Stealing Home

by Harlow Cole

It spurred me on. Harder. Faster. Till the desk started sliding back and forth, squeaking as the legs scraped against the old wood floor. As she began to pulse around me, the only voices filling my head were her string of soft chants.

  “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.” My new favorite words spilled from her mouth.

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes . . .”

  I’d wondered if the second time would feel different—less starving man, more average Joe. Last night, my senses had become hyperaware. When you’re desperate and drowning, you count every breath. But the light of day didn’t dull a thing. That feeling of frenzy cemented what I’d always known.

  I’d never get enough of her.

  I watched her ride out her release and then quickly followed, filling her up, with a reminder I wanted to slide down her legs for the rest of the day and a feeling I wanted her to need for the rest of her life.

  My forehead stayed pressed to hers as we both came down from the high, panting against mingled breath. I brushed my mouth across hers, a soft contrast to the raw energy we’d just shared.

  I slowly pulled out, just so I could see the sticky wetness trail behind me. Tracing a fingertip down the top of her inner thigh, I tried to fight off my worst caveman smile. She leaned up again, looking down at my hand. She blushed. All over her body.

  Jesus, I loved that shit.

  “Brayden, we need to think about—”

  “No. Hush. We don’t need to think right now. Stop with all the goddamn overthinking.”

  “This is just sex.”

  My brows shot up.

  “Great sex,” she added, rolling her eyes with a little smirk before she sobered again. “But that’s all it is.”

  She pushed up off the desk, reaching down to retrieve her shorts.

  “How long are you gonna go on telling yourself that?” I asked, watching her shimmy back into them.

  She turned her back to me before she spoke, “For as long as it takes. Until you walk away again.”

  “Ashley—”

  “That’s all it can be, Brayden. We crippled our chance to ever be anything more.”

  11

  Hand Out

  Ashley

  Happy hour hadn’t officially started.

  The hard-core clientele had another hour to slog their way through the weekend traffic crossing over the Bay Bridge. A few early birds were already stationed at the best tables near the deck rail. They nursed beers and sunburn beneath the cloak of bright red umbrellas with flaps that swayed gently in the breeze.

  Trent, the lead singer of the house cover band, came over to chat while his buddies finished setting up their gear on the far corner of the deck. I dodged the hints he dropped about scoring the headliner slot for the marina’s Labor Day party. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that annual rite of passage into fall had no chance this year.

  I knew people would be disappointed.

  My mother had turned it into a well-loved tradition.

  Last year, I’d lost my sanity and a couple grand, trying to pull it off.

  I tried drowning my dejection with the mundane tasks of restocking liquor and wrapping napkins around silverware. The sound of a stool sliding back broke through my stupor. I did a double take when I saw Brayden’s houseguest sitting casually near the end of the bar.

  Mirrored aviators covered his eyes, but he didn’t have a hat this time. His dark brown hair was cut neat and super short. A plain white polo and khaki shorts looked formal and crisp, fitted perfectly to a set of muscles no woman could ignore. His attire was oddly juxtaposed to the vibrant tattoos that fondled the inside of his forearm and crawled up under his sleeve.

  I couldn’t help the curiosity that bloomed inside me.

  Who the hell is this guy?

  I used a damp dishrag to wipe down the bar on my way over to him. That excuse let me approach slowly, sizing him up as I drew near. He had that same grin as before—friendly and welcoming, more little boy than man.

  This guy was a study of contrasts I would’ve loved to photograph. Black-and-white film with just the ink on his skin lightly shaded into color. I itched for the challenge of capturing the hard strength of those muscles and the beguiling warmth of that smile.

  I placed a little cardboard coaster in front of him and tried to return his grin. “Uh, hi. I know we haven’t really . . . I mean, I’m Ashley.”

  He pulled off his glasses and set them on the bar.

  His eyes matched his smile. They curved up at the edges and made you feel at home.

  “Matt Sullivan. It’s nice to finally meet you, Ashley. Officially.”

  He cleared his throat of the same awkwardness I was suffering. I shook his outstretched hand.

  “Um, yeah. You, too. What can I get you?”

  I poured the draft beer he’d requested, returning to set it down in front of him.

  “So, you in town long? You work for the Yankees?”

  “Me?” He chuckled low and deep. “No. Well, I used to work for a different kind of Yankees.” He lifted his shirtsleeve to show a tattoo of a globe with an anchor and an eagle. Scrolling script encircled it.

  “You’re a Marine?”

  “Ex-Marine now. Retired. I’m a physical therapist.”

  “Oh.” My eyes widened with surprise I couldn’t hide.

  My brother had worked with dozens of PTs. None of them had looked like Matt Sullivan.

  “I’m here for the summer. Stealing a little downtime and making sure the Yankees don’t lose their shining star.”

  I returned an appropriate smile. Reminders about who Brayden had become still somehow felt like a punch in the gut.

  “So, which do you like better? Being a soldier or soldiering through rehabbing athletes? I imagine you deal with some big egos, huh?”

  “I don’t know yet actually. Brayden is my first. We met a year and a half ago at a charity event for wounded vets. I was there with a guy from my old unit. Dude who was pretty busted up. Huge Yankees fan.” He held his arms out wide and smiled. “Brayden was the rookie sensation everyone was talking about. He heard about my friend somehow. Visited him a bunch of times while he was rehabbing. Helped my buddy get his head straight, if you know what I mean.”

  I nodded. Half the battle of recovery happened between your ears. I knew that all too well.

  Nathan always let his head get in the way.

  “Anyway, I’d just gotten out of the service. And, by that, I mean, I was sitting on my butt, missing being a Marine.” He paused and then added, “Once he found out my background, Brayden wanted to pick my brain about some stuff. We struck up a mutually beneficial friendship. He’s the one who talked me into becoming an independent contractor, starting up my own practice. He forced me to pursue my passion.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Helping soldiers get back on their feet. I work with guys at Walter Reed.”

  “So, how did you end up here?”

  “Brayden drives a hard bargain when he wants something really bad. He’s sort of relentless.”

  “Yeah, I know something about being on the other end of that.” I rolled my eyes.

  He chuckled again. “He claims I was the first person he called the day after they scheduled his surgery. Said he needed someone to fix him. Had in mind he wanted to get out of town to do it. Asked me to come here for the summer.” He rubbed the pad of his thumb across his bottom lip. “The check he wrote was mighty tempting. Then, he said he’d double down what he was paying me as seed money to start my own foundation. Couldn’t say no to that. That money is gonna help a lot of people.”

  I nodded my head as I tried digesting a story so far from what I’d been expecting. I’d thought the guy was another meathead tied to Brayden’s new world, not a gentle giant with a penchant for helping people.

  “Is he gonna be all right? Can you fix him?”

  “Brayden?”

  I nodded.

  “Healing the body is far easier than healing the mind.” He sipped his beer and car
efully set the glass back down, mulling over something he obviously wanted to add. “His arm I can work on fixing.”

  For just a moment, dark brown eyes seared into mine. Eyes well trained in the art of intimidation.

  “His head? I don’t know. You tell me.”

  When Matt Sullivan stopped smiling, the sun died. The sticky-sweet boy fell behind an eclipse of a serious man—the old-fashioned kind who walked with swagger, knew how to handle a gun, and always looked out for his friends.

  My instinct didn’t want him as an enemy.

  But I didn’t know how to respond.

  Luckily, the boyish grin returned as quickly as it’d fled, and he didn’t seem to expect an answer. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s kinda weird to finally meet you in person. He’s told me a lot about you and your family. You’re sort of a legend in my mind already.”

  “Me?” My brows creased as I shook my head, further blowing off his assessment. “I’m a nobody, I assure you.”

  He toyed with the edge of his coaster. “I’m saying too much. Probably even violating some kind of patient confidentiality bullshit.” He ran his hand across the small cleft in his chin. “Brayden’s arm will be fine—if he follows instructions, which he has so far. This is my first Tommy John procedure, too, so we’re both learning as we go along. But I’m very happy with his progress.”

  “Do you work with a lot of arm injuries?”

  “No.” His eyes locked on mine. “My specialty is SCI.”

  My eyes widened as that statement spread through me. “You . . . you mean, you . . . you work with spinal cord injuries?”

  He studied my reaction. A tiny bit past the point of weird. “I usually work with guys who come home from the Middle East with busted up backs and missing limbs or legs that don’t want to work anymore. We have too many of them, ya know? On the outside, those guys look like the rest of us mortals. But on the inside? On the inside, those guys are made of tougher stuff than the everyday Joe.”

  “God, that sounds incredibly hard . . .”

  Watching Nathan struggle leveled me most days. How would anyone live, surrounded by the suffering of so many?

  “Nah,” he replied quickly, “I’m not the one doing the hard work. By the time they get to me, they’ve already been through hell. I’m the lucky one who gets to stand on the sideline while they learn new ways to climb out.”

  He made it sound so easy. So . . . possible.

  Tears welled in my eyes. My mind fought off that thing again—that feeling I’d had while reading that magazine contract. It crawled up my back and sat on my shoulder, whispering in my ear like a morning bird full of excitement and . . . hope.

  The only four letter word I hated more than fine.

  I’d been taught one lesson while watching my mother battle hand-to-hand with death. Hope suffered many a fool. It deluded its victims with fabricated promise. It built up a pretty facade and then cruelly uncovered a fragile illusion. Hope lived as a paper-thin false front.

  Easily crushed.

  For us, hope had looked like alternative medicines, clinical trials, experimental treatments. A chance at life.

  Reality?

  Reality was three to six months. Morphine drips and feeding tubes.

  I’d learned the hard way to hold hope with two iron fists, always pushed back to at least an arm’s length.

  Standing that far away from this guy suddenly didn’t feel far enough.

  Matt Sullivan spoke with a slow confidence and moved with a self-awareness that translated into pure power. Something about him invited trust. He was a natural protector. A giver. The kind of guy you couldn’t help but like. A guy you instinctively wanted to be near because his very presence promised safety.

  I needed to get far, far away from him.

  To regroup and catch my breath.

  To make sense of him—this smiling poster boy of possibility.

  “Ashley, I know you’re in a rough spot. But just be careful with him, okay? I don’t think you understand how hard he’s struggled to get back to this place.”

  Brayden and struggle seemed like an oxymoron. He lived a gilded life. Perfect and shiny. He probably ate hope for breakfast, mixed into a protein shake.

  “Brayden? How hard he’s struggled to get back to St. Michaels?” My eyes narrowed, and pride reared forward. “Is that a joke? His toughest choice was to fly here in a private jet or drive down in a two-hundred-thousand-dollar sports car. The whole town is googly-eyed over his triumphant return. They’re ready to rename streets after him.”

  “I don’t mean he had to fight to come back to this town. He had to fight to come back home to you.” He paused, taking two breaths to let his statement ping-pong through my skull. “You know, it sucks when our own mistakes cost us things we want. I see it all the time. Big, strapping soldiers who were fine one minute. Out walking a post. Strong. Invincible. Saving the world. Everything going as planned. Then, boom. One step. One split-second decision.” He snapped his fingers in the air. “IED takes away everything they knew.”

  “That’s horrible,” I whispered, bowing my head.

  “It is. It’s pretty fucking awful. But the only thing worse than taking that step and hurting yourself is taking that step and watching the fallout hurt someone else. Those are the guys who don’t recover. The ones who step on bombs and blow themselves up—those aren’t the guys I worry about the most. Most of those guys work their asses off to form a new life. They still have that sense of fight in them. It’s the guy who steps on the bomb that takes out his buddy walking next to him that I fear for the most. Those are the ones who don’t want to live. They mentally check out, won’t rebuild.” He paused and then added softly, “They don’t think they deserve to.”

  I gazed out across the deck, watching white sails on the horizon instead of the whites in his eyes.

  “What about the guy who stepped on the bomb and walked away, unscathed? The one who found that new life and forgot the people he left behind to finish the battle?”

  “No one walks away, unscathed. Guilt is a nasty motherfucker that eats you from the inside out.”

  I snickered. “Yeah, I know something about that, too.”

  Tears filled my eyes. I looked back down at my feet, fighting them off. Fighting off his words, too, because I didn’t want them to seep inside me. Didn’t want to consider their meaning.

  I’d spent too many years thinking of Brayden as the bad guy. My accomplice in ruining my brother’s life. I’d spent too much time thinking of him as the one who got to move on while the rest of us were stuck.

  Bitterness became my best friend when my first love left town and never looked back.

  “Don’t mistake him not being here for walking away. I know it doesn’t compare, but he lost something, too.”

  “He didn’t lose anything. He’s living the life we dreamed—” I stopped myself short. “He’s living the life he, and his father, always dreamed of.”

  “He lost the thing that’s the most important to him. His family. A man and woman he loved like they were his own parents. The only brother he ever had. And the girl who he would’ve died to protect.” He paused, waiting until I looked up at his face. “The girl he’d still die to protect.”

  I blinked. Unable to form words now.

  He downed the remaining swig of beer and pushed his stool back to stand up. He pulled his wallet from his back pocket.

  “No,” I said, holding up a hand, “this one’s on me.” My voice cracked.

  He tipped his chin. “I’ll owe you one.” He turned halfway before pivoting back around. “You know, in basic training, they teach us a lot about dealing with battlefield injuries. When you’re hurt, sometimes it’s best to dress your own wounds and clean yourself up, before you reach a hand back and help the guy who fell beside you.”

  I bowed my head and bit my bottom lip, praying I could hold it all in. That I could stop myself from the epic breakdown that was coming now whether I liked it or no
t.

  “Please don’t hate me for saying too much. Honestly, I’m a good guy. I specialize in giving people second chances.”

  He smiled the same as before, back to the little boy who didn’t play with such heavy things. The one he must’ve locked somewhere inside him, protected from the trauma and sadness he’d witnessed.

  I tried to force the edges of my mouth into a smile as I met his gaze.

  He opened his wallet, fished out a crisp white business card, and held it out over the bar. “If there’s anything I can ever do for you, anything at all, all you have to do is ask.”

  “That’s very nice of you,” I said slowly, taking it from his hand.

  “Once a Marine, always a Marine. Helping people is what we do.” He leveled me with one more knowing stare. “And, if you know anyone else who could use my help, you just let me know. I owe you one now, remember?”

  * * *

  “I was driving past on my way home, saw the lights on down here . . .” My voice trailed off.

  The wind tugged a swirl of hair across his forehead. I knew the exact length of time it would take to annoy him. I counted backward, waiting for three fingers from his left hand to swipe it back out of the way.

  I didn’t want to see Brayden differently. Too much of him mirrored the boy I’d spent years trying to forget.

  Joey’s voice taunted me. “He’s different.”

  But, I stood there at the end of the dock, with lead feet and fresh eyes, trying to reconcile a merged version of that boy I’d known and the man Matt Sullivan had described.

  “The kid and I went for a sunset sail earlier. He’s starting to look like he knows what he’s doing. Turns out, I might not suck at teaching.” He smirked and leaned over the yacht rail. “It was too nice a night to just go straight home. Want to come aboard? Check her out firsthand?” He’d already started moving, walking toward the gangway with an outstretched palm.

  A helping hand.

  At the ready.

  Free for the taking.

  I stared at it with wide eyes. Did I trust it? Did I take ahold of it and just let my pride and my anger go? Could I learn to accept any of the things he’d offered?