“Okay, and I will admit right up front, I told her not to tell you.”
Anger had Deke curling his fingers to keep from smacking the major. It probably wouldn’t end well for him, though. He outranked Deke, and besides that, Mitchell was driving. And while Samantha might not be too mad eventually, she would initially be upset. That just wasn’t something he wanted to do to her. Not right now.
“I will accept the broken nose as punishment for that,” Mitchell said.
His nose was a mess, his eyes blackened, and that was going to be hard to explain when he went to work on Monday morning, so Deke let it go.
“I would have found out.”
“Yeah, I know, but you have to understand. She…she’s fragile. Never in my life have I thought of Sam that way. I might have given her shit before.”
“Like when she gave you your first broken nose?”
He snorted then winced. “Fuck that hurt. Yeah, but she has always been sort of the strongest woman I know. She found out she was pregnant and then it was all weeping and hormonal. It brought back memories of her hitting puberty.” He shuttered. “It was horrific.”
“Sam was weepy.” He shrugged. Deke wasn’t about to admit that it bothered him.
“No. I mean, I know with the hormones it happens sometimes. I’ve been working behind a desk since I moved here a year ago, so I have been around women more. We had two women in the office pregnant this year. That was just too much for me to handle.”
“I hate to say it, but you are Air Force. I’m a Seal. I’m trained for these kinds of things. I wouldn’t freak out just because a woman got a little weepy.
He shot Deke a look. “Yeah? It will be interesting to see what happens when she goes off on you. But you weren’t there when she was a teenager. It was bad. Really bad. She took that hormonal imbalance and put it into action. She would spend days devising things to drive me insane. And she’s mean.”
Deke chuckled, thinking of a teenage Samantha being the bane of her brother’s existence. He could just imagine the things she would devise to torture her older and overbearing brother. She would be cute.
“Younger sisters are not the easiest to deal with then. I was lucky that I was out the door before mine hit that age.”
“Yeah, well, Sam was nasty. Especially to me. But, now…if I look at her the wrong way, she starts to cry. And, I’ll admit, I blamed you.”
Deke hated to admit that he could understand Mitchell’s point of view. “Then why didn’t you contact me so I could deal with it?”
He shrugged as he took the turn off to H-3. “I’m a guy, and according to Zoe, a dumbass.”
“Yeah, she said that more than once this morning. She’s not too happy with you about last night.”
He made a face. “Zoe has been on her own too long. She doesn’t understand how to be careful.”
Deke heard the proprietary tone in Mitchell’s voice, but he figured it wasn’t his place to comment.
“So, Deke, are your intentions honorable?”
He looked at her brother. Sam and Mitchell definitely looked like brother and sister. There was no doubt about it. But there was an edgier quality to Mitchell’s facial features. His eyes were a little darker, as was his hair.
“The fact that it’s taking you so long to answer that is making me kind of nervous.”
“Of course my intentions are honorable. I just have to make sure that I don’t let Sam know I plan on talking her back into marriage.”
There was a beat of silence as Mitchell pulled around a van.
“You’re telling me you’re scared?”
Like a little boy, but he wasn’t about to admit that to his brother-in-law. “I didn’t say that.”
He snorted. “Listen, son, I don’t blame you, but just know this. You better do right by her or all those medals on your chest won’t mean a damned thing. I will make sure you’re ruined.”
For a second, he couldn’t believe her brother had just threatened his career.
“You just threatened to ruin my career?”
“Answer me this, Seal. What would you do if AJ was in the same situation?”
He glanced at Samantha’s brother. “I would hide the body.”
Mitchell chuckled.
“I just want to make sure you keep your nose out of it,” Deke said.
“And if I don’t?”
Deke shifted in his seat. He didn’t know how much to tell Samantha’s brother. He wasn’t accustomed to sharing things with people. He held back things from Mal and Kade. It was his nature. In a family filled with so many siblings, he’d always been kind of a loner.
“I can’t convince her that she should marry me with you hanging around.”
The silence lengthened, and Deke started to worry he was going to have to fight both brother and sister.
“I shouldn’t. You broke her heart when you left.”
He knew, in a way, that was true. It wasn’t the whole story, because they were both broken when he left. She had told him to leave, and he had been stupid enough to do it. There wasn’t a second that went by in his life that he didn’t regret it. Even more now that he’d had a few close calls with death.
“You know that I don’t have a choice,” Deke said.
Mitchell sighed. “I know, but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with Sam.”
Deke nodded. He couldn’t argue with her brother. He didn’t think he had a right, and if he did, Mitchell would just fight him. Mitchell took the exit that led to the condo the women shared.
“So, you want me to back off, give you space?”
He could almost see the wheels turning in the major’s head.
“Yeah. It might work better. If I am always fighting you, I have to divide my energy. It’s going to be bad enough dealing with the new job.”
“You took it for her, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I…well, we had a pretty bad mission about a year ago. Lost a few guys, almost lost a few more. It made me think of what I wanted most in life. I was offered two jobs. One was in Coronado.”
“You were offered a job teaching?”
He nodded. “But they wanted me here. They wanted me to be involved in planning. They have some odd idea I can help.”
“You gave up the chance to teach to do something you might hate?”
“Yeah.”
Mitchell sighed. “And that was for Samantha, of course.”
He gave Mitchell a surprised glance. “Yeah.”
“Hey, I know you love her. I know she loves you. That doesn’t always mean you should be together.”
Something in his voice caught Deke’s attention.
“Are you speaking from experience?” Deke asked.
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged and went against his earlier thought. “There seems to be a lot of heat between you and Zoe.”
“Good lord, no. That woman,” he shook his head. “I’ve been grateful to her and Fiona for helping Samantha, but I definitely don’t want anything to do with that woman. She’s a pain in the ass.”
If it had been a friend, he would have given him crap. There was definitely something there. But he needed Mitchell’s help. He pulled into the driveway of the condo.
He turned and faced Deke. “Okay, I will give you some time, but you don’t make her happy and I’ll make your life a living hell. You might be a Seal, but I will take you down for hurting my sister.”
He eyed the younger man and knew without a doubt that Mitchell would follow through.
“You got it.”
Because if he failed, he wasn’t too sure he wouldn’t want Mitchell to kill him.
* * * *
Sam wanted to die. She wanted the world to end, for the earth to crash into the sun, and she didn’t give a damn who died with her. It was justified in her opinion. No one should escape. She just wanted to be able to eat a meal and not feel like this. It was definitely another sign to her that God was indeed a man.
“Sam?” Deke asked through the bathroom door.
Oh, God. She hadn’t known they’d gotten back. She had hoped to be done with this before they did. Life just wasn’t fair. Dammit, couldn’t her brother and Deke find something to do?
“Open the door Samantha,” her brother ordered.
“Mitchell, leave her alone. I’m her husband. I’ll take care of her.”
“Ex,” she said weakly. She knew they couldn’t hear her, but it made her feel a little better.
“Berg, I’ve had—”
“Mitchell, I think you need to allow Deacon to handle this,” Fiona’s calm voice cut through the rising tension.
Silence lengthened, and she could imagine her brother trying to stare down Fiona. She might be small and she might seem soft, but Fiona wasn’t a woman to be messed with.
“Okay,” Mitchell said.
A few moments past. “Samantha, open up, love.”
She sighed and wished she was stronger, but she wasn’t. Not now, and not really ever when it came to Deke. She was just so damned tired of this. Dealing with it alone had been so hard. Worse, when she’d worried that he had been called out on a mission, she had spent more than one night awake. She just wanted someone else to help her, to tell her it was going to be okay.
She crawled over to the door and unlocked it. He opened the door slowly.
He poked his head through the opening. His frown darkened when he saw her.
“Oh, baby.”
She wanted to yell at him, because, by God, it was his damned fault she was in this position, but the way his voice rolled over “baby” had the tears gathering in her eyes. He came in slowly and knelt down beside her. It wasn’t the most romantic setting, but it made her heart do a little dance.
“Need some help?” he asked, his voice so gentle she felt another rush of tears fill her eyes.
She nodded. He helped her up.
“I need to brush my teeth.”
He said nothing. Instead, he led her over to the sink. He waited for her to finish and then cleaned off her mouth with a towel. He placed it on the counter then gave her a sweet kiss. Before she could say anything, he picked her up.
“I can walk.”
“I know you can.”
He said it as if it were no big deal, as if he picked up women every day.
He set her down on the mattress then tugged off his shirt. For once, he was wearing a pair of boxers. “Do you want some tea?”
She shook her head. “I just want to lie down. I hope this medicine starts working before I have to return to school next week.”
He slipped onto the bed next to her and patted his shoulder. He did it all the time with her, and she loved it. “Put your head right there.”
She smiled at him and snuggled up against his chest. “So, did you meet your supervisor?”
“No. He’s out this week on leave. I don’t have to report until a week from Monday, so I have time to find a place to live.”
“Oh.”
“What?”
“I thought you would just be staying here.”
He chuckled. “No. I would love to, because I want to be close to you. But, I don’t know if I could live with three women.”
She sighed. “I guess so.”
“I’d like to find something close by. What are y’all paying here, if you don’t mind me asking?”
She told him, and she felt his nod. “I can probably handle that.”
She looked up at him. “Really?”
“I’ve put on some rank the past few years. Add in the hazardous duty pay and the COLA the military gives me here, and I’m doing okay.”
She set her head down and wasn’t that happy with the situation. And why would she be unhappy with it? Why did she think that he was going to be living with her and the girls? He was right. It wouldn’t work.
“I can hear those wheels turning.”
“What do you mean?”
Instead of answering, he asked, “What are you thinking about?”
She shrugged. “I just thought you would stay here. I don’t know why. It’s silly, really. That wouldn’t be very good for either of us.”
“You don’t have enough space. I don’t have a lot of furniture, but I don’t want to try and fit it in this room.”
She smiled. “There are a few condos for rent in the area.”
“I’m sure I can find something. Why don’t you get some rest?”
“And you’re just going to lay here?”
“Yep. And I might just get some sleep. I’ve traveled a lot of hours and I got the shock of my life. It is a lot to take for a delicate flower of a man like me.”
It was said with enough wry humor that she couldn’t help but smile. “How are your mom and dad doing?”
“Pretty good. They were really happy I moved out here. They are kind of sick of having us all so far away.”
“Your parents live in Texas. I might teach math but I know geography well enough to know that isn’t right next door.”
“But I’m not on call now. I can’t be called up for an assignment for the three years I’m here. Unless there is a national emergency.”
“That’s good.” And it was. Thinking of the next few years, it would be good to have him around. She might be okay with being a single mother, but she wanted him safe. She wanted him where she could keep an eye on him. And, again, her eyes filled with tears.
“Whoa, I said I wasn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon.”
The panic in his voice made her cry more. It was embarrassing to be such an emotional mess.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to cry. I just can't seem to help it these days."
He patted his shoulder again. "Come here."
She did as he ordered and enjoyed the heat of him, the scent that was so familiar to her. She felt her body relaxing. He kissed the top of her head.
"You're going to just have to accept that you can't control this, Samantha."
She sighed. "I know, and it totally pisses me off."
He chuckled, and she felt her eyelids starting to droop.
"I bet it does. You just need some rest. With everything that has been going on, there was extra stress today with me showing up last night and Mitchell being an ass."
It was the last thing she remembered before she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Ten
Deke woke later, and it took him a second to remember where he was. It wasn’t that uncommon for him to be in this position. He opened his eyes and looked around the room.
Hawaii.
Then someone moved beside him, and he looked down. Sam's head was resting on his chest, and she was softly snoring. She still looked exhausted. The bruises beneath her eyes were a testament to the loss of sleep. He could kick his own ass for not contacting her earlier. He shouldn’t have avoided her calls for so long, but he couldn’t allow her to change the course he had charted.
She hadn't known his plans, and that was the way he liked it.
That thought caught him off guard. Was it some kind of control mechanism that he used? There was a chance it was. So to keep control of the relationship, he didn't tell her things. Okay, that made him even more of an ass. Still, there was a part of him that understood he was doing it for a reason. Telling Samantha everything wasn't always a good idea. He knew that she would often overthink things, and that came from her home life.
Unlike his parents, her folks had a marriage that had never really been a marriage. Her father had been a pilot, and he had taken the saying "what happens on TDY, stays on TDY" to heart. Deke was sure that Samantha knew of her father's affairs. Maybe not at the time, but he sensed she knew what happened by now. And that her mother had suffered for it. Two years into retirement, her father had walked out the door. Seems he didn't like being a regular civilian and hated the idea of just being home with his wife and daughter.
Samantha had been fifteen at the time, and Deke knew without a fact that she often wondered about him. Deke didn't leave b
ecause he wanted to. There was always part of him back in the US. His parents, his brother and sister...and Samantha. There wasn't a time that he thought of home, of surviving a mission that she wasn't there in his mind.
He was just an ass for taking so long to realize she was the center of his world.
Samantha shifted against him, her body warm, and his cock reacted. He would have to do his best to curb that need.
He decided to ease himself away, but when he tried to, she moved closer and started to wake up. She looked up at him with those sleepy blue eyes, and he felt something take hold of his heart and squeeze. He knew now he had made the right decision. Even if she wasn't pregnant, he was supposed to be with her. Always.
He couldn't tell her. He wasn't a man who could always tell people how he felt, but he was usually good at showing them. And telling her would end up in a fight. He had to be careful about what he said.
Her lips curved.
"Hey."
Was it any wonder he loved her? She was beautiful inside and out. She was a dedicated teacher, one who prided herself on her work. She loved each class of kids, and like her mother, believed that everyone should have the best of public education.
"Hey, yourself. Feeling better?"
She nodded and snuggled closer. His body reacted, of course. His cock twitched, and he decided he needed to get out of bed right then and there or he wouldn't be able to resist her.
He dropped a kiss on the top of her head and tried to ease way. She tightened her hold.
"Where you going, Seal?"
He heard the desire in her voice. This was what he was trying to avoid. He wanted her more than he wanted his next breath, always did. No woman had ever tangled him up the way she did. His plan had been to resist her, to try and build the friendship they needed for a good marriage. But as she slipped over him and straddled his body, it was hard to remember why it hadn’t been a good idea not to make love.
A Little Harmless Military Romance Bundle (A Little Harmless Military Bundle) Page 17
