“And look at Dad.”
“What about him? You know, I’ve never seen a man look as fine as your daddy did in his whites.” A secret smile curved her lips and her eyes took on the dreamy expression they often did when the subject of his father came up. “So, what you think? You were going to hold off marriage until you retired?”
The disbelief in her voice had him rethinking his position. It hadn’t sounded so stupid when he came up with the plan fifteen years earlier. “You can’t say that you wouldn’t give anything to get those years back that you spent away from Dad when he was on Wes Pac or off on some other mission.
She smiled, but he thought it looked a bit bittersweet. “So, you think I’d rather I hadn’t met your daddy?” She shook her head and looked out over the yard, watching the traffic. “You remember how I met him? He was so handsome, so…sexy.”
“Eww, Mama.”
She laughed and glanced at him. “We had you and Leila, did you think the stork brought you? Besides, you were born seven months after the wedding, and telling people that a nine pound baby was early didn’t work.”
“But, you missed so much. He missed so much. Don’t you think it would have been better if you’d met him later, married later?”
“Mano, you’re thinking like your father now.” She shook her head. “He tried to plan everything, down to the minute. But sometimes it just doesn’t work out the way you planned. And that’s life. Would I have wanted that time we spent apart back? Of course. But if it meant that to have that, I had to wait years to meet him, or that I wouldn’t have had any time together, I would have to say no way. Those separations were hell. The year you broke your arm, twice, Leila had the chicken pox and your grandfather died, it would have been much easier to have your father here helping. But, those experiences made our time together that much sweeter. There’s a reason you were born nine months almost to the day after your father returned from time out. Giving up that to be safe is almost criminal, and I would have to agree with Daisy, you would be a coward if you gave it up.”
She took his hand. So small compared to his, but stronger than most men he knew. She had to be. She’d been a Navy wife. Her eyes were shimmering with tears and one thing he knew was that not much made his mother cry. But these were not tears of sadness.
“I tell you this because you love her, yeah? If you do, if you let her go, you will live to regret it. Until the end of your days, you will regret letting that girl slip through your fingers. Can you take her getting married, having babies with someone else? Because she’s a looker that one, she’s not going to wait for you to stop being a jackass. If you truly love her, it is da kine.” The best.
The image of Daisy with another man, letting him touch her, having children with him…
He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat and stared blindly at the passing traffic as his mother had done just moments before. Dammit. His heart flipped over and then sunk to his feet He was in love with Daisy. She’d knocked him on his ass the day he returned and he hadn’t been the same since. And he’d just told her that love was an illusion. Shit. Now he was going to have to prove to her that he’d been so wrong, tell her that he knew he’d been a jackass.
“Ahh, I knew I didn’t raise a stupid son.”
He glanced at his mother and smiled. “Slow, but not stupid.” A plan, a silly, sentimental one actually, came to mind, and he was already thinking, planning.
“What are you waiting for?”
He’d forgotten for a moment that he was sitting on his mama’s porch. Leaning over, he kissed her cheek and then jumped out of the glider and headed to his car. “Don’t worry, Mama, I have it all planned out.”
He heard her sigh from the porch but he ignored it. He knew Daisy and although she thought she wasn’t that romantic, she was, down to her pink toenails. A woman didn’t decorate her apartment and workspace with colored bottles filled with fresh cut flowers if she wasn’t. His work was cut out for him because he still remembered the pain in her eyes when she’d told him to leave.
He called his supervisor to put the plan into action. Getting approval up front for a week off would make it easier. Once accomplished, he called his sister.
She picked up on the first ring.
“Not talking to you, bruddah.”
“Leila, I need your help.”
“You need more than that. You need to have the shit kicked out of you.”
He snorted. Damn, no wonder he fell in love with Daisy. He’d grown up with strong women, it made sense he fell for one. “No, I have a plan to make up with Daisy and I need your help.”
She sighed. “I love you, Mano, but if you’re not going to propose to her, I’m not helping you. You hurt her.”
His stomach clenched at the thought. “I know. But I need your help and it meets your prerequisite.”
There was a beat of silence then she laughed. “Okay, talk, bruddah.”
* * * *
Daisy realized she’d ordered sweet and sour chicken from the diner in the PACAF building and she wasn’t hungry. She hadn’t had an appetite in three weeks. And that was something to alert the media about. Daisy never went without eating. Depression would have helped her lose the college twenty she’d gained a lot faster than all the diets she went on.
She’d gone through a few phases. The first had been pain. She’d cried until she’d thought she would never cry anymore and eaten a ton of chocolate macadamia nuts. The hurt had eventually turned into anger, and she’d thrown out her copy of An Officer and a Gentleman just to prove it. Of course, an hour later she went to retrieve the DVD because she refused to give up Richard Gere for Mano. Just because he was a jackass didn’t mean she couldn’t have Richard. The last one had lasted two weeks and it involved depression. No real crying but she felt listless. Things that had given her joy before no longer appealed.
Sighing, she rose and dumped her food in the trash. Before she reached the door, her cell phone chimed Yellow Rose of Texas, her tune for Lily.
“Yeah.”
“That’s a nice way of answering the phone, Dee.”
“I’m a little busy at the moment.” She pushed open the door and headed to her office on the second floor. “What do you need?”
“Just wanted to check on you. Mom and Dad said you sounded depressed on the phone when they talked to you.”
She sighed. If it wasn’t her parents, it was Holly or Lily calling. Lily was worse. Dee could hear the happiness in her voice and resented it. She resented that she’d fallen in love, gotten married and had a gorgeous little girl to complete the package. Guilt always followed swiftly.
“Just a little down. I…well, I’d been seeing someone and I wanted to get serious and he didn’t.”
“Ahh. Holly said she thought it might have been that, but she wasn’t sure. Where did you meet him?”
“You know him. Mano.”
There was a beat of silence. “Good God, you were sleeping with Mano?”
Her face heated even though she knew the person on the stairs next to her probably hadn’t heard. She reached the first landing and stepped out of the way of the people heading up and stood in the corner.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Oh, Dee, you don’t have to.” Lily sighed. “You don’t get serious with anyone unless you’ve been to bed with them. So that makes Mano number two.”
There was a muffled male voice in the background. “I’ll tell you in a minute. Just hold on. Now, Dee, tell me.”
“I’m standing on the stairs in the PACAF building; I can’t really pour my heart out.”
“Dang, I forgot about the time difference. Call me when you get off work, okay?”
Knowing it would do no good to tell Lily that she wanted to be left alone she agreed before hanging up. She turned to head up to the second floor when murmurs caught her attention. Expecting a Congressman, or foreign dignitary to be passing through the building, she was amazed to find Mano at the bottom of the stairs. He was dress
ed in his blue service dress, his chest covered with ribbons, his hat beneath his arm.
“Dee.”
Dang, he was gorgeous. His hair had been cut recently, his tawny eyes gleamed with a mischievous light, and her stomach flipped over.
“Oh, no you don’t. You’re not ruining my favorite movie with this cheap shot to get me back. Go away.”
She turned and found a wall of interested people, including one general. As she tried to shove her way through the crowd, she heard him coming up the stairs and her panic increased. He caught her by her wrist. She knew it was him because her traitorous body tingled at that one touch.
“Dee, aren’t you going to listen to me?.”
“No. Go fly a plane or something.” She tried to sound mean, but it wasn’t working.
There were a few snickers in the crowd and she closed her eyes in embarrassment. People she worked with every day were going to be witnesses to one of the most painful occurrences in her life.
“Dee…”
She spun around, heartache pushing her temper over the edge. “I gave you a chance. A chance you threw away.”
His lips turned down and his brow furrowed. “I want another chance.”
She snorted. He scowled.
“Listen, Mano, you may usually get what you want. But this time, you lose. You had a chance, you screwed it up. End of game.” She jerked her hand away and turned to leave.
He grabbed her hand to turn her around, then bent at the waist, and lifted her over his shoulder. There was a smattering of applause and laughter from the onlookers.
“Mano, what the hell are you doing?”
“You know, nothing is ever easy with you.” She bounced on his shoulder with each step he took down the stairs. “I had a plan, a good plan, and you screwed it up. I tried to be nice.”
“Hey, Shark, how ya doing there? Got an armful with that one.”
She recognized the voice of Colonel Peak, head of the Services Directorate for PACAF. Closing her eyes, she tried not to let the amusement in his voice make her want to yell at the colonel. It was Mano’s fault she was draped over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, her ass in the air.
“You have no idea, sir. Do you mind getting the door for me?”
“No problem. Good luck.”
They walked through the doorway and she lifted her head to see him smiling at them, and the jerk had the nerve to wave.
“See, I told Leila I wanted to do it before Christmas. But I couldn’t get the time off, and then Leila said to wait, and I did. Planned it all out, talked to your boss…”
“Talked to my boss?” She beat on his back with her fist although he ignored it and her outburst. “Just what the hell did you talk to my boss about?”
“Getting time off. Wanted to get it all coordinated, but with all the people on leave, well that didn’t work out well. So it fouled things up on my end.”
“Mano…”
“Go get ‘em, Shark.” She didn’t recognize the voice this time, but no doubt it was someone she knew by face. She closed her eyes.
“Thanks.” Mano’s voice was so damn cheerful, she wanted to scream.
They went through another doorway and then out into the sun. She blinked against the bright light.
“Don’t you think you should let me down now?”
“No.”
He’d put on his hat and was saluting people as he passed them, as if this were an everyday occurrence. “See, I try to be romantic, because I know you like that. But do you help? No. You have to tell me to go fly a plane. I come here, with a ring and ready to profess my love and you’re so damn stubborn that I can’t even tell you. I swear, woman, you’d cause a saint to cuss.”
Her head spun. “What did you just say?”
He crossed the street to the parking lot before answering. “I said you would drive a saint to cuss.”
Irritation made her sigh. “Not that. The other thing.”
He set her down on the ground and she realized they’d reached his car. Without comment he unlocked the door and pulled it open.
“Mano!”
He looked at her, his eyes blazing with determination. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Irritation, embarrassment, and anger rolled into a ball of pain in her stomach. “With me? You’re the one who carried me down the hall like some conquering warlord and you have the nerve to ask what is wrong with me?”
“Well there is something wrong with you.” His voice was clipped. “I want to spend the rest of my life you with you, you stupid woman. I plan this, use one of your favorite movies as a model, had visions of carrying you out, all smiles and what did you do? You had to mess up my plans.”
She bit her lip to keep from smiling. “And what was that other thing you told me.”
His eyes narrowed. It was hard to see them because they were shaded by the brim of his hat. “I said I love you. I want to have a wedding and babies, dammit. I’ll even splurge on a minivan.”
Even though he said it in an aggravated tone, her heart did a little dance. But, he deserved a little aggravation for what he put her through the last three weeks. Plans. He would probably plan his own funeral.
“Is that a proposal? ‘Cause I’m not feeling the tenderness here, Mano.”
A muscle in his cheek twitched. “I love you. I can’t live without you, and if you don’t say yes, I am abducting you and flying you to Maui. My sister and my mother will be happy to help me.”
“So, after humiliating me in front of my co-workers…”
“That was romantic, dammit.”
“Not to mention making me miserable and lonely and cry for three weeks.” His expression softened but she continued on. “You think you can walk in here and just say I love you and it is all fixed?”
He took her hands in his, raised each to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “I love you, Daisy Burton. I can’t imagine living without your smart mouth, your sick sense of humor, or your smile. I don’t deserve you. I know I hurt you, made you cry, but marry me and make me pay for the next fifty years.”
Tears filled her eyes. It wasn’t the most romantic proposal, but it did the trick. “Okay, since you asked so nicely.”
He let out a whoop and slipped his arms around her waist. Without closing his eyes, he brushed his lips over hers. A tingle of heat curled in her stomach and then spread throughout her body.
Before she was satisfied, he pulled away. When she frowned and reached for him, he said, “No public displays of affection, Dee.”
She snorted as she got into the car. She waited for him to get seated before she asked, “What do you call carrying me out of the building like a freaking sack of potatoes?”
He looked at her, a slow, sensuous smile curved his lips, and she shivered. “That was conquering my woman. I’ll probably get a medal for that.”
Epilogue
“Having a good time, Mrs. Jacobs?” Mano asked, his breath warming her ear. He was standing behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist, his body against her back. Music from the hotel drifted on the air to them as they stood looking out over the water.
“I sure am, Mr. Jacobs.” She drew in a deep breath and the scent of plumeria filled her senses. Since they’d arrived earlier that day, they’d barely had any time alone together. Leila and their mother had met them at the airport, and they’d flown to Maui, where they were married that evening.
“Are you sure you’re not upset about your family not being here?”
She shook her head. “No. We could have waited but who knows when we would have coordinated it. With Holly in Virginia, and Lily with the new baby…well, it could have been months. At least your mom and Leila were here. That was enough.”
He nodded, and then rested his chin on her head. “So, when are we going to call them?”
We. They were a we. “We can call them in the morning. I call them now, I’ll wake them all up.”
“You don’t think they’ll want to be woken up with this news?�
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She turned in his arms and looked up into her husband’s eyes. Her husband. She couldn’t stop the little jig her heart did when she thought of him being her husband. “I had other plans for tonight.”
He grinned, a flash of white in the darkness. “And what would be those plans?”
“Well, I thought we’d open that bottle of champagne so I could get you drunk and seduce you.”
He laughed, and she knew he was remembering their first night together. “You’re on.” He lifted her in his arms and carried her toward the hotel.
When they reached the room, they forgot about the champagne. Slowly, deliberately, he undressed her. He stood behind her and untied her bikini top, kissing the skin he revealed.
“You taste like cocoa butter and sin.” His breath whispered across her neck. He threw the top on the floor behind him, then skimmed his hands down her sides and then up past her stomach to her breasts. Lightly, he brushed his callused fingers over her nipples. They tightened under the soft caresses. She shivered. Not so much from the action but from the feeling behind it. Each movement was almost reverent, as if he were savoring it, memorizing it, never wanting to forget it. She leaned against his chest with a sigh.
Next, his hands slid down to her sarong, untying the knot, and letting the material shimmy down to the floor. His quick intake of breath let her know he hadn’t realized she’d worn nothing beneath the skirt.
“Jesus, if I’d known that you were naked beneath that, I doubt I’d had enough blood in my brain to say ‘I do’.”
She chuckled, delighted that she’d surprised him, but it ended with a gasp as his hand slid between her legs. Her body hummed with excitement, anticipation. He traced her slit with his finger, dipping between her lips in one teasing stroke then moved up to press on her clit. A shock of heat burst from that point and bounced through her system.
He continued that movement—dip, press, dip, press—until her body was screaming for release. She was far from satisfied with his teasing touch. Her groan of aggravation had him chuckling.
“Ahh, Dee, are you frustrated?”
Even though he was teasing, she heard the underlying passion beneath the joke. His cock pressed against the cleft of her buttocks. Hard, throbbing, greedily waiting to be appeased. To give him a little of his own medicine, she rubbed against him. His swift intake of breath told her he wasn’t in as much control as he was letting on. It only took a few seconds of that before he growled and pulled away from her. She turned and watched, fascinated at the way he tore off his clothes. Within moments, he stood naked in front of her. Moonlight caressed his golden skin. Delight stole through her as her gaze traveled down his body to his cock. It jutted out from the nest of dark hair, his balls heavy, a drop of pre-cum wetting the head. And he was all hers.
Operation Love Page 14