His Blind Date Bride

by Scarlet Wilson

  Travis shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘You think?’

  She nodded. ‘I know, people talk. Now, remember, my door is always open.’

  His initial abruptness had faded. ‘I know,’ he said apologetically. ‘Thank you.’

  She gave a nod and disappeared out the door. Travis leaned back and folded his arms. He wasn’t quite sure what he should worry about first. The fact that Aileen could obviously see changes in him or the fact that Ivy had more admirers than just him.

  He grinned. It was a challenge. Not Ivy as such but the date. He would have to make sure he pulled out all the stops to make their new blind date as good as it could possibly be.

  He could do it. And he would.

  * * *

  The soft navy blue dress had been found rolled in a crumpled ball at the bottom of one of her bags. She wasn’t even sure why it was there. She had packed some civilian clothing, but that wasn’t one of the items. It must have been there since her last trip to New York with some friends. She shook it out. The short-sleeved, knee-length dress had resembled a crumpled rag, but Ivy knew it could come out looking brand new in the laundry. At present, it was hanging in front of her. The fake wrap-around look meant the dress fell in soft folds creating a V in front, with a split near the knee to give a hint of leg.

  She had a pair of small heels that would have to do. It felt strange dressing up while being on the ship. It would feel even more weird, walking between her cabin and Travis’s looking like this. She might throw her uniform dress jacket over the top to try and be a little less obvious about what she was doing.

  He’d insisted they meet in his cabin instead of hers—although she wasn’t quite sure why. This week had been like a game of cat and mouse between them. On the very few occasions they’d been working around each other she’d tried her very best to act casual. But her body seemed to have forgotten what ‘casual’ was.

  Every now and then their eyes would meet and one or the other of them would flash a private smile. Whenever Travis had done it, Ivy had instantly felt embarrassed, as if a siren with giant bright red arrows pointing to their heads had been wailing and flashing around them. It had sent tingles down her spine, which was entirely ridiculous.

  But all this, the lead in, the anticipation, had been building on a daily basis. She’d done this. She’d wanted it to be this way. But the delicious torture had been driving her crazy.

  She grabbed some long gold earrings and shook out her hair. She hadn’t even attempted to straighten it. The atmosphere on the ship would mean that even though she had a gallon of product on her curls, they would edge towards frizz in a few hours. The dress hugged her curves in a way she didn’t quite remember. She’d thought it was a pretty plain dress, but right now it looked anything but plain.

  She glanced at the clock. The majority of the crew would be in the mess right now, drinking their two regulation beers. It was unlikely, though, that she would get down the corridors unnoticed. This was still a working naval ship, and there were always crew on duty.

  Ivy finished with a slick of red lipstick and threw her jacket over the dress, stepping out into the corridor. She kept her head low as she strode along quickly. The first corridor was, luckily, empty, as was the second. The third had two men at the end of it, talking intently over something on a tablet screen.

  She was beginning to think this might be easier than she’d imagined. The thought had just crossed her mind when she heard a voice behind her. ‘Looking good, Doc.’

  She turned and gave a nod of her head at the young petty officer second class. He had a cheeky grin on his face and she probably should have reprimanded him, but she had other things on her mind.

  Her footsteps echoed down the passage, making her feel more and more self-conscious. She tugged at the dress, wondering if it was a bit too short.

  Her hand paused as she lifted it to knock on Travis’s door. Her stomach was doing flip-flops. Maybe she should back out? It was obvious that their feelings were intensifying in this close-knit, pressured environment. What had happened to her vow to never date a colleague?

  For a few seconds she was torn. Was six days of anticipation just a smokescreen? How well did she really know Travis?

  Before she had a chance to think any further the door opened and all her previous thoughts dissolved.

  Travis had a welcoming smile on his face and a spark in his eye. He was dressed completely in black—black trousers and a black fitted shirt that showed off all his best assets.

  Every finger, toe and hair on her body tried to cross to prevent there being a chance of any kind of emergency on this ship for the next few hours. She wanted his undivided attention.

  Travis reached out a hand and pulled her inside.

  Her breath caught in the back of her throat. The whole cabin had been transformed. Not that she’d seen the inside of Travis’s cabin before, but she knew it was the same as every other in this corridor.

  Except this one was entirely different.

  She looked around. The plain grey walls were covered in something—a printed paper with a dark wooden pattern on it. She wanted to reach out and see exactly what it was. The same paper covered his bed, which had been transformed into one side of some kind of homemade booth. A dark table was directly in front, and on the table were a covered lantern and a couple of flickering candles. There were also some plates with bar snacks, two bottles of beer and a bottle of rosé wine. All three bottles were slightly smudged with condensation, showing they’d been chilled.

  As she looked around she saw there were also a couple of old-style Italian posters on the wall. Although the lighting in the room was dim, seeing the posters struck a spark in her brain.

  ‘Gino’s?’ she gasped. ‘You made us Gino’s?’

  He held out both his hands. ‘You wanted us to recreate our blind date.’ He gave a little bow. ‘Your wish is my command.’

  Of course they could never really capture the true essence of the wooden booths in Gino’s and the dim atmosphere. But as she looked around in amazement Travis flicked a switch and soft Italian music drifted in the background. She was wowed. She couldn’t believe he’d gone to all this trouble.

  ‘You’ve done a good job,’ she said appreciatively.

  He handed her a wine glass. ‘The good news is I’m assured this is an excellent wine, but you only get to drink two glasses.’

  Ivy leaned forward and ran her finger down the condensation on the wine bottle. She couldn’t help but smile. ‘This is perfect,’ she whispered.

  Travis gestured towards the bench seat. ‘So, let’s imagine we’re back at Gino’s. I’ve bought us drinks and I’m sitting, waiting for you to arrive.’ He gave her a sexy smile. ‘And now here you are. Walking through the door and making me pinch myself with how lucky I feel right now.’

  Ivy watched as he poured the wine into the glass and handed it to her. She sat down next to him, feeling the heat emanating from his body towards her.

  She crossed her legs and held up her glass of wine. ‘Okay, so how are we doing this? Are we doing a completely new date? Me as Ali and you as Rob? Or are we skipping to the part where we’re Ivy and Travis?’

  He opened one of the beer bottles and held it up, chinking it against her glass. ‘How about we agree to skip to the good part?’

  She leaned one elbow on the table. ‘Let me think about that. It’s been...’ she glanced up through hooded lids ‘...six long, long days. We’ve done the introductions. We’ve stumbled through the getting-to-know-you part.’

  He lifted his eyebrows as if he was wondering where this was going.

  Her heart was racing in her chest. She knew she was about to throw caution completely to the wind. Her career could literally hang in this guy’s hands if they argued at a later date. But in her head she was separating the two parts of their lives—personal and professional.

&n
bsp; ‘We have the forty-five-day reprieve of having two drinks tonight. And...’ she leaned over and surveyed the bar snacks ‘...we have chicken wings, steak fries, peanuts, chips and olives.’ She leaned towards him and said in a low voice, ‘Why, Travis, I think we might have struck gold.’

  She’d only managed the barest sip of her wine before his lips were on hers.

  ‘You know what?’ he murmured. ‘I think you might be right.’

  * * *

  The paper on the walls was fragile and ended up scattered over the floor. Ivy laughed when she stretched out a few hours later after falling asleep. There was no way this room would meet any kind of regulations if someone were to walk in.

  She blinked as she wondered what had woken her up, thankful that something had because she really needed to get back to her own cabin. The last thing she wanted to do on an aircraft carrier was to be caught sneaking back to her cabin. Her dress was in a crumpled heap on the floor, alongside her shoes, and she swung her legs out of bed to make a grab for them.

  There was a noise beside her. Then a grunt. She’d only just repositioned her underwear before she realised what was happening.

  Travis was definitely a restless sleeper. But as she dropped her dress over her head and tugged it into place she realised this was something entirely different. He was murmuring, his head starting to thrash from side to side.

  ‘No, not that way. This way. Keep your head down. Cover your mouth.’

  His arms and legs started to thrash too. ‘Leave it!’ he yelled, and she jumped in shock.

  He was having a nightmare. Travis King was having a nightmare. For the first time in her medical career Ivy wasn’t quite sure what to do. She’d never dealt with anyone having nightmares before. She’d heard a few friends talk about their kids having night terrors, but she couldn’t remember what she should do. Did she wake him up? Or did she let it come to a natural end?

  Inwardly she groaned. If Travis made much more noise, someone would surely come by to check on him. The last thing she wanted was for them both to be reported to the captain. She might as well kiss any chance of being SMO goodbye if that were to happen. No, she needed to deal with this the best way she could. For both their sakes. She hesitated next to his bed as Travis continued to thrash his legs and arms.

  ‘No, not that way. Here, let me help you.’ He started coughing—choking almost. Whatever this dream was, it was very real for Travis.

  ‘Travis,’ she said tentatively to begin with.

  Nothing. He kept murmuring and thrashing.

  She tried again, raising her voice a little. ‘Travis, wake up.’

  Still nothing. She bent forward and gently touched his arm. ‘Travis, wake up.’

  It was as if she hadn’t even spoken. He just kept writhing in the bed, muttering under his breath. Before she even had a chance to think or move, ‘No!’ he yelled at the top of his voice, his strong right arm lashing out and sending her back into the nearby bulkhead.

  The noise must have disturbed him and touch must have registered with him because almost instantly he sat up, breathing fast and hard, eyes wide.

  She stood frozen against the bulkhead, her arm across her chest. He hadn’t hurt her in any way—she’d had worse shoves from people in the grocery store—but it was the element of surprise that took her breath away.

  Travis’s eyes were wide. ‘Ivy?’ It took him a few moments to reorientate himself. She could almost see him making sense of why she was in his cabin.

  Her heart was thudding in her chest.

  ‘Y-you...you...’ she stammered, ‘were having a nightmare.’

  The look of horror on his face told her everything she needed to know. What she actually wanted to do was grab her shoes and jacket and get out of his cabin and back to her own, where she could make sense of it all.

  But the doctor in her knew she shouldn’t walk away. While she might not understand nightmares, she could understand trauma from a million miles away. Working in the armed forces meant she saw it in many forms, time and time again. She just hadn’t expected it from Travis.

  She took a few deep breaths, trying to let her heart rate return to normal and stop hammering away in her chest.

  ‘Ivy, did I hurt you?’ He was on his feet, stepping too close.

  She flinched and she saw the pain in his eyes as he noticed and stepped back again.

  She picked up the nearby chair that she must have stumbled over on her way back to the bulkhead. She pulled her dress straight and sat down, facing Travis.

  ‘You didn’t hurt me,’ she said steadily. Then she took another breath. ‘But you could have.’

  He slumped down onto the bed. He looked as if she’d punched him in the guts.

  ‘Travis, why don’t you tell me what’s going on?’

  He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. She wanted to hug him. But she had to stay clear. She had to give him the space he needed to sort all this out in his head. She knew that she would need the same time later.

  When he lifted his blue eyes to hers they were glistening with unshed tears. That was the moment that almost completely undid her. She tried to stay calm and rational. ‘Travis, how long have you had nightmares like this?’ Part of her brain shifted. This wasn’t about her at all. It was about Travis. She had to treat him like a patient, not a lover. It was the only way she would be of any use to him.

  His answer was throaty. ‘Four years.’

  ‘What happened four years ago?’ There was no point in beating around the bush—not with a guy that a short time ago she’d been in an entirely different position with. She needed some honesty. But part of her brain stuck on the part that this had been happening to Travis for four years.

  He ran his fingers through his hair. His voice shook as he spoke. ‘Four years ago I was on deployment with a team that came under mortar fire. Three of my colleagues were killed instantly. Twenty were injured around me.’

  She drew in a breath. She didn’t need to ask where he’d been deployed. She’d spent a spell there too.

  But Travis hadn’t finished speaking. ‘We were held down under gunfire for three days. I had limited resources and had to choose who to prioritise and who I could actually save.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘I relive that day every other night.’

  She’d been lucky enough never to have come under direct fire, but as a surgeon in the area she’d dealt with the direct consequences of everyone else who had done. She could easily imagine the horrors of the experience.

  Her skin prickled but something about what he’d said just didn’t feel quite right. The words that he’d been using, the instructions he’d been shouting, had sounded more like a retreat than a lockdown.

  ‘Is there anything else?’ she probed.

  He groaned, leaning back and wrapping his arms across his chest. His eyes fixed on a corner of the cabin. ‘I thought I’d managed to get through things. I thought I’d got out okay. But a few months later I went to a conference at a hotel in Chicago. There was a fire in the middle of the night. The sprinkler system didn’t work. Smoke was everywhere and I was on the thirtieth floor.’

  These words made sense to her. The coughing and choking he’d been doing during his nightmare, the instruction he’d been shouting.

  ‘But you got out okay?’

  He gave a wry laugh as he shook his head. ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it? The number of people who stay in a hotel and actually don’t look for the fire stairs, even though they know they should? I banged on all the doors on my floor and helped everyone to the stairs. But I had to stop at every floor, yelling to others so they could actually find the escape route. On a couple of floors I found people already suffering from smoke inhalation.’

  ‘So you stopped to help?’ She knew as soon as she asked the question that he had.

  He gave a horrid shiver. ‘The smoke was partic
ularly bad on some floors. I tried to check them all, but afterwards I found out that I had missed a few people already overcome.’

  She could see that he blamed himself, even though there was no reason to.

  He kept talking and as he lifted one arm she noticed a little puckering on the skin towards the back. Her fingers hadn’t noticed that spot in her earlier exploration.

  ‘Travis, were you physically hurt in either the mortar attack or the fire?’

  She could see every muscle in his body tense. ‘Barely.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  He stood up and turned around. Under one shoulder blade was an area that had clearly been burned. The same on the top side of his left upper arm. Scattered across the base of his spine were some small areas that looked like some kind of shrapnel.

  She had missed them all. She’d been to bed with a man with war wounds and burns and she’d missed them all. It seemed illogical to her but as her mind relived the previous few hours, she realised her hands had mainly been around his neck, on his face, in the middle of his back or other places.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said simply.

  Travis was back on his feet, then kneeling before her. ‘No, I’m sorry, Ivy. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to scare you.’

  She knew that. She knew all of that. But there was something more important here. ‘Sit down.’

  Her tone was sterner than she wanted it to be, but the best way she could help Travis right now was to keep down this path.

  ‘Anything we talk about in this cabin doesn’t leave this cabin, you understand?’

  He nodded and she could see his expression change. He’d realised she’d stopped looking at him like a lover and had started looking at him as a patient.

  ‘Travis, what just happened when we were in bed together—has this ever happened before?’