The Captains' Vegas Vows
Page 6
For those moments, she’d felt like she knew what she wanted and with whom she wanted it. But then, as their breathing had slowed and their heartbeats had returned to normal, she’d felt so very disoriented. Why wasn’t she on her way to an army base? Why was there a wedding band on her hand?
She’d looked at Tom’s face and realized she didn’t know anything about him, except he had a generous mouth and an indulgent body. But he’d expected her to know him. He’d said things she had no knowledge of. He’d asked questions she didn’t know the answers to.
Then he’d been hurt.
Then he’d turned cold.
She was no good at this. She was a terrible partner, never considerate enough of the other person’s feelings. Russell had been hurt that she was always misconstruing the things he said. I didn’t say I had the right to decide whether your hair should be short or long; I just asked you whose opinion matters more to you than your husband’s. Russell had gotten tired of waiting for her to grow into her role as his wife. He’d turned cold, too. The divorce had been his idea.
She’d been sincere in the hotel suite when she’d told Tom he was fortunate that she was getting out of his life immediately. She was not cut out for marriage. But then Tom had had the nerve to order her to stay, to eat, to let him drive her car. When he’d physically restrained her with a hand on her arm...
She must have been insane to agree to marry that man. She didn’t want to be married again to anyone, let alone to a man who felt he owned her.
She sat up and checked the time on the fitness band on her wrist. It was past one in the morning, but she’d been sleeping for more than ten hours. The second bedroom didn’t have a bed, but the futon sofa had looked like heaven when she’d adjusted it to lay flat. The moment Tom had silently grabbed a few pieces of workout gear from his spare bedroom and left her alone, she’d untied her combat boots, yanked them off and fallen onto the flat mattress, out like a light at three in the afternoon.
Tom’s spare bedroom. Tom Cross. Captain Tom Cross, legally my husband.
It was incomprehensible that she was truly the wife of another army officer and stuck living with him for at least three months. The thought of it made her jaw clench, her fists clench. Reality hurt.
She could do nothing about it.
Focus on what you can change.
Well, she was thirsty and she was starving. She could at least fix that.
She ventured out of her bedroom. The ties at the ankles of her ACU pants tickled her bare feet. The house was small. The galley kitchen was walled off from the living room. The two bedrooms and one bathroom shared the same short hallway. Tom’s bedroom was dark, the door open. She tiptoed to it, feeling like she was conducting a military op in her camouflage trousers and her brown T-shirt, and closed the door with a silent, steady turn of the knob. She didn’t want to wake him with any kitchen noises.
The tile of the kitchen floor was cold on the soles of her feet. Her eyes were already adjusted to the dark, so the glow of the clock on the microwave oven was enough for her to see everything in the small kitchen. She assumed they’d live like college roommates for the next three months, keeping their food on separate shelves, but tonight, his was the only food available. To get her own food, she’d have to get completely dressed, get in her car and drive off post to find a twenty-four-hour grocery store. Then she’d have to go through security to get back on post.
Not happening. Her Vegas husband was going to have to let her borrow his food. Bread and butter wasn’t too much to ask for from a man who’d blabbed about their marriage to the brigade commander. If he hadn’t done that, Helen would be sleeping in a Holiday Inn right now, not on a futon. She popped two slices of bread in the toaster and took a giant tub of margarine out of the fridge.
The ring on her left hand reflected the refrigerator light.
She shut the door, but she couldn’t take her eyes off that ring. Genuine diamonds were like magnets for light. She’d lost her night vision in the bright light of the fridge, so now, in the dark, the only thing she could see was the way the diamonds on her finger refracted and reflected the glowing blue numbers on the microwave.
She needed to take this ring off before morning. It would cause everyone to ask questions about her husband. Those were questions she’d rather not answer, considering she would have no husband in twelve weeks. She’d looked it up on her phone’s calendar. This was the first week of December. Tom could file for divorce the week after Valentine’s Day. She couldn’t file until the first week of June. There was no way they’d stay married that long. No possible way.
Helen set the margarine down, all three pounds of it, then gave the ring another twist. Another tug.
She walked over to the sink and turned the water on cold. The cold would make her finger as small as possible, right? But it would also make the metal contract, hypothetically. She turned the faucet to warm and tugged and tugged.
No good.
She shut the water off. The toast popped up, smelling heavenly. She opened a few drawers and found a knife for the margarine. Inspiration struck: margarine was slippery. She took off the tub’s lid, scraped a good teaspoon’s worth onto the knife, then buttered her finger. Well, that killed the sparkle of the diamonds. Silly to miss that sparkle. Rushing now, not wanting her toast to grow cold, she stood over the sink and found that she couldn’t get a grip on the ring at all. At the first attempt, both of her hands became a greasy mess.
“What are you doing?”
Helen whirled around, raising one buttered hand in self-defense—which meant offense. She threw a karate chop toward the intruder’s windpipe at the same second she realized it was Tom.
He caught her hand, which slipped out of his grip and left his hand slick with margarine. “What the hell?”
“Why did you sneak up on me like that?”
He rubbed the margarine between his fingers. “What are you doing?”
She took a pace away from him, adrenaline spiking from the scare. He was still in his camouflage pants and brown ACU T-shirt, like she was. She peeked down the hallway. His bedroom door was still shut. “Where did you come from?”
“Are you eating margarine with your hands?”
“Seriously? Why would I do that?”
“Am I supposed to come up with a serious reason you would do that?”
She huffed impatiently. “Were you in the living room?”
“Is there some reason I shouldn’t be in my own living room?”
But in the dim light, she saw him press those talented lips together, trying not to smile.
She frowned. “Are you going to answer my questions or not?”
“Have you asked all the ones you want answered?”
“I—” She squinted at him. “Are you answering my questions with questions?”
The man just grinned in the dark kitchen. He was toying with her. He’d scared her half to death, and now he was playing a game while they stood there in matching brown T-shirts, holding their margarine-greased hands away from their uniforms.
Jeez, she wasn’t awake enough for this, but she never backed down from a challenge. Through gritted teeth, she asked, “Do you find yourself amusing?”
He nodded toward the toaster. “Are you hungry?”
“Are you always so observant?”
He smiled openly at that and set his clean hand on the kitchen counter, leaning against the granite. She was amazed the army had actually installed granite in the kitchen.
Tom nodded at the glowing clock on the microwave. “Did you get enough sleep?”
“Does ten hours of uninterrupted sleep sound like enough?”
He tilted his head and looked at her. The blue light of the clock made his blue eyes look an unnatural shade bluer in the dark. Good Lord, the man was gorgeous. Her heart kept beating hard, refusing to calm down now that her scar
e was over.
“So, are you feeling better now?” he asked.
“Better than what?” But she knew what he was asking. He’d said it at the hotel: Some coffee, some food, a shower. You’ll feel better, and you’ll remember, dream girl, you’ll remember.
She couldn’t keep looking at him. She looked down at their bare feet. It gave her a sense of déjà vu. When had she seen his bare feet so near to hers before?
I saw his everything less than forty-eight hours ago.
Of course—when she’d had sex with a stranger on a couch in Las Vegas.
She raised her head and shook her hair back, but one strand kind of got stuck on her eyelashes. She automatically raised a hand to brush it back, but stopped herself in the nick of time. Margarine and hair didn’t mix. She tried to blow a puff of air at the strand to make it move.
“Since I have a clean hand, can I help?” Tom smoothed the piece of hair out of her eyes, then kept his hand cupping the side of her face, his palm warm over her ear. “Do you remember now? Anything at all?”
He wanted her to. He longed for her to. She could feel the emotion coming from him, his hopes and expectations weighing on her chest until she could no longer breathe from the pressure of it. He was such a beautiful man, holding her so gently, and here she was, helpless to do anything except disappoint another man. Again.
She hated Russell Gannon for being right.
She shook her head. Nothing. “Didn’t I warn you I wasn’t wife material?”
Her words sank in. His hand withdrew. His expression cooled.
She felt like a failure. If she was such a lousy wife, she shouldn’t be wearing a ring. Impatiently, she held up her left hand. “Could you help me get this off?” But when she twisted the ring this time, it slipped off so easily, so suddenly, that she dropped it.
She crouched down, looking for it in the dark, not wanting to pat around the floor with her butter hands, feeling like a fool as Tom just stayed where he was while she crouched and twisted to see under the cabinets.
She saw a dull glint, a slightly different shade of darkness, grabbed the ring and stood up. “Can you believe I found it?”
Tom glanced at the clock. “Forty-eight hours. You managed to wear that ring almost exactly forty-eight hours.”
Game over. He hadn’t phrased his comment as a question. She’d won, but only because he had stopped giving a damn about the game he’d started. Of course. Come and play with me had turned into I don’t care. When would she learn to expect nothing else?
She looked at the clock. “We got married at one thirty-five in the morning?”
But the blue-eyed man who’d teased her with questions was gone; a cold and remote soldier stood in his place. A silent soldier.
Helen returned to the sink to wash the margarine off her hands, stopping up the drain with the sponge first. She didn’t want to drop the ring down the drain. Her skin came clean, but the diamond band was still dull. She carefully wiped it on the sponge until it sparkled again. “There. I hope you’ll be able to return it. It’s only been forty-eight hours.”
But he didn’t move to take it from her.
She held it out more emphatically. “Take it. It looks expensive. Most jewelry stores have some kind of return policy within a couple of days for engagement sets. You must have a receipt, right?”
She might as well have been air. He didn’t move, he didn’t respond, he didn’t even blink.
The silent treatment. She knew that one so well. It was infuriating to have a person not even give her the courtesy of a yes or no answer. It made her feel so insignificant—who was she, to think she should even be talking? Russell might have been right that she didn’t make a very good wife, but he’d been wrong to freeze her out with silence. She’d had enough of that to last her a lifetime.
“Oh, you’re not speaking to me now? Fine.” She plunked the ring down on the windowsill over the sink. “Do whatever you want to with the ring. This whole marriage was a mistake, some kind of Vegas craziness that I don’t even remember, and I’m just trying to give you this expensive ring back, so at least you aren’t out a couple of thousand bucks.”
She plucked the two pieces of cold toast out of their chromed slots, stuck the knife in the middle of the giant tub of margarine, picked up the whole tub and started to walk out of the kitchen. Tom stayed exactly where he was. He was blocking her way, just like Russell.
Helen saw red, absolute red. She looked Tom in the eye with all the anger and disgust she felt. Like a drill sergeant, she barked a single word: “Move.”
It worked. The silent statue blinked and became a man again. He held his hands up, the fingers on one hand still buttery, and he turned sideways in the narrow kitchen so she could pass.
He even spoke. “I didn’t mean to be like—I’m sorry, Helen. I know you hated when Russell did that.”
It knocked the wind out of her to hear that man’s name on this man’s lips. “You—you know who Russell is?”
“Well...” He seemed surprised at her question. “Of course I do. We couldn’t have gotten married if you hadn’t gotten divorced.”
It was so odd, so very disorienting, to have a stranger know so much about her. She knew nothing about him except how he looked in a towel. He’d known she was in the army, that she was on her way to Fort Hood, that she’d needed to drive through the night. He knew Russell existed. But far more personal than that, Tom knew Russell had penned her in, forcing her to stay in the room and listen to his lectures and tirades, unless she pushed him out of her way to leave. It had always been a toss-up, which one was worse. Listening to all your faults laid bare or being the kind of awful wife who had to physically push her way past her husband to stomp out of the room?
She stared at Tom. It was terrifying, to not know how many of her personal secrets this man might know. She couldn’t say anything; she was still trying to get her breath back.
“I’m sorry,” Tom said once more. “I’ll go wash my hands in the bathroom and go to bed. You stay and eat anything you want here, okay? Two slices of bread can’t be enough.”
He started to brush her hair back again and she jerked away. She didn’t know him. He shouldn’t touch her.
He lowered his hand. “That ring is yours, Helen. I gave it to you. Whether you want to wear it or not, it’s still yours.” He left, walking silently down the dark hall.
She hadn’t needed to leave. Tom had left, and not in anger, either.
Helen put the margarine tub down on the counter. She put the pieces of toast back in the toaster and pressed the lever. Maybe she could get them warm again without burning them all to hell.
Chapter Five
The marriage counselor was a civilian.
Tom assumed that was why she’d come out to the waiting room and cheerfully said, “You must be Mr. and Mrs. Cross,” which was completely incorrect. He and Helen were both in their ACUs, so anyone in the military would have easily read their ranks and name tags and addressed them as Captain Cross and Captain Pallas.
It was ironic that the first time he heard the phrase Mr. and Mrs. Cross, it was spoken by a marriage counselor. Not a good omen.
In silence, he and Helen followed the counselor down a hall. They’d barely spoken to one another since their Monday night rendezvous in the kitchen. It was amazing how one could share a fairly small house and rarely bump into one another. He worked long days as a company commander. She’d spent the rest of the week around post completing the usual in-processing tasks, or so he assumed. It wasn’t like he’d had a chance to ask how her day had been. By the time he came home from work, she’d already made herself dinner—there were clean dishes in the drainboard—and had sequestered herself in his spare bedroom.
Today was Friday. He wondered how they would stay out of each other’s way this Saturday and Sunday, with no work to occupy their time.
“That noise machine is for privacy,” she explained. “We don’t want anyone walking by to be able to hear what is said through the door.”
Juicy details. There weren’t any in this marriage. They slept apart, they ate apart, they’d even arrived for this appointment in separate cars from their separate jobs.
All three of them chose chairs and settled in, facing one another in a loose circle. The armchair was the softest thing he’d sat in all week, not firm and cool to the touch like his leather couch at home. It was the complete opposite of a Humvee’s canvas seat or a government-issue desk chair at work. Tom sank into the comfortable cushions and felt acutely uncomfortable.
“So, what brings the two of you in today?”
He exchanged a glance with Helen, but when she looked away, he did not. He hadn’t seen her at all yesterday, not a glimpse, and as he looked at her now, he realized how much it affected him to just be in the same room that she was in. My wife.
He watched her as she spoke. “We were ordered to get counseling.”
Jennifer looked at her clipboard. “Yes, I see this visit was mandated by a company...no, a brigade commander. What event prompted the order for you to attend marriage counseling?”
Helen shrugged. “Our marriage did.”
“I mean, was there a particular crisis? Typically, a couple is sent here after a domestic violence incident, or something else that requires a commander’s intervention. For example, one person might lock the other person out of their house, so the service member has nowhere to live, and a commander might get involved.”