A SEAL's Heart

by Winter, Nikki

  “No Fitz tonight, eh?” Cael questioned.

  Zuly sucked in a deep breath before letting it out on a sigh. “‘Fraid not, boys.”

  Sullivan nodded. “Didn’t think so. Seems we’re gonna have to go for plan B here, Cael.”

  “Right you are, Sully.”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Zuly tugged on each of their arms as they started past her. “What’s plan B?”

  “Beating the shit out of him ‘til he sees reason–” Cael started.

  “–and comes to understand that we’re not tolerating the Deliverance act anymore,” Sullivan finished

  Zuly’s lips quirked as she recalled her words to Fitz just half an hour ago. “You two do realize he’s a SEAL, right? Injured or no, he’ll fuck you both up beyond recognition.”

  Sullivan snorted. “Plan B involves a Taser, some duct tape and Justin Bieber. Trust me--we’ll win this battle.”

  She was still laughing as she reached the kitchen, stopping in the doorway to watch Miriam bustle around, directing her grandsons on the right way to roll croissants while her husband sat in his favorite corner, eyes glued to the small TV she’d allowed him to have.

  Miriam pulled up short, disappointment briefly flashing across her green eyes as she looked over Zuly’s shoulder and came away wanting. Rather than complain, she kissed Zuly’s cheek.

  “I told you not to bring anything.”

  Zuly locked fingers with the woman who’d been like a second mother to her. “Do I ever listen?” She paused. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t bring the one thing you wanted.”

  Miriam’s lips lifted in a sad smile. “He’ll come around.”

  “Sure will.” A very familiar rumble came from the doorway. “Might even be sooner than you think.”

  Both women pulled up short, Miriam gasping as she turned to find Fitz, cane in hand, standing a few feet away.

  He gave a shy grin. “Hiya, Ma.”

  ***

  “Ma, seriously. I had enough to...please stop adding stuff to my plate.” Fitz groaned, sitting back in his chair. He’d debated with himself for only God knew how long about coming before he fired up his truck and made his way to his parents’ home. The look of disappointment in Zuly’s eyes had been enough to haunt him into doing so, and the look of joy in his Mother’s eyes had been enough to make him believe he’d done the right thing. He was home and it felt good.

  “You’re too thin.” She cupped his face and looked to Fitz’s dad. “Is he not too thin, Dolan?”

  Before his father could even respond, Miriam was piling more food onto Fitz’s plate. “Way too thin...”

  “Doesn’t look thin to me,” Cael said, grinning.

  Fitz shot him a grateful look. “Thank you.”

  “Just funny-looking...period,” his older brother finished.

  Sullivan snorted. “Be nice, Cael. You know we were taught to be kind to those less fortunate. Just because he’s ugly doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve some respect.”

  “I hate you both,” Fitz murmured.

  Cael tsked. “Ungrateful. We’re not rubbing our stunning beauty in your face, and yet you can’t find it in your heart to say thank you?”

  “If you fell off the top of Carrigan Mountain I could say thank you.”

  “Boys,” Miriam admonished. “This is the first time my baby has been at this table in months. Leave him be.”

  Riley, who’d been quiet up until now, leaned forward and simply asked in a low tone, “And whose fault was that?”

  Gabriela reached for her husband’s hand. “Riley...”

  Fitz’s eyes met his brother’s, and tension thick enough to cut with a knife seemed to seize the movements of everyone at the dining room table. Zuly stopped talking to the boys about Little League. Maria stopped coloring. Cael and Sullivan stopped piling food. Everything just stopped.

  The pure resentment staring back at Fitz caused his breath to leave in a shallow puff of air. He’d felt this before. With Donelly. Across enemy lines. The slow rise of contempt.

  The longer they stared at one another, the thicker the tension became. Zuly reached for Fitz’s hand. “Hey...how about you and I go take a walk? Work off some of that food so–”

  “No,” Fitz interrupted, moving forward until his elbows were on the table. “You have something you want to say to me, Riley?”

  His brother mirrored his moves. “Yes. You’re selfish.”

  “Riley–” Miriam started but her oldest boy held up a hand.

  “We worried about you. We prayed for you. We sat and we waited for a phone call or for someone to come knocking on that door”--Riley jabbed a finger toward their parents’ front door--”to tell us you’d been blown to hell, and yet the first thing you do when you’re finally home, finally free, is hole up like you don’t give a damn about what Mom and Dad went through while you were gone--what we all went through?”

  Fitz rubbed his temples. “You don’t understand.”

  “Explain it to me, then.” Riley slapped a hand to his own chest. “Explain to me how I’m supposed to feel when the kid who I taught how to ride a bike, how to swim, how to fish, how to fight, won’t even answer one goddamned phone call.”

  “Riley, that’s enough,” Dolan snapped. “He’s here now. That’s what matters.”

  “Is it, Dad?” Riley looked from Fitz to his father. “Is that all that matters? That the precious baby boy is appeased? Tended to? His boo-boos patched up while the rest of us are left to feel like we don’t mean shit?”

  “You don’t know nearly as much as you think you do,” Fitz retorted softly, as calm as possible.

  “I know you’re an inconsiderate prick,” Riley replied.

  Tucking in his lips, Fitz nodded as he got to his feet. “And I’ll be that.” He looked to his mother, whose eyes were wide and watery and to his father who looked at a loss for what to say. “I’ll call you later.” He started from the dining room. When he heard a chair scraping backwards he thought it might be Zuly coming to stop him.

  “No,” Riley snarled from just behind him. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to stroll in an out of our lives when we sat around crying for your sorry ass.”

  Fitz sucked in a huge breath. “I’m leaving. Let it go, Ry.”

  “Fuck that. Stop running and face me like a goddamned man. Own up to the fact that you’ve been a coward!”

  Still walking, Fitz found himself just a few feet away from the door. Just a few more steps. One, two, three...

  A hand came crashing down on his shoulder. “I said turn around!”

  Instinct propelled Fitz into action. He let go of his cane and grabbed that same hand, twisting it. His body readjusted as he spun on his good leg and flipped the owner of that hand over his shoulder, sending him through the coffee table in the living room. The crash that sounded snapped him out of his haze of rage, and he froze as his family came rushing into the doorway. Riley lay dazed on the floor, pieces of wood and glass everywhere.

  Heart in his throat, Fitz looked to the people who were silently staring in abject horror. “I...I didn’t mean to... I’m so sorry...” Shame made his steps out of the house and down the porch quicker. He could hear voices calling his name but he refused to answer. Just kept walking. Past the driveway. Past his truck. He just kept walking.

  ***

  “Fitz!” Zuly’s throat was raw from calling his name, windows and sunroof down so her voice would carry farther than the confines of her SUV.

  She’d been searching for him for more than twenty minutes now, eyes scanning the surrounding woods and roads as she pulled away from the Carrigan household, flashes of the look in Fitz’s eyes causing her vision to blur.

  Zuly sped up once she saw a dark figure up ahead, moving down the graveled pathway at a steady but awkward pace. Coming to a stop, she barely put the car in park before she hopped out and shot toward him.

  “Fitz!”

  Despite the darkness, she could see him when he turned toward her. “Go b
ack, Zuly.”

  Catching up with him, she halted directly in front of him. “No. You need to go back and–”

  “Don’t,” he barked. “Don’t tell me what I need to do. Everyone is always telling me what I fucking need to do! Just stop!”

  “It’s my fault that you won’t open your goddamn mouth and ask for the help you so obviously need?” She stood toe to toe with him, gesturing back toward the house. “What was that shit? Since when can’t you face your brothers?”

  “I told you this shit was a bad idea. I told you.”

  “No, you gave me a bunch of excuses as to why you shouldn’t go sit down with your own family like an adult and have dinner.”

  “Because I knew this would happen.” His arms went up. “Did you not sit and witness that? My own brother hates me.”

  Zuly shoved him. “You’re so stupid! You think Riley would be that goddamn angry if he hated you? No, Fitz. He loves your pigheaded ass. He’s hurt because you’re hiding from him. From all of us.”

  “Don’t do that,” Fitz said softly. “Don’t push me.”

  She shoved him again, hands pressing into his chest with enough force to send him stumbling back a step this time. “Or what? You gonna flip me too?” She pushed him again. “Or are you gonna keep walking away from me like you don’t give a damn about me?”

  He caught her by the shoulders, shaking her a bit. “Do not ever fucking tell me I don’t care about you.”

  Zuly hit him in the chest. “Then act like it!” Fisting his T-shirt, she tried to keep tears from clogging her throat. “Fucking act like it and stop shutting me out.”

  Fitz let her go, shaking his head. “I’m not doing this with you.” He picked up his cane and started around her.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” she mocked with a glibness she didn’t really feel. “Walk right past Zuly because she’s your favorite toy. Because she’ll always be there for you to fall back on. Because you don’t really give a fuck how she feels. Because you’ll never love her the way she loves you...”

  Zuly could sense the moment it happened; the moment she pushed too far.

  He stopped in his tracks, shoulders tense as his cane once again hit the ground, fists clenching at his sides. Fitz turned slowly and grabbed her to him with a quickness that took the breath from her lungs. She had a second to search his face. “Fitz?”

  Staring down at her, shadows playing against his features, Fitzgerald Donahue Carrigan leaned in and kissed her. It wasn’t light. It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t romantic. There was a deliberate roughness in the way he pressed his mouth to her own; in the way he pried her lips apart with his tongue and swept it inside.

  Zuly’s hands fisted in his shirt once again then went lax as she melted against him, his arms caging around her as he pulled her body just that much closer. One huge hand let go of her biceps to reach up and run through her hair, gripping the strands firmly and pulling her head back for his assault as he nipped her lips, sucking the bottom rim into his mouth then releasing it with a wet pop. The slight sting at her scalp failed to even register as he licked and nibbled his way up the side of her neck, gently gripped where her pulse hammered between his teeth. His other hand swept down her back and to her ass, squeezing in a firm caress that had Zuly panting with the exertion it took not to fall at his feet.

  He kissed her like he owned her. Like he knew every secret valley and plane her body possessed. Like she’d been fantasizing about from the time she had her first self-produced orgasm while calling his name. Like he’d been waiting to do this for years. Fitz kissed her like she was his. And Zuly would acknowledge that, in this moment, she very much was. That right now she could never imagine the feel of another’s touch.

  Then suddenly he stopped and she whimpered.

  Pressing the same mouth that had stolen her ability to process what just happened to her ear, he whispered, “I love you more than you’ll ever be able to grasp. So much so that it’s almost biblical in its proportions. So much so that it could make God jealous. I smile for you. I laugh for you. I breathe for you. You hold me in the palm of your hand, Zuly. And there is no place else I’d rather be. But you need to go back. Now.” Fitz gently but firmly pushed her away from him and walked away.

  This time, she let him.

  Chapter Six

  When was the last time she felt this helpless? Zuly hadn’t seen or heard from Fitz in days. She’d gone by his cabin but he was nowhere to be found. None of his brothers had heard from him, and his parents were worried out of their minds. She wasn’t sleeping or eating, and concern had her mind occupied. That and the memory of his kiss.

  Where had that come from?

  “I love you more than you’ll ever be able to grasp…”Either she was really, incredibly oblivious or Fitz was incredibly good at concealing his feelings because she would have never thought...

  “You have to eat.” Kamilah, who’d been parked out at her place since Zuly called her blubbering a few nights ago, set a sandwich and a bag of chips down in front of her.

  She pushed it away. “I can’t.” Her stomach was in knots. Anything she forced down now would make a reappearance later.

  Her sister took the seat across from her. “I want you to know that what I’m about to tell you is coming from a place of love,” Kamilah started.

  “Oh, God, no...” The last time one of their conversations started like this, Kamilah told her the intricacies of sex. For an early child development professor, Zuly’s sister had no finesse.

  “You’re an idiot,” the other woman deadpanned.

  Zuly blinked at her. “Don’t ever become a counselor for the suicide hotline, ’kay?”

  “I’m serious!”

  “Which really makes this conversation worse!”

  “You’re an idiot because you’re just now realizing what I have been trying to tell you for years.”

  She quirked a brow. “That the man I’m in love with would go around throwing his siblings through furniture and sporadically kissing me like it’s his last day on Earth?”

  Calmly, Kamilah stared back at her then reached across the table, gripped Zuly’s nose between her pointer and middle fingers and slapped her own hand off.

  “Jesus Christ, Kammie!”

  “Stop sassin’ me!”

  Rubbing her face, Zuly sat back and questioned, “Are you gonna tell me that I have a purty mouf next, Obidiah?” She tucked her lips in when it looked as though Kamilah was going to slap her.

  “How long have I been saying that Fitz loves you?”

  Zuly shrugged. “Since the day you met him?”

  “But how many times have you really listened to the words? I mean heard them?”

  “Are you about to make an extremely good point? Or is this going to lead to more physical and verbal abuse?”

  Kamilah’s eyes narrowed. “It could be a bit of both.”

  Zuly shut up.

  Her sister stabbed at the table with her index finger. “Fitz loves you. I mean loves you. If you were dying from suffocation, he’d give you his last inhale.”

  I breathe for you...

  “He stares at you like you hold the very purpose of his existence.”

  You hold me in the palm of your hand...

  “Your opinion means everything to him. So if he thought for a moment that there was something he had done that would cause you to look at him differently, sweetheart, he’d try to wipe that very thing from the face of the Earth, never to be brought up again.” Kamilah stared at Zuly with eyes that held insight. “It’s the same reason children hide report cards with bad grades from their parents. The same reason a teenager is terrified to call after their first car crash. The same reason girls will wait until they leave the house to really wear what they want. I’ve seen this more times than I can count. Fitz isn’t running because he doesn’t care about your opinion. He’s running because your opinion and the ones his family hold shape who he is as a man. As a brother, a son, an uncle, a SEAL...and a potential husb
and.”

  Zuly’s eyes jerked to her sister’s. Kamilah nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen more love and adoration radiate off a man than when Fitz is near you. Do you get that? He’s held back all this time. He’s battling with whatever he’s done because he wants to be perfect for you. And the experience that is haunting him, the PTSD that is haunting him, mars that. It mars the man he wants to be. The Fitz he wants to be. You have the ability to cut him deep, and he wants to be impenetrable should it ever happen.”

  “He doesn’t have to be perfect...” Zuly murmured. “He’s already perfect.”

  Kamilah shook her head. “He doesn’t know that. If he goes to therapy. If he admits his problems. If he finishes the rehab on his knee, it would be admitting failure, it would be admitting he’s not made of steel.” Grabbing Zuly’s hand, she squeezed her sister’s fingers. “Z, you have to show him. You have to make sure he understands that his vulnerability isn’t a weakness. That he doesn’t have to always be the hero in your relationship, whether it leads to your admittance of being in love with one another or not. He needs to grasp that it’s okay to need you to hide under sometimes. The moment that clears in his head is the moment he can get help.”

  What was she supposed to say to that? Obviously her sister had been looking at this from a completely different perspective. Zuly had no illusions about the state of Fitz’s mental well being. Seeing a counselor was necessary at this point, and she’d questioned more often than not why he hadn’t taken the steps to do so, but now she had a better understanding. The problem was, how did she get him to see that needing help didn’t make him weak, but the refusal to voice his need did?

  Before she could ask that out loud, the phone in her sweat pants pocket began to sing “Titanium,” and without a moment of hesitation, she answered, knowing the ringtone signaled a call from the one person she’d been waiting to hear from for what felt like eternity.

  “Fitz?”

  There was a pause. “Z-Zuly?” His voice sounded garbled. Within a second it changed to something entirely different...almost perky. “Hi! I’ve...I’ve been trying to call...call you but this stupid phone.” Hiccup. “It wouldn’t work right.”