As Rand dressed, he listened to the sounds of clothing being undone, heavy fabric finding its way to the floor, elastic being pulled and then released, boots thudding on the tile. The shower was turned back on and he heard the sound of the curtain being drawn. After a few moments of staring at the closed door he turned away. He assumed she was in the shower with him. Lathering him up, cleansing him from his long trip . . . getting him hard.
He clenched his hands at his sides. He’d known this day would come. He’d known she was only on loan. But shit, he hadn’t known he was going to fall in fucking love with her. Now what?
He alternated pulling on clothes with throwing things into his duffle. How had he been so stupid? He’d sheltered his heart for years; never let a woman get under his skin. Now look at him! He was a mess. Jealousy churned through him as he heard Clint’s laugh over the sound of the water, irritation burned in his gut when he heard Callie’s teasing chuckle, and rage just about overtook him when he heard the steady slap of skin on skin against that fucking wall—again!
He felt tears burn his eyes and had to remind himself that he was a soldier, one of America’s best. He’d seen his buddies die, one right after the other, sweated many nights out fearing he’d meet his maker before sunrise. And now look at him, a tiny slip of a woman had come into his life and he was putty. A total goner. He shoved shorts and t-shirts into the cavernous bag; mindless of the disheveled state he was putting them in. He was sitting on the bed putting his shoes on when the bathroom door opened. He was afraid to look up, but couldn’t help himself.
Callie was snuggled under Clint’s arm; both were wrapped in the bathrobes that had been hanging on the back of the door. Clint was wearing his robe, one he had bought at the mall when they had arrived here. Despite loving this man like a brother, his jaw bunched and his teeth gritted at the sight, but he kept his head low so only he knew how much this all mattered. While he finished lacing his running shoes he faced the fact that she was Clint’s, that he knew going in that this had only been temporary. He had to be a man about this, the good soldier. And it was time to decamp. Resolved, he stood, and with an air of nonchalance that he did not feel, he reached out and shook Clint’s hand, “Good to have you home, Captain. You’re back sooner than expected.”
“Finally found the damn bunker, practically blew out the whole damn mountain just to be sure we knocked out all the surveillance, and then high-tailed it back. They had a plane just finished being repaired and I hopped on.” He squeezed Callie around the shoulders, “Other than the manhandling that was caused by what Callie assures me was wholly inspired by her, I see, and of course I heard, ahem . . . that you’ve been taking very good care of my most prized possession.”
She was not a possession, Rand thought, certainly not if she couldn’t be his possession, but he didn’t say anything along those lines. It was pointless. She was Clint’s wife, not his. The agreement had been to help out, not to take over. He felt as if a knife was stabbing repeatedly into his chest, he had to get out of there before he broke down or tore the place up. He reached for his bag and began stuffing things from the nightstand into his pockets.
Clint took Callie’s hand and led her over to the only armchair in the suite. He sat and then patted his knee as he pulled her down. For a fleeting second her robe flapped open and Rand saw the tops of her thighs. He was hard in an instant. God, was this woman always going to affect him like this?
“Not sure I appreciate you shaving her pussy though, but she seems to like it. Time will tell if it will grow on me, but I guess I’ll have to give it a go until she grows it back.” The dominant part of him was coming out now, the one Callie must have responded so well to. “Right, Sugar?” he asked as he patted her thigh. She looked at him and smiled then she looked over at Rand and winked.
His heart melted. God he loved her so much. How the fuck had this happened? He had to get out of there. Now. Before he made a fool of himself in front of his best friend and the only woman he’d ever loved.
“Can I borrow the car?”
“It’s yours. Keep it. Consider it payment for services rendered.”
Now that did it! “I do not need to be paid for fucking your wife!”
Clint’s eyes went wide; Callie shrank against her husband’s chest. “I’m not paying you for services rendered,” Clint said his voice steely. “I’m giving you a gift because you did me a great favor, and Callie, a wonderful honor by being her surrogate husband while I was away.”
“Well I’m glad you see it that way. I saw it as payment . . . sort of like stud fees.”
Clint put Callie aside and stood. “Rand, I know this must be hard for you. But let’s not say things that could ruin our friendship. Take the car. If after a few days you still won’t accept it as a gift, let me know and I’ll arrange to come get it. Meanwhile, I suggest you take a few days and mull things over. Hang out with the guys, go to a few clubs, play some roundball. Before you know it, it’ll be time for us both to deploy again. So just chill . . . go play while I get reacquainted with my wife.” His hand stole around her waist and she dutifully leaned into him.
Rand focused his eyes on Callie’s trying to see if there was a message for him there. There was no message, at least not one he could read. She looked elegant, reserved, and so beautiful it broke his heart. She looked just as she had the first time she’d opened the door to him. And he’d fallen into her trap. Her sexy, gotta-have-her womanly trap.
He turned and grabbed the car keys off the dresser. “How’d you find us anyway?” he asked, curious now as his system calmed.
“Not too many ‘78 Camaros in the motel parking lots. And everyone seemed to know the young couple on their honeymoon. I went to the office and a young impressionable ROTC cadet was on the desk. In uniform, you and I look enough alike that I just asked for another key, said I lost mine on the beach last night. He wasn’t about to buck a Captain.”
“So you wanted to walk in on us?”
Clearly losing patience, Clint said, “I knocked for five minutes. I could hear water running. I wanted to be sure everything was all right. To be honest, I felt like a fool standing at the door, everyone looking up at me from the pool while I was pretty sure you were in there fucking the bejesus out of my wife. Not that I hadn’t asked you to, mind you. It’s just different in reality.”
“Let me just ask you a question.”
“Go ahead.”
“If you had to do it over again, would you do the same thing?”
“You mean Operation Surrogate Husband?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Yeah, I would. And you were the perfect man for the job. Now, you’re relieved of duty. Go find the boys and have some fun.”
“What the fuck are you going to do next time you deploy Captain?” Rand said as he grabbed his duffle and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Jaw set and eyes furious, Rand crossed the parking lot and unlocked the car. He threw his duffle into the back and slid into the driver’s seat. He didn’t doubt that everyone on Kings Highway heard him as he burned rubber peeling out of the parking lot and onto the highway. Jesus! How had he fucked up his life this badly in such a short amount of time? He wished he could just drive to the base hangar, steal a fighter jet and head back to Afghanistan. Instead he drove to the nearest bar.
Chapter Thirteen
Garrett sat back in his chair and rubbed the back of his neck. He wasn’t used to doing this much sitting. Idly he scrolled through the document to see how much there was left to read. He was torn between wanting to know what was going to happen between these three and not wanting it to end. His stomach growled and he realized he needed to get something to eat. Then he had work to do, and he really should take a run on the beach today, as tomorrow they were calling for rain.
He looked out the
window and caught sight of a line of pelicans winging their way south. He stood and watched them soar and dip, and then one fell out of formation in time to swoop into a wave and come up with a fish, that quickly disappeared down his gullet, before he rose on the wind to rejoin his comrades. Too pretty a day to spend it inside, no matter how tempting it was to finish what he figured was only two or three chapters. Later, he promised himself as he stepped around his makeshift desk and strolled into the kitchen. It would be his reward for a good sweaty run.
Head ducked under his arm, he foraged in the refrigerator and finally came up with some leftover black beans and some rice, a pear and a bag of pre-washed spinach. Food Lion had certainly improved their food selection, and while it was no Trader Joe’s, they had a nice selection of international foods. He’d been able to get a ready-made pouch of Spanish rice, to which he’d added a can of black beans and a can of spicy Rotel. Served with a spinach salad and pear slices nuked for twenty seconds and drizzled with raspberry vinaigrette, it made a great lunch. He took everything outside to the deck and ate at the table he’d had made to match his Adirondack chairs. From the deck, he alternated shoveling food, flipping through GovMint News, Stansberry and Associates, and Gold Stock Advisor newsletters while taking in the sights on the beach below.
His beach house was in an area that was fairly secluded beach-wise. It was toward the east end and not too many day-trippers set up that far down. There was no place to park, for one thing, and it was not convenient to the pier, where the bathrooms and gazebo showers were.
People staying on this stretch liked to be away from the action. While not remote, it was peaceful and not quite so restrictive. You weren’t likely to have to deal with gulls being fed crackers just a few feet away, or someone blaring country music and being just drunk enough to think they could line dance to it in front of you.
He liked it here. He could work, play, and entertain ladies from time to time without causing anyone to shift their attention to him. He wasn’t a loner, he thought as he speared a pear slice and dunked it in a pool of dressing. He was just busy, and when he was here, he considered this his hideaway.
He rarely told anyone he knew here at the beach when he was coming down. Friends on the island saw him come and go, and a slight wave was all that was required to stay connected—everyone had their own gig, and he appreciated that. Except for the holidays. They were special times, and he usually had more invitations than he could accept. He smiled as he thought of Miriam Marks and her daughters Mimi and Jackie in Plum Nelly, a few houses down from his. He never turned down an invitation to one of their spirited gatherings.
Then he frowned as he remembered a disastrous party he’d attended across the street last year. It was as if he’d been The Batchelor among a bevy of wanna-be brides. Pulled from one overly made up face to another and gripped by his coat sleeve to busty bosoms, he was passed around like a prize. One brazen vixen in a fuzzy Santa Claus hat had actually licked his ear and said she wanted to taste him . . . everywhere. Another tucked a note in his coat pocket after advertising her special Christmas tradition—licking the red stripe off a “big ol’ candy cane”—until there was nothing left. The note had her phone number, written in red and encircled by a lipstick stained kiss print, also in bold, seductive red. There was apparently a shortage of available “big ol’ candy canes” on Sunset Beach during winter break.
The homeowners who’d been here before 179 became a route number on the map, often made a special point of trying to get him around their grandnieces and granddaughters. Somebody was always introducing him to a sweet young thing from either Clemson or Duke. Or there was a daughter in banking from Charlotte, a daughter of a friend who was a single mother from Cary. Once, a whole group of teachers was brought to his table and he was asked to guess the subject they taught by the drink they held in their hand—Margarita for the Spanish teacher, Appletini for Physics (Isaac Newton), Poinsettia for the Botany Major, a mulled cider drink called a Wastrel for the Music teacher, and so on, ad nauseum. And while the sports medicine prof was very hot (Red Bull and Grey Goose), he didn’t see himself making trips to Tallahassee on a regular basis.
Sometimes he took the bait, and went off for a late night walk on the beach with the bubbly co-ed or budding HR manager, but most of the time he deferred. He didn’t need issues with his neighbors. They didn’t need to know that the sweet young things they were offering to set him up with weren’t all that sweet. And if they were, he didn’t want to be thought of as the big bad wolf with the love ‘em and leave ‘em attitude.
A pattern he’d noticed, and actually charted one time, showed that the younger the college student, the more adventurous she was in bed, and the more independent she preferred to be so she wasn’t tied to any guy. The closer to graduating she was, the more traditional she became and fun-loving and independence gave way to desperation as she was soon going to be sent out to into the world of natural selection—where each year she was unattached put her farther from the goal. While he never dated his own students, he became partial to juniors or those with aspirations for a Masters degree. But lately, they all seemed a tad on the young side and he found he wanted to talk before getting between the sheets.
Moving off campus and teaching online got him away from ambitious teacher’s aides. He was always conscious of the threat of harassment suits and morals charges that could be brought from students who wanted better grades with less work. Even young men, thinking they might have a chance with him because he knew how to dress and liked to ride his bike to class had become a problem.
A young thing in a yellow bikini setting up a chair and applying sunscreen snagged his eye. He watched as she put ear buds in her ears and attached her iPod to an arm holder. He checked her out as she put her sunglasses on and began walking toward Tubbs Inlet. She was blonde with a dark tan. He couldn’t see her from the front, but her tiny backside swished back and forth as she strolled and waved her hand to the music. Hmm . . . he thought, might be time to take that run on the beach now. Check out the sights, fore and aft. Possibly offer a sip of something cool to the little woman, as it was a very warm day.
The sound of his cell phone ringing in the other room erased those thoughts as he realized it was time for the conference call with a group of investors. He gave the woman with the swishing cheeks one last perusal before heading inside to hear what a new generation of tech nerds from M.I.T. had to say.
Chapter Fourteen
Twenty minutes later he ran down the steps of the beach house and headed east, getting to Tubbs Inlet just in time to make the turn and pass the little blonde on her return trip. What had looked so fine from one angle, didn’t hold the same appeal when he was front and center. What was it about women who Botoxed the hell out of their lips? She did smile and wave, or at least he thought it was a smile—her lips didn’t seem to be able to turn up much. Then he saw that the mounds behind her tiny top didn’t so much as shimmy with each footfall, those puppies are high and
tight . . . forever, he thought. He waved back but was careful not to make eye contact.
Why did women feel the need to improve on nature? He’d have preferred her with a light cinnamon tan, instead of one so dark it cast a black silhouette on her slight frame, natural, soft breasts that jiggled and moved to fill your hand when you kneaded and caressed them, and lips, that even thin, were soft, pliable and capable of feeling so much more. He shook his head as he ran. Ruefully, he realized he was looking for someone like Callie. Callie, or the woman who had created her.
As his sneaker-clad feet thudded on the hard-packed sand at the water’s edge, he went over the things he could do to try to find her. There had to be a way to track her down. With each footfall he processed a thought and then discarded it. At the pier, he slumped against a piling to catch his breath for the return trip. An odd thought occurred to him and he laughed out loud causing a few people to turn and
stare. He put his head back against the wood and closed his eyes, blocking out the sun so he could just listen to the lyrics of the beach. He smiled to himself as he thought about his absurd idea to rent a billboard on Route 17, emblazoned with:
If you know who Callie, Rand and Clint are,
call: 910-572-1456.
Yeah like she’d answer and ad like that. He wondered how many calls he’d get from the curious, the bored, or the intrepid reporters. Laura Lewis with The Brunswick Beacon had an interesting bent on things. He loved reading her articles and could tell a lot of her ideas for columns came from her keen sense of curiosity. What would she have to say about a billboard like that? He could hear her now, “Now Garrett, did you really think this would work, that your mystery woman would see this and just call you?”
He forced himself upright and after walking a hundred yards, worked himself back into a gentle loping jog. Sweat was pouring down his back where he could feel the sun beating on it. His hair, loose and free at the start of his run was thick and plastered to his head from the salt and dampness. He had to run around a series of sandcastles and avoid a few tide pools. Out on the horizon, shrimp boats were making their way back toward the jetty and Little River Inlet. The waves, curling and foaming as they made their way to shore brought a never-ending rhythm that he knew was as steady as his heartbeat. The day was so damn beautiful he had to stop, hands on hips, and just stare out to sea.
It was primal and thrilling and so constant you could bank on it, bet on it. He knew that the waves would roll in and touch the shore twenty-six times a minute, no matter what the weather. And no matter who died or lived, that they would never cease. As long as he stood here, they would never let him down.
Flash Drive Page 12
