“Chief Warrant Officer Anthony Riani and Specialist Marybeth Shroeder. Both just kids. Marybeth had only been in country for a couple of months and Tony’s wife was pregnant with their second kid. They both took the brunt of the missile hit on that side of the Black Hawk and probably died before we even went into the free fall.”
She couldn’t imagine what he must have seen, what he had survived. She only knew she wanted to hold him close, touched beyond measure that he would share this with her, something she instinctively sensed he didn’t divulge easily.
“The crew chief and I were able to get the wounded soldier we were transporting out before the thing exploded. We kept him stable until another Black Hawk was able to evacuate us.”
“Was he okay? The soldier?”
“Oh. Yeah. He was a Humvee gunner hit by an improvised explosive device. He lost a leg but he’s doing fine, home with his family in Arkansas now.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah. We were both at Walter Reed together for a while. He’s a good man.”
He finally let go of her fingers and though she knew it was silly, she suddenly felt several degrees cooler.
“I can’t complain, can I?” he said. “I’ve still got all my pieces and even with partial function, I should eventually be able to do almost anything I want. Except fly a helicopter in the United States Army, I guess. It’s looking like I’ll probably have to ride a desk from now on or leave the military.”
“A tough choice. What will you do?”
He sighed. “Beats me. You have any ideas? Flying helicopters is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. I never wanted to be some hotshot fighter jet pilot or anything fancy like that. Just birds. I’m not sure I can be content to sit things out on the sidelines.”
“What about being a civilian pilot?”
He made a derogatory sound. “Doing traffic reports from the air or flying executives into the city who think they’re too busy and important for a limousine? I don’t think so.”
“You could do civilian medevacs.”
“I’ve thought about it. But to tell you the truth, I don’t know that I’m capable of flying anything at this point, civilian or military. Or if I ever will be. We’re in wait-and-see mode, according to the docs, which genuinely stinks when you’re not a very patient person.”
The storm seemed to be passing over, she thought. The lightning flashes were slowing in frequency and even the rain seemed to be easing. She didn’t want this moment to end, though. She was intensely curious about this man who had survived things she couldn’t even imagine.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Max. My friend Abigail used to say a bend in the road is not the end, unless you fail to make the turn. You just need to figure out which direction to turn. But you will.”
“I’m glad one of us has a little faith.”
She smiled. “You can borrow mine when you need it. Or Abigail’s. She carried enough faith and goodness for all of us and I’m sure some still lingers here at Brambleberry House.”
He was again silent for a long time. Then, to her shock, he reached for her hand again and held on to it as the storm continued to simmer around them. They sat for a long time like that in the darkness, while Conan snored in the corner and the storm gradually slowed its fury.
Anna’s thoughts were scattered but she was aware of overriding things. She was more attracted to him than any man in her entire life. To his strength and his courage and even to his sadness.
He had been through hell and though he hadn’t directly said it, she sensed he suffered great guilt over the deaths of his crew members and she wanted to ease his pain.
She was also, oddly, aware of the scent of freesia drifting over the earthy smell of wet leaves and the salty tang of the sea.
If she were Sage or Julia, she might think Abigail was making her opinion known that Harry Maxwell was a good man and she approved.
She couldn’t believe Abigail was here in spirit. Abigail had been such a wonderful person that Anna couldn’t believe she was anywhere but in heaven, probably doing her best to liven up things there.
But at times, even she had to admit Abigail seemed closer than at others. The smell of freesia, for instance, at just the moment she needed it. She tried to convince herself Abigail had loved the scent so much it had merely soaked into the walls of the house. But that didn’t explain why it would be out here in the middle of a March rainstorm—or why she thought she caught the glitter of colorful jewels out of the corner of her gaze.
She shivered a little, refusing to give in to the urge to turn her head. Max, sitting too close beside her to miss the movement, misinterpreted it. “You’re freezing. We should probably head in.”
“I’m not. It’s just...” She paused, feeling silly for even bringing this up but suddenly compelled to share some of Sage and Julia’s theory with him. “I should probably confess something here. Something I should have told you before you rented the apartment.”
He released her hand abruptly. “You’re married.”
She laughed, though it sounded breathless even to her. “No. Heavens, no. Not even close. Why would you even think that?”
“Not even close? Didn’t you say you were engaged once?”
“Yes, years ago. I’m not close to being married right now.”
“What happened to the engagement?”
She opened her mouth to tell him it was none of his business, then she closed it again. He had shared far more with her than just the painful end to an engagement that should never have happened in the first place.
“He decided he wanted a different kind of woman. Someone softer. Not so calculating. His words. At least that’s what he wrote in the note he sent with his sister on the morning of what was supposed to be our wedding day.”
She knew it was ridiculous but the memory still stung, even though it seemed another lifetime ago.
“Ouch.”
His single, abrupt word shocked a laugh out of her. “It’s been years. I rarely even think about it anymore.”
“Did you love him?”
“I wouldn’t have been a few hours away from marrying him if I didn’t, would I?”
“Seems to me a hard, calculating woman like you wouldn’t need to love a man in order to marry him. My mother never did and she’s been married five times since my father died.”
Now that revealed a wealth of information about his life, she thought. All of it heartbreaking.
“I’m not hard or calculating! I loved Craig. With every ounce of my twenty-four-year-old heart, I loved him. That first year afterward, I was quite certain I would literally die from the pain of the rejection. I couldn’t wait to move away from my friends and family in Utah and flee to a place where no one knew me or my humiliating past.”
“What’s humiliating about it? Seems to me you had a lucky escape. The guy sounds like a jackass. Tell me the truth. Can you imagine now what your life would have been like if you had married him?”
She stared, stunned that he could hit right to the heart of things with the precision of a sharpshooter. “You are so right,” she exclaimed. “I would have been completely miserable. I was just too young and stupid to realize it at the time.”
It was a marvelously liberating discovery. She supposed she had known it, somewhere deep inside, but for so long she had held on to her mortification and the shame of being jilted on her wedding day. Somehow in the process, she had lost all perspective.
That day had seemed such a defining moment in her life, only because she had allowed it be, she realized.
She had become fearful about trusting anyone and had learned to erect careful defenses to keep people safely on the perimeter of her life. She had focused on her career, on first making By-the-Wind successful as Abigail’s manager, then on building the co
mpany after she purchased it from her and then adding the second store to further cement her business plan.
Though she didn’t think she had completely become what Craig called her—hard, calculating, driven—she had certainly convinced herself her strengths lay in business, not in personal relationships.
Maybe she was wrong about that.
“So if you’re not married, what’s your big secret?”
She blinked at Max, too busy with her epiphany to follow the trail of conversation. “Sorry. What?”
“You said you had some dark confession to make that you should have told me before I rented the apartment.”
“I never said dark. Did I say dark?”
“I don’t remember. I’m sure it was.”
“No. It’s not. It’s just...well, rather silly.”
“I could use more silly in my life right now.”
She smiled and nudged his shoulder with hers. “All right. What’s your opinion on the paranormal?”
“I’m not sure I know how to answer that. Are we talking alien visitations or bloodsucking vampires?”
“Neither. I’m talking about ghosts. Or I guess ghost, singular. As in the ghost that some residents of Brambleberry House believe shares the house with us. My friend Abigail.”
“You’re saying you think Abigail still walks the halls of Brambleberry House.”
“I didn’t say I believed it. But Sage and Julia do. They won’t listen to reason. They’re absolutely convinced she’s still here and that Conan is her familiar, I guess you could say. She works through him to weave her Machiavellian plans. Though I don’t really know if one should use that word when all her plans seem to be more on the benevolent side.”
The rain had slowed and a corner of the moon peeked out from behind some of the clouds, lending enough light to the scene that she could clearly see his astonished expression.
He stared at her for an endless moment, until she was quite certain he must believe her barking mad, then his head rocked back on his neck and he began to laugh, his shoulders shaking so much the swing rocked crazily on its chains and Conan padded over to investigate.
She had never seen Max so lighthearted. He looked years younger, his features relaxed and almost happy. She could only gaze at him, entranced by this side of him.
The entire evening, she had been trying to ignore how attracted she was to him. But right now, while laughter rippled out of him and his eyes were bright with humor, the attraction blossomed to a hot, urgent hunger.
She had to touch him. Just for a moment, she told herself, then she would go back inside the house and do her best to rebuild her defenses against this man who had survived horrors she couldn’t imagine but who could still find humor at the idea of a ghost and her dog.
Her heart clicked just like the rain on the shingles she had just fixed as she drew in a sharp breath, then leaned forward and brushed her mouth against his.
CHAPTER TEN
HER MOUTH WAS warm and soft and tasted like cinnamon candy.
For all of maybe three seconds, he couldn’t seem to move past the shock of it, completely frozen by the unexpectedness of the kiss and by the instant heat that crashed against him like those waves against the headland.
He forgot all about his amusement at the idea of his aunt Abigail using a big, gangly dog to work her schemes from the afterlife. He forgot the rain and the wind and the vow he had made to himself not to kiss her again.
He forgot everything but the sheer wonder of Anna in his arms again, of those soft curves beside him, of her scent, sweet and feminine, that had been slowly driving him insane all evening long as she sat beside him, tugging at him until his senses were filled with nothing but her.
Her arms twisted around his neck and he deepened the kiss, breathing deeply of that enticing, womanly scent and pulling her closer until she was nearly on his lap.
For the first time since he had sat down on the porch swing next to her, he was grateful for the blanket around them. Now it was no longer a curse, lending an intimacy he didn’t want. Instead, the blanket had become a warm, close shelter from the cold air outside, drawing them closer.
Nothing else existed here but the two of them and the wild need glittering between them.
Kissing her again had a sense of inevitability to it, as if all day he had been waiting for only this. Suspended in a state of hungry anticipation to once again feel her hands in his hair, her soft curves pressed against him, the rapid beat of his heart.
Since the first time he kissed her, his body had been aching to have her in his arms again. That’s why he had punished his ankle with a long walk on the shore, why he had spent the morning at the gym he’d found in Seaside working on his physical therapy exercises, why he had done his best to stay away from Brambleberry House all day.
Now that he had rediscovered the wonder of a woman’s touch—this woman’s touch—he couldn’t manage to think about anything else. And even when he wasn’t consciously thinking about it, his subconscious had been busy remembering.
This was better than anything he might have dreamed. She was warm and responsive, her mouth eager against his.
It was an intense and erotic kiss, just the two of them alone in the night in this warm shelter while the storm battered the coast around them, and he wanted it to go on forever.
Still, he had a vague awareness even as their bodies heated that the storm was calming—or at least moving farther inland, leaving them behind. The lightning strikes became more infrequent, the rolling thunder more distant.
He didn’t care. Nothing else mattered but having her in his arms, slaking this raging thirst for her.
She moved a little, her soft curves brushing against his sling, but she quickly drew back.
“Sorry,” she exclaimed.
“You don’t have to be careful. I’m sorry my arm is in the way.”
“It’s not. I’m just afraid of hurting you.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Are you? Worried about it, I mean?”
“What red-blooded male in his right mind would worry about a stupid thing like a cast on his arm right now?” he murmured against her mouth.
Her low laugh sent chills rippling down his spine.
“Do that again,” he said.
In the darkness, she blinked at him. “Do...what?”
“Laugh like that. I would have to say, Ms. Galvez, that was just about the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re crazy,” she said, though she gave a self-conscious laugh when she said it and he thought he just might be content to sit there all night letting his imagination travel all sorts of wicked roads inspired by the sound.
“I must be. That’s what six months in an army hospital will get you.”
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” she whispered. “I wish I could make everything okay.”
To his shock, she planted a barely there kiss on the corner of his mouth then one on the other side. It was a stunningly sweet gesture and he felt something hard and tight that had been inside him for a long time suddenly break loose.
Had anyone ever shown such gentle compassion to him? He sure as hell couldn’t remember it. To his dismay, tears burned behind his eyelids and he wanted to lean into her and just lose himself in her touch.
A fragile tenderness wrapped around them like Aunt Abigail’s morning glory vines. He pulled her more firmly on his lap, solving the quandary of his cast by lifting the whole thing out of the way and resting his arm against her back as she nestled against his chest.
They kissed and touched for a long time, until he was aching with need, until she was shivering.
“Are you cold?”
Her laugh was rough. “Not even close.”
Still, even as she
said the words, she let out a long breath and he sensed her withdrawal, though she didn’t physically pull out of his arms.
“This is crazy, Max. What are we doing here? This isn’t... I don’t do this kind of thing. I...we barely know each other.”
He was having a hard time making his addled brain think at all but the still-functioning corner of his mind knew she was absolutely right. He had only been here a few days and in that time, he had been anything but honest with her.
But he didn’t agree when she said she barely knew him. Right now, he felt as if she knew him better than anyone else alive. He had told her things he hadn’t been able to share with the shrinks at Walter Reed.
“I don’t know what this thing is between us but I’m fiercely attracted to you.”
She let out a shaky breath and pulled out of his arms with a breathless little laugh. “Okay. Good to know.”
“But then, you probably figured that out already.”
“I believe I did, Lieutenant. And, uh, right back at you. So what do we do about it?”
He had a number of suggestions, none of which he was willing to share with her.
Before he could answer at all, the porch was suddenly flooded with lights as the electricity flashed back on.
Her eyes looked wide and shocked and she slid away from him on the porch swing as Conan gave a resigned-sounding sigh.
“Is that some kind of message?” Max asked with a rueful laugh. “Maybe the ghost of Brambleberry House is subtly telling us it’s time to go inside.”
“Ha. Doubtful. If I bought in to Sage and Julia’s theory, Abigail’s ghost would more likely be the one who cut the power in the first place,” she muttered.
“You didn’t tell me they had a theory about the ghost. I just figured she maybe wanted to hang around and make sure you treated her house the way she wanted.”
He couldn’t quite imagine Abigail as a malicious poltergeist. Not that she didn’t love a little mischief and mayhem, but she wouldn’t have caused it at any inconvenience or expense to someone else.
Though he might have expected things to be awkward with the heat and passion that still sparkled between them, he felt surprisingly comfortable with Anna.
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