Cowboy SEAL Christmas

by Nicole Helm

  He wished he had less sense of decorum because that would have been very convenient under almost any other circumstance. But he wasn’t about to get drunk at his best friend’s wedding. He’d just needed an excuse to get off the dance floor.

  Monica’s conversation had sounded an awful lot like shrink talk on the surface, but he hadn’t been able to take it like that. Not with the vulnerable warmth in her eyes or the cast of worry to her pretty, red-painted mouth.

  It brought up the uncomfortable realization that she was a person, not just a shrink. He’d known that in an abstract sort of way. He was attracted to her after all. It wasn’t like he didn’t understand that she was more than just her job.

  But it was a lot nicer to be able to put that between them. Having to look at Monica as though she might be vulnerable, as though she might have concerns and worries just like his…

  Flirting with her was one thing when she blushed and stuttered, then got herself together and acted like she was going to take the bait when he had no doubt she never would. That was easy, even fun.

  There was nothing fun or easy about that conversation, about giving advice when she seemed to need it. Nothing good would come from reaching out and offering something to her.

  She wanted something that would take away the loneliness when what she really needed to understand was that loneliness was a way of life. When you stopped fighting it, that was when a lot more things made sense.

  Someone slapped Gabe’s back, and he looked over to find Alex grinning at him.

  “You okay there, big guy?” he asked, repeating Gabe’s words from before the ceremony.

  Gabe lifted his glass. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You sure ended that dance with Monica awfully quickly. Quick enough she was standing there, staring after you like you’d slapped her.”

  “Interesting interpretation,” Gabe replied, offering Alex a plastic cup. Alex took it, then nodded when Gabe held up the whiskey. Gabe poured.

  “What’s your interpretation?” Alex asked, turning around to survey the barn around him, leaning back on his elbows.

  Gabe felt he had to do the same, so he mirrored Alex’s pose. “Danced with her because the kid asked me to, then decided to get a drink. No quickly. No slap. Just a dance, and then not.”

  “Never knew you were so altruistic.”

  “Guess you don’t know everything about me.”

  Alex sipped his drink thoughtfully. “You know, I’m starting to realize how true that is.” He slid Gabe an all-too-perceptive glance considering the guy had just gotten married and should be wrapped up in his new wife. “And how purposeful.”

  Gabe nodded toward Becca. “Don’t you have a wife to pay attention to?”

  Alex looked at Becca, everything in his expression visibly softening. Which proved Gabe’s point. Alex didn’t belong over here quizzing him.

  “I do have a wife to pay attention to.” His smile widened. “Wife. Hell, that’s weird.”

  “She’s going to have you on the baby wagon so fast your head’ll spin. Once Rose pops that baby out? You’re toast.”

  Alex sipped again, and none of that smile left his face. “I’ll probably live.”

  “Just wait till you tell the kids you were stepsiblings once.”

  Alex only laughed good-naturedly.

  Gabe’s gut churned with an awful mix of happiness and something akin to jealousy. Except that wasn’t the right word. He didn’t want Alex’s life. Didn’t want Becca or babies. He didn’t want anything.

  So he didn’t know what that hurt was, and he’d be damned if he examined it here and now.

  “I didn’t come over here to talk about babies.”

  “But when you came over here, I decided to talk about things that made you a little green behind the gills.” Even though Alex wasn’t in the slightest. Still, it sounded good.

  “I came over here,” Alex continued as if Gabe hadn’t spoken at all, “because my friend looked a little miserable.”

  “You misread me, Alex.”

  Alex shrugged philosophically. “Maybe. Maybe I do. But regardless, I came over here to tell you I like Monica a lot. She’s got a nice pragmatism to her that’s hard to find. She’s good with people. You’re so wrapped up in that kid of hers you can barely see straight. There isn’t a reason in the world that I know of you shouldn’t be over there dancing with her again.”

  “You’re seriously trying to play matchmaker at your own wedding reception?”

  “I’m trying to figure out why my best friend looks like he’s miserable at my wedding reception.”

  “I’m not. I’m not miserable.” Misery wasn’t the right word. Not that he knew what was. And he didn’t want Alex to think it was misery, so he’d give a little, and then he wouldn’t have to dig into the rest. “I’ve never been so happy to see two people married. Never been so happy to be able to be there for something good and right. We deserve that good. You deserve that good.”

  “Deserve is a funny word. I’m not sure we ever get what we deserve out of life. Good or bad.”

  Gabe laughed a little bitterly at that. God knew there were people in his family who hadn’t gotten what they’d deserved. He’d been kicked out, forced to abandon everything all for lies. After he’d done everything to fit the part, to give them what they’d wanted. What had it gotten them? He was alone, and they were together.

  He downed the remainder of his paltry drink and pushed those thoughts away. His family had no place here. What they deserved or didn’t, it didn’t matter to him because he wasn’t a part of it anyway. He was here. In this good place.

  His gaze found Monica across the room. Colin stood in front of her, and she had her arms around him. She was talking to Hick with that bright smile on her face as though the conversation about being lonely had never happened.

  Except it had happened, and she’d put to words things that would haunt him for days or weeks.

  “Once upon a time, when I was stomping around quite resolute in not getting mixed up with Becca—”

  Gabe snorted. “The stomping is incredibly accurate.”

  “Jack said something that stuck with me. Changed my mind or my life or some damn thing.”

  “And what is this nugget of wisdom?”

  “That he cared as much about my future and happiness as I cared about his. That he wanted what was best for me, that you both did.”

  “You got your best,” Gabe returned, nodding at Becca. He understood what Alex was getting at, but Gabe was different. He didn’t know how or why. He only knew that no one had ever loved him. Maybe he’d never really loved anyone in return. Maybe he wasn’t capable.

  But here was Alex, the man he’d spent the last fifteen years with, through a hell he’d never imagined, even when his home life had felt like hell. Alex Maguire was his brother, if not by blood, then by everything else. Because that’s what fighting a war side by side did to men—turned them into brothers. Gave them the capacity to love someone outside of their family. Outside of their duty.

  “If I had any clue what was best, I’d have it. If I had any idea what I was afraid of, I’d fight it,” Gabe said, more baldly than he’d planned.

  “We fought a lot of enemies we didn’t know.”

  “That was a different life, Alex. A life that is long gone.” Like so many of the lives he’d lived and lost. So many lives and people who’d been blown out from under him.

  “It’s been years since we lost that life. And in those years, we’ve started building new ones. A family. A foundation. You can keep yourself separate from those things because you think that’s what you need to do or whatever it is that keeps you trapped behind this wall. But we are your family. We are here, and we are part of that foundation and that life. No matter what. Forever.”

  “So you’re suggesting I sleep with your shrink?�
� Gabe asked, because the emotion was getting too thick, too hard to fight through, and he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

  Alex shook his head and shoved away from the bar. “I’m suggesting you think about building instead of protecting. I’m suggesting you reach out instead of push away. I’m suggesting you give and receive. And I’m telling you that even if you don’t, even if you’re not ready, we will all be standing here waiting. Loving you and wanting the best for you the whole time.”

  Gabe tightened his jaw against not just this moment, but the whole of the day. Something a little too close to tears. It was too big and too much. This kind of emotion did terrible things to people. It made them believe. It made them hope.

  But belief and hope always died, at least for him, and he couldn’t let himself fall into the trap of believing it.

  * * *

  As the crowd began to disperse, Monica insisted Jack and Rose head home. Both argued that they should help clean up as originally planned, but Monica could tell Rose was drooping about as hard as Colin was. Colin could sleep anywhere. The pregnant woman could not.

  But it wasn’t until Gabe stepped in, a few well-placed sarcastic quips and that easygoing smile that was such complete and utter crap, that they agreed to be on their way.

  So it was just her and him. And Colin trying desperately not to fall asleep on a hay bale decoration where he’d curled up to keep playing his game.

  “Um.” She winced at the um considering how much time she’d spent working on speaking without hesitations. Um did not inspire confidence in her patients.

  Gabe wasn’t her patient. Colin, Becca, Rose, Hick—this list of people who did not look at her to be their therapist. She could say um. She could be wrong.

  “We left all the stuff in the bunkhouse. I mean, like…clothes. I need to change my…clothes.” She maybe could be wrong, but good God, she could at least be coherent.

  “So I can expect lots of lacy female stuff all over my man cave?”

  It surprised a laugh out of her. “Yeah, we’re quite the lacy female trio. Just give me a few minutes to head over there and change and—”

  “You can go home.”

  Monica looked around the barn. It wasn’t trashed or anything, but there was plenty to put away. And there was Ron Swanson, munching happily on the flower crown he’d finally managed to get off.

  “I can’t leave you with a mess and a goat.”

  Gabe grimaced at the animal. “Sometimes I think I like the rooster better. At least he doesn’t have those demon eyes.” But his gaze slid to Colin. “Get him home. I can handle this.”

  It didn’t feel right, and she couldn’t help but wonder if this had to do with their conversation earlier. He didn’t want to be around her. He didn’t want to hear about loneliness. He’d rather run away, and he’d probably faced men with guns and bombs and stuff.

  She was that big of a mess. Yikes.

  But she was also not going to run away from herself. She was not a coward, and she was up for the challenge of…something. She wouldn’t find out if she didn’t keep moving.

  “How about this? I’ll clean up some of the easy stuff that won’t ruin my dress, and then we’ll head out. That way I didn’t just dump an entire wedding’s mess on you.”

  Gabe shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  Yes, she would suit herself. She passed Colin, who’d finally fallen asleep and was snoring faintly. She slipped the handheld device out of his hands and stashed it in her bag.

  “Impressive, really.”

  “He’s always been a good sleeper. Can sleep anywhere. Anytime. My mom used to get so irritated by it.” Monica smiled at the memory. “Apparently, I was a terrible baby, and how dare I get such an easy one.”

  “You didn’t have anyone’s help. Probably deserved one.”

  “I had her for help. And my dad. When I was a baby, even though my dad was alive, he was deployed. Mom lived on the base far away from her family.”

  “Doesn’t base life come with a built-in support system?”

  “Sometimes. But you have to be willing to open yourself up to it, and my mom isn’t one for asking for help.”

  “Gee, that doesn’t sound familiar.”

  She glared at him as she tossed some napkins and plastic cups into the trash. “I had a lot of help in the early years.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I wanted… Well, it felt necessary to do some things on my own. I finished school. Colin started school. I was an adult and I’d been through a lot, but it had all been with my parents. After Dex died, I moved into their house. I lived with them until Colin was five. Suddenly I was twenty-five and I’d only lived for little over a year without them. It seemed…important to stand on my own two feet.”

  He didn’t say anything to that, so she glanced his way as she pulled tablecloths off the handful of tables in the corner. He’d taken off his suit jacket a while ago, since the heaters kept the barn suitably warm. Now he had his sleeves rolled up as he folded chairs and stacked them.

  She watched him for a moment, because there was an effortless grace in the way he moved. There was a mesmerizing quality to the way his forearms flexed when he picked up a chair and relaxed when he moved for the next. And comparing and contrasting the arm without a scar and the one with a jagged one down to his wrist was damn near irresistible.

  “Want me to flex a little? Give you a real show?” He angled his head to meet her gaze and grinned.

  “I was looking at your scars,” she said as haughtily as she could manage with the heat stealing into her cheeks.

  “That crash did quite the number on this canvas of human perfection, I have to say.”

  She rolled her eyes and turned back to her work folding and stacking tablecloths. When she glanced over at him again, he was carefully rolling up the aisle runner. A big man, rough and tumble, in a suit, rolling up a pretty little scrap of fabric. And yet the way he crouched as he did the chore was so military.

  She was reminded of their conversation last night. He didn’t just let anyone know why he’d joined the military, and she said she’d take the challenge to be a somebody. Well, here was her chance.

  “Your father was military.”

  He frowned and looked up at her. “Huh?”

  “I’m trying to figure out what made you join. Following in your father’s footsteps is my first guess.”

  He shook his head and finished rolling up the runner. “Only thing I know about my father’s footsteps is they were Dominican, and I inherited his double crown.” Gabe rubbed a hand over his close-cropped hair.

  “You joined to pay for college.”

  He shrugged and placed the rolled-up runner across a line of chairs that didn’t fold. “Didn’t go.”

  “You joined to get away from your family.”

  There was the slightest moment where he tensed and hesitated, and she knew if not exactly it, she was close. “You know, you should be mad at me.”

  She blinked, trying to understand him at all. “Mad at you? Why?”

  “Because if you weren’t a therapist, just a regular woman—”

  “I am a regular woman,” she interrupted between clenched teeth.

  “—you would’ve been mad I ditched you on the dance floor. And you’d make me pay for it. Instead, you’re trying to figure me out. You should be mad. You know, if you’re learning how to be Monica or whatever.”

  Oh, she was mad. Now. She tapped her chin, affecting her best “shrink” voice. “No father at home, but someone mentioned you had a big family. So, your mother must have remarried.”

  “Because let me guarantee you, a woman not trying to play therapist would be pretty irritated—”

  “And you didn’t get along with your stepfather?”

  “—to the point where she would have taken off when I told her I didn’t
need help cleaning.”

  “If I had to guess, as both a mental health profession and a damn real woman, I’d say your mother had children with your stepfather and you felt left out.”

  He stopped working then, and she didn’t see any of the fury she’d expected. No, it was like he gathered himself up into soldier mode. So stoic and tense and menacing simply because he somehow changed the air around them, not because his expression was threatening.

  Slowly, he crossed his arms over his chest. “We seem to be talking at cross purposes.”

  Which sounded like something she would say. That calmness was supposed to be her, and it made her all the angrier that he was employing it. So she decided to take the Gabe role. She smiled. “Is that SEAL talk?”

  His expression flickered from stoicism to something dangerous. Her heart kicked against her ribs and nerves fluttered in her chest, and yet she stepped toward him. She wanted to dive into that dangerous. Poke it until something got through his stoicism or fake charm.

  She wanted to poke at him until the mask came off. Until she got behind the barriers. She wanted to reach whatever genuine man existed under that facade. She knew it existed because he was a kind, good man in action.

  She just needed him to express that goodness in words, too. Why? She hadn’t really figured that out, but maybe if she provoked him enough, she would.

  His eyes still glittered, but she watched as he very purposefully relaxed his shoulders, his jaw. A grin curved his mouth. “You know, I bet we can find a purpose not to cross on.” His gaze flicked to Colin’s sleeping form. “If we were alone.”

  “You like to throw your innuendo around an awful lot, but you’ve never once acted on it.”

  He was suddenly so much closer, and she wasn’t sure how he’d done it so fast, so quiet. He was looming over her, all sharp edges and so many emotions she couldn’t sort through them all.

  She didn’t want to. She wanted to absorb them rather than dissect them. Reach out and stand through the storm with him.

  “Is that a dare, Monica?” he asked in that silky, dark voice that slithered along her skin. Part nervous fear, and then deeper, a kind of want she didn’t know what to do with. Except move away from it.