“Now, let’s not go crazy,” she said, placing her hand on my chest. “I’m still a Texan at heart. Just developing a new appreciation for this country after it nearly killed me, I suppose.”
“Beautiful and worldly,” I said with a wry tone.
“What can I say?” she said, matching my tone. “I’m complex and gorgeous.”
I chuckled again.
“I think my smart-ass ways are rubbing off on you,” I said. “Better get you away from me for your own good.”
I meant the words as a joke, but they hung heavy in the air as soon as I said them. Now, both she and I were aware of the fact that we were about to go our separate ways. We’d take the drive down to Alice Springs; I’d stay, she’d go on, and that’d be that.
“I think we’ve earned a big breakfast,” I said, quickly changing the subject to more pleasant topics. “What do you say we head to that diner and eat every pancake in the place?”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said with a smile. “Gonna need all the fuel we can get for the drive ahead.”
I leaned in and kissed her softly. The kiss stretched from seconds to minutes, and soon we were waking each other up in the most intimate way possible. After we’d finished, we shared a nice, long, warm shower.
The red light on the hotel phone was blinking when we got out. I picked up the phone and called the front desk, getting the message from the concierge.
“Yes, please bring them right up,” I said. “Thank you so much!”
Delaney raised her eyebrows at me.
“Good news! The police retrieved our bags from the rental car and dropped them off at the front desk,” I told her, wrapping myself in a robe.
A minute later a knock at the door meant our suitcases had arrived. After getting dressed in clean clothes, we packed up our things. We took a taxi to the car rental place, picked something out, and were soon in the little retro diner seated in one of the booths.
The waitress arrived, giving Delaney a curious look of recognition.
“Back for more, huh?”
“Can’t get enough, I suppose,” Delaney said with a grin.
We placed our orders. I ordered steak and eggs—rare and scrambled—with a side of pancakes. Sausage and bacon finished my order. Delaney went wild on the pancakes, ordering plain, blueberry, and chocolate chip. And, of course, coffee all around.
Once the waitress left, I stretchered out my arms on the back of the booth and took in the charming, retro style of the diner, with its Formica tables, fifties advertisements, and Buddy Holly music on the jukebox. A few local men sat at the counter eating eggs and bacon, and young women in striped uniforms zipped here and there, taking orders and bringing food and drinks.
“You know what I want to know,” I said, turning my attention back to Delaney. “Is this place actually a retro diner, or are they just so isolated that they think all of this stuff is still in style?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” she said with a smirk. “Place like this feels like stepping out of time or something.”
Delaney and I shared a long look, the din of the diner and the music swirling in the air around us. I wanted to say something, to tell her that us leaving Longbridge didn’t mean our time together had to end. But what could I do? I had a job to take care of, and Delaney was due back in the States. Part of me thought that I ought to just look at the signs, which all seemed to be indicating that whatever Delaney and I had was going to stay here in this tiny town.
And every now and then, a thoughtful look formed on Delaney’s face, as though she was trying to deal with the same dilemma as me. Neither of us seemed to understand how to deal with what was happening between us—not even considering the surprising intensity of our feelings for one another.
“Here you go,” said the waitress, returning with two arms lined with plates. “Hope you’re hungry.”
“You have no idea,” I said.
As soon as the food was placed in front of me, I set upon it like a wild animal. I cut into the steak, the red and brown juices leaking out onto the clean white plate. Stabbing the free chunk, I brought it to my mouth and chewed it slowly, savoring the rich flavor.
“How’s your breakfast?” I asked.
“Delicious,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll be back to city-girl mode here before too long, but at this point I’m still processing the fact that we’re in a place where you just ask for food and they bring it to you.”
“The wonders of civilization,” I said, taking a strip of bacon and dabbing it into a small pool of maple syrup on Delaney’s plate. “Don’t realize how good it is until it’s gone.”
“Until you’re living with a family of koala bears in an oasis,” she said.
“Can’t find too much issue with that leg of our journey,” I said.
The image of Delaney, nude, wet, and tied up, appeared in my mind, and it took extreme mental focus to bring myself back to the present moment.
“Maybe we can track the place down,” she said. “Open a little bed and breakfast there for any other lost travelers.”
I laughed.
“That’s right. Anyone else stranded in the middle of the outback and on the run from kidnappers would find it perfect. Might be a bit of a limited clientele, but the scenery would be worth it.”
Delaney smiled as she cut off another chunk of dripping pancakes and popped them into her mouth.
After we both gorged ourselves to our heart’s content, I paid the bill, and we were off. The two of us climbed into the rental car, our things packed and ready to go.
“All set to leave this place behind?” I asked, taking a sweeping look around the tiny town that had been such a big place in my mind over the last few days.
“I think so,” she said, a slightly wistful tone to her voice.
It was a bit of a strange question, actually. Though leaving Longbridge would mean getting back to civilization, it also meant leaving behind what Delaney and I shared here. The idea of putting it all in the past weighed heavy on my heart.
I climbed into the driver’s seat, and Delaney got in on the other side. Packed up and good to go, I gunned the engine and drove the car out onto the main road of the town. The first few minutes passed in silence as we drove through the downtown area. But as we reached the outer stretches of the town, a thought occurred to me.
“Do you mind if we take a little detour before we get back on the highway?” I asked. “Should only take a few minutes.”
“For what?” she asked. “Was there a tourist trap that you just had to see before we left?”
“No,” I said, “just some personal business to attend to.”
My tone was a little more serious than I’d anticipated, and Delaney nodded without saying a word.
I pulled off the main road and drove onto a dusty path that took us through a small neighborhood. And up ahead was my destination: Longbridge Cemetery.
“Oh,” said Delaney to herself as she realized what I had in mind.
I steered the car into the dusty parking lot outside of the tall, steel fence surrounding the cemetery. There, I killed the engine and sat still for a moment as if summoning up the courage for what I was about to do.
“Come to say goodbye?” asked Delaney.
“Something like that,” I said.
“Take your time,” she said. “I’ll wait in the car.” After a beat, she spoke again. “That is, unless you want some company.”
I opened my mouth to tell her “no,” which was my first instinct. But the more I thought about it, the more having Delaney by my side appealed to me. It was an odd feeling—typically I preferred to keep matters like this to myself, to keep my deepest emotions private. Being in my line of work often necessitated that I play things close to my chest, to keep distance between myself and the women I met.
Delaney was different, however.
“That actually sounds nice, if you don’t mind,” I said.
“Of course,” she said, a small, warm smile on her
lips. “Let’s go—if you’re ready.”
“I’m as ready as I’m going to be,” I said.
She nodded, and we were off. The two of us stepped through the gates leading to the cemetery and looked around. The grounds were small—no more than a hundred or so graves and markers were there, a few stone shrines here and there. The grounds were well-kept, a large square of green grass with a few heavy-branched trees, a small slice of paradise among the rusty-sand of the rest of our surroundings.
I walked slowly through the cemetery, my eyes flicking from marker to marker as I retraced my steps from days before.
It didn’t take me long to find my father’s grave—it was the lonely little stone just to the right of one of the trees toward the far end of the place. My pace quickened, Delaney keeping up to my side with fast strides, and we soon arrived at the marker, my father’s name written in small letters along with the years he was alive. Nothing else was on the stone.
I said nothing for a time, not sure what was even on my mind. Delaney joined me in the silence, and I was glad to have her there beside me.
Finally, I cleared my throat and spoke.
“Hey, Dad,” I said. “Been a while. Well, not too long, I suppose. But the last time I was here, I really didn’t have much to say. Too mad at you for anything like that. Standing where I’d been, thinking about just what you meant to me…all I could feel was anger. Anger that you’d left the family, anger that you’d let Mom and me down.”
I stopped, took a breath, and went on.
“And I think you’d have to admit that I’m not entirely in the wrong for being angry. You’re lucky that Mom is the woman that she is, because I don’t know what we would’ve done if she didn’t have the strength she possesses. But I suppose you had to know that on some level, that she’d have what it would take to see us both through.
“I carried that anger with me for a long time, and part of me thought that coming here and looking at your stone, knowing that you were gone, would make me feel some kind of satisfaction. But it only left me confused, conflicted, and unsure of myself. And if you know me the way I’m sure you did, you know that me being unsure of myself is far from normal.”
I sighed. This was tough, but I needed to say it.
“So, I was all prepared to leave this little town, no more sure of myself than I’d been when I was standing at your grave. But I took a little bit of a detour while I was here. Met a good woman in the process.”
At this point, Delaney glanced over at me, took my hand into hers, and gave it a squeeze.
“And she coaxed out of me how I felt about all of this,” I continued. “About you and me. And I realized that I didn’t need to hold onto my anger anymore. After all, you’re just a human like the rest of us, a person who doesn’t always make the right decisions, who follows his heart even if another part of him is screaming to do something else.
“After all, over the course of the last couple of days, I’ve learned what it’s like to be driven by your heart, to know what it’s like to have someone who inspires feelings in you that you didn’t know you were capable of. Maybe this woman, whoever she was, did the same for you. I suppose I’ll never know.”
I hesitated, closing my eyes and taking a breath. I’d come this far. Might as well finish.
“But what I can do is say I’m sorry. I’m sorry that when you offered your hand to me in reconciliation, I didn’t just slap it aside, I ignored it—something that might be even worse. I’m sorry for forcing you to spend the last years of your life certain that your son had rejected you. And I’m sorry that you left this earth without me by your side.”
I felt the hot sting of a tear form in one of my eyes. I took another deep breath and quickly dabbed it away with my fingertip, not sure if Delaney saw.
“But I know that wherever my life takes me, you’re going to be there, watching from above. And that’s more than I could ever ask for.”
I dropped down to my knees and placed my hand on the cool plaque of the marker.
“I love you, Dad. I always will. And I’ll keep you in my heart for the rest of my days.”
I sat like that for a time, my hand on the marker, the cool late-morning wind drifting through the trees around me. After a while, Delaney stepped to my side and placed her hand on my shoulder. Without thinking, I reached up with my free hand and took hers.
“I…think I’m ready,” I said. “Ready to go.”
“Are you sure?” asked Delaney in a soft voice. “We can stay for as long as you need.”
I shook my head.
“Can’t spend the rest of my life in this cemetery,” I said. “Besides, we’ve got a scenic journey ahead of us.”
She let out a soft laugh at that.
I stood up and took one last look at the grave before turning my attention back to Delaney and seeing that her eyes were wet with tears. I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” she said, dabbing her eyes.
We walked hand in hand back to the car. Once we were seated and the doors were shut, the hush of silence fell over us.
“Listen,” I said. “Thank you for being there for me just now. You didn’t have to do that. And…I felt a little silly about the whole thing.”
“Are you kidding?” she asked. “You were the most open that I’ve ever seen you. That couldn’t have been easy, but you came to terms with your father in about the most mature way I can think of.”
“And…sorry if I burdened you with anything. These are my problems, and I didn’t need to bring you into them.”
I let out a dry laugh.
“First, I land you in mortal danger. Then, I bring you into the middle of my daddy issues. I’m starting to think you bit off a little more than you could chew with this one-night stand.”
She reached over and took my hand again.
“You don’t need to apologize for anything,” she said. “And I think you know that this…whatever this is, was more than just a one-night stand.”
Now it was her turn to laugh slightly.
“That doesn’t mean that the sex wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, however.”
She gave my hand another squeeze. I leaned over and kissed her deeply.
“Well,” I said, sitting back and turning my attention to the road. “I don’t know about you, but I think I’m about ready to leave Longbridge and never look back. How about you?”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
I turned over the engine, and we were off.
Soon, we were back onto the main road, then onto the highway, and then once again in the desert, the very same inhospitable place where we’d done so much more than just survive, as we hurtled towards Alice Springs, the place where in just a few hours’ time, we’d say our goodbyes.
And with a heavy heart, I realized that I didn’t want to let her go.
Chapter 20
Delaney
The drive passed with a strange silence, thanks to the issue that neither one of us was addressing.
Justin and I had gone through one thing after another, the result of every one of our ordeals being that we’d grown closer. There was something here, something special—and all we were doing was ignoring it.
But then again, what could either of us even say? That we ought to be girlfriend and boyfriend now? Everything had happened so suddenly, and bringing the issue out into the open might very well upset the delicate situation, maybe even make it awkward and strange. I was almost content to simply let it pass, like a summer rain or some other force of nature, intended to be enjoyed and not held onto.
Or maybe I was just scared. Strange that even after coming face-to-face with death, looking into my heart and sharing what was inside seemed even more frightening. I felt like a prisoner of my own fear.
The drive went on. Soon, we were about three-fourths of the way to Alice Springs. The journey was almost over, and soon Justin and I would part. I savored every minute we had left to
gether, certain that we’d never see each other again.
We’d chatted on and off during the first part of the journey, but now that we were approaching the end, the gravity of what was taking place was beginning to dawn on us. I didn’t want to say a word, for fear of letting my emotions explode out of me in a messy torrent.
Finally, we arrived on the road toward the small airport outside of Alice Springs.
“So,” I said, trying to keep my emotions in check. “What’ve you got in mind for tonight once I’m gone?”
A grimace formed on Justin’s features for a brief moment as the words “I’m gone” escaped my mouth.
“Well, I suppose I’ll need to be getting in touch with the heiress. With the kidnappers taken care of, the danger looks like it’s passed. But she’ll need to know about what happened. Hopefully, the rest of the mission should go smoothly. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.”
“I see,” I said, not sure how else to respond.
“And you?” he asked. “You’ve got a long flight ahead of you.”
“It’s not too bad,” I said. “Only a few hours. And once I’m in Sydney, I can relax for a bit. Before my boss chews me out for how sideways this whole thing went, that is.”
“You think he’ll be mad?” he asked.
“I’m hoping that once he hears that I nearly died in the middle of the outback, he’ll have a little sympathy on me for blowing the deal. But then again, he’s a bit of a prick.”
Justin allowed a small smile, just as a plane flying overhead let us know that we were almost to the airport. After another twenty or so minutes of driving, we finally arrived. Justin pulled the car in front of the departures terminal and came to a stop, cars pulling around us and people here and there bidding one another goodbye.
“Let me help you with your bags,” said Justin, pulling the emergency brake and hopping out of the driver’s seat.
Before I had a chance to say anything, he was at the back of the car and pulling my bags out of the trunk. With a stony expression on his face, he set them down at the curb and looked up, not meeting my eyes.
“Well,” he said, his gaze toward the airport. “I hope you have a good flight.”
Hot Pursuit - A Marooned with the SEAL Romance (Once a SEAL, Always a SEAL Book 2) Page 14