Pain shackled his heart, and Rowan rubbed her cheek against his shoulder—the rasping sound of the fabric drawing him back from the precipice.
“I had to kill an insurgent—he was tall, but he couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old, Rowan. He had a bomb on his chest and he ran straight at us.” If Kaiden lived to be a hundred years old, he would never forget the split second of helplessness as he realized he would have to kill that boy. They’d been hit at regular intervals—lost good men to IED attacks and others to random sniper fire. The suicide bombers weren’t as prevalent, but they happened.
He had a split second to make a decision and his training saved lives that day by ending another—an act that made reconciling these two disparate sides of his soul impossible.
Somehow, he found the words to keep speaking. Blinking rapidly to relieve the dryness in his eyes, he sighed. “He wasn’t the first person I’d ever killed and I’d like to say he was the last, but—I can’t. Killing isn’t the job, but it is a part of it. I knew that when I signed up. I accept it. It’s on me, my choices, my actions—my consequences.”
“And your loss of faith.” The soft whisper brushed over him like a caress.
“Yeah. So—you could say I’m a little fucked up.” He should watch his mouth around her, but instead of pulling away, she nestled closer.
“I wish I had an answer for that. Something to magick away the pain and the heartache—but I think that you can and do feel it is your faith, not your lack of it.”
Wrestling to untangle the words, Kaiden frowned. “My faith says I walk into a circle clean of hidden agendas and false beliefs. That I enter it in perfect love and perfect trust. That it—not harm anyone, no matter what I will. That I leave the world a better place than I found it. Nothing about killing that kid qualifies.”
“Maybe not.” Rowan adjusted her position and he could feel her gaze on him. “But you still feel it—you haven’t forgotten the cost of your choices. Holding onto your pain, barricading yourself with it—that harms you, too, Kaiden. I can’t say that your choices were right or wrong. But a guiding principle is a guiding principle, not a true-or-false test of whether you have the right to feel the way you do.”
He couldn’t tell if she wanted to offer him a way out or if she was merely oversimplifying it. “That’s not what I meant….”
“No, I know that. I know you feel deeply about your actions. But you’re conflicted because, as a Marine, you have to make one choice—protect your men, protect your country, protect your mission. As a man, you have to have faith that the Marine did what was right in that situation, even if he would never have chosen to be put into such a precarious position in the first place.” The hammer she hit the nail on the head with rang through him.
“Ultimately, I did choose to be there. I enlisted.” He almost hated defeating her argument.
“Only if you enlisted with the desire to kill someone else.” Rowan shrugged. “Maybe it’s just how I see it. But why did you enlist?”
Hopefully she hadn’t wanted something deep and meaningful, because his answer was far more direct. “It seemed like the place I needed to be. It fit me.”
“When you say it seemed like the place you needed to be? How so?”
The breeze off the lake came in little gusts of chill, but the heat from the fire warmed them and Kaiden didn’t really notice the cold. He paused only to make sure she hadn’t started shivering again, but she continued to regard him with an intensity that eliminated anything else from her focus.
Oddly, he enjoyed the hell out of knowing the only person she thought about or saw was him. “It’s hard to explain….” Or worse, she’d think it was stupid. Or will she? At no point in the last couple of days had she reacted in a judgmental manner. “I was filling out college applications and an ad for the Marines came on television. I stopped what I was doing and I called a recruiter. I didn’t need to go to college, I needed to go to the Marines.”
“So maybe you needed to be there that day to save your guys. You saved them, right?”
“I like how you see the world.” Clean and unsullied by the seamier things he’d seen and done.
“It’s not about how I look at the world—it’s how I live my life. I spent years trying to be something I’m not. My mom wanted me to get out of the house more, have a social life—find friends. I liked reading, I liked working on my computer, but she told me it wasn’t normal and how did I ever expect to be happy? So I made myself miserable trying to achieve her definition of happiness. It didn’t work for me.” Rowan stretched away from him and grabbed the bag they’d carried their stuff down from the house. Opening it, she pulled out the supplies for s’mores and Kaiden let her go, draping the blanket across her shoulders.
“I’m going to grab a bit more wood. Keep talking, I can hear you.”
“My point is, I made myself miserable because everyone else told me what I should feel or should do or what their definition of normal is—you know what I learned?”
“What?”
“Normal is horseshit.”
He’d found the firewood cache the others had made at the edge of the beach under a tarp and paused mid-load to glance at her. “What?”
“Normal is shit,” she called out in a louder voice and Kaiden bit back a chuckle. That’s what he thought she said. “Normal is relative to the person. What makes me happy may not make someone else happy. Using their judgment as a barometer won’t work—so I can tell you think you answered a call, maybe it was a spiritual one, or maybe it was a universal way of putting you in a place you needed to be to help others—but ultimately, you’re the only one who can decide that.”
“So if I wanted to crawl on my belly and cry like a little girl, that’s my choice, too?” He knelt to feed the wood into the fire.
“More or less.” Rowan speared some marshmallows on a pair of metal skewers. “In your heart of hearts, would you ever have hurt anyone if they hadn’t been trying to hurt you first?”
“Self-defense is a legal argument, not a spiritual one.”
“Okay, practically speaking, you can’t worship if you’re dead.” She held out one of the pokers to him. “And I rather like having you alive. So answer the question…would you have done it if you’d had any other choice that wouldn’t have cost lives?”
If he hadn’t—his guys, his brothers would have died. He could have. Accepting the poker, he shifted to sit back on the blanket next to her, but stared at the marshmallow as he held it out to the fire.
“It’s only the night and me, Kaiden. Neither of us will hold it against you. Yes, you’ve killed. But you saved more lives than you lost. So maybe you did need to be there that day—and maybe I needed to read all those books and work with computers until I knew them inside and out so I could meet Aaron on a call and end up here. Life—life twists and it turns, and we can’t always anticipate where it will take us. We can only control what we do when we get there.”
“Is that your way of saying ‘suck it up, princess’?” When her eyes widened, he let go of the grin he’d been fighting to keep off his face. “Or maybe ‘man up you little girl and stop whining’?”
“I did not say that.” She looked genuinely horrified and a laugh broke loose in his chest.
“No, but you were thinking it.”
“I was not.”
Feeling less sorry for himself than he had in a while, Kaiden squinted at her. “I’m a big ol’ excuse tree, then? Full of excuses? Want to climb me like the excuse tree I am?” Something in his expression must have given him away because Rowan went from wide-eyed and horrified, to simple shock, until she gave way to laughter.
“An excuse tree?”
“That’s what my drill instructor called it in basic. ‘Private Nelson, why is that sock that way?’ I don’t know, sir, I just got back from duty in the mess. ‘Oh, I see. You’re just a big ol’ excuse tree. You want to be a tree? Be a tree!’”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I stood there at attention for about thirty minutes after he dumped all my clothing on me until he finished inspection and then ordered me to fold my clothes and put them back.”
Skepticism deepened her frown, but she constructed a s’more for both of them. “I think that sounds positively horrible.”
“In the absolute best way.” he said and watched her add a second layer of chocolate to his. “You planning to kill me with chocolate?”
“It’s the next best thing to sex—and I think you could use all the cheering up you can get if you think being used as an excuse tree is wonderful.” But a smile flirted behind her disapproval.
Sobering, he brushed a finger down her cheek. “I’m fucked up, Rowan.”
“I don’t think you’re as bad off as you do. I think you haven’t figured out how to be home yet. It took you time to be a Marine, took you time to be over there—you have to be patient about being here.”
He shook his head once. “No, it’s not about being home.” Kaiden ran his thumb over her lower lip. The little catch of her breath blew away the hard knot of indecision he’d wrestled with all day. “It’s about being here with you and all the things I want to find out about you—and do with you. I’m not a good guy. I can’t make you any promises.”
“I didn’t ask you for any.” The tart response tickled him. “But I do want to eat my s’more, so you can kiss me or you can let me have my chocolate.”
One of the shackles confining his heart buckled under her response and snapped loose. “Well,” he murmured, “if you insist—why don’t I give you both?” Taking a bite of the sticky treat, he locked his gaze on her lips and, the moment they parted, he closed the distance between them and sealed his mouth to hers.
She fisted his jacket and leaned into the kiss, her tongue darting out to sample the melting chocolate. The explosion of sweetness had nothing to do with the treat—Rowan tasted a hell of a lot better than chocolate.
Chapter Five
They necked like a pair of teenagers for hours. Kaiden, it seemed, had developed a sweet tooth or so he declared in between nibbling a s’mores before kissing her again. The man’s kiss and touch were addictive, but he added no caresses to the long, slow, luscious exploration of her mouth—and damn did he know what he was doing.
Cuddled together, they’d talked, made out, and talked some more while the fire flickered and they waited for the sunrise. They sat vigil through the longest night of the year as Yule celebrated the return of light to the world, the turning of the wheel. From this day forward, the days would grow a little longer, minute by minute.
Kaiden lay on his side, his head pillowed on her lap—sound asleep. He’d drifted off while she’d stroked his hair, and the combination of his position and the rising sun afforded her a chance to drink in the softness easing the hard planes of his cheeks and the relaxed line of his jaw.
Her stomach bottomed out. No, she was not falling for him. She liked him. He was an utterly lickable, likeable guy. Oh hell. Rowan squeezed her eyes shut. Hormones on overdrive and her heart engaging at full throttle were not what she needed to be facing. He’d said it several times—he was a Marine. He was on leave.
He’s going to go back…no matter how much you’re enjoying yourself right now, he’s going to pack his things and walk right back out of your life. The sinking sensation in her gut dropped further and she blew out a breath. I’m being a friend, I’m showing him the same love and trust the circle showed me when I first got here.
She could probably toss some glitter on that thought and hang it on her own personal excuse tree. A snicker worked loose and she bit down on her lip to keep the laughter contained. Movement against her leg jerked her attention downward and she met Kaiden’s sleepy gaze.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing,” she lied. “The sun is coming up—we made it through the night.” Unable to help herself, she stroked her fingers across his scalp lightly. Even with the short, tight haircut, what strands he had were soft.
Stretching, he made no attempt to move away. “Sorry I fell asleep.”
“You were tired.” She caressed his cheek with her knuckles and the bristle of his morning stubble rasped her skin. She knew damn good and well she should stop touching. So why don’t you? Not that she was remotely interested in not touching him.
“Did you get cold?” He slanted a look toward the still-flickering fire.
After the heat he’d stoked in her with his expert kisses? Not hardly. “No.” She traced the line of his jaw, then the shape of his lips. “I’m fine.” A yawn caught her off guard and embarrassment scorched her cheeks.
“Or not.” Stretching again, he rolled to his feet with an ease and verve she envied. Her legs were sound asleep. “I’ll get this out and—”
“No!” She held out a hand to him to stop him from kicking sand onto the fading campfire. “We don’t put a Yule log out, remember?”
“Not technically a log.”
“Doesn’t matter. We sat vigil, we kept the light alive from sundown to sunup, we let it burn out on its own.” Extending her legs one at a time, she tried to hide the wince as sensation raced on pins and needles down her thigh. By the time it reached her toes, she’d be in for a very uncomfortable time.
“Rowan, most of us—observing doesn’t mean down to the last tendril of smoke. The sun is awake, it’s returned.”
Fisting her hands, she experimented with curling and releasing her toes. Each motion sent a fresh wave of agony up her legs. “It’s not the point.” The words came out harsher than she intended. Tapping the side of her fist on her leg, she winced. “It’s important to me.”
“You okay?” He dropped back onto his knees next to her and cupped the back of her calf and the nettles burst to life, a thousand angry bees stinging her muscles.
“Yes. No. Ow.” She pushed the words out past her laughter. Better to smile and giggle than to cry. Not crying happened to be a skill she’d perfected long ago. “I think I sat still too long.”
“Hang in there; keep wiggling your toes.” He massaged her calf muscle until the spasms of pins and needles decreased and she settled on the blanket. The sun’s continued ascent washed fresh color across the lake and she closed her eyes to block the brightness. Heat draped along her right side and she felt his nearness hovering as he stretched out next to her. “You should have said something.”
“You were sleeping.” She cracked her eyelids to squint at him. “And you said you hadn’t been.”
He jerked, surprise filling his eyes, then a smile turned up the corners of his beautiful mouth.
And really, now we’re thinking he’s beautiful. I’m hopeless. Utterly hopeless.
“Thank you for that.” He brushed away the hair on her forehead. “Really. I haven’t slept that well in a while.”
“Sometimes you merely need a safe place.”
“And that’s what the coven and all of this is for you, isn’t it?” Understanding kindled in his tone.
“Yes.” Maybe she should play it coy, but he’d been honest with her in the long dark of the night. He didn’t deserve any less in the sundrenched light of morning. “I’m just the mousy little tech girl at home. I like my computers. I like software programs. I like to go home and make sweaters and watch television and read books. But here—here I can be me. No one expects me to be anything other than who I am. I can run around in sweats or the dress I wore the night you came in—it doesn’t change how people treat me. I’ve always been a little different from other people, part of it is faith, part of it is personality. But I love every single person in the circle, even the crazy ones.”
“Don’t call yourself a mouse.” Command crackled on the surface of the order. “You are anything but a mouse.”
“You met Rowan the Pagan, not Rowan the Tech Goddess.” She grinned. “Not that they call me a goddess.”
“Then they’re blind.” Propping his head up on his fist, he mimicked her earlier action and traced t
he lines of her face. Hard. Tough. Leather. Three words that all applied to him in equal measure. But she’d seen a softer side, a gentler side—one she didn’t imagine he shared with his Marines. “But you go back to work on Monday, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Asking me or telling me?” He curled a lock of her hair around his finger and tugged her toward him gently.
“Both.” Her insides trembled. Hell, her outsides were trembling, too.
He kept dropping his gaze to her mouth and she felt it as though it were a caress. “You’re shy.” It seemed to be a revelation for him.
Cheeks heating again, she looked down and then back up. “I told you, I’m me.”
“Hi, Me.” He slanted his mouth across hers and she wrapped an arm around his neck. Instead of coaxing this time, his tongue slid across the seam of her lips and demanded access. A demand she capitulated to, nipping and sucking on his lower lip each time he allowed her to come up for air. Somewhere inside her soul, she purred. Her body softened and she wanted to forget everything else, abandon reality entirely and soak up the moment.
Kaiden lifted his head and glanced at the fire. “It’s almost out.”
Regret bloomed inside of her. She didn’t want to let it go out. Rolling onto his back, he tugged her over to drape over him. Rowan pillowed her head on his chest and laid her hand over the racing pulse of his heart.
“Rowan?”
“Hmm?” She smoothed the fabric of his shirt, enjoying the tactile sensation of soft cotton on a hard, male body.
“I am having a difficult time coming up with reasons why we shouldn’t be doing this.” The echo of her earlier internal debate wasn’t lost on her.
“Yeah, I have nothing. You’re going back.” She sighed.
He didn’t disagree. “You’re staying here.”
“We just met.” But she didn’t care.
“I feel like I’ve known you forever. I wish like hell I had.”
“I told you—”
“I don’t care if you think we wouldn’t have spoken or gotten to know each other. I know we would have.” He squeezed her closer. “The same way I knew I needed to enlist and that I needed to come home this time.”
Marine Under the Mistletoe (Always a Marine) Page 6
