You Were Always Mine (7 Brides for 7 SEALs Book 1)

by Cerise DeLand

  “Abby, look at me.” He swept a hand down his torso. “You think this is fun. You think you could cope with this?”

  “Plenty do,” she told him, her gaze locked on his. “Soldiers, fathers, mothers, sisters, wives, fiancés, lovers. Even girlfriends. Girlfriends who should be more. If you let them.”

  He shook his head. “Stop, Abby.”

  “No.”

  “Who told you? Nick? Hell. Doesn’t matter.”

  She shifted in her seat, ready to pin him down. “Do you get to decide who copes with the challenges of life? Wow, color you god.”

  “Abby.” He gulped. “I won’t talk about me. This is you and him we’re discussing. You more than him. You could have anyone you want.”

  “I haven’t wanted anyone.”

  “Too devoted to your job,” he scoffed.

  “Not really. Maybe it looked that way, but there are other things I’d like to do.”

  “Yeah? Like what?” He wasn’t challenging her so much as he was surprised and needed info.

  “Paint. Draw.”

  “You know mom always said you can’t make a living at that.”

  “Maybe. But just because she didn’t or didn’t want to or didn’t try, doesn’t mean I can’t. Or that I won’t.”

  He lifted a hand and let it drop to the bed in surrender. “You amaze me.”

  “Good.” She sniffed. “I intend to do it more often. Nice, ordinary Abby who never rocked the boat, never broke out to take what she wanted, just took what was given is gone.”

  “You make yourself sound like a wuss. That’s not the kid I knew. The one who wanted to try out for the boys soccer team, the one who stood up to the principal and made him recognize the gay and lesbian tennis squad.”

  She pursed her lips and smiled. “I had guts then. Lost them somewhere in all my mediocre pursuit of the good life.”

  “And now?” He was laughing. “Now you’re going for a brass ring?”

  “A man I want. A profession I want. Yes.” She skewered him with a hard look. “So now let’s talk about you.”

  He grimaced. “Nope. Off limits.”

  “Not today. Today we talk about why you haven’t called this woman you care about and told her where you are and how you are.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Same reason you should not be considering a life with Reardon. I wanted to promise her forever but thought it unfair of me to do that. Instead, I lost whatever good life we might have had because I didn’t seize the day. And the reality of this now is that she wouldn’t want me.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  He pointed to his chest. “I make the decision.”

  “Swell. You make it for her. She has no ability to decide how she lives.”

  “Stop it, Abigail. Stop. It. And look at me.”

  “I am. I see a man who is determined to rob a woman he cares for of her ability to make her own choices in life.”

  “I am no macho man.”

  She laughed. “Of course you are. The biggest, oldest kind there is. Get off your throne, buddy. Give the woman you love a chance to make her own choices. Besides, do you care for her because she’s a marshmallow?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I take that as a no. Good.”

  “I’m not pretty. And I talk funny.”

  “Even Bugs Bunny had girlfriends. So did Popeye.”

  “Suddenly you’re a comedian.”

  She leaned forward, glad she had him sparring with her. “Terry, call her. If she’d wanted you only the way she discovered you, would that have been a strong foundation for all your tomorrows together?”

  “You can’t ask a woman to love a freak.”

  Her brother was a stubborn man. “Did she love you for your looks? Or for your uniform?”

  “I don’t think so. But—”

  “But love can survive only if everyone is perfect, healthy, young, and vibrant?”

  He crushed the sheets in his good hand.

  “Or does love grow and prosper despite the imperfections of people? I think she’d want to know you were injured.”

  “I don’t want her pity.”

  “No. But your self-pity is prohibiting you from asking her to forgive you and let you love her.”

  He stared at her. “That’s low.”

  “If the shoe fits—”

  “You’re a hard nut, you know that?” he asked and contemplated her. “When did that happen?”

  “Not sure.” She flexed her shoulders. “I’m still growing into my skin.”

  “Well, I still love you.”

  “Gee, thanks. My consolation prize.” She dropped the funny tone. “Do you still have her phone number?”

  He nodded.

  “Good. I hope you use it.” She squeezed his hand. “And now I need a favor.”

  Inhaling, he relaxed into his pillows. “Only if you’re no longer chewing me out.”

  She spread her hands wide in surrender. “Please give me Nick’s phone number.”

  Chapter Nine

  Abby turned the key of her condo at dusk the next afternoon and collapsed onto her sofa. Her flight had been delayed, and she’d spent most of her time at the airport worrying about her inability to contact Nick. Though Terry had given her his phone number, Nick wasn’t returning her calls or her texts. She understood he might have had to go dark quickly, given the urgent nature of his deployment. Her emotions ran the gamut from elated that they’d met and begun a relationship to despair that the weekend was too short. A fling.

  Certainly, when she’d gotten back to the hotel after her visit with Terry, she’d taken one look at the room, empty of Nick’s belongings, and felt a stab of loss. He had filled her hours, her mind, her body all too briefly…and yet he had become a living, breathing essential part of her. He was gone. Hopefully, not for long. He’d return and they could take up the remarkable project of discovering each other all over again in even more detail.

  She glanced around the bedroom and plunked down on the bed. She let her gaze travel to the far wall and wondered if Mabry still sat in room two-twenty-two. Or if he’d returned to his normal realms, wherever that was. She’d ached for him and his loss, sitting there staring at the far wall until the rays of the setting sun shown red in the dying day.

  What had happened to Mabry after his search for his sister in San Antonio was a story she had to learn. Instead of focusing on her doubts about Nick’s and their affair, she concentrated on the details she could learn from Antoinette’s book. On the plane, she’d dug it from her briefcase. At home, she re-read it often, making notes, posing questions about her brother, his life and Antoinette’s, too.

  Two days after Abby returned home, she reviewed the notes she’d scribbled in the margins of the dog-eared book. Then she picked up her phone and called her cousin.

  “Karen, am I intruding on dinner?” She marched to the window to see the twinkling lights along Florida Avenue.

  “No, you’re not. How are you? Home already?”

  “I am. Glad to be here.”

  “Was it bad, meeting with Terry, I mean?”

  “At first, a little sticky, yes. But I think he’s progressing well. He has a girlfriend, someone he met before he was injured. I talked with him earlier, and he told me she came to visit him this afternoon.” Terry had sounded lively, happy. He’d told her that he was relieved he no longer avoided the issue of letting his girlfriend see him. “I think they’re going to be fine.”

  “Good for him. He’s such a swell guy. He’d have no trouble getting a girl to fall for him.”

  “I agree. But this young woman seems to be the right one for him.” Terry had told her that Catrina Galvan was a pretty, dark-haired young woman who lived in San Antonio. When Terry called her, Catrina was overwhelmed with tears and laughter. “She’ll be good for him.”

  “Just what he needs now.”

  “True.” Abby smoothed the cover of the book, s
miling at the sketch of Antoinette. “I have news for you about our long-lost cousin Antoinette Stuart.”

  “Terrific, because I’m having a devil of a time finding anything on her. One thing’s for certain, her name appears in the Census Records of eighteen-sixty, but by eighteen-seventy, she does not live there.”

  “Karen, she moved to Arizona in eighteen-sixty-six. And she got married. She and her husband, who was a doctor, moved west on a wagon train over the Old Spanish Trail. They bought land near Phoenix and lived there until they both passed away after World War One. The doctor had a practice there, and our Antoinette was a well-known painter who taught drawing and painting to other artists.”

  “How did you learn all this?” Karen sounded delighted.

  “By accident. You know I found that self-portrait of Antoinette. Well, in the bookstore on the grounds of the Alamo, they sell her memoirs.”

  “Abby! That’s wonderful! Oh, everyone will be so excited. We’ll have to get a few copies so we can sell them in our museum bookshop. Just think, a long-lost Stuart comes home.”

  Abby smiled at her cousin’s words. “I have the purchase information. Antoinette and her husband John had three children, all sons, and one of their granddaughters found her grandmother’s diaries and letters and published them a few years ago. She wrote to the people who run the Alamo bookstore and told them about the book, and they purchased copies because it describes the Alamo right after the Civil War and the Menger Hotel, too.”

  “We’ll have to get in touch with her and tell her about her extended family.”

  “We will.”

  “I’m dying to see the portrait of Antoinette. Can you take a picture with your phone and send it over?”

  “Sure. Right after I hang up.” Abby wasn’t going to tell Karen any more details about Mabry’s ghost or those she and Nick had seen inside the Alamo. Karen might love history and might adore family history, but she could freak out if Abby claimed to have met and talked to people who, according to appearances, had passed away nearly a century and a half ago. “I’ll send you the publisher contact information, too. It was in the front of the book.”

  “Wonderful. I am so excited. I want to read it.”

  Abby gazed at the drawing of Antoinette. “You’ll love it. She’s a very good writer, colorful and funny. Her story is heart-breaking.”

  “Why? What’s so sad?”

  “I’ll let you read it for yourself. But her memoirs show you how far we’ve come in our thinking and how important forgiveness can be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “During the war, Antoinette stayed on the farm with her mother and father, even when it was overrun by Union troops. She became friendly with a doctor from Pennsylvania who was put in charge of holding their farm and turning part of it into a hospital. She worked with the man to nurse the wounded and sick. He was a brave man, in many ways, admitting Union and Confederate casualties alike and doing it against orders from his commanding general. One of the soldiers he tended was Antoinette’s brother Mabry, and he saved his life. But when the war was over and the doctor returned to propose to Antoinette, Mabry refused to let her go. He said he was ashamed that his sister would consort with the enemy. He wouldn’t give his blessing to her marriage. The doctor left without her, discouraged. But she followed him all by herself, Karen. She took what little money she had saved and worked her way south to San Antonio and there in the Menger Hotel, she found her doctor. They were married there and joined a wagon train west.”

  “And yet Mabry never found her,” Karen sounded sad. “I wonder why.”

  “Antoinette writes in her book that she did see her brother there. But she was so angry with him that she didn’t reveal to him that she was there. She was afraid he’d try to force her to return to Virginia.”

  “That’s very sad. Mabry couldn’t forgive her, and he died forlorn that he hadn’t found her.”

  “But Antoinette had a wonderful life. She chose well. So all was not lost.”

  “Antoinette was very brave to travel so far in such rough country after such a devastating war.”

  Abby nodded. “She certainly was. She deserved her happiness and so did her husband.”

  “I’m so delighted you found this. Her!”

  “Me, too. She’s an inspiration. To a lot of people, including me.” Abby inhaled. “Now, let me tell you what I am about to do.”

  ****

  Two weeks later, after ten o’clock one night as she padded around her condo ready for bed, her phone rang. She halted in the middle of her living room. Walked around all the packing boxes and peeked at the screen of her phone.

  Nicholas Reardon.

  Nicholas Reardon was calling her! Finally.

  And no. She doubled checked the screen. She was not dreaming.

  Her past two weeks had been hell. She bit her lower lip and bucked up, ready for the Big Reveal. In two weeks’ time, Abby had experienced every emotion known to anyone who cared for a man in the military. He was well, she told herself each morning. No news was status quo. She would waiver, fear he was injured. The military would not notify her if he’d been wounded because she was only a girlfriend not next of kin. A half dozen times, she thought she’d try to call his sister at the restaurant and prevail upon her to tell her that he was well, unharmed. But she always decided against that. Nick had introduced her as a friend. Not a lover.

  If they could be lovers, given the brevity of their time together, she wanted that. She believed that what they had said, what they had done, how they had connected with each other showed they were meant for each other. And would more time change that? She thought time would only deepen her attraction to him and would bet he felt the same about her.

  In the past fourteen days, she had done more than put her feelings on the line. She had wagered he would return home and want her as much as she wanted to be with him.

  She shut her eyes and grabbed hold of the newfound courage that Antoinette’s tale had granted her. “Hello.”

  “Hi! How are you?” He sounded so tired.

  “Wonderful. You?”

  “I just turned on my civilian phone and saw that you called and texted me the day I left San Antonio.”

  “I did, yes. I hoped I might catch you before you left, but—”

  “I’m sorry about not getting back to you sooner, Abby. I couldn’t. We went too fast.”

  “It’s fine. I understand.”

  “I hope you didn’t worry that I wouldn’t call you back.” His words were definitely a question.

  “I knew you possibly couldn’t.”

  “Well, hell. Which means you did think I’d disappear. Great.”

  She skipped over an answer to that and cut to the chase. “I want to see you. Soon.” Say you want to see me, too.

  “Ditto.”

  She heard a car door shut and footsteps on his end of the call. “I have lots to tell you.”

  “Me, too,” he said, sounding like he was walking in the open air with sounds of the street around him.

  “I think I know why Mabry was in the hotel room.”

  He chuckled, sounds of blaring car horns coming through the receiver. “Mabry? Hell, I’d forgotten about old Mabry.”

  “And I found out a lot about Antoinette, too. You’re going to love the story.”

  “I hope I’m gonna love everything you tell me. Hang on a second, honey.”

  His phone went to silent.

  The intercom from her receptionist’s front desk buzzed, and she walked to the box to push the button.

  “So where are you, Nick?”

  She still got no sound from his muted phone. Hmm. “Yes, Hal. What is it?”

  “Visitor, Miss Stuart.”

  Abby’s curiosity spiked. “Oh? I’m not expecting anyone. Who is it?”

  “Lieutenant Reardon, Miss.”

  She chuckled. “Right.”

  “Should I send him up?”

  “Do.”

  She zoomed ou
t of her condo headed straight for the hall and the bay of elevators.

  When the doors opened, out stepped a giant in Navy fatigues. Nick Reardon, bleary-eyed but tanned and beautiful, caught her up and crushed her close. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him and kissed him until she had to look at him to confirm with her eyes he was real.

  “I’ll go away often if you promise to give me welcomes like that when I get home.”

  “That promise is so easy,” she said and put her lips to his once more. Breaking away, she grinned at him, and he hugged her so tightly she lost her breath.

  “Come with me.” She led him along the corridor to her apartment and inside. She shut the door and ran a hand through his hair. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? You have your fatigues on. You look so tired.”

  “I am. I drove up from Virginia first thing. I saw your texts and calls and knew I had to present myself quickly or you might shoot me for desertion. Or worse, never talk to me again.”

  “Oh, I wanted to talk to you, all right.” She loved the feel of him, so large, so solid in her arms. She adored his character, so dedicated to her that he’d drive to get to her quickly after being released from duty. “But I worried. Mostly about you being hurt, and I tried not to dwell on any other thoughts.”

  “I told you I’d come back. And that I’d come for you.”

  “I do have a lot to tell you. So much has happened in two weeks.” She tugged him into her living room. “Have a seat. Would you like wine? Coffee? Tea? Have you had dinner?”

  Stiff, he stood in the midst of her crowded living area and frowned at the sight before him. “What’s all this?”

  She watched him take in the number of cardboard boxes stacked around the floor. He wasn’t happy. “I’m moving.”

  Pain flashed through his bright blue-green eyes. It made him look older, more haggard. “Why?”

  “I’m leaving Washington and my job. I’m taking a bit of money from my savings and I’ve decided to live by my art.”

  “Sketching and painting?”

  She nodded, suppressing the urge to wring her hands, knowing she’d look like a schoolgirl if she did. “My lease is up at the end of September.”

  “Is that right?” His lips thinned.

  “I’ve contracted with movers, but I don’t know what date to give them.”