by Anne Marsh
“Probably not.” Since she had a feeling the military frowned on practical jokes involving legal status. Not that she and Kade had really been planning on getting married. It was more that they hadn’t not planned on it.
Tye made a choked noise. Or bit back a curse. She wasn’t sure which, so she risked sliding a glance his way just to know what she was working with here. Not because she enjoyed looking at him. His jaw was tense, his fists clenched. He didn’t break his stride, though. She’d give him that.
“That doesn’t bother you?” he bit the words out incredulously. “His not mentioning your engagement?”
“Why should it?” This time, she tripped over an invisible rock and he sighed, steadying her.
“Because you were his fiancée, not a dirty little secret.”
“Oh.” Damn it. Were they climbing a mountain here? The path kept going up and the stitch in her side was about to cut her in half. Gia’s idea of easy was clearly suicidal.
“We have an open arrangement,” she said as airily as she could, given the marked lack of oxygen in her lungs.
“Katie.” Her name was half-groan, half-curse. And wasn’t that the story of her life? “If you’d been my fiancée, the whole damn unit would have known. He read parts of your letters out loud. Your drawings were fucking genius.”
She opened her mouth and then decided breathing was her priority right now. She sucked in air, panting shallowly. “Okay,” she wheezed.
“Deep breaths,” he said. The sure command in his voice did something to her insides. And lower. Definitely lower. “Breathe slow and deep. Keep your shoulders down and breathe from your stomach. Didn’t Kade ever take you running?”
Thinking about Kade was the last thing she wanted to do. Tye’s big hand pressed against her stomach. Darn it. She’d skipped her sit-ups for the last twelve months or so. And now that it was already bikini season, what was the point? By the point she gave up and admitted that six-pack abs were not in her future, it would be fall and cover up time again.
“Like that yoga thing girls do,” he continued, moving his hand away as he slowed his pace to match hers.
She tried and he was right. Breathing did get easier.
“Better?” Yep. One hundred percent self-satisfied male.
“Better doesn’t mean good.”
“You’re the one determined to run a marathon,” he pointed out. “I’m just trying to help.”
Kade would have done the same thing, although he probably would have smacked her on the ass for good measure and then taken her out for ice cream afterwards. Tears pricked her eyes.
She was such a fake. From the fake engagement to the all-too-real break-up via Skype. She hadn’t told anyone in Strong about that particular conversation with Kade. He’d said he wanted her to get out there and look for a real man. He was real. Real enough, at any rate.
“Jesus. Don’t cry.”
“I’m not.” How inelegant would it be if she used the hem of her T-shirt as a Kleenex?
Tye made a noise of disbelief as the one-mile marker flashed by. His skin glistened in the morning sun and she’d bet he hadn’t started back at the picnic tables. He pulled off his shirt and stuffed it into her hands.
“Blow,” he demanded, like he wasn’t running half-naked. Maybe it was a SEAL thing. Or a man thing. “Wipe. Take your pick.”
She looked over at him and just about crashed. Tye definitely had six-pack abs. Holy. Moley. Did he ever.
“I’m not using your shirt as a Kleenex,” she snapped. She hadn’t had that kind of offer since Benjamin Dare had brought her a frog in the second grade. Sweet with a side of really, really gross.
The problem was, she suddenly couldn’t see the trail. Because there were tears in her eyes. She sniffed. Not elegantly, either. Nope. She went all out with a loud snort. Tye laughed.
So screw it.
She wiped her eyes and nose on his shirt. She had a feeling the shirt had seen worse.
“Better?”
Not really. She had no idea how her life had ended up like this. Kade was her best friend and now he was gone.
“I’m sorry he’s not coming home.”
She was proud of herself. She didn’t stumble. “He’s coming home.”
It took willpower to get those three words out.
“Katie—”
“He’s not dead,” she said fiercely. “I won’t let him be. It doesn’t feel like he’s dead in here.”
She thumped her chest with the hand holding Tye’s T-shirt. She felt like she was waving a flag, but she wasn’t giving in on this one. “I write every week,” she said fiercely. “I call. I email. I’m pretty sure half of Washington thinks I’m crazy, while the other half just wants me to go away, but I’m not letting go of this. I’m not letting go of Kade.”
There was a pause while he processed that, broken only by the thud of her feet hitting the dirt because, go figure, Tye ran like some kind of lethal Ninja warrior.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s say Kade’s not dead. Then what now?”
She didn’t know. She really, really didn’t. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Letter writing, emails, even running a marathon… none of that would get Kade home any faster. All it meant was that she didn’t forget him and she had a funny feeling that was important.
She shrugged.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’m not stopping. Somehow, I’m bringing him home and, until then, I’m going to work my way through his damn bucket list.”
They hit the two-mile marker. Thank God. He’d keep on running.
She’d stay put.
It was the story of her life.
Katie had crying and breathing all mixed up. Jesus. Tye needed to fix this, fix her, but what did he know about relationships? He was definitely a relationship virgin, having spent his adult life avoiding emotional commitments. Being a Navy SEAL meant shipping out for months at a time—and staying mum about what had happened during the deployment when he was home. Girlfriends and wives didn’t like the intel blackout and he couldn’t blame them. That’s need-to-know wasn’t the desired response to How was your trip, honey?
“I’m done,” she announced, coming to a halt. She’d done two miles, which was one and a half miles further than he’d expected. He should have known better than to underestimate her, however. She’d get it done if she’d made up her mind. If there were any way to bring back the dead, Katie would find it. Kade had been a lucky bastard to have her in his life and Tye was pretty sure his friend had known that too.
She dropped onto the bench attached to the picnic table. The spot was less park and more gravel pullout from the highway cutting through the mountains with a few bonus picnic tables. The view, however, was something else again. From the air, freefalling towards the ground, the California mountains were spectacular, all steep peaks and rugged slopes. Plenty of summer color, too, and the sky was a bright pop of blue that could have come from one of those paint tubes she’d passed out in class. He usually preferred to be airborne or at least moving fast and hard, but the view here wasn’t bad either.
The mountains were different from those in Afghanistan. Those slopes were hard and unforgiving, all rock and no plant life but sporting plenty of snow and thin air. Beautiful in their own way, but harder and starker. Plus, the locals there weren’t exactly friendly. More than one had tried to kill him. Sharing space with Katie was far better, even if his reasons for being here weren’t so great. He owed her. It was his fault Kade wasn’t coming home and he should front with her about that fuck-up of his, but... he liked spending time with her and she didn’t seem to mind his company. He didn’t want to lose that.
But she was crying and damned if he knew what his next move should be. He eyed her carefully, like she was a grenade with a hairpin trigger, and she stared back at him, face flushed, eyes damp. She looked wiped and not from the run, either.
She dropped her gaze to his shirt. “I should wash this.
”
“I’ve got a spare in my truck. No worries.”
“Okay.” She chewed on her lower lip like she had plenty more to say but no idea how to get started. A bead of sweat trickled down the vee of her T-shirt and he pretended he wasn’t following the trail with heated interest. God was definitely getting even with him.
Deflect.
“You need to stretch.” Jesus. His voice sounded gruff, like he was some kind of scratchy-voiced late-night DJ.
Taking the shirt from her—his shirt had seen worse than a few tears—he tossed it on the table. “Come on.”
He held out his hand and waggled his fingers. She hesitated, then slapped her hand into his and let him pull her to her feet. If she’d been a new recruit, he’d have barked for her to drop and give him twenty. He was all too clear, however, that she wasn’t one of his men.
“I thought exercise was supposed to make me feel better,” she grumbled. “Or at least shrink my ass.”
She looked down at said ass and, like clockwork, his eyes followed. Shit. That wasn’t supposed to happen, but her black cotton shorts hugged every curve and, when she twisted, she flashed him a hot pink thong with little flowers. He kept his mouth shut and someone owed him another medal for that.
“Stretch,” he repeated, his mouth dry.
“You were a drill sergeant, weren’t you?” She eyed him suspiciously.
“I’m telling, not asking.” He pointed to the ground. “So get busy.”
“I’m pretty certain no one died and made you God.” Then she looked horrified because, yeah, she’d just alluded to the elephant in the proverbial room. Kade being dead was on the do not discuss list. Please God don’t let her cry, he mentally begged whatever higher power might be listening. He didn’t deserve the intervention, but she definitely didn’t deserve the pain.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said gruffly.
“How do you know?”
He didn’t and that was the problem, wasn’t it? “Whatever I can do, it’s yours.”
“Thanks,” she said softly. Interpreting the look on her face was impossible, so he gave up trying.
Instead, he slapped a hand on the edge of the table and concentrated on pulling his right knee up behind him, stretching out his quad. Before he did something stupid like, say, yank her into his arms and hold onto her.
With a sigh, she hopped up onto the table and did some complicated bendy thing with her right leg bent in front of her and her left leg stretched behind her, sinking into the pose with a groan. Jesus. That sound should be illegal. Instead of taking pity on him, though, she arched her back, pressing down on her hands until her breasts pointed sky-high, taking his gaze with them.
She caught him looking, which wasn’t hard since her tabletop deal put her right on eye level with him. “Not SEAL standard?”
He shook his head, not sure he’d get the words out.
“One word. Yoga.”
He’d heard of it. He’d just never seen it up close and personal. Yoga was as foreign to his world as MREs and mortar rounds were to hers. But, Jesus Christ, Katie was flexible. His mind immediately headed down all sorts of dirty pathways.
“You should try it,” she said.
He didn’t know what he would have said—probably a hell, no—but a truck backfired and his day went to shit. Not a gun. Not ordnance. Just a truck that was somewhere too close—the parking lot, the last rational bit of his mind supplied—and a short, sharp bark of sound echoed off the mountainsides and punched through his head. A truck backfiring. Logically, he knew that.
His heart didn’t get the memo though.
Nor did his pulse.
Or his lungs.
Nope, his body kicked into full overdrive, hurtling him towards memory lane and Khost’s too narrow, too familiar city streets. God. Damn. It. Heart pounding overtime, lungs seizing, he dropped to the ground, knowing there was no way he could avert the panic attack.
Chapter Five
Tye had dreamed about Afghanistan last night, and those dreams refused to go away like the doctor had ordered now the sun was up. Nope, the Technicolor dreams haunted him, filled with plenty of blood, screaming and random body parts he was almost certain didn’t belong to him. It was hard to tell sometimes when he was asleep and when he was awake. He’d led plenty of missions as a SEAL, and he didn’t relive any of those ops when his head hit the pillow.
Fuck. He was fucked up. Broken. And none of that was acceptable. He was supposed to be strong. How the hell could he take care of Katie when he couldn’t even take care of himself?
Kade wouldn’t have broken down like this.
“Tye?” Katie’s voice reached him from somewhere nearby. “Are you okay?”
Nope. Not by a long shot, but he’d rather cut off an arm—and possibly both legs—before he admitted as much. He was supposed to take care of her.
Which made her the last person he wanted seeing his sorry self right now.
“Fine,” he gritted out.
He gave in to the weakness and buried his face in the crook of his arm for one second. Memories shifted, overlaying each other until he didn’t know what was real and what his head had embellished. All he knew was that he hated it, hated the helpless feeling. Usually, running helped. Run enough miles and he sometimes outran the demons. Now, since Katie clearly wasn’t ready for a ten-mile run, his only option was endless reps of push-ups. Up, then down. Faster and faster, because maybe the burn of his muscles could drive away these memories.
From somewhere close by, the sound of bare feet reached him. When he turned his head, he could see her toes out of the corner of his eyes. She’d kicked off her sneakers, revealing pretty green polish.
Get it together.
“You’re not okay,” Katie stated from overhead.
Yeah. Newsflash. Something had broken in him on that last tour, and he had no idea how to fix it. He grunted and started a muscle-searing set of reps. Maybe she’d take the hint and leave. No one in his unit stuck around when he got in one of his moods. He wanted Katie gone. Now. Especially since he had a bad feeling she recognized exactly what was happening to him.
He dropped onto the grass, sweat dripping off his forehead, and set his mental clock for ten seconds.
“I’m busy here,” he ground out.
“Exercising?” She didn’t sound like she believed him. Her voice rose. “Some more? What happened to stretching and cool down?”
“Yeah. Change of plans.” He shoved up and started the next set of reps. “So go away.”
She considered his words for a moment. “I’m not interested in going away.”
Warmth and amusement filled her voice. Sympathy was missing, though, for which he was pathetically grateful.
“Definitely exercise,” he ground out. “Highly recommended.”
“If you say so.” To his surprise, she dropped down next to him. “Maybe I should give it a shot.” She did, although her form was wrong. She had her ass in the air, and she’d be sorer than shit tomorrow.
“Suit yourself.” He wondered how long she’d last. For the next two minutes, they did push-ups together. He outpaced her five to one, but her company was strangely comforting.
“Jesus,” she ground out, and the name sure sounded like a prayer to him. Her arms trembled. “How do you do this?”
The smile tugging at his lips surprised even him. “Practice. Whereas you, clearly, have been slacking.”
She shot him a sideways glare. “I work out. You ran with me today.”
Yeah. He had. He shot her a look and waited.
She flopped onto her stomach, cradling her forehead on her arms. “Do you do this every day?”
“Pretty much.” Especially when the memories came back with a vengeance. Two more reps was his usual prescription. Then it would be safe to stop. Her presence next to him was different, but he liked it. There were better ways to get her all hot and bothered—much better ways, certain parts of his anatomy reminded h
im—but this was unexpectedly fun. He certainly couldn’t remember any time his PTSD had ended with laughter.
“That’s brutal,” she complained, but the smile was still on her face.
At least he could show her how to do a proper push-up.
“Get up,” he said and switched to a one-handed push-up, using his free hand to swat her ass. She had a great ass.
“Hey.” She turned her head and eyed him. “Keep the kinky stuff to yourself.”
He grinned, unable to stop himself. “You’d like it. Remember, you’ve got a bucket list to check off.”
“Yeah. Promises.” She flopped her head back down on her arms.
“Up,” he ordered. “You’re doing it all wrong.”
Yeah. That was definitely feminine outrage sparkling in her eyes when she turned her head to mock glare at him. Good. She’d pushed his buttons, so getting a little of his own back seemed only fair. And fun.
“We are still talking about push-ups, right?”
“Absolutely,” he assured her. Squatting beside her, he rearranged her arms and legs into the proper push-up form. He was pretty sure that was a muttered curse he heard.
“I’m an expert at push-ups.” It felt good to tease her. “Five and a half days of training in BUD/S Hell Week alone,” he continued. “We did push-ups holding a damn log over our heads. This is nothing. Drop and give me five.”
“Or?” She turned her head and grinned at him, braced on her arms. He swept an arm down her back and legs. Just to check her form, he assured himself. And because he’d really enjoyed swatting her ass.
“You need motivation?” He leaned forward, arms on his thighs. His mouth brushed the sensitive skin near her ear.
“Yes.” She sounded breathless. He didn’t know if that was because of the push-ups—or him. He’d rather it was him, though, so he leaned in closer still. Nipped her ear as he tapped her ass again. Not hard. Just enough, though, that she sucked in her breath.
“I think you’d like my kink just fine,” he said. “Drop and give me five.”
He was half-surprised when she did. His hand guided her up and down, keeping her ass in place and her line straight.
