"I'm already warmed up."
She yawned. "What are you doing?"
"Stretching."
"I can see that. Why?"
"Time for me to stop being lazy. Got to get back into running if I'm going to be fit for duty once my leave is up."
"Okay." Something about his casual tone belatedly reg istered. "You mean you haven't been running until now?"
"The doc didn't want me to until my face was healed enough."
Thinking perhaps one cold foot would be better than two, JJ rested one bare foot on top of the other. "Well then, are you okay to now?"
David looked up from his stretching and laughed suddenly. Tenderly. "You look like a little girl." He tilted her chin and dropped a gentle kiss on her lips. "Go
inside now. Before your feet are frostbitten. I'll be back in a half-hour or so."
Dressed for work in a black skirt, black-and-white blouse, and red leather blazer, JJ looked up from fill ing her car coffee cup to see David, a towel around his middle, emerge from the guest bathroom.
Drops of water glistened on the backs of his shoul ders. "Hey," she said.
He jerked. "Oh. Hey." He turned toward the guest bedroom where he had insisted on putting his things.
JJ followed him. He sat on the bed, staring at noth ing, a pair of socks forgotten in his hands. He didn't look in the mood for a chat, but he had insisted they act married. That meant they had to make plans to gether. "Today is Tuesday. Brinkley is supposed to go to the vet to get his stitches out. How do you want to handle that?"
He finally looked up, his eyes lightless. "Handle what?"
"His stitches. Do you want me to come back for him, or do you want to bring him to me, and I'll take him to the vet, or what?"
"No need to pay for an office visit. I can remove them."
"Okay. Good. Today is also my ballroom lesson. Would you like to meet me there?"
The dark, distant look slowly left his eyes. "Sure you trust me after last time?"
JJ chuckled. "We won't go back to Lucas's house, that's for sure. I had to call an electrician to fix the sconce." Feeling a little more sure of her ground, JJ asked, "Are you okay? You seem a little…"
"Sure. I'm fine."
"Was the run okay?"
He shrugged. "Harder than I want to admit it was. You don't do it every day, you pay."
"Will you feel up to dancing?"
"I'm fine." He gave her a lazy up-and-down perusal. "Would you like a demonstration of just how fine I am?"
A couple of days later, JJ smiled at the man behind her in the bathroom mirror. Marriage was something she could get used to. He liked watching her put on makeup, he said. She understood. She liked watching him shave.
"Did I tell you I talked to Elle today?" she asked. It was nice to talk with a woman who knew him and could tell her stories about David as a boy. Was she acting like a woman in love or what?
She hadn't shared with Elle the vague disquiet she had felt the night before when she found a sheet of yellow notebook paper covered with numbers: 2x3, 2x4, 2x5… all the way through 9x2. He had written the multiplication tables. She considered mentioning it now but discarded the notion. She had already seen that if she asked any thing about what he was doing or why, all she got were short answers. She was enjoying this intimate moment. Why spoil it?
"She and Harris doing okay?" David asked her.
JJ stroked on eyeliner. "They're fine. We talked about Christmas. I want Riley to come here."
"Here? To this house? That will never work. Riley hates sand. Even with shoes on, he can't stand the way it feels to walk on it. If it gets in his shoes, he freaks."
JJ did the other eye. "That's what Elle told me. I'll just have to find a solution."
"Nah. He'll be fine at their apartment in Charlottesville over the holidays. Whose party are we off to tonight?"
"Taylor Vaughan. She runs gossip central. After to night, everyone will know you're here and you're real."
The next evening, she decided to leave work a little early. When she arrived at the cottage, David was on the sofa, his laptop open. He blanked the screen before she could see what he was working on. It wasn't the first time. Not that she wanted to know any SEAL secrets, but his caution seemed extreme. JJ tried not to let his shutting her out hurt, but it did.
He set the laptop aside and rose smiling. No matter how secretive he was, it was impossible to believe a man who smiled like that wasn't glad to see her. She was making too much of it.
"Hey. You're home early." He circled her in his arms.
She lifted her face for his kiss.
He studied her face. "What's the matter?"
"I finally had to fire Red today. It was hard."
"When you lose a man, no matter why, you always wonder what else you should have done. But you did the right thing. You've got a right to expect simple loyalty."
"I do. And I appreciate your showing me that."
"But you still feel bad."
"Yeah."
"Come in the bedroom. Let me make you feel better."
Chapter 48
THE SMOKY, VINEGARY AROMA COMING FROM THE TAKE out bag of barbecue JJ had picked up on the way home was making her mouth water and her stomach growl. JJ shifted the barbecue to her other hand while she felt for her cottage key. She really should have a motion-sensor light installed for moments like this. By five-thirty these December evenings, full dark had arrived.
Finally she found the key and inserted it into the lock. For once, they didn't have anywhere they had to be. A whole evening alone. With her husband. The thought was almost as yummy as the barbeque.
Warm air and silence greeted her once she had the door open. The only light in the great room came from the hood over the cooktop. Making as little sound as possible—though she wasn't sure why—JJ put her bags and purse on the kitchen counter. She switched on a couple of lamps in the great room.
The door to the master bedroom was open. A quick glance told her David wasn't in there. Still not sure why she was being so quiet, JJ went down the hall.
David and Brinkley were stretched out on the bed in the guest room. This wasn't the first time she had found David doing what he called "napping," but this time she was sure he wasn't asleep. He was lying in exactly the too-still way Brinkley had when he had been in severe pain.
Brinkley raised his head when he saw her. He lifted his nose, caught a whiff of the barbeque, and jumped off the bed.
David opened his eyes. "Oh, hey. I must have nod ded off.
JJ sat in the place Brinkley had vacated. "Are you sick?" She reached for his forehead.
He jerked his head away. "No, I'm fine. Fell asleep, that's all." He sat up.
"You ran today, didn't you? Don't give me that inno cent look. You've got a headache again. You're always worse when you run. Maybe you're trying to do too much too soon."
David patted her hip with the back of his hand. When she moved out of his way, he stood, his back to her. "Running doesn't cause the headaches. I get them even if I don't run."
"Running makes them worse. You are not okay. You shouldn't be running."
"You don't understand. I have to be able to run 1.5 miles in seven minutes."
"But surely they don't expect a man who has just come back from sick leave to be able to do that? Surely they have trainers, or whatever you call them, who will help."
He ignored that as he did most of her suggestions. "I'm going to get better. The docs have told me I've just got to give it time. That's all." He walked out of the bedroom.
JJ followed him into the great room, aware she was arguing with someone who had turned his back on her. She ought to shut up, but she couldn't stand to see him putting himself through this day after day.
"You're not improving, from what I can tell. I'm not real impressed with Navy doctors right this minute—if this is the best they can do for you. Let me make an ap pointment with a doctor in town. If we don't like their answers, we'll go somewhere else. We'll
find out who Bronwyn says is the best and go there."
"It won't matter what doctor I go to. They will say the same thing."
"And what will that be?"
David hesitated. Suddenly all the clues, the bits and pieces JJ couldn't quite make sense of, came together.
"You didn't tell the doctor the symptoms you were having, did you?"
"We discussed it, sure."
JJ had learned to recognize the answer that sounded like information but wasn't. "Did you tell him at all?" Her eyes narrowed. "You didn't. You lied. You told him you were fine."
"I am."
She disregarded that. "And he didn't believe you, did he? You didn't fool him." She was on a roll now. His face was stony, giving nothing away, but she didn't need him to admit it. She knew she was right. "You knew you couldn't even do limited duty—not if it meant you had to run. You wouldn't have taken personal leave oth erwise. You'd just had thirty days. You wouldn't have returned to North Carolina."
JJ sank down on the sofa before her legs gave way. More to herself than him, she murmured, "I saw what I wanted to see. I believed you were so besotted that you chose to be with me." She had thought he chose to use his leave because he wanted the time, as she did, to grow closer, to establish a real foundation for a real marriage.
The irony that she was upset that she had gotten the marriage she bargained for, and no longer wanted, wasn't lost on her, but it did nothing for the squeezing pain that threatened to cut off her air. Not only was she second choice, he didn't want to share the most fundamental things about himself, the things that mattered most.
He had hurt her. She wasn't crying, but JJ didn't cry much. The main way he could tell was the bleak look in her eyes, the fragile way she had lowered herself to the sofa. He hadn't meant to. He would cut off his arm before hurting her. "Come on, JJ. You're bound to know by now I want to be with you."
"Oh, I don't doubt that you enjoy being around me, and you love the sex. I know you believe in fidelity, so if you were going to be on leave, of course you came here. I just thought, I hoped, when you came back, it meant there was something more."
More? It had been more in every way. Both easier and harder than he had had any idea. Easier because just being in the same room with her was satisfying and the sex was off the charts. In bed they had a flawless com munication like he'd never before experienced.
But it was harder, too. He could feel her frustration when he couldn't tell her what was going on with him, couldn't explain why her suggestions wouldn't work. He hated what he was doing to her.
Now that she knew he might not ever be a SEAL again, he wondered how long it would be before she thought he was too much trouble—especially with all her other responsibilities. If she knew the full extent of his problems, she might even want to send him to a hospital for trauma cases. Some place that would straighten him out or at least take the burden of his care away.
He would take himself away before that happened. He'd go away now, but she needed a "visible" husband, and right now it was the one thing he could do for her. Every time he made love to her, he tried to show her how he felt.
"JJ—"
She waved him away. "Don't worry. You haven't done anything wrong. It was my mistake. I'll get over it. I think I'll change clothes."
In the bedroom, she pulled on loose jeans and an old sweatshirt. Back in the living room, she went to the box where they stored walking shoes so that they didn't track so much sand into the house.
David watched her impassively, his fists on his hips. "What are you doing?"
"I think I'll go for a walk."
"Alone?"
"Alone."
"It's dark. It's too dangerous."
"I'll take Brinkley."
"I know he would try, but he's not a trained guard dog." David pulled his much larger shoes from the box. "Okay, I'll go with you."
JJ swallowed a lump in her throat, trying to be as low-key as he was. "I'd rather you didn't. I really need to be alone."
"No problem. I'll walk protection detail. I'll be be hind you. If you want me to, I'll make sure you don't see me. You won't know I'm there."
"You would walk behind so I could be alone and be protected at the same time?"
He gave her a patient look and went back to tying his shoes.
"But we just argued. Or at least, I did. Aren't you pissed? Happy to have me out of your sight for a few minutes?"
"It doesn't matter how I feel."
The statement hung in the air. He had just stated a pro found truth about himself. It wasn't that he didn't feel, didn't want to feel, or was afraid to feel. It was that, as far as he was concerned, his feelings were beside the point.
The clear brown depths of his eyes lit with the dry, understated humor she had come to love. It was so much a part of who he was. "I've protected people I like a whole lot less than you."
No matter how hurt she was that he wouldn't share what he was going through, JJ couldn't deliberately hold him at a distance. She chuckled. "I do need a walk. Why don't you come with me?"
The ocean was calm. Small, wide-spaced breakers made leisurely trips to deposit their cream on the shore. The tide was going out. They walked on the wet sand just beyond the pale glow of scallops of foam left by departing waves.
They walked the beach silently. JJ was still dealing with the newly revealed facts of her marriage.
After she thought about it for a while, she realized
no adjustment was necessary. She felt the same way she had felt for a long time. It distressed her that he closed off part of himself from her, but she didn't have less than she'd had before she married him. She had more. In every way. Which reminded her that she needed to talk to him about his brothers and sister—hers too, now.
"Lucas stopped by Caruthers today." He had taken to doing that again. Dropping in for just a minute. The staff enjoyed his visits. He was careful not to stay too long or get in the way. "I think I've got the Riley problem solved. Lucas wants to invite your brothers and sister to stay at his house over Christmas."
"You don't have to do this, you know. I'll pick up Riley and take him to Charlottesville."
David's objection was immediate and no surprise. However, JJ was ready for him.
"Sorry, no deal. You made me Riley's guardian."
"If anything happens to me."
"Well, as far as I'm concerned, it has."
"You think I'm incapacitated, don't you?"
"I think you're making poor decisions. There are other doctors. Other places you can go. But I'm not going to go around again with you. In the last couple of weeks, I've gotten much better at telling when someone is willing to listen. It won't matter what I say… you're not listening to me. Riley and Elle and Harris are com ing here for Christmas. Deal with it."
"Does Lucas know what he's letting himself in for? Riley has a longer vacation than the twins do."
"He likes Riley. They get along. When he's had all he can stand of Riley going on and on about one of his enthusiasms, he just nods off. And Lucas has wanted a bigger family for years. I think he's delighted to have some honorary grandchildren."
"How do you feel about it?" That was another thing. He might disregard his feelings, but David had no dif ficulty understanding her feelings or listening to them. In fact, he understood her remarkably well.
"I think it will work. Esperanza will love having guests to do for. We can go over there for dinner, and they can come here. You can take them around while I'm at work."
They talked over plans. After a while, David said. "It's going to be hard for them. Their first Christmas without their mother."
JJ didn't point out that it was his first Christmas with out his mother, too. He'd have some reason that that was beside the point.
Chapter 49
JJ SURVEYED THE ENTRYWAY AT LUCAS'S HOUSE, TRYING to decide what to do about Christmas decorations. She had done nothing last year until she'd felt so guilty she'd called a florist and had them deliver a
door wreath and dec orated tree for Esperanza to put wherever she wanted to.
Her grandmother had always transformed the house into a Christmas extravaganza, an exuberant over abundance of arrangements of holly, ivy, nandina, and magnolia in every room, boxwood garlands up the bal ustrade, spruce wreaths on every outside door, red velvet bows on everything, including the grandfather clock JJ was looking at right now. The plethora of red and green was so unlike her grandmother's usual understated el egance that the house had felt as if some excess of emo tion within her grandmother had finally exploded.
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