by Anne Marsh
“You don’t mean that.”
He couldn’t see her face, so he tipped her chin up so her eyes meet his.
“I do.”
This time she didn’t sound so amused. “You don’t do that, Daeg. You never have.”
“Are you staying?” he asked. It wasn’t much of a cautious opening gambit, but it was the best he had. He wanted to blurt out how he felt, tell her everything that was going on in his mixed-up head. The restraint was just about killing him, but he didn’t want to screw this up. He needed to play it the way she needed it played.
“At Sweet Moon? Duh.” An impish smile lit up her face. “I thought you knew that.”
“Not for the summer, but...forever,” he clarified.
“Forever’s a long time.” She eyed him, a familiar little crinkle forming between her eyes as she worked through the implications of what he was saying. She’d have thinking lines there when she was older and, yeah, he wanted to be there to see that, wanted to be the one holding her for the next fifty years or so.
“I like forever just fine.”
She winced as if he was crazy. “You and forever in the same sentence? I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Get in, get out and get the job done. That’s what you told me,” she said matter-of-factly. Like there was no arguing with the statement.
“Some jobs take longer than others.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged, and her hair moved about her shoulders. She looked deliciously mussed. Everything about her, from her warm glow to the sheet tucked over her bare breasts, screamed I just had sex. Really, really hot sex.
That was a good look for her.
He wanted to pull her back into his arms and do it all over again, but talking mattered, too. Now that he’d started this conversation, he wanted to finish it. He needed to explain to her somehow that forever, if it involved her, sounded like a good time frame.
“But, okay, I have been thinking about staying on the island,” she continued. “Maybe I’ll help out at Sweet Moon or maybe I’ll do some consulting. A lot of what I do doesn’t have to be done in an office. I can telecommute.”
“I might stay, too,” he offered noncommittally. Just to test the waters. “Stick around.”
“Deep Dive?” She smiled. “I have a hard time imagining you not re-upping.”
“I can do other things,” he protested.
“Right.” She shook her head. “But I look at you and I see soldier. You drop in, get the job done and then you go away. Think about that summer on the island ten years ago. You came, you kissed me, you went.”
“Maybe,” he allowed. That was the truth, if he was being brutally honest. “But I never stopped thinking about that kiss. I regretted walking away.”
Her look was pure disbelief. “Right,” she said. “One juvenile kiss on prom night and you spent the next ten years pining for me.”
Pining wasn’t the right word, but he didn’t know how to explain how she’d stuck in his memory. He’d been young, but he’d known something, someone, special when he held her in his arms.
“I remembered.” He growled the words. “Okay? I left and that kiss of ours would pop back into my head.” Usually it did at the most inconvenient times.
“Uh-huh.” She glared, her eyes piercing right through him. Yeah. He’d blown this morning to hell and back. “That’s why you never called, never emailed. Never, ever looked me up and said, ‘Hey, Dani—I’d like to see you again.’ Welcome to the twenty-first century. Communicating is easier than ever.”
No. It wasn’t. If it had been, he’d have known what to say to her. “You were too young,” he pointed out. “Come on, you were just finishing high school and I’d already enlisted. Should I have kissed you—and it wasn’t going to stop there—and then left you waiting while I did my tour of duty overseas? I didn’t even know what I felt, just that you made me feel something. Something different.”
Something good.
She stared at him silently, and he knew he had to man up or risk losing her again. She’d get up and go—the one woman who had meant something to him, even when he hadn’t understood what that something was.
“I love you. I left you, yes. We were both too young for that kind of commitment and you know it. But I always regretted it.”
Slowly, she shook her head. “You love me?”
“Yes!” he snapped.
“That’s unlikely,” she said calmly. “We’ve been on the island together for just a few weeks.”
“We knew each other before.”
“When we were kids. You said so yourself.”
“I know how I feel.” She was stubborn. And logical. And he liked both of those traits in her, but they weren’t helping him now. He didn’t know how or why he felt the way he did, just that waking up next to this woman, being with her no matter what happened, was precisely what he wanted to be doing. “Do you know how you feel about me?”
* * *
DID SHE? HONESTLY, she had no idea. He was demanding, insisting that she put into words emotions and feelings she’d only just realized she had.
“You didn’t give me a choice. You kissed me. You left. You. Came. Back.” She jabbed a finger into his chest. “There’s no me in that equation and there’s definitely no us.”
His dark eyes searched hers, but she knew him. There was nothing easy about him, but part of her wanted to try. Loving Daeg Ross would be one phenomenal ride, but the odds of a relationship working out were low. Rick had seemed like a sure thing, solid marriage material, and look how that relationship had headed south. She didn’t want to think about the implosion that could come from seeing that happen with Daeg Ross.
“Take the chance.” His big, reassuring hands curled around her shoulders, urging her closer. “Give me a chance.”
His rough sigh gusted over her forehead. It would be so easy to give in. To tell him yes and lose herself in his arms again. Easy, and yet hard because she knew where all this would end—with her heartbreak and his leaving. A tiger didn’t change its stripes just because it wanted to, and Daeg would always be a soldier and an adrenaline junkie.
“I’ve calculated our chances... I don’t like how they’re looking.” The words left her mouth reluctantly, but some things had to be said. This was one of those things.
He tipped up his chin and set his mouth firmly. “But there is a chance.”
“A small one.”
“I want it. I want you, us. You need to trust me, Dani. You gamble on us, okay? You can’t spend the rest of your life only taking on what appear to be sure things.”
She could. That was the point of this conversation. She didn’t need to risk her heart or her emotions, not when he’d proved before that he specialized in heartbreak.
“Give me a second chance,” he urged.
“Because you love me?”
“That, too,” he said. “And because I think you feel something for me and you want to find out what.”
“Have you really thought this over?”
“What is there to think about? Either we feel something for each other or we don’t. This is about emotions, Dani. It’s not a logic problem or a flow chart.”
“And that’s part of the problem,” she said, hating the bitterness in her own voice. “You always want to jump in feet first. You don’t stop and think. You just act.”
“Try it,” he coaxed. “Jump for me, Dani.”
She sighed. “That’s not who I am, you know that.”
The loud rap on the cabin door was almost a welcome relief. Right there real life was issuing a reminder that she had her grandparents’ business to take care of. She couldn’t deal with all these emotions, not now.
“I need to get that.” She reached for her discarded clothes, pulling them o
n.
“Then do it.” His hard gaze followed her. “But we’re not done here, Dani. Not by a long shot. Do what you need to do, because I’ll be here waiting for you. You don’t need to calculate the odds on that.”
* * *
SHE OPENED THE door and her day went from bad to worse. Rick stood on her front porch, looking hopeful. He’d armed himself with a bouquet of Stargazer lilies and a wide smile.
And yet she’d finally done her moving on, and he was lying on the bed behind her. Speaking of him, it just occurred to her whose T-shirt she’d pulled on before she cracked the door, although the rub of the cotton against her skin reminded her with every breath she took that she was bare as a baby beneath.
Rick held out the flowers to her. “Can I come in?”
“That’s not a good idea.” She didn’t take the bouquet, and resisted the urge to look over her shoulder. This redefined the awkward morning after. Rick’s eyes dropped to her breasts, the smile faded and she looked down. Yup. Her quick swipe and don from the floor had netted her Daeg’s T-shirt.
“Maybe not.” Rick eyed the gray cotton top, proudly sporting the word Navy across the chest. The T-shirt slid off her shoulder, two sizes too big.
They both knew the shirt wasn’t hers.
He offered the flowers again, more out of politeness, she thought, than any genuine hope they’d be talking or reuniting. All she was doing today with Rick was watching him take his leave.
“You’re not coming back.”
“No.” She met his gaze. “I’m not.”
“All right.” He gave her a wry grin. “But you can’t blame me for trying.”
Part of her wanted to do just that. The rest of her wanted to know why it had taken him so long to come after her and what that meant.
“Maybe you should take a second look at Shari.”
“No.” He was quiet for a minute. “That was my first mistake.”
He gestured toward the T-shirt. “Borrowed?”
“Yes.” If she was lucky, the loaner might stay in bed until she had the door closed again. “I’ll give it back.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t?” Rick guessed.
She wasn’t discussing this with Rick at any point, and certainly not now when she had Daeg waiting for her in bed. Her soldier had to have heard this conversation, anyhow.
“Goodbye, Rick.”
She turned away, shutting the door. She didn’t know what she should be feeling. That was her past that was walking away, everything she’d once dreamed of. She had to be crazy saying no to Rick. She looked at Daeg, and he didn’t seem any less of a risk than he was before.
“Am I on loan?” he asked. He didn’t sound happy.
“I need to think.”
He scoffed and threw the sheets back. He was upset, but there was nothing she could honestly do about that—she wasn’t getting rushed into this. “Just for once, Dani, leap before you look, okay? Can you do that for me? For us?”
She moved toward the bed without answering his question. Instead, she yanked his shirt over her head, grabbing a clean one from a drawer. “Here. This is yours.”
“You can keep the shirt.” His tone said he wasn’t just talking about the shirt.
“No. I can’t.”
“I love you,” he repeated. “And I’m still waiting for my answer.”
“You want to talk about this now?”
“Why not? We’ve already waited ten years. If we’re going to try for forever, forever might as well start right now.”
“I’m not ready.”
He grimaced. “This isn’t something you analyze, Dani. You go with your gut on this one. If you trust me, then you make the gamble. On us.”
“Tell me what you want from me,” she said coolly. “Give it to me straight up.”
“Sex. A commitment. Everything and anything. I want us to be an us. A couple.”
“I can’t do that right now.” She chewed on her lower lip, undecided, staring at his familiar face yet wondering when he’d changed. When he’d become this stranger who thought he wanted to share forever with her.
“Why not? Because you need time to think? Why can’t you trust me?” His fingers flexed on his thighs. He’d put on his jeans while she’d been speaking to Rick, and the tight, worn denim always got her thinking about sex. Sex with this man.
“Take a chance. Gamble.” He shot her a warm smile, but his fingers were busy doing up his boots. He was getting ready to leave, she realized. “You can’t spend the rest of your life only taking on the sure things, and I want a second chance.”
She wanted that chance. She knew she did. Anything could happen eventually, given enough chances. Not necessarily tomorrow, not even quickly, but eventually. Sooner or later, monkeys randomly pounding on keys would accidentally type out Hamlet. The problem was, that kind of miracle took time. Lots and lots of time.
“I can’t,” she said, and her Mr. All Wrong walked out the door.
18
“BACK ALREADY?” TAG didn’t lift his eyes from the laptop that was sitting open before him when Daeg slammed into the Deep Dive’s command center. Tag had a look of intense concentration on his face as he scrutinized a topographical map of the ocean floor. The map likely meant trouble was brewing, but Daeg had enough of his own.
“Miss me?” He wanted to shout, jump on his bike and ride into the wind, do something to take away the tension, but that wouldn’t solve his problem. The fifteen miles of road between him and the woman he loved wasn’t the issue. No, it was their insurmountable differences when it came to taking a chance on life. He wanted to jump in with both feet.
And she didn’t.
He dropped into the chair opposite Tag and propped his feet up on the desk. His thigh protested the move, but he wasn’t in the mood to hear complaints. His body was the one thing he could control right now.
“Your CO called.” Tag nudged a scrap of paper toward him. “I believe he’d like to know whether or not he can count on your coming back to base.”
Daeg pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Yeah. That was a good question.
Tag shoved the laptop aside. “You got an answer for the man?”
“No.”
“No, you’re not re-upping?”
“No, I haven’t decided.” Except that maybe he had when he’d told Dani he wanted more than a few weeks with her.
“Indecisive much?” Tag’s cheeky drawl was annoying. Maybe Daeg could take his frustrations out on his friend.
Daeg glared and ignored the urge to rub his thigh. He’d figure out what he wanted. He would. And he would not think about how good Dani had looked naked in his arms. Since that had been a very, very good look for her.
“I’m working on it.”
“Uh-huh.” During the ensuing pause, Daeg could practically see Tag’s fingers itching to haul the laptop back. He appreciated the gesture, though. He really did. In his case, misery did love company. “Are you still thinking about joining Deep Dive?”
“I’m already involved,” he felt compelled to point out. He had a financial stake in the place, not that he’d ever intended to cash in.
“Money, mostly.” Tag shrugged. “We want you here. I think we’ve made that clear. I was hoping that Dani might change your mind about sticking around.”
“When have I ever stuck around?” Yeah. That was bitterness in his voice, all right. He heard it loud and clear.
Tag shook his head. “Get in fast, get out quicker. Yeah. I know how we worked in the service. You could choose to do something different this time. You know that, right? If you wanted, you could choose to stay.”
Daeg shoved to his feet. He was too restless to sit still, and the phone number scrawled on the paper glared at him, requiring an answer he didn’t
have. Stay. Go. Re-up or sign on with Deep Dive and put down some roots.
He jammed his hands in his pockets and his fingers met paper. He’d left the notepad behind, but he’d taken Dani’s list with him. She’d penned one incredible, sensual bucket list, and he’d only just gotten started on making all of her fantasies come true.
Maybe he should have told her he’d found the list. It did gave him an unfair advantage. But she was so sure she knew everything about odds and probability, he liked having this small edge.
Still, the inside knowledge hadn’t helped him that much. She’d shown him the door fast enough this morning. He told himself that was okay. That it was a good thing she’d turned his offer of long-term down flat; he knew empty words when he heard them.
“Think about it,” Tag encouraged when Daeg headed toward the door. “Our offer still stands. You want a place here, you got it.”
* * *
SWEET MOON WAS almost cleaned up.
Unfortunately, days spent slinging a shovel and filling trash bags hadn’t helped clear her mind any. Nor had she been able to sleep when she’d finally tumbled into bed. So much for thinking of an honest day’s labor as the ultimate sleep aid.
All she had to show for her efforts were two fresh blisters on her palm and purple circles under her eyes.
She replayed Daeg’s parting words over and over. When had he decided he was in the market for commitment? She wanted to go back outside with a shovel—or better yet, the chain saw—but there was nothing left out there to fix. Daeg Ross was supposedly hot summer sex. Nothing more. And yet somehow, Mr. All Wrong had almost become Mr. All Right.
Maybe she should tidy the office. Organize a few filing cabinets.
Hard labor would eventually have to distract her from how much she already missed him. Less than two days and she was already thinking about going after him. And she really didn’t want to do that. There was nothing safe about chasing a relationship with Daeg. He always needed to be first into the water and he took risks that scared her. She was not ready to love a man like that.
