by Julie Miller
“We’ll see.” He had nothing against Morty. Like Tess, they’d been classmates back in high school, even if his jock-centered path had rarely crossed with the nearsighted valedictorian’s. Still, he didn’t want to make any promises he couldn’t keep. “I’m not sure how long I’m going to be in town.”
“Well, at least we hope you stick around long enough to come down and have some fun.” Morty stuck out his hand and Travis automatically shook it.
Surprised at the solid strength of Morty’s grip, Travis shook hands a second time. Either Tess wasn’t the only Ashton resident who’d gone through a few changes since he’d been gone, or he needed a mental evaluation to go along with the physical he’d flunked last week. “Thanks, man. Appreciate the invitation.”
Morty nodded and pushed to his feet. “No problem. I know you’ve got lots of folks you want to spend some time with so I’ll head on out. Welcome home.”
“Thanks.”
Using Morty’s departure as a chance to effect his own escape, Travis braced his hand against the back of the couch. He lowered his foot to the floor and pushed himself to a standing position. A pathway cleared instantly, and the roomful of guests turned in his direction.
He’d have laughed at all the unwanted attention if he wasn’t so busy gritting his teeth while his left leg adjusted to holding his weight, and the sharp shaft of pain eased to a dull ache.
“No show here, folks.” He waved aside his father, brother, and a couple other offers of help. Standing at near attention, he fixed a trademark smile on his lips, reassuring everyone enough to return to their conversations. He made an excuse to be dismissed. “I’m just off to the latrine. I think I can manage that on my own.”
Fresh air was the ticket. Night. Solitude.
But if locking himself inside the john was the only way to get some time to himself so he could get his head on straight, then that was exactly what he planned to do.
His careful stride took him past Tess, allowing him to eavesdrop on the plea coming from Nixa Newhaven’s pruney lips. “It would only be for four hours on Monday evening.”
Four hours sacrificed for Miss Newhaven and her dowager cronies? What a downer.
A kindred spirit of being forced into something unpleasant made Travis stop there and exchange a few words with his father regarding his sister, Caitlin, her husband, Sean, and how they were going to make Hal a grandpa in the next two weeks. He already knew the facts and was delighted he was about to become an uncle, but at the moment, Travis was only listening to the short list of prospective baby names because it gave him an excuse to linger close enough to hear Tess’s response.
“I was hoping to check out the festival myself Monday night. Before things get too crazy.” Her tone, while polite enough, lacked the conviction to talk Miss Newhaven out of anything. “Besides, I’m working three other nights at the concession stand already.”
Nixa tutted between her teeth. “Do you have an escort to go with you?”
“You mean a date? Well, no, not yet. I thought Amy and I—”
“You girls can’t go out by yourself.” Nixa’s silver hair bent closer to Tess’s golden brown ponytail to whisper, “There’ll be sailors in town.”
Oh, the shock of it all! Travis twisted his lips to hide his grin. There’d be Marines and soldiers and civilians, too. And he’d bet good money that if any one of them was a little too forward with Tess, she could handle herself just fine.
Of course, she might be wanting one of them to be a little forward. Maybe a lot forward. Travis’s grin slipped. He hadn’t been home to Ashton for a year. Maybe he didn’t know Tess as well as he thought he did anymore. Was she seeing someone now? Dating around? Just because he’d never thought of her in that way before didn’t mean some other guy hadn’t noticed what a sweet package she’d morphed into.
Was she looking to meet someone? Get married? Have a fling? A one-night stand? And why the hell should her love life—in whatever form it might exist—get him all curious and itchy inside his skin like this? It wasn’t any of his business. She was a grown woman—She could sleep with anyone she damn well liked. As long as the man respected her. Made it good for her.
Hell. Why was it turning him inside out to think about Tess and sex in the same sentence?
No. Tess and sex with some man Travis didn’t know. Some jerk who wasn’t good enough for her.
“Miss Newhaven,” Travis heard Tess pipe up, “I have a right to a social life.”
“Of course, you do, dear.” Nixa Newhaven was patting Tess’s hand now. “But you’ve always been so good about helping out when you’re needed. I don’t know who else to ask.”
A breath of cool-headed logic seeped in to calm the unsettling stab of emotion. Tess had said she was working three nights next week. Nixa Newhaven seemed to think she was available to work a few nights more. And the older woman had asked whether Tess had a date.
Tess was unattached. Safe. He’d gotten himself all worked up over nothing.
Travis shouldn’t be breathing any easier, but he was.
He relaxed and savored his next swallow as Tess tried again. “Miss Newhaven—”
“I don’t claim to understand all these modern mores that you young people follow. But I really could use your help. Doris Mead simply can’t tolerate the heat the way she used to and I said I’d find a replacement to work her shift at the concession stand. Since you don’t have any specific plans…”
Since there was no date currently in the picture, Travis should do the gallant thing and give Tess the excuse she needed to get out of the assignment by asking her out himself. Yeah. He could just step up, offer Nixa a bit of a flirty smile to knock her off her garters, then chime in with something like, “Sorry, she can’t be bored to tears for four hours. Tess and I have plans—sharing a couple of carnival rides, strolling through the historic shops of Ashton’s Main Street, sipping margaritas on the dock, and then maybe taking a sailboat out onto the water to do a little canoodling under the moonlight.”
Sure, he could do that. An unexpected rightness seemed to lift his mood. Lord knew it wouldn’t be the first time he’d offered his services to a damsel in distress. He turned to join their conversation. Nixa tipped her chin, waiting expectantly when he smiled down at her. It sounded like a perfect evening. It sounded…
Wrong with Tess.
He swung his startled gaze over to lock onto Tess’s green-gold eyes, tilted up with curiosity. “Trav?”
Travis rubbed his knuckles along the newly healed skin at his jaw, frowning at the bitter taste in his mouth. He shouldn’t be thinking about canoodling with Tess. Or kissing or hugging—or stripping off that lavender T-shirt and whatever sensible thing she wore underneath to get a firsthand look at those perky, provocative breasts in all their naked glory.
“I’m sorry,” he finally ground out between clenched teeth. He turned away from plain, practical Tess and mustered a smile for Nixa. “I figured you’d be turning in early, and just wanted to say goodnight in case I missed you later.”
“That’s so considerate of you. Isn’t it, Tess?”
“Yes.”
Before he could hear what else either of them had to say, before the intuitive concern shining in Tess’s eyes figured out his crazily inappropriate urges, Travis walked away.
No. He limped.
He wasn’t in a position to rescue anybody—even from something as harmless as Nixa Newhaven’s pushy assumptions.
He had to get out of there. And fast.
TRAVIS HAD ROLLED up the sleeves of his camo shirt and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. He stood in the shadows beneath the log pier and watched the moon rise high into the midnight sky.
The gray-green water of Chesapeake Bay lapped against the Virginia shoreline, throwing up an occasional spray to cool the steamy July night. Tomorrow, he’d get to dress in his civvies. Shorts or jeans, and a beat-up top that would be thin enough and cool enough to deal with the summer heat.
But he
wasn’t looking forward to it.
The Corps actually expected him to shed his uniform for four to six weeks. Forced R and R to get his body back in shape and his head in the right place. Even two weeks was too long to suit him. It felt like quitting. Like throwing in the towel when he knew there was still some fight left in him.
But what if he didn’t have it in him anymore—the skills, the edge, the drive—the able body and clear-headed mindset to be a captain in Special Ops? If that were the case, he’d have been better off if that explosion had killed him.
“Hell.” He shook his head and inhaled a deep, steadying breath, focusing his attention on the gentle rocking of the boats anchored beneath the pier. He didn’t need to go to that dark place again. Men and women in uniform died every day, not because they wanted to, but because they understood their duty. They fought to survive, to carry out their assignments, driven by the faith put in them by their country and the Corps.
He needed to fight just as hard to carry out his duty.
Because if he couldn’t fight his way back to his field service assignment with the Corps, he didn’t have a clue about what he would do.
His hometown thought he was some kind of hero. What a joke. He couldn’t even help an old buddy get out of a boring night working the fair next week. The Action Man might not be fit for action anymore. How the hell was he supposed to deal with that? It scared him senseless.
But Travis’s senses weren’t so far gone that he couldn’t hear the soft squish of footsteps approaching across the golden sand beach. That he didn’t recognize the intruder who’d found his childhood hiding place, even before she spoke.
“Hey, stranger.” Tess’s familiar voice feathered across his eardrums like a soothing breeze in the night. “Skipping out on your own party?”
“I’m not much of a partier.”
The top of her head barely reached his shoulder as she stood barefoot beside him. “Since when?”
Since blowing my body to kingdom come and being sentenced to half a life because I can’t function as a man or a Marine should any longer.
He stared sightlessly out into the water. This was as comfortable as he’d been since leaving the hospital at Quantico with his dad and Ethan. This hiding place reminded him of simpler times. Or maybe it was Tess’s rock steady presence that had finally taken the edge off his mood.
Travis shrugged. “Since I got tired. Seems I get that way a lot lately.”
“It’s not surprising. You almost died. You’ve been through several major surgeries. Months of rehabilitation. Your body’s still in the process of healing. You have a right to be tired.”
“It’s no excuse.” He turned to face her. He captured a caramel-colored tendril that blew across her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “It’s no excuse for jumpin’ down your throat the way I did this afternoon.”
Her smile glinted in the moonlight like a fond memory. “You have many fine qualities, Travis. But patience has never been one of them. Your body needs time. Your spirit, too, from the sound of things.”
He nodded and pulled his hand away before sensations of silky hair and warm skin imprinted themselves on his fingertips. “I know Dad’s worried about me. Hell, half of Ashton’s worried. But I don’t know if I can do the vacation thing here. It feels like I’m hiding out, like I’m running from the fight.”
“Do you want to hire someone else to do your PT?”
“No. I don’t want to admit that I still need four more weeks of physical therapy, period.” A bit of the now-familiar frustration licked through his veins again. “My men are in a war zone right now. Hell. They’re not even my men anymore. I need to be there. I need to do my job. I’m letting them down.”
“Because you nearly lost your leg? Your life? I know you McCormicks live and breathe the military, but do you really have to be a superhero every waking moment?”
“You wouldn’t understand, T-bone. There’s never been something you wanted so bad for so long that that wanting becomes a part of you.”
With a sound that was almost a snicker, she turned away, leaving the shadows of the pier’s giant support pylons and heading along the beach, back toward their homes a half-mile away. Her dismissive sigh was a sobering reminder that he really knew how to spoil a mood these days. After grabbing his boots and socks, he followed her down near the water and watched her pick up a small stone. She drew back her right arm, waited for the right moment, and skipped the stone across the waves. Four, five, six hits. Nice.
“Hey, I see you’ve still got your throwing arm. Did you ever figure out how to hit a curve ball?”
Tess laughed and he felt a little less like the jerk he’d been earlier, a little more like the friend he’d been forever. She scooped up her sandals in her fingers and fell into step beside him. “I don’t play much hard-core softball anymore. The hospital has a team, but it’s pretty much for fun and not all that competitive. Not like what we played back in school.”
“So that’s a no?”
“Travis!” She swatted his arm and dashed ahead to pick up a relatively straight piece of driftwood, about three-feet long. She dropped her shoes, turned and lifted the skinny log up onto her shoulder like a baseball bat. “Okay, hotshot,” she dared him, “let’s see if you still have a curve ball before you start criticizing my game.”
He laughed. This was what he needed. Something normal. Something familiar. Something that didn’t depend on the state of his leg or his questionable ability to play the hero. “You want me to throw you a curve ball?”
The bat danced against her shoulder. “If you think you’ve still got it in you. Find a rock.”
He followed the nod of her head and picked up a palm-size rock. The little lady wanted to play, huh? Travis dropped his boots, spit on the rock and rubbed it smooth between his hands. “I led the baseball team to a state championship my junior year,” he reminded her.
“And I led the softball team my senior year.” She pointed the bat in his direction, tapped the sand, then put it back on her shoulder. “So far, you’re just a bunch of talk, McCormick. Let’s see some action.”
It didn’t take long to get into the spirit of a midnight game of stickball on the deserted beach. With his stronger right leg to brace himself, Travis reared back, went through the dramatic motion of an overhead pitch, then stopped his momentum to toss it underhand. Tess swung and missed, and the rock plopped into the sand behind her.
“What, are you afraid I’m going to actually hit the thing?” She tossed the rock back to him. “Now put it over the plate.”
Travis pitched. Tess swung. The smack of rock against wood startled them both into laughter. She jammed the rock into the sand just a few feet in front of her.
Travis snatched up the rock and moved in behind Tess. “You call that a swing?”
“You call that a pitch?” she countered.
“Like this, T-bone.” Travis grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back against his chest. He tucked his chin against her temple and adjusted the bat over her shoulder. With one hand covering both of hers on the bat, he wrapped his free arm around her waist and turned her so that she was lined up with the imaginary plate. He tossed the rock into the air and swung the bat with her, making solid contact with the rock and driving it deep into Chesapeake Bay. He moved the makeshift bat back up into place and repositioned her, repeating the movement a second time. “You have to swing under it like this so you can drive the ball up instead of down into the ground.”
The sharp catch of Tess’s breathy sigh reached him over the rustle of waves on the beach. She went still in his arms, except for the curly tendrils of golden brown hair that blew against his cheek.
Travis froze. But he didn’t move his hand from the nip of her waist or move his face from the salty fresh dampness that clung to her hair. He didn’t want to move. Unless he moved closer.
Oh, man. He was in worse shape than he’d thought. This was not normal. If he was in this position with any other woman,
he’d be nuzzling her neck right now. He’d be tossing the bat and pulling her down into the sand. He’d slide his hands beneath her shirt and unzip her shorts.
But Travis stood there, holding his breath.
This was Tess! A year off his game couldn’t have short-circuited every instinct in him, could it? Hot, needy urges careened through his body, but his brain couldn’t make any sense of them. This was so completely not the feeling he usually got hanging out with her. Yet the evidence was right there, nestled against his crotch and stirring things that were better left alone.
Tess Bartlett had a rockin’ ass to go along with those tits.
And he wanted them. He wanted her.
Bad.
3
“I’M AFRAID I’m gonna have to cancel our trip out to Longbow Island this week,” Hal McCormick’s chest-deep sigh revealed the depth of his disappointment.
Travis paused outside the kitchen, leaning on his cane as he eavesdropped on his father’s telephone conversation. Cancel? His father loved fishing.
“That’s not it,” Hal continued. “From what I hear, the striped bass are biting in the rock piles along the shore. We could catch our limit and have plenty to throw back…. Nope, that’s not the problem either. There’s a line of storms due in mid-week, but everything looks great right now.”
Was he hearing things right? Only the threat of severe weather kept his father on dry land these days. As a family, they’d always loved outdoor sports, but since the death of Travis’s mother nearly a decade ago, spending time on the water—preferably with a fishing rod in his hand—had become a way of life for his father.
After developing a heart condition, forced retirement from his position as a brigadier general in the USMC’s Quartermaster Corps had left widower Hal McCormick with two obsessions. One was his three children, and the other his fishing boat, which seemed to grow larger and newer with each passing year.
Travis tilted his head to spy out the sliding glass doors that faced the presently tranquil waters of Chesapeake Bay. Not a cloud in sight this afternoon. What was his dad up to? Frowning, Travis leaned back toward the archway to the kitchen. He had a bad feeling about this.