Rescue Me: A Bad Boy Military Romance

by Vesper Vaughn

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  LUKE

  The air conditioning still isn’t working. Despite clouds falling across the sky, it’s sweltering inside this clinic. I roll another few layers of paint onto the walls of the waiting room. With each stroke, the room becomes ten times brighter. I pause and wipe my face on my shirt. I glance back at the hallway. “You doin’ alright in there, Ella?”

  “Yep,” comes her terse reply.

  Hearing her voice after all these years is like sweet honey to me. “You need any help with the rest of that wallpaper?”

  “Nah, I’m almost finished,” she says. “I’ll be out in a minute so get a tray and roller ready for me. The drywall’s in good condition so it won’t need any spackling.”

  Perfect. “Will do!” I call back to her. Even though she’s resistant to me, I can tell she’s softening, which is exactly what I want from her. I rest the wet roller on the paint tray and pull my sweaty t-shirt over my head.

  Air rushes to the sweat on my body and evaporates, instantly cooling me. I sigh with relief, bending down to pour out a fresh tray of paint for Ella. When I’m finished, I get back to painting. I love the smell of fresh paint, and the sound of the wet roller against the wall is like a symphony to my ears.

  It’s another few minutes before I hear Ella’s footsteps and I brace myself for her reaction, turning around to see it. “I’m ready for that tray of-“ She gasps and stops dead in her tracks, her jaw dropping. She waits a few seconds before turning away from me. “You’re shirtless,” she says, facing the other way.

  “You’re a doctor, right? You’ve seen a half-naked man before? Well, I know you’ve seen an all naked man before but you know what I mean.”

  Ella turns around to face me again, and I can tell she’s vowed to herself to look directly into my eyes and not move her gaze down to the tattoos on my body. “Paint,” she says. “This isn’t a peep show.”

  I laugh. “Darlin’, you’ve never been to one of those.” I reach out to tickle her ribcage as she gets closer to me. “You’re way too uptight for that. Always have been.”

  I see the hint of a smile even as she wiggles out of reach. She takes the paint tray and the roller and heads back into the bathroom. “Warn me next time you’re stripping,” she says.

  “Why would I do that? It’s way too much fun to surprise you,” I call after her. I wait until I hear the sound of the roller on the wall before walking into the bathroom. “You’re doing that wrong.”

  She glares at me. “I am not doing it wrong. You can’t do this wrong. It’s painting.”

  I shrug. “Your funeral.” But I can’t stand how she’s going back and forth over the same spot. It makes me cringe. “You’re pulling off more paint than you’re putting on the wall when you do that, Ella.” I love the sound of her name in my mouth. I think about other things of hers I’d like in my mouth and grin.

  “Fine!” she yells, handing me the roller. Her lips jut out and I want to bite the lower one. “If you’re so smart, you do it, then.”

  I push the roller back towards her. “Hold onto it,” I say. I step behind her and wrap my arms around her body, putting my hands on her left arm that’s holding the roller. She stiffens at my touch but she doesn’t object. “You do it like this, like the letter W,” I say into her ear. Her red curls tickle my cheek and I breathe in the scent of her lemony shampoo. It’s the same kind she used back in high school. I’ve never forgotten it. One day I went to the base exchange and opened every bottle on the shelf to see if I could figure out which one it was.

  I move her arm up and down and across the wall. She says nothing, but I can feel her heart beating through her damp t-shirt. “Great,” she finally whispers.

  It’s just in time for me to feel something waking up beneath my jeans. I step back. “You got it?” I ask her.

  She nods, wordlessly, and continues painting. “Thanks,” she says. “For showing me how to do it.”

  I shrug. “Least I can do. I wouldn’t have graduated high school without you tutoring me, after all.”

  “That is hardly true. You only wanted me to tutor you so you could get in my pants.” She smiles at me.

  “Prove it,” I say challengingly.

  Ella opens her mouth to answer me but her phone rings. She fishes in her pocket, the moment between us ruined. “Ella,” she says. “Oh, hi, Tanya.” She bites her lip and turns away from me. “Tomorrow night? Alright, then. Yeah. I’ll be there. Seven o’clock? Okay. Thanks.”

  “Barbecue, I take it?”

  Ella nods and gets back to painting. I start to leave the room but she calls after me. “Will you be there?”

  I smile to myself and turn back. “Wouldn’t miss your official homecoming for the world.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ELLA

  ELEVEN YEARS AGO

  “Solve for x,” I say to Luke in the library. I speak in hushed tones even though we’re the only people in here. Even the librarian’s gone home for the day, the sun setting through the windows.

  Luke nudges his thigh against mine and I’m happy I’m sitting down. The heady rush of hormones through my body would probably make me collapse if I were standing up. “You solve for x,” he whispers back to me with a smile on his lips.

  I blush and push my hair back, trying to focus my attention on the sheet of math problems between us. “I’m not doing your homework for you.”

  He laughs and puts his hand on my thigh. “I have a confession to make,” he says.

  “What’s that?” I ask as drily as I can. But my cracking voice gives me away.

  “I’m having a hard time focusing on math right now. See, there’s this gorgeous girl sitting next to me,” he says, nuzzling his mouth up to my ear.

  I drop my pencil and relax into him. “I have to get home soon. My mom has to come pick me up and she doesn’t like driving when it’s dark.”

  He pushes my curly hair off of my shoulder and kisses my neck. “Text your mom that you have a ride, then. I’ll drive you home.” He keeps kissing me and I’m having a hard time breathing under his touch. I surrender to it as he finds my lips, kissing him passionately. He runs his hands over my chest and I sigh as he bites my lip.

  He reaches under my shirt and I pull his hand away. “We can’t. Not here,” I say embarrassed.

  Luke laughs. “You afraid the janitor’s going to walk in here?”

  “No, it just feels weird to make out in the library.”

  “Let’s go to my truck, then. The seats fold down,” he breathes against my neck.

  My resolve is substantially weakening with every single touch of his lips on my neck. I can’t hold out much longer. We’ve been dating for a few months, but we haven’t had sex yet. I’m not sure how much more I can wait. But at the same time, I hardly feel ready. “Luke…” I say softly. “I can’t. Not yet.”

  He pulls away from me, disappointment etched across his face. But he recovers quickly with a smile. He tucks the homework into his math textbook and shuts it, standing up. “Making out only. I promise. Scout’s honor.” He holds out his hand and I take it, reaching up to kiss his lips.

  The door to the library opens and we pull away from each other. I turn to see who is standing there. It’s Amy. She looks pissed. “Sorry for interrupting,” she says. “Miss Tanya asked me to turn off the lights in the library.” She’s fuming.

  “No problem. We were taking this show elsewhere anyway,” Luke says amicably. He picks up my backpack for me and takes my hand. “Night, Amy.”

  He says this like it’s nothing, but I can feel the fire burning from her gaze as we leave.

  We step out into the late April air, an unseasonably cool breeze falling across my skin. “Hey,” Luke says, my hand still entwined with his. “I think you and I should go to prom together.”

  I swallow hard. “Alright,” I reply.

  Luke stops and pulls me against him. “I’m sorry. Did I only just have to ask you once to go out with me and you said y
es?”

  “Write it down in your calendar if you’re so shocked,” I reply. “The day that you convinced me to go to prom without you having to embarrass yourself in front of the entire school.”

  Luke sweeps me off my feet and carries me to his beat-up pickup truck.

  Pure joy rushes through my body. I’m going to prom. With Luke Davis.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ELLA

  PRESENT DAY

  “I’m just saying, for someone who says she doesn’t care so much, you sure are trying on a lot of different outfits,” Alexa says to me from the sofa. It’s the night of my welcome-home barbecue and I’m panicking. I have no idea what to wear.

  I’ve turned my living room into a dressing room. I hold up a black dress and look at myself in my camera phone; it’s substituting for a mirror. “What time do you have to pick up Teddy from his play date?” I ask her.

  She checks her watch. “In about a half an hour,” she replies. “So if you want me to do your hair and makeup, you better decide on an outfit.” She glances at the pile. “I liked the pink one, to be honest.”

  “I don’t have any shoes to wear with that one, though,” I say, never sounding so girlish in my entire life.

  “You don’t have any shoes for a barbecue in that pile, either,” she says. “They’re all stilettos.”

  “It’s been awhile since I’ve had to walk on grass,” I say. “There’s a lot of pavement in Southern California.”

  She sighs. “It all just sounds so glamorous to me, being out on the West Coast in big cities like L.A. and San Diego for so long.”

  “Yeah, I miss it already. Mostly the sushi. And the people. And the relatively low humidity.” I run my hand through my hair. “It’ll never be straight again, I’d guess.”

  “Luke got drunk one night and confessed to Adam that he likes your hair curly,” she says, and my stomach flips at the sound of his name. “So I’d keep it like that.”

  I blush and turn away from her. “I don’t care about that.”

  Alexa groans. “Don’t give me that crap,” she says, handing me the pink dress and a pair of shiny black stilettos. “Go change and I’ll get the rest of you polished up.”

  Half an hour later, I’ve transformed. Alexa’s even managed to make my enormous hair look manageable. It falls in tight curls to my shoulders. “It’s been awhile since I’ve been to a party,” I confess.

  “It’s been awhile since you’re been to a Buxwell party. That’s what you should be worried about. You got your two-steppin’ boots on, girl?” she asks me on the way out the door, exaggerating her Texas accent. “See you at the party!” she calls back.

  I’m so nervous that I end up wiping down my kitchen twice, even though it hardly needs it. I think back to earlier today when Luke and I finished up painting the clinic. How his tattoos had shone with the sweat of hard work, his hard muscles rippling under his skin. How he still managed to smell like a rainstorm even after a day of getting grubby and filthy while renovating. “Stop it, Ella,” I say to myself out loud. My phone rings and I jump about a foot. “Hello?”

  “Hey, girl! How is it in Middle-of-Nowhere, Texas?” Sam asks with a laugh.

  “Hey, Sam. It’s…interesting,” I reply. “And how is the big city life treating you?”

  “It’s harder than I thought,” she replies. “This plastic surgery fellowship might be harder than residency.”

  “And here you thought you’d be getting off easy with a big-income job,” I reply, feeling a little smug.

  “Yeah, well. We all gotta pay our dues. You see any patients yet?”

  “I’ve mostly been channeling my inner HGTV worker bee,” I reply, putting a final polish on my two-burner stainless steel stove. “Doing a bunch of renovations to the clinic here. It’s in pretty bad shape.”

  Sam tuts sympathetically. “Have you been working alone?”

  “Um, no,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat up.

  “Ella. You better tell me who the man is.”

  “What man?” I ask, totally unconvincingly.

  “The man that’s laced in your ‘um no’ reply to me,” she says.

  “He’s nobody. No one. Well, he’s. He’s my high school boyfriend, actually.” I feel myself getting girlish again. If this were a nineteen-sixties teen movie, I’d be on my stomach with my feet in the air twirling the spiral cord of a landline around my finger. I clear my throat. “But it’s not like that.”

  “Oooh, rekindling an old flame? Sounds sexy. I like it. You better keep me updated on that little soap opera of yours, then.”

  “There’s nothing to keep up with, honestly,” I say, but a smile has crept to my face and I can’t push it away.

  “Right, okay,” Sam replies with heavy skepticism. “Listen. Jason’s been calling people asking about you.”

  I roll my eyes. “He cannot take no for an answer, can he?” I ask with dread in my stomach.

  “Yeah, well. Just watch out, okay? I told you he was bad news when you started dating him last year. He’s super fuckable, but there’s something off about him that bothers me. I just want you to be careful, that’s all.”

  I laugh and try to make it sound light-hearted. But in honesty, her words have chilled me to the bone. “I might as well be a million miles away from Santa Barbara, Sam,” I say. “I really don’t think that Jason even knows what leaving California is. I’m not sure he knows that’s possible.” But the chills that appeared a moment ago won’t leave me alone. “Hey, I gotta go,” I say. “The town is having a party for me tonight.”

  Sam laughs. “I can’t imagine living in a place small enough or being famous enough for an entire town to be throwing me a party. It sounds kind of nice to be cared about that much. I don’t even know my mailman’s name.”

  “Yeah, well. Imagine everyone from your high school showing up to say hello to you.”

  I can practically hear Sam shuddering through the phone. “No thanks! You’ve cured me of that fantasy.”

  I ring off and pack up my purse, wheeling my shiny, red bicycle outside. I don’t bother to lock the door behind me. This is Buxwell, Texas. Nobody locks their doors here.

  I use the bottom step of my porch to push the bicycle into motion. It rides as smoothly as I imagine it did the day that it was purchased decades ago. The wind whips over my face and I let out a scream of happiness and satisfaction entirely against my will. I feel giddy, like a little kid again.

  And a not-so-little part of me knows it’s because I’m about to see Luke.

  I pedal faster down the dirt road towards town. If Sam could only see me now, I’m not sure she would recognize me.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  LUKE

  I wake up from my mid-afternoon nap with pain shooting through my leg. I pound at the painfully contracting muscle with my fist, hoping the pain of my knuckles against the muscle will kill my original pain. It doesn’t. I reach over to take more pain pills.

  My house doesn’t have air conditioning, so I’m sleeping naked as usual. It’s on my list; the never-ending list of renovation work that accompanies this money pit, decrepit, former oil-baron mansion I bought. It’ll basically never be finished, and I’ve come to accept that. I look at the clock and realize I’ve napped too long. Ella’s party has already started.

  “Fuck!” I say to no one. I crawl out of bed on all fours, the pain in my leg debilitating me. I make it to the bathroom, one of the only rooms in the house I’ve managed to finish. And I had to finish it first.

  Ella always wanted a claw foot tub.

  I turn the tap as hot as it will go and pour Epsom salts into the rushing water. Steam comes up and makes the hot bathroom even hotter. I see that the sun is setting outside of the window. I push myself up against the tub and crank the handle to open up the casement window. A small breeze pushes through and I sigh with relief.

  I wait on the cold tile floor until the tub is nearly filled, then lower my body into the scalding water, wincing with pain. But it
does the trick, even if I’m nearly giving myself first-degree burns on the rest of my body. My leg relaxes. I stare at my twisted, scarred upper thigh with disgust.

  Tough guys like scars. And if this were just a scar? I’d love it too. Instead, half my muscle has been cut away, leaving me disfigured. At least I don’t limp too much. I can’t rush this bath, as much as I don’t want Ella to think I’ve forgotten about her. I just need to be in here long enough for my pain pills to kick in.

  I tap the warm ceramic edge of the white, curved tub and close my eyes, picturing Ella’s face. Her red, untamable hair fills my mind, and I imagine getting my fingers tangled up in it as I drive myself into her perfect, soft body over and over and over again while she calls out my name.

  I’ve waited so long for her. But in my mind I didn’t expect to have to work to get her attention again. I thought time would have healed the way I hurt her.

  I thought wrong.

  ***

  “Thank God, I thought you weren’t coming,” Tanya says to me at the entrance to the party. The big barn behind the Masonic hall has been filled with music and alcohol, and white lights have been strung from the ceiling. The hay bales have been turned into seating, worn wood slab tables set up for a picnic. The smell of smoked pork fills my nostrils. Tanya hands me a bottle of beer, but I push it away from her. It would fit the image I’m going for of sexy, bad-ass cowboy, but narcotics and alcohol don’t mix.

  I know that better than most people at this point. “I’m good,” I say, looking through the massive crowd.

  “She’s dancing with Clarence,” Tanya says with a knowing look on her face. “I tell you what, I heard you two were getting cozy at the hardware store a few days ago. Wanna tell me about that?”

  I grin at her. “I’m just being neighborly, Tanya. Helping out an old friend with a renovation.”

  Tanya reaches up and adjusts the collar of my button-down shirt. “Well, then, Mr. Neighborly. You’ve got shaving cream on your cheek you might want to take care of.”

  I reach up to wipe it off and realize there’s nothing there. Tanya laughs hysterically. “You’re a lot of things, Luke Davis. A good liar isn’t one of them.” She pats my shoulder and smiles at me. “You go get your girl before Clarence makes a move.”