“The third week in November. That Saturday night.”
“Okay, then, what if I use my newly kindled notoriety to bring attention to General Matters?” Juliet mused. “Am I crazy to think I could throw my own book launch, the week before hers?”
“Helen won’t like it,” Noah warned, a grin ghosting his mouth.
“I know Helen Novack,” Jay put in. “She’s a snobby pain in the ass.”
“The man knows everybody,” Nikki said. “I told you that.”
Noah was nodding. “You put on your own party and tell the world about the general through your eyes, with your voice.”
“I’m certainly sick and tired of the press telling my side of things for me,” Juliet agreed. And a woman who didn’t flinch at breaking a few things in anger wouldn’t balk at facing down the media—and whoever else got in her way. “But would anyone come? And where would I have it? There’s not enough room or parking here, and—”
“Lucky for you, you have family that can help with the details,” Cassandra said. She’d found a paper napkin and had rolled it into a ring she was sliding on and off her thumb. “There’s plenty of space for people and for cars at Malibu & Ewe. If Nikki doesn’t have time to cater—”
“I’ll make time.”
“We can get Gabe to help out anyway.”
Juliet protested. “We don’t have to ask—”
“I can, and he needs reasons to emerge from his bat cave.”
“And I’ll put out the word,” Jay offered. “I can get the press there and we’ll distribute posters and flyers.”
Juliet nodded, determination growing. “And I’ve reconsidered doing that interview for NYFM.” She was nobody’s delicate daisy. “I have a few things to say.”
“I can have whatever those are online by as early as tomorrow,” Jay promised, and then was drawn into Cassandra and Nikki’s part of the planning
The room seemed to warm with all their positive energy. Juliet let the talk flow around and then surround her, until their support felt as palpable as the cup of tea she held between her palms.
Winter went away again, and she didn’t feel the cold night air, even as she walked her family—her family, how comforting was that?—out to their car. It was only when she walked back inside and faced Noah that she felt a renewed chill.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” she told him. “I want to protect you from all this.”
Noah smiled, that beautiful, lady-killer smile of his, and he crossed the floor to cup her face in his big hands. “Then maybe you can forgive me for what happened earlier tonight. I just want to protect you, too.”
Tears burned, but she hid them by closing her eyes as Noah’s kiss drifted over her mouth. This wasn’t the time for worries or regrets.
Right now, it was enough that he wanted her, and when they went into the bedroom, a different mood infused what before had been wild heat and needy passion.
I want to protect you.
I just want to protect you, too.
Equal impulses. Twin urges. Matching motivations.
Skin to skin, and closer than ever before.
Marlys sensed it was Dean in the shop the instant the door closed, ruffling the curtain that separated the supply alcove from the retail space. She kept her back turned to that curtain, but she was aware when he swept it aside, too.
With a steadiness she didn’t feel, she kept to her crouch, continuing to unpack the box of holiday scarves that had arrived earlier that morning. “So . . . you’re here again,” she said.
“I told you I’d come back. In the note at your house that morning and in the messages I left here at the store. Funny how you were never available to talk to me. Funny how you never called back either. I left my cell number every time. I was here last week, just for the day, as I said in my message, but I still couldn’t get a response from you.”
“Been busy.” Busy working like hell to forget you. Busy hoping like hell it wouldn’t be like this if you did come back. Her hands were shaking and she had to fight herself not to jump up and bury herself against him.
“Stand up and let me touch you.”
God, he could still read her mind! She shook her head, rejecting the idea and rejecting her need to do the very thing he ordered. Marlys Marie Weston couldn’t want a man so much, because she remembered that whatever she’d wanted most she’d never gotten.
But hard hands grasped her waist and hauled her up, even when she stuttered a protest. Dean turned her, brought her flush against him, kissed her mouth as if he’d thought about her every day, every minute he’d been gone.
No, that was her.
Panicked, she wrenched away, though he only let her go so far, his hands still linked at the small of her back. Her heart was slamming against her chest. His breath soughed in and out like he’d been running for days.
No, again, that was her.
Running from this. How could one person become so important so fast? She didn’t understand it. She could never trust it . . . could she?
He ran a thumb under her lower eyelashes. “Shadows, angel. You haven’t been sleeping?”
“Don’t call me that.” Her voice was sharp, not cool as it should be, and she jerked out of his embrace. “I’m no angel.” God knew that was true, and she didn’t feel guilty about it either.
Regrets were for suckers. Same as this you’re-the-one certitude that was pumping from Dean and trying to invade her. That way lay madness.
Sadness.
As Marlys had been avoiding that very feeling for nearly a year, thank you very much, she was certainly not signing on for another potential source of the depressing emotion. Dean was going to Afghanistan, for heaven’s sake. A danger zone. A woman would have to be crazy to want him enough to risk having to worry about him.
But her body betrayed her. Her feet carried her close again, her hands lifted to warm her palms against his chest. His heart beat against her flesh and her body trembled in return. How could she ache for something she so badly needed to reject?
And as usual, he could read her like a book. His palms cupped her face. “I won’t hurt you.”
He’d said that before. And again, she didn’t want to give him the chance, but he was kissing her and she was letting him. More, she was reveling in giving over to him.
She wanted to give him everything, anything, all of her.
“Whoa.” It was Dean who separated them this time, but he was smiling as he held her away. “Is it just me, or is it smoking in here?”
She laughed, he made her that giddy, and then she reached over to flick off the clothes steamer they used to dewrinkle the merchandise. “Hate to break it to your ego, but the mist is machine-made.”
“Yeah? I think you should give this man another chance to prove himself.”
Oh, God, she wanted to. She was going to. Marlys felt as feminine as a pair of marabou-trimmed satin mules when he curled his muscled forearm around her hips and pulled her even tighter to him. His silvery eyes burned and she unconsciously licked her upper lip, gratified when he groaned at the instinctive, seductive signal.
She laughed again, a purr that she’d never heard herself make, and threw caution to the wind as she wrapped one arm around his neck and slid her other hand into the back pocket of his jeans. Paper rattled.
He halted halfway to her mouth. “Oh,” he said. “You make me forget everything.”
“That’s two of us,” she murmured, drawing his head closer. At the moment, she couldn’t care less about the condition. Another kiss would be worth a little amnesia.
But he broke from her hold to straighten and reach into his pocket himself. “I have something for you from Juliet. When I was restowing my gear in the guesthouse, she asked me to give it to you.”
Marlys covered the quick sting she felt at the sound of the other woman’s name. “Oh?” She shuffled back, then tucked her arms over her chest. “How is my evil stepmother?”
Dean’s eyes narrowed, then he shrugge
d his shoulders as if dismissing an itch between the blades. “From what I understand, she’s troubled by the latest crap in the tabloids and on the gossip sites.”
Marlys didn’t blink. “I heard about that.”
“You know it isn’t true. I told you that’s not Noah.”
“I don’t really think that Keira Knightley made a baby with a martian, either, but they have a picture of it on the cover of Gossip Universe.”
“The scandal hurts your father’s reputation, too,” Dean said.
Marlys didn’t see it that way. “My father was a hero. He could have been President of the United States, but then he married her.”
“Is that what you wanted?” Dean cocked his head. “A canopy bed in the White House?”
“No! My point is, if he hadn’t married—”
“Marlys, he failed you long before he married his second wife.”
“How can you say that?” She tightened her arms around herself. “My father’s dead.”
“Death doesn’t make him a saint.”
Marlys turned away, not wanting him to stir the embers of the emotions she’d been banking from the day her mother dragged her away from the last base she’d lived on. “My father’s dead,” she mumbled again.
“I know that. Have you accepted it?”
She shoved her hand in the pocket of her black pants, and finding the silver tear, squeezed it so tight it bit into her skin. “Dean . . .”
“Angel.” He sighed. “All right, I’ll let it go. But here.” The paper he held out had been folded into quarters.
Marlys opened the sheet and stared at the slick-looking flyer. “What’s this all about?” she asked, looking up at Dean.
“Juliet’s throwing her own launch party for your father’s book.”
“There’s already a party planned.”
“One she isn’t invited to attend, right?”
Marlys refused to feel the slightest pinch of shame. The only thing she felt bad about was that she’d confessed to Dean that Helen had left Juliet out at her request. “We’ve already been over that.”
Dean sighed. “You’re right. But Juliet wants to be sure you know that you’re invited to the party she’s throwing.”
Marlys glanced back at the flyer. “What’s this place? Malibu & Ewe?”
“A shop on the Pacific Coast Highway. I gather it has plenty of parking.”
“Well, thanks for passing the info along.” Marlys set the piece of paper aside, when she would have preferred to make a ball and send it straight to the round file.
“Unlike your friend’s, this party is open to everyone,” Dean said. “You could post the flyer in your window.”
Incredulous, Marlys stared at the man. “You must have the totally wrong impression of me.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I wouldn’t feel like this if you were . . .”
“A stone-cold bitch?” she supplied helpfully.
He laughed. “I think you’re scared. And it’s my job to boost your morale.”
“Oh, baby, I’ve got self-esteem to burn. Surely you can see that.”
“I can see the future sometimes, you know, thanks to my Cherokee forefathers.”
“Yeah?” She sauntered closer, intrigued despite herself. “My bullshit meter is quivering, but I’ll play. What’s this super-vision of yours foresee?”
He grabbed her close, grinning when she squeaked. “Me. I see me in your head, in your heart, and I’m burrowing deep, angel.”
She rolled her eyes, trying not to panic at the thought. Burrowing deep? He was deploying. “I suppose you see me naked, too.”
He looked off, apparently searching his inner crystal ball. “I guess it’s going to let me get that picture all on my own. You are going to get naked for me, aren’t you, angel?”
“Dean . . .” He kissed away whatever she’d been about to say. It was like every time before, which was like no time with anyone else. It was deep and wet and now she knew why they called it a soul kiss. He touched her there, her soul, and damn, she had one.
She stepped back, startled.
And worried a little, because it might mean she had a conscience as well.
“Why look so stricken?” Dean asked. His dark eyebrows drew together.
“How . . . why . . .” Her voice wouldn’t rise above a whisper. “I don’t think . . .”
“Stop thinking,” Dean said, pulling her close to press his forehead to hers.
She breathed him in and already it was familiar, and the familiarity was as heady as the scent itself. “How do you know . . . ?”
“That this is right?”
Man could see both the future and read her thoughts. God. But she nodded.
“I just . . . do.” He moved back but didn’t let go of her, a crooked smile she’d never seen before making her stomach clench. “I have a rep, Marlys.”
“You don’t have to tell me you have a way with women—”
“Not that kind.” He traced her mouth with two of his fingertips. “I’m known to be a little . . . impetuous.”
She laughed. “You think?”
“Reckless.”
The way he said the word was a clean kill to her laughter. “Reckless.”
“There are guys—other soldiers I know—who are so damn careful. It used to make me kind of nuts, if you want to know the truth. Because I thought it took a certain kind of rashness to do what we do.”
Her stomach clenched again. Impetuous. Reckless. Rash. Those were words she’d once used to describe herself.
“Before every mission, there are guys who whip out the photos of their girls and look at them like they’re making promises and saying prayers at the same time.”
Marlys was glad he was holding her up, because her knees were like pudding.
“When I opened my eyes that first day and I saw you standing there, I knew. I just knew. ‘That’s the picture I’ll have in my head every time I go into battle,’ I told myself.”
No. She couldn’t do it! That couldn’t be her. She didn’t want to live a life waiting for a man to come back, just like she’d waited all her childhood for her father to return and take her away. He hadn’t, right? Instead, he’d left her with the lonely civilian childhood and the bitter woman that her mother had become. Marlys never got what she wanted most.
But she couldn’t help herself. With a little whimper, she pulled Dean close and buried her face in his shoulder. She should be running from him, she wanted to run from him, but she wasn’t strong enough to do it. Burrowing closer, she wondered how hard it would be to crawl inside his skin.
He drew her even nearer; they were pressed tight from chest to knee. Still, she moved into him.
“Ouch.” Dean insinuated his hand between their bodies and felt the lump in her patch pocket. “What’s this?”
Before she could stop him, he’d pulled free the silver pendant and chain. “Oh, Marlys.”
The phone jangled in the shop, and she ignored it, her gaze fixed on the silver tear that was swinging between her and her soldier.
Leeza’s voice reached her from the other side of the curtain. “Marlys, you need to take this. And don’t forget you’ve got that appointment in fifteen minutes.”
Marlys’s gaze jerked from the necklace to Dean. “I have things I’ve got to do.”
“I understand.”
He would never understand. But really, she couldn’t do this. That pendant proved the point. She couldn’t, wouldn’t fall in love with this man and she couldn’t, wouldn’t, let him fall in love with her.
He kissed her forehead, then looped the chain around her wrist.
“Wear this for me tonight, angel. When I get to your house, I’ll take it off. Before we make love, I’ll take all your tears away.”
Oh, God. She had to figure out something to stop both.
There could be no love.
There would be no tears.
Seventeen
If it is your time, love will track yo
u down like a cruise missile.
—LYNDA BARRY
Blackie went ballistic when the doorbell rang as he always did. Marlys’s heart reacted in the same way, slamming against her breastbone as she left her bedroom and made her way down the stairs. Before touching the doorknob, she cinched the belt of her robe more tightly. Then, with a last deep breath, she pulled open the door.
The dog rushed forward and his rambunctious greeting pushed Dean back a step, though he stayed well within the bright glow of the porch light. Then the man spoke in his usual firm tone, and Blackie obeyed, sitting as ordered, his gaze on his god’s face. His furry body shivered with delight.
Dean grinned over Blackie’s head at Marlys and she had to accept that he hadn’t turned ugly in the few hours they’d been apart. There was the same studly soldier’s body, the gleaming dark hair, the silver eyes. They narrowed, his smile dying, and then his gaze roamed over her, from her mussed hair and smudged lipstick, to the hint of bare legs exposed by the gap in her long flannel robe.
“I was planning on taking you out to dinner,” he said.
She swallowed to lubricate her dry throat. “I’m not exactly dressed in my restaurant duds.”
His gaze flicked over her again and he leaned a shoulder against the jamb. “Yeah, I see that. Everything okay?”
“Dandy.” She took a quick glance over her shoulder and wiped her sweaty palms along her flannel-covered thighs. “I just, uh, sorta lost track of time.”
“No problem. Why don’t I go out and get some food for us to eat here. Thai okay?”
Marlys hadn’t expected this to be so hard. The first part of her plan had been nothing, she’d divorced her mind from what was happening by thinking instead of how much safer she’d be when it was over. But damn, it wasn’t over yet, and looking at Dean, at his handsome face and honest expression—
“No Thai?” he asked.
Helpless, she shook her head. There wasn’t going to be a meal. Any second now he’d look at her with disgust instead of puzzlement and she’d go back to her man-free, emotionally strong life.
“My choice, then,” Dean said.
Unravel Me Page 22
