Mary Margret Daughtridge SEALed Bundle

by Mary Margret Daughtridge

  If she couldn’t accept it because there might be strings attached, then he’d make sure she understood that there weren’t any strings.

  “Okay, let’s set a boundary and agree on it. It’s important to Tyler to have a bed. That’s why I want to get it and that’s the only reason. When we leave here the bed is yours to keep or get rid of. But either way the bed is for my son. Get it? Since it’s going in your house it might as well be one you like. But you don’t owe me a damn thing.”

  Something that might have been pain shadowed her eyes briefly, but was gone instantly, replaced by her calm, direct gaze. She had a way of looking at him, just looking, that made him feel like they were the only two people in the universe. It gave him the oddest feeling of peace. It made something go quiet inside him.

  “Getting this bed for Tyler is deeply important to you, isn’t it?”

  Yeah, it was important, but Jax had learned early not to expect others to care what mattered to him. When Corey died, the brief period during which others had cared to learn about his wishes was over. The only thing he had ever wanted as an adult was to be a SEAL.

  Danielle had seemed to want so many things: beds and chairs, clothes and cars, dinners and dancing. He had felt suffocated by the sheer meaningless profusion of her unending desires. Whether she had them or not was immaterial to him. She could spend days looking for exactly the right shade for a lamp, or the perfect pair of shoes.

  At first he had tried to feign interest, but if he expressed a preference Danielle could usually explain why this chair or that color wouldn’t work. After a while he didn’t pretend to care. He only asked how much it would cost and then they would argue about money.

  This whole argument confused the hell out of him. Danielle would have leaped at his offer. Now Pickett had shifted what they were talking about again. He wondered if his chances were better if he admitted the bed was important or denied it.

  Pickett had a way of seeing into what was going on. She already knew. He went with admitting it, though he felt a tiny clutch as he did so. “Yeah. It’s important.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “You can buy the bed. For Tyler.” Pickett glanced at the clock. “And if we’re going to get to Isabel’s shop before she closes, we’d better hurry.”

  EIGHTEEN

  The sign out front notwithstanding, Pickett knew that only the most generous assessment would call the dim and crowded junk shop an antique store. Rusted bicycles were piled beside bedpans. Dusty dolls with patchy hair sat amidst cracked saucers, and ragged books, and broken implements. The air was thick with the mustiness of items that had arrived dirty, and gone downhill from there—and thick with smoke from the omnipresent cigarettes of Isabel, the owner.

  The dismantled bed was in a small back room. Isabel, squinty-eyed against the smoke from her dangling cigarette, used a broom to dispatch the cobwebs that tethered it to the wall, displacing a large amount of dust in the process.

  Jax’s face, impassive since Pickett had directed him to pull the Cherokee into the sagging building that proclaimed itself Topsail Treasures, Antiques and Stuff, had taken on the appearance of stone. Pickett suspected that he was horrified at the bargain he had made. Looked at through his eyes, the bed was not impressive.

  The bed, while certainly not a Stickley but a machine-made copy, nevertheless had the honest lines and sturdy simplicity of the arts-and-crafts movement. It was solid oak, darkened with age, and battered. None of the slats of the headboard or foot-board were missing though, and the rails were intact.

  “Where’s my bed, Pickett?” Tyler, who had been happily unearthing treasures from underneath tables, had already acquired a layer of grime.

  “This is the bed.” Since he was looking right at it Pickett realized the boy couldn’t visualize it assembled. “It’s in pieces, see? We’ll put it together when we get home.”

  “Like Legos?” Tyler leaned against her leg, one grubby hand circling her knee.

  Pickett absently stroked his silken head. “Sort of. You know what? The first time I saw this bed, I thought it was the perfect bed for a boy.”

  “But you didn’t have a little boy so you didn’t get it.”

  “Well, that’s part of the reason.” Buying a bed for a child she might never have would have been unbearably poignant, even had it been in her budget.

  “But now you do have a little boy so everything is just right.” Tyler sighed with satisfaction at the story’s happy ending.

  She didn’t have the heart to set him straight. And the bed was being bought now because of a little boy so the facts were correct, even if as an adult she understood them a little differently. Besides, Tyler and his father wouldn’t be staying long enough for Tyler to get deeply attached to her. The thought was not as comforting as she wished it was. Quickly, she moved on. “You know what we need to do now? We have to go buy a mattress and springs.”

  While they waited for Isabel’s extremely slow dial-up connection to process the transaction, Pickett had to retrieve Tyler twice from the back of the store where he kept discovering more treasures. The second time she returned him to the counter, he suddenly stopped.

  “Look, Pickett,” he pointed, jumping up and down. “Fireworks!”

  Pickett followed his pointing finger to the front of the counter which was covered with posters and announcements, many tattered and yellow with age. A newer-looking poster advertised fireworks sponsored by Surf City to kick off the fall fishing festival, but she didn’t see a picture of fireworks anywhere.

  She knelt beside Tyler. “Where do you see fireworks, precious?”

  Tyler put a grimy hand on the poster.

  Pickett inhaled, then let the breath out slowly. Tyler was four years, ten months. Was he already reading? Keeping her voice casual, she asked, “Can you read what it says?”

  Tyler looked at the poster, then pushed a fist at his hairline—just like Jax when he was frustrated. “Not all of it.” Then he brightened as if he’d suddenly made a discovery. “I can read words I like,” he explained with great dignity. “I like fireworks.”

  Jax signed the charge slip and handed it back to Isabel. Nothing in his demeanor indicated he’d heard Tyler, but in case he had, Pickett wished she could catch his eye to signal that he should play it casual. If he rapped out a demand for more information the way he sometimes did, Tyler would freeze up. Holding her breath, fists clenched in her pockets, she willed Jax to look at her.

  But then one side of his mouth kicked up. He knuckled the top of Tyler’s head gently. “I guess we have to get you some books that have words you like.”

  A look of complete understanding passed between father and son. The little shoulders, so often braced when his father spoke to him, relaxed infinitesimally.

  It was only a tiny moment, but when, at last, Jax looked at Pickett with shiny gray eyes, she knew he had felt the change in Tyler as sure as she had. She pulled her fist from her pocket and raised the thumb.

  Jax grinned like someone who’s just been sent to the head of the class. “Okay! Let’s load up.”

  Refusing assistance, with his usual competence and economy of motion, Jax carried the solid-oak furniture out to the car. When he hoisted the heavy bedstead into the cargo bed of the Cherokee, Pickett shivered involuntarily at the masculine beauty of his action for which male bodies are so suited.

  Isabel managed to smile without dislodging her cigarette and chuckled hoarsely. “You been looking at that bed a long time, Pickett. Looks like you finally found a man to go with it.”

  First her group, now Isabel. Did everyone in Onslow County think of nothing but her sex life? Pickett thought of trying to correct Isabel’s impression but let it drop. Anything she said would only add to the story that would be all over Snead’s Ferry by tomorrow. Though its population swelled during the summer months, Snead’s Ferry was really a very small town, if you counted only the permanent residents. When it came to gossip, only the permanent resid
ents counted. Most of the gossip was friendly interest in the doings of neighbors, but a malicious word or two could conceivably harm her fledgling business.

  “Don’t worry, honey,” Isabel said, correctly interpreting Pickett’s silence. “I don’t tell everything I know. Not that I know anything. A man with Virginia tags bought that bed. That’s all I know.”

  Pickett threw her arms around Isabel’s bony shoulders in a hug redolent of smoke and dust. Behind her smudged glasses Isabel’s eyes watered suspiciously. She pushed at Pickett with the heel of one hand. “Oh go along with you! And don’t you ever tell anyone how much I sold that bed for.”

  By the time a mattress had been purchased, delivery arranged and paid extra for, Tyler was cranky with hunger and a surfeit of shopping.

  Without asking, Jax pulled into a fast-food chain. Truth to tell, he was a trifle cranky himself. He’d had a surfeit of shopping and of cranky four-year-olds.

  “Why didn’t you order a decent meal?” Jax challenged Pickett, his voice sharp with irritation. “You don’t have to diet all time. You’re slender enough.”

  Another time, another subject and Pickett would have responded with a request for him to mind his own business. But now Pickett felt the too familiar slide of distance forming between them. Here it came. She avoided eating at fast-food places not only because her choices were limited, but also because in the land of sandwiches the strangeness of her choices really stood out.

  She put down the hamburger with lettuce and tomato wrapped in paper instead of a bun. The low-carb craze was a godsend to people like her, but for different reasons.

  It shouldn’t be a big deal.

  It wasn’t a big deal.

  And yet when she told people, especially vigorous, physical people like Jax, why she avoided certain foods, she could feel their withdrawal. Suddenly they were on one side of world, and she was on the other. They were the strong, she was the weak. Pickett knew what would happen now. The masculine interest she had felt—that warm awareness of herself as desirable that sped up her heartbeat and made her muscles go loose—would disappear.

  Jax could be pretty blunt, but he wasn’t unkind. He wouldn’t say, “You’re history, kid.” But that’s how it would be. The taste of disappointment was sharp on her tongue as she met his narrowed granite-gray gaze.

  “I have celiac disease. I can’t eat any food made from wheat.”

  Celiac disease. She was the picture of radiant health. Could something deadly be stalking her from the inside? Suddenly Jax’s heart was thudding so hard he could feel the pulse in his fingertips.

  “Are you sick? Are you going to die?” Trust Tyler to zero in on the question. Tyler’s face was white. Jax wondered if his own face was equally colorless.

  “No, sweetie.” With a tender stroke Pickett pushed back the lock of dark hair that had fallen over Tyler’s brow. “I’m not going to die. As long as I don’t eat certain things—like sandwiches—I’m fine.”

  Jax found he could breathe again. She wasn’t going to die. But now he felt like an ass. “I’m sorry, Pickett. I was out of line.”

  Pickett smiled sadly. “It’s okay. I probably should have said something before. I know my eating habits look weird,” Pickett laughed in self-deprecation, “or very high maintenance.”

  Jax felt himself coloring. That’s exactly what he had thought. That she was rich, bossy, prissy, and high maintenance.

  Now he knew she was independent, hardworking, and the prissy came off with the business clothes.

  She definitely tended to be bossy, but he now thought of it more as ballsy. She didn’t so much order people around as simply take over.

  “What will happen if you do eat sandwiches?” Go for it, kid, Jax silently urged Tyler on. Tyler’s endless questioning was coming in handy for once.

  “It would make me feel bad.”

  “Why?”

  “Well,” Pickett glanced apologetically at Jax, “it’s really not suitable for dinner-table conversation.”

  “Go ahead. He’s a kid and I’m a SEAL. Neither one of us has delicacy issues.”

  Pickett turned back to Tyler. “There is stuff in bread, called gluten, that destroys my intestines. Do you know about intestines?”

  Tyler nodded vigorously. “Guts. I saw some guts one time. It was yucky.” Tyler appeared to think for a moment, then laid a small hand on Pickett’s arm. “Are your guts going to come out?”

  Pickett repressed a smile. “No. My guts are fine, now.”

  “And you’ll get all better and then you can eat sandwiches.”

  “No. I can never eat sandwiches, or cookies, or cakes, or anything that has wheat flour in it, ever again.”

  “Never ever?”

  “Never ever.”

  “Is wheat the only thing you can’t eat?” Jax asked.

  “I can’t eat anything made from any grain that has gluten in it. Rye, barley, malt, oats all have gluten. So, no beer, no whiskey, et cetera.” Pickett shrugged. “Fortunately, I never cared for them anyway.”

  Jax rapidly reviewed the items he had seen in her cabinets and refrigerator. That explained the tasteless crackers, the weird snacks like taro chips. “But wait, there’s beer in the fridge and you have bread.”

  “The beer has been in the refrigerator for six months. My brother-in-law likes it. And I keep a loaf of bread in the freezer to make sandwiches for guests.” She kept food that she couldn’t eat so that other people wouldn’t be deprived in her house.

  With chagrin, Jax remembered that she had served him and Tyler toast, and if he had noticed she didn’t eat any herself, he’d only thought she was picky and as absorbed about perfecting her body as Danielle.

  New respect mingled with his always-simmering desire as he admired her shining eyes and glowing skin.

  She took a bite from her hamburger and looked up to find his eyes on her. “What?”

  Jax made no effort to disguise the heat of his wanting, and in a moment had the satisfaction of watching the coral-rose tint of her cheeks deepen. Her eyes widened. She drew in a sudden breath. The dimple at the corner of her mouth appeared. “Oh.”

  Bored with adult talk, Tyler shoved his half-eaten burger away. “I want to play on the slides.”

  Did that kid have timing or what? “Go on outside then.” Jax turned to Pickett.

  She, however, glanced at her watch, then smiled apologetically.

  “Jax, we need to leave if we’re going to get to the house before the mattress does.”

  “Right.” Jax swung Tyler up in his arms. “No slides for you, pal. We’ve got a bed to put together.”

  Pickett had just finished dusting the bed then wiping it with a damp cloth, which she insisted on doing on the porch, when the lights from the mattress delivery truck pierced the gathering dusk.

  Tyler was shrill with excitement, racing upstairs to his room and back in an attempt to be part of every bit of the action. From a vantage point in the wide hall, Pickett listened to her house ringing with deep male voices and heavy male treads. Her house or not, at some point Jax had become in charge.

  In minutes boxes were moved, the bed and mattress set up, and the delivery men sent on their way with tips and thanks.

  Tyler was almost beside himself with joy. If, to Pickett’s eye, the room looked bare with no curtains, no rugs, no pictures, and only one piece of furniture in it, Tyler found no fault with that, and proclaimed this to be the best bedroom in the world.

  At last the bed was made and Tyler tucked into it, a tiny lump in its vast expanse. His eyes were drooping long before Pickett had reached the end of Monster Trucks. Pickett and Jax turned out the light, and leaving the door open, tiptoed away.

  Twenty minutes later the strangeness of having Tyler both silent and apart had gotten to the both of them. Exchanging sheepish smiles they crept back up the dark stairs to peek in on the sleeping child.

  The rising moon spilled light through the curtain-less windows, painting silver edges on tiny out-flung arm
s and legs. Completely abandoned to sleep, Tyler had no awareness of the two adults watching him from the doorway.

  A hint of a tender smile played around Pickett’s eyes. She had the most smiling eyes of anyone he had ever seen. At the fast-food place tonight Jax had seen that for all her frankness and openness, there were parts of Pickett that she withheld. Suddenly he wanted to know what called that smile to her eyes. Careful to move slowly, he touched the tiny crinkles. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Having a bed really was important to Tyler.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry I argued with you about it. Forgive me?”

  “For what? You weren’t in the wrong.”

  “No, I wasn’t. But I didn’t understand—I misinterpreted what was going on. And by arguing I blighted some of your happiness and excitement. I’m sorry for that.”

  Jax pondered what she had said. What was she saying? Happiness and excitement blighted? Having his motives questioned had hurt. More than he would have thought. He could see her point of view, but he thought she had a better opinion of him than that. And he had wanted to do something nice for her. She had already been so generous to him and Tyler.

  Nobody had ever apologized to him before for blighting his happiness. His eyes were suddenly hot and stinging.

  He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Um, it’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not okay. Moments like that are precious and fragile, and I stomped all over it.” She pressed her lips together. “I’m not saying I think I could have handled it better, just that I wish I had.”

  The honesty of that got to him. He slid his arm around her, resting his hand just below the curve of her waist.

  “You know what really bothered me? I wanted to do something nice for you. I wanted to do something that would add to your life. You’ve been kind to Tyler, and generous. We’ve invaded your home, and here we were taking the invasion even deeper. And before you say I don’t owe you, it wasn’t about owing. I just wanted to give you something.”