Right now, she had Hank in her arms, and she held on tight, scared as hell of how badly it would hurt to lose him if she let herself care too much. Having had her heart shattered once, she wasn’t sure she had the strength to risk experiencing that pain a second time.
* * *
Hank sprawled naked on his bed, working to catch his breath after round two with Gabrielle. She’d proved to be equally as adept in playing with the mask and tormenting the hell out of him.
Then satisfying the hell out of him.
Being with her had been every bit as world-rocking as he’d expected. Now he just had to work to make sure she didn’t run scared. Because already he could see doubts and fears chasing through her eyes.
Curled up beside him, which also kept her face averted, she toyed with the feathered mask. “I hadn’t pegged you for the playful type, but I like the surprise.”
“Glad to hear it.” He stroked his knuckles along the small of her back, just above the sweet curve of her bottom.
“You’re different here, away from the squadron, more open.”
His father’s shadow wasn’t lurking around each corner ready to ambush him here. “Everyone wears a facade at some point.”
“Being bare is a scary thing, being vulnerable.” She shivered and he tugged the satin comforter over her.
He tucked the covers around her and pulled her back to his side. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
A choked laugh sputtered from her. “No one can promise that. Life hurts.”
He knuckled her chin upward until she had to look in his eyes again. “Are you hurting right now?”
She shook her head. “No, of course not. I’m happy and satiated and a little scared, but not sad. Not hurting.”
“Good…very good.” He dipped his head and kissed her, lingering until she sighed. “Let’s see if we can keep you that way. I have a gift for you.”
“Another one?” She crinkled her nose. “You’re going to have to get your business partner to invent a new game if you keep this up.”
“Trust me.” He saw the uneasiness in her eyes, the fear that he would give her something totally inappropriate after they’d had sex. She really didn’t know him well at all. But he intended to change that.
He padded across the bedroom floor to the mammoth wardrobe and pulled out a gift bag from a French Quarter parfumeur. Her eyebrows pinched together curiously as she tucked the Egyptian cotton sheet under her arms. He dropped the bag into the middle of the bed where it landed with a hefty thump.
Tugging out red-and-gold tissue paper and tossing it onto the bed, she peered inside the gold foil bag. A slow smile spread across her face… .
“Bubble bath!” she squealed, pulling out one bottle, then the next, digging her way through the bag filled with different scents and bathing accessories with obvious joy.
“You’d mentioned hurried showers before now. There are definite perks to having me and a nanny around. You can stay in the tub as long as you like.”
She uncorked a small bottle of scented oil and sniffed, moaning in ecstasy. “Heaven.”
Chuckling, he passed her a long skinny box. He had definite ideas for that oil later. “I know this isn’t as nice as diamonds, but I figured you would pitch jewels back in my lap anyway.”
“You figured right. Besides, bath pearls are more precious than the real kind because this really was thoughtful.”
“So why don’t you go try it out now?”
“Right now?”
“Sure. The bathroom’s right through there.”
She rocked forward on her knees and kissed him fast before gathering up her French milled soaps and gels and whatever else chicks called the rest of the stuff. Nearly tripping over the sheet in her excitement, she raced straight for the master bath.
Hank sat in the middle of the bed, leaning back against the headboard and listening to her hum as she filled the tub. As much as he wanted to have her again, he wasn’t going to interrupt her first long bath since her son had been born.
How insane was it that he felt every bit as good about sitting here listening to her sing as he had when making love to her? The sound of her voice stroked him just as completely as her hands.
Damn. Gabrielle might be the one in the tub, but he was the one in serious hot water.
Now that he’d had her, there was no way in hell he could let her go.
* * *
Gabrielle toed the hot water on again, reheating the tub for the third time.
There had to be a special place in heaven for whoever invented the tankless water heater. This hour-long bath soaked stress from parts of her body she hadn’t even realized were kinked. Tension slipped from her every time she opened the drain.
Although she couldn’t give all the credit to the spa bath. Lavender perfume hung in the humid air, Hank’s thoughtful gifts soothing her soul and tugging her heart all at once. The man could have bought her jewels, which she wouldn’t have accepted. Or chocolates, which she couldn’t eat because of nursing Max.
Instead, Hank had paid attention to her needs, to the scent she wore.
She sank deeper into the tub big enough for two and soaked in the mellow tan and butter cream-colored decor around her. Maybe she would finish off with a shower, another pure spa delight with jets lining the corners to spray from all angles.
There was even a flat-screen television mounted high in a corner if she wanted to lean back, hide out and watch a movie.
This place was mama nirvana. She’d never considered herself a materialistic person, but she wouldn’t mind having this all to herself at the end of each day.
With Hank waiting for her in the bedroom?
She couldn’t ignore that they’d taken a huge step tonight. As much as she wanted to tell herself it was only a fling, she wasn’t an affair kind of person. She was still the same person she’d been from the start—the girl who’d lived to be a mother, to have her own happily ever after with the best dressed, most well fed, happiest babies on the block.
Which brought her right back to those fears that had iced her after making love to Hank.
Her last romantic relationship hadn’t gone all that great, even before Kevin died. That last fight with him kept whispering through her mind, how he’d wanted her to move near him and she’d resisted.
Was she crazy to be thinking of the future now? If anything, Hank was more tied to the military lifestyle than Kevin had been. As if their shared past with Kevin didn’t already make things complicated enough.
She toed the hot water off. There wasn’t a heater big enough to chase away the chill settling into her bones.
* * *
Listening to Gabrielle take a bath had been pure torture. But as much as he wanted to slide into the water with her and make love to every inch of her body, he was determined to let her have her quiet time alone, soaking.
Pivoting away from temptation, he pulled on sweat pants, left his room and headed for hers. He could check on Max, give Leonie a break if she was awake. Seemed as if the entire household had an upside down sleeping schedule, their lives wrapped up in making sure Max was okay.
As it should be.
He stepped into her room, scanning for where she’d left the nursery monitor. Leonie’s voice crooned from the next room as she sang some old nursery rhyme. A memory flashed of his mom singing off-key while she decorated the tree, his dad hooking an arm around her waist and vowing his ears were bleeding from the sound.
Both of them laughing together.
Everyone told him she’d been a great mom and from the videos he’d seen, they were right. His dad hadn’t talked about her much over the years, just saying she’d been a real wonder woman, parenting alone most of the time since the military lifestyle kept him away.
Hank trailed a finger along the edge of Gabrielle’s makeshift workstation. She’d set up her laptop on the sofa table behind the love seat and pulled a chair from the hall to set up a mini-office. For her website work? Or school? Or both while she too
k care of her son? She carried the load of three women. He dropped into the seat and wished somehow he could absorb some of the burden for her.
His eyes landed on two scrapbooks resting on a stack of her textbooks. He pulled the album off the top and thumbed it open.
Kevin’s face stared back at him like a sucker punch from the grave.
Hank studied the photo of Kevin with Gabrielle at the squadron Christmas ball, a red rosebud pressed to the corner of the image like a splash of blood. The staged portrait didn’t tell him much other than that it commemorated an event. He flipped the page and found a photo of the three of them at a Shreveport Captains baseball game. Gabrielle wore a jersey and cap, her blond ponytail lifted by the wind. Kevin had his arm hooked around her shoulders. They appeared happy. Really happy.
He looked at himself…and crap.
No wonder Kevin knew how he felt about Gabrielle. One look at this picture would have told an idiot that Hank had a thing for her. His eyes were glued to her like a starving guy on food after a hunger strike.
Yet Gabrielle hadn’t picked up on it. She’d seemed stunned when he’d kissed her a year ago. Or she’d kissed him, as she kept insisting. Once they started, it had been mutual.
Would he ever get over feeling guilty? Even now, the weight of it bored into him like eyes watching him from the grave.
He glanced up fast. Gabrielle stood in the open doorway wearing a simple satin robe. The fabric clung to her damp body in places, her face still flushed from the steamy heat. Her hair was piled up on her head, wisps trailing down and sticking to her neck. Just the sight of her had him wanting her again. His hand fisted on top of the photo.
She walked deeper into the room and sat on the love seat, resting her chin on her arms and staring at him over the sofa back. “I thought you might come join me in the tub.”
“I thought the bath was about you having time to yourself. If I joined you, doesn’t that negate the whole alone-time point?”
“That’s actually a very intuitive thought.”
“For a guy, you mean?” He faked a smile. “Hey, call me Joe Sensitive.”
“You mean Major Joe Sensitive, right?” She laughed, but something sounded off. “I did enjoy the long soak. I may have even drifted off.”
“Good.”
Her eyes settled on the scrapbook in front of him.
He closed the album, fast. “I shouldn’t have looked without asking you.”
She reached to open the book again and turned it toward her. “It’s silly to keep one of these and then never let anyone look at it. I’m sorry that seeing pictures of him upset you.”
“Actually…” He flipped it to the page in question. “I was more upset with myself.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
He tapped the edge of the ballgame photo. “Could I have been any more obvious?”
“I didn’t know.” Her hand gravitated to his face in the picture, tracing his jaw until he could almost feel her phantom touch. “I mean, I knew that I was attracted to you. But I didn’t know you felt the same and especially not on a long-term basis.”
“The way I kissed you didn’t tip you off?”
“I figured I threw myself at you. You reacted on impulse. Which doubled my guilty feelings because I worried I might have harmed your friendship with Kevin.”
“Impulse, like hell.” He leaned back, folding his hands over his stomach. “Suppressed frustration’s more like it.”
She slid from the sofa and walked around to sit on the arm of his chair. Her fingers sketched his jaw for real, her fingertips soft and scented from her bath. “We have about a week and a half left to work those out.”
A week and a half and then he returned to base, to work.
And she stayed in New Orleans?
She hadn’t been willing to move for Kevin. She sure as hell wasn’t going to move because they had one night of crazy hot sex between them. He needed to use his time wisely to persuade her they’d started something here. Guilt be damned, he couldn’t let her go.
He pulled her into his lap and nipped her ear. “What do you say I carry you back to my room?”
“I think you should carry me back to that spa tub so I can take another bath—with you.”
Nine
Getting used to sharing a bed again was easier said than done. Especially since Hank was a serious covers hog.
Yawning, she struggled to orient herself, having been tugged from a deep sleep by the abrupt rush of air over her body. Gabrielle patted the bed in the dark, searching for a corner of the bedspread to yank.
In the week since they’d started sharing a bed—after amazing sex—she’d fast learned that he was a restless sleeper. Which was only made worse by the fact that she was a light sleeper after so many months keeping her ears tuned in for the smallest sound from her son.
But there were so many good things to offset Hank’s cover-snatching habit. Their week together had been packed with more great food and amazing sex. They’d even gone on outings with Max, a long drive, a simple walk along Lake Ponchartrain with Max in the stroller, a concert in the park. People mistook them for a family.
They felt like a family.
She blinked to adjust her eyes, but it was still dark. Moonlight streamed through the dormer window, slashing a pale yellow streak across the bed. She rolled to locate even a sheet and found Hank sitting up.
His eyes were open, but he was clearly still asleep. He’d tossed the covers to the ground. His fists were twisted in the fitted sheet. His mouth moved, mumbling something unintelligible, as if he couldn’t force the sound out.
He was in the middle of a nightmare. A really bad one, gauging by the tendons standing out along his neck. Pain, fear and something very dark pulsed from Hank like waves off a toxic cloud.
How could she wake him up without startling him?
She was afraid to touch him. Not that she thought he would ever deliberately hurt her, but he looked ready to snap. A simple touch could make him lash out.
Leaning away slowly, she turned on the lamp, hoping that might ease him out of whatever night terrors gripped him. His head twitched, but still he didn’t wake. Words tumbled from his mouth, some taking shape, others not so much.
Look out. God. No. Kevin. Hold on.
Realization seeped through her, that toxic cloud expanding to draw her in, as well. Hank was dreaming of Kevin’s death.
Her chest went tight. She wanted to yank on her robe and run far, far away. But she couldn’t leave him in that hell alone. He’d already lived through it once, a torture no one should face. Ever.
“Hank,” she said softly but firmly. “Wake up. You’re in New Orleans with me. Gabrielle. You’re all right. It’s just a dream. Can you hear me?”
Blinking faster, he hauled in breath after breath until he turned to her. “Gabrielle?”
She rested just her fingertips on his arm. “Are you okay?”
He scrubbed both hands over his head. “Crap. No.” His voice came out raw and ragged, as if he was pushing the words over broken glass. “Just give me a second.”
“You were dreaming about being in the Middle East, weren’t you?”
He nodded without speaking.
“About Kevin?”
He nodded again, pulling away to sit on the edge of the bed. If she let the silence stretch, he would leave. His feet were already on the floor. He would shut her out and deal with the pain on his own.
After all he’d done for her, she couldn’t let him shoulder everything. The man put up hefty walls. Time for somebody to be persistent enough to scale them.
She scooted to sit behind him, leaning her cheek on his shoulder blade. “Seeing Max and me must bring it all back. This can’t be what the military meant by taking time off to recharge after a deployment.” She stroked his arm, up and down, again and again, until the tensed muscles relaxed. “Maybe it would have been better for you if you hadn’t come here right away.”
“Don’t go blaming you
rself.” He grabbed her hand fiercely. “I could look at a damn penny and somehow it would make me think of Kevin and that day… .”
“Can you tell me what happened?” she asked, only half sure she really wanted to know, but she couldn’t bail on Hank now.
He glanced back at her, the moonlight casting stark shadows on his face. “Didn’t Kevin’s parents tell you? They were given the official report.”
“I know what happened to him and that you were there.” Although they hadn’t been overly wordy in sharing the details. To this day, she was foggy on why he’d been attacked on the ground. She’d always expected that if the worst happened, it would come from their plane being shot down. Bile burned as she thought about losing both Kevin and Hank. “I want to hear what happened to you.”
He stayed silent so long she feared he might not talk, after all.
Then a sigh racked through him. “We were at a checkpoint. Everyone had to get out of the bus and show papers. Should have been quick and easy, wasn’t even particularly a hot zone.”
His heart hammered faster under her ear as she kept her cheek pressed to his back. She slid her arms around him, holding him, and yes, making sure he didn’t bolt away. She just held him and waited.
“A sniper hit Kevin with two shots before I could even move to cover him.”
Only a few simple words, and he’d transported her there with the pain in his voice. She could almost smell the acrid air, feel the grit of sand in her mouth because she would have screamed. God, how could anyone not?
“I carried Kevin back to the bus.”
She hugged Hank tighter, the ridge of scar tissue on his collarbone suddenly all the more awful. “Is that when you got the scar?”
“Yeah.”
She squeezed her eyes closed, swallowed down the push of tears. He had been shot, too. She could have lost them both. But right now was about Hank, being there for him the way he’d been there for her.
Clearing his throat, he continued, “Back in the truck, I radioed for the medics to backtrack, but the frequency was full of everyone calling in. I tore off his vest, his shirt.”
Her mind filled with images of those final moments of Kevin’s life spent in a stark military bus in a foreign land. How many others had been on the bus with them? Just his crew or other crews, as well? She could hear the voices, the shouts, imagine the smell of death and desperation.
Honorable Intentions Page 10