by Selena Kitt
She'd known from the beginning that Kurt was different from any other man she'd ever met, and that this thing between them was going to be serious, no matter how much she tried to tell herself it wouldn't. He was a SEAL, and that wasn't going to change, but for tonight at least, she could pretend otherwise.
She snuggled closer to him, her eyes drifting closed, only to jump when she heard a soft buzzing sound. She lifted her head to ask if Kurt had heard it, too, but he was already out of bed, digging through his pants in the dark. A moment later, he came up with a pager. He thumbed the side of it, then muttered a curse.
"Can I use your phone?" he asked.
Melissa sat up, pushing her hair back with one hand even as she dragged the blanket up with the other. "Of course. Is something wrong?"
He shook his head. "No. I just need to call in."
She expected him to use the phone on the nightstand, but instead he left the room to use the one in the kitchen. That worried her more than his pager going off. She clutched the blanket in both hands, her heart beating fast. It was probably nothing, just an exercise or something like that.
Out in the kitchen, Kurt was talking to someone on the phone. Unfortunately, his deep voice was too soft for her to make out what he was saying. A moment later, he hung up and came back into the bedroom.
"Is everything okay?" she asked, even though she was afraid of the answer.
"Yeah." He ran his hand through his hair with a sigh. "That was HQ. I have to go wheels up."
Her heart raced faster. "Go where?"
Kurt yanked on his jeans and T-shirt, then sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his boots. "I don't know where. They didn't tell me. They never do. But even if I knew, I wouldn't be able to tell you."
Tears suddenly filled her eyes. She blinked them back, desperate to hold it together. "Can't you at least wait until morning? It's the middle of the night."
He shook his head as he laced his boots. "That's not the way it works, Melissa. When they call, I have to go. You know that."
Just because she knew it didn't mean she was okay with it.
"When will you be back?" she asked.
He finished tying his other boot, then stood. "I don't know that, either."
The horrible dream from last night came rushing back, the one where men in Navy uniforms had appeared at her door, and suddenly, she couldn't breathe. She jumped off the bed, wrapping the sheet around her to cover her nakedness and almost tripping over her own feet in the process.
"How the hell can you live like this?" she demanded, her voice shrill in the quiet of the bedroom.
Kurt met her gaze and in the light streaming in from the living room, she could see the disappointment in his blue eyes. "Because it's what I signed up for. I knew that going in."
"Well, I didn't!" she snapped.
The moment the words were out, she slapped her hands over her mouth, horrified at what she'd just said.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"
"Yes, you did." The disappointment was gone from his face to be replaced with a completely blank expression. He picked up his pager from the bed and shoved it in his pocket. "Tonight was a mistake. It's better for both of us if we forget it ever happened."
Then he was gone.
Melissa wanted to go after him, but her legs were too weak to do more than collapse under her and she dropped to her knees. The tears she'd been holding at bay spilled over and ran down her cheeks as sobs racked her body. She had just made the biggest mistake of her life and now she was never going to see Kurt again.
Chapter Seven
"You going to take a picture of that truck down there, or should I just ask it to wait?"
At his lieutenant's words, Kurt jerked his attention away from thoughts of Melissa—and the shitty way they'd left things when he'd had to bail for this mission—and snapped pictures of the truck full of 122mm rockets that was passing by their position. The lens on the camera was large enough for him to not only make out the markings on the rockets and the license plate on the truck, but the scruff on the driver's face, too. The intel weenies back at the CIA had said they wanted details. Well, he was giving them details.
Kurt and his lieutenant—Mack Hunt—lay hidden in a shallow depression dug into the backside of a sand dune, protected from the wicked hot sun by nothing more than a light piece of khaki-colored burlap erected a few inches over their heads while they took pictures of every weapon laden vehicle that passed by on the road below. As work went, it was boring as hell, but the fact that they were almost twenty miles inside the border of western Iran with no backup and no way out if something went wrong, kept them focused and alert—even if Kurt was preoccupied with thoughts of Melissa for most of it.
Because he and Mack had only been able to travel at night, it had taken a full week to work their way on foot from their drop-off point in southeastern Iraq to this location, which was just outside the tiny city of Pahleh, Iran. Since getting here four days ago, they'd kept a detailed log of every vehicle that moved up and down the road. Trucks ranging in size from large flatbeds to small Toyotas drove into Iraq each evening loaded up with weapons, then came back at dawn empty. The Iranians were dumping both weapons and ammunition into Shia dominated portions of Iraq, preparing for the war they were sure was coming with Saddam Hussein and his Sunni-led military that still controlled most of the country.
Neither Kurt nor his LT had a clue when all the fighting was going to kick off, but when it did, it was going to be bloody. Kurt only hoped the US military didn't get stuck in the middle. If history was any guide though, they probably would.
"What's weighing on your mind?" Mack asked as he scribbled notes in a log book propped up on the sand in front of him.
Kurt took a few more photos before the truck disappeared around the bend, then lowered the camera. "Nothing."
"Bullshit!" Mack snorted. "I've known you long enough to recognize when there's something buzzing around in that so-called head of yours. You've been staring off into the distance like a drunk cow since we set up here. What the hell is going on with you?"
Kurt didn't answer. He and Mack had been good friends since going through BUD/s together, but that didn't mean he wanted to tell the guy about his love life… or lack thereof.
"Only two things I know can get a SEAL to be this introspective," Mack said. "Either you're thinking of leaving the Team, or there's a woman who has you tied up in knots. I'm guessing it's the latter?"
Kurt glanced at his friend, raising a brow. "Is it that obvious?"
"Hell, yeah. So who is this woman you're so stuck on and why haven't I met her yet?"
"Her name's Melissa," Kurt said. "And I haven't had a chance to introduce her to anybody yet. We just met a few days before you and I came over here."
Mack did a double take. "Whoa! You just met this woman and she already has you gazing off into the distance with a thousand-yard stare? She must be some kind of woman."
"Yeah, she was pretty amazing." Kurt's mouth edged up despite how crappy everything was between him and Melissa right then. "We clicked the moment we met."
"Was?" His friend frowned. "Did something happen?"
Kurt hadn't even realized he'd answered in the past tense. "You could say that. Things were going great for a while. Hell, I'd already started convincing myself that maybe this thing between us could turn into something special. Then my frigging pager went off and Melissa got her first real taste of what it means to be with a SEAL. She didn't like the flavor."
"Ouch." Mack winced. "How bad was it?"
"Bad," Kurt admitted.
Just thinking about it made his chest hurt. When Melissa had wanted him to stay the night, he thought that meant she was willing accept being with a SEAL. The terror on her face when he'd told her he had to leave had almost brought him to his knees. He'd wanted nothing more than to sweep her into his arms and tell her that everything would be okay. But then she'd said that stuff about not signing up for the kind of life he led, and he knew th
e wall he thought was gone was between them again.
Shit.
"And you want to know the worst part?" he demanded. "Melissa was scared and in tears, and I just walked out like a fucking coward."
Mack lifted the binoculars to his eyes as a small Toyota pick-up loaded with metal small arms containers came into view, then lowered them so he could scribble some more notes in his book. When he was done, he looked at Kurt.
"So, what are you going to do?"
Kurt took a few pictures of the Toyota. The truck was so overloaded the damn wheels were about to fall off.
"There's not much I can do." He lowered the camera as the truck disappeared from sight. "Melissa is amazing, and when I'm with her I find myself thinking about a future that I never really considered. Kids. A nice house with a white picket fence. Hell, even a frigging minivan. But none of that matters if it isn't what Melissa wants, too."
He waited for his friend to rip into him and tell him he was delusional to even be thinking those things about a woman he'd just met. But instead Mack laughed.
"What's so damn funny?" Kurt demanded, failing to see the humor in any of this.
"Nothing." Mack grinned. "It's just that I never thought I'd hear a Navy SEAL giving up so frigging easy. Shit, I've seen you run into a firefight wearing nothing but underwear and a tactical vest. Yet here you are giving up on a woman you claim is important to you."
Kurt ground his jaw. "What the hell am I supposed to do, huh? After the way I walked out, I doubt she'd even let me in her apartment."
Mack shrugged. "Then find another way to get in. We're SEALs—it's what we do."
Maybe, but SEALs weren't trained for this. "And then what?"
"Tell her how you really feel," Mack said. "Tell her you see your kids' eyes when you look at her or some other sappy shit like that. Hell, I don't know. It doesn't matter what you say, just go see her when we get back."
Kurt regarded his friend thoughtfully. "When did you get so smart with women?"
"I've always been smart with women. I just haven't found one who can appreciate my particular brand of intelligence."
Kurt snorted. "I feel you."
They lay there in silence for a while until Kurt thought of something else. "How long do you think SOCOM is going to leave us out here?"
Mack shrugged. "I have no idea. I just hope they don't forget about us. I don't think I can put up with you moaning and groaning about Melissa for another week."
Kurt grunted. He couldn't argue with that. He wouldn't want to listen to himself for that long, either.
* * *
"Sorry I'm not very good company tonight," Melissa said over her shoulder to Veronica as she led the way into her apartment.
"If I still hadn't heard anything from the guy I was sleeping with, I wouldn't be good company, either."
Melissa's first instinct was to defend Kurt and tell her friend that he hadn't called because he was on a mission and hadn't gotten back yet, but she resisted the urge. For all she knew, Kurt was already home. Maybe he hadn't called because he simply didn't want to.
Sighing, she tossed her purse on the coffee table, then flopped down on the couch. It had been three weeks since the night Kurt had walked out, and since then she'd been a complete mess. She hadn't been sleeping well, she was snapping at her coworkers and the kids in her class, and this morning, she'd cried into her bowl of cereal—all because she'd lost her ever-loving mind when Kurt had to go to work and do his job—a job she knew he had before she'd decided to sleep with him and let him into her heart.
Not even the fun romantic comedy Veronica had insisted they go see tonight had been able to take her mind off her troubles.
"Maybe you should call Coronado," Veronica suggested, sitting down beside her.
"I did." After she'd both called and gone over to Kurt's apartment every day for a week with no luck. "They wouldn't even confirm that Kurt was a SEAL, much less that he was deployed somewhere."
"Not even when you told them that you and Kurt were seeing each other?"
Melissa lifted a brow. "Like they've never heard that one before. They wouldn't tell me anything. And unfortunately, I was so busy yelling at Kurt before he left that I never thought to ask him for the contact information of anyone on his Team I could talk to."
Veronica frowned. "And he didn't say how long he'd be gone?"
"No. I don't think he even knew." Melissa sighed. "Hell, for all I know, he got back two weeks ago and didn't tell me because he decided I wasn't worth the trouble."
"I doubt that," Veronica said. "Especially since he knows how you feel about him." When Melissa didn't say anything, her friend added, "You did tell him, right?"
Melissa shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes. Her heart hurt just thinking about it. "No. I was so torn up over him leaving in the middle of the night that I didn't tell him how I felt. Or that no matter how scared I was every time he walked out the door, I still wanted him in my life."
Veronica was silent as she considered that. "But he knows anyway. I'm sure of it. I mean, why else would you get so upset when he left?"
"Yeah, well I'm not sure of it." Melissa ran her hand through her hair. "Not that I blame him. How could he know I love him, when I didn't know myself until after he'd left? You didn't see his face when he walked out, Veronica. He thought it was over between us… before it even started."
"But it's not over," Veronica said. "You just need to tell him that."
Her friend made it sound so easy. If it were, she'd be camped out on Kurt's doorstep waiting for him to come home right now.
Veronica let out a loud sigh. "I need a drink—and I don't mean water. You have anything stronger than that?"
Melissa nodded. "Yeah, there are a few wine coolers in the fridge. Get me one, too."
As her friend rummaged around in the fridge, Melissa rested her head back on the couch and wondered how Kurt had wormed his way into her heart so quickly.
"Hey," Veronica called from the kitchen. "You have a message on your answering machine."
Melissa didn't bother to lift her head. "It's probably one of the other first-grade teachers. We're taking our classes to the zoo next week and still trying to figure out which parents are coming."
"Shouldn't you check?" Veronica said. "It could be Kurt."
Melissa's pulse skipped a beat, and it was all she could do not to run over and push the 'play' button. But before she could decide whether to give in to the urge, she heard the answering machine's familiar beep announcing she had one new message.
"Melissa, it's Kurt. If you're there, pick up. I really need to talk to you."
Kurt's warm, deep tones vibrated out of the machine, filling her apartment. Melissa jumped up and ran into the kitchen so fast she almost slipped on the tile floor. The urge to grab the cordless phone out of the cradle even though she knew he wasn't actually on the other end of the line right then was so powerful she had to clench her hands into fists.
"Melissa? Are you there?"
She opened her mouth to tell him that she was, but then closed it again when she remembered he couldn't hear her.
When had he called? Was he home? Was he okay? Those questions and a thousand more whirled through her head so fast they made her dizzy. She grabbed the edge of the counter to steady herself. It was just so damn good to hear his voice. The relief was nearly overwhelming.
"Okay, I guess you're not," Kurt said, and for one terrified moment, Melissa thought he was about to hang up. He didn't. "But if you are there and don't want to pick up, I get that. I just wanted you to know that I'm back and that I'm okay. I figured you'd want to know. That's why I called."
Melissa tightened her hold on the counter, relief coursing through her. He was back home and he was safe. Thank God.
On the other end of the line, Kurt swore. "That's bullshit. I didn't just call you to tell you I was okay. I called because I have a lot more that I want to say to you, but I was worried if I showed up at your place, you'd slam th
e door in my face. I spent the last three weeks roasting my ass off in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but think about us. Or rather what could have been if I wasn't a SEAL."
Tears trickled down Melissa's cheeks. This was the part where he said that they couldn't be together, that there was no place for a woman like her in a life like his. As much as she wanted to reach out and stop the tape, she couldn't make herself move.
"Crap," he muttered. "I hate talking on these damn machines. I suck at this. But if this is the only way I can tell you how I feel, then here goes. First off—bottom line up front—I've fallen for you, harder than I ever would have thought possible. And if that declaration has you reaching for the delete button on your machine, please hear me out."
There were a few seconds of silence, just enough time for Melissa to realize that instead of explaining why they weren't any good together, Kurt had just admitted to having real feelings for her.
"I know we've gone on a grand total of two dates—well, three if you count me coming to your classroom as a date," Kurt continued. "Normally, I'd be the first one to agree that there's no way two people can know in that short period of time that they're meant to be together. And maybe for you, that's the case. All I know is that for me, I've spent enough time with you to figure out you're the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. I want to go to bed with you in my arms at night and see you there beside me when I open my eyes in the morning. I want to introduce you to my family, and start a family of our own. I want kids, the house with the white picket fence—the whole nine yards. And I want all of that with you. I can't put into words why you mean so much to me; I just know that you do. Even though it's going to be hard being married to a Navy SEAL, I vow to spend every chance I get making it all worthwhile. I promise to make you the most important thing in my life… if you let me."
Melissa stared at the answering machine through eyes blurred with tears.