“You don’t think much of me, do you?” he countered.
“I told you I admire your dedication. Frankly I’m awed by the sacrifices you have made.”
“Dipoma—diplomatic answer. I mean what you think of me. The man, not the SEAL.”
“I think you’re intelligent and you can be trusted to do your duty—to put duty first. I believe those qualities would allow us to be on the same page.”
“Well, let me tell you something else about me. As long as I’m married, I intend to be as married as I know how to be. I don’t do anything halfway. I will give you the best I have. But I won’t do it, I can’t even think about doing it, if there’s no way you’ll give yourself to me.”
His sincerity rang through every note in his dark, smooth voice, was written on every line of his stance, could be read in the vulnerable look in his eyes. She might doubt his ability to live up to his words, but he believed what he was saying. That kind of genuineness could create the mother of all con jobs. “Don’t tell me you’re in love with me!”
To her surprise the uncompromising lines of his face shifted. He looked a little sheepish, adorably boyish. He didn’t let his eyes waver, though she thought they looked a little pained. “Well, maybe. Some.”
She laughed in disbelief. “Some?”
In his life he had never heard one syllable packed with such incredulity and indignation. “How the hell do I know?” He lifted a frustrated hand, reaching for what he didn’t know, and let it fall to his side. “All right, that sounded lame, but what do you expect me to say? I’m attracted to you.”
The pain, which had been just inside the threshold of awareness, suddenly twanged hotter, harder, longer. Sometimes it escalated; sometimes it didn’t. He needed to finish this up and get out of here.
“I don’t know about love. I get wanting sex, you know? But sex with someone else isn’t going to satisfy. I want you. I know that much. Girl, you say yes, and I’ll do you in every one of the eighty-six Kama Sutra positions. Twice. But now… I can wait. I’m not going to force you. I’m just telling you where it’s going to end up. Take it or leave it.”
“You want me?”
“You are the stubbornest woman in the world. What part of want don’t you get?”
“And you’d be willing to turn down everything else I have to offer, if you don’t have that, too?”
“Is that what I said?” The words he meant were not always the words that came out. He mentally replayed his words. The pain in his skull flared with acetylene torch intensity with every heartbeat. He couldn’t believe he’d found a way to take care of everyone, to be free to return to the Teams as soon as he was better, and he was getting ready to throw it all away. Had he lost his mind as well as scrambled his brain?
And yet whether he had thought it through beforehand or not, he had said what he meant. He and Riley might wind up living on his disability and eating a lot of beans, but so be it.
Pain lashed at him. Nausea. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t explain or argue any longer. He spotted his jeans, a dark heap against the lighter concrete. He scooped them up. “Look, JJ, we’ve talked enough. Go to bed. Think it over.”
Lucas rarely slept long or deeply anymore. He heard the distinctive click of the door to the pool. In a few minutes, he opened his eyes long enough to see the young man, Dave, slip from the room.
Didn’t take an Einstein to figure out where he was going.
While Dave had made himself a bed with sheets and blankets on the sofa, Lucas had probed but learned nothing of how the courtship, if that’s what you could call it, was progressing.
Lucas had been clumsy with the young man earlier. It was never good to look too eager. He could blame it on the fact that he had been rattled, badly.
In the ER, he’d faced the truth that so far his strategy, every part of it, had backfired, and he really might not live to see this thing all the way though. But when JJ showed up with Dave, Lucas recognized the kind of luck a man doesn’t get but two or three times in his life.
He didn’t see how his granddaughter could be indifferent to this young Adonis—no, not an Adonis. Adonis made him think of empty perfection.
Lucas wasn’t a sensitive man. He’d never understood why people would want to look at art. Sure, he could appreciate beauty or great design, but that wasn’t what art aficionados (what kind of a word was that—aficionado?) were talking about. He’d had the liberal education of his day, which damn well wasn’t an education in how to be a liberal. He’d only gotten art once when Beth had hauled him through Florence, through hoards of tourists, to view Michelangelo’s David.
He looked at it and felt like he had been opened just as easily as you sink a knife into the heart of a ripe watermelon. The humanity-saturated air of the place had hit his soul. Now, the state of his soul he considered to be the Lord’s business, and, since there was no need for him to worry over it, he’d just as soon not have to feel it.
This Dave looked like the man Michelangelo’s David might have been when he was fully grown—deep chested, shoulders padded thick with muscle, and arms those of a man, the marks of experience as well as character on his face. Still, you never knew.
He’d almost dozed off again when something made him open his eyes and he saw Dave walking toward his bathroom. He turned on the light, and, in the second before the door closed, Lucas saw quite clearly that Dave was wet, naked, and carrying his jeans.
So. His granddaughter and this young man.
So. The two had been skinny-dipping.
Skinny-dipping was good.
Chapter 29
THE NEXT MORNING, JJ SURVEYED HERSELF IN THE THREE-way dressing-room mirror.
From the cocoa-colored sweater, which had seemed stylish when she bought it but had proved to be a mistake, to black patent sling-back pumps that snagged at the hem of her trousers with every step, she was wearing clothes she didn’t like.
Not really intended as a year-round residence, the cottage didn’t have a lot of closet space. JJ stored there only those items she needed for each season. The closet in this house had become a repository of clothes she didn’t wear. On her list of Sunday chores had to go weeding it out.
She’d had to make do with the lipstick and mascara in her purse. She’d dealt with her hair by twisting it up and securing the twist with a faux tortoise-shell pin-through clasp.
Fortunately, her office at Caruthers had a small bathroom completely stocked with makeup, hair dryers, and curling irons for times when a complete change was required and her schedule too crowded to run to Topsail. As she had so many times before, JJ comforted herself that she would be all right once she got to Caruthers.
She wasn’t all right now though. She glanced at the clock and wondered if David would be up yet. Wondered if it would be cowardly to sneak out without talking to him. After a nearly sleepless night, she still didn’t know what she was going to say to his counteroffer.
On impulse, she pulled her cell from her purse and dialed Bronwyn.
“JJ.” Uh-oh. Only Bronwyn was allowed to shorten JJ’s name to Jay. When she didn’t, it was a bad sign. “Did you, seriously, wake up a woman who has just come off a thirty-six-hour shift to ask me that?” Bronwyn’s disgruntled tone was scratchy with sleep.
“Bronwyn, you’ve got to talk to me. I’ve already apologized for waking you. You’re the only one who knows the entire story.”
“I thought you told Mary Cole.”
“About Lucas yes, but I can’t tell her what happened at her daughter’s wedding. If it had been someone else’s daughter maybe—no. Not even then.”
Bronwyn yawned. “I guess I see your point—although technically, the hot sex didn’t occur at the wedding.”
“Close enough. Anyway, you’re the only one I can talk to about it. I’ve gone around and around so many times, I’m dizzy. It feels like the world is turning backwards.”
Bronwyn huffed. “You already know what I think you should do: tell your grandfather to ta
ke Caruthers and shove it! I know, I know,” Bronwyn raced on. Her tone dripped long-suffering. “It’s just for a year, and you have all those people who trust you, and, at the end of the year, you will have everything you want finally and forever.”
“That’s right. And now I’ve found the perfect man to have a non-marriage with, except he insists on sex.”
“Let’s recap. You were willing to go to bed with Blount the Bland but not the man you know for sure can make you see stars when you come.”
“I never said ‘see stars.’”
“Don’t quibble. You called me; I didn’t call you. Bland Blount or Super-SEAL? Which one would it be a hardship to have sex with? Let me see.”
“You don’t understand. He’s unpredictable. He takes over. He does what he pleases without a by-your-leave.”
“Aha. The light dawns! He stands up to you, does he? Not impressed by your money or job title. Gets in your face a little?”
“Bronwyn, that’s an unfair picture of me. You know I don’t walk over people.”
“I know you don’t like to walk over people. There’s a difference.”
“You make me sound like a terrible person.”
“Jay, hon.” Bronwyn’s voice softened. “Listen to me. Some people are too intimidated to speak up to you. You know it, and you bend over backwards to be considerate. Wouldn’t it be nice once in a while not to have to—with someone besides me? Like, a man your own age?”
Her and Bronwyn’s friendship had endured the years since college because they didn’t need kid gloves. Each paid the other the respect of believing her friend could take care of herself.
“Here’s the way I see it,” Bronwyn went on. “You’re hesitating to marry him because he insists upon his conjugal rights. And your problem with conjugation is that you know you would enjoy same. So guaranteed enjoyment of sanctioned sex is why you don’t want to marry him. We in the medical field have a word for that. Nuts!”
JJ rubbed her forehead. “Somehow it made more sense in the wee hours of the morning,” she acknowledged wryly. “I guess all he’s really doing with his demand is forcing me to get honest. Agreement or not, he’s right. Sooner or later, it would happen, and it would just as likely be me who started it as him.”
“Let me go on record as saying I do not think you should let yourself be coerced into a marriage at all, but if you believe you must, then you owe it to yourself to enjoy it.”
Chapter 30
SHE COULD HAVE ACCEPTED HIS PROPOSAL (IF YOU COULD call it that) a little more gracefully, JJ admitted to herself as she guided the Lexus into the Caruthers lot. She had found David in the kitchen cooking breakfast for Lucas. She called him into the dim family room where the blinds hadn’t yet been opened, and said, “Take it or leave it? You win. I’ll take it.”
He had cupped her shoulders with his strong, warm hands and gazed into her face a long time, an odd look of pain tightening the corners of his eyes. “For real?”
She was ashamed of herself. Grudging acceptance was no acceptance at all. Around a strange lump in her throat, she whispered, “For real.”
He had smiled then—a sort of covered smile that was really more teasing light in his eyes than movement of his face. “A marriage deal should be sealed,” the corner of his eyebrow twitched, proving the pun was intentional, “with a kiss.”
He had taken her mouth with gentle ruthlessness, courting, seducing, tempting, each stroke of his tongue both threat of possession and promise of fulfillment.
Her breath hitched even at the memory.
The man took pride in his work—she’d grant him that.
The phone chat with Bronwyn had convinced her to accede to his demands. They weren’t unreasonable, and she didn’t find him repulsive. Her pride would take a beating if her heart got involved before he moved on, but that was no reason to jeopardize the well-being of those who depended on her.
Still, she hadn’t expected to feel something close to lighthearted once the die was cast. Her body hummed, and she felt hope. Maybe the irrational feeling she always had around him, that everything was going to be all right, had finally melted away all her natural leeriness.
Regardless, going into Caruthers after being thoroughly kissed made for a novel experience.
The false summer that had made time feel suspended in the past few weeks had been washed away by the previous night’s rain. The sky this morning was deep robin’s egg blue, and the air was impossibly clear. All across the lot, glass and chrome and multiple colors of metal sparkled as if the whole place smiled. Overhead the blue triangle flags snapped with jaunty energy.
The salesman of the month’s parking place at the door was empty, which surprised her a little. “Red” Attenborough won the coveted space two months out of three, and he didn’t do it by waiting for sales to come to him. To cover the busiest times as well as give them some days off, the salesmen worked a complex rotation. Maybe she misremembered who was supposed to be in early today.
Employees and a few customers called out greetings. She answered with a wave. She stopped at the concierge desk. “Where’s Red this morning?”
“He traded with Robert. Robert’s son has a soccer game this afternoon.”
JJ nodded, her mind already on the next thing. “All right. Get out the sunglasses, Kelly. We’re going to need them today.”
That night, back in his tiny garage apartment in Virginia Beach, David methodically filled a suitcase. He’d returned only to replenish his wardrobe. He’d be back in North Carolina in the morning. He was getting married
You said take it or leave it. You win. I’ll take it. That’s what JJ had said when she came downstairs the morning after the scene in the pool.
He ought to feel more triumphant than he did. It pays to be a winner. Wasn’t that what instructors yelled at trainee SEALs over and over?
David added more T-shirts to the clothes he was packing. He’d need enough for the ten days until his medical leave ran out and he’d have to return to base. A ten-day marriage. He counted on his fingers, glad no one was there to see him resort to that. Not ten, five. They wouldn’t be married until Saturday.
He and JJ had presented their plan to marry to Lucas. To JJ’s surprise, but not to his, Lucas had been delighted but had nixed their idea of a quick trip to a justice of the peace.
“Weddings are about bringing together a man and woman to make a new family,” Lucas had said. “Dave, don’t you want your brothers and sister to be with you? They’ll have time off from their schools over Thanksgiving, won’t they? Plenty of room. You should invite them here.”
So what had been a thirty-minute deal they could have taken care of that very day, since North Carolina had no waiting period, was now going to take three days by the time they had Thanksgiving dinner, an engagement party Friday night, and the wedding on Saturday. David doubted if there was a chance in hell he’d get near JJ in all that time.
David went to his closet. He would need his sport coat. He only had one, an all-purpose navy that hadn’t been worn in a year or more. Thinking it ought to go to the cleaners, he quickly checked the pockets. And pulled out a woman’s thong.
With a car logo in the crucial spot. Whoa. Talk about hot.
The name of the car tickled at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t retrieve it.
How the heck had that gotten in his pocket? It must represent a good time, and yet something about it made him uncomfortable. He tossed it on the bed and returned to his packing.
He stopped counting out sock pairs when he uncovered the shoe box he’d shoved into the drawer after he’d gotten back from his mother’s funeral. It contained personal items removed from his mother’s house since it was going to be sold.
Not much in it, nothing he needed, so he’d forgotten it. Now he opened it. There was the watch his stepfather had given him, some old coins, some of his stepfather’s arrowhead collection. And in a tiny, square, velvet-covered box, a ring.
He took out the ring, repla
ced the lid of the shoe box, and returned it to his sock drawer. His gaze fell on the thong. Who knew where it had come from? He reopened the box and tossed it in.
“Pass the ketchup,” Lucas told Ham. They were eating French fries at Hardee’s. Hardee’s had a twofer coupon for seniors.
Ham shoved the little cup closer to Lucas’s hand. “You’re making a mistake.” Ham gave Lucas a squinty-eyed look.
“The French fries need ketchup.”
“That’s not what the hell I’m talking about. You’re ridin’ high ’cause you think you’re winning. You let JJ go through with this, you’re gonna lose. Big time.”
“I’m not doing it to win.”
“Why then?”
“JJ has got to change while she still can. Young people think old people resist change because they’re set in their ways. Fossils frozen in rocks who can’t see that the world has moved on. That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?”
“Energy. Change requires energy. The time comes when it takes more energy than you can muster. Young people? Young people don’t even know that they have energy. They think that’s just the way it is. I look at JJ. Her train is ready to leave the station, and she’s not on it. I gotta do this.”
“Hey, JJ, how was lunch?” Kelly called from the concierge desk.
JJ pulled down her sunglasses to give Kelly a dry look. “The Rotary Club sends their regards.”
“Did you manage to leave behind any sunglasses?”
“In the ladies’ room.”
Kelly reached under the counter. “I have two things for you. First…” She passed JJ a sheaf of papers. “They finally located the model Mrs. Babcock was looking for. And second…” She handed over a paperback book with a magnificent masculine torso on the cover. “The girls in accounting finished Star-Spangled Heart. Do you want to read it next, or should I send it to the detail shop?”
Mary Margret Daughtridge SEALed Bundle Page 76