In guy-speak, or at least in Andy-speak, shoot some baskets meant talk.
And talking—man to man—was something Brittany couldn’t give to Andy. She turned to Wes. “Please stay.”
“Actually,” Wes said, “I spoke to my credit card company. They’re overnighting a new card to me care of a Mailboxes Plus office here in L.A. But I won’t get it until tomorrow. So I was hoping—”
“Terrific,” Brittany told him. “And actually, you can stay for as long as you like. Save the money you’d spend on a hotel, as long as you don’t mind sleeping on the couch. Just chip in a little for groceries.” She looked at Andy, unable to keep herself from asking. “Is everything all right? Did you see Dani?”
“Nah, she’s gone.” He was almost too flip, too unconcerned. Which meant he was terribly hurt. “She packed up all her stuff and cleared out of her dorm room.” He laughed, but it sounded a little too harsh. “Apparently, after spending the past six months talking me into taking things slowly, she really did sleep with Dustin Melero.”
And what could Brittany possibly say to that?
Wes swore softly.
Andy went into the kitchen, apparently determined to move on. “What’s for dinner?”
He didn’t want to talk about Dani. Not now. Maybe not ever—not with Britt. But maybe it was part of the guy stuff he wanted to discuss with Wes.
She hoped so. “You tell me. It’s your turn to cook.” She followed Andy, pushing Wes ahead of her. “No cigarettes,” she told Wes sternly. “You can get through one more day.”
Andy put his backpack down on the kitchen table and opened the refrigerator. “Tonight we dine on…pasta.”
“Wow! What a surprise. You know, I just got some chicken. We could light the grill and—”
“You guys want to go out for dinner?” Wes interrupted. “Like in about an hour? Because I’ve been invited to this party where there’s going to be a buffet. The downside is we’ll have to get dressed up. But I’ve got to go check out Amber’s security system and I kind of promised I’d do it tonight.”
“Amber?” Andy asked. If he were a dog, his ears would have pricked up.
“Amber Tierney,” Wes told him. “Want to come to a party at her house tonight?”
Andy laughed, his enthusiasm a little more genuine. “Yeah. She’s only the hottest woman in America. You actually know her?”
“Amber’s sister—half sister, really—is a pretty good friend of mine.”
“Don’t you have homework?” Brittany asked Andy.
He looked at her. “Don’t you?”
“Of course.” She smiled. “Race ya to see how much of it we can get done in the next forty-five minutes.”
Andy grabbed his bag and bolted for his bedroom. “I don’t have a lot—the baseball team’s going to Phoenix tomorrow, remember?”
Brittany wasn’t too far behind him. “Race ya anyway.”
“I guess that’s a yes,” she heard Wes say as she closed her door.
CHAPTER FIVE
THERE WAS NO DOUBT about it. Wes was certain that a picture of Amber Tierney’s house was going into the next edition of Webster’s dictionary—right next to the definition for pretentious.
How much house—it was a castle, really—did one little twenty-two-year-old need?
“Are you sure she’s not going to mind you bringing two mere mortals to her fancy party?” Brittany asked him as they approached the front gate—also pretentious. The gate itself was iron, but it connected to a high stone wall that had ornate iron pikes sticking out the top, like some kind of fortified medieval keep. The only thing missing were the severed heads of the enemy.
Except the stones in the wall could give even a seven-year-old the toeholds necessary to scale the damn thing. And those pikes, although dramatic looking, wouldn’t even keep Wes’s grandmother out.
“I’m positive,” he told Brittany as they waited for the goon at the gate to find his name on a guest list. “I told her I’d stayed with you last night—I thought maybe she might know Lt. Jones and Melody, but she didn’t. When she gave me the invite, she said, bring your friends. And that’s a direct quote.”
And indeed, they were all waved past the gate and into the yard.
As far as mere mortals went, Brittany really couldn’t be counted among them—not dressed the way she was. She had definitely transcended earthly limitations. She was wearing a black evening gown that accentuated her curves in a way that was entirely too distracting. The dress wasn’t low-cut or see-through the way some women’s were, but every time he glanced at her, it was like, hello.
With her hair piled atop her head, and only slightly more makeup than she usually wore, she looked glamorous and elegant—as if she’d stepped out of a movie. Her smile was so damn genuine and relaxed. Everyone else looked tense, as if they had an agenda.
And indeed, everyone was looking at them, no doubt wondering who the heck she was.
“Everyone’s looking at you,” she whispered to Wes. “Nothing like a handsome man in uniform to create a stir.”
He laughed. She needed to visit San Diego and reacquaint herself with the rest of Team Ten so she could get a clearer picture of what handsome was. “I hate to break it to you, but they’re looking at you, babycakes.”
“Actually,” Andy joked, “they’re looking at me.”
Brittany laughed and even more people looked in their direction.
And Wes, idiot that he was, couldn’t stop thinking about how perfectly she’d fit in his arms. True, she’d only been there for a few short seconds, but she’d hit him with a full-body slam—chest to thighs. It was almost enough to make him regret telling her about Lana.
God, he couldn’t believe he’d finally told someone the truth. He’d never told anyone about his feelings for Lana before—at least not when he was sober.
But somehow, telling Brittany felt right. It felt good in a very strange way—knowing that someone else finally knew.
Except here he was now, lusting after that same someone else.
Of course, he’d trained himself to do that. To act on his attraction to women besides Lana. If he hadn’t, he’d be in a five-year dry spell instead of one that had lasted only ten months.
Ten months without sex. Something was seriously wrong with him. But he honestly hadn’t wanted it.
Correction. He had wanted it, but never when it was blatantly available. Although it had been close to forever since he’d wanted it this much.
And right now, God help him, he was finding it hard to think about anything else.
“Did I tell you that that dress makes you look like a goddess?” he murmured to Brittany now.
She laughed, but her cheeks got a little pink. Wasn’t that interesting?
He put his hand at her waist, pretending it was to steer her around a series of lounge chairs as they approached a huge swimming pool, but really just because he wanted to put his hand at her waist. She was warm and her dress was soft beneath his fingers, but not as soft as her skin would be, and…
And he had to stop trying to figure out the best way to get her naked. He liked this woman too much to do anything that could hurt her.
And telling Brittany all about how much he loved Lana and then trying to take her to bed would definitely hurt her.
Or royally piss her off.
Unless maybe he was honest about it…
Yeah, that would be nice. Hey, Britt, of course you know I’m in love with Lana, but she’s not here and you are, and you’re really hot….
Christ, he needed a cigarette. He needed to take his hands off of Brittany and find a beer for one and a cigarette for the other.
But she turned toward him, moving even closer, lowering her voice to say, “Oh, my God! The entire cast of High Tide is here. And isn’t that Mark Wahlberg? And what’s his name, from Band of Brothers? And that girl who used to be on Buffy…”
“Oh, yeah,” Andy said. “That’s her.”
Britt’s body brushed agains
t Wes’s and he forced himself to take a step back, made himself let go of her.
She didn’t seem to notice, one way or the other. “Whoa, there’s that actress who plays that nurse on E.R. She is so good. Her mother must be a nurse, or maybe she just spent a lot of time doing research. Let’s go schmooze in her direction, can we?”
“Why don’t you guys schmooze without me for a bit,” Wes said. “I should go inside, see if I can’t find Amber, maybe take a quick look at the security system. I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”
Andy was already drifting off in the direction of the actress from Buffy.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Britt asked.
Yes, he most definitely did, in a completely Beavis and Butthead kind of way. Heh-heh.
“Nah,” he said. “Go talk to your nurse. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“This is fun,” she told him, her eyes sparkling and her smile warm. “Thank you so much for inviting us.”
“My pleasure,” he said. He let himself watch her walk away, then headed for Amber’s castle.
WES’S BIG MISTAKE was wearing the uniform.
Without it on, in street clothes, he would be easy to overlook in a crowd, especially a crowd like this one, filled with the brightest stars in the firmament. But with all those colorful ribbons adorning his chest, in that white jacket that had been tailored to fit his trim body, his eyes seemed an even darker shade of blue, and his jaw seemed more square.
Or maybe it had always been that square and Brittany just hadn’t noticed.
Everyone wanted to talk to him—and not just the twenty-something young women, either. He was surrounded pretty constantly by men, too. And not necessarily gay men.
Brittany had overheard two of Amber’s friends talking. “He’s a Navy SEAL,” one reported to the other.
“A real one?” the other asked. “You mean, that’s not just a costume?”
They hurried over to join the crowd around Wes.
Amber wasn’t among them, however.
She was holding court herself, on the other side of the swimming pool, and the few times she’d glanced in Wes’s direction, she’d seemed a little peeved. Or maybe Brittany was just imagining that, expecting her to act like the spoiled starlet that she was.
Britt leaned back against the cabana and sipped a glass of wine. She couldn’t hear what Wes was saying, or what any of crowd were saying to him, but he was starting to eye a strikingly pretty young woman in a midriff-baring dress who was standing close to him.
No, strike that. He was eyeing her cigarette.
Just at that moment, Wes looked up and caught Britt’s eye.
She put two fingers to her lips as if she were smoking, and shook her head, making a stern face at him. Don’t do it.
He made a face back at her. And then he said something to his groupies—a fairly long story filled with gestures and big facial expressions. When he was done, he pointed directly at Brittany. And they all turned to look at her, almost as one.
And wasn’t that disconcerting. Weakly, she raised her wineglass in a salute.
Wes was grinning at her. What had he told them about her?
He gestured to her and although she couldn’t hear him, she could read his lips. Come here, baby.
Baby?
Those Irish eyes were positively dancing with mischief. Come on, honey. Don’t be shy.
Honey, huh?
What was it Han Solo always said to Chewbacca? I have a bad feeling about this.
But shy wasn’t a word she’d ever used to describe herself. Curious, however, was.
Britt pushed herself up off the wall. As she approached, the crowd parted for her, as if she were some kind of queen.
“Hey, babe,” Wes said when she got closer. “I was just telling everyone—everyone this is Brittany, Britt this is everyone.”
“Hello, everyone,” she said, trying not to be overwhelmed by the famous faces she spotted among them. Was that George Clooney standing at the edge of the crowd? If it wasn’t, it was his even better-looking clone. He nodded to her, his dark eyes nearly as warm as his smile.
“I was telling the old story of how you nursed me back to health after I was injured, you know, when my squad was ambushed by al Qaeda forces.” Wes managed to capture her complete attention.
“Oh, you were, were you? And when was this?”
“Not the first time,” he said. He looked at the crowd and closed his eyes briefly, shaking his head in mock exasperation. “There were actually two times and she always gets them confused—”
“Where will you be honeymooning?” the woman with the belly button and the cigarette interrupted to ask.
What an…interesting question. Brittany looked at Wes, eyebrows raised. Apparently there were parts of that “old” story that she needed to be filled in on with just a little more detail.
“I told them about the second time we were ambushed,” he told her. “You know, when the doctors were so sure I was going to die, only I opened my eyes and I saw you, and since the choice was between going to you or going to the light, I of course picked you.”
“Of course,” she echoed. She had to bite the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing aloud. And Wes knew it, the devil. “Where will we be honeymooning, Lambikins? Last time we discussed it, it was a toss-up between Algeria and Bosnia.” As Wes choked back a laugh, she turned to the crowd. “I’m afraid poor Wesley needs that little extra rush of adrenaline that comes from vacationing in countries with a high incidence of terrorism—to keep him revved up. You know how some men are. And so unwilling to ask the doctor for a simple Viagra prescription. I’d be happy with Hawaii, but, no.”
Wes put his arm around her, pulling her so that she was pressed up against him. He kissed her, right next to her ear. “Thanks so much,” he murmured.
She gave him a big smile. “Any time. Sweetie honey pumpkin pie.”
“How do you handle it when he goes off to fight?” a woman with dark glasses asked. Brittany wasn’t positive, but she thought she’d seen her a time or two on daytime TV, while on break at the hospital.
“Faith,” Britt said. She’d asked the same question of her sister, and Melody had given that exact answer.
“Aren’t you afraid he’s going to, like, attack you in the night?”
What? “Since I’m not a terrorist,” Brittany said, “no.”
Wes apparently liked her answer. He gave her a squeeze.
He still had his arm around her, and her entire left side was pressed against him. She could feel the muscles in his thigh, the solidness of his chest. That-Jerk-Quentin, her ex-husband, had been both taller and wider, but nowhere near as well endowed. Muscularly, that was, of course.
“Is it true that in order to marry a SEAL—which stands for Sea, Air and Land, right?—you have to get it on in all of those places?”
Good God. Brittany doubted it, but she honestly didn’t know. Was there some secret club she didn’t know about? Her sister had managed to get pregnant at thirty thousand feet, but at the time Melody had had no intention of getting married. As for sea and land, well, land was easy enough, and most SEALs had access to a boat. Unless…
“By sea do you mean underwater or on top of the water?” she asked. It was such a ridiculous question, she started to laugh. She turned to Wes. “Because, honey, we’ve done underwater a few times, haven’t we? Once when we were scuba diving off the coast of Thailand, and once in the Bering Strait?”
Wes was making that odd, choking sound again.
“I’m so sorry,” Britt said. “But my dearest darling needs some air. War wounds, you know, acting up. Excuse us.”
The crowd parted like magic, and she was able to lead Wes into Amber’s house, through a kitchen that was twice the size of Brittany’s entire apartment, and down a long marble-tiled hallway.
Most of the guests were outside, and once they were alone, Wes leaned back against the wall and laughed until his eyes watered. “The Bering Strait
?” he gasped. “Do you know the average water temperature in the Bering Strait?”
Well, considering it was up by Alaska… “Cold?”
“Very cold, my dearest darling. No one’s doing anything raunchier than Eskimo kisses underwater up there. Believe me. You go into that water, and you’re in a dry suit. Which is even more cumbersome than a wet suit. And then, even within the dry suit, there’s the small matter of the effect of freezing temperatures on male anatomy. Pun intended.”
Brittany grinned at him. “Men are such fragile, delicate creatures.”
“Tell me about it.” He grinned back at her. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t ask you to marry me before introducing you as my fiancée, but some of those women were starting to circle like sharks. It was just a matter of time before they attacked.”
“And you really don’t want that?” Brittany had to ask him, suddenly serious. “I would never say this in front of Andy, and if you repeat it to him, I’ll deny having said it, but it’s not as if these women are looking for a lifetime commitment right from the start. And you… You can’t exactly have Lana, right? I certainly won’t think less of you if you—”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” he said. “Unless you decide to join the circling sharks.” He was only teasing. He wiggled his eyebrows at her as he leaned closer. “I’ll be your bait any day, baby-doll. Have I mentioned how much I love that dress?”
“Repeatedly,” she told him. “Wes, come on. Seriously. Who knows? Maybe one of these girls actually has a soul. Maybe you’ll meet her and forget all about Lana. You’ll never know if it’s even possible if you don’t let yourself get close to anyone else.”
He sighed. “Britt, these women don’t want to discuss philosophy with me. They want to jump me in their car.”
“Gee, what’s that enormous blob blocking out the sun? Oh, my God, is it your ego?”
Wes laughed. “Yeah, no, I said it wrong. They don’t want to jump me, they want to jump a SEAL. Any SEAL. It has nothing to do with me. They just want to be able to tell their friends that they got it on with a SEAL. You know, add that to their sexual resume.”
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