Navy SEAL's Match

by Amber Leigh Williams

“I don’t know.” Harmony shrugged. “He won’t talk. Not that he ever has about how he’s feeling.”

  Because it’s weakness, Mavis knew. Gavin didn’t accept weakness. Most men like him, soldiers, didn’t. “Where is he, exactly?”

  “Liv told him to use William’s room,” Harmony said. She grabbed the stair rail to stop Mavis from climbing up. “Whoa. Where’re you going?”

  She’d promised not to let him drown alone. “I’m going up.”

  “Mavis.” Harmony grabbed her hand to stop her from passing. “I’m not sure you should. Not right now.”

  “Look,” Mavis said shortly, “you’re trying. Cole’s trying, Briar’s trying. No approach seems to be working. The other day at the inn, he was having flashbacks and...and I helped him.”

  Harmony’s wide-arched brows lifted. “How?”

  Mavis forced an exhale. She couldn’t tell her friend everything that had happened with her brother in the bougainvillea. And not because she didn’t know why, precisely, Gavin had responded to her touch. She couldn’t tell Harmony because of what Mavis had felt the moment she’d sensed Gavin’s walls trembling...when she’d thought maybe she had done the impossible. “All I really know is that for a few moments he felt safe enough with me—he trusted me—to help him out of it, and it worked, if only temporarily.”

  Harmony searched Mavis’s face. She stepped aside. “I can’t stand to see him like this. I’m scared of what’s on this path if he keeps going down it alone. Do what you can for him.”

  “Okay.” Mavis climbed the rest of the stairs. Glancing back briefly, she said, “Thank you.” For trusting me, too, she added, silently.

  When Harmony nodded in answer, Mavis moved from the landing. The Leighton house was laid out with rooms tightly knit. An ideal nest that kept its inhabitants close. The master suite was on one side of the hall and William’s and Finnian’s rooms were on the other, connected by a Jack-and-Jill bathroom. Mavis had been there once. She’d gone from one boy’s room through the bathroom to the other so she could climb out the back window and escape without Olivia and Gerald’s notice.

  It felt odd choosing the first door on the left. She’d dated William in secret so their families wouldn’t find out and make noise about the two making things more permanent. It was strange seeking another man through the same door, intruding on the space of her ex.

  Gavin’s shirt she found hung at the foot of the full bed, and his shoes near the bathroom door. She heard the shower running.

  She bypassed the shirt, stepped over the shoes and came to the door. Raising her fist, she quelled hesitation and rapped her knuckles against it.

  She heard a curse. The door was snatched from the jamb. Gavin filled the space of the frame.

  Mavis blinked. He was a mountain. Like Prometheus, he was a fricking beast. Toned. Muscled out—definition on top of definition.

  There were ribs, however. Enough of a hint that on anyone else might’ve looked ordinary. On him, they smacked of self-neglect. His rib cage as a whole should’ve been lost to the ripple of abs and the scintillating muscles that honed his waistline to perfection. Behind the eyes, she saw truth. There, he looked gaunt. As if the sharp bones of his honest self peered through the coat of naked flesh.

  She caught the moment...the very brief moment that his honest self reached for her. She nearly reached back.

  Then he blinked. Resignation resumed. Annoyance followed. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “No questions.” Placing her hand on the deep-inked, red-eyed wolf as black and forbidding as the storm he held inside him, she moved him back into the bathroom, stepping in, too, until she could shut them both in.

  His expression turned puzzled as she shut off the tap in the shower stall. “What’re you up to now?”

  “This is me pouring water over the fire,” she told him.

  He stared. Shook his head. “No. No, this is you dressing up as a can of lighter fluid and throwing yourself at it.”

  “Give me your thumb,” she said, extending her hand.

  He held it back. “I’m fine.”

  “You let me in the other day,” she reminded him. “Why?”

  “I thought we weren’t asking questions.”

  “Gavin. Why?”

  “Maybe I was desperate.”

  “Maybe you do need someone.”

  “This is hell. I’m not dragging you into it.”

  “I do what I want. And what I want is to help you. So stop being a man—a big stubborn man—and let me help you!”

  The staring didn’t cease. She wondered how much he could see in the closeness of the whitewashed room, under the single bright vanity bulb. Not her pulse tripping against her throat. Not the frisson of nerves in her wrists and knees. Hopefully not the desperation pressed between her lips.

  He brought his hand up to meet hers.

  She fought a tumultuous sigh. There was dirt on his fingertips still. There was dirt on hers, too, despite several scrubbings in the powder room downstairs. It was caked red under both their nails. The scent of it, of their work together, came between them. She hoped he found it as grounding as she did. Gripping him lightly, she extended his thumb toward her. She moved her shoulders back, trying to grind the edginess out of her joints. She started to press her thumb and forefinger against the web between his. Then she stopped and bent her head, releasing a long breath that streamed cool over his thumb.

  The shower steam, fine and damp, was suspended around them. Silence closed them in. She saw his lungs expand against his ribs and noticed his pulse trip against the base of his throat. His breath moved over the center part of her hair, at the apex of her brow.

  She blew until she had to take several deep breaths of her own to catch up. Then she blew some more, until the silence was less entombing than it was enveloping. She blew until he relaxed by gradual inches. “When I was little...whenever I got anxious in the doctor’s office or something...my mom would do this. It helped me come back to myself. Just enough, anyway, to focus on my own coping mechanisms.”

  “You could be speaking Latin right now...” he murmured.

  She glanced up. His eyes were closed. Good. Letting her gaze rest on the ink of his chest, she licked her lips. It was beautiful. The wolf’s snout closed over the sinewed bridge where his arm met his shoulder. Teeth extended, it lunged from his right pectoral, fur matted. It was every bit a tribute to all the dark places she knew existed inside Gavin.

  The sword was more telling. It scaled his left ribs and was sheathed beneath his beltline. The banner wrapped from hilt to point had writing on it. NOTHING LASTS FOREVER, she read. She didn’t have to ask to know that the roman numerals inscribed in the sword’s cross guard were Benji’s DOD.

  It was skillfully rendered, just like the wolf. Beautifully done. He was beautifully done, ribs and all. She went back to applying pressure to the web between his thumb and forefinger and worked to bring her voice to the surface. “Wanna hear a joke?”

  He gave a slight shake of his head. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “How do two admirals greet each other?” she persisted.

  “I don’t know, Mavis,” he said. “How do two admirals greet each other?”

  “With a navel salute.”

  He closed his eyes and winced. “No...”

  “So I took a tour of a submarine once.”

  Gavin rolled his eyes, rubbed his fingers against the underside of his chin. She heard the rasp of new stubble and was pleased when he played along. “Yeah? How was it?”

  “Riveting.”

  The stern line of his mouth wavered. “That’s...terrible.”

  “A marine and a SEAL walk into a bathroom...”

  Gavin’s mouth split wide in a grin. “That one’s better. Much better.”

  Mavis struggled to inhale as her heart ratcheted against he
r throat. “You’re still here,” she told him plainly.

  “Am I?” The mirth drained quickly, washing through like water in a sieve. “How do you know it’s me when I can hardly recognize myself in the mirror?”

  She wanted to touch the laugh lines dying on his face. Except for when her father had been released from jail, Mavis couldn’t remember ever wanting to hold someone as much as she wanted to hold Gavin.

  If he could just see himself the way his family saw him. The way she saw him...

  She licked her lips, steadied herself. “What scares you most?”

  The question caught him off guard. Still, a contemplative silence took hold.

  “Say it,” she encouraged, bringing gentleness to her tone. “Out loud.”

  Gavin rubbed his lips together. Then he said, “Using you.” He blinked, checked himself. “Using anybody.”

  “Becoming a burden?” she asked.

  After a beat, he said in a low, dark voice, “I am a burden.”

  “That’s not what they say,” she said. “That’s not what anyone says.” He began to shake his head and she held up a hand. “When you love someone...really love someone, that’s not what it’s about. Ever.”

  “Your rose-colored glasses are disappointing, Frex. I thought you knew reality better than that.”

  She doubled back and tried another route, crossing her arms over her chest. “You used to run, long distance. You were the high school cross-country star. I don’t see you run anymore.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “Don’t have a lead rope.”

  “You’re the last person I expected to box himself in with his own weaknesses.”

  Frustration struck his face. “What’re you talking about?”

  “Miss Zelda’s house is at the end of the street. Mine is at the beginning. It’s a straight shot, uphill one way, downhill the other. Perfect for running. My house is stacked on stilts, round, and is the only one with climbing roses on the mailbox. It’s hard to miss.”

  “So?”

  “So, run,” she told him. “Zelda’s right about at least one thing. Locking yourself indoors will get you a free neurosis spin. You won’t try yoga or meditation, but something familiar might give you a leg up. A conduit for all the adrenaline I know goes into the flashbacks—”

  “Mavis.”

  “I’ll lend you Prometheus. He knows the way like the back of his paw.”

  “Look—”

  “Try it,” she urged. “You’re an adventurer at heart. You must be craving a natural high like your next breath.”

  “The way you talk, you know me better than I know myself.”

  “Tell me you think about the future even if you can’t see one for yourself. Tell me you feel like you have a place in this world. Tell me you’ve lost your dream job but it’s okay because the civilian world holds so much promise.” When he only scowled at her, she turned her attention to his hand, took it back into hers. She massaged. “Tell me you refused Zelda’s job offer because you don’t think she extended it out of pity.”

  He waited to answer, looking over her head. “What good am I to you? If it’s added protection you want, how’re you going to get it from Mary Ingalls?”

  “Mary Ingalls is a badass and you know it.”

  “I’m not. Not anymore.”

  She visually stroked his features. It would have been wrong to trace them physically. The line of his lashes looked denser when he was fatigued, hooding eyes that appeared more copper than green under all this light. He was raw in every aspect and the metallic edges of him were pricking like briars through the iridescent undergrowth. “You are a badass. You’ve just lost your mojo.”

  He shook his head. “I was trained to think differently. I was trained to channel fear into action. I shouldn’t have to deal with psychological BS.”

  “But...?” she nudged when he stopped.

  He shrugged a weathered breath from his chest. “But then Benji. And Boots. Then waking up one day without my sight... I can’t drive. I can’t read. At the inn, I’ve broken nearly everything in reach because I have no visibility on my left side—my dominant side. It’s the same reason I can’t cross traffic anymore, by foot or by car. It takes me a quarter of an hour to send a text message. You’re damn right I lost my mojo. I used to wander off, get lost just to see if I could make it back whole. The itch is still there, but now I get lost in supermarkets.

  “It’s not just my sight, Mavis. Dad and Briar had a barbecue on the inn lawn to benefit the American Legion a week after I got back. The smell off the grill triggered me. They did all that for me and I couldn’t stay because I kept seeing burning bodies in my head, clearer than I could see the faces around me. I shouted at Briar because she came after me like you, trying to fix it...”

  He stopped. His ribs pressed against his skin as he took a breath, to stop himself. To steady himself. Mavis watched him swallow and blink several times. The effort not to embrace him, cling to him, nearly overpowered her, but she kept herself back because he was holding it in. He’d been holding so much in.

  He swallowed once more, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and back. “I’ve spent my whole life punching my problems. Now I can hardly see to hit them.”

  “The SEALs didn’t teach you?” Mavis asked, quiet. “To fight in the dark?”

  His gaze settled on her once more, seeking for the first time.

  “You were trained and conditioned for the fear that comes with war and combat,” she went on. “Not the kind of life you’d have to learn to live in the aftermath here, where there’s none of that.”

  A vertical bar grew between his eyes. “Why are you doing this?” he wanted to know. “Why does every word out of your mouth sound right?”

  She didn’t answer. The web between his thumb and forefinger became her primary focus as she deepened the massage.

  He gave in to another sigh. “And why is it when you touch me—” his voice became gravelly “—I feel like you’re the only person who does so without a heavy dose of pity?”

  She should let him go. Not that she could, any more than she could meet his eye.

  His head dipped close over hers. “Explain that to me, Frexy.”

  It was her turn to shake her head. Her heart was a drum. A big, loud drum in a silent room. Could they hear it downstairs? She knew Gavin could, with his adept, heightened senses.

  He exhaled on a tattered laugh. “Kyle needs to come back and give me a good ass-whooping.”

  “If he does...” she began. She stopped to wet her mouth. “I’ll give him one.”

  “Because I’m at a disadvantage?”

  “No,” she stated. She let go of his hand and found it best to say nothing more. She stood for a minute, staring mutely at his chest, unsure how to get around him to the door. When she spoke again, she was down to a murmur. “I’ll let you shower.” She moved in, intending for him to step back. He didn’t.

  “You don’t feel safe anymore?” he whispered. “With me?”

  She felt too much and that was a big, unprecedented problem. “You’ve never given me a reason not to feel safe with you,” she replied.

  He cursed. Hanging his head, he stepped aside. “Go,” he gestured. “Go on.”

  She went to the door, trying not to lunge for escape.

  How did one escape oneself?

  When she was on the other side of the jamb, she glanced back. His hands were braced on his hips and his head was still low. His right ribs faced her. She wanted to climb them with her fingers as if up a ladder. Her fingertips burned, guilty with possibility. “Let Miss Zelda, Prometheus and me take you home.” When he raised his head, she added, “We’re headed in the same direction.”

  “Are we?” he questioned.

  “Yes,” she answered, trying to avoid any subtext. His shorts were unbuttoned and loose aroun
d his navel when he moved. Her fingers weren’t the only parts of her that burned anymore, and she wondered how she’d gotten this deep when she didn’t remember diving.

  He walked to the jamb. He reached for the door to close it, stroking her with metallic eyes. Reaching up, he grazed his knuckles across her cheek. “You’ve got dirt on your face, Freckles.”

  She backed up quickly. “You said you were done. With Freckles.”

  His lowered his hand and anchored it with the other by pressing his thumb into the center of the offending palm. “Sorry. I’m no good at promises.”

  “You realize that’s a choice, right?” she said. “You choose to keep a promise or run from it.”

  Gavin frowned. “Guru Bracken. That’s what I’m calling you from now on.”

  “I’m not sure that’s any better,” she said as he shut the door. She heard the water running on the other side and showed herself out.

  * * *

  THE DOG BARKED at everything, even leaves skittering across pavement. He ran hell for leather after squirrels and other vermin. Gavin had even woken one morning at the sound of snuffing and howling from down below where Prometheus had wedged his large backside beneath the subfloor after he trapped the neighbor’s cat there.

  It was too much to hope that the beast knew how to handle a leash. As Gavin tied his running shoes on the front step, he heard the dog panting lightly at his shoulder.

  Gavin had stopped wondering if Mavis missed the brute. He’d stopped waiting for the dog to give up on him and go back to her. Prometheus had loped after him for ten days, straying outdoors only to do his business and flush trespassing critters and one skittish deliveryman off the property.

  Gavin made sure both shoes were good and knotted before sitting upright. He eyed the road ahead. He eyed the dog who stared back at him companionably. Reaching out, he spread his fingers over his snout and rubbed. The connection had become unspoken, ironclad, the kind Gavin had only ever felt with another four-legged friend. A part of him had held back because of his experience with Boots. However, where he’d been avoiding Miss Zelda and Mavis, he hadn’t been able to reject the dog’s company.