“I want that, too, but I’m not capable of being the man you need me to be—not yet.” He kissed her deeply and surely, holding her in a way he hoped told her he planned on never letting go. While he wasn’t sure he was capable of a permanent commitment yet, he had to convey that he wasn’t just messing around.
All his adult life Deacon had been running from commitment, from the family life he thought would never be for him. But here he was, over the moon infatuated with a toddler and halfway there for her mom. Why couldn’t he get it to stick in his thick head that he was also her dead husband’s best friend? What was it about her that made him forget he had no business becoming the head of a family, when he had no clue what an ideal family was even supposed to be?
“I’m not asking you for— Who am I kidding? Deacon, I want to marry you. Pia adores you, and with time, I think the two of us could really click.” Hands pressed to his chest, standing on her tiptoes, she kissed him. Seriously kissed him, until he wasn’t sure his heart could stand it.
* * *
“SHE’S GOT YOUR LOVE for the water,” Ellie mused to Deacon as they sat together on the isolated shore that Sunday, watching Pia frolic in the foamy surf. She’d removed her shoes and tights, and waded and skipped and laughed. “Tom’s, too, for that matter. He loved taking her here.”
“I know.” Deacon reached for Ellie’s hand, but this time it was different. Instead of clasping their fingers together, he spread hers apart, easing his between them. The action struck her as shamefully intimate, yet impossible to deny.
Resting her head on his shoulder, she sighed.
“Sure would make life easier if you told me what’s going through that pretty head of yours, as opposed to me having to guess.”
She laughed. “Would you believe me if I told you that when it comes to you, I have no idea what I’m doing?”
At that, he, too, had to chuckle. “Ditto. You make me nuts.”
Nudging his shoulder, she said, “Nice we have that in common.”
After sharing a simple, yet heartfelt kiss, he said, “The other night you talked about marriage. But what would you think if I moved in with you guys first? I want to wake up with Pia and help her get ready for her day. Read her stories and tuck her in at night.”
“I want that, too.” Ellie stared out to sea. “But now that I went and opened my big mouth about marriage, I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“I’ve grown to depend on you. So has Pia. But is what we share based on mutual love and respect for our daughter? How do I even know that what I feel for you is real and not some leftover of my feelings for Tom?”
Deacon frowned. “Ouch.”
“Can you honestly say you disagree with anything I’ve just said?”
He took a piece of driftwood near his feet and stabbed it into the sand. “You think I’m not struggling with the same demons?” He stroked her hair. “Only I was there, Ell—with Tom at the end. He made me promise I’d look after you and his little girl. But to what extent would he have wanted me with you? It’s bad enough I already staked my claim on his kid, but his wife, too?” After exhaling sharply, he asked, “Do you have any idea what these constant questions are doing to me?”
Ellie laughed through her tears. “Yes, I do know, because I feel the same. But that doesn’t get us any closer to figuring out what to do about it.”
For the time it took the surf to caress the shore three times, Ellie gazed into Deacon’s eyes. She wondered if he’d kiss her again. Craved him kissing her. Knew she shouldn’t want him to, but was nonetheless obsessed.
“Ever wonder if it was me all along you were supposed to be with?” With the pad of his thumb, he stroked the sensitive skin of her palm.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to go there. I can’t.”
“Just because you don’t want to think about a fact doesn’t mean it ceases to exist. I know you and I have something special, and lately, I’ve been thinking we owe it to ourselves to give the two of us a try.”
His clenched jaw did little to make him any less attractive. If anything, this hardened determination that seemed to have settled over him only made her want him more. Tom had been a SEAL, every bit as physically strong as Deacon, but in a vastly more gentle way. Yet Deacon seemed to be changing, becoming less the bad boy she’d slept with so long ago.
“I don’t know what to say.”
She pushed herself to her feet, but he tugged her to his lap. “Just give me an answer. Am I in your life or not? I don’t know when I’m shipping out again, and when I do, I sure as hell don’t know if I’ll be coming back. What time I do have, I want to spend with Pia.” He kissed her. “And you.”
* * *
“I’M HAPPY FOR YOU.” Garrett pushed the last two boxes of Deacon’s stuff into the back of Tom’s old Jeep. “But are you sure this is what you want to do? You were all over the map when we got back. If this isn’t what you want, one or both of you are going to end up hurt. Then what? Poor Pia’s stuck in the middle of—”
“Who died and made you Dr. Phil?” Operating on less than an hour’s sleep and a full day’s training, Deacon was hardly in the mood for one of Garrett’s philosophical lessons.
“Just saying…” Garrett held up the dead ivy plant some girl he’d dated had given Deacon. She’d told him he needed domesticating. “Want this?”
“What do you think?”
While Garrett deep-sixed the plant and Tristan called every woman on all three of their contact lists for the going-away party he was hosting, Deacon cleaned out his dresser drawers. All he had to move were his few personal effects. Clothes, a couple framed snapshots of his brother. Kind of ridiculous, really, that here he was over thirty and with nothing more to show for it.
Tristan came outside, swigging from a beer and downing a few of the boiled peanuts his mother regularly sent. “If you ask me, Woof here’s jealous. I know I am. You’re about to be living in the promised land, brother, getting your meals cooked and laundry done. Got your cute-as-a-button little girl.” He whistled. “Better live it up tonight, my friend, because as of tomorrow, you’re officially off the market.”
“It’s not like that—at least not yet.” Deacon set his overflowing dirty clothes hamper by the Jeep.
“Uh-huh.” Tristan laughed. “That’s how you two made that pretty baby, right? Just being friends?”
Their buddy and fellow team member, Calder, knocked on the open door. “Room for one more at this party?”
“You know it.” Tristan offered his can of peanuts. “Welcome. Once we get this dud out of here, we can return to our normally scheduled fun.”
* * *
“CAN’T REMEMBER THE LAST time I’ve been to a real grown-up party,” Ellie shouted over the surging base of techno blaring through jumbo rented speakers. Unsure how to explain to Helen and John that she was attending an event celebrating Deacon’s moving in with her, Ellie had hired a sitter for Pia. She’d asked Ada, but Ada had insisted on coming to the party, too.
“Yeah.” Deacon led her out of the apartment and down to the pool. “Gotta say, my boys have outdone themselves with this one.”
“How is it that every cop in the county isn’t here?”
He pulled out a chair for her at one of the poolside tables. It was a warm, Indian-summer night without a breath of wind. “They invited all of them, plus the property manager and damn near everyone living in the complex.”
“Ah…a shining example of SEAL ingenuity.” Sipping her red wine, she tucked her loose hair behind her ears with her free hand.
“Why do I get the feeling you wouldn’t appoint yourself head of the SEAL fan club?”
“Can you blame me?” She twined her fingers through the chair’s plastic mesh seat. “My first encounter with a SEAL was you—and we all know how that turned out
. I vowed never to speak to another of your kind, but then you introduced me to Tom and he showed me a whole new side of your tribe. He was sweet and gentle and loving and treated me—”
Leaning forward with dizzying speed, Deacon kissed her breathless. “You have any idea how sick I am of hearing your dead husband’s praises? I loved the guy like a brother, but Ell, I’m not stupid. I know there’s something simmering between us. Don’t you want to explore that? If not for our own sake, then Pia’s? We could be the total package.”
She kissed him back. Deeper and slower, stroking his tongue with hers. He tasted of beer and pretzels and that bad-boy image she’d craved one long-ago night. And here she was now, wanting him all over again, without even fully understanding why.
“This is a bad idea…” He shifted her onto his lap, easing his fingers beneath the curtain of her hair.
“I know…” She slipped her hands under his T-shirt, loving the feel of his rock-solid bare chest.
Standing, kissing her all over again, he urged her legs around his waist, carrying her she didn’t know and didn’t care where.
He stumbled onto the grass and then up a short flight of stairs, eventually landing them on a pillowed bench.
“Where are we?”
“I think a gazebo.”
Beyond caring, when he settled atop her, she continued with her exploration of his chest. He paused to remove his shirt, making her task easier. “Sure about this?”
She shook her head, but then nodded, slipping the thin cotton straps of her sundress off her shoulders. As much as she had reservations about being with him again, she couldn’t deny that the only time she felt fully alive was when they were together.
With the party far away now, Ellie sat up while Deacon tugged at her dress. She wore no bra and when he leaned in to suckle her, the pleasure was intense enough to make her cry out.
“I’m not hurting you?”
“No.” Tears stung her eyes. She’d lied. Yes, what they were about to share would be painful, but not in the way he thought. Why, she couldn’t say. Maybe the angry words they’d exchanged on the beach, maybe the knowledge that with him living in her house, a reunion like this was inevitable… But she was tired of fighting reality. Tom might be dead, but she was alive. As much as he’d loved her, she had to believe he would never begrudge her the right to fully live.
“Hey…” With the pads of his thumbs, Deacon brushed tears streaming from the corners of her eyes. “If you’re not ready, let’s stop this now.”
She shook her head.
Ellie wanted this man inside her. She needed to know that part of her was still operational. That she was still capable of giving and receiving pleasure.
Back to kissing, with his fingers between her legs, she blossomed from his touch. Moments—maybe hours—later she gasped when he entered her. It’d been a while for them both, and neither lasted long. What Ellie remembered most about their union was Deacon holding her afterward, brushing away more tears and then kissing her until she was incapable of wanting anything more than for him to enter her again.
Finally sated, with him clasping her close on the narrow bench, she used his biceps for a pillow, caressing the coarse hair on his forearm. “Thank you.”
“Sorry.”
His single word chilled her to her core. How could he be sorry about a beautiful event that’d been a year in the making?
“I’ve got to get out of here.” In a move only a man with his strength could accomplish, he slipped out from behind her and stood, grabbing for the cargo shorts he’d worn commando.
“Why? Deacon, what’s wrong?” She sat up and reached for her sundress, suddenly feeling shy.
“Everything. I thought the two of us being together would magically erase the guilt, but it only made it worse. And then there’s my screwed up family.” He pulled his T-shirt over his head. “What if that mess is genetic? What if my being around Pia only teaches her to be as dysfunctional and confused as me?”
Ellie stared at him in disbelief, fury rising within her. “Are you listening to yourself? Do you even remember our last time together? No? I’ll give you a refresher. It went a lot like tonight—only a thousand times hotter. And then you left. I can now see you for the scared little boy you are. You’re no good at commitment, which is why you only have one-night stands.” Leaning into him, her face inches from his, she said, “I’ve got news for you. You, me and Pia could’ve had it all, but you ruined it.”
* * *
DEACON SPENT THE NIGHT on the beach, all alone save for a bottle of cheap tequila he’d taken from the party.
His head throbbed.
A cold front had moved through.
And more than anything, he knew Ellie had been right. He had ruined everything—again—and this time he wasn’t sure there was anything left between them to repair.
Rolling onto his back, hand on his forehead, he tried to figure out where things had gone so horribly wrong. He genuinely cared for Ellie and loved his daughter. Why had the same old guilt consumed him? The same fears that he wasn’t good enough?
With the wind chill dropping by the second and the Atlantic whipped into a fury, he figured he might as well face the music. Sharing Pia as they did, he and Ellie couldn’t exactly never speak again.
Given the stiff breeze, Deacon found his helmet a good ten feet down the road from his bike. As it had been downright balmy the night before, all he wore was a T-shirt.
Now that it had started to drizzle, he’d had January night dives in the Baltic Sea more pleasant than the ten-mile drive to Ellie’s.
His garage opener was in the Jeep, which was in the garage, so he parked his ride in the drive and used his key for the front door. “Hello?”
“Daddy!” Pia jumped up from in front of the TV, where Cinderella was blaring. “I missed you! Katie babysitted me and we made cheese.”
“Wow…” He hefted her into a hug, loving the feel of her warm little body.
“You’re cold!” She giggled when he nuzzled her neck.
“I sure am.” He gave a goofy growl. “Good thing I’ve got you to warm me up.”
Setting her on her feet proved to be a mistake, for she took off running and shrieking through the house, much like a crazed poodle his mom had had when he’d been in grade school.
“Spend the night in a bar? Or with another woman eager for you to share her bed?” Ellie stood in the hall dressed in jeans and one of Tom’s old sweatshirts. Arms folded, lips pressed into a frown, she glared at him. He knew he deserved her anger, but to suggest he’d been with someone else?
“I’m here to apologize, but after that, you owe me one, too.”
“Then where were you?”
Needing coffee, he bypassed her in favor of the kitchen. “The beach.”
“It’s, like, forty degrees outside.”
“And?” Taking a mug from the cabinet beside the stove, he filled it with the fragrant brew, thankful Ellie already had some made. He chugged it hot and black.
“Have I mentioned how much I hate your stupid SEAL macho crap?”
“More times than I care to count. But apparently, you don’t hate SEALs enough to not marry or sleep with them.” The second he said the words, Deacon knew he’d gone too far. But then so had she.
Pia had begun to sing along with the movie.
Deacon sliced his fingers through his close-cropped hair. “I’m so not cut out for this. If you want to take Pia out for a movie or something this afternoon, I’ll haul my boxes back to the apartment.”
Eyes shining, Ellie nodded. “Thank you.”
“That’s it then?”
Focused on their daughter rather than him, she said, “Guess so.”
“Don’t be like this,” he begged. “I said I was sorry. From the start, you knew I wasn�
��t cut out to be a family man.”
Grabbing her own coffee mug, she laughed.
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“Oh, I know. The thing is, you’re so focused on what you believe you can’t be, you’ve missed the bigger picture, which is the amazing father and husband you’ve already become.”
Chapter Seventeen
“You gonna survive this?” Ada stepped up behind her at the boutique’s counter, offering a box of tissues. Though Ellie took one now, she’d prided herself on holding it together when they’d had customers that afternoon.
“Not sure. I feel stupid. Like I’m mourning the loss of something I never even had.”
“Honey, no…” Ada wrapped her in a hug. “You did everything you could to make you two work. He’s damaged to a degree you can’t fix.”
“I know,” Ellie said past a sniffle. “But knowing that, why does it still hurt so bad?”
“Because you invested not just your time in him, but your emotions—and your child. You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t upset.”
“Where do I go from here? How do I even start picking up the pieces? It’s hard enough on me, but Pia doesn’t understand why Daddy doesn’t live with her.”
“Ever think it’s not your place to tell her?” Sorting the mail, Ada said, “Deacon made this mess for your little girl. Let him clean it up.”
* * *
“BUNS!” DEACON’S CO shouted across the shooting range, where they’d been trying out new weapons. “That’s five in a row you’ve missed by a good six inches!”
Deacon clenched his teeth at the CO’s use of his stupid nickname. He couldn’t help it if women liked his butt. The name had always annoyed him, but never more so than today, when he wanted to forget any women existed.
When his shooting hadn’t improved after another five hundred rounds, his CO called him aside. “What’s going on with you? Woof says family issues. Hate to hear it, but you know you can’t bring that stuff to work with you.”
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