Page 8

A n hour after Iron and Vivienne had returned from filing restraining orders against Scott and her parents at the local precinct, then grabbing dinner ingredients at the grocery store, he could still feel her tears on his back. The result of her overwhelming emotions brought on by his pain had soaked into his cotton shirt and scored his skin. Her silent tears were the single most comforting reaction he’d ever received when sharing his story about Scooter. There had been no unwanted comments about how God only gave us what we could handle or how his teammate was responsible for his own actions. How tragedy happened, even to the best people. She’d simply offered sadness for the loss of a good man.

Her silence acknowledged his grief. His guilt. He’d never felt closer to another human being than in that moment he turned his back on her, prepared to put space between them. Her arms had come around him tightly and held on. They must’ve stood there for a good ten minutes as he soaked in her quiet comfort.

Usually entering the guest room with the people he loved posted on the wall, the ones he wanted to protect from what he became the most left him feeling down for days. Combine that with his thoughts about Scooter and it was enough to send him into a full-blown episode of depression. So later when Vee was practically dancing down the aisles of the grocery store, bright eyes twinkling with excitement over every damn thing, the lightness he felt shocked the shit out of him. Maybe it was the passage of time. Maybe it was the woman standing beside him as he showed her how to chop a tomato for a salad. Either way he had never recovered so quickly emotionally to thoughts of all he had lost.

“Careful, Vee,” he said, reaching around her to straighten the cutting board, bracketing her in. This close, he could feel her warmth radiating toward him. He desperately wanted to rub his cheek against all that soft blonde hair loose around her shoulders. “Hannah will kill me if you lose a finger on my watch.” His voice had dropped an octave—a constant problem around her but being physically attracted to her didn’t mean he had to act on it.

“That would be difficult, seeing you’re only trusting me with a butter knife. This might be the first time I’ve cut a vegetable, but I certainly know this is not the tool you typically do it with.” His arms were still steadying the cutting board, so when she leaned back and angled her face to smile at him, her back was up against his chest. A liquid pull rushed to his groin. It had been so long since he experienced this type of searing attraction to a woman, and still, he didn’t think his desires had ever been so sharp and acute.

“Alright. You’ve got me, but I would feel better if we worked our way up to the sharps.”

Her laughter filled the kitchen and slammed into his chest. Had him instantly hardening beneath the thick fabric of his jeans. Such a carefree sound had never resonated through the walls of his cottage. Not while he had been living there. It had been a while since he noticed the glow of the early evening sun filtering through the windows. Or the way it made the space golden and warm.

He took a step back and turned so she didn’t see or feel how appealing he found her. His throat grew thick, and he grimaced at his wayward thoughts. Vee was ten years younger than him. Under his care and protection. Imagining her positioned on the counter while he devoured her was the furthest thing from okay.

“Let’s eat outside.” The suggestion surprised him. He liked to watch the wild ocean before a storm. The choppy, foam-topped waves brought on by a cold autumn day. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed the sunset on a clear evening.

“I’d like that, but probably not as much as I like cutting tomatoes.” Her triumphant smile over learning to do something new lifted a layer of weight off his chest. A layer he wasn’t sure he wanted removed.

“Might be a little late in the season, but I bet if we got you a plant, you could still grow a few of your own before it gets too cold.” He took a lemon from the bowl on the counter and opened the silverware drawer to keep his hands busy.

“I never thought about trying to plant something myself but now that you’ve brought it up, I can’t wait to learn more.” She bounced up on her tippy toes.

“You’re welcome to use my laptop after dinner to do some research if you’d like.” He cut the lemon into thin slices to garnish the salmon he planned to grill.

“Really?”

He was torn between basking in that wide-eyed expression of pure joy and hating it. Her family’s money should have allowed her opportunities and experiences to discover the things she enjoyed but instead of financial success making her world large and limitless, it had narrowed it significantly. Her parents had used her funds to imprison her, not to let her grow into her own person and thrive.

A chuckle left his lips. Another surprise. “Yeah, really. I’ll go out and fire up the grill so we can get started with dinner.” It didn’t take him long to cook salmon fillets and clean the grime of the long-unused outdoor table. When he came inside, he simply grinned at the eclectic mix of vegetables Vee had chopped up and put in a large bowl. Chunks of carrots, tomatoes, broccoli and raw mushroom caps tossed with Italian dressing.

“I got a little carried away.” She grinned holding the bowl in both hands. “So much I couldn’t fit any actual lettuce, but I tried it and it’s so good. Salad dressing is my new favorite thing.” She was practically vibrating with happiness over what she’d made by herself. Her feelings were so contagious, it was like a layer of light was cast over the cottage. He was enjoying witnessing all her new favorite discoveries from cotton T-shirts to fast food and now dressing. He knew asking why she’d never had something so simple would only upset him, so he left it alone and carried her creation out to the deck. The sun was sinking closer to the horizon, washing the sky in colors of the peach and raspberry tartes his mother would sometimes bring home from the bakery she worked at. He closed his eyes against the memory. It had been too damn long since he’d let himself see them.

When he opened his eyes, the slouched pergola tangled in vines came into view. He’d been trapped for a long time too. The vicious cycle of addiction had nearly killed him. The shame of being weak enough to find himself shackled by his vices had brought him to his knees. Keeping his family out of his life had cost them, but he had paid the price too. He hoped they knew, deep down at least, that he loved them despite only knowing about half of his struggles.

“I was thinking earlier how pretty that is.” She angled her head toward the structure he’d just been staring at.

“You’re joking right?”

“No.” She set her fork down on her plate. “It reminds me of strength. Broken but standing. Restrained by all those tangled vines, whatever those might be. Maybe they’re choices. Maybe regrets or mistakes. It hasn’t fallen yet, though. I wouldn’t be surprised if it stood a decade more.”

She had no idea how close her description of the pergola summarized what he’d been thinking. It was almost unnerving how close. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t yanked down the old structure yet. Maybe it deserved to stand another day, even if toppling over would just be easier.

“Your parents were so fucking wrong, Vee. You can be anything you damn well please. You’re resilient and resourceful. Not just anyone would’ve pulled off squirreling away money into a secret account. Knowing just how much or how little they could get away with. Not just anyone could’ve spit out poetry about a dilapidated gazebo. Not anyone would lend comfort to a stranger.”

“You don’t feel like a stranger to me.” She stared at him over their near empty plates as the sun dropped from view. Her eyes were as luminous at the color-drenched sky.

“Neither do you.” He shouldn’t have said that, but something about being in this sweet woman’s presence loosened his tongue.

“It’s only been a few days, but I feel safe with you. Not just physically. I feel safe to be myself, or at least begin to discover who that is. To do what feels right and not what everyone else wants me to do.”

Fear crept into his chest. “Vee,” he said stopping her before she could say another word. “I don’t want you making me out to be something I’m not.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And I don’t want you downplaying everything you are.”

If he wasn’t careful, he could lose his heart to this woman. He loved the subtle tilt of her chin as she threw his words back at him and stood her ground. She was wrong about him, but that didn’t matter when she was holding her own.

“There are things you don’t know. Things that would make you change your mind.” He leaned back in his chair, more to put some distance between himself and her searching gaze.

“Will you trust me with it?”

He hesitated. That wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting but Vee continued to catch him off guard. Maybe that’s why he found his mouth opening, intent on revealing secrets he never wanted shared. “I’m not strong. When I lost my friend, my career, my leg I couldn’t cope. I wasn’t some unbreakable SEAL, just a man broken by his own choices. I became an addict, abusing opioids and alcohol until I could forget everything and everyone. I cut myself off from a loving family to hide my substance abuse. Five years ago, I finally got clean. Have stayed that way. I don’t want a second chance, though. My family, my old teammates all deserve better than the man who cut them out of his life. Who took every kindness for granted. They were here nearly every waking hour when I was released from the hospital. I severed those ties as brutally as I could, so they’d give me some fucking peace.” He looked out at the dark ocean, not wanting to see disgust or pity on her face.

“Was it peace you wanted or isolation to punish yourself in a way they never would have let happen?” Her voice was soft, melting with the water slapping in a soothing rhythm against the shore.

“They’d been so proud when I completed BUD/S and became a SEAL. Constantly were telling me how I was making a difference in the world. I didn’t want them to have a front row seat to my devastation. My destruction. I still don’t.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and lowering his chin to his chest.

“How long are you going to make them suffer?”

“I’m not trying to punish them. I want them to remember me as the man they were proud of, not the one I’ve become.”

“You’re not dead, yet you’ve made them live for years as though you were.”

She was right and he knew it. “Exactly.” He cleared his throat and straightened. “I don’t want you to lose sight of who I really am. Someone selfish enough to hurt his own parents and brother for solitude and space to self-destruct. Don’t let me do the same to you.”

He stood up, doing his best to ignore the twinge in his limb. The past few days he’d tested the strength left in his body. As a result, the stump of his leg was bruised and irritated. He needed to massage the area with ointment to help with circulation. “Take your time out here and thanks for making the best salad I’ve ever had. From now on, lettuce is optional.” He gave her a forced smile, then went inside to deposit their dishes into the washer. A quick look out the window told him that Vee was still sitting out there, maybe to call one of the many contacts he’d put in her phone for an escape. The thought soured his mood, but did he deserve any less?

He shook his head and limped to his bedroom. He needed to remove the prosthetic and take care of his damaged skin, otherwise, he’d end up in the hospital with an ulcer and that was the last place he wanted to be. Ten minutes later, he’d traded his jeans for athletic shorts and washed his limb with a cleanser designed to help the area retain moisture. He sat on the bed, a jar of ointment on the nightstand, when there was a soft knock on his door.

He fought against the shame. His leg was collateral damage. It wasn’t his physical appearance that bothered him, it was the choice that led him there. “Come in.” He’d already told her all his flaws, there was nothing else to hide. He busied himself opening the jar and looked up when he felt the mattress dip. She moved like a little ghost.

“I’m sorry. I was quick to judge your choices to separate yourself from your family. I think maybe I felt strongly because all I’ve ever wanted was to be loved for me, despite the choices I make. I don’t know how it feels to be held prisoner by drugs though. To feel so hopeless, I want to drown in them. That wasn’t fair of me.”

A self-depreciating laugh bubbled from his throat. “Sweet Vee. Do you ever not think of how everyone else is feeling? You don’t owe me any kind of apology. I was an asshole earlier. You make me question every terrible choice I’ve ever made. I loved seeing you push back at me. So brave.” He shouldn’t look at her when she was this close, sitting on his bed no less, but he couldn’t stop himself from turning his head to meet her gaze if he tried. Tension thickened in the space between them. The flash of heat in her eyes hit him like a bolt of lightning, rendering him momentarily stunned.

When she reached over and took the ointment from his hands, he was powerless to stop her. Nor when she dipped her fingers into the jar and warmed it with her hands. She slid off the bed and onto her knees. Her actions weren’t sexual in the least, but they were sure as hell sensual. Maybe intimate was a better word. Her touch was light, almost hesitant.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” she murmured. She massaged slow, soft circles into his scarred skin. It felt amazing, like acceptance he didn’t deserve. Her hands worked up to midthigh and back down, kneading with a gentle touch that left a pang of longing in his heart. She didn’t just have a beautiful face. She had a beautiful soul too. Once the ointment had dried, she stood, kissed his cheek, and walked out of his room, leaving him feeling like he was on the hazy edges of a dream. Too bad Vee was a dream he could never have. She deserved so much more than a man like him. Regardless, her actions had touched a hollow, shattered place inside him that he wasn’t even aware existed, bringing back feelings he preferred to keep buried. His brother’s stupid pranks. His father teaching him to drive, with white knuckles spread wide on the dash. The feel of his mother’s hugs. He tugged his cell phone off the nightstand and opened an old family chat. He wasn’t sure what to say, only that he wanted to say it.

“Hope all is well. Love you.”

Three dots immediately popped up on the screen. His mom was typing.

“We love you, too, Jordan. Is everything okay? Do you need us?”

His eyes burned. He rarely made time to see them because it caused him so much pain to see all the pictures on the wall of the boy and man he’d once been. Yet they responded to him in seconds, still worried for him after all these years.

“Love you, Son.” From his dad.

“Hey, bro. Ezra and I think of you often. All our love.”

The first tear dropped over his lower lid.

“Everything is fine. I was just thinking of you all.”

He plugged in the phone and rolled to his side. He’d gone to Texas to help Vee, not the other way around. In the last few days though, she’d softened something inside him, made him feel more alive than he had in years, and had him questioning which one of them truly needed rescuing.