Out of Her League

by Kaylea Cross

  She wished it had.

  She wished she barely gave him a second thought. Wished she didn’t fall asleep every night aching to reach for his muscular frame, or wake up listening for his voice singing in the shower. Apparently more than two decades of being apart wasn’t enough to make her forget him. Worse, their living separate lives had been his decision, not hers. He knew she’d take him back in a heartbeat, which was why he kept in contact with her as little as possible, but they’d almost lost their son yesterday. Luke knew exactly what it was like to stare death in the face, so she figured he could help Rayne through the aftermath.

  The day he’d come home with the first of his many demons, she’d been heavily pregnant with Rayne. The grandfather clock in the foyer had just struck two and she’d wanted to cry with frustration because she couldn’t sleep despite being exhausted. Her back was aching too badly to let her stay in bed any longer and the baby, well into its eighth month, was kicking an insistent tattoo against her ribs. Amid the rhythm of rain on the roof she’d risen and drawn on her robe, then padded downstairs into the kitchen to make herself some herbal tea. She had just set the kettle on the stove when a knock rapped on the front door. Glancing toward the porch, she saw the outline of someone standing there.

  Hesitantly she made her way to the door and peered outside, unable to discern who was out there. Pulling her robe tighter around her, she flipped on the porch light and undid the deadbolt, opening the door a crack. She let out a gasp and threw the door wide. Her husband stood on the doorstep, soaked with rain, face covered in bruises, jagged stitches bisecting his chin and left eyebrow.

  “Luke,” she breathed, launching herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck. “Oh, thank God. Are you all right?” She ran her hands over his shoulders and back, worried by his stillness. He didn’t reply, only wrapped his arms around her and buried his wet face in her neck, holding her so tightly his arms shook.

  Dread coiled in her stomach. “Baby, what’s happened?” He only pressed closer, conveying his desperation and anguish without saying a word. He trembled in her arms, and she held him hard against her for a time. “Sweetheart, come inside,” she urged finally, terrified as she tugged him into the house.

  “Emily, is everything all right?” her mother called from the landing.

  “It’s Luke, Mama, and he’s been hurt.” She led him into the kitchen, pressed him into a chair, and hunkered down beside him, frightened by the stitches, by the wild, haunted look in his eyes.

  Her parents came downstairs. “Mama, will you please fetch me some towels, and Daddy, could you make a pot of coffee?” Her mother rushed to fetch the towels and Emily immediately began drying his hair. “Sweetheart, look at me,” she said, taking his face in her hands. He raised dark, bloodshot eyes to hers.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered, fingers stroking his cheeks, apprehension filling her.

  He swallowed, gripped her hands. “They’re dead,” he said hoarsely. “They’re all dead.”

  Emily put a hand to her mouth, feeling sick. “Oh, God, Luke... Your team?” His anguish was more than she could bear.

  “They just left us there, Em...left us all to die...” He shook his head as if he still couldn’t comprehend it, struggled to take a shaky breath. “I carried one of them out across my back, but he lost both legs from the knee down.” He raised tear-filled eyes to hers. “Said later he wished I’d left him to die.”

  She didn’t know what to say, so she kissed him and held him close against her heart. Her father set a mug of steaming coffee on the table in front of Luke, then placed a firm hand on his shoulder.

  “Good to have you home, son,” he said quietly, then took his hovering wife upstairs to give them some privacy.

  Emily handed Luke the mug and waited until he’d taken a few bracing sips before she pulled him from the chair. “Come upstairs, honey. Let’s get you out of those wet clothes and into a hot shower.” Soon he stood naked in the bathroom. Clumps of stitches dotted his body, along with plenty of deep, ugly bruises.

  She ran the shower and handed him the towel when he came out. Never taking his eyes off her, he dried himself then followed her into the bedroom. It had been nearly two months since she’d seen him and he seemed fascinated by her new shape, placing his hand on the firm mound of her belly. She froze in the act of folding the bed sheets down and faced him, fighting the pang of self-consciousness.

  “I’d almost forgotten how beautiful you are,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her.

  Before she could say anything he bent down and pressed his lips to the swell under her nightgown, then drew her down beside him. He undid her robe and slid it off her shoulders, began unbuttoning her nightgown.

  She knew she was blushing, and had to stop from snatching the nightgown over herself. She felt so huge and clumsy. Just then, under his worshipful gaze, the baby did what felt like a somersault, making her belly ripple.

  Luke actually smiled, and reverently ran his hands over where his baby lay. He studied the changes in her body with a smile of pure male satisfaction, smoothing his hands over her and making her sigh with longing. Then he gathered her to him and kissed her, murmuring soft things against her skin. He was so warm and strong, and she’d prayed every night for him to come back to her...

  Emily clung to him, each moan and twist of her body begging for his touch, desperate for him to be inside her. Finally, he grasped her hips and lifted her to straddle him. Immobile for a moment, awkward and ungainly with her bulk, she relaxed when her husband gazed up at her with all the longing of his heart in his eyes.

  “Make me forget, Em,” he whispered, and her heart broke. And so she’d loved him with everything in her soul and body, crying out with him at the end and rolling to cradle him in her arms. She curled herself around him and he burrowed in close, while their baby kicked energetically between them.

  Chapter Twenty

  Christa could hardly believe how beautiful Charleston’s historic district was. All the old homes in this part of town were maintained in wonderful condition, their gardens nestled in courtyards enclosed by wrought iron gates and sturdy brick walls. Rayne turned the rental car into a lane and pulled into a crushed gravel driveway.

  “This is it.”

  “You grew up in this house?” She stared at the wraparound porch supported by white fluted columns, a fragrant evergreen Confederate jasmine winding its way along the trellis on the south-facing wall. Even though the building must have been over a hundred years old, it looked as though it belonged on the front cover of Southern Living magazine.

  “Yeah, it’s not too bad for an old shack,” he teased, and climbed out of the car. He went around the other side and waited for her, but she sat there.

  “Are you coming?”

  She pressed a hand over her abdomen. “I’m nervous,” she admitted with a grin.

  He rolled his eyes and took her by the arm. “You can stare down international level pitchers and survive people twice your size mowing you down at the plate, but you’re scared to meet my mom?”

  “Hey, this is a really big deal. The first impression is always the most important, and I don’t want anything to go wrong.”

  “Nothing will go wrong,” he assured her, grabbing the suitcases from the trunk with his right hand and steering her to the back doorway. “For crying out loud, cut it out before you make me nervous too. I’ve never brought a woman home to meet my mother before, so don’t make this any harder on me.” He leaned down to the peacock-shaped euonymus topiary potted in an urn beside the door and fished around for the spare key.

  “Mom, we’re here,” he called as he opened the door and brought Christa with him into the bright kitchen. She picked out the antique furniture instantly, admiring the way everything was put together and recognizing the lemony scent of Murphy’s Oil Soap.

  “You’re early,” a feminine voice said with a laugh, and then Rayne’s mother swept around the corner. Christa caught an impression of medium-l
ength brown hair and a pretty, oval face with vivid green eyes before the woman launched herself at her son.

  He caught her and lifted her off the floor in a one-armed bear hug. “Hey, gorgeous.”

  She squeezed him back and pulled away, her eyes moist. “I’m so glad you’re here.” They say you can tell how a man will treat you by how he treats his mother, and so far, Christa liked what she was seeing.

  “And this sweet thing must be Christa.” Emily held out a hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Hutchinson,” she replied, shaking firmly. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “Not as much as I’ve heard about you, honey.” Emily winked.

  “Thanks to Bryn,” Rayne muttered.

  His mother ignored him. “I can’t tell you how wonderful it is for a mother to know her son has finally found a woman who—”

  “Mom,” Rayne warned her with a hard look. “Don’t embarrass me.”

  “It’s my maternal right. Christa and I are going to spend lots of time together, looking through all your naked baby pictures, and then I’ll tell her every story I can think of about you.”

  “Really?” Christa beamed. “When are you going out, honey?”

  “Ha. I’m not leaving the two of you alone together.”

  “Oh, he can be such a big baby sometimes.” Emily pouted and drew Christa’s arm into hers. “Let’s give you a tour, shall we? Then we’ll get you set up in your room...you are staying in your own room, aren’t you?”

  The blood rushed to her face. “Of course.” Which earned her a glower from Rayne.

  Emily patted her hand. “Just ignore him. He’ll get over it.”

  “Mom—”

  “Don’t you ‘mom’ me, sweetheart. I’m going to help Christa settle, and then we’ll have tea in the garden. I hope you’ll approve of my efforts, Christa. I understand you’ve got the greenest thumb going.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I’ve killed lots of things.” Not as many as Teryl, though. She trailed after her hostess down the carpeted hallway past a gallery of portraits, whom she assumed were Rayne’s ancestors.

  “Well, I don’t feel quite as badly, then.” After checking out the formal downstairs rooms they climbed a mahogany staircase to a bedroom decorated in cream and pastel blue. “You’ll stay in here, and Rayne will be down the hall in the next room. It’s old-fashioned of me I know, but that’s the way I am.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Christa gushed, smoothing a hand over the toile coverlet. “Is this bed an antique?”

  “It is. My grandmother was born in it. And you have a lovely view of the boardwalk from up here.” She went to the window and opened the sash, letting in a breeze that billowed the gauzy curtains. “Come and see Rayne’s room.”

  A big sign on the door read “Enter at your own risk” above a skull and crossbones.

  “I was too cool to hang out with my mom back then,” he explained. Grinning, Christa took in all the mementos, envisioning Rayne as a teenager with too much attitude. Military posters covered the walls, along with bookshelves crammed with volumes about the Navy SEALs. Could anybody say hero worship?

  On the desk where he must have done his homework sat a framed picture of a man hunkered on his haunches cradling a deadly looking rifle, his face smeared in camouflage paint. She peered more closely. “When did you have this taken?”

  “That’s not me, it’s my dad.”

  She flashed him a disbelieving glance and picked up the photo, staring intently at the man’s face. “I know he’s all covered in camo paint, but I’d have sworn it was you.”

  He came up behind her, set a hand on her hip. “Yeah, we look a lot alike.”

  “Like twins, except for their eyes,” Emily said. “Look at this one.” A smaller picture of Rayne and his dad, both in their dress uniforms, looking so similar and so gorgeous it was hard to believe they were real.

  “Wow. Was this your graduation day? The one you told me about when your dad gave you his Trident?” Rayne’s dad had brown eyes, but something else about his gaze was unlike his son’s, something she couldn’t put a name to.

  “Yeah.” He massaged her shoulder with one hand. “It’s a good picture of us.”

  No kidding. Even as a cocky teenager Rayne had a few inches in height over his father and appeared wider through the shoulders, but even she could tell that no one in their right mind would take on Luke Hutchinson. He looked like a lethal, finely honed weapon, exactly what the military had trained him to become.

  “Here’s one you’ll like.” Rayne indicated one of him as a boy, probably around nine or ten, grinning under the shadowed bill of his ball cap while brandishing his bat. “I won MVP in our league championship. Don’t I look awesome?”

  He looked like he would have burst his buttons, if his jersey had any. “A force to be reckoned with, all right.” This was unreal. In the last ten minutes she’d learned so many personal details of his life. It was going to be an enlightening trip.

  “Well, if you’re finished walking down memory lane, let’s go have some tea,” Emily said. “I’ve made some low country cooking for Christa, to make sure she gets a proper taste of Charleston.”

  Rayne’s expression lit. “Crab cakes?”

  His mom rolled her pretty green eyes. “Yes, I made crab cakes. And biscuits, and peach cobbler.”

  He grabbed Christa’s hand and all but towed her down the stairs. She laughed. “Oh Rayne, you’re too easy sometimes.”

  After cobbler and sweet tea in the shade of the verandah they whiled away another hour or so chatting, Christa and Emily giggling like schoolgirls while Rayne went inside to call some friends. When he returned he announced he’d arranged to meet with a group of them at a local bar.

  “You sure you don’t want to come with me?” he asked for the third time later that night.

  They were both still uneasy about him leaving her alone, but he seemed especially worried about leaving her with his mother, which Christa found amusing. “I’m sure. Your mom and I are getting along great. Just imagine the dirt I’m going to have on you when you come back.”

  “I can hardly wait,” he muttered, and stooped to kiss her. “Won’t be too late.”

  Christa went into the kitchen and put on the kettle, then served up two helpings of the leftover peach cobbler, pouring cream over the top. She made a pot of Earl Grey tea and took it into the living room, where Emily was finishing up a phone call.

  Emily patted the sofa beside her and hung up with a sigh. “My friend, Alex. He tends to worry about me when he’s not here.”

  “Where is he now?” She set everything on the coffee table.

  “In Portugal, on business. Truth be told, I kind of like it when he’s away. I feel like he smothers me sometimes.” She flashed a guilty grimace and reached for a teacup bearing delicate violets. “These were my great grandmother’s. I’ve always thought tea tasted best in these cups. There’s something about the history of them that brings the flavor out.”

  “A tea set like this would have cost a fortune, even in those days.” Christa sipped and savored. “That’s how I always imagined Charleston would be. Like these teacups. History and tradition everywhere. Wide verandahs with rocking chairs and courtyards filled with gorgeous gardens. People sitting on porch swings sipping sweet tea.”

  Emily smiled. “You have a bit of a romantic nature, don’t you?”

  “No, a lot. My mother always despaired of the fact that I wasn’t the most practical kid in the world.”

  “Well, I for one think the world could use a few more romantic souls. And I have to tell you I couldn’t be more thrilled that my son has brought you here.” She shifted on the sofa, tucking her dainty bare feet beneath her. “I was starting to think he’d never fall in love, that I’d done something wrong when I’d raised him. God knows his daddy never carried on with women like he did.”

  “Rayne doesn’t really talk much about him, even though it’s obvious he still admires him.”

&
nbsp; Emily set her teacup in its saucer. “It’s been hard for him. He spent a few weeks each summer with his dad while he was growing up, when Luke was Stateside, but that’s really all they’ve seen of each other since Rayne was eight.”

  “Rayne told me he just up and left one day.” Christa chewed her lip. Too forward?

  “Pretty much,” Emily admitted, reaching up to touch the skin below her ear, fingers moving back and forth.

  “I’m sorry,” Christa said, meaning it. “I didn’t mean to make you sad. I just want to know everything important about Rayne’s life before I met him.”

  Emily patted her knee. “Don’t apologize. It was a long time ago, and most of my memories of Luke are good ones. He was the absolute love of my life.”

  Christa sensed he was still the love of her life, but kept that observation to herself.

  “He was a wonderful father. You should have seen him in the delivery room. The man was a rock, never left my side for the whole twenty-two hours. And when we brought Rayne home I thought I’d die from sleep deprivation, so Luke took over at night. He never complained, not once, even though he was getting less sleep than I was because he had to be on base so early.” Her eyes held a faraway look.

  “Was he home much?” She imagined Rayne as a boy in his bedroom playing G.I. Joe, pretending they were his dad’s SEAL team. The thought made her a little sad. Military families had it rough.

  “Not as often as we’d have liked, but I knew what I was getting myself into when I married him.”

  “So how did you deal with him going away on missions when you knew he might not...”

  Emily raised her brows. “Might not come back alive?”

  “Exactly. I got my first—and hopefully last—taste of that the other day, and I’m not sure I can watch him go off to work every shift without losing my mind.”

  “Honey, I know how you feel. For some reason the men in this family can’t be happy sitting behind a desk all day. So when they put themselves in harm’s way for a living, we don’t really have a choice but to support them and hope for the best.” Emily took her hand, squeezed it tight. “You’re very strong. From what my son’s told me, you’ve handled everything life has thrown at you and made the best of it.”