He shook his head. “Don’t know.”
“My father didn’t attend my high school graduation.” But at least she knew what had been more important. “He was branding cattle.” She thought of the events of the day and all the Clive stories. Good and not so good. The last time she’d seen him, they’d made more of a connection than they had in years. She got a glimpse into her father that she’d never seen before, but it had no way been the big emotional connection she’d always longed for. “Your father is still alive, maybe he’ll change.”
“I don’t care.” He looked into the box and pushed stuff around. “I don’t think people change unless they really want to. No one changes just because someone else wants it. And even if he does, it’s probably too late.”
She didn’t think that was true, but who was she to argue? She’d never made true peace with her father. Not the kind of big, satisfactory Hollywood ending that would have tied things up in a nice bow for her. If he’d lived another ten years, she probably never would have gotten that from him. She looked in the box and pulled out a blue helmet with “Haven” written in white on the front and “228” on the sides. “What’s this?”
“Second phase BUD/S helmet.” He took it from her hands and set it on her head. It fell to her brows. “It matches your eyes.”
She pushed it up. “It covers my eyes.”
He took out a gold medal from a velvet box and pinned it to the T-shirt. “You look really hot in my helmet and Trident.”
“Really?” She chuckled. “How many women have you let wear your helmet?”
“That particular helmet, none.” He lowered his mouth to the side of her throat and said against her skin, “You’re the first woman to touch my Trident.”
She didn’t know if that made her special or not, but his warm mouth against her skin did special things to her insides. “I don’t have anything for you to touch.”
“You have lots of things for me to touch.” He slid his mouth to just below her ear. “Soft things. Things that feel good.”
“You’ve already touched those things.”
“I want to touch them a lot more.” She tilted her head back, and his helmet fell onto the counter. “I like touching you,” he said between kisses across her jaw. “I love going deep.”
He loved going deep, but that didn’t mean he loved her. In the past, she might have gotten that twisted around in her head to mean that this emotionally unavailable man loved her. He didn’t, and she could never let herself have any deep feeling for him.
The doorbell rang and Vince lifted his head. His brows lowered, his eyes a little glassy. “Who could that be? No one but you knows where I live.”
“Pizza guy.”
“Oh yeah.” He blinked. “I forgot.”
Together they sat in the middle of Vince’s empty living room and chowed down on double pepperoni and drank Lone Star. Sadie was surprised by how much she ate, given her own house was filled with funeral casseroles.
“I don’t think pizza is energy food. I feel like a slug now,” she said as she leaned back on her elbows and stretched out her full stomach. “If I keep hanging out with you, I’m the one who’s going to get fat.” At the moment, there was no place she’d rather be. There was, however, someplace she needed to be. “I should probably get home.”
“I should probably show you my air mattress first.” Vince washed down his last bite with Lone Star and set the bottle on the empty box.
“Why?” She’d seen the air mattress and double sleeping bag when he’d shown her around the apartment. “Does it do something extra special that other mattresses don’t?”
“It will once I get you on it.”
“Are we gonna spoon nekkid?”
He nodded. “Nuts to butts.”
Her soft laugh turned into a yawn. “You’re so romantic.”
Something was wrong. Sadie sensed it before her lids fluttered open. For several disorienting seconds, she couldn’t remember where she was. She heard a thump and looked about the dark room. She was at Vince’s. In his sleeping bag on an air mattress. She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, but it was full dark now. She turned her head and looked across at the empty pillow next to her.
“Roger that!”
Sadie rose and grabbed Vince’s brown T-shirt off the floor. Another thud and she threaded her arms through the shirt and moved toward the hall. It sounded like he was fighting an intruder.
“Fuck it!”
“Vince!” She had a fleeting thought of grabbing something to help, but she knew there was nothing.
“Kill all those goat-herding fuckers!”
Light from the kitchen stove worked its way into the hall. One darker shadow moved within variegated light. “Vince?”
“Oh God.” He panted hard, like he’d been running for ten miles in the blazing heat. “Oh fuck! . . . Wilson.” He moved a few steps back. “Hang on, buddy . . . Shit. I’ll fix you up.”
Wilson? Who was Wilson?
He knelt; the dim light shone on his naked thigh and waist. Tension made the air thick. “Don’t do this, Pete.”
“Vince?”
His breathing got worse. More rapid. He coughed and gasped. Light caught on his hard arm, the veins bulging like he was lifting weights. He was huge, crouching in the narrow hall. “Stay with me.”
“Vince!” She didn’t touch him. Didn’t go any closer. She wasn’t afraid of him. She was afraid for him. Afraid he was going to hyperventilate or hurt himself. “Are you okay?” she asked, although he clearly wasn’t.
He jerked his head up and she thought he might have heard her. “The helo’s coming. Hang on.”
She turned on the bedroom light and knelt on one knee in the doorway. “Vince!” His wide eyes stared into hers, staring at something that only he could see. Her heart broke for him. Cracked all apart. She didn’t mean for it to happen. She had no control.
He jerked his head up and back like he was watching something in the sky. His mouth opened as he pulled air into his lungs, and his hands moved in front of his chest like he was grabbing at some invisible something.
He was usually big and powerful and in total control of everything around him. “Vince!” she yelled.
He blinked and turned his unseeing gaze toward her. “What?”
“Are you okay?”
His mouth snapped shut and his nostrils flared as he breathed through his nose. His brows lowered and he looked around him. “What?”
“Are you okay?”
“Where am I?”
Her heart heaved and cracked a little more. “In your apartment.”
The sound of his heavy breathing filled the hall and he returned his wide gaze to hers. “Sadie?”
“Yeah.” It felt like she was falling through the cracks in her heart. Right there in the hall of his unfurnished apartment. On the worst possible day of her life. She tried hard. Tried hard not to fall in love with Vince Haven, the most unavailable man on the planet, but she did.
“Jesus.”
Yeah. Jesus. She moved toward him and placed her hand on his shoulder. His skin was hot and dry. “Can I get you something?”
“No.” He swallowed hard and leaned his back against the wall behind him.
She rose anyway and moved through the living room to the small kitchen. She grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. She tried hard not to cry for him and for her, but her tears slid down her cheeks and she wiped them away on the hem of Vince’s T-shirt. When she returned, he still sat with his back against the wall, his forearms resting on his bent knees. His gaze staring up at the ceiling.
“Here.” She knelt beside him and unscrewed the bottle cap.
He reached for the water but his hand shook and he made a fist instead.
“Are you going to be okay?”
He licked his dry lips. “I’m fine.”
He wasn’t fine. “Does that happen often?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
He obviously wasn�
�t up to talking about it. She kissed his hot, dry shoulder. “I love the way you smell,” she said. He didn’t say anything and she sat next to him and wrapped her arm around his bare waist. She loved him and it scared the hell out of her. “Who’s Wilson?”
He looked down at her, his brows drawn. “Where did you hear that name?”
“You called it out.”
He turned his gaze away. “Pete Wilson. He’s dead.”
“Was he a buddy?” She grabbed his fist and forced the plastic bottle into his hand.
“Yeah.” Water leaked out the corners of his mouth as he took several big gulps. “He was the finest officer I ever met.” He wiped the water away with the back of his hand. “The best man I’ve ever known.”
“How’d he die?”
“Killed in the Hindu Kush Mountains in central Afghanistan.”
Anger rolled off him and tension turned his muscles even harder. “What can I do to help you?” she asked. He’d been so good to her the past week. Just when she’d needed him, he’d been there. Driving her and walking beside her with his hand on the small of her back. Talking to her and sometimes not saying anything at all. Rescuing her even when she didn’t ask. Working his way into her heart when that was the last place he wanted to be.
“I don’t need help.” He stood, and her hand slid down his bare leg. “I’m not a little girl.”
She stood up and looked into his green gaze. “Neither am I, Vince.” Right before her eyes she watched him draw inward. She didn’t know where he went, other than he was gone. “Vince.” His name caught in her chest, clogged with emotion, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. She pressed herself against his hard, hot chest and rambled, “I’m sorry. It must be horrible. I wish there was something I could do.”
“Why?”
“Because you helped me when I needed you. Because I’m not lonely when you’re around. Because you rescue me even when I don’t ask you to.” She choked back her tears, and opened her mouth to tell him that he was big and strong and wonderful. That he was the best man she’d ever known. Instead something raw and new and really horrible tumbled out, “Because I love you.”
Awkward silence stretched between them until he finally said, “Thank you.”
Oh God. Had he just thanked her?
“Let’s get you home.”
His hands stayed at his sides, but his words felt like a physical push. She’d just told him she loved him and he reacted with a thank-you and an offer for a ride home.
“It’s late.”
She dressed quickly in her black dress and shoved her feet into her cowboy boots. Neither spoke much as she grabbed her hat and clutch purse on the way out the door. An uncomfortable silence filled the cab of the truck as Vince drove toward the JH. An uncomfortable silence that had never existed before. Not even the first time she’d seen him standing by the side of the road, the hood of his truck raised.
She didn’t ask if he would call or text. She didn’t ask when she would see him again. No more declarations of love. She had more dignity than that when the last thing he wanted was her love. He’d always been clear about that, and as she watched the taillights of his truck fade, she knew it was over.
What had she expected? He’d been upfront with what he wanted. It was what she’d wanted too, but somewhere within the past few weeks she’d started to have feelings for him. Started to feel something more than just lust.
She’d buried her father, fallen in love, and been dumped all in the same day.
Chapter Seventeen
The cool, humid wind brushed Vince’s knuckles and cheeks and ears. The bad dog pipes of his Harley rumbled the air on Morning Glory Drive in Kirkland, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. The back of Conner’s helmet hit Vince’s chin for about the tenth time as the two of them slowly rode up and down the street in front of Conner’s house. They wore matching leather bomber jackets, but Conner’s was tighter on him than the last time the two had driven up and down the street.
It had been five months since he’d left Washington. Five months that somehow seemed like years.
The bike slowed as they rolled toward the split-level house with the rental truck in the driveway.
“One more time, Uncle Vince!” Conner hollered over the reverberations.
“You got it.” He flipped a U and headed back down the tree-lined street. Vince lost count of how many times they rode up and down the street. When he did finally pull into the drive behind the truck, Conner protested.
“I don’t wanna stop.”
He shut off the bike and helped his nephew to the ground. “Next time I’m in town, we’ll have to get you a new jacket.” He hooked the kickstand with the heel of his boot and lowered it. “Maybe your mom will let us ride to the park.” Autumn hated the Harley, but Conner loved it so much she’d always let them ride in front of the house. No faster than fifteen miles an hour.
Conner reached for the strap beneath his chin. “Maybe I can drive.”
“When your feet touch the ground, we’ll talk about it.” He rose off the seat of the bike and swung his leg over. “Don’t tell your mom.”
“Or Dad.”
“What? Your dad doesn’t like bikes?” Figured.
Conner shrugged and handed Vince the helmet. “I don’t know. He doesn’t got one.”
That’s because the guy was a pussy. “Go tell your mom I’m leaving.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
Vince set the helmet on the seat. “I don’t want to go.” He knelt on one knee. “I’ll miss you.” The seams of his jacket popped as he hugged Conner. God, he smelled the same. Like the laundry detergent his mom used and like little kid.
“When are you coming home?”
Good question. He wasn’t quite sure. “When I sell the Gas and Go and make a ton of money.” Only this didn’t feel much like home these days. He didn’t know what felt like home anymore.
“Can I have tons of money?”
“Sure.” Who was he going to give it to?
“And the Harley?”
He rose and hefted Conner over one shoulder. “Unless I find another little boy to give it to one day.” His nephew screeched as Vince swatted him twice on the behind. Then he set him back on his feet. “Now run and get your mom.”
“Okay.” Conner turned on the heels of his Spider-Man sneakers and headed toward the front door. “Mom!” he hollered as he ran up the steps.
Vince opened the back of the moving van and pulled out a ramp. He wheeled the Harley inside between an outer wall and a leather sofa and tied it down. He’d been in Washington for three days. Drinking beer with old friends, hanging out with his sister and Conner, and packing up the truck with essentials like his bed, leather couch, and sixty-four-inch HDTV.
“Conner says you want a little boy? I know that I am not one to talk, but you really should have a wife before you have the kid.”
Vince looked behind him at the open door of the big truck. The misty morning sun caught in his sister’s red hair. “Wife?”
“You need someone in your life.”
“You’re forgetting Luraleen,” he joked.
She made a face. “Someone without a smoker’s hack and pickled liver. I just hate to think of you lonely and living with Luraleen.”
“I moved out of her house.” He thought of Sadie. He hadn’t been lonely since the day his truck broke down on the side of the highway. “I was never lonely.”
“Never?” Lord, he’d forgotten that he had to watch what he said around her. She knew him so well and pounced on every word. “Did you meet someone?”
“Of course.” He rose and moved to the open door. “I always meet someone.”
Autumn crossed her arms over her chest, unamused, and stared him down—even when he towered over her—the way she’d always stared him down. Even as kids. “Have you been seeing someone for more than just a night or two?”
He jumped down, grabbed the overhead door, and pulled it closed. He locked the door and
shrugged. Autumn knew him better than anyone on the planet, but there were things even she didn’t know. Things no one knew.
Except Sadie. She knew. She’d seen him at his absolute lowest. Helpless and locked in his nightmares. God, he hated that she’d seen him that way.
“Vinny!” She grabbed his arm.
She’d taken his silence as some sort of admission. “It’s over,” he said, hoping she’d drop it even as he knew she wouldn’t.
“How long did you date her?”
He didn’t bother to explain that he and Sadie never really dated. “I met her the night I arrived in Lovett.” He looked down into her green eyes. “It ended a few nights ago.” When she’d seen him naked and pathetic. She said she loved him. He didn’t know how that was even possible.
She gasped. “Two months. That’s long for you. Really long. Like fourteen months in dog years.”
Vince couldn’t even get mad because she was serious and it was more or less true. It hadn’t seemed like two months though. It seemed like he’d known her forever, yet not nearly long enough. He turned and sat on the edge of the truck.
“Why did you break up with her?” Autumn sat next to him, and he should have known she wouldn’t let it go.
She knew him too well. Knew that he was the one who usually broke things off. “She said she loved me.” That wasn’t the real reason, but his sister didn’t know about the nightmares and he wasn’t about to tell her now.
A grin pressed across her lips. “What did you say?”
“Thank you.”
Autumn gasped.
“What?” Thank you wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good, but it was better than not saying anything.
“Then what?”
“Then I took her home.”
“You said thank you and took her home? Do you hate her or something?”
Hate Sadie? He didn’t hate Sadie. He wasn’t real sure what he felt, other than some strange sort of confusion. Both gut-level panic and bone-deep relief churned and burned in his head and chest at the same time. How could he feel both panic and relief that it had ended? It didn’t make sense. “I don’t hate her.”
Rescue Me lt-3 Page 20
