She tugs her foot away, taking the warmth of her touch with her. “About the other night—” Her face is bright red, and I can’t blame her, especially because of how thoroughly I fucked up.
My words shoot out of nowhere. “I should have worn a condom.”
Taya sits tall and crosses her arms. “Umm. That’s not where I was going, but yeah. An important point.”
I take a deep breath. “Sorry. I was just worried because neither of us thought to use protection, and I—”
Couldn’t the couch swallow me whole already? I struggle to find an eloquent way to say her pussy was so bomb I forgot to pull out, but nothing comes to mind.
Taya giggles, and I glare at her.
“You’re right, we both messed up, but it’s nothing to worry about. Got my period,” she says, and my shoulders slump almost immediately. “Plus, I was tested before I left New York, and I haven’t been with anyone else but you since then.”
Why does it feel so good to hear her say that? Taya’s no virgin. I get that. But sitting beside her and staring down into those brown eyes makes it impossible to picture her with anyone else.
Taya, clearly uncomfortable by the way she’s fidgeting with the drawstring of her sweatshirt, clears her throat. “When you’re done reading the book I left you the other day, let me know.” She’s trying to change the subject on me. When I say nothing, her face flushes a distracting shade of pink. “I have the next one. You can borrow it. Just ask first.”
Biting back a smile, I nod. “Promise.”
Straightening, she extends her uninjured hand. Her fist is closed and her pinkie up. She wiggles it, a flustered mixture of embarrassment and impatience, when all I do is stare.
“What’s that for?”
“The promise. It doesn’t count unless you swear on it.”
I lift a brow in question, and she bites her upper lip, slightly crooked teeth sinking into plump, pink skin. “It’s just a thing my dad and I used to do.” The pinkie begins to wilt, and I feel like a horse’s puckered asshole. “Sorry. It was dumb.”
I hook her pinkie with my own before she can lower her hand fully and shake on it. The motion is over and done with in the span of three seconds, but those seconds may as well have been a slice of eternity. Her warmth lingers. My palms itch. I want to touch her again. Longer, bolder caresses across every dip and valley.
Christ on a cracker.
Having deep feelings isn’t an option. I’m broken. I work my ass off to forget it, to dispute it, to hide it. But at the end of the day, only I know the truth. She’ll want all of me, but I left all the good parts of my soul in the sands of Afghanistan. Even before my last deployment, though, I understood love wasn’t in the cards for me. Being away from home over two hundred days a year and barely being able to have any contact because of my job doesn’t foster love. A fact Raychel taught me the hard way, along with reminding me I’m no knight in shining armor.
I kill people for a living.
The ghost of every mistake I’ve made ricochets through my mind in the form of waking phantoms. Even if Taya can get past my TBI, she’d have to put up with the fact that I don’t plan on retiring anytime soon.
Unlikely.
Women have tried and failed. The deployments, trainings, injuries, and even deaths take their toll. It’s why the divorce rate is so high.
But Taya’s smiling at me, and I’m smiling back. Despite my reservations. The moment is unguarded and leaves my skin buzzing.
Taya ducks her head, abruptly shy, and starts talking again. This time I’m not paying attention. I’m too busy listening to the chanting inside my head.
Mine.
Over and over again, the whisper threatens to grow into a shout.
It fills me with horror and dread, but I can’t shake it, and I don’t really want to.
Chapter Sixteen
Taya
I rub the turquoise stone of my necklace, the braided leather cord draped over my fingers. Jim and I have our first meeting with a marriage counselor in about forty-five minutes. The IPP program wants to ensure success so they mandate those who are part of the program meet with their counselor every other month, sort of a check-in. But truthfully, I have no idea what to expect since this is our first one, and I’m nervous as hell.
My cell rings and I look at the screen from the corner of my eye.
Inara.
I grab my phone from the side table, thankful for the distraction, and hit the green button. My life is finally settling down and I’m finding some stability. I’m not sure I’m ready for things to change just yet.
“Took ya long enough to answer. How are you feeling?”
Glancing down at my arm, I bite my lip. “I wish I hadn’t turned down that second bottle of pain killers, but I’ve had worse.”
“That’s not exactly a good thing.”
“No, but at least it gives me some perspective when I’m bitching about how much it sucks to be in a cast again.”
She laughs. “What did your hubby say?”
“Oh, you know, he was a little . . . upset.” Talk about an understatement. If Inara’s concern surprised me, Jim’s overprotectiveness left me speechless. “He can be really intense sometimes.”
“As in the ‘run out in the middle of the night to sleep over at Inara’s’ intense, or the ‘let’s cause a scene at S&S again’ intense?”
I flex my quads and spread my toes to get rid of some of the tension in my body. If only she knew about how he’s got a crush on the woman from Dallas and how he makes his own Spartan-II costumes for Comic-Con each year, maybe she wouldn’t be so critical of him.
“So, how’d you two meet anyway?”
The air rushes out of my lungs. Shit. But before I can stop myself, I blurt out the reason Jim and I are together because when it comes to Inara, everything is second nature as if we’ve been friends for years. “We got married through the military’s new Issued Partner Program. We didn’t know each other prior. It’s kind of like an arranged marriage.”
“Are you in love with him?”
The question shouldn’t be unexpected, yet my lungs seize anyway. Do I love my husband? Jim’s a rock—unbending and unbreakable. He’s offered me a safe place to live and makes me feel like nothing can touch me. He’s the kind of man who’ll fight and die for his own, and I know I can, and will, trust him with my life.
And while my heart senses the answer to the question, the word yes just won’t come out.
“Come on, Taya, spill. It’s just us here.” The expectant silence that stretches between us makes me feel vulnerable and exposed. By habit, I reach for my dad’s sweater that’s folded neatly on top of the nightstand. Luckily, I’d forgotten it in Lyons’s car after we left the storage unit one night. I bring the sweater to my face and inhale my father’s musky scent, taking comfort in the familiarity. Me pressing my face into the cotton, it feels like home.
“Taya, you okay? You sound like you’re huffing glue over there.”
“Hang on, I’m thinking.” The lingering ghost of cigar smoke and cologne transports me to when I was seven years old and picking my way across an icy sidewalk. I clutch my father’s arm with both hands, terrified of falling again. My breath is steam in front of my face, and my nose and ears feel like icebergs. I bury my face against his forearm while he laughs and pats the top of my head. Shuddering, I stick one hand in the pocket of his sweater, where he keeps his wallet, for extra warmth.
My father had worn the same sweater every winter for three decades. I’d finally tossed the old one and bought him a replacement for Christmas last year. After listening to him bitch about the lack of pockets, I’d sewn one to the inside of the coat.
“Come on, girl, how long does it take? It’s a simple yes or no question,” Inara says.
I lay the sweater in my lap and unfold it while I inhale and prepare to answer. Both Inara, and myself. But my fingers slip into the square of space before I do, and encounter something besides fabric. I withdra
w the small piece of paper and stare at information to a cloud account. My heart beats wildly, like it might burst out of my chest. Scrambling to my feet, I hold the sweater tight against my middle with my cast in excitement.
“Hey, Inara? Can I call you back?”
I hang up the phone before she can respond. There’s no grace in the way I stumble over to the desk. I grab my laptop and flip it open. It’s frustrating to type with one hand, but I manage, and a few minutes later, I’m plugging in the username and password Dad wrote on the slip of paper.
Denied.
I try again, making sure to capitalize the correct letters, but it doesn’t work. Fuck. Depending on how long my father had the account, he may have updated the login information. I scroll down and click on the contact page link. Pulling out the phone, I punch in the number for customer service.
After a few moments of frustration navigating through the automated system, I get a living representative on the phone. “Good evening, my name is Thomas. How can I assist you today?”
“My name is Taya Maverick. My father has an account with you but he passed away. The login information he left must be old, and I cannot access the account. Can you help me?”
“Ms. Maverick, please hold while I transfer you to the Next of Kin department.”
Isn’t that nice? No condolences, just let me pass you off to someone else. I clutch my fists and my chest rises and falls more aggressively each second that passes. I grab the laptop and head over to the bed. A few seconds later a new representative is on the line denying me access into the account.
“So, what you’re telling me is you can’t give me the login information?” My teeth grind together. I swear if I could reach through the phone, I’d strangle the woman.
“Ms. Maverick, if you provide us with the information I’ve requested, we can send you a DVD with all the contents of the account. But I cannot give you access.”
“Fine. Send me the email with what you need.” I relay my email to her one more time. A minute later a new notification pops up and I confirm receipt of the email.
“Ms. Maverick, is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No.” I hang up before my anger gets the best of me and I say something unnecessary to the woman doing her job. If only she knew the account might contain information to put away a murderous crime boss.
Luckily, I have all the information they requested. When I had to close some of my father’s other accounts the companies requested the same information. I’d made digital copies of the death certificate, obituary, and all the other standard paperwork, so it only takes me a couple of seconds to fire off the email to the internet service provider.
I slam the laptop closed and fall back against my pillows. I turn my head into one and scream. The jarring motion of screaming and beating my fists on the bed sends spikes of sensation through my broken arm, and I gasp, curling around it until Dad’s sweater is near my face, and my knees are drawn up nearly to my stomach.
Maybe the DVD will contain information to finally put away Marco and Santoro. Maybe this nightmare will finally be over and I’ll be able to live a normal life without always being scared of the monsters from my past finding me.
A soft knocking on my bedroom door draws my attention. Jim pokes his head in, a gentle smile on his face. “Just got home but we do have to head out so we can make the meeting on time.”
I jolt upright. In all of the excitement about finding my dad’s secret account, I’d forgotten all about our upcoming counseling session. I’d take that as a good thing.
My heart flutters when I look into his eyes and I want to ask about how his medical checkup went and what the doctor said about how his recovery is coming along. But he’s right. We need to get going to make our appointment with the IPP committee marriage therapist for our every-other-month check-in. “Be right down.”
Jim nods and ducks out the door. I tuck the slip of paper back into the pocket of my father’s sweater, then head downstairs. Jim and I hop into his truck and drive to our meeting. My stomach twists with anxiety from both not knowing what to expect when talking to the therapist and from having to wait to find out what my father had on the cloud drive.
Jim places his hand over mine, which is resting on the console. “How’s the arm doing?”
“Better.” I spread my fingers so his slip in between mine. “How’d your doctor’s appointment go earlier?”
Jim curls his fingers so he’s holding my hand. “Doc said I’m progressing well. Should’ve taken the meds sooner. Might’ve been back in the field already.”
I swallow hard. With the TBI, Jim’s been home—at least working at base—so I’ve never really thought about him going off to war. While I’m happy he’s getting better, part of me is worried about what it means. Worried about what happens—what could happen—if he’s cleared to return to active duty.
Inara’s question from earlier races through my mind. Am I in love with brash, take-no-shit, honest-to-a-fault, low-key, geeky, inherently sweet Jim? I stare out the windshield and continue holding his hand. He hasn’t changed his mind about the annulment, or at least he hasn’t communicated as much to me. But with each day that passes, my connection to him grows and my heart wants more.
I glance back over to my husband and my throat tightens.
Am I ready to bury another man I love?
When Jim parks the car and leads me up to the counselor’s office, I know I’m quieter than usual. The stress of the situation crawls under my skin and writhes in my gut. What had I been thinking, marrying a man I’d never met? And worse, developing feelings for him? Jim doesn’t want a wife. He wants a way to reclaim his career.
This counseling thing is just an exercise in futility. But we’re here now, so I suck in a deep breath and hold my head high as we enter the counselor’s office.
“Welcome, Jim. Taya, it’s nice to meet you both.” The middle-aged man with a thinning hairline, round glasses, and a soothing smile engulfs Jim’s hand between both of his, and then turns to me and does the same. He gestures toward a plump blue couch and upholstered chair. “Sit wherever you like.”
I sit on the left side of the couch while Jim settles to the right. Our counselor sits in an empty chair across from us, his searching gaze on me. “My name is Dr. Owens. And while I’m planning to start off with a few simple getting-to-know-each-other exercises, I sense a little tension between you, so why don’t we start with you both telling me how things are going so far?”
Crap.
Why couldn’t I have found the information for the cloud drive after our appointment because this is not the time nor the place to slip up and mention my past? Not with someone who reports directly back to the committee. Not when both Jim and I have so much to lose.
Dr. Owens adjusts his glasses and shoots Jim and me a pointed look. “The only way we’re going to make progress is if both of you are open and honest. This is a safe space. There’s no assigning blame here. No right or wrong. Only you expressing yourselves and listening to each other, finding better ways of communicating and connecting.”
Yeah, right. Withholding information about my father’s murder from the committee is definitely wrong.
Dr. Owens pushes his glasses up his nose before targeting me with a warm smile. “Taya, can you tell me how you are feeling?”
Of course I have to be the first to talk. Murphy’s Law be damned. Well, maybe there is something I can bring up. One I’m sure won’t get either of us in trouble because if I sit here silent, who knows if the committee might view that as a form of insubordination. So, I take a deep breath. “I’m frustrated. Jim was forced to enter the IPP program and this marriage. I thought I was being paired with someone who really wanted to make the marriage work.”
Dr. Owens nods and turns his attention to Jim. “Jim, does her statement accurately represent how you feel?”
Jim rakes a hand through his hair and shifts his weight on the couch. Then clears his throat. “My C.O. mad
e it clear I needed to join this program if I wanted to get back to active duty.”
“And how did that make you feel at the time?” Dr. Owens asks.
“Trapped,” Jim blurts out. “Mad. I have—had—no interest in marriage.”
Dr. Owens nods. “Those seem like reasonable reactions to being forced into something as important as marriage. Is there a reason in particular that you had no interest in marriage?”
Jim’s hands flex into fists before he releases them again and clasps them in his lap. “Been married already. Didn’t go well.”
“A bad experience would definitely explain your reluctance.” Dr. Owens turns back to me. “Taya, how does this information make you feel?”
I stare at my hands. “Sad, I guess? For Jim, for having such a bad experience. And sad for me because his bad experience means that he’s not willing to try again with me.” I swallow in an attempt to dislodge the growing ball in my throat. “I came to this marriage hoping to make it real. Hoping for a new start.”
Dr. Owens crosses one leg over the other and leans back into his chair. “A new start? Your application said that you came from New York. Do you want to talk about that, about why you’re looking for a new start?”
Goddamnit. This whole day I’ve been blurting out words I shouldn’t be speaking. First with Inara. Now with Dr. Owens. And the mention of New York and my past there makes my eyes burn. I shake my head. “No. Not right now.”
“That’s okay. How about you share a little more about why Jim’s resistance to the marriage bothers you?”
Okay. This, I can do. “I guess it hurts to find out your husband is counting down the days until he can get away from you, like the end of a prison sentence or something.”
A small noise escapes Jim’s mouth. Dr. Owens’s sharp eyes zero in on my husband’s face. “Does what Taya’s saying not resonate with you?”
I turn to face Jim, who’s staring at me with an intense frown etched into his brow. His fingers drum against his thigh as he turns back toward our counselor. “No. It doesn’t.”
Issued (Navy Seals of Little Creek Book 1) Page 14