you got back for two days, and then you were gone again for another week. Unless you have a girlfriend in Malaysia or Hong Kong, or wherever it is you're sent..."
"No," Crash said, "I don't."
"So what do you do? Stay celibate? Or pay for sex?"
That question made Crash laugh out loud. "I've never paid for sex in my life. I can't believe you're asking me about this." Daisy had always been outrageous and shockingly direct, but she'd always steered clear from the subject of his sex life in the past. Some subjects were too personal—or at least they had been, before.
"I'm no longer worried about shocking anyone," she told him. "I've decided that if I want to know the answer to a question, dammit, I'm going to ask it. Besides, I love you, and I love Nell. I think it would be really cool if the two of you got together."
Crash sighed. "Daisy, Nell's great. I like her and I...think she's smart and pretty and...very nice." He couldn't help but remember how perfectly she had fit in his arms, how soft her hair had felt beneath his fingers, how good she'd smelled. "Too nice."
"No, she's not. She's sharp and funny and tough and she's got this real edge to her that—"
"Tough?"
Daisy lifted her chin defensively. "She can be, yeah. Billy, if you'll just take some time and get to know her, I know you'll fall in love with her."
"Look, I'm sorry, but I don't do 'in love.'" Crash wanted to stand up and pace, but there was no room. Besides, he knew without a doubt that Daisy would read some deep meaning into his inability to sit still. "The truth is, I don't even do long-term or permanent. I couldn't even if I wanted to—and I don't want to. You know that I'm never around for more than a few weeks at a time. And because I'm aware of those realities, I don't ever give anyone false hope by bringing them here to meet you."
“All those don'ts are so negative. What do you do?" Daisy asked. "One-night stands? You know, that's dangerous these days."
Crash looked out the window. The sky was overcast again. December in Virginia was wet and dreary and utterly depressing.
"What I do is, I walk into a bar," he told her, "and I look around, see who's looking back at me. If there are any sparks, I approach. I a
sk if I can buy her a drink. If she says yes, I ask her to take a walk on the beach. And then, away from the noise of the bar, I ask her about her life, about her job, her family, her last scumbag of a boyfriend— whatever—and I listen really carefully to what she tells me because not many people bother to listen, and I know I'll win big points if I do. And by the time we've walked a quarter mile, I've listened so well, she's ready to make it with me."
Daisy was silent, just watching him. Her expression was sad, as if what he was telling her wasn't what she'd hoped to hear. Still, there was no judgment and no disapproval in her eyes.
"Instead, I take her home and I kiss her good-night," Crash continued, "and I ask her if I can see her again— take her to dinner the next night, take her someplace nice. She always says yes, so the next night we go out and I treat her really well. And then I tell her over dessert, right up front, that I want to sleep with her but I'm not going to be around for long. I lay it out right there, right on the table. I'm a SEAL, and I could be called away at any time. I tell her I'm not looking for anything that's going to last.
I've got a week, maybe two, and I want to spend that time with her. And she always appreciates my honesty so much that she takes me home. For the next week or however long it is until I get called out on some op, she cooks for me, and she does my laundry, and she keeps me very warm and very, very happy at night. And when I leave, she lets me go, because she knew it was coming. And I walk away— no guilt, no regrets."
"Didn't you learn anything from me at all? All those summers we spent together..."
Crash looked up. Daisy's eyes were still so sad. "I learned to be honest," he told her. "You taught me that."
"But what you do seems so...cold and calculated."
He nodded. "It's calculated. I don't pretend it's not. But I'm honest about it—to myself and to the woman I'm with."
"Haven't you ever met anyone that you burn for?" she asked. "Someone you just want to lie down in front of and surrender to? Someone you absolutely live and die for?"
Crash shook his head. "No," he said. "I'm not looking for that, and I don't expect to find it, either. I think most people go through life without that kind of experience."
"That is so sad." There were tears in her eyes as she looked up at him. "It's crazy, too. I'm the one who's dying, but right now I feel so much luckier than you."
Nell was moving at a dead run as she rounded the corner by the stairs and plowed smack into Crash.
Somehow he managed to catch her and keep them both from landing on the ground in a tangled pile of arms and legs.
"Sorry." Nell felt herself blushing as he made sure she was steadily on her feet again.
"Is everything all right?" he asked, finally letting go of her arms. "Is Daisy...?"
"She's fine," Nell said. "But she said yes"
He didn't bother to ask. He just waited for her to explain. He was dressed all in black again today, but because the chill of winter was in the air, he wore a turtleneck instead of his usual T-shirt.
Most men managed to look good in a simple black turtleneck. William Hawken looked incredible.
It hugged his shoulders and arms, accentuating his streamlined muscles. It was funny, Nell had always thought of him as somewhat thin—more lean and wiry than muscular—because most of the time he wore clothes that were just a little too large. His T-shirts were never tight and he always wore his pants just a little low on his hips and slightly loose.
But the truth was, he was built as solid as a rock.
Nell felt herself flush again as she realized she was standing there, staring at the man. "You look really good today," she admitted. "I like that shirt."
"Thank you," he said. If she'd surprised him, he didn't show it. But then again, he didn't show much of anything. With the exception of that one time in his apartment, he played all of his emotional cards extremely close to his chest.
"I'm going to need your help," Nell started toward the second-floor office she'd shared with Daisy. "What do you know about swing bands and health-food caterers? Or how about where I can find a florist specializing in poinsettias and holly?"
"Any florist should be able to handle a Christmas-style arrangement," Crash said, keeping pace. "Health-food caterers—I'm not the one to ask about that. As for swing bands, I've always preferred Benny Goodman."
"Benny Goodman's great, but unfortunately he's dead." Nell turned on the office lights and sat down at the desk with the computer, using the mouse and the keyboard to sign on to the Internet. "I need to find someone good who's alive, and ready to be booked for the evening before Christmas eve." She looked back at Crash. "Any idea where we can get a half dozen twelve-foot Christmas trees with root balls attached—delivered? And then there's lights and decorations... But we can't hire a decorator, because they do that 'monochromatic garbage'—that's a direct quote—all silver or all red, and that's not any good. We need real ornaments, all different colors and sizes."
Crash sat down on the other side of the desk. “Are we having a Christmas party?"
Nell laughed. And then, to her horror, her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them back, but she knew he saw them, because for a fraction of a second, a very peculiar mix of trepidation and an answering flash of pain crossed his face.
"I'm not going to cry," she told him, fiercely willing herself to do just that. "I'm just..." She forced a smile. "I feel so bad for Jake, you know? In a way, Daisy's got it easier, because Jake's the one who's going to have to go on living. And sometimes, when Daisy's not around, I see him, and he has this look in his eyes that just breaks my heart."
Nell sank down, resting her head on top of her desk.
Crash knew she was fighting tears again, and she didn't want him to see. Nell's loyalty impressed him. He understood loyalty. It was the one strong emotion he could relate to—and could allow himself to feel.
"You don't have to be here," he said.
She lifted her head and looked at him through a curtain of rumpled hair, her expression aghast. "Yes, I most certainly do. Daisy needs me now more than ever."
"This wasn't what you were hired to do."
"I was hired as her personal assistant."
"You were hired to take care of all the business aspects of Daisy's career," Crash pointed out, "so that she would have more time to paint."
"A good personal assistant does whatever's needed," Nell argued. "If the dishes need washing, I'll do the dishes. Or I'll clean the fish tank, or—"
"Most people would've given their notice weeks ago. Instead of that, you moved in."
"Yeah, well, the idea of Daisy having to go into a hospice was unacceptable." Nell swept her hair out of her face as she reached for a tissue and briskly blew her nose. "And she hated the thought of hiring some stranger to provide round-the-clock personal care. But she didn't want to dump all that responsibility on Jake, so..." She shrugged.
"So you volunteered."
"I haven't had any medical training, so when the time comes that she needs a nurse, someone's still going to have to come in, but at least she'll know I'll be there, too." Nell tossed the crumpled tissue across the room, sinking it expertly into the wastebasket. "It's no big deal." She took a deep breath and pretended to look at the computer screen.
"That's not true and you know it."
She looked up at him, gazing directly into his eyes. "Are you going to help me, Hawken, or what?"
Crash had to smile. He liked her direct approach. He liked her. He was definitely going to help with whatever it was that she was doing, but first he had to make something clear to her.
"I know we're all trying to be as upbeat as Daisy is," he said quietly, "but that gets hard sometimes. I don't want you to have to worry about what I'll say or do if you need to cry. You don't need that weighing you down, too. We're living with a lot of emotional upheaval here. There's nothing normal about this, and we can't expect each other to behave normally. So, let's make a deal, okay? You can cry whenever
you want, but you can't hold it against me if I stand up and walk away when you do, because... every thing that you're feeling...I'm fighting it, too."
Nell just sat there, looking at him. Her eyes were rimmed with red, she wore no makeup, and she looked as if she'd slept about as much as he had in the past few days—which wasn't much at all.
Maybe they 'd both sleep better if they shared a bed.
Crash gently pushed that thought away. He knew it would be true, but he also knew that the absolute, absolute last thing Nell needed in her life right now was to become intimately entangled with him.
She was the kind of woman he avoided like the plague when he walked into a bar. He'd recognized her on sight that first time they'd met. She was too sweet, too smart, too innocently full of life and hope and promise.
She was the kind of woman who wouldn't believe him when he said he wasn't looking for long-term or permanent. She was the kind of woman who would think that she could change him.
She was the kind of woman who would cry great big, silent tears as he packed his bag—the kind of woman who would beg him to come back.
No, under completely normal conditions, Crash wouldn't allow himself to get close to Nell. And right now she was a bubbling caldron of high-octane emotions. He knew—not with any sense of ego, but from that same flatly factual voice of experience—that it wouldn't take very much for her to fancy herself in love with him. He knew because he was experiencing the very same highs and lows himself.
But, like he'd told Daisy, he didn't do "in love" and he knew himself well enough to recognize that the rush of emotions he was feeling wasn't real. It couldn't possibly be real. And giving in to this powerful physical temptation would be the worst thing he could do to this woman, no matter how badly he longed for something—for someone— to hold on to. No matter how badly he longed for the distraction of sexual release.
He liked Nell too much to use her that way. And knowing what he knew about her, he would be using her.
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