If I Love You

by Tmonique Stephens

  She couldn’t say she didn’t appreciate his effort to keep her safe. “Thanks. I got things from here,” she said when they exited her bedroom.

  “You need anything out of here?”

  She shook her head. Noah closed the door and went to the fireplace. “You have a nice stack of wood, good.” He dropped to his haunches and got busy making a fire.

  She could’ve stopped him, but it was one less thing for her to do. Finally, she took off her coat and tossed it on a barstool. If the fire didn’t catch, she’d be wearing it again. Somewhere, her grandmother had stored the battery-run lantern Kensley had bought her last winter for this type of emergency. The damn thing could be anywhere. Nana was a neat freak, but she had her own system that made sense only to her.

  A spark caught, the faint orange glow expanding into a flame. The dark retreated, leaving Noah in a warm, orange glow. Back to the flames, he sat on the hearth, stretched his injured leg, and watched her. Now would be the perfect time to ask him to leave. “Again, thanks for everything.”

  “I’m staying.”

  Blink. Blink. “Ex-excuse me?”

  “You have a broken window anyone can crawl through,” he quipped.

  True enough, but that wasn’t reason enough for him—little more than a stranger—to stay. “I can handle myself.”

  He snorted.

  That ticked her off. “Kevin made sure I could handle myself.”

  An emotion crossed his face. In the dim lighting, she couldn’t be sure what, but if she had to guess, it would be pain, pain not from the gash on his leg. “I bet he did. Doesn’t change the facts. I’m not leaving you defenseless.”

  “I have a gun,” she stated dryly.

  Wincing, he rose. “Show me.”

  She hesitated, but even though she didn’t like him, she trusted him. Because of Kevin. Despite Kevin. She walked down the short hallway to the top drawer in her nightstand. She had no children, no little ones to worry about. The gun was within easy reach and loaded. She checked to make sure the safety was on, returned to the living room, and placed the weapon in his outstretched hand.

  He checked the safety and then the magazine. “A Heckler and Koch nine-millimeter.” He ejected the magazine and the round in the chamber before thoroughly examining the weapon. “You know how to use it?”

  “Of course.” Did he think she’d bought it as an accessory to go with her earrings? “It’s been a while since I went to the range, but hell yeah, I know how to use it. Kevin made sure I did,” she said proudly.

  “Then why is it dirty?”

  Huh?

  “I’m sure Kevin showed you how to clean a weapon. A gun in this condition could jam on you, at the worst fucking time,” he snarled low. “So no, you don’t have a weapon you can use as protection.” He handed it back to her: the gun, the magazine, and the bullet. “You don’t use that again until it is cleaned, and you’ve gone to the range.”

  She had the sudden urge to salute and say, “Yes, sir!” Instead, she returned the gun to her nightstand.

  “Sorry for biting your head off.” He stood in the middle of her living room on the other side of the coffee table. His hand in his pockets. The white of the bandage showing through his torn jeans. “I don’t want to see anything happen to you.”

  Because of Kevin, he didn’t add. At least he had a conscience. And so did she. “You need to get your weight off that leg. Sit.” She pointed to the sofa and went into the kitchen. “I shouldn’t offer you a beer, but one won’t kill you. I also have wine and leftover lo mein but no power to heat it in the microwave. Oh, and I have cereal. Cheerios.”

  “Water. I need to keep a clear head,” he muttered, watching her.

  She couldn’t find fault with that and handed him a bottle of Dasani, then fixed herself a bowl of cereal. She watched him as he stared into the flames, ignoring her order to sit. If he pops his stitches…

  It had been a while since she had a man in her home. Correction: two years since she had a new man in her home. Fucking Eric!

  She shoveled a spoonful of cereal into her mouth. It stopped her from cursing but didn’t stop the hostile thoughts which were a step up from her murderous thoughts a few weeks ago. She didn’t want Eric dead anymore. Severe maiming would suffice.

  Humiliation in a small town never goes away. Never! Thus, her quest to get out of the town, the state, the country. Sessory Corners and upstate New York in her review mirror never to return was her idea of perfect.

  Except for her mother, Kevin and Nana were buried here. The only family she had and all were gone.

  …Well, the only family she counted. The only family that mattered. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Nana, she expected. She’d lived a long and fruitful life. Kevin…

  Kensley’s gaze narrowed on her guest. She knew the official story, what the military had released. That wasn’t the entire truth. They never give the family members the unredacted truth. Outside, the wind howled, and Nana’s bedroom door rattled.

  Kensley tossed her bowl in the sink and shortened the distance between her and Noah. He faced the fireplace, seemed to be studying the pictures on the mantle. Quite a few were of her and Kevin when they were young. Nana loved taking pictures. She loved reminiscing. The official picture of Kevin in his dress blues and photographs of him and his buddies posing with their MK’s were side by side. Noah was in the group picture, standing right next to her brother. His arm casually thrown over Kevin’s shoulder.

  Abruptly, it was all too much, and she snapped, “I want to know what happened.”

  He stiffened and turned, though not all the way. Sideways with his face in profile, his gaze landed on her. He reminded her of a cornered animal, a dangerous cornered animal. She wasn’t afraid. He’d already hurt her more than she could bear.

  She wrapped her arms around herself and demanded, “Your version, not the military’s. That’s what I want.”

  Noah reached for the photo on the mantle. Not the photo of Kevin in uniform, but the picture of them as kids sitting on the porch swing. That was the summer her hormones kicked in. Finally, she had something to put in a halter top and an ass to fill out a pair of shorts. She posed for that picture with her hand on her hips, and her hair flicked over her bare shoulders. Seven-year-old Kevin barely reached her waist. He was in his little league uniform. At that age, he had visions of being the next Derek Jeter and batting in Yankee Stadium.

  Her arms tightened, keeping her from falling apart. “That’s us,” she said before he asked. “He played ball at the park around the corner. It took quite a few years before he gave up his dream of being a shortstop for the Yankees.” He was such a bundle of energy. While I laid back and let things happen. That never-ending pain flared behind her sternum.

  Noah returned the picture and reached for the last photo on the mantle. The one with all of them: Bronx, Tootsie, Fresno, Milk, and Gator—aka—Dominic, Dyson, Jim, Kevin, and Tobias, dressed in camouflage, armed to the teeth, and proudly posing for the camera.

  Carefully, Noah returned the picture to the mantle and faced her. His hands shoved into his pockets, his head cocked to the side. This was the Noah she remembered. The high school stud. The arrogant asshole every girl wanted a piece of, including her. Except now, she wanted the truth.

  “What did they tell you?”

  She held up her hand. “Don’t! Do not patronize me. That wound on your leg, you could’ve fixed yourself. Following me home, fixing my window, staying with me, all of that is because of Kevin. I know it, and you know it. So cut the bullshit and stop deflecting. Tell me. I deserve an answer from you.”

  His chest expanded on a long inhale, and he braced. “What do you want to know?”

  This was really happening and about damn time. The truth, that’s what she needed, and he wasn’t leaving until she got it. “Spare nothing… Tell me all of it. Every bloody moment.”

  Three

  She wanted everything, and that wasn’t possible. Some things were classified.
Fuck, most of what happened was classified. Though, not how he fucked up. That was public record, at least public in certain circles.

  “Me telling you everything… Not possible.” But he wanted too. If anyone deserved the truth, it was her.

  She came right up to him and got in his face. Not intimidated at all. “Then tell me what you can,” she insisted.

  Fuck! Why did I go to the clinic, follow her home, come inside? As if he had a choice. That’s what guilt did to a person, made them illogical, made them compensate, and do shit against the better good. He should’ve gone to the hospital for stitches. Hell, he should’ve driven the hell home, patched up his own damn leg, sat on the sofa, and got drunk with his dog. But he saw the clinic light just as it winked out and knew she was there. Why? Because he made it his business to know her schedule. The easy answer to his unasked question would be he owed a fellow soldier.

  He’d seen her in town, always in scrubs, always rushing to her car from whatever errand. Always with a smile as if she’d never been sad a day in her life when he knew her heart lay in pieces. Chipper. Too damn chipper. It was all a lie.

  She annoyed him, her presence aggravating. He didn’t understand it then, but he did now. He wasn’t annoyed. He was interested. Hell, he’d never lost interest regardless of how much he denied the truth. Something about her reached across the distance separating complete strangers and grabbed his attention and hadn’t let go since the funeral. She was five-foot-five, barely reached his chin with blonde hair that suited her freckled skin and a sassy mouth with plenty of attitude. And her eyes, sigh, they were sea-green eyes that made him long for a dip in the ocean, her ocean.

  He resisted.

  Liar. He damn well could’ve sewn the wound up himself. It wasn’t hard finding out her schedule. Two weeks of observation achieved that goal. He knew she’d be there locking up. Still, he didn’t ask to get stabbed. However, whether fate or divine intervention, he wasn’t mad.

  He should be appalled. Everything about this was fucked up and wrong. He couldn’t see her again. He wouldn’t, and that was final. Whatever this evening was or wasn’t, he’d just have to let it be. Kevin deserved more, a lot more, he silently admitted as he stared into Kensley’s upturned face. She hadn’t changed much in the decade or so since she posed in a halter top and shorts next to Kevin. Same freckles, same oval face with the same pointy jaw. Oh, she’d grown out of that awkward, gangly phase teenage girls go through. The shy, uncertainty, the innocence clinging stubbornly to her lingered into adulthood. As a teen, she’d masked it well, though not from him. He saw right through the shields she’d erected, the false bravado.

  He’d also noticed the curves. They were hard to miss when she went from flat chested to more than a handful over one summer. Suddenly, she was built for comfort, the way he liked a woman. Full breasts, round ass, and hips he could hold onto. He didn’t seek her out for that, but he couldn’t help where his libido led him.

  He noticed her four months before graduation. They’d only known each other their entire lives. In a small town, everybody knew everybody, yet suddenly, he noticed her in a way he previously hadn’t.

  Maybe it was her sly, slightly crooked know-it-all smile and her bright green eyes. It wasn’t her body. She wore the baggiest, goth crap he’d ever seen. He ignored his attraction because he was homecoming king, he was banging the head cheerleader and her best friend. But he wanted the nerdy, goth library chick.

  His whole life was a cliché, and Kensley was one cliché too many. Plus, he knew he was going in the marines, and Kensley wasn’t the type of girl you hit it and quit it. That alone gave him cold feet. Having Kevin end up in his unit five years later was a fluke. Him, showing pics of his big sister graduating from nursing school… Opportunity missed, Noah felt it in his soul. He’d planned to do something about it too when the unthinkable happened.

  He gritted his teeth, wanted to squeeze his eyes closed to stop the memories. A cold sweat still trickled between his shoulder blades, down the center of his back.

  Like the damn coward that he was. They were on that mission because he volunteered, and the rest had no choice but to join him. It wasn’t their turn, but Ramirez was on the satellite with his wife in the delivery room watching his baby boy’s entrance into the world. Cutler had torn his ACL and was on his way to Landstuhl for surgery, and Jessup had eaten some bad native food that twisted his gut and had his ass leaking.

  It wasn’t their units turn. Another unit could’ve stepped up. But Noah opened his goddamn mouth.

  “Don’t stall. Just spit it out.” She yanked him out of his downward spiral.

  “It was my call—”

  “I know that,” she snapped. “You guys were safe in the barracks for the night, and you decided to take them back on patrol.”

  “Who told you that?” Had to be someone who attended the funeral, which meant one of his men. It wasn’t hard to guess who. Floyd, that bitter, slacker asshole. Noah had never met a man that complained more.

  “It’s the truth. That’s why you’re so angry,” she said, all smug and righteous.

  “Two teams had injured men. It was either one team going out short or merging the teams. There was a high-value target. It was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.”

  “We,” she pressed.

  “We. The United States of America. The order came down, and it was left up to us. All the men voted with a show of hands. We went, were ambushed. That’s all I can tell you.” She got the cliff notes version. There was more to it than that. More bodies, more blood. Kevin wasn’t the only guy to eat a bullet that night. Three other men lost their lives and the target… That bastard didn’t survive.

  Still, the mission was a complete clusterfuck. Dead marines and no assets for the blood spilled. He was blamed, and he took it the way a leader should. When his reenlistment time came around, Noah took the way out.

  She shrugged, shook her head, which had her blonde hair flying, and gave a brittle laugh. “So that’s it. That’s all you’re going to give me? Which is nothing. Nothing!” she snarled and flew into him, her fists flying, striking everything she could.

  Noah let her. He stood there, and if she wanted to use him as a speed bag, then he’d take it.

  She punched him again, this time harder. “It was a closed casket, Noah.”

  He knew. He was there, along with the surviving members of the team. The casket couldn’t be opened. The body wasn’t…viewable.

  “I couldn’t see my brother. My baby brother,” she sobbed. “How do I know it’s him? Huh? How? It could be anyone in that box. Anyone! But you and the military are telling me it’s Kevin. Well, I don’t believe you. I don’t. I don’t. I don’t.”

  She broke, and it was the most awful thing he’d ever seen. Tears welled, then streamed down her cheeks. Her shoulders shook, and she curled in on herself as if to hide. Her knees buckled. She would’ve dropped, whether to the floor or the sofa, it didn’t matter because he caught her and brought her into his chest. He held her, one arm around her waist, the other around her shoulders as she cried, his arms circling her body in a light embrace. This wasn’t the first time she broke. Crying was all she did at the funeral. There, he wasn’t the one who comforted her even though he wanted it to be him. He wanted to atone. Comforting her while she grieved was a small price to pay for how he failed her, himself, and his buddies.

  Head buried in his chest, he caught her scent, the hint of a floral perfume she must’ve applied earlier in the day, and her own sexy feminine musk. Rocked, he leaned in, allowed a brief moment of madness and, brushed his lips across her temple. He was hard in an instant. Truth be told, he had a semi the second he saw her in the clinic. Now, with her in his arms, Christ Almighty…

  He tried to ignore her scent filling his nostrils, which was impossible with her face pressed onto the crux of his neck. Flesh on flesh, her breath fanned his skin. Her fingers curled into his sweater, anchoring her to his body when he should’ve pushed her away, no
t drawing her closer and wrapping an arm around her waist to keep her there. Breast, abdomen, pelvis, all pressed against his frame. Did she feel his erection? How the fuck could she miss the pole tenting his jeans with her intimately against him. God knows he felt all of her, and she was soft perfection. Breasts, thighs, ass, curves. Dangerous dips and valleys. Her body was a rollercoaster he wanted to ride all night long.

  Noah brought his free hand up to cup her nape. Her skin was warm, smooth, and delicate. The complete opposite of her takes no prisoners demeanor. He was equally surprised and thrilled as he threaded his fingers through her blonde hair, enjoying the silky strands skimming the back of his hand.

  Her head tilted up, her breath a subtle caress on his jaw. Her lips were close, so fucking close. He shouldn’t have her in his arms, have his hands on her body. None of that mattered as he stared into her pained gaze. She’d stopped crying, but tears caught in her lashes and stained her cheeks. Her tears stabbed him in the heart, filleting him. He should’ve stepped away. He didn’t. Instead of reason, he chose…madness.

  He kissed each eye, felt her shudder when his lips touched her skin. With his lips, he followed the tracks of her salty tears to the corner of her mouth.

  The slightest turn of her head was all it took for their mouths to meet, lips to part, and tongues to find each other. What control he had over his tenuous emotions snapped. His fingers tightened, enabling him to angle her head for his tongue to stroke the roof of her mouth and plunge deeper. She took him in sucking, licking, teasing. She tasted like warm sunlight on his soul with a hint of beer. He’d laugh if her tongue wasn’t down his throat.

  Wait!

  He eased back. A sliver of sanity returned in time for him to stop the insanity and pull away, which was hard, damn hard when he wanted nothing more than to stay, keep her in his arms, and stay. It was too damn late. She wouldn’t have it and strained to follow. He wouldn’t let her.