The Marine's Family Mission

by Victoria Pade

He drew her into his mouth and awakened things even his hand had left sleeping, flicking the tip of her breast with his tongue, nibbling tenderly.

  And turning her on until she approached the edge of no return.

  The edge she caught herself from falling off as she suddenly asked herself what she was doing. And how far she was going to let this go.

  There was no question that her body was crying out for her to let this go all the way. She just wasn’t completely sure she should listen to it.

  Maybe her success in dealing with the orchard today had gone to her head. Maybe there was a part of her that was celebrating and causing her to act a bit recklessly. But she didn’t want to be reckless and end up regretting it.

  So since she couldn’t be sure at that moment if this was the right thing to do, she knew she had to deny her body what it wanted so desperately and end this before she did go over the edge.

  “Ohhh...we have to stop...” she said, as much a complaint as a command.

  “Do we?” he asked as if he thought she might be mistaken.

  But she convinced herself all over again that she wasn’t and said, “We do.”

  The tip of his tongue took one more circle around her nipple and then left it to air-dry while his mouth raised up to recapture hers in another kiss that threatened every resolve she’d ever had.

  But even as her desires for him made it more difficult for her to pull away, he still did his best to right her clothes, even refastening her bra with a surprising expertise.

  He went on kissing her for a while afterward. And she left her hands under his shirt as she reconsidered. It was just so hard to actually make something stop that she really wanted to continue.

  But it was Declan who rewound the kiss until it was chaste again. Who moved his hands from her body to cup either side of her face, making the kiss sweetly innocent.

  He did mutter a disappointed groan when she forced herself to take her hands out from under his shirt, but other than that he gave her what she’d asked for and finally called a halt to it all, ending that kiss, too.

  His hands dropped away from her face then and fell to her hips, lifting her off his lap and replacing her on the porch floor.

  He took a deep breath and wilted—as much as the marine in him seemed capable of wilting—back against the railing post, studying her again.

  “What’s going on with us do you think?” he asked.

  Emmy shrugged elaborately, her shoulders going high before dropping back into place, because it was the only answer she could give as she reminded herself that she couldn’t leap too far ahead, that she needed to think rationally and avoid jumping to conclusions. She knew there was something about him that made her want to throw caution to the wind, but before she could let that happen she had to be sure they were on the same page, wanting the same things.

  He didn’t seem to have an answer to his question either and instead just went on looking at her with those penetrating blue eyes.

  Then, as if there wasn’t an answer to be had, he sighed again and said, “Kinsey’s rehearsal and dinner are tomorrow night.”

  “I know. I’m taking the pictures.”

  “Will you be my date?”

  That surprised her. But maybe he wanted to make sure that things were clearer for tomorrow night than they had been at Mandy and Topher’s wedding, than they had been right up to that moment. Maybe this was the first step to letting her know they were on that same page after all.

  “I will,” she said, liking that clarity.

  He smiled another of those small smiles and went on looking at her intently before the smile went devilish and in a gruffer voice he said, “I’m going to sit out here for a few minutes and cool off. It’d probably help if you went in.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. Not that she wanted to because she didn’t. But it was getting progressively more difficult for her to be out there with him and not go back to what they’d been doing moments before.

  She got to her feet but as she did he caught her hand in his and tugged her toward him. He stretched his torso up enough to kiss her again—another hotter-than-hot kiss that nearly brought her to her knees before he ended it and let go of her hand.

  “Maybe you’d better lock your door tonight,” he joked.

  Emmy just laughed, said, “Good night,” and went inside.

  But not only didn’t she lock her door when she got to her bedroom, she almost left it open.

  Until she summoned what little was left of her willpower and slowly, quietly shut it.

  Wishing it was as easy to shut off all he’d turned on inside her.

  And wondering if even a night’s sleep could accomplish that.

  Chapter Eight

  “Did you know that in the years after we all left, Mom and Hugh got that involved here?” Liam asked Declan as the two of them stood in a corner of the church basement watching guests come in through the basement’s open double doors.

  Liam and his wife and kids had arrived in Northbridge only an hour before the wedding rehearsal. It had been on the hillside behind the Madison family farmhouse where the ceremony and reception were to be held. But the rehearsal dinner was in town. Declan and Liam had given the officiating reverend a ride home after the rehearsal, and during that drive he’d told the two about jobs on the farm that their parents had given numerous townsfolk who were down on their luck. About help they’d given elderly people around Northbridge—before they’d become elderly themselves. About how, once the kids were gone, the Madisons had volunteered to run the local food bank and even quietly initiated and sponsored a program that provided backpacks full of food to be taken home over weekends and holidays by children who usually depended on the school’s free breakfasts and lunches.

  “I didn’t have any idea,” Declan answered, as surprised as his twin to hear that their mother and adoptive father had become such philanthropists when their nest had emptied. “Every time I had stateside leave I either flew them to meet me wherever I was or we met in Vegas. I haven’t been back in Northbridge since I left, so no one here could have told me. And not once in any of that time did either Mom or Hugh ever say a word to me about it.”

  “The part I can’t believe is that there was a committee formed to throw this dinner tonight on their behalf, to stand in for them since they aren’t here now to do it for Kinsey themselves,” Liam went on with the other part of what the reverend had revealed. “Though they’re doing it to thank Kinsey along with honoring Mom and Hugh. Did you know that when she moved back to Northbridge to take care of Mom at the end, she also helped out with some home nursing for other people around here without being paid for it? That that’s why half the town is expected to come to the wedding?”

  “I knew Kinsey had helped out one neighbor when she was here, but I didn’t know it went beyond that,” Declan said. “Apparently we’ve really been out of the loop.”

  “I guess deployment will do that,” Liam said.

  “I guess...”

  “Speaking of which, I heard you got a hero’s welcome the other night,” Liam said then.

  “The whole thing is just bizarre,” Declan said, embarrassed to talk about that.

  He was still finding it difficult to grasp his own reception, let alone to believe Northbridge had taken such a complete turnaround. Was it really possible that the passage of time and some good deeds had redeemed their family from scandal? Or had he been wrong to assume the whole town had been against them all along, rather than just a handful of vocal antagonists?

  Uncomfortable with these ideas, Declan changed the subject. “How does it feel being a civilian?”

  “It doesn’t feel like I’m really a civilian yet—it still just feels like extended leave. I have to remind myself every morning that I actually resigned,” Liam answered with a laugh.

  “I wasn’t sure you could go through w
ith it.”

  Liam shrugged. “Things just changed for me. Finding out I have kids... Meeting Dani...”

  “Any regrets?”

  “No,” Liam answered, his lack of hesitation also surprising Declan. “I know—if somebody had told me a year ago that I’d be where I am today, I’d have said never gonna happen. But it just did. And this feels right for me now. As much as the marines felt right for me before.” Liam glanced over at Declan. “How about you?” he said.

  “Me?”

  Liam tossed a nod toward Emmy, who was taking pictures of the tables, the centerpieces, the people arriving with casseroles and Crock-Pots and covered dishes. “You’re keeping pretty good tabs on Topher’s sister-in-law—that’s how it started with me and Dani...”

  “You’re imagining things,” Declan denied, even though he knew he was guilty of tracking Emmy’s every move. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her for long all through the rehearsal or since they’d come here.

  But she looked so good...

  She was dressed in a simple gray-and-white-striped dress that followed her every curve until it flared at the very bottom. The straight-across top was held in place by thin straps that left enough bare skin to have been whetting his appetite ever since she’d walked downstairs tonight. Her hair was a little curlier than usual, a little bouncier, and she had on just enough makeup to accentuate her natural beauty without distracting from it. And he couldn’t help enjoying the view.

  That was all there was to it, though. Liam was just off the mark.

  “The marines are still right for me,” Declan said. “I keep wondering how you could opt out—I mean, Conor, sure. He was always a doctor first, military second. But you and me...”

  “Things change,” Liam repeated. Then he added, “You can’t deny that you’ve made a pretty big change yourself.”

  “Me?” Declan said, still thinking about Emmy, recalling last night on the front porch and not totally following what his brother was saying.

  But now it wasn’t Emmy on his brother’s mind, Declan realized as he started listening to what Liam was saying.

  “I picked you up from rehab and drove you to the airport to get on the plane to come here, remember? I couldn’t get two words out of you and there was a dark cloud hanging over you. Now here you are, nearly yourself again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. But when Conor told me you were in better spirits here I thought he must be joking—you always hated Northbridge, and I thought being around a million reminders of Topher being gone would just make it worse. But here you are...”

  Declan was looking at Emmy again before he pulled his glance away to address part of what his brother had said. “There are a million reminders of Topher,” he agreed. “But most of them are good ones. Actually, being here has helped me remember those and where we all started and why we all wanted to serve—”

  “And how Topher wouldn’t have blamed you for his death the way you blamed yourself?” Liam prodded.

  Declan shrugged, conceding to that. “Emmy convinced me that Mandy didn’t blame me either. And apparently not even Northbridge does,” he finished somewhat under his breath and more to himself than to his brother.

  “That’s because there’s no blame to be laid on you,” Liam said firmly.

  “Still not easy to live with,” Declan muttered.

  “It’s not easy for any of us to live with losing Topher,” Liam said solemnly.

  “Yeah,” Declan agreed. But being here had actually led him to understand that he wasn’t alone in the loss—the way he’d been feeling since hitting that IED.

  In fact, being here had made him face that that loss was as great or greater to other people—to Mandy before she’d died herself, and to Trinity and Kit down the road when they would grow up without a father. Even to Emmy, who’d turned her life upside down to raise Trinity and Kit and take care of the farm. And she did it all good-naturedly—it was hard to go on wallowing the way he had been in light of that.

  He found her again with his eyes, and apparently that renewed his brother’s suspicions.

  “There you go, watching Topher’s sister-in-law again.”

  “No big deal,” Declan claimed.

  “She liked you. She didn’t like you. She liked you. She didn’t like you,” Liam said, chronicling the ups and downs with Emmy that Declan had complained to him about along the way. “Do you like that you never know what you’re in for with her from one minute to the next? Does it keep you on your toes or something?”

  “There were reasons for all that,” Declan said, going on to explain what he now knew had happened both in Afghanistan and at Topher’s wedding.

  “All right,” Liam allowed when he was finished. “Does that mean she’s okay, then? That you aren’t just waiting for the flip side to show up at any minute?”

  Declan couldn’t say he was 100 percent sure of that. Especially not when he’d come to want her so much that it made him wonder if he was giving her a faster pass to forgiveness than he should. And even with everything explained, she did still run a little hot and cold—he was sure she wanted him, but she kept holding herself back and he wasn’t sure why...which was driving him to distraction.

  Because he did want her. After last night it was damn near eating him alive.

  But before he could come up with an answer for his brother, he sensed Liam tense up and followed Liam’s gaze to the basement doors again.

  “Oh, this will make Kinsey’s night...” Liam said for Declan’s ears only as the two of them watched a large group of people walk in together.

  It took Declan a moment to recognize them from the newspaper and magazine pictures that his sister had shown him along the way.

  But after that moment, he knew who he was looking at.

  The Camdens had just arrived.

  * * *

  Through her viewfinder, Emmy saw a large group of people file into the church basement all at once for the rehearsal dinner. That wasn’t strange—people had been coming in steadily for the past twenty minutes. But it was the quiet that fell over the party room followed by a ripple of whispers that told her something out of the ordinary was happening.

  Then she heard the Camden name among the whispers around her, took a closer look at the faces of the new arrivals and realized that they were, indeed, the Camdens that she’d seen in pictures when she’d looked them up after talking to Declan about his family ties.

  Emmy knew that Kinsey would be thrilled, so she captured an image of the surprise on the bride’s face, the touching smile and tear-filled eyes that followed it. Then she began to take rapid shots of the Camdens themselves to chronicle that arrival.

  But at the same time it was really Declan who was on her mind. Declan who she began to inch her way toward even as it changed the angle of her pictures.

  She didn’t quite understand what was pushing her in his direction at the expense of her photographs—nothing had ever done that before. She just felt a need to get to him, wanting to support him through this moment he’d been dreading.

  It was silly because standing together in the corner, Declan and his identical twin brother were a wall of tall human steel that looked as if they could withstand anything.

  But she knew that Declan had lived through too many hard knocks over his mother’s relationship with a Camden. And even though she didn’t completely understand it, she wanted to at least be by his side.

  So, continuing to take pictures along the way, that was where she went.

  The minute she got to him—thinking of nothing but how to make sure it wasn’t obvious—she reached a hand down to his, squeezed it hard and then let go.

  He shot her a quick glance, the stone-cold expression on his face cracking into the bare hint of a curious smile that only lasted a split second before it disappeared. And yet in that split second it made Emmy feel as if
they’d formed a united front that she could only hope might help him get through this.

  From that moment on she made a concerted effort not to be far from Declan’s side. She still did her job, documenting the whole event for Kinsey and Sutter, she just never did it far from Declan.

  She had more than enough shots by the time the first of the guests began to leave and when she let Declan know that, he used the excuse of needing to get home to Kit and Trinity for them to be among the departees.

  As he drove them home he was as solemn and quiet as he’d been when he’d first come to Northbridge. But Emmy left him to it, thinking that he probably needed some time for what had happened to settle.

  Once they reached the farm he disappeared into the back of the house while she got the report on the kids from the fifty-year-old babysitter. She and Miss Mona also discussed the babysitting plan for the wedding the next day, including the agreement for Miss Mona to bring the kids home afterward and stay with them until Emmy and Declan were able to leave the reception. Then Emmy paid her and let her go.

  Once the front door was closed and locked, Emmy went quickly up the stairs to peek in on the kids, making sure they were sleeping peacefully before she retraced her steps down to the house’s first level again in search of Declan.

  She found him leaning over the island counter in the kitchen.

  He’d removed his sport coat and tie, opened the collar button on his shirt and rolled the sleeves to midforearms. His arms were stretched out to brace him while his hands were flat to the granite.

  Emmy eased her high heels off and left them where she knew Trinity would find them in the morning and have fun trying them on. Then she joined Declan on the opposite side of the counter and said, “How’re you doing?”

  He breathed a short humorless laugh and raised his head from where it was hanging between his shoulders just enough to look at her from beneath his dark eyebrows. “I don’t know. I don’t know much of anything tonight.”

  “Strange night,” Emmy said. “Not only did you have to be with a lot of the town again, but all of the Camdens, too? And there’s a lot of them.”