by Hill, Teresa
Amanda and Will lived there, too, and Amanda was still working out of their spare bedroom on her new foundation to provide tutoring for children whose lives had been disrupted, like ones living in shelters or foster care. He bet Dani would enjoy doing that kind of work. He’d talk to Amanda for her.
Mace loved the whole idea. Sometimes he had to do something, take even one step toward fixing something. It was like opening a pressure valve.
He pulled out his phone and searched for the name of the Realtor who’d sold him his condo. There it was. And it wasn’t quite eight o’clock. Dani had gotten mad at him early enough that it wasn’t too late to call the Realtor.
“Bridget, this is Mace Daughtry. You sold me a condo at the Sandbar a few years ago.”
“Mace.” She drawled out the word like an invitation. Clearly, she remembered him. “How are you?”
“Good. I was wondering — does your agency handle rentals? Are any units for rent in my building? Long-term. Not for vacationers?”
She chit-chatted with him while she went to her computer and checked. “Hmm. Not for rent, but there are units for sale. Are you looking for something bigger? A three-bedroom? Have a girlfriend moving in, who wants more space?”
“No. It’s not for me. I’m checking for a friend. Units for sale … ”
What the hell, he could afford one of those, too. He could afford just about anything he might want, short of a major league football team or a small country of his own.
“Could you show the units for sale to me? Maybe tomorrow night?”
They made an appointment. She hinted at the two of them grabbing dinner afterward, but he told her he couldn’t make plans beyond seeing the condos. She promised to e-mail him links to the listings, so he could look at photos and all the stats on the units tonight.
Done.
He went home, pulled out his iPad, downloaded his e-mail and clicked on the links Bridget had sent him. There was a unit on his floor. Three bedrooms and furnished, because it had been on the short-term rental market. Typical inexpensive, worn, beachy furniture, but he could refurnish the place, too, if he wanted to.
The biggest issue was how he was going to convince Dani to move in.
* * *
Mace
He met with Bridget the next evening and looked at three units for sale in the complex. The one on his floor was the biggest and most expensive, more so than his own condo.
He could swing the down payment and the mortgage without touching Harold Hopewell’s money. He wasn’t ready to deal with that kind of money.
“Are you upgrading yourself or thinking about this as an investment?” Bridget asked him once again. “This place would be great for either one. And you still have your old place, right? So you could do any upgrades you want here before you move in.”
That was the answer, he realized. He’d have to move, which was a hassle. He’d have to explain to his friends why he was moving … But this was it.
“I want a bigger place,” he said, which was a total lie. “And I’ll keep my current place as a rental.”
That sounded reasonable. His old place would be an investment. It would probably need some work to fix it up, so he could get a good price for it. And someone would need to be around to see that those things got done. Mace was gone too much to do it himself. This could work.
“My office handles both short and long-term rentals. We could handle your condo for you, if you like.”
Mace said he would let her know about that. She said she’d look at current sales in the area, and then they could decide on a price and submit his offer.
“Tomorrow,” Mace said. “I want to do it tomorrow. How long will it take to close?”
“At least three weeks, and that’s if everything falls into place.”
“Fine. I want it done in three.”
Actually, he wanted it done by Monday, when Randy got back into town, but no way that was going to happen. He’d have to work out something else, fast.
As they were leaving the new condo, one of the guys he knew from another SEAL team stopped to talk. Before Mace could cut that conversation off, Bridget, always eager for another client, was passing out her card and telling him to get in touch if he’d ever like to buy a place.
An hour later, Will was at Mace’s door. “Are you selling this place?”
“No.”
Will walked right in. He’d never needed an invitation. “So, what are you doing looking at other units for sale here?”
“It’s for a friend.”
“Does this have something to do the widow?”
Mace had been referring to her as a widow for so long, to himself and to his friends, they all still used the term, whether it was technically correct or not. “She’s thinking of moving.”
“Here? On what she makes in a bar? Cut the crap, Mace. What are you doing?”
“She’s living in a shit hole with a roommate whose boyfriend gives me the creeps. She needs to move.”
“So, you’re gonna buy a place and move her into it?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m still figuring it out.”
Will shook his head. Mace knew his friend was frustrated over what Mace was doing, and wouldn’t hold his opinion back much longer. That was the trouble with good friends. They knew too much about you to let you get away with shit.
“You don’t have to fix everything for everybody else,” Will said.
“I know.”
Will shot him a look that said, start acting like you know it.
Mace held his tongue. He couldn’t win this argument, so instead he asked the next thing Will would no doubt give him shit about. “Do you think Amanda’s ready to hire someone to help her get her tutoring project going?”
“You’re going to get this woman a job, too? Are you going to cover her salary? Or do you want Amanda to pay it? Let me guess — it needs to be enough for the woman to afford that apartment you were looking at.”
“Never mind. I’ll talk to Amanda myself.”
Will tried to stare Mace down. Mace knew Will wanted to say at lot more. He settled for a quiet, “It wasn’t your fault,” and left.
Mace thought those words were among the worst in the English language. When something awful happens, any number of people could have done a thousand little things differently and changed the outcome.
He accepted the truth of that, but it didn’t change his feeling that he could have done something. Something faster, something stronger, something better. Anything but what he’d done. That’s what ate at him. Every single decision he made when things went bad, like when Aaron Carson had died, and Mace had survived.
No fixing that now, but Dani was still here and a mess. Mace was going to do everything he could to help her. He just had to find a way to convince her to let him.
* * *
Chapter Eleven
Dani
Monday evening, only hours before her roommate and Randy were due back in town, Mace talked Dani into meeting him on the pool deck at his condo complex for … something. Not swimming, he’d said, but offered no other details.
She still wasn’t sure how he’d gotten her here. She was mad at herself for agreeing. He just kept pushing. She should throw a drink in his face or pull out her pepper spray and order him to back off.
If only he wasn’t right. Maybe not about Aaron and her needing answers, but about the way she’d been living. It did suck. She couldn’t keep going this way.
So, she’d meet Mace at his pool. She’d let him push her a little, challenge her, make her mad, because even being mad was better than being sad. She could find some energy in being mad, some movement. It shook things up sometimes.
Plus, Mace’s invitation would let her put off seeing Randy for a few more hours, which was always a good thing.
The stupidest part of all of this?
She had no idea what to wear to go see him and allow him to make her mad on the pool deck at his condo complex.
It was
such a normal, girly thing. Nothing she’d given half a second’s thought to in months, since she was in Greece with Aaron.
God, don’t think about that.
She didn’t need to look good for Mace. It’s just that she kept thinking back to that first night he’d barged into her life, when she’d been that drunk, up-for-a-threesome-with-strangers girl. The girl still inside her who’d loved Aaron so much burned with shame over the girl Mace had met that night. It wasn’t who she was.
But neither was she the girl who cared what Mace thought of how she looked. She wouldn’t get dressed up for him. She didn’t have to show him her wardrobe consisted of more than short shorts and low-cut tops that left her abdomen bare and got her better tips.
Did she?
Okay, truthfully, she wanted to look like a nice girl for once.
She finally settled for a long, loose, flowing sundress her roommate had loaned her. A white shrug covered her shoulders and upper arms against the evening breeze coming off the ocean. It had been a gorgeous, sunny day in May that teased about the end of spring and summer coming, but it would cool down when the sun set.
She put her hair up in a messy bun, swiped some lip gloss and mascara on, and there she was, hoping she looked casual and maybe kind of classy.
She pulled into the parking garage and walked toward the big deck and the pool that fronted on the ocean. The area also contained a party space, covered on top but open on three sides, with a big, built-in grill, outdoor kitchen, wrought iron tables and chairs and maybe two dozen people.
No Mace.
Was she early? She checked her phone. No, and she wasn’t more than ten minutes late.
Then she saw him leaving the crowd of people cooking out and walking toward her.
Oh, my God, the man looked good.
Any woman would think so. He had all that full, dark, wavy hair, the shadow of stubble on his face, crinkles at the corner of his eyes that said he spent a lot of his time smiling, wide shoulders, sleek muscles, all that tanned skin.
Jill would die right here on the spot if she saw him walking toward her in a polo shirt and tan cargo shorts. He would look perfect in an ad promoting a very expensive pool or a fancy resort hotel.
“Hey,” he said as he reached her. He surprised her by cupping her elbow in one of his hands and leaning down to brush a light kiss against her cheek. “I’m glad you came.”
They were polite, cheek-kissing friends now?
“Hi,” she whispered, glad she’d tried to look nice. “I didn’t realize so many people would be here. Who are they?”
“They’re here for you,” he said.
“I don’t know those people.”
“They know who you are. They’re friends of Aaron, people who serve in his old unit.”
She shrank back. Her car wasn’t that far. Could get away before Mace stopped her?
Not likely.
“Why would you do this?”
“Because you all lost him and miss him. They know all about you and Aaron, Dani. They all say he was crazy about you. They want to meet you, to tell you stories about him and to know that you’re okay.”
She was dumbfounded. “That can’t be.”
“It is. I went to talk to them, and they all told me the same thing. They were so happy for him when he knew he was going to see you in person. There was no game, no bet, nothing like that. That’s how they all believe he felt. I thought you needed to hear that directly from them.”
“That just … It can’t be,” she insisted.
“Let me introduce you to them. Talk to them. Let them tell you what they knew about Aaron. They need this, too. Losing someone from your own unit is rough, especially losing them when none of them were there to help him. In the military, we think no one — especially no one in our unit — should ever die alone. If he does, we feel like we failed him.”
He steered her by her elbow toward the crowd. They all looked at her, sad smiles on their faces. She either had to go over there and talk to them, or cause a crazy scene by running away.
She knew Aaron had cared so much about them. He’d felt a huge responsibility to keep them safe and get them all home in one piece. At least that was how good, responsible Aaron had felt, the Aaron she’d thought she knew, the one she now wanted to forget.
Feeling like an impostor, she let Mace introduce her to person after person, let them hug her and tell her how sorry they were, how much they missed Aaron. Several said they’d looked for her at the funeral, that they’d been thinking about her, worried about her.
She murmured thank-you and tried to smile instead of cry.
They told her a ton of stories about Aaron, about how no enlisted sailor wants to like a newbie lieutenant, especially a ring-knocker, who comes in and starts ordering everyone around — even the experienced enlisted guys who know know a lot more than a new lieutenant does.
“Military academy graduates,” Mace explained. “They get a big ring at graduation. You can spot ’em a mile away because of that.”
But Aaron had won them over. They said he wasn’t arrogant, and he admitted what he didn’t know. He worked hard, was fair and took good care of the sailors in his unit. He was an all-around great guy, even though his grandfather had been an admiral.
“An admiral?” Dani asked Mace, who’d stuck close to her the whole time.
Mace nodded.
“So, like … a big shot? A really big one?”
“Oh, yeah,” Brent told her. “We all heard that and thought … admiral’s grandson? Somebody probably made one call, and that was it. Aaron had a spot at Annapolis, even though he might be the most useless officer ever. Nope. He never even told us about his grandfather. Some brass from another unit showed up one day to shake Aaron’s hand and say he’d served under Aaron’s grandfather way back when he was a lieutenant himself.”
Another sailor laughed hard. “After that, we called him the admiral, just to razz him. He’d bark ridiculous orders at us, and we’d all crack up.”
They all laughed. Then it got oddly quiet. Smiles turned to frowns. People looked away. Some had tears in their eyes.
“He was a really good guy,” one of them said.
Someone offered a toast to Aaron, and they all joined in, mostly with cans of beer.
Later, four of them, plus Dani and Mace, sat at a table eating their dinner and talking as the sun went down.
“The guy would not shut up about you,” a man said. “He walked around with the goofiest smile on his face. Dani this, Dani that. We kept telling him you couldn’t possibly be that great. It wouldn’t be fair. After our unit got paired with the elementary school, most of us were getting letters and care packages from women old enough to be our grandmothers, and he gets the young, hot chick? One time, we got photos of the ugliest women we could find on the internet. Warts, wrinkles, hairy chins, scary-looking witches in costume. We printed them out and posted them everywhere with the name Dani on them. We told him he’d get one look at you in Greece and realize he’d been talking to a woman who didn’t exist. He’d spend the rest of his leave hiding from you.”
“No hairy chin on this one.” Mace chuckled.
“No, man. Not a one. Truth is, we all thought Aaron was the luckiest guy alive.”
They all fell silent.
“So, tell us about Greece,” one of the sailors said finally.
“It was beautiful.” Those perfect, sunny days were trying to pull her back in. “People at school said I was crazy to fly off to Greece to meet a guy I’d never seen in person. He’d turn out to be bald and old, maybe barely able to walk on his own without a cane. But … he wasn’t.”
Oh, those days, clearer in her mind than she’d allowed them to be in so long.
Aaron and his smile, that twinkle in his eyes, that adorable, boyish charm of his.
“We had a great time. The days seemed too good to be true.”
“And he was happy?” a woman asked. “I know, it’s a silly think to ask, to want tha
t for someone. It’s just one of those things people say when someone dies, but … ”
Dani couldn’t answer, couldn’t get any words out.
Mace’s big, warm hand closed gently over hers, and he said it for her. “He was. Aaron could not have been happier. I heard all about how Greece was perfect, and that he intended to take Dani back one day for their anniversary.”
Anniversary?
Dani gave Mace a hard look. Had Aaron actually said that?
Or was Mace telling Aaron’s friends what he thought they wanted to hear?
Mace nodded. “Yeah. Anniversary.”
And they all got quiet again.
Dani sipped a glass of sangria, ate some pasta salad and let the conversation flow around her. It was like the most relaxed of all memorial services, and she found it comforting and touching. She’d never had anything like this — being with people who loved and missed Aaron and accepted her as one of them.
She kept staring at Mace, grateful he’d stayed so close all evening.
Despite that, women flirted with him constantly, those from Aaron’s unit and a few who happened to be at the pool or walking through the pool area to the beach. He was polite to them all, smiled at them, hugged a few, kissed a few more on the cheek.
It didn’t surprise her that women would want him and that he would be friendly and charming in return.
The surprise was that he’d put this whole gathering together as a kindness to her. No one had ever gone to so much trouble for her, except Aaron in planning their trip and spending the whole time indulging her every wish. Beach or pool? Sleep in or get up with the sun? Snorkeling or going out on a boat? Museum or hiking around some ruins? Greek Easter cookies or those little honey donuts she was crazy about?
It had been as though he lived to make her smile. She hadn’t been kidding herself about that.
What a bizarre idea — someone who wanted only to take care of her and make her happy.
