Adoring Delaney: The Next Generation

by Edwards, Riley

  The man had spent almost a decade in my bed and I didn’t know much about him. I hadn’t known he could pick a lock, could hotwire a car, or that he’d had twenty seven weeks of medical training. That was over six months, six months he’d been gone somewhere and I’d never known.

  “I don’t know you,” I whispered on a wheeze.

  It was in times like these, when the reminders came, that my heart hurt. He was a virtual stranger.

  “Baby, you do.”

  “I had no idea you were a medic.”

  “I wasn’t, not really. Each team has two combat medic billets to fill. I was selected to go, and took the training. Filled that spot on one deployment, then a hospital corpsman rotated into our team and I no longer filled the spot.”

  “What did you do then? Like what was your job?”

  “AOIC.”

  “What’s that?” God, I felt dumb, but I knew nothing about the Navy and anytime in the past if I’d started to ask, he’d shut me down. I only knew he was a SEAL because the whole family flew to San Diego for his graduation. Had it not been a family affair, I doubted he would’ve told me.

  “Assistant Officer In Charge.”

  “Why are you telling me this? You never—”

  “No more secrets.”

  “What?” I muttered.

  “Ask whatever you’d like. I’ll answer. I don’t want anymore secrets between us. But before we travel down that path, I want you to understand something. You know me, Laney. Just because you don’t know about the Navy or what my job was, doesn’t mean you don’t know the man I am. And I want you to really understand why I didn’t talk to you about any of it. It had nothing to do with me not trusting you. When I came home and was with you was the only time I felt like me. Like I belonged. I loved my brothers. We were a team and they were all good men. I do not regret my service. I do not regret being a SEAL. But I never wanted you to see me as Special Operator Lenox. I didn’t want that to touch you. I wanted simple. I wanted just you and me. I wanted to be your Carter. I wanted to be good enough for you and I was afraid if you knew what I’d done you wouldn’t think I was. So I kept it all from you. Ask all your questions, Laney. I’ll answer them all. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but never forget, you know me.”

  My stomach tightened and felt funny.

  “All I ask is you do it over dinner. I’m fucking starved. Your dad and mine kept me in meetings all day. And when I wasn’t going over schedules and course curriculum, Uncle Levi and Uncle Clark were running me around the compound. I had no time to break for lunch.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “About which part, being so hungry I could down five peanut butter sandwiches? Or the part about our dads being slave drivers?”

  “You hate peanut butter.”

  “Yeah, babe, I know. That should tell you how hungry I am. Can we get to dinner?”

  I didn’t move to leave for dinner like he asked because my legs were shaking. Instead I continued to stare at him, using the mirror to do so. Maybe I could do this—or at least I could try if he was willing to finally open up. He’d said no more secrets, if he truly meant that then possibly, possibly there’d be a chance for us.

  “Laney, baby?”

  “Yeah, right. I’m ready.”

  I finally let go of the counter, turned to face him, and he pushed off the doorjamb he’d been leaning against and stepped toward me.

  “You look beautiful.”

  “Thanks,” I murmured and shifted my eyes away from him. It was silly, I’d heard him tell me a millions times he thought I was beautiful but this time it felt different.

  It felt like more.

  “Eyes on me, Laney.” I didn’t want to look at him. For some asinine reason I now felt shy. This felt different than all the other times he’d stood in my bathroom.

  His hand came up and went under my chin, forcing my attention back to him.

  “Let’s go get dinner, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Everything’s gonna work out. Trust me.”

  “If you say so,” I grumbled.

  “It will. I promise.”

  My back shot straight and I stepped away from him.

  Now he wanted to promise me something? After all of this time, I was just supposed to follow blindly? I don’t think so.

  “Don’t, Carter. Don’t make me promises. Just because we’re going out to dinner doesn’t mean I trust you. It doesn’t mean I think we can be together. All this means is I’m polite and you tricked me into agreeing to go out with you and it would be rude to stand you up. We’ll go on our date, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be getting a second one.”

  His face went funny and it was a weird mix of hard and trying to hold back a smile. Whatever he was thinking was annoying and I wasn’t going to stand around and wait for him to explain.

  It was time to go and get this night over with.

  * * *

  “Thanks.” I heard from behind me and turned to watch a very tall, very pretty woman walk through the door Carter was holding open. She looked kind of familiar, but I couldn’t place her.

  The drive to the restaurant had been uneventful. Carter had talked about Triple Canopy and what his new job would entail. I was trying not to be irritated he was sharing freely. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. My brain understood this, but I was a woman, therefore logic flew out the window and I was getting annoyed.

  At this point, I was beating a dead horse. It was bloody and mangled yet I wasn’t ready to let it go. So the more he told me about the training he’d be in charge of the more annoyed I became. I’d wanted this for years. Years. Even a fraction of the details he’d given me in the car and I would’ve been happy. Which pissed me off, knowing I’d been willing to live off of scraps.

  Carter mumbled a ‘you’re welcome’ to the woman and checked us in with the hostess, then led us to a bench to wait for our table.

  The whole time I was thinking about how weak I’d been when it came to Carter. I didn’t allow anyone else to walk on me, I had a quick temper, and was fast to stand up for myself. I wasn’t a pushover. Knowing all of that brought me to one conclusion. Love made you stupid. And if that was the truth, I didn’t think I wanted to ever be in love again. That was after I forced myself to fall out of love with Carter.

  “Wow, this place is really busy,” the woman Carter had held open the door for said, and sat down next to me.

  “Best steaks around,” I told her.

  “Really? I’m new to the area. I was told they have the best burgers,” she returned.

  “Those, too. You can’t go wrong, anything you get will be awesome.”

  “I’m Natalie.” She stuck her hand out and smiled.

  “Delaney. Nice to meet you. This is Carter.”

  He gave her a lift of his chin but made no move to shake her hand. It was a little awkward and a tad bit rude but Natalie didn’t seem to mind and didn’t miss a beat.

  “It’s beautiful here and everyone is so friendly. So much different than where I’m from,” she continued.

  “Where’d you move here from?”

  “Chicago.”

  “Well, welcome to Georgia.” I smiled.

  “Thanks, happy to be here.”

  “Sir. Your table’s ready,” the hostess announced.

  “Laney?” Carter stood and reached down to take my hand.

  I thought about telling him I didn’t need his help but my manners kicked in and I accepted his offer.

  “It was very nice meeting you. Enjoy your dinner,” I told Natalie.

  “You, too.”

  Natalie glanced up at Carter then back to me. She was smiling, open and friendly but there was something else there I couldn’t place.

  We followed the hostess to our table and Carter pulled out my seat and helped me scoot in. The gesture both gentlemanly and annoying.

  I should’ve had this all along.

  Carter took his seat and the hostes
s left us to our evening.

  “Well, she was nice,” I commented.

  “Who?”

  “Natalie.”

  “She was desperate.”

  “What? That’s not nice to say.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s the truth.”

  “She was just friendly,” I defended.

  “No, baby, she was desperate. We sat down, and she came right to your side and took a seat. There were plenty of other places she could’ve waited, but instead she sat close. Then she talked your ear off.”

  “Carter, she didn’t talk my ear off. I’m sure it’s hard for you to understand because up until recently you’ve answered questions with the least amount of words possible and avoided anything that resembled conversation, but she was simply being nice.”

  The waiter coming to take our drink orders cut off Carter’s retort. And by the way his eyes had narrowed I knew he was going to be bossy which led me to asking a lot of questions about the menu and the nightly specials. I did this long enough for the waiter to get fidgety and Carter to stare at me.

  Whatever.

  He could be as irritated as he wanted to be. It wasn’t like I was trying to impress him nor was I trying to jockey for another date. As far as I was concerned Carter Lenox could suck it. I hadn’t lied when I said this place had the best steaks in Georgia.

  I was going to order the biggest one they had, and enjoy every bite. And if Carter sat across from me miserable it served him right. He wanted this, not me.

  13

  Carter

  Delaney had worked herself into a snit and by the determined look on her face she was going to nurse it for the rest of the night.

  Being as she was angry for reasons only known to her, I might as well get some shit straight.

  “Right, so, that’s the last time you get to throw that in my face,” I started.

  “Throw what in your face?”

  Yeah, she was angry all right, and lucky for me she was cute as hell when she was miffed. She always had been, even as a teenager full of sass and attitude, instead of being annoying it was fun to poke at her.

  “That shit about me not talking. We’ve covered that, and we’re not gonna keep going over it until you convince yourself that we’ve never had a conversation. Because you know that’s not right. There were some topics I didn’t discuss but we’ve spent many nights lying in our bed, with me holding you, and us talking until you drifted off.”

  And that was the damned truth. More times than I could count I’d hold her and she’d tell me about what she was teaching, about her students, about school politics. And before that when she was in college, she’d tell me about her classes, her teachers, her friends, and everything in between.

  “Don’t you mean my bed?” she huffed.

  Christ.

  “No, Laney baby. I meant ours. Any bed you’ve ever been in where I’ve joined you has always been ours.”

  “That’s a stretch—”

  “Stop. I get you’re fighting for your corner, and I know you have a right to be wary, I didn’t do right by you. I’ve admitted it. Repeatedly. But stop twisting what we have.”

  “We don’t—”

  “Stop.”

  “Did you just growl at me?” she asked incredulously.

  I wasn’t sure if I had or not. I’d been too busy trying not to haul her over the table and kiss the attitude out of her. Which made my thoughts stray even further to the last time I’d kissed her. It had been days since I last tasted her and by her declaration last night about not kissing on the first date, which I had to say pissed me right the fuck off, she’d been on a date with a man other than me. I wouldn’t be getting my shot for a few more days. That wasn’t going to work for me.

  I had to admit, one of the many great things about moving home was not having to go months between having her, and we weren’t starting this off in a way where she was throwing up walls around every turn, keeping me from her.

  “Probably,” I answered honestly.

  “You can’t growl at me,” she protested.

  “I can’t? Funny, seems I did.”

  “I think we should call it a night and you should take me home. This isn’t working for me.”

  “Yeah, I know it’s not. You thought I’d let you trample over our history and bullshit yourself. You hadn’t planned on me calling you out on it so now you’re pissed. You forget how well I know you so I know what you’re trying to do and I’m not gonna let you do it.”

  Wrong thing to say.

  I knew this when Delaney’s blue eyes flashed with anger and she leaned in so she could seethe without our dinner mates hearing.

  “You’re an ass.”

  “Yep. But an honest one.”

  “Glad you know me so well while you’ve kept me in the dark all these years.”

  “Nothing but your own stubbornness is stopping you from asking all the questions you want. But I will warn you, I won’t lie to you. So be careful what it is you think you want to know about me. Because my answers won’t change shit about shit. You are mine, no matter what you learn.”

  “You’re crazy,” she blurted.

  “Yep, crazy in love with you.”

  Delaney’s eyes closed and she looked like she was praying for patience. My gaze went to the window and I caught sight of Natalie, the woman who’d chatted Laney up. She was walking through the parking lot empty-handed and got into a sporty little Jetta with Florida plates. Could have been a rental, or her story about moving to Georgia from Illinois could’ve been bullshit.

  Either way, I hadn’t liked the way she’d sat so close to us. And I really didn’t like the way she looked at me, open and hungry. By the time the woman had glanced back to Laney she’d hid her response and she’d done it well. That was the part that had bothered me the most. The woman was good, she was used to lying, and she could mask her feelings at will.

  “Have you ever been shot?” Delaney asked and my eyes slid back to her.

  “Yes.”

  “The scar on your arm? The one you told me was no big deal?” Her brow lifted and her mouth twisted.

  “I did not lie to you. It wasn’t a big deal. It was a graze and took a few stitches to repair.”

  Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

  “Did you like being a SEAL?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why’d you leave the Navy?”

  “There were a lot of reasons. Some having to do with family and me missing out on important stuff. Part of it was you. I’d given up us being together and having a family for long enough. The regret had piled heavy and I wasn’t willing to put us aside any longer. And the last two deployments had taken a toll. One in particular was really bad, the other just hammered home I’d seen enough.”

  “What have you seen?”

  “Let’s shelf that question until we’re at home and not in a busy restaurant.”

  “Right,” she mumbled.

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell you, Laney. But I’m not going to tell you about the carnage and evil I’ve witnessed in a place that I cannot hold you or give you a deeper explanation than just telling you I’ve seen people die, people that I had a hand in sending to hell.”

  Her eyes widened in shock and I wondered if she’d ever thought about what I did. If she knew that every time I’d come home to her I’d done so with blood-soaked hands. That every time I crawled into bed next to her and held her, I’d come from a place where I’d dealt out death and fought to stay alive. All things I never wanted her to consider or contemplate.

  Now I was questioning my actions. The imagination was a powerful thing, if she’d allowed her mind to wander, her version of what I’d done may’ve been worse than the reality.

  “Did that happen a lot?” she whispered.

  “Yes.”

  The waiter came back to our table, I rattled off my order, but never took my eyes off Delaney. Her skin had paled and she stuttered out her menu choices.

  “Laney?” I ca
lled when the man left our table.

  “Huh?”

  “Look at me, sweetheart.” Her wounded eyes came to mine and I asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “I knew. I’m not stupid. But I hate you went through it alone. That you never talked to me about it.”

  “I was never alone. You were always with me, both on deployment and when I came home. Just because I didn’t tell you about it didn’t mean you weren’t healing my soul. I didn’t need to talk, I needed you. Which you always gave me.”

  Tears brimmed in her lids and she blinked causing a few to leak down her cheek. She quickly swiped them away and tried but failed to hide her sadness.

  “Nothing to cry over, Laney. I swear you gave me what I needed.”

  She nodded her head and looked around the restaurant, I gave her the minute she needed to gather her thoughts. When she looked back to the table she took her time rearranging her napkin and silverware.

  “Ask, baby. Whatever’s on your mind just spit it out.” I interjected as much humor into my tone as I could but she still flinched.

  “Tell me about it,” she finally asked.

  “About what?”

  “All of it. I don’t know anything about the Navy or where you’ve lived since you left for the Naval Academy.”

  I’d start with the easy stuff, the information that wouldn’t freak her out.

  “I loved the Academy. The curriculum was hard. Sometimes it felt like I was drinking out of a firehose. But if you prove you’re dedicated the instructors won’t let you fail. Extra study hours, extra help during liberty weekends. Whatever the tools you need to succeed they make sure you have. It was physically strenuous, but going into my second year I knew I was going to BUD/s after graduation and I welcomed the workouts.”

  “Did you have friends?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Friends. You know, people to pal around with, joke with, commiserate with? Friends?”

  “Yeah, I had some of those.” I smiled. “A few I still keep in touch with. One died in combat last year. And the rest were stationed around the world and life gets in the way so you fall out of contact.”