by Tawny Weber
“What brought all of this on?”
“It’s been in my head ever since dinner the other night,” she admitted, pacing in front of the couch as all the possibilities danced through her head. “Eric’s suggestion that I write something that’s more military seemed silly at first, but the more I thought about it, the more ideas I’ve had.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t change your life around. Especially not right now. Things are in flux, emotionally off-kilter because of everything that’s been going on.”
Sage stopped pacing. Not because she didn’t want to keep moving, but because her stomach was starting to churn and she figured staying still was smarter.
“Which everything might you be referring to?” she asked in her best professor’s daughter tone.
“Your father’s health, for one.”
“He’s doing a lot better. He’s stable enough for pancreatic surgery, and his odds of recovery from that are good.” That didn’t mean she wasn’t worried. But Dr. Brooke had assured her that this was a long road. It’d be silly to put her life on hold until they reached a new fork.
“Look, Sage, this is crazy.” He pushed his hand through his short hair and gave her a look of pure frustration. “You’re buying into this facade, the whole settling down, engaged couple, Villa Rosa future.”
She bit her lip. Facade?
Sure, their engagement was fake. But that didn’t mean their feelings were. At least, hers weren’t.
“I’m pretty clear on what’s fake and what’s real,” she pointed out gently. Getting angry was pointless. Besides, it’d ruin the celebration before they got to the naked parts.
“Sure, okay,” he agreed in a tone that said the exact opposite. She’d never wanted to take a pillow and smack him upside the head more than she did in that moment.
“I know real from fake, Aiden. Our engagement is fake. My loving you is real,” she blurted out.
Oh, hell. Panic surged through her system like a tornado, wreaking emotional destruction. Sage pressed her fingers against her lips in horror. Had she actually said that aloud?
Maybe it was frustration. It could have been the sight of his untouched champagne next to the photos of him as a little boy with his mother. Or maybe she’d simply kept it to herself for way too long.
It didn’t matter what it was. If his expression was anything to go by, she’d have been better to stuff her face into a pillow.
“You know, that’s the kind of admission a girl usually hopes will garner a happy reaction. Maybe a hug, a reciprocal declaration.” She folded her arms over her chest, as if that flimsy move would protect her heart. “But, hey, your look of oh, shit is appealing, too.”
“You don’t love me,” he told her, shaking his head. He sounded so sure, she almost nodded in automatic agreement.
Catching herself, she frowned instead.
“I think I know what I’m feeling,” she said tightly. At least, she was pretty sure she did.
“Sure, you think you do. But this is what you do, Sage. You throw yourself into the situation wholeheartedly. You’ve been playing loving fiancée so well, you’ve actually convinced yourself you love me.” He grimaced, then added in a tone that made her want to kick him, “Next thing, you’ll be convincing yourself that this engagement should be real instead of pretend.”
She clenched her teeth against the pain of hearing him dismiss her feelings, and her secret hope, so blithely. It wasn’t as though she really believed they had a chance. Or that she thought either of them, she or he, were marriage material.
But, dammit, she knew what she was feeling.
Before she could tell him that, he frowned, then sighed.
“Look, Sage, how many guys have you tried to save in your life? You get into their world, become their counselor, their nursemaid, their cheering section.” He waved all that away as if he were in need of, oh, absolutely nothing she had to offer. Then, as if afraid she hadn’t gotten the message, he added a verbal confirmation. “I don’t need that.”
“Are you saying you don’t care about me?”
He might not need what she had to offer. But the only way she’d be able to get past her own need to give him something, anything, besides her heart, was to hear it from his own mouth.
Aiden stared at his hands as if he were trying to gather his thoughts together. Finally, he met her gaze again.
“I do love you,” he admitted quietly. She took a quick breath, ready to explode with delight. Before she could say anything, before she even knew what to say, he shook his head. “But that’s not enough.”
“I love you and you love me. And that’s not enough?” she said faintly, her hands twisting together to keep from tossing them in the air at the craziness of that statement. “I’m sorry, Aiden. But I think that’s more than enough.”
“Look, the odds against marital success in the military are long. They’re even steeper in the SEALs. My team has had three guys pair up in the last few years. I figure they’ve called dibs on the positive relationship accomplishments for our platoon.”
“You don’t really believe that we don’t have a chance because someone else claimed the good relationship mojo first, do you?” Her words were somewhere between amused and baffled.
“I’m saying we don’t have a chance,” he clarified.
“Why?”
Aiden looked as if he was steeling himself for battle. His shoulders were stiff and his chin high. The expression on his face, so distant and dismissive, made her stomach churn.
“You’re not the kind to stick around, Sage. You flit from one quest to another. From this relationship to that, job after city after guy.”
“You’re saying I’m a flake?”
“Are you saying you aren’t?”
He thought she was too flaky to be in love with him? Or that she was too flaky to love? Since both options sucked, she didn’t bother to ask. Instead, her chin high, Sage took a deep breath. This conversation was humiliating enough. She’d be damned if she’d top it off by crying.
“What brought this on?” she finally asked.
“You, this crazy declaration. Your father and his grand plans for our life.” He waved his hand in the general direction of her father’s house, where she supposed the Professor had detailed the same grand plans for Aiden as he had for her.
“That’s it? You’re declaring us impossible because my father has some silly idea of how we should live our lives?”
“No. I’m simply declaring us impossible.”
Oh. Sage swallowed hard to get past the knotted misery in her throat. Well, then.
“You know what? I’ve got this reputation for running through life, unable to commit to anything.” Fueled by fury-inspired insights, she jabbed an accusatory finger at him. “But you’re the one who’s actually running.”
“Sage...”
“No,” she interrupted before he could finish whatever he planned to say in that placating, condescending tone. “Here’s the difference between us, Aiden. I might be running, but I’m running toward things. I’m chasing my dreams. But you? You’re running from life.”
“Me? Running from life? That’s such a bunch of crap.” He leaned in so close his breath ruffled the hair all the way on the back of her head. “I’m a SEAL, Sage. I don’t run from anything.”
“You’re running from your past. You’re running from decisions. You’re running from dealing with my emotions and the possibilities the two of us offer each other.”
“You’re talking crazy,” he said, dismissively.
That was it. Sage’s emotions exploded like a potato in a microwave, splattering all over the place in ugly chunks.
“At least I’m willing to try. At least I’m not a coward,” she said, her jaw clenched so tight her throat hurt.
Not as much as his probably did, the way his mouth dropped open.
“You’re calling me a coward?”
“I am.” Letting the rare ang
er wash over her, wrapping herself in the comfort of it, she offered a glare. “Physically, you are the bravest man I know. You risk everything for your country.”
His icy stare thawed a smidge.
“But emotionally, you’re still seventeen. You won’t take any emotional risks, you won’t let anyone get close to you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Name one.”
“Your father,” he said, his words snapped tight.
“First off, your relationship with my father is as close to purely intellectual as it’s possible to get. The two of you are two volumes of the same encyclopedia.”
“Nice.”
“And secondly,” she continued, talking right over his sarcasm, “you’ve already emotionally disconnected. You saw this entire engagement as a way to pay him back. To pay your dues. As far as you’re concerned, we might as well hold the funeral.”
“That’s crap,” he snapped, the ice gone now as hot fury took over his expression. “I’ll be damned if you’ll dismiss my relationship with the Professor so blithely.”
“Are you saying you didn’t go along with our charade of an engagement because you felt as if you owed him?”
“Of course I owe him. And I care about him and respect him.” Aiden gave her a look that said she was going to have to do a lot better than that. “Do you have a point?”
“Of course I do.” She had to take a deep breath, steeling herself against it, though. “Do you think my father will recover from this cancer? That he’ll live to see Christmas?”
His silence broke her heart.
“You go on back to hiding in the navy, Aiden,” she suggested, her voice thick with tears. “I’ll stay here and deal with real life.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
She had to give him credit for not rising to the bait. But that was Aiden. He only dealt in logic, never in emotions.
Wanting it all to be over so badly she could taste it, Sage got to her feet and slowly made her way to the door. Her body ached, as if it’d taken a beating right along with her heart.
Hand on the knob, she turned back to face Aiden. He had that stoic, emotionless look on his face. The one that made her want to either hug him tight or hit him in the head with a pillow.
“We had an agreement,” she said quietly. “The rules of our engagement, remember? And even though you think I’m a complete flake, I don’t back out of my agreements.”
With that, and one last look at him and that damned stoic expression of his, Sage walked out. She made it all the way to the bottom of the hill before she lost it.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, Sage wrapped her arms around herself and stared at her father’s house in the distance.
Instead of celebrating, she’d blown their entire relationship all to hell.
12
“ARE YOU FREAKING kidding me?” Aiden glared at the lousy cards in his hand, then threw them on the table so hard they scattered cash into the lap of the guy across from him.
“Dude, you are one grumpy mother.” Castillo grinned as he plucked a five and twelve ones off of himself.
Aiden clenched his teeth to keep the threat of an official reprimand from flying out.
Not because he had a problem smacking down insubordination, even if it was from a friend. Nope. What kept his mouth shut was that, officially, Castillo outranked him.
Aiden dropped his head and sighed.
And, yeah, that Castillo was a friend.
“What’s your problem?” the friend asked, pushing back from the table and making a show of counting his money as he crossed the room.
“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” Aiden muttered, scooping up the cards to deal a round of solitaire. A game he should be good at, considering he’d be going it alone. “I just need time to sort it out.”
“You’ve had time. And distractions. Whatever’s in there ain’t gonna sort itself. So maybe you should tell ole Castillo your woes and there ya go, quick as a snap—” which he demonstrated by snapping his fingers, the sound echoing like a shotgun blast through the barracks “—I’ll fix up your life.”
Aiden smirked. At six-four, two-twenty pounds of muscle, and Auntie as his call sign, Castillo was known for being bossy, pushy and, damn the man, always right. His cocky attitude, quick fist and ready hand to a friend made Aiden grateful he was on their side. But his insistence on fixing everything, everyone, was irritating at best. Hence, his call sign.
“I don’t need fixing,” Aiden said.
“You’re gonna keep throwing the cards around, copping an attitude and being a pain in my ass, you do.”
Three weeks back from leave, two days back from a training session in the Atlantic and Aiden was still in the same lousy funk he’d been in when he’d flown out of San Francisco.
He’d figured it’d take a couple days, max, to get over missing Sage. That’s all it’d ever taken before.
Of course, they’d never had sex before. They’d never been engaged before, nor had he been a complete dick and broken her heart before.
He figured all that would take at least an extra couple of weeks to get over.
He stared at the cards laid out on the table, not seeing a single move. Maybe because he’d made the wrong choice? He looked around the stark barracks, his bunk and wall-locker as barren and boring as the rest of the room. Was giving up all that, hurting Sage, worth this?
“You ever had to make a choice? A tough one?” Aiden asked quietly. Not looking up, he pulled the cards back into a stack and reshuffled.
“Life or death?”
Aiden grimaced, not surprised at Castillo’s tone. Yeah, yeah. Given the type of missions they went on, the objectives they carried out, that was a stupid question.
Crap. This talking about stuff was hard.
He debated sidestepping.
But, dammit, three weeks and he was still in a funk.
Clearly he wasn’t getting himself out on his own.
“No. More like, directions,” he decided with a vague wave of his hand. “Life.”
“I had to choose between a curvy blonde and a lithe redhead once,” Castillo said, dropping to his bunk, folding his hands behind his head and grinning. “Tough decision, given that they were both naked and offering up all sorts of enticements.”
“That’s not quite the life decision I was talking about.” Halfway through dealing out his solitaire pyramid, Aiden shot an arch look across the room.
“It was a life changer, my friend.”
“I’m sure.” Aiden dealt a hand of solitaire, his eyes locked on the cards.
“Don’t you want to know what I did?”
“I can live without the details.”
“Suit yourself.” With a wide grin, Castillo reached under his bunk and grabbed a small knapsack and started pulling out supplies.
“What the hell are you doing?” Aiden asked, eyeing the sports sock, blue buttons and a surgery-sized needle dangling thread.
“My nana sent me instructions for making a poppet. Sorta like a voodoo doll, but not.”
Despite his lousy mood, Aiden laughed.
“You’re making a Banks doll?”
The big guy glanced up from his awkward attempt to sew the toe into the shape of a head. His blue eyes were about as innocent as a three-year-old’s, and his expression pure as an altar boy. Yeah. He was up to something.
“A Banks doll? That’d be against protocol. I’m just researching a little family tradition. Sorta like an experiment.”
“That Banks’s sock?” Aiden asked, having read enough about indigenous beliefs to have a pretty good idea what the experiment involved. Since he had no belief himself in the possibility of it working, he didn’t bother asking about the hoped-for outcome.
If Castillo’s sewing was anything to go by, though, Banks’s head was in danger of falling off. Before or after he got a major belly ache and went bald.
“Found the sock in the laundry,” Castillo muttered, wincing when he st
abbed the needle into his thumb. He wiped the blood on the cuff of the sock. Whether it was part of the ritual, or just sloppy sewing, he made a show of rubbing it in real good.
“Banks’s sock?” Aiden asked.
“Could be.” Castillo squinted over his sock project. “Got a problem with that?”
“As long as you stay outta my socks, I don’t care what you do,” Aiden decided. The last guy who’d had a problem with Castillo was an air-force jet jockey, and he’d ended up in the infirmary.
“Why do you have such a beef with the guy?” Aiden asked. “We’ve teamed with plenty of gung-ho, by-the-book, medal junkies. You’ve always taken it in stride before.”
“Dunno.” Castillo shrugged. “Why don’t we talk about those life choices that’ve got you all pissy. Then we can talk beef.”
Right.
Aiden tilted his head, conceding the point.
Before he could figure out if he wanted any more of Castillo’s questionable advice—because hello, who needed to think when the choice was between a blonde and a redhead?—the barracks door opened.
Petty Officer Brody Lane strode in.
“Yo, Castillo. Masters,” he said in greeting as he crossed the room.
Aiden responded with an absent nod, more interested in how Brody was moving than whatever he had to say. Even after two weeks of maneuvers, the guy moved with ease. Good. That meant he was completely recovered from the injury that’d jacked up his leg and almost taken him out of the game earlier that year.
“You’ve got company,” Brody said, tossing his cap on his bed before snagging his stack of mail off the table. The guy lived two hours away from his fiancée, saw her often enough that his toothbrush barely had time to dry, and she’d still sent him at least a half-dozen letters. Hell, she’d have had to be writing some of those when he was lying in bed next to her.
Love. It was crazy.
“What company?” Aiden asked.
“Pretty lady. Didn’t want to talk to you here in the barracks,” Brody said, one eye on Aiden while thumbing through his mail. “She’s in the Joint Reception Center.”
