by Bella Andre
She beamed. She would move at whatever speed he was comfortable with—but she wouldn’t hide her pleasure at being with him. “Sounds great. I’ll pack our bathing suits.” For a moment, she swore heat flared in his eyes, turning them smoky.
When he and Noah drove away a few minutes later, she could only hope that if just the thought of her in a bathing suit could heat him up, then the reality of it would finally spark him into full-on flames.
* * *
Gideon knew he was playing with fire. He shouldn’t have come so close to kissing Rosie. But he didn’t know how to stop. Not when every self-control trick in his arsenal was failing.
Back at his apartment, he sent Noah to get ready for bed. The kid needed a little independence, rather than having his uncle hanging over him while he brushed his teeth. Besides, Noah wanted to arrange all his Lego creations and toys and books that he’d brought with him. He’d been so tired after all the excitement of the wedding that there hadn’t been a chance, and last night, he’d stayed with Jorge.
For years, Gideon had lived in junky apartments. It hadn’t mattered to him where he lived—not when his sister, and Karmen, were both lost to him. But when Ari had asked him to watch Noah while she and Matt were on their honeymoon, he’d realized he couldn’t bring Noah to a dive in a sketchy neighborhood.
So he’d found this complex with a pool and a second-floor apartment with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a vaulted living room, and a workable kitchen. The complex wouldn’t take Noah’s new puppy, but in all other ways, he’d tried to make it great for his nephew. He’d bought cookware and metal utensils and porcelain crockery because paper plates and plastic forks wouldn’t cut it anymore. Fortunately, he already knew how to cook—he’d had to learn as a kid when their mom no longer had the capacity.
He’d bought a big-screen smart TV so he and Noah could watch movies and play video games and furnished the second bedroom with twin beds in anticipation of eventual sleepovers with Jorge. He also got a love seat that pulled out into a bed and some bean-bag chairs because, heck, what kid didn’t love a bean bag? Plus, he had a waffle maker, a blender for smoothies, and a grill for toasted cheese sandwiches.
Unfortunately, the mental inventory of his kitchen wasn’t pushing away thoughts of Rosie. Of how he’d almost kissed her. Of how he wanted her with raw need. A desire he had no business feeling.
Not after what he’d let happen to his team. Not after what happened to Karmen.
As always when he thought of Karmen, it was with a mixture of guilt and grief. And just like always, he reached for the last thing she’d given him. The only piece of her he had.
He kept the painting locked away in the bottom cupboard of the bookshelf, locked away as if he could lock away all the emotions that went with it. When she’d given it to him, Karmen had explained it belonged to her grandmother. He could hear her now, telling him the story.
“Abuela said it was very special, magical, and that because of its powerful magic, I would one day be compelled to give it away. She said the power in it must be passed on and that I would know the right moment to let it go.” She’d held it out to him. “And now you are the one who needs it most.”
He remembered laughing off her story, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with a painting out in the damned sandbox anyway. Especially when he’d never kissed Karmen, never touched her, never told her he had feelings for her. Feelings that seemed inappropriate for a woman he worked with. But because they were friends, and she’d been so insistent, he’d taken the little painting and tucked it in with his small stash of personal items.
Two days later, his entire team and Karmen were dead.
And all he had left of her was the painting.
He wished she’d told him more, explained what he needed to do instead of reeling off a bunch of magical mumbo-jumbo. He would have done whatever she wanted, fulfilled the legacy, but he didn’t have a clue what to do with it. Since it had come from Karmen’s grandmother, Gideon guessed the artist might be Mexican, but it was signed only with initials.
What exactly could the painting mean? What was its power, its magic? On the surface, it was a religious depiction of two angels, one with dark skin and hair, the other light-skinned and light-haired, their arms outstretched to each other, their index fingertips touching.
All he knew was that the angels hadn’t saved Karmen. The painting hadn’t saved her. And Gideon sure as hell hadn’t saved her.
The artwork in his hands made his heart hurt, made his eyes ache, made every bone in his body feel like it was breaking. Karmen had said it should stay with him until he felt the moment was right to pass it on. But what if he was never able to let go? Not only of the painting, but of Karmen and his guilt over the deaths of his team members? All his fault, all his responsibility.
Warm fingers touched his neck, and Gideon belatedly realized Noah was slipping his arm around his shoulder. He hadn’t even realized his nephew was there. He’d been buried in his memories, his guilt.
“It’s okay, Uncle Gideon, I get sad sometimes too.”
Awe passed through him, that this amazing, beautiful, wonderful child knew exactly the words Gideon needed to hear.
So many times, he’d held Karmen’s painting. So many times, he’d held back tears, never letting himself cry despite the shame, the guilt, the unworthiness. But in this moment, with Noah’s gentle words ringing in his head, he laid the painting aside and wrapped the child in his arms.
Then he finally let out the tears he’d denied for so long.
He didn’t know how hard he squeezed Noah or how long Noah held him. Until his nephew said, “I’m ready for bed. Will you tuck me in, Uncle Gideon?”
“Yeah, sure thing, kiddo.” Gideon picked him up.
And as he carried the boy to his room, Noah reached up to wipe the tears from Gideon’s cheeks.
Chapter Fourteen
“This is a great hike, Gideon. How’d you find this place?” Rosie asked.
He had picked up Rosie and Jorge at nine to beat the heat, then taken them to a rarely used trail in the Santa Cruz Mountains. “Some locals told me about it.”
The redwood trees were immense, bathing the trail in cool shade. Squirrels darted between the branches, and a couple of minutes ago, two deer had bounded across the path in front of them. There were no car engines, no gas fumes, just an earthy peace that settled into Gideon’s bones.
The boys were racing ahead, then running back, probably getting twice as much exercise as he and Rosie were. “Watch out for poison oak, you two,” Rosie called after them. She’d had them all put on a protective lotion too.
He felt strangely light after last night, when Noah’s little-boy hug had broken some sort of dam inside him. And following Rosie up the trail added to his sense of lightness. He shouldn’t be looking at the gorgeous sway of her hips, but it was impossible not to notice everything about her. Not just how sexy she was, but that she was a good mom to Jorge, and Noah too. A good friend to Ari. Not to mention smart and talented and dedicated.
“Last night Jorge wanted me to read more of Revolutionary War on Wednesday,” she said, “but I told him we needed to wait for you and Noah. You did such a great job answering their questions the other night.” She turned around and walked backward a moment. “I hope it wasn’t hard for you to read it. I know it’s not about your war, but it could still be disturbing for you.”
“Maybe a bit,” he admitted. “War is war. No matter what the time period is.” He shrugged, trying to make it look offhand. “But I don’t mind telling them.”
She cupped a hand around her mouth conspiratorially. “What was that about sand in your underwear?”
He laughed. And damn if it didn’t feel good. He didn’t want to be grilled, but talking to Rosie was different. “You obviously heard every detail,” he said with a smile. One that felt a heck of a lot easier today.
“I was shamelessly eavesdropping,” she said, then turned forward again to call to the
boys, “Don’t get too far ahead of us old folks back here.” Then she spoke to him over her shoulder. “You said some days it was boring over there. Really? Boring?”
“Yeah.” He half snorted the word. “Tower duty could suck. Six hours of watching for anything suspicious. But we did good works too, trying to build trust with the locals. We constructed schools. Even dug a well for a small village whose well had become contaminated.” It had felt good at the time. Worthwhile.
“Did you ever get time off?”
“Not a lot. Idle hands and all that. They wanted to keep us busy. But we figured out how to have fun. Me and my buddy Zach, Zach Smith—they called us Alias Smith and Jones—he was a huge prankster. We both were, to be honest. One time we switched the gear for Shrimp—he was the tallest guy in our unit—with Dozer.”
“Don’t tell me. Dozer was the shortest.” The laughter in her voice filtered back to him, doing things to his insides.
“You got it. So Shrimp tries to pull on his pants and starts cussing up a storm that the locals he’d paid to do his laundry had shrunk all his stuff. And Dozer says, ‘Give me twenty bucks and I’ll let you use mine ’cause they seem to have stretched.’ Swear to God, Shrimp gave him the twenty bucks.”
He hadn’t thought about all that in years. They’d played a whole lot of harmless pranks, and it kept the guys laughing. Over there, laughter had been like medicine.
Talking to Rosie was like medicine now.
“Why did Shrimp have to pay someone to do his laundry?” she asked, holding a low-hanging branch out of the way so it didn’t slap his face. “Didn’t you guys have some sort of unit that did all that stuff?”
“Nope. You did your own. If the base was big enough, you might have a couple of machines or even a real laundromat. But small bases without any running water, you’d have to handwash it all in a bucket.” Or you stank, he mentally added.
“Now I’m feeling all high maintenance for needing running water for my washing machine and my dishwasher and my garbage disposal.”
He thought of Karmen. Before she’d joined up, she’d been a real girly girl, according to Mrs. Sanchez, her mother. But Karmen had lived like the rest of them with never a complaint.
“You’d have done fine,” he told her. Rosie was the furthest thing from high maintenance. “You get used to the food and the routines and the job and the people.” He’d gotten used to it, even the guard tower, though, thank God, he’d eventually been promoted out of that duty. He’d reenlisted a few times and might even have re-upped again.
If he hadn’t lost his team.
In all the time he’d been back, he’d never thought of any of this. Not until now. He’d only thought about that day, the IED, his team, Karmen. But he’d realized when he was answering the boys’ questions the other night that every day hadn’t been a firefight. Sure, there’d been bad times. But there’d been a lot of good days too.
And talking to Rosie about it was as much a release as letting it out with Noah last night had been.
“Thanks,” he said softly.
She stopped a second, looked back at him. “For what?”
“For listening.” And for not asking the hard questions, he thought to himself. He had the sense, though, that when the time was right, he could tell Rosie. She would listen like a friend.
Because, he suddenly realized, she was his friend. She always had been, since the day Ari had introduced her.
* * *
When they returned to Gideon’s apartment complex for an afternoon of swimming, the boys rushed off to Noah’s room to change into their swim trunks. Rosie had her bathing suit in her carryall.
As Gideon went into his bedroom to put on his trunks and she used the hall bathroom to change into a one-piece and a semi-sheer cover-up, Rosie marveled at how differently today had turned out to be. Far from what she’d expected.
After last night’s almost-kiss, she’d assumed he’d tell himself he’d been crazy and resume efforts to block her out. But if anything, he’d seemed more easy and open with her on the hiking trail than he’d ever been before. He’d talked about the war, what it was like in the Middle East, about daily life. He’d even laughed—with her, not just the kids. There hadn’t been dark clouds hanging over him. Twice in two days, he’d opened up about his life over there.
He was letting down his walls, not just with the boys, but with her.
He was starting to see things differently, that it hadn’t been only darkness. There’d been good things too. And he’d shared all that with her. He’d let her help him, taken what she had to offer. Just the memory of it made her heart feel fluttery.
Gideon’s apartment was surprisingly kid-friendly, with bean-bag chairs, a big-screen TV, an Xbox, lots of children’s books, and a toy box full of Lego pieces and robots and dump trucks and cranes and diggers. Noah was a great one for building. Ari said he wanted to be a structural engineer when he grew up. Trust the son of a robotics billionaire to decide at such a young age that he wanted to be something so specific.
Rosie was about to plop down on the love seat to wait for Gideon and the boys when she saw the painting. Right before she almost crushed it.
She tipped her head, looking at it sideways. Then looked at it the other way. The painting was small, a twelve-by-twelve square in a plain frame. But the detail was phenomenal, the two angels rendered precisely. It wasn’t a print—she could tell by the fine lines in the paint that it was old. Well used, well handled, and well loved.
She wondered why such a precious piece of art wasn’t hanging on Gideon’s wall.
It wasn’t until she bent over and examined it more closely that she saw the initials.
Oh my God. It couldn’t be. Could it?
“What are you doing?”
She jumped away from the painting so fast, she almost fell backward. Gideon hadn’t yelled, his voice hadn’t even been harsh, yet she still felt like she’d been caught snooping.
“The painting. I almost sat on it. But thankfully, I didn’t. And when I looked closer at it, I—”
Her words fell away as he grabbed the painting, holding it close to his chest. Agitation had turned his eyes stormy.
“Where did you get it?” she asked softly. How long had he owned it? Did he even know what it was? Maybe it wasn’t real. But what if it was? She had so many questions, it was hard to sound casual.
“A friend gave it to me,” he said, a hint of caution in his voice.
It must have been some friend. “Can I look at it? Please?”
For a moment, she thought he might not let the painting go. Finally, he turned it around for her to see.
Good Lord. “It’s amazing,” she whispered. “Do you…” She had to take a breath before asking, “Do you know the artist?”
He shook his head. “It’s just initials. MFC. I have no idea who painted it.”
She wasn’t an expert, by any means. But she had not only studied art history, she loved art history. And she loved the work of this artist most of all.
“Do you remember Jorge’s favorite painting at the Legion of Honor?”
He nodded. “The scene in the square with the lady. I liked that one too.”
“Did you notice the signature on it?” When he shook his head, she said, “It’s by Miguel Fernando Correa. He always signed with his initials.” She pointed to the corner of the painting, barely able to contain the excitement rippling through her body. “MFC. Just like that.”
* * *
Rosie would never lie to him.
But he still couldn’t believe it was true.
They were all outside at the pool, the boys splashing around with the inflatable rafts Gideon had bought them, while beside him on a lounge chair, Rosie was typing into her iPad.
“I’d never seen your painting before,” she said. “It’s a very different style from his other work that I’m familiar with, but even when I first saw it, there was something about it that grabbed me in the same way Holy Day in Monterrey does.�
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“When we were in the museum…” He spoke slowly, as though he was only just beginning to put several disparate puzzle pieces together. “I felt the same way. Like there was something familiar about that painting. Something I couldn’t put my finger on, but couldn’t ignore.”
Gideon had always been careful to put away the painting in the bottom cupboard of the bookshelf. Until Noah’s kindness and empathy last night had made him forget the very thing he never forgot. No one had ever seen Karmen’s painting. Not until Rosie.
She looked at her shoulder, which was turning a little red in the sun. “I think I’m burning.” Setting her iPad aside, she reached into the bag by the side of her chair and pulled out a big tube of sunscreen.
He told himself not to look as she slathered her legs. But his eyes refused to listen to his brain, hungrily tracking every move.
Gideon could feel his breath in his chest and hear his pulse beating in his ears as she smoothed lotion over her arms, her shoulders, the nape of her neck. Then dipped low into her cleavage, making sure she covered the line of the suit.
“Do you need some?” She held up the tube.
Unable to speak, he simply held out his hand. She was still rubbing her lotion in when he was done.
“Can you get my back for me?” she asked.
Touch her? The thought thrilled and terrified him.
She smiled over her shoulder, and he could have sworn there was a challenge in her eyes as she nonchalantly slid her legs to the other side of her chair and presented him with her back.
He glanced briefly at the boys. If they called his name, if they asked him to play with them, he wouldn’t have to find out if his self-control was up to the task of touching Rosie without dragging her into his arms and kissing her breathless. But Noah and Jorge were having so much fun on their own that, for the moment at least, Gideon and Rosie were forgotten.
He squeezed the lotion onto his hand, spread it out between his palms, taking his time, steeling his nerves.
Then he touched her.