Navy SEAL's Match

by Amber Leigh Williams

  “Breathe,” he muttered.

  “Yes. In yoga, everything comes back to the breathing. After a couple of respirations, you should really feel yourself relax into it.”

  “Hmm.” He did breathe. And after a few moments, he might’ve felt himself relaxing, just as she’d suggested.

  “Keep breathing.”

  Keep calm. Keep breathing. Two of the hardest things to manage. Though that line of thinking might’ve been somewhat easier to overcome lately.

  If he hadn’t come home... If Mavis hadn’t cornered him under the bougainvillea... Would he be in the same place, this new realm that felt something akin to the calm after the storm?

  He might never be free of PTSD. He hadn’t chosen it any more than he had chosen to be blind. But he didn’t want to be defined by it, nor did he want to be defined by his visual impediments. Mavis had shown him that, too—the day they took her canoe downriver. She’d chosen not to be defined by her epilepsy. In spite of its intrusions into her life, she thrived.

  He would relapse, he was sure, perhaps as long as he lived. The idea wasn’t an easy one to process. What was becoming more and more easy? Believing that he could thrive one day, as well.

  Gavin realized he’d been lying in Child’s Pose for some time. He blinked, pushing up from the heels of his hands. “Frex?” he called.

  “Kitchen!”

  He gained his feet, getting up from the mat. Padding in the direction of her voice, he reached back for his neck, rolling it on his shoulders. More range of motion. He rounded one of the columns that separated one room from the other in the open floor plan. He saw the low table in his path and managed to skirt it at the last second.

  She was busy at the island slicing fruit. “Feel better?”

  “I felt good before,” he noted. “But yeah.”

  She extended a hand. He plucked the red strawberry from her. “These are from Briar. She sent me a basket a few days ago.”

  “I’ve got some fig jam I need to give you,” Gavin recalled, popping the strawberry into his mouth. His taste buds savored the fresh bite of nature’s bounty. “Mmm.” He beckoned for more. She obliged. When he growled and reached again, she quipped, “Just open your mouth. I can bean them in.”

  “Or I could just...” He scooped into the bowl on the counter and grabbed a handful.

  “Hey!” she said. He’d eaten them before she could retrieve them. “Okay, at this rate, we’re never going to have oatmeal.”

  “No control,” he claimed, mouth full. “Not when I’m this famished. And oatmeal?” Lowering his brow, he walked to her refrigerator. “Woman, when you have an eight-hour religious experience, you gotta cap it off with a hearty breakfast.” He opened the door and hunched over to peer inside. “Where’re the eggs?”

  “By now, I hope they’re baby chicks.”

  “A hard-lovin’ man’s got to have the protein. That’s the point of a meat drawer.”

  “Is it?” she asked. She eyed him blandly as he showcased the bottom drawer by sliding it open then closed, then open again. “There’s quinoa. Hummus. Peanut butter. All rich in protein.”

  He shut the fridge, dejected, and braced his hands on his hips. “You were raised on a farm.”

  “What’s your point?” She walked away. “I bought some canned salmon a while back for Prometheus. I can make patties and give you some whole wheat rotini with black onions. Would that be better for you?”

  “You’re giving me dog food.” He glanced around. “Where is the beast, by the way?”

  “We were at the farm yesterday when Harmony talked me into going out,” Mavis said from inside the pantry. “I left him there since Mom and Dad were spending the night in with Bea.”

  Gavin waited until she reappeared. He watched as she bent to retrieve a saucepan from one of the cupboards. As she filled it with water from the sink, he closed the gap between them. “Did he, ah...miss me at all?”

  In the light beaming clearly through the windows around them, he could see her as well as he had in the shower. Her lips curved. “He’ll be happy to see you. I’ll be happy when he stops loafing.” She took the pot to the stove on the island. “It’s pathetic.”

  He leaned back against the sink. “Did you loaf some?”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she teased. A quick fwume accompanied the switch of the gas burner.

  Gavin lifted two fingers, taking his time drawing the sweep of her hair back. Gingerly, he tucked it securely behind the small cup of her ear before sliding his knuckles against the underside of her jaw in a featherweight caress. “It might be better for you if you didn’t. I couldn’t blame you for cutting your losses and moving on.”

  “I thought your time away would’ve healed all that nonsense,” she said with a frown.

  He dropped his hand from her skin, regretful. “I don’t come with a warranty or any guarantee. I’m covered up in warning labels. At some point or another, I’m going to burden you.”

  “Warning labels don’t scare me. I said once that the people who matter will never see you as a burden, didn’t I?”

  “Doesn’t mean I’m not,” he said, refusing to budge on that point.

  Mavis kept frowning at him. Then she shifted her body to face him and kissed his mouth.

  His blood tuned in instantly to the offering, even if the kiss felt like a rebuttal. When she pulled away, they were both breathless. “I want every part of you,” she stated. “That entails everything, Gavin. Even the dark side of you.”

  “I don’t want the dark side.” His lips had that bee-stung feel. He licked them, trying to gather her taste further inward. “I’m hardly going to hang it on your shoulders.”

  Her palm fit over the neck of the wolf on his chest. “You know why you’re here, Gavin? Because I need you. That includes your dark parts.”

  Gavin swallowed. Nobody had ever come out and said it like that. I need you. He wondered if anyone had ever thought it.

  To be needed...the concept was potent. “How long does that have to boil?” he asked of the rotini.

  “I don’t know. Ten minutes?”

  “Good.” He picked her up by the waist. Turning her away from the island, he set her on the counter safely away from the cooking eye.

  “We’re out of condoms,” she said as she spread her legs.

  He stepped into the vee and roped his arms around her waist, boosting her forward on the counter. He brought her torso flush against his. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of you. Just hold on.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  AN ECCENTRIC LADY’S birthday would not be complete without a three-tiered cake, a steaming pot of gumbo and a menagerie worthy of a circus.

  “Frexy.”

  Mavis nearly smiled at the name trickling down the back of her neck, thanks to Gavin’s close press against her from behind. She ladled sparkling pink punch into a cup. “Yes?”

  “Am I hallucinating, or is that a camel?”

  She didn’t have to look in the direction he indicated. “His name’s Melvin. Don’t go near him. He loves women, hates men and is liable to take a bite out of you if you get too close.” Pivoting, she handed him the cup. “Not that I blame him.”

  He was still squinting in the direction of the paddock. “For man-hating or for trying to get a nibble?”

  Mavis lifted a coy shoulder, scanning him. He looked good enough to taste. Sipping her bubbly, Mavis noted his demeanor. The crowd was thick. The slight odor of sulfur wafted by. Someone had handed out sparklers, though it wasn’t yet dusk. She noticed that Gavin had kept a fair distance from the cookers.

  There was color in him, though. Lately his cheeks hadn’t looked nearly as hollow as they had before. He was clean-shaven, which took her back to her balcony that morning where she’d stood with her legs on either side of his, leaning over his lap with a
razor.

  It was their newly minted Sunday ritual. Before breakfast, sometimes even before bathing, they took tea out into the river stillness. He watched her perform her morning yoga sequence. Sometimes she lured him into a short round of meditation. It was difficult getting him to sit still long enough...or to close his eyes. Today, she’d peeked at him two minutes in. His eyes had been open, on her, where she’d seen brushfires and electrical storms. At a glance, she knew he’d forgotten his mantra.

  Meditation had shifted swiftly into a lesson in tantra. Right there. Out in the open.

  It was a shame that now, here at Errol’s, all the morning’s relaxation was vanishing by the minute. She cupped the underside of his wrist. “Hey.”

  He blinked. His gaze pinged to hers, direct.

  She did smile, softly. The muscles around his jaw were tense. In a moment, the nerve at his temple would start doing jumping jacks. “Close your eyes,” she whispered.

  A flicker of uncertainty crossed him. In a second, it was gone. He shifted his feet slightly, exhaled slowly and lifted his chin as his eyes closed.

  Mavis licked her lips. Trust. Her pulse tripped at the raw display. Taking a quiet breath of her own, she stepped into him, like she was about to hug him. She spanned her arms around his waist. Through his shirt, she found the dip of his spine. Pressing her fingertips to either side of it, she kneaded, slowly. Using circles, she made small movements along his spine. Horizontal. Then winding. She began to travel up his back, giving every vertebra the same treatment. Tipping her face to his, she tried to read it. “Stop me if I hit a bad spot.”

  He didn’t stop her. As she began to progress back down his spine, she touched her nose to his collar. Then the glossy button near his sternum. She didn’t rest until her hands reached the top of his sacrum. There, she firmed them.

  “Mmm,” he hummed favorably.

  “Not too loud, Tarzan,” she said with a smile. “We’ll scandalize all the people Zelda wants to scandalize herself.”

  “What people?”

  “That’s more like it.” Her hands flirted with his belt before venturing up the back of his shirt again in a tender sweep.

  “You won’t have to do this every time we go out,” he vowed.

  Because she was feeling especially bold, she ignored the milling party guests around them and skimmed his jaw, which was tense no longer, with a kiss. “Here’s to bringing you back and staying upwind with you in the meantime.”

  He took both of her hands in his, cupping the back of her fingers against his palms and raising them. There was a Creole-style band parading from one end of the wide lot to the other, blaring brass and thumping bass. For a moment, she thought he’d slide them both into the jaunty two-step. “You’d probably rather be over there with the guest of honor or mingling with everybody else.”

  Mavis snorted. “The guest of honor is currently entertaining what appears to be a small herd of half-dressed Dothraki men. She has no need for me.”

  “How does Errol feel about the Dothrakis?”

  “Fine, I expect,” Mavis guessed. “Why would he have invited them otherwise?”

  “And Melvin, the man-hating camel.”

  “Actually, Melvin lives here.” Mavis nodded at Gavin’s surprise. “Errol’s wife’s passion was animals. She brought home strays and rescues on a regular basis. Errol eventually instituted an animal sanctuary here on the homestead. It was their retirement project.”

  “And he kept it up after she...”

  “Yet another reason he never sold the house,” she explained. “It would’ve been difficult relocating all of them.”

  “I understand why Melvin would have a hard time finding a new home.”

  “Melvin’s better at parties,” Mavis said with a nod.

  “Bachelorette parties?”

  She laughed. “I’ll walk with you back to the dog kennels. I bring Prometheus back here all the time for play dates. Errol rescued him and the rest of his litter from the pound when they were just a few months old. They’ve all found forever homes except Lola, his sister. Anyway, I think you’ll enjoy Tony most. He’s been here since the beginning, like Melvin.”

  “You’re going to tell me Tony’s a tiger, aren’t you?”

  “Nope.” Mavis grinned. “He’s a wolf.”

  * * *

  “SHE’S NOT GOING to fix you.”

  The man hadn’t sneaked up on Gavin. Gavin had felt him coming toward the viewing pane of the wolf enclosure. Mavis was inside with several other dogs, rolling, running, chasing. He hadn’t known she could look so childlike.

  It took him a jarring second to match the rusty tenor to the man. Gavin turned his head and took a good look just to be certain. Sure enough, it was Errol. Driving hat. Fading stature. Sun-blotched face. Gavin glanced again through the glass and braced his feet apart, cleared his throat. “I know.”

  Errol measured him sideways. “She’ll try. The ones who love us...they always try to fix the broken bits. It’s through them we see a pathway to something better. Something balanced. In the end, it’s time. It’s understanding ourselves. Recognizing what needs to be changed and achieving it day by day, even if it is by increments.”

  Gavin nodded. “Yeah. I think I got that.”

  “It’s not easy finding one, either,” Errol said thoughtfully. “Who doesn’t scare easily.”

  Gavin barked a laugh.

  “It took a while for me to see it and respect it—that she loved me, even when I was unlovable.”

  Mavis was petting the wolf now, ruffling his scruff, talking to him. Gavin’s heart turned into a snare with a brisk march. He swallowed. “How much of it was about you, though—the issues—and not her?”

  “Too damn much. My wife sacrificed. Zelda does, too. She’s sacrificing right now.”

  “You threw her the world’s most eccentric birthday party. You even invited the Momoa triplets.”

  “But I’m not there. She puts on a good face. It’s what she’s best at. That doesn’t stop me from wishing I was the sort of man she didn’t need to put on a good face for.”

  Gavin’s mouth tipped into a frown. “Do you ever stop thinking they’d be better off if you set them free?”

  Errol loosened a breath, his already sagging shoulders sagging a mite further. “No. If you do it right, though, the question does get quieter inside your mind.”

  Outside of the SEALs, had Gavin ever really done anything right? Had anything mattered as much as this?

  “Now,” Errol said, “ask me if it was worth it.”

  Gavin met Errol’s clear blue stare. “Was it?”

  “Yes,” he said. He didn’t blink. “Hell, yes. I wouldn’t be what I am if not for them.”

  Gavin lowered his head. Slowly, he slid his hands into his pockets where they fisted.

  After several moments, Errol said, quietly, “War might never leave us. It can make you—it can break you. But it’s not who you are. It’s up to you who that son of a bitch is.”

  A half smile grew across the rough plane of Gavin’s face, stretching the scars. It felt tight, but good. “Thanks.”

  Errol made a noise in his throat. “If you don’t call her out of there, she’ll spend the night with the beast.”

  “Why does she do that?” Gavin asked out of curiosity. And genuine perplexity. His eyes lit on Mavis again and the wolf beside her. “Why does she love the baddies as much as she does?”

  Errol adjusted his driving hat and turned to leave. “It’s a fool man who tries to figure out why a woman is the way she is. Especially ones like we got.”

  Alone, Gavin let the vet’s wisdom turn in his mind.

  Mavis lifted her eyes to him. When she beckoned, he moved to join her.

  His cell phone rang. He frowned at the caller ID: Tiffany.

  “Shit,” he muttered. Looking to M
avis again, he saw her pause. Her head tilted, asking what was wrong.

  He hesitated, then nodded toward the exit.

  She must have read him like a fax sheet because there was concern and perception all over her face.

  Gavin turned away from the viewing glass. He waited until he was on the other side of the door and it had closed. “Yeah?” he answered.

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  He held the phone a few inches from his ear. His mother was seething, and he knew why. She pounded through the speaker, and he heard nothing of the glacial tones he had grown used to hearing. She raged, cursing.

  He walked away from the building behind him to put distance between the barking that could be heard from inside. He cut a path away from the party, walking across a long green field toward the distant fence line that marked the eastern boundary of Errol’s expansive piece of property. No one would think to look for him here.

  “This is because of them! You did this because of them—and that place! It’s warped your mind, just like it did when you were younger!”

  “Let me stop you right there,” Gavin interjected. His eardrums were tired of being railroaded. “This time I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen. When I’m done, I’m hanging up and you and I are done, for good, since the papers clearly haven’t told you that already.”

  “The papers. They’re nothing. I’ll take them to court. I’ll take you to court. You have no evidence—”

  “I have plenty of evidence,” Gavin said. “Plenty of witnesses, too. You see, Mom, that’s what happens when you harass someone for so long. You get careless, you get emotional and you screw up. Just like you did with Dad and Briar all those years ago.”

  “You know nothing about that.”

  “I know everything,” he told her. “All the dirty little details you left out of the retellings. I know about the break-in. I know how before you harassed Briar for her real estate, your father, Douglas, harassed her mother for it. You even confessed to the crime, Dad says. And you got lucky. You messed with good people and they let you get away with it. But I’ve been evaluating the situation and I’ve decided that I’m not near as good as them. I’m done looking over my shoulder. I’m tired of you using me to take shots at the people who care about me, the way you never did.”