But at the moment, sleep was the last thing on Mack’s mind. With a thoroughly male smile, he easily tossed her onto the bed. “Let’s find out,” he replied.
* * *
An hour later, they dressed again and walked to Beale Street and had a drink at B.B.’s club. After listening to a few songs, they walked some more, finally returning to dress for dinner. They had reservations for eight-thirty downstairs at Chez Philippe. The opulent restaurant seemed to be designed like a Roman bath with descending tiers lined by glorious pillars that framed the various dining areas. Couches were nestled against walls, huge pots of palms added more privacy, and every table was set with continental elegance.
Mack had whistled as Alana emerged from the bathroom dressed in a simple black silk sheath that showed off her slim but toned rider’s figure. He also enjoyed watching heads turn as he followed her to their table, pride testing the buttons on his silk dress shirt and gray suit jacket. He’d been doing some shopping; after all, he was a man on a mission.
He was also the former kid who, at sunrise on the morning of his eighteenth birthday, had stood waiting at an L.A. marine recruiting office until someone came to unlock the doors. He had handed them his birth certificate and high school diploma and said, “Get me the hell out of here.” Having survived three wars and served his twenty years—a feat that surprised even him—he watched Alana be seated by the admiring maître d’. As with his soldiering, Mack was reinventing himself to be worthy. But this time he wasn’t doing it for a corps, it was all for her.
“The wine steward will be here momentarily with your champagne, Mr. Graves,” the maître d’ said, his manner solicitous, as he presented their menus with a flourish. “I hope you will enjoy your evening.”
Mack murmured his thanks a second before he felt Alana’s fingers bite into his thigh under the table’s two linen tablecloths. “We just drank some rum-drenched peach thingy, and haven’t eaten since breakfast. Champagne? You’ll have me humiliating you by falling out of this chair before our entrées even arrive.”
“Which one? They happen to serve seven courses with their seasonal special dinners.” He showed her in the menu.
Alana tried to keep from laughing, but failed. Mack realized her underestimation of what lay before her was so amusing to her, she had to dab tears from the corners of her eyes. By the time she recovered, their champagne arrived.
Once it was served, Mack lifted his glass to hers. “I hope you’re still having this much fun by the time we’re headed home.”
After the crystal-clear musical sound, and the first taste of the bubbling wine, she put down her glass. Her expression grew a bit anxious. “Is this where you tell me the truth about what we’re walking into at Quantico?”
“This has nothing to do with that. This is all about us.”
“Oh.” Pleasure transformed Alana’s face into sheer bliss. “Sorry. Knee-jerk reaction.”
Mack understood. That was another reason why he was doing this. “Then it’s a good thing you took a break from being a cop when you did. That suspicious, expect-the-worst condition is trying to become chronic,” he teased, reaching for her hand.
As soon as he spoke, he winced, realizing his mistake because her fear of bad news did, of course, go much further back. “I mean—”
Alana leaned over to kiss his smoothly shaved cheek. “I know. And you’re right.” She leaned closer yet to whisper in his ear. “But you have to admit that the idea of being frisked by me in the elevator on our way back to our room has a certain appeal.”
It definitely did. In fact, the image stayed with Mack well past the Wild Salmon Gravlax Terrine with Goat Cheese, even to the Neda Farms Strip Loin, Haricots Verts, Potato Gratin, Roast Garlic and Juniper Berry Sauce.
* * *
“Can we walk again?” Alana asked, as they exited the restaurant only minutes before their usual closing time. “I feel as though I ate a bite of everything in the kitchen. Thank goodness French chefs grasp the wisdom in portioning.” She sighed with pleasure. “That was blue-cheese grits, right? With the squab? God love the Europeans. We should ship them all the hominy south of the Mason-Dixon, and challenge them to get creative. I’ll bet it would inspire the next blockbuster fast-food chain.”
Enjoying her playfulness, Mack slipped his fingers through hers. “My surprise was the haricots verts. Who knew haricot means ‘bean,’ and vert means ‘green’?”
“Ah,” she said, wagging the index finger of the hand that held her clutch purse. “Slender green beans, not our chubby American ones.” She chuckled softly. “That was wonderful.”
Thinking the same, Mack led her toward the lobby doors. “Peabody Place is right next door. Shops, restaurants, clubs—” he glanced down at her strapless shoes “—nothing too far or difficult for you to handle in those sexy things.”
“Sounds good.”
But they’d barely made it a few hundred feet into the area, when the noise and crowds had Alana stopping and drawing him back. “It does look like fun...for someone else. You know what I think sounds like us?”
The open invitation in her eyes sent Mack’s heart skipping a beat. “You have my undivided attention.”
“To finish a perfect day, we could go back to our beautiful room, and get comfortable, and you could stretch out on that lovely bed while I give you a massage so that tomorrow morning when you get into the car, it won’t feel as though you already marched ten miles.”
Lifting their joined hands to his lips, he kissed her knuckles. “I am blessed among men.”
Mack was a little disappointed that they made it up the elevator without him getting frisked, but then they hadn’t been alone in the car, either. However, Alana seemed intent on making that up to him.
Once in their room, while she made short work of slipping out of her heels and sliding out the combs that had held back her hair to expose her elegant neck, he leaned against the door to watch her. It was becoming one of his favorite pastimes. She didn’t fuss. She could be ready to head out the door in five minutes if you asked it of her, but she still ended up looking like she’d spent two hours perfecting the results.
Her gaze lifted to his in the mirror, as she removed the diamond studs that she’d told him had been her mother’s. With her lips curving, she crossed back to him and slowly unknotted his tie. “This isn’t going to come off by itself.”
“I got busy.”
“You could make a girl shy when you stare at her like that.”
“Like what? As though she’s the only woman he ever wants to look at again?”
“Yeah.” She went up on tiptoe and kissed him, in the process pulling the long band of red silk from around his neck. Laying it on the armchair beside them, she helped him out of his coat. “Confession time,” she said, returning to him to remove his belt. “I’m the only female in my high school class who’s never married. Okay, so there were only thirty-three of us in a class of fifty-nine...and one doesn’t count because she died of a drug overdose in college, and another is serving life plus thirty for something we don’t need to get into. The point is that I didn’t see sex as anything more than it was until you. You make me feel very...special.”
“Because you are.”
With a beatific smile, and a kiss on his chin, she carried his things to the closet where she hung everything, unzipped her dress and hung it up, too. Wearing only black-lace-over-nude-silk panties and bra, she returned again, this time to take his hand and lead him to the bed. There, she urged him to sit, then knelt to remove his shoes and socks.
“I didn’t speak for over a year after the crash,” she continued quietly, as she worked. “Duke thought it would help to force me to go back to school. Until then I’d been doing assignments at home. The kids were nice at first, but then when their ancillary expectations weren’t met, they treated me like a freak...until one day a classmate pushed me because I’d sat at the desk nearest the door, which was where she’d wanted to sit. That was the one thing we had in c
ommon—both of us couldn’t wait to get out of class.
“It wasn’t much of a push,” she said with a slight shrug. “But I was pretty scrawny at that point, and I fell into the desk beside mine, which ultimately caused more time out of school because that’s how I got this.” She indicated the faint scar over her left eyebrow.
“Tough classmate. What did you do?” Mack asked.
“I got up and knocked her onto her butt using a little self-defense technique that my brother had taught me—and proceeded to call her every bad word I knew. Granted, that wasn’t all that much at the ripe age of thirteen in Oak Grove, Texas, but it was something to behold from the silent girl who hadn’t wanted to say a word for all that time.”
Wishing he’d been there to protect her and help her, Mack drawled, “So that explains the low crime rate in town. You scared everyone into behaving. And here I thought it was mostly Big Duke’s scowl.”
With a brief laugh, Alana replied, “Yeah, I was becoming an angry little kid, and not even a big bully like that classmate could intimidate me. Would you believe she’s now the high school principal?” As Mack uttered a brief choking sound, she went to work unbuttoning his shirt.
“The reason I brought up all of that,” she continued mildly, “is to make you understand how much I mean it when I say that I know I can still be trying, and to thank you for being patient...and wise...and a gentleman, as much as you are a sweetheart, gyrene.”
Stopping her as she started on his cuffs, Mack knew there was something he had to do now that couldn’t wait any longer. He eased by her to get to his suitcase on the valet stand in the closet. When he returned, he urged her to sit beside him on the bed. “You can’t be on your knees for this. Neither of us should, since I see us as more than a team or partnership. I see us...as one.”
Opening his hand, he exposed a small velvet box. At first, he didn’t think Alana was reacting. But then he saw her clasped hands tighten in her lap.
“What have you done?”
“What I knew I was going to do since watching you carry off a poisonous snake one night as though it was merely a lost frog trying to find its way back to the creek,” he told her. “Do you think sharing what a stubborn but hurting little kid you were was going to stop me from loving you?” He opened the box to expose the solitaire he’d spent the most nerve-racking hour of his life choosing.
“I meant to offer this to you on the morning we headed for the ceremony,” he continued. “To give us both something better to focus on. But the one thing I understand, given each of our journeys, is that life is suddenly going to be too damned short from here on, now that we’ve found each other. I don’t know how much grace we’ll be given, but waiting two more days to see you wearing this is two too many. So is getting to tell you that I love you.”
Alana wrapped her arms around him. “Mack,” she whispered. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Hearing the tears in her voice and feeling a rawness in his throat, Mack took the ring from its slot to slip it on her finger. He’d had to guess on the size, and didn’t breathe until they discovered that it fit her perfectly.
“I can’t believe this.” She stared at the ring only to send him a helpless look. “It’s too fine. When will it be safe to wear it? My hands are always in something.”
“At least try to get used to using your other hand to feed Tanker his apples and carrots.”
Laughingly agreeing, Alana’s expression gentled. “You know this isn’t necessary, don’t you? As far as I’m concerned, things are perfect the way they are.”
Mack purposely misunderstood and arched one eyebrow skeptically. “With half of your clothes at Last Call and the other half at Pretty Pines? I don’t think so.” Seeing her battle temptation and doubt in herself, he drew in a deep breath for the rest of his speech.
“I was a soldier for twenty years, Ally, and I swear I already know and understand you better than I ever did most of the guys I served with, even though I considered them some my best friends. What’s more, you did for my father what my own mother couldn’t, wouldn’t do. I found and read his personal journals, too, sweetheart. The ones you tucked away in the attic.”
Alana looked torn. “I didn’t know whether to burn them or what, but they also showed he was a good man with a big heart, and you needed a chance to see that.”
“He evolved into that because you gave him what love you could, despite the pain that you were struggling with. Those journals are practically love sonnets from a man who’d learned late what was worth cherishing. I don’t intend to make that mistake. Marry me.”
“Yes, Mack,” she said, going into his arms again. “Yes and yes!”
“One more thing,” he said, nuzzling her ear. “Stop taking those damned pills. Have my baby.”
Chapter Nine
“Are you okay?”
Alana stood outside the bathroom door, certain that Mack had to be staring into the mirror and convincing himself to get today over with. They were in the apartment he’d swiftly packed up and left almost a month ago. But they hadn’t spent the night here. When they’d arrived yesterday, he’d looked around and immediately ushered her out to get a room at a nice hotel a few miles away. They’d returned here this morning two hours before they were due at Quantico for him to get into his dress uniform.
Mack had shared that he hadn’t put it on in almost a year. She hoped he wasn’t concerned about the fit—he looked in perfect shape now to her—but after being wounded, his weight could still be under what he’d weighed when he first got it. She had to admit, she was eager to see him in it at least once before he packed it away for good.
Struggling to remain patient, Alana clasped her hands and her gaze settled on her ring which, as usual, managed to put a lump in her throat. They had much to be grateful for, including the commandant’s and navy secretary’s forgiveness over Mack’s original rejection of this great recognition. He’d had a meeting with senior officials on base yesterday and, afterward, he’d assured her that they had made him understand that while his feelings of being undeserving were respected, he didn’t fully grasp how tribute and ceremony were also necessary for those who would follow him in the corps. It would also honor and comfort the families of his fallen comrades. Mack told Alana that he continued to have his own opinion of that, but he had been pragmatic in the presence of his superiors.
If it gets us back to Texas for all of our tomorrows, he’d told her later, I can give them their day.
“Be right out,” he called, in reply to Alana’s concerned query.
Returning to her pacing, she hugged herself as she thought about him living here between deployments. She’d taken one look at the one-bedroom apartment and said to him, “And you thought Last Call needed work?”
Mack had unabashedly agreed that the place had been like a “holding pen” until his next orders were cut. Barren, impersonal, there was no danger that it would be missed while sleeping in a tent in a desert or camping under a tree while hiking to Texas. Yesterday he’d also gone to the complex’s manager’s office to notify them that he was forfeiting his deposit—he still had two months on his lease—and was moving out today. After notifying the furniture rental place as well, he and Alana had gone to buy boxes for his few remaining personal things to load into the car as soon as the ceremony was over.
Now if only we can get through that.
When he opened the door, Alana broke into a wondrous smile. Dear Lord, she thought, feeling both attraction and awe. He was magnificent in his dress uniform with all his previously earned medals and ribbons on his chest, and his hat and gloves in his hands.
“Look at you, Gunnery Sergeant Mackenzie Graves,” she whispered. “I thought you were impressive in your civilian clothes.” She stepped forward to cup his smooth-shaven cheeks and touched her lips to his. “You take my breath away.”
And he did. He was also a different person, she realized. This was the warrior she’d had glimpses of since
finding him along that flood-swollen creek. The discipline was back, the compartmentalizing, the shutting down of emotions. That, she didn’t care for at all. In fact, it frightened her.
“Where’s my Mack, sir?” she whispered. “I let him go in there a half hour ago, and he hasn’t come out.”
“I’m here, sweetheart,” he said, his arms possessive, even as his kiss was gentle. “I’m just...”
“On the clock?” she offered.
He managed a crooked smile. “Something like that. For the last time.” He stepped back to admire her. “But I’m still the guy whose heart all but stops whenever he looks at you.”
Alana had bought the navy blue wraparound dress that accentuated her trim figure with him in mind. The long-sleeved, knee-length dress would suit propriety, and so would her hair in a soft bun at her nape.
“Officer Anders in a dress would cause traffic accidents in Oak Grove.”
“If I wore a dress back home, I’d never be taken seriously again. This is all for you.”
Mack slipped his arms around her waist to bring her hip-to-hip against him. “Happy birthday to me.”
“Remind me of the protocol, so I don’t embarrass you?” she asked, her voice husky.
“We’ll be received in a private room. You get compliments, I get my last butt chewing. Then you’ll be escorted to your seat in the front row. I hear there will be press coverage, after all. I’m sorry. Just keep reading the printed program if it starts to get to you. But they do try to make it pretty easy on family and guests. I’m the shark bait.”
Alana ached for him. “They’ll read the citation?”
He sighed. “Yeah, after the secretary says a few words. Don’t misunderstand if I don’t look at you during that part.”
“Of course not. I know it’s not going to be easy.”
* * *
It wasn’t.
Just over two hours later, Alana watched Mack stand on the stage with assorted military and elected dignitaries, and watched the man she loved struggle to maintain his composure as he was extolled repeatedly. They read that he and his platoon had been in a remote location in Afghanistan about to withdraw after a successful mission, when they were suddenly ambushed.
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