by Soraya Lane
Tom tried to act offended, hurt, but her amusement was contagious. “Just get in the car,” he ordered.
“And here I was stressing that you were going to have a secret wife and kids or something,” she muttered.
“What’s that, I can’t hear you? You’ve got my bad side,” Tom joked. He’d never thought his lack of hearing was something he’d ever be making fun of, but away from work and his usual life, Caitlin seemed to make him capable of laughing at anything.
Caitlin poked him in the ribs again and tried to do a fast shuffle-limp around to the passenger side. “I’m not falling for that one again, Cartwright.”
He intercepted her, moving fast to pin her to the side of the vehicle before she could open the door. “What did you call me?”
“Cartwright,” she said, her voice bold as she looked back at him defiantly. He liked that she looked so confident, none of the seriousness he’d once seen remaining in her eyes.
Tom didn’t know who this guy was or where he’d left his real self, but he slid both hands to Caitlin’s waist, skimming down to her hips and locking her in place, shuffling his body closer so that they were pressed together.
“You can disrespect me, but not the car, okay?” he told her, his lips hovering above hers, waiting for her to invite him closer, to kiss her.
Caitlin tilted her head back, taking her mouth farther from his instead. “Where’re we going?” she whispered back.
Tom thrust her forward, tighter against him. “Anywhere you want.” He didn’t let her ask any more questions. Instead, he kissed her, relaxing in the warmth of her mouth against his, of the warm, willing woman in his arms.
A few weeks back, he’d resented everything about his life. He’d hated his job, not wanting to teach, and he’d hated the way his life had changed. But this was helping more than therapy had so far.
He still wanted to be out on the water, working in the field and doing what he loved. That longing would probably never go away, but he was liking this, too. Caitlin was helping to heal his wounds, if that were even possible, and today he intended on thanking her. She was like a ray of the brightest sunshine, a fluffy white cloud in a patch of azure blue when the rest of the sky was black with rain-filled storm clouds. There were still things he felt he didn’t know about her, things she was holding close to her chest that he didn’t want to push, but she was starting to trust him.
He pulled back before pressing one last kiss to her lips. “Thank you.”
She raised her eyebrows in question. “For what?”
“For making me remember who I am again.”
Tom ran his hands down her sides before forcing them away from her body so she could get in the car. He’d admitted to being addicted to exercise, but he was fast seeing how easy it would be to become addicted to Caitlin, too.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“SO, where’s Sally taking us today?”
Tom would have thumped her, but she looked far too little to deal with one of his lighthearted punches, and besides, she was probably right. It was stupid to name a car, even if he wasn’t going to admit it to her.
“I thought we’d take a drive and stop for lunch somewhere.”
“Anywhere in mind?” she asked, head tilted to the breeze, hair pulled up off her face.
He was tempted to pull her hair tie out so he could watch her dark mane whip around in the wind, but he didn’t. Because even though they’d just spent the night together, he didn’t want to ruin anything, to risk mucking up what was happening between them. Whatever that something was.
Tom pulled at his earlobe and tried to forget about his deafness, but times like today, when he could barely hear through that ear except for a weird ringing sound sometimes, he resented what had happened to him. No matter how hard he tried to fight it, he was close to being sucked back into the pathetic “why me” thoughts, when he knew he should be happy to be alive instead.
And fortunate to be in the company of someone like Caitlin. The kind of woman he’d never thought would be a part of his life, a life that involved being on call every single day, never knowing when he might be needed and how many days or months he could be away from home.
“Tom?”
He refocused, annoyed he’d lost concentration. “Sorry, what were you saying?”
Caitlin cast him an amused look that he caught from the corner of his eye. “I asked you what was for lunch,” she repeated. “Did you have somewhere in mind?”
Tom nodded his head to the side, indicating for her to look in the backseat. “I picked up some food on my way over to your place. Sushi and sandwiches.”
She laughed. “Sushi and sandwiches?”
He raised his shoulders. “I wanted to get something you’d like and I had no idea what that was,” he admitted. “So I figured you’d like one of the options.”
“I like both, for the record,” she told him.
They kept driving, content in silence. He liked that. Tom had spent plenty of time talking to Caitlin, but he’d never really been one to open up, to chat for the hell of it. But she’d drawn him out of his shell without seeming even to make an effort. Without realizing what she was even doing.
“Tom, do you have to see a specialist about your ear?”
Her question took him by surprise. He hadn’t expected her to bring it up. “Ah, yeah,” he said, not wanting to talk about it but not wanting to be rude, either. “I have regular checkups, if that’s what you mean.”
She was silent for a beat before answering. “I just wondered if you’re planning on teaching indefinitely, or whether you’re going to be sent back offshore again.”
Tom gripped the steering wheel tighter, hating what he was about to admit. “I’d do anything to give up teaching, but it’s all I can do. The docs have been pretty clear about the realities of my injury.” He fought to keep any bitterness from his tone. “I’ll never be a SEAL again.”
“Once a SEAL always a SEAL though, right?”
Caitlin’s tone was kind, understanding, but it still grated on him. In his heart he was a SEAL all the way, but in his mind he knew that he wouldn’t be ready to go back even if his ear did miraculously heal. After losing one of their team, they’d all struggled with it, but Tom had been the one closest to the explosion. He’d never stopped wondering if there was something he could have done, something he should have seen that would have saved the other man’s life.
Which was why he didn’t want to be having this conversation. Not now, not when the mood between them was so happy and light. So easy.
“Why are you asking me all this, Caitlin?”
He watched confusion and then…hurt cross her face. He hadn’t recognized it straight away, but he could see it now as plain as he could see the weather in the sky.
“Because I like you—isn’t that reason enough? Because I want to try to understand what you’re going through,” she replied, but her tone was different now. The lightness, the warmth that had rested between them had disappeared to be replaced with something cooler.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…”
“What Tom? It’s just what?” she asked.
Tom didn’t answer her, he kept driving instead. Caitlin kept her head turned, was looking out the window, and he didn’t disturb her until he found a place to pull over. He drove into the parking lot, well off the street, and looked out at the beach. He’d imagined a picnic, laughter, kisses, but not this. He should have known it would come up again, eventually, but he hadn’t. Why was it that she was so desperate for him to confront his past?
Tom got out of the car and waited before going around to her side, but she’d already opened her door and was stepping out. He’d needed the burst of fresh air before talking to her again.
“Let me help you,” he offered.
Caitlin’s gaze stopped him. But she still didn’t say anything, was clearly waiting for him to answer her question.
He walked slowly and she hobbled alongside him onto the sand, looking out to
the water.
“Caitlin, I don’t know what to say to you. What you want me to tell you.”
Her gaze was sad, almost sorrowful, and it hurt him. He didn’t like seeing her in pain and she was clearly hurting, but he didn’t know what to do, either. Didn’t know how to make this right when she was asking something of him he didn’t want to give. He was used to being pitied by those closest to him, not confronted like this, and right now he didn’t know what was worse.
“I want you to tell me how you feel,” she told him, her bottom lip quivering. “I want you to open up to me instead of keeping your pain bottled away inside. Because we can keep pretending that everything’s fine with you, but we’d be lying. And then we’re only kidding ourselves that something real’s happening between us.”
Tom looked away, fought the urge to focus on her again. His temper was bursting, fighting to emerge from within him, like a fury he hadn’t ever experienced before.
“Caitlin, there are some things better left unsaid and this is one of them,” he told her, firm but trying not to show his emotions.
She looked angry. “Yeah? Well, there are some things that need to be said, and what happened to you, wherever the hell you were when that bomb went off, is one of those things.”
He didn’t trust himself to answer so he didn’t. Tom clamped his jaw down tight, as if it had been wired shut, and tried to focus on his breathing, to deflect from the situation until he was capable of acting like the man he wanted to be for her. For Caitlin.
“I like you, Caitlin. I really like you,” he admitted, reaching for her hand. She gave it, not immediately, but when he grasped her fingers with his own she didn’t resist. He tugged her closer and ran his hands down her back when she faced him. “Last night was incredible, and I don’t want to argue today and ruin how happy we should be feeling.”
She returned his kiss when he dropped his lips to hers, but the feeling was empty. Not the electric, excited current they’d had the night before or this morning, and he knew it was because she felt let down somehow.
Caitlin pressed her palms to his cheeks. “Tom, every time I ask you about the Navy, every time I try to tell you that I understand…”
He pushed her away, couldn’t fight the surge of anger any longer. “When will you get it?” he barked, his voice colder than ice. “You don’t understand and you never will.”
She didn’t move and he couldn’t stop.
“You want to know what I’ve been through?” He was yelling now but he’d lost the ability to keep himself in check. “I’ve been through hell, Caitlin. I’ve seen the depths of a hell that you couldn’t even imagine, worse than any pathetic nightmare you’ve ever dreamed of.”
She went to back off but he grabbed her hand. “You want me to open up, well, listen here.”
“Let go of me.”
Tom didn’t realize, was too angry, didn’t see the tears in her eyes until it was too late.
“Let go!” she screamed, clawing at him, pulling away as hard as she could.
He dropped contact with her as if he’d had hold of a burning ember.
“Caitlin, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I never meant to…”
“Stay away from me. Don’t come any closer.”
He could see how scared she was, of him, but he stayed still. Did what she asked.
“Caitlin, I’d never hurt you, you know that.”
“Do I?” she questioned, looking so fragile it physically pained him.
He went to move forward but the wildness in her eyes made him stop.
“You better believe that I know exactly how you feel, Tom.”
Imaginary bristles spiked along his back but he stayed put.
“You’re wrong,” he said.
Caitlin shook her head, almost violently. “No, Tom, I’m exactly right. I’m not going to hold my tongue because I can’t admit to you that I do know what you’re going through. I know how it feels to walk away from something you love, and I sure as hell know how it feels to lose someone you care about, okay?”
“No.” He wanted to shout at her but he kept hold of his frustration. Just. “No, Caitlin, you don’t.”
“Stop saying that, Tom. Stop and listen for once.” She glared at him. “But don’t you take a step closer to me.”
“Damn it, Caitlin!” he fumed, darkness surging within him. “You don’t understand and you won’t ever understand, got it? What would make you think that you understand what I’ve been through? That you have any idea what it’s like to lose what I’ve lost?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
CAITLIN was furious, her head pounding as if it was going to explode. “You’re not my superior, Tom, so don’t think I’m going to say yes, sir, and roll over just because you tell me to.” Her body was shaking but she didn’t move. She forced herself to stay strong.
“Caitlin, you know I didn’t mean…”
“Didn’t mean what?” she spat, so angry that she wanted to walk away. But she didn’t, because she wasn’t a coward. She never had been. She would have taken anything, even the worst of beatings, to save her mom from being hurt. “That no one in the world could know how you feel? That what you’re going through is worse than what anyone else has ever felt?”
Tom stared at her, his gaze cold again. It made her stomach turn.
“Grow up, Tom. Just grow up.”
Caitlin turned to leave. She didn’t even care anymore, or maybe she did care too much but she sure as hell wasn’t going to let him know it. She knew every single emotion he’d experienced and then some. Because no matter how much he wanted to pretend otherwise, she did know, and if he took the time to listen to her he’d know it, too. She’d held her tongue too long now, when she should have said something that very first night they’d argued about it instead of letting things go this far without confronting what stood between them. What would always keep them apart. She’d been stupid to put it to one side.
“Caitlin, stop.” His fingers moved then curled into fists at his side again.
“Do you honestly think you’re the only one who’s ever lost someone? Who’s ever had something they love more than heaven and earth stolen from them?” she asked shakily.
Tom looked down, then slowly raised his eyes. “I lost one of my guys out there, Caitlin,” he said, his voice soft, low now. “And when I lost my job it was like I’d lost part of me. Like a vital organ had been taken from my body and I had to figure out how to live without it, without any warning. So yeah, I doubt you or anyone else in my life knows how that feels.”
Caitlin sighed. They could argue all day; he could tell her until he was blue in the face what had happened, why he was behaving the way he was, but he’d never truly understand until she told him. And he needed to understand as much as she finally needed to get what had happened to her off her chest.
She looked out at the coast stretching for miles in front of them, wished they didn’t have so far to drive back. But maybe it was a good thing. Would give her time to calm down and think, to cool off. She shouldn’t have brought the subject up at all, or she should have been honest with him from the start. When he’d noticed her scars that day out hiking, she could have told him. Before they’d become close, before they’d spent the night together and she’d met his family.
“I won a scholarship to the School of American Ballet in New York when I was sixteen,” Caitlin told him, staring at a tree she could barely see, trying to distance herself from what she was saying. “It was just me and my mom, and we didn’t have a lot of money. We’d left my dad after he hit Mom one time too many, and it was the most amazing opportunity.” She looked at Tom, saw that he was listening, hands shoved in his pockets, eyes trained on her. “It was the biggest opportunity of my life. I thought I was going to be the famous ballerina I’d always dreamed about becoming.”
She swallowed the emotion away, tried to push it back and focus on what she was saying. She had a story to tell and she needed to get it out. No thinking about what she�
�d lost, how hard it had been losing her identity and being alone.
“What happened?”
“It was amazing there. I was doing so well, and I had the most incredible job lined up. I was going to tour the country doing what I loved.”
Tom took a step closer, touched her arm. Caitlin didn’t shrug him off this time.
“I was dating an army guy. Things started out so nice. I thought he was charming and kind, but it didn’t take too long before…” She wasn’t going to describe the ways he’d hurt her. How he’d abused her.
“Did he—” Tom paused “—hurt you?”
She nodded. “Yeah, he did. He was violent, just like my dad.”
A wildness grew behind Tom’s gaze, as if a fire had been lit within him and he was glowing with the rage of it. “You know I would never, never hurt you Caitlin. You know that, right? Please tell me you’re not scared of me?”
She wanted to tell him that, but it was hard to trust him. Hard to believe, when you’d had a father and then a boyfriend think they were tougher and stronger than the women they were with, and want to prove it, that another man could be gentle. Could commit to never raising a hand in anger or wanting to fight other men. It was something she would never forget, would always be traumatized by.
“You’ve already hurt me by not listening, Tom,” she said, her voice low, on the verge of cracking. “You need to understand that you’re not alone in how you feel.”
She could see him struggling, not wanting to admit that anyone could know what he’d been through, but he stepped closer again, this time wrapping his arms around her from behind, holding her.
“Tell me what happened,” he asked. “I need you to tell me.”
Caitlin leaned back into him and shut her eyes. “He’d been drinking, but I didn’t know until it was too late. I was already in the car. He’d come to pick me up after a show in the city and I’d been planning on breaking it off. As soon as I knew he was violent, I had no intention of him ruining my life, of holding me back.” She paused. “When I told him I wanted to get out, he only got more angry, and before I knew it we’d hit another car and I couldn’t move my legs.”
