by Box Set
“You can’t do this.” Nick tried to make a break for it, only to have Sims jerk him backward by his bound wrists. A loud yelp of pain had more people turning to stare as they passed.
“Oh, but I can.” Sims pushed Nick forward. “Let’s go. I don’t want to have to get rough, but I will.”
Derek couldn’t help himself. “Please, get rough. There are a few people here who would love to see this pretty boy get his teeth knocked out. I’m happy to help, if you need it.”
The only response from Sims was a mean, ugly chuckle. All the blood drained out of Nick’s face, and he seemed to finally grasp the gravity of the situation. “I’ll come quietly.”
“Damn.” Derek snapped his fingers.
“You don’t have to enjoy this,” DoucheNick snarled.
Nodding easily, Derek agreed. “No, I don’t have to, but I still do. Katie’s going to enjoy it even more when I tell her all the dirty details.”
They made it out to the car and Sims put a hand on Nick’s head to shove him into the backseat.
Nick glared up at Derek. “I had her first. You’re just getting sloppy seconds.”
“Enjoy jail,” Derek cooed. “I’m sure the other inmates will love a guy as pretty as you.”
He shut the car door on anything else Nick might have said, though the cursing came through pretty clearly anyway. Ah, well. This was almost as satisfying as throwing Nick out himself. Rob stepped out of the convention center and made a beeline for them. Derek snapped to attention and the next hour was spent with Rob having Sims fill out some paperwork about the incident, calls to the authorities to verify Sims’ licensure, and Nick turning into a blubbering mess inside the car.
On second thought, this was definitely as satisfying as having decked the bastard himself. Rob wouldn’t chew him out, and he got to watch the guy who cheated on Katie reduced to a weeping child, unlikely to bother her again any time soon.
When Rob was finished taking care of all the official details, Sims drove off with Nick. Rob turned to Derek. “Good catch. If you hadn’t interceded, he might have left without me checking him out.”
They walked back inside, and Derek held the door open for the older man. “You can thank Katie. She was the one who alerted me to the problem.”
“I’ll stop by and talk to her, then.” Rob folded his hands behind his back. “Today’s the last day, my friend. You’re off the hook tomorrow. No more costumes or convention babysitting.”
“I caught a few perps.”
“You did. I appreciate you stepping in for me. Good work, as always.”
He clutched his heart. “Was that a compliment?”
Snorting, Rob told him to do something anatomically impossible. “Get back to it, Forrester.”
“Yes, sir.” Derek snapped off a sharp salute.
Flipping him the bird, Rob strode away.
It didn’t even take a glance back for Derek to know that Katie was approaching. Something deep within him recognized her any time she came near—always had, probably always would. He’d stopped fighting it. There was nothing he could do about it, anyway. He turned around, and there she was, glancing between him and Rob’s retreating back.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He held out a hand and she walked straight into his arms. God, that felt good. Too damn good, if he was honest. “Nick isn’t a thief.”
She tipped her head back to look at him. “But he got taken out of here in cuffs.”
“He’s a criminal, just not a thief. Remember that call I overheard?” He gave her a quick rundown of everything that had happened.
“He cried?” She twisted her lips.
“Yep.”
Her brows lowered. “Is it bad that I’m okay with that?”
Somehow he managed to hold back a grin. “Personally, I felt like I do when drinking a good scotch. All warm and fuzzy and satisfied.”
“You’re mean. I kinda like that about you.” A noise between a giggle and a snort burst from her. She tried to sober, but her voice shook with laughter. “Well, I guess it’s good he’s off the streets, literally and figuratively. He really is a crap driver.”
“He won’t be bothering you any time soon.” He took her hand and tugged her toward the exhibitor’s hall. “And you need to get back to your booth.”
She came along easily enough, swinging their linked hands between them. “I’ve already sold enough to make this event a success. I still have the rest of today to lure in those last-minute shoppers who realize they should really buy a present for their mom, girlfriend, or sister who’s dog-sitting so they can come to this con. Or that they’d like a unique souvenir for themselves.”
That reminded him of the text he’d received just before hers came in, calling him down to deal with Nick. “Ty messaged me. He told me to buy one of your pieces for Lorna and he’d reimburse me. She liked your earrings a lot.”
She used her free hand to tap her cheek. “I have a number of options for sale, and an even wider selection at home. Actually, I have a pair at home with green stones that would match her eyes perfectly.”
“Done. We’ll sort that out later.” The noise of thousands of con-goers rose as the neared the exhibitor’s hall, the surging sea of people trying to force them in a direction they didn’t want to go. Derek made himself into a wall, making people go around him while he tucked Katie behind him so she wouldn’t get trampled. Instead of heading in, he drew her to a clearer spot next to the escalator and picked up their conversation. “My aunt’s birthday is coming up and she has a major purse fetish, so I’m also going to hit up Michelle and Larry for a handbag. Any shade of purple would work.”
“They can help you with that, for sure.” She beamed. That he was buying from her friends seemed to please her even more than getting an extra sale herself. She really was a nice woman.
“Good.” He waved toward the doors that led to the food trucks, away from the exhibitor’s hall. He just didn’t want to let her go yet. “Coffee?”
Her grin widened. “You spoil me.”
“I try.”
“I’m going to miss that when this is over. Not many men spoil their women, sadly.” Her smile faded and she cast him a disgruntled look. “Don’t freak out and think I’m angling for anything more from you than we already agreed on.”
“Okay.” He refused to let himself examine how he felt about whether she wanted more than this week with him. It wasn’t the kind of thinking he could afford and remain sane. There were a lot of things he’d had to avoid dealing with this year just to keep his head on straight.
She poked him in the chest. “I still have one more night.”
The words and the gesture made him grin at her audacity. “You get the night after the con officially ends, huh?”
“There are still after-parties scheduled this evening, and that means I get one, too.”
“Fair enough.” He wasn’t going to quibble over getting an extra night to have her wrapped in his arms.
“Good.” She jerked her chin in a crisp nod and turned toward the food trucks, leaving him to follow in her wake. Not that he minded the view, but it sent a pang of pain through him when he realized that he would to have to watch her walk away permanently soon. Then they’d go back to being neighbors and he’d have to keep his hands to himself. The very idea was repugnant, but it was what was best for her, and he cared too damn much about her to want to saddle her with someone like him. Someone so loaded down with baggage, he often felt like it would crush him under the weight. He wished that wasn’t the case, wished things were different, wished he were different.
But he wasn’t.
They stayed at his place that night, and he did his best to squeeze every ounce of pleasure from the evening. He lay in bed beside her after their second round of lovemaking, with her head pillowed on his shoulder and her fingertip drawing patterns on his chest, occasionally brushing over his nipples. If she kept that up, they’d soon be having round three.
Clearly her thoughts weren’t following the same lines as his, but he doubted he’d ever understand how the female mind worked. “Yeah.”
Shifting a bit, she propped her chin on his chest so she could look at him. “You also seem to have a good relationship with your former SEAL teammates, since one of them trusted you enough to hire you.”
He waited a beat before he answered, unsure where this line of inquiry was going. “Yeah.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You’re gainfully employed or have some kind of income that allows you to pay for your condo and a nice Jeep.”
“I own the car but not the condo, I just rent it.” He had a bad feeling that he now knew where this was headed, and it was nowhere good. “Can I distract you from this topic by offering you any sexual favor you might like?”
She bit her lip to try to smother a smile. “You’d give me any sexual favor I wanted anyway, so no, I’m not going to be distracted. My point is, if I add your good points together, I can’t figure out why you think you’re such bad relationship material. Something had to have happened, something pretty bad, in order for a man like you to be carrying around all this guilt and self-loathing. What would be bad enough to make you want to avoid getting close to anyone new? Because old acquaintances seem to still be allowed in—you haven’t shut everyone out.”
He sighed, cursing under his breath.
Her finger stroked across his collarbone. “Yeah, I noticed that you don’t seem like such a bad catch, and you don’t come across as the type of jerk who uses women, yet you currently sleep around like a total hound dog.”
He winced.
“Was it a woman who hurt you?”
He stared up at the ceiling. Maybe he should tell her. Maybe that would finally make her understand why he was damaged goods, why the idea of committing to anything or anyone new was gut-curdling. “It wasn’t a woman, and I was the one who did the hurting.”
“What did you do?”
“I watched my best friend die.”
“Derek.” He heard her swallow, felt her tense against his side. “Tell me. Please.”
So he did. In fits and starts, he gave her every detail he could about his worst nightmare. There was some information that was classified, but what he told her was more than enough for her to get the picture. His swim buddy had gone into that hut instead of him and died because of it, while he was pinned like a bug, with no way to help.
“None of that was your fault.” Her words were so soft he barely heard them, but he felt the splash of her tear on his chest.
“I know that.” If that had been it, he could have gotten past it. Death was always a possibility on a mission, and if you were in special ops, you accepted that as part of the job. But that wasn’t all, was it? The rest was something he’d never told anyone else. “He wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me.”
She wrapped an arm around his middle, holding him close. “What do you mean?”
It took a moment for him to find the words. How to explain why his best friend’s death was truly his doing. “Pete wanted to leave the Navy. A few months before he died, he told me he was ready to ring out. I convinced him to wait another year and a half, until we hit ten years of service, then we’d go out together.” He felt hot moisture sting his eyes, and his vision blurred. “If it weren’t for me, he’d be home now, happy, probably married.”
“Married, huh?” Her arm tightened around him, every inch of her radiating comfort and compassion he didn’t deserve. “Did he have a girlfriend?”
Swiping at his face, a rusty chuckle straggled out. “No. Pete was gay.”
A long pause answered that statement. “Wow.”
“He always said that no woman in her right mind would have him, and his perpetual singleness became a joke in our team.”
“How do you know he was gay, then?”
Because he’d looked the man over the first day of BUD/S training and known exactly what he was dealing with. A good sailor—a good man—who happened to be gay. Since it was also clear Pete wasn’t the slightest bit interested in Derek as a sexual partner, they’d gotten along just fine. More than fine, after they’d been assigned as swim buddies and survived Hell Week together. That likely wasn’t the answer Katie was looking for, so he gave her the explanation that had made the most sense to the other members of his SEAL team. “He never said much about it, but not long after Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed, Smitty asked what everyone was up to that weekend and Pete said he had a date with a new guy. Smitty made a crack like it was about time Pete got a date, everyone laughed, and that was the end of it.”
She huffed out a breath. “No deep discussions about it? No Neanderthals asking if he was into anyone on your team?”
“I don’t think it shocked any of us.”
She searched his eyes for a moment. “You already knew, long before he came out, didn’t you? Did he have gay cat hairs on him or eat gay pineapple?”
He pinched her side, making her squeak and squirm. “Yes, I knew. I think the other guys had a clue, too. Pete never went home with any of the SEAL groupies we met in bars, never showed the slightest interest in women. Or men, really. My teammates might have thought he was asexual or something, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It’s not like we sat around speculating about each other’s sex lives.”
“Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Her silky hair tickled his shoulder when she nodded.
“I guess. After he came out, he talked to me about it.” He pulled a wry face. “He was definitely not into anyone on our team. His preference was for chubby dudes with beards. Something he called a bear.”
“Okay, then.”
He let out a long, slow breath, all humor fading as his guilt and pain came roaring back, slashing through him with vicious claws. As usual. “But, to answer your real question, no. Pete didn’t have anyone special waiting for him back home. He didn’t even have any family. I was the closest person to him, which is why he stayed in the Navy for me.” He swallowed, tears threatening again, and he clenched his jaw for a few seconds to make sure his voice wouldn’t shake when he spoke. “I should have let him leave when he wanted to. He’d still be alive if I had.”
He watched moisture well in her eyes, sliding in silver trails down her cheeks. She shook her head. “I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could say to make it better.”
“Me, too. But there’s nothing to make this better. I don’t deserve to have this get better.” Agony made his voice sound like gravel in a blender, and his throat worked as he held back the sobs he could never let escape. If he let go, he might never stop screaming like some wounded animal. “I killed my best friend as surely as if I’d detonated that C-4 myself.”
“Derek.” She squeezed him tight, burying her face in his neck as she let loose the sobs he choked back.
Listening to her was like razor blades being sliced into his skin. He held her close, stroking her hair. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. I can’t take it.”
Her hands balled into fists and she quaked against him as she got herself under control. “You’re so strong, you know. I can’t even image how you manage to live with that kind of guilt.”
For a long time, he hadn’t wanted to live with it. He’d been a danger to himself, which made him a danger to his team, so he’d left the Navy before he’d gotten someone else killed. He wasn’t as strong as she thought he was, so he gave her the unvarnished truth. “I thought about it, you know. Ending everything. But I couldn’t do it. Pete died saving my miserable life, and he’d be pissed if I threw it away because I felt sorry for myself. He’d have been the first one to tell me to grow a pair, deal with it, and get the hell on with my life.”
He felt her lips curve against his neck, though her breath still hiccupped with little sobs. “So, why haven’t you taken the advice? You haven’t dealt with it, and you haven’
t gotten on with your life.”
After rubbing a hand down his goatee, he asked, “You don’t think I know that? It just makes the guilt worse.”
Lifting her head, she looked up at him. The kindness in her expression made his chest ache. Her mouth pursed for a moment. “Still feels like you’re pinned down in the desert, unable to do anything, huh?”
Her words exploded in his brain, ripping through his psychological shields like armor-piercing bullets. Jesus, that was exactly what it felt like. Frozen in place, so filled with dread he could taste the bitterness of it, but knowing nothing good was going to come of this. Nothing good was going to happen ever again. Not for him, not for Pete, not ever.
A ragged breath whooshed from his lungs. “I can’t…”
“Can’t what?” She met his eyes, empathy shining in hers. “Move forward with anything?”
“No.” The bleakness in his voice was painful even to his own ears.
She brushed a kiss over his jaw, her tone ringing with utter certainty. “You will someday. I have faith in you.”
Just that, nothing else. No platitudes, no protestations, just understanding and an unshakable faith that he’d done nothing to earn. Those damnable tears threatened, so he pinched the bridge of his nose and swallowed hard. Apparently, when he hadn’t been paying attention, something really good had happened to him: Katie.
And he claimed to be an observant man.
Chapter Eight
Katie was gone.
Pain scraped across his nerves. Every second of every single day. The worst part was, there was no burying himself in women to distract him from the loss this time. The idea of touching anyone besides Katie was obscene.
That was what happened when you fell head over ass in love.
The morning after the convention was over, she’d left for a big renaissance faire down in Sonoma. She’d gotten a call that a friend of hers had broken a leg and needed help with her booth for the weekend. So, Katie had hopped in the car and driven down to aid her friend, leaving him behind. Before she’d gone, she told him that having a couple of days’ break would be good for them both, giving them a chance to think about what their new normal would look like. Because they were still neighbors and, she hoped, still friends.
