She’d always been too headstrong and rebellious for a life of Naval service, and now she put her willfulness to much better use as a civil rights attorney in her hometown, defending San Diego’s poor women and minorities.
Now she sat on the arm of a chair across from Kylie, thumbing through her mail, with her sleek black bob half concealing her honey-colored features.
“So where were you the other night when I called?” Sonya asked. “I worried when you didn’t answer, you know. I almost drove over to your place to beat on the door.”
“I’m sorry,” Kylie said. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” Sonya gave her a pointed look. “Where were you?”
“I was, um, sleeping over with someone.”
Her friend’s eyes widened. “You? Were sleeping over? With a guy?”
“Shut up!” Kylie threw a beaded pillow from the couch at her, but it only hit Sonya’s knee and bounced off.
“I’m sorry. I know I’m supposed to be saddened by all that’s happened to you—and I am—but this is huge. You actually got laid?”
Kylie sighed. Was her personal life really so sad that a one-night stand warranted this reaction? “Yes, I did.”
“Who’s the lucky stud?”
“No one. Just a guy I met at a bar.”
“Wait a minute. Why were you out drinking alone, when I told you to come stay with me?”
“I didn’t want to impose,” Kylie said weakly.
Which was true. She hadn’t wanted to feel like a charity case after the shooting. She’d wanted to prove to herself she was still strong and independent.
And look where that had gotten her.
“I don’t believe you slept with some random guy. That’s totally unlike you, Kylie. Are you sure you’re mentally stable?”
No. Definitely not sure.
Sonya knew her too well, and Kylie was a terrible liar anyway. “Okay, so he wasn’t totally random.”
Her friend raised one eyebrow. Here was the attorney about to go in for the kill. “Who was he?” she asked, then picked up her teacup from the coffee table and took a sip.
“A coworker.”
Sonya choked on her tea, then coughed until she’d cleared her throat. “Excuse me? Did you just say a coworker?”
Kylie rolled her eyes and sank back into the over-stuffed sofa. “Stop grilling me. I’m not on the witness stand.”
“I’m going to need the details, you know.”
Of course she was. Sonya knew about Kylie’s every relationship and sexual exploit—or more accurately in recent years, her lack thereof.
“I’ve been engaging in some rather unsavory conduct, I’m afraid,” Kylie said.
No point in hiding anything from her now. It wasn’t as if Sonya would disapprove, anyway. She was Kylie’s role model for rule-breaking behavior as an adult.
Maybe role model didn’t quite fit, since it implied Kylie had followed in her footsteps. No, more like, Kylie lived vicariously through Sonya, who made her own rules and thumbed her nose at everyone else’s.
“Fraternizing, eh?”
Kylie cleared her throat. “Yes, um…with a much younger subordinate.”
Sonya managed to look impressed. “How much younger?”
“Eight years, give or take a few months. Not that I’m counting,” Kylie said. Except that last part was a lie. She’d actually checked Drew’s military file after their night together for his exact birth date, just to see how much of a cradle robber she really was. She’d also been reminded by looking at his file that he was waiting for a promotion, due to pin on his new rank of lieutenant, junior grade, next month—which meant, too, that he’d be moving to a new job in a different unit under someone else’s command. That still didn’t make him anywhere close to being her equal in the Navy, nor did it absolve her of the crime of fraternizing with a subordinate.
“Damn, girl. It’s about time you get your groove back, and you might as well do it like Stella did.”
“Um, yeah. Except I’m not a gorgeous African-American woman with sass and attitude, and I won’t be going to Jamaica. But I will be going to Hawaii…with him…tomorrow.”
Sonya looked at Kylie as though her head had sprouted palm trees. “You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
Sonya laughed. “Oh. My. God.”
“Could you try not to act so entertained by my downfall?”
“Honey, if you’re going to go down in flames, you might as well do it with style.”
“I’m not going on this trip as his lover,” Kylie added lamely. “Just as friends. I’m going to help him train for the S.E.A.L. test.”
“Of course you are, dear. Keep telling yourself that while you screw his brains out.”
“Stop it, this is serious. I can’t do that anymore. He works for me. And he’s too young.”
“You might have thought of that before you decided to jet off to Hawaii with him. Besides, you know me well enough to know what I think about the Navy’s regulations. Might have been necessary to mandate people’s sex lives a million years ago, but not now. And who cares if he’s younger? Why should that even matter?”
“It feels opportunistic to me, the same way it is when an older guy preys on a much younger woman. The woman might not feel preyed upon, but that’s only because she doesn’t have the perspective of the older man’s age.”
“Are you planning to ruin his reputation? Knock him up and then leave him with a baby to care for all alone?”
“Stop being a smart-ass.”
“Kylie, he’s an adult. He gets to choose whom he goes to bed with, and he’s chosen you. What’s so wrong with that?”
Kylie felt a wave of nausea hit her again, but this one was minor compared to what she’d experienced yesterday in her commander’s office. She closed her eyes and waited for it to pass.
“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry for being a brat. I’m really happy for you, you know. It’s been far too long since you’ve let yourself have any fun. I think this trip could be the best possible thing for you right now. Screw what the Navy thinks.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Sure it is, because I have your best interests at heart. That’s one thing you can’t say about the Navy.”
Kylie knew she was right. And she was too tired to argue about any of it, anyway.
She’d always admired Sonya’s rebelliousness, and it occurred to her that Sonya was the kind of woman Kylie might have become under different circumstances. She’d been living vicariously through her friend for far too long, playing by the rules while relishing every time Sonya broke them. Thanks to getting busy with Drew, Kylie had finally measured up to the strong-woman-on-her-own-terms example Sonya set. It did feel kind of good to finally have something juicy to report about her own adult life for once.
Too bad that juicy bit didn’t come close to fitting who she’d become—upwardly mobile Navy officer, straight and narrow, always appropriate.
On the surface, she and Sonya seemed an odd pair of friends, opposite as they appeared. But Kylie knew that she’d have died of boredom if she didn’t have Sonya around to remind her that there was more to life than adhering to an external set of rules.
“Oh, stop brooding,” Sonya said, interrupting her thoughts. “I didn’t mean to insult your first love.”
“My first love?”
“The U.S. Armed Forces.”
Kylie blinked at that idea. Why did it ring so false to her? She’d been living as if it were true for a long time.
Rather than face the accusation, she decided to change the subject. “Speaking of first loves, what’s going on with Angelica? She hasn’t been around much lately.”
Sonya shrugged, uncharacteristically quiet all of a sudden.
A big part of the reason Sonya had left the Navy so quickly was that she’d realized it was no place for a bisexual woman to thrive. She refused to apologize for her sexuality.
“Trouble in par
adise?”
“She’s got a job offer in New York City and wants to take it.”
“Oh God, Sonya. I’m sorry, that really sucks,” Kylie said, though she didn’t quite believe herself.
Angelica and Sonya had been caught in a stormy, ridiculously passionate on-and-off relationship for years, both of them a bit too strong-willed to ever relinquish control to anyone else. It didn’t make for smooth romantic sailing.
“She’s talking about moving next month. I guess I haven’t mentioned it because I haven’t wanted to believe it’s really going to happen. I keep thinking she’ll change her mind.”
“You know, the way you two get along, you might be better off—”
“I know, I know. You think we’re awful for each other. But I’ve loved her almost my whole adult life. What the hell am I supposed to do if she leaves?”
Whoops. There went Sonya’s temper, and she was on the verge of tears now, too.
Kylie felt a surge of sympathy that she was sure showed in her troubled expression. She sighed, then said, “Maybe the distance will make things better between you. You could do the bicoastal thing.”
Sonya smirked in spite of herself. “You mean like the bisexual thing?”
“You can be bicoastal bisexuals. You’ll start a new trend.”
“I don’t know….”
“Half the time when you’re together, you want to kill her. I know you don’t like it when I say this, but I really think you two are in sort of an addictive relationship pattern. Who knows? Maybe the time apart will be the best thing that could happen for you.”
“I guess if we were really meant to be, she wouldn’t be packing up and moving across country, huh?”
“Did she ask you to come with her?” Kylie dared to ask.
Sonya shot her a look. “No. And I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You’re going to give me nightmares.”
“I’m sorry.”
Kylie had watched Sonya’s various relationship dramas with bemused interest, always half-fascinated and half-glad not to be caught up in such messy affairs. But for the first time, Kylie could honestly admit that she’d been a bit jealous, too. How much bigger would life be with that kind of passion? That inner wild woman she routinely ignored whispered that Drew could provide the answer to her question.
As if reading her train of thought, Sonya said, “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you tried to distract me away from your little cradle-robbing escapade. I expect regular phone and e-mail reports from paradise while you’re gone.”
“I don’t know if I’m going to bring a computer.”
“You can dial a phone.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll report to you my every waking move.”
“Good,” Sonya said, looking satisfied. “I’m going to need something to take my mind off my woes.”
Kylie’s throat tightened as she thought about what those reports would contain if she were to relax years of rigid control and let her wild side free. “Don’t you think it’s kind of…I don’t know…shameful to be doing what I did?”
“Sleeping with a guy? No, I don’t.”
“I mean, a much younger guy who is also my subordinate.”
Her friend looked unimpressed. “You’re going to have to do a lot more than that to get me to use the shameful word. Maybe stab a puppy dog or push an old lady into traffic.”
Kylie sighed at the ceiling.
“Seriously, you need to get rid of that faux Puritan streak of yours, my dear. It belongs to your parents, not you.”
“I can’t help but hear my parents’ voices in the back of my head when I do something they’d disapprove of. Doesn’t everyone have that problem—everyone besides you, I mean?”
“I think you’re getting a double whammy—the God-fearing parents and the moral authority of the Navy. In my opinion, they both need to mind their own damn business and let you live your life as you see fit.”
Kylie wasn’t sure she could trust herself with such a big task. She’d already proven how royally she could screw up her life operating solely with her own judgment.
“I don’t know,” she muttered noncommittally.
“You’re not a teenager anymore. You’re a grown woman, and you can make your own decisions about what’s right and wrong for you. I wish you’d start living more like you believed that.”
Kylie felt something stir inside her, some little twinge that maybe Sonya was onto something. Maybe she was…right? The Navy and Kylie’s parents did have an inordinate influence on Kylie’s behavior. But undoing that was huge and she was too tired to sort it all out right now. “Well,” she said, “thank you for believing in me. I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“I’ve met your parents, remember. I know there are no two people more in need of a good sweaty roll in the hay than Mr. and Mrs. Farmer Thomas.”
“Ew. Spare me the image, please.”
Sonya laughed. “Do you think they ever do it?”
“Oh my God, stop it.” Kylie fought back a yawn. “Discussing my parents’ love life is really fascinating and all, but I hope you don’t mind if I crash early.”
“Sure, whatever you want. You’ve had a horrible day—hell, a horrible few weeks. I’m glad you called me. This is where you should have been staying all along, you know.”
She stood and left the room, returning with a pillow, some sheets and a blanket.
“Up,” Sonya said.
Kylie moved out of the way and watched as her friend turned the couch into a makeshift guest bed.
“By the time you get back from Hawaii, I’m sure you’ll be feeling a lot more healed from your ordeal. So I want you to go and have the time of your life, okay?” she said when she turned back to Kylie. “Forget about all the crap that’s gone on here.”
Kylie nodded. “I’m going to try.”
And as she crawled beneath the covers, she halfway believed she’d made the right choice in accompanying Drew to Hawaii. At the very least she was relieved to be getting far, far away from San Diego.
Perhaps sheer madness had convinced her to go to Hawaii with Drew, but she knew that something else was keeping her from changing her mind and backing out. Some complicated set of feelings she had neither the inclination nor the energy to analyze right now.
9
DREW WAS PACKED AND ready to go. He’d reviewed his itinerary, and he’d gotten the house squared away for a long absence. He had to be at the airport in an hour or so. He was just waiting for Justin to show up to pick up Lola and drop off Drew at the airport.
Last night, he’d had a nightmare that Caldwell had broken into his house and killed the cat while he was gone, which was pretty much impossible with Caldwell behind bars, but it had worried him enough that he’d called Justin to ask that the cat stay with him instead of staying here alone. Ridiculous, yeah, but it made him feel better.
He’d originally intended to have his friend simply come here every other day to feed Lola, because she loathed being moved. With the change in plans, he had to strategically hide her carrier until the very last second so that she wouldn’t be clued in that a relocation was about to happen, which would prompt her to seek out the hole she’d made in the bottom of the box springs on his bed. Once inside, no one could get to her.
He knelt on his kitchen floor and waited for the cat to climb into his lap. Lola, a self-satisfied gray Himalayan, had been Abby’s cat before she died. He and the finicky little fur ball were a wholly unlikely pairing, and he had no idea what he’d do with her on the long deployments that he’d have if he made the S.E.A.L. team. He’d figure out something because he couldn’t give her up. No way. She was his connection to Abby and he occasionally felt as though Lola understood him the way Abby had. The rest of the time Lola treated him like the third-class citizen he undoubtedly was in her world.
She stepped gingerly onto his thigh and glared up at him with an expression that contained both affection and contempt. He imagined she was thinking something along the
lines of, “I’m wonderful, and you’re not, but I will deign to sit on your lap anyway because you are so pathetic.”
“Hey, puss. What’s happening?”
This was the most embarrassing habit he’d developed since taking the cat. He talked to her. Constantly. She listened fairly well for a cat, and she was good at keeping things private.
“I’ve gotta go away for a while,” he said, and she blinked at him. She’d already figured out from the suitcase next to the door that he was going somewhere, and she had let out a series of yowls after spotting it, to let him know she was none too pleased to be left.
She’d stayed hidden when Kylie had been over a few nights before, because she mostly loathed strangers.
“I’m going on a trip with a woman—the one who came here the other night. And I need to know what the hell to do with her.”
The cat purred loudly as he stroked her chin.
“No, I already know to do this kind of stuff,” he said, a wry grin playing on his lips. “The problem is I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want me stroking her.”
But as soon as he said it out loud, he knew it rang false.
“I think she’s torn between her duties and her desires. Not that you’d know anything about that, little hedonist that you are.”
“Mrrrow.”
“Exactly. And I really think I like this woman. Except, well, she’s my boss.”
Lola eyed him knowingly. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have been sure Abby’s spirit inhabited this cat. The two shared plenty of the same facial expressions.
“Yeah, yeah, enough with the guilt trip. So do I respect her wishes and not try to encourage a romantic relationship, or do I go for it?”
A knock at the door interrupted their conversation. Lola’s chubby body tensed, and she dashed across the kitchen and skidded around the corner, probably heading for her lookout spot under the living-room sofa.
Seducing A S.E.A.L. Page 7