As soon as dinner was over, Susan said, “Why don’t you two go for a walk, Lia? Show him the barn and the animals?”
Relief sped through Lia and she stood, pushing the chair back. “That’s a great idea, Mom.” She looked down at Cav. “Want to come with me?”
“Sure,” Cav murmured, standing.
Lia forced herself to walk casually when in reality, she wanted to run out of that kitchen. Cav appeared relaxed at her side, but she knew different. She knew he’d sensed the tension. Once they were out the screen door and taking the wooden steps down to a gravel path that led to the barn a good two hundred feet to the north, she began to breathe a little easier. When Cav slipped his arm around her shoulder, she melted against him, feeling that wonderful protection that he afforded her.
“Okay,” Cav murmured, walking her into the huge three-story red barn. “What’s going on?”
Lia led him over to one corner of the barn where all the alfalfa bales were stacked. She sat down on one bale and Cav sat beside her. Lia was glad he slipped his arm around her waist. “I don’t know what’s going on with my mother,” she admitted in a strained tone, her gaze flitting to the open doors, wanting no one to overhear their conversation.
“What happened?” Cav tamped down his impatience, seeing the anxiety in Lia’s eyes. When she was nervous, he’d discovered, she would unconsciously begin to skim her fingers lightly up and down the scar on the left side of her face. She was doing that now, and it served to tell him that whatever was bothering her, it was serious.
“M-my mother,” Lia whispered, confusion in her husky voice. “She called you a killer. Why would I love a killer?” Miserably, she looked to Cav and saw his eyes widen marginally and then become laserlike and narrowed. She felt his arm curve a little more tightly around her, as if to shield her from her mother’s accusation about him.
“Is that how she sees me?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral. Right now, Cav kept himself in game-face mode, not letting on how he really felt. He saw Lia twisting her long, slender fingers in her lap, like a hurt child who didn’t understand the way her parent was acting. He reined in his mounting anger toward Susan. This was supposed to be a happy time for Lia, being with her parents, not a torture chamber, but that was the look Lia was giving him. His heart winced, and he knew he had to stand down and not get emotionally locked into whatever was going on here within her family dynamic.
“I-I don’t know, Cav. I was so shocked when she said that.”
“What brought this up, baby?” He curved his fingers through her hair, trying to soothe her fractious state. Instantly, he saw Lia grow more relaxed, less anxiety reflected in those gray eyes of hers. She was always sensitive to his touch, and he often used it to calm her.
“I think it’s about the two men in my life after I got cut up,” she said. “Mom saw how devastated I was when Jerry walked out on me because he couldn’t stand seeing the scars across my body. I came home to the farm after that happened, Cav.”
“Yes, I remember you telling me about that.”
Lia closed her eyes and pressed her face into his chest, her arm going around his torso. “I didn’t tell you all the details,” she said, her voice muffled against his shirt. “I was a mess. I was coming apart. My mom has always been the one to put me back together when things are rough for me. I can come home and talk to her. I talk to Dad, of course, too. But she’s my mom. You know? Two women talking?”
He smiled a little, continuing to move his fingers slowly across her scalp, feeling her lean into him more, trusting him. “Yeah, you women have your own alphabet soup compared to talking to a man, no question.” Cav watched his teasing make her less nervous. She opened her eyes and gazed up at him. Cav allowed his arm to drop to her hips. He knew how important it was for Lia to feel safe, because right now, she was acting as if she wasn’t safe. That was a concern for him.
“You think she’s comparing me to Jerry? Or Manuel?” he asked gently.
“Yes, I think so.” And then Lia’s face crumpled. “She shouldn’t call you a killer, Cav! You’re a hero, not a killer. You’ve served our country honorably. Why did she do that? Why did she say that about you?” Tears drifted down her taut cheeks.
“Ah, baby,” he murmured, “come here.” He lifted her, bringing Lia across his lap so she could rest against him, her head on his shoulder, still maintaining contact with him.
Sliding her fingers across his shirt, she sniffed. “My mother is acting so odd, Cav.”
Knowing what he knew from Steve, he hesitated. “Look,” he said soothingly, “she probably knows you’re really in love for the first time in your life. And she’s scared for you, not against you. She may well see Jerry here and not me, Lia. Sometimes, that happens. I think your mother is acting out of an abundance of caution for you. She wants to make sure there really is love between us and not another minefield with another Jerry who’s going to end up hurting you all over again. She’s probably trying to protect you from more pain.” He placed his finger beneath her chin, lifting it, making her meet his gaze. “How do you feel about it? Does anything I said make sense to you?” Cav ached to staunch the tears that continued to slide down her cheeks. He hated seeing Lia cry, because it meant she was hurt. And that hurt him. Right now, he had to be the strong one, because Lia was clearly shocked by her mother’s unexpected behavior.
“Y-yes, it all makes sense.” Sniffing, Lia took the handkerchief that Cav proffered to her, wiping beneath her eyes. “I guess I made a big mistake.”
“What do you mean?”
“On the Skype call before we came out here, I told her I loved you.” Her mouth twisted with pain. “I didn’t tell her that you loved me. I think she thought my love was one-sided, like it was with Jerry. I told her when we were peeling potatoes at the sink that you loved me. It didn’t sit well with her and we talked about it. Eventually, Jerry entered the conversation.”
“And she called me a killer after that?”
Wearily, she sighed, “Yes …”
Cupping her cheek, Cav leaned down, kissed her closed eyes, and rasped, “Your mom is just worried I’m Jerry in disguise, Lia. Don’t be upset about this. I’ll talk with her. We’ll get this straightened out. Okay?”
She opened her eyes, more tears falling. “I thought she’d love you on sight, Cav. Dad loves you. I can tell.”
He groaned and nodded. “Well, we’re men. What can I say?” He gave her a teasing smile, wanting to pull her out of that emotional tailspin. He saw Lia buck up and look a little less worried. “Men have their own language, too, baby. And you women have yours. I’m very sure your mother wants you to be happy, but she’s scared for you, too.” He traced her soft eyebrow with his index finger. “Don’t forget, you’ve been around me a lot. This is the first time she’s laid eyes on me. I think she just wants to be sure because she doesn’t want you hurt again like Jerry hurt you, is all.”
“Maybe menopause has something to do with it,” Lia muttered, sitting up, sliding her fingers through her hair, wiping the tears away. “She said she was getting a lot of hot flashes, hasn’t been sleeping well. I didn’t know anything about it until she told me just now. She promised to tell me more about it later.”
Cav nodded. “Sleep deprivation does funny things to people, Lia. I ought to know. When we would be out on a long mission, we didn’t get much sleep. I know how it skews your reality, your emotions. If your mother has been going through this for a while, then maybe a lot of her reaction could be just that. And people sometimes don’t make sense, or make less sense, when they’re in that state of mind.” Curving his hand across her hair, he kissed her wrinkled brow. “Let’s both of us try to sort this out.”
“Did Dad say anything about Mom having problems with menopause?”
“No.” Cav wasn’t about to reveal what they did talk about. All it would serve to do was upset Lia some more, and she had enough on her plate. “I don’t think menopause is something most men would talk about to one anot
her.” Or maybe they did and Cav just hadn’t had that kind of experience—yet.
“I so wanted this to go well, Cav. I’m so sorry …”
He wrapped her tightly in his arms, giving her a gentle bear hug. Lia sighed and melted against him, surrendering completely over to him because he made her feel safe. Cav often wondered if this supersensitivity Lia lived with came after her assault and nearly dying. Feeling as if she were a piece of raw meat with no way to protect herself from the world at large, or even from people who loved her. Over time, he wanted to work with her on this; maybe, with his love and support, she wouldn’t allow this sensitivity to upset her like it did right now. “I love you,” he rasped, kissing the curve of her delicate ear. Strands of her hair tickled his nose and chin as he rested his head against hers. “And your parents love you very much. Give your mom some time to adjust to me being in your life.”
“She’s been so strong for me over the years, Cav. I was such a mess after that assault.”
Cav began to realize that Lia was probably not going to broach the subject of her mother’s not being there for her after the assault and that it was her dad who was the stanchion at that time. And it was all right. Lia was just coming out of a second horrific attack on her life. Two in one person’s lifetime could break even the strongest individual. He held her a little more tightly for a moment. “I know she has, baby. I really think the key to all of this is that she’s pretty sleep deprived, and maybe, because she only wants you happy, this Jerry thing is configuring a lot more powerfully for her than it would normally. What do you think?” Cav had been finding that if he could lay out reasonable logic and then ask her for input, it served to help get Lia out of her emotional storm. He could feel her thinking about what he’d just said. He felt her bob her head.
“I’m so glad you’re so clear about these things, Cav. I was running off in God knows what directions emotionally.”
Because your mother abandoned you before when she couldn’t handle your wounds and condition. Mouth compressing, he squeezed her gently, keeping the thought to himself. “It’s easy when you’re not a part of the drama, Lia. What I see are two people who love you very much. And they both want the same thing: for you to be happy.”
“Phew,” she muttered, shaking her head, smoothing her hand across his chest, “I just wish I wasn’t so sensitive and so easily upset.”
He pressed a kiss to her curly hair, inhaling her special scent, which drove him crazy. “Were you always like this?”
“No.”
“When did it start?”
“After the assault.”
“Okay, that’s an important piece of information. That’s something we can work with when you feel up to it, baby.”
She groaned. “Oh, not another Mount Everest to climb, Cav!”
He chuckled. “I’ll help you climb it just like I helped you with your worry about your scars. You scaled that mountain, Lia. There are always mountains to climb. They never end. What has changed, though?” He leaned over, catching her glistening eyes filled with such love for him. “You have a partner now, baby. You never have to do this alone again. You’ve more than earned a climbing partner.” He grinned, watching her respond so positively to his ministrations. “You have me. Warts and all.”
Nuzzling into his neck and jaw, she whispered, “Thank you for being who you are, Cav. I love you, warts and all.”
He smiled, bussing her cheek where the scar lay. “The only difference is we have different warts. No one’s perfect. No one’s whole, Lia. None of us ever will be. But when you have a love like ours, it’s the glue that can make all the difference in the world. Look how much you’ve changed since meeting me. Look how much I’ve changed since you walked into my life. We’ve done a lot of healing on one another, whether it was conscious or not.”
“Love,” she said, her voice wobbly with emotion, “makes such a difference.”
“Yeah,” he rasped, rubbing his jaw against her hair, “I see that in my life and how you’ve helped me so much over the months we’ve been together. It’s a miracle from where I stand.”
“No,” Lia whispered fiercely, kissing his neck and jaw, “you are my miracle, Cav Jordan.” She poked his chest with her index finger. “And don’t you ever forget that!”
“It’s such a turn-on when you get fierce like a lioness protecting her pride,” he teased, smiling, watching her lips curve upward. Just her mouth sent him around the bend, and he found himself desperate to make love to her because he knew that would settle her back into her core self. All this distracting drama being thrown out by her mother would dissolve. Love, he was discovering, was truly a miracle antidote for both of them.
The sweet smell of the hay mingled with her scent. As much as Cav wanted to drag Lia up to that second floor and find a nice, soft place in the haymow to make slow, delicious love to her, it wasn’t going to happen tonight. When he looked out the open barn door, the sky was growing old, the sun having set. The clouds above, all reminding him of sheep’s fleece dotting the vault of the sky, had turned from orange to pink and then to a deep fuchsia color the farther the sun sank below the horizon. He slid his fingers through her hair, caressing her nape, hearing Lia purr like that lioness he silently envisioned her as. She snuggled deeply against him, rubbing her breasts against his chest, and he felt the points of her nipples hardening. Never mind that with his exquisite sense of smell, he could inhale that sweet aphrodisiac fragrance of her sex.
As he pressed small kisses here and there on her hair and nibbled on her ear, hearing her swift intake of breath, feeling her fingers curve more deeply into his shoulder, he wanted to take away all the worry Lia was carrying for her mother. Cav knew he had his work cut out for him with Susan. If he couldn’t reach inside her head, get her to trust him just a little, it would continue to be a rough, emotional week for Lia. And he just didn’t think it was necessary for it to go that route.
The woman he loved had been fractured by the first assault. And then Jerry, followed three years later by Manuel. And lastly, the attempt on her life down in Costa Rica. After five years, Lia was behaving like the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. They were broken by war and all that it meant. Their souls were shattered and bleeding and they had no help in repairing themselves. They’d all seen too much. They’d survived when others had not. And Cav knew from his own experience that when one trauma got piled upon another, it would make the strongest man or woman snap and break. Lia’s strength had taken her a lot farther than most, but even she had her breaking point. And Cav silently promised her that he would do everything in his power to stop her from reaching it.
Susan Cassidy was on his radar. He had enough information now on how to deal with her—he hoped. It would take all his years as a SEAL, all that supersensitive intuition of his, to try to get Lia’s mother to come around and give her daughter safety, not make her daughter’s love for him a source of strain. And Cav knew it could cut either way. He prayed like hell that he had what it took to pull this off for both women, to give each of them the reprieve they both deserved and needed. Wryly, he looked at himself. He’d come out of a war zone in his own family. He’d joined the SEALs and entered another war zone. And now? Now he was trying to become a peacemaker between Susan and her daughter. Did he have the tools to do it? The experience? All he knew was how to survive in combat. But it didn’t matter. Cav loved Lia with his life, and he was willing to try to be that peacemaker whether he had experience at it or not. He had to.
CHAPTER 4
The next morning at five a.m., Cav heard someone stirring out in the kitchen. He’d purposely kept his door open to the long hall. Down at the end of it was Steve and Susan’s bedroom. Like the SEAL he was, he’d awakened at the least sound that was out of place in the sleeping household. Three times last night, Susan Cassidy had walked quietly down the hall, past his room, and into the kitchen. Lia had been right about her mother’s having sleep issues. Sleep deprivation was a special hell of its own. She woul
d stay up for twenty or so minutes, having a cup of tea, and then go back to bed.
As he propped himself up on his elbow, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, he felt a lot of sympathy for the woman. It was still dark outside. He quietly got out of bed, climbed into a pair of comfortable Levi’s, pulled on a black T-shirt, shoved his feet into his black Nikes, and left for the bathroom. The least he could do was brush his teeth, comb his hair, and look halfway presentable. He decided not to shave because he wanted some uninterrupted time with Susan before the rest of the household woke up.
When he emerged into the kitchen later, he saw that Susan was already dressed in a pair of jeans, a white short-sleeved blouse, and leather shoes. She was at the kitchen stove, making up some eggs.
“Morning,” Cav murmured, halting at the doorway, allowing her time to realize he was there. When Susan turned, he saw how pale her face was, the tension in her cheeks, and the shadows beneath her eyes. He had his thumbs hanging in the edges of his pockets, wanting to appear casual and relaxed so she wouldn’t go on immediate guard.
“Morning,” she whispered, keeping her voice low so it wouldn’t carry down the hall to the bedrooms. “Are you hungry, Cav?”
Surprised that she wasn’t being surly toward him, he smiled a little. “I can always eat, ma’am. Is there anything I can do to help you?”
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