What I Love About You (Truly, Idaho)

by Rachel Gibson

  He watched the Subaru pull out of the driveway, then he turned back to the house. He’d walked through the house this morning with the Realtor, and despite it having been empty for so long, there were no major problems with the home. It had been gutted and most of the fixtures stolen, but those things were easily replaced. The Realtor had left him the keys and he’d brought Beau to see the house while Stella took a nap. He wondered if his brother’s fiancée was pregnant or the altitude was making her sleep a lot. Blake wouldn’t mind being an uncle, and a grandbaby would get his mom off his back.

  “You have an interesting effect on the Cooper girls,” he said as he walked back up the steps. He grabbed Sparky’s leash secured to the front post and untied it.

  Beau looked as baffled as Blake when he’d first met the pair. “At least the little kid didn’t faint.”

  They moved inside and Sparky went crazy sniffing around. The carpet was filthy, but the hardwood floors just needed a little sanding and sealing. “The biggest problem I foresee is finding licensed subcontractors to do the work I don’t want to do. Like the plumbing.”

  Beau looked up at the ceiling fan hanging by some wires. “Your plan is to work on this between jobs?” He returned his gaze to Blake. “When’s your next security assignment?”

  Blake shrugged. “Day before yesterday I got offered a lot of money to work on an oil rig in the Gulf of Oman.”

  “Shit job.”

  “That’s why I said no.” He looked at the staircase to his left and the iron rails. The house wasn’t dialed up, but it was built solid. In a climate with such extreme temperatures, that was important.

  Beau bent down and scratched Sparky’s head. “What about Natalie Cooper?”

  The house had nice bay windows and a big fireplace. He returned his attention to his brother. “What about her?”

  “She has a kid.”

  “Yeah. I know. What’s your point?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

  “You’re not just messing with the mama. When you walk out of Natalie’s life, it’s going to affect that kid.”

  He knew that, and it was why he’d avoided women with children in the past. “Who says I’m walking out?”

  Beau crossed his arms over his thick sweatshirt. “Have your thoughts about marriage and settling down with one woman changed?” When Blake didn’t answer, Beau shook his head. “I didn’t think so. You can’t fuck the mother and not fuck up the kid’s life.”

  Sometimes he hated having a twin brother. Someone who knew him like he knew himself. Someone who pissed him off more than anyone else on the planet. “Watch what you say,” he warned.

  Beau lifted one brow. “It’s like that?”

  Again, he knew exactly what his brother meant. Did he love Natalie? He liked her. He liked to spend time with her in and out of the sack. He felt protective over her and he felt comfortable with her, but that wasn’t love. “Ever since you decided your orgasms should mean something more than getting off, you’ve been a self-righteous son of a bitch. Ever since your dick had some miraculous conversion to ‘meaningful sex,’ you think I should convert, too.” Anger lowered his brows and he pointed at his brother’s face. “Natalie Cooper is none of your goddamn business!”

  “You’re just mad ’cause I’m right,” Beau said, calm and cool. “You’re already in that little girl’s life. What do you think is going to happen when you walk out of it?”

  “What are you? A fucking psychic?” Blake dropped his hand. “Who says I’m going to walk out?”

  “Because it’s what you do. Until a year ago, that’s what I did, too. Because you still live for the chase. Whether it’s bad guys or women. Because you don’t know that loving one woman isn’t weakness. You don’t know that planting roots in one place, with someone you love, doesn’t take away your superhero powers and make you average. It’s normal, Blake, and God forbid the Junger men are normal.”

  Part of what his brother said was true, and that just pissed him off more. They’d been raised to be better at everything. Even better than each other.

  Beau dropped his hands to his sides. “From what you’ve told me, Natalie doesn’t let a lot of men in her life. She’s going to develop stronger feelings for you than you have for her. If she hasn’t already.”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He wanted to say Natalie didn’t have feelings for him and Beau could shove his sanctimonious bullshit up his ass, but he couldn’t exactly do that now. “Natalie told me she loves you,” Michael Cooper had informed him just that morning. He hadn’t thought much about it since because he hadn’t been able to figure out the guy’s motive. If he’d said it to see a reaction, Blake hadn’t given him one. It was too soon for Natalie to mention anything about love. They’d had sex only four times, not counting the amazing blow job. They were neighbors and shared a dog. He liked Charlotte and Natalie a lot. Since he’d left for Mexico, he’d known that if he wanted more than a quickie with Natalie, and he definitely did, she would want more from him than booty calls. He was prepared to give her more. He was prepared to have a friends-with-exclusive-benefits-to-the-other’s-naked-body relationship. It was the logical next step but a giant leap from the L-word. There was no way Natalie loved him any more than he loved her.

  “Natalie seems like a nice woman. Smart. Beautiful.”

  She hated lies and was the only person he’d ever known who truly lived her life as an open book. If Natalie really had told Michael that she loved him, Blake knew her well enough to know she believed it.

  “You can’t treat her like you have all the other women in your past,” Beau said over his shoulder as he walked toward the front door. “Shit or get off the pot, frogman.”

  Natalie checked on Charlotte one last time. Her daughter was curled up in her own bed asleep. She shut Charlotte’s door and moved into her bathroom. She hurriedly shucked her robe and stepped into her old blue and gold cheerleader skirt. It hit her a bit above mid-thigh, and she could still zip up the side. It was tight around the waist so she left it unbuttoned. The sweater still had her name patch embroidered in a megaphone on the left breast, and her spirit ribbons were still pinned on the right. She pulled the sweater over her head to her waist. It was also tighter across her breasts and pulled when she lifted her arm to brush her hair into a high ponytail.

  When she was finished, she moved from the bathroom to the kitchen. It was almost nine and she dug around in her purse sitting on the table. After she’d left Blake at the Loosey house, she’d come home and found the old box with her high school yearbooks and old cheer uniform. She grabbed a tube of lip gloss from her purse, and she had to admit that she felt a little ridiculous. She coated her lips with a thin smear of pink and took a moment to rethink her surprise. What if Blake thought it was stupid? What if . . . She made a scoffing sound and dropped the lip gloss back into her purse. Blake was a guy with cheerleader fantasies. He’d like it, especially the part about her not wearing underwear.

  A light knock drew her attention to the side door and she glanced at the clock. Blake was right on time. Natalie walked across the room, took a deep breath, and opened the door. With her arms wide, she said, “Surprise!”

  He stood on the porch, half covered in darkness. The light from the house fell across his throat and chest but left his face in covered in darkness. Her heart thumped heavy in her chest but he didn’t say anything, obviously stunned speechless.

  “Come in and I’ll show you some of my best routines.” She stepped back, and the second he moved inside, she could tell he wasn’t stunned speechless. Instead of lust or even a smile, he looked at her like he had the first day they met. Cold. Like stone. Like he couldn’t wait to be away from her.

  “What’s wrong?” A panicky little flutter settled in her stomach. “What happened?”

  He didn’t take off his coat, and instead leaned back against the closed door. “I’
m leaving in the morning.”

  “Oh.” She might have felt a measure of relief if not for his closed face.

  “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  She knew what he did for a living. Knew he didn’t work nine to five, five days a week. “Okay.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll come back.”

  “If?” A little pinch grabbed a piece of her heart. She must not have heard him right. Hadn’t he just made an offer on the Loosey house? “I’m confused, Blake.”

  “This isn’t really working out,” he said, and made a motion with his hand, pointing to the both of them. “My job takes me away for weeks and maybe months at a time. You want a relationship, but that can’t happen if one person is gone most of the time.”

  She looked into his beautiful face and eyes, reflecting nothing but a chilly indifference. “I’ve known that about you for a while now. We can make it work.” God, did she sound as desperate as she felt? “I don’t care about your job.”

  “You will.”

  She took a deep breath and said past the growing pinch in her chest and the pride jamming her throat, “I love you, Blake. I don’t care about the rest.”

  “There is no rest. I’m not a relationship guy. I told you that from the start.” He pushed away from the door and reached for the handle like he hadn’t heard her confess that she loved him. Like he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

  “I just told you that I love you and your response is to walk out?”

  “You don’t love me. Sex isn’t love.”

  “You don’t think I know the difference?”

  “I think you’re confused.”

  She folded her arms across the pain in her chest. “Then clear it up for me.”

  He frowned the way he always did when she forced him to say something he didn’t want to talk about. “Sex with you was great. I had a good time. You had a good time, but it’s time to move on.”

  Oh God. She dropped her head and looked at her bare toenails she’d painted red just for him. She didn’t want to see his cold, closed eyes.

  “I’m sorry to hurt you. You’re the most honest person I know, and you deserve me to be honest with you. And the last thing I want is to lead you on and make you think there’s a chance I’ll return your feelings one day.” He opened the door but she didn’t look up. “Please tell Charlotte good-bye for me,” he said, then closed the door behind him.

  Then she did look up and stared at the door, unable to move. Had that just happened? Had he just said he was leaving and didn’t know if he’d be back? Had she just told Blake she loved him and he’d said there wasn’t a chance he’d return her feelings? He’d walked out on her? Had he just used the words she’d said about Michael on her?

  The backs of her eyes stung and her chest ached like it was caving in on her and pinching her heart. She loved a man who didn’t love her. A man she’d known better than to fall in love with. She’d known he couldn’t be trusted with her heart, but she’d gone right ahead and handed him her heart anyway.

  And now? Natalie pulled out a kitchen chair and sat. She was a fool. A tear slid down her cheek and the pain of loving Blake felt like a weight pressing in on her. He’d always said he didn’t want a relationship, but that wasn’t how he’d acted. He’d always acted like he wanted her. He’d pursued her, and when she’d given in to her feeling for him, he’d dumped her flat and shattered her heart.

  Maybe this was the reason she’d avoided relationships. Maybe it had nothing to do with a moral dilemma and everything to do with the pain of once again loving a man. The physical pain in her chest and stomach and crawling across her skin.

  Her watery gaze fell on the Christmas cards she and Charlotte had made earlier. What about her daughter? He was just going to up and leave and walk out of Charlotte’s life? He was going to leave it to Natalie to say good-bye for him?

  Anger bubbled in her veins like lava and threatened to explode, but this time there was no marching over to his house like when he’d stuck her with a dog.

  The dog. What about Sparky? He was going to walk out on her and Charlotte and his dog? He was okay with leaving her heartbroken, Charlotte sad and confused, and Sparky abandoned?

  Natalie wiped her nose and cheek with the arm of her sweater. She was angry, and heartbroken, and a fool. Such a fool. Once again she’d thought she knew a man. Thought that beneath Blake’s hard, cool exterior was a man who was soft and warm inside. Once again she was clueless about the real heart and soul of the man she loved.

  A clueless fool in a stupid cheerleader outfit.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Blake relaxed among the insertion gear in the back of a Knighthawk heading over the Indian Ocean. The same three security contractors he’d worked with in Yemen occupied the other seats while the pilot kept his eyes on the two green blips off the northeast corner of Somalia.

  The four men wore black skin suits and waited for the signal to jump. It came two miles out from a cargo ship, the Fatima, which had been boarded and held by Somali pirates. The latest intel reported that the crew hadn’t been seen. Either they were all dead or they had locked themselves in the panic rooms.

  The Fatima operated under the Panamanian flag and listed bulk cargo on its manifest. While it was loaded with grains, ore, and hatchets out of Hong Kong, the U.S. government had learned that deep in the cargo bay, a dozen fifty-gallon barrels of yellowcake uranium were stowed. Several hundred feet in front of the Fatima, an eighty-foot attack boat kept watch, waiting for the cover of darkness to unload the nuclear material. The boat had no markings, no name, and was armed with deck-mounted .50-caliber weapons. Not exactly the usual rusted-out skiff of impoverished Somali pirates.

  The helo hovered forty-five feet above the surface of the ocean and the pilot flipped a switch. The light in the starboard door changed from red to green, and Fast Eddy gave the signal. The men pushed a Zodiac into the waves and fast-roped into the rolling inflatable boat. The copilot lowered their gear, and within three minutes, they had everything stowed and assembled and heading for the Fatima.

  Blake had flown out of Boise a week ago, going to Houston and the new contract that had waited for him at the private security company he’d worked for over the past year. It was for more money and more time out of the country. More time away from Truly, Idaho, and the big house where he’d lived a different life. A life that wasn’t him. A life where his best friends were a five-year-old girl and her beautiful mother.

  As much as he hated Beau for being right, Blake had to leave Truly before his leaving hurt Charlotte and Natalie.

  The image of Natalie’s face when he’d told her he was leaving was stuck in his memory like an ax to his skull. He’d hurt her. He’d never meant to do that. She and Charlotte were the last people on the planet he wanted to cause pain. He cared about them. Cared enough that the thought of their hurt feelings churned inside him and found the weaknesses in his detached heart and soul.

  She loved him.

  The memory of pain in Natalie’s blue eyes filled him with guilt and the overwhelming urge to take her in his arms and save her from the pain. To fold her into his chest and make love to her, but that wasn’t the right thing to do for her. He was a man who had plenty of faults, but he always tried to be the man who did the right thing, and the right thing was to stay out of her life.

  For right now, he needed to push those memories and guilt feelings out of his head. It was imperative that he concentrate on the mission in front of him. The other three men were depending on him to do his job. To keep his focus on the mission. Years of training enabled him to easily force the memory of Natalie and Charlotte to the back of his mind and keep the front clear and focused.

  The closer the Zodiac got to the coast of Africa, the bigger the swells grew. The rubber boat crested them, then slammed to the bottom. Blake’s stomach rose and dropped, and moisture fog
ged his night vision goggles. Each country had its own unique scent and visceral memories. Somalia smelled of decades of rot and decay mixed with the sweet smell of tropical flowers. Surrounded by flowers and decay, the streets were filled with the sound of continuous AK rounds and gangs of boys loaded with RPGs.

  A hundred meters out from the Fatima, Fast Eddy gave the signal to cut the engines, and the men donned masks and rebreathers. They attached their gear stowed in waterproof bags to a caving ladder. Each man grabbed his section of the ladder and slid into the Indian Ocean.

  Poor visibility made it difficult to see the gauges and dials on their dive watches as they swam at the same speed, twenty feet beneath the surface. Each knew how many kicks it took to swim one hundred yards, and they surfaced on the starboard side near the cargo bays.

  Without making a sound, Farkus attached the ladder on the side of the ship, and they shed their scuba gear and hung it on each rung. They grabbed their weapons and ammo from the waterproof bags, then boarded the Fatima. Their faces were painted black like super stealth ninjas. They coordinated their dive watches, and Fast Eddy tapped his helmet twice. Each moved silently into position. Blake had done dozens of board, search, and seizure missions in his career, and this time he headed toward the ship’s foremast and winch platform. With his MP5 submachine gun on his back and a 9mm on his hip, he climbed the platform. Without a sound, he knelt on the damp steel and snapped the custom-made tripod on the MP5. He lay on his stomach and dialed in the night scope. Within seconds, he calculated the range and velocity using the conversion chart in his head, then took into account the humidity, drop, and full wind value.

  The pirates on the smaller boat below bobbed in and out of his sight, and he estimated there were three of them on the bow, and another two in the cabin. He took his eye from the scope and looked at his watch. In two minutes each operator would be in position. Fast Eddy would transmit a signal on his watch and the games would begin.