by Natalie Ann
“She was sympathetic for sure. It just put a downer on the date though. She couldn’t get out of my truck fast enough. I’m sure it’s going to be the one date and that will be the end of it now.”
His father snorted. “You’re too used to women who are afraid to fight back and stand up. Afraid to face challenges or even take a risk. I think you’re the one that is going to be surprised.”
And he was the next morning when Ella called him and apologized for her behavior and asked if they could start fresh.
Never a Good Time
Ella was just finishing the layers on her lasagna and popping it in the oven when she heard a knock at the door.
She walked forward and opened it wide for Travis. “Hi,” she said. “Come on in.”
“I was surprised to hear from you this morning,” he said.
She knew that. She’d lain in bed all night long thinking about what Travis had said to her. How she never imagined what he’d told her about leaving the Navy. He never let on that he’d had such a great loss in his life. Never been anything but nice to her even if she did think he talked down to her.
After sitting through dinner last night, she realized it was his personality and teasing nature rather than him thinking she was some silly woman who didn’t know what end of the remote to point toward the TV. She’d just been taking it the wrong way all along.
It probably had more to do with the fact she was so lost in her own insecurities she was trying to hide that she didn’t realize not everyone was out to get something from her. Not everyone was using her. Or even judging her.
“I’m sorry if I gave that impression.”
“You did,” he said, taking his jacket off and looking around. She turned and opened the hall closet and grabbed a hanger for him.
He was straightforward and she appreciated that. “The truth is, I didn’t know what to say when you told me about why you came back. Situations like that are hard. I didn’t know if you wanted to talk about it more, or just wanted me to know, and I didn’t know how to ask what you might want either.”
“You’re the first to ever say that to me. Most do what you did and change the subject. I’m used to it. I hadn’t planned on saying it to you but felt if you were being upfront I should be too. I probably should have waited longer to say it though.”
“I’m glad you told me. I’d be annoyed if I found out after the fact that something so major happened in your life.”
“The thing is,” he said, “there is never a good time to say something like that, so I figured I might as well just get it out there.”
“So other women have reacted that way?” she asked, walking back to her kitchen with him following behind her.
“I haven’t told any other woman,” he admitted.
She wasn’t sure what to make of that admission and wanted to ignore it, but that would be similar to what she’d done last night. She tried to learn from her mistakes. “You’re the only person who can make me tongue tied and wonder what I’m supposed to say next.”
He laughed and before she could say anything else, he was reaching for her and pulling her in tight. Her eyes widened, her breath caught, and he lowered his mouth and kissed her silent.
All those nerves she’d been pushing back cowered into the corner like an elephant with a mouse on its tail when his mouth was on hers. When his large hands on her back pressing her against the length of him made her realize she had no thoughts at all now.
Her body yielded because she had no choice. It wasn’t the fact she hadn’t had a man’s hands or mouth on her in years. It was that Travis had his hands and mouth on hers.
Those nights she’d woken up in a sweaty chill with her body tingling because she’d been dreaming of him had nothing on what she was actually feeling in this moment.
His lips were soft and firm at the same time. How was that possible?
Who cared how, she was just going to savor this while she could.
Those lips of his were moving across hers gently, nudging them open, then his tongue slid in and she had no other option but to reach her arms up, come to her tiptoes and wrap him up tight. Cling to him like one of those weak-willed women in a chick flick that she always turned her nose up at.
Who would have known that when a man kissed you senseless that you had no control over your body and had to cling on and hope he’d be there to hold you up? Especially when she’d been telling herself and everyone around her she’d never need a man to support her.
When his hand moved to her hair and held her head in place, the kiss turned from “this is nice” to “if I find your bedroom we aren’t coming out for hours.”
That was enough for her to put her hands on his chest and push back. “What was that for?” she asked, fighting the urge to fan her face with him standing there sending her a smirk that would rival one of her brothers. She wanted him to know she wasn’t going to be bringing him to her room, even if those thoughts popped into her head.
She wasn’t out to be just a bedmate for him and nothing else. Not that she had any clue what else there was for them, but it had to be more than sex.
“I didn’t get to do that last night and since you asked me over here tonight, I thought I’d pick up where I really wanted to leave off last night.”
She’d have liked that last night too, but had bolted out of his truck over her behavior with the bombshell he’d dropped on her.
“That’s a good way to start this date,” she admitted. “And a good way to end it at the door. Not in my bedroom.”
“I never thought otherwise.”
He smiled at her, then winked, and all those increased heartbeats she’d felt over the past few years when she saw him were turning into a dozen horses galloping down the track.
She wanted to chase this horse down, climb on top, and ride him until he had no energy left.
Holy cow. Now she was thinking like her brothers. How they used to talk when she’d lean her ear against the wall of Brody and Cade’s room when she was a teen. Mason and Aiden shared a room and never said much about the girls that she could catch. She always wondered why she got put in the middle of the boys like that.
“Just so we’re on the same page,” she said primly, then ruined it when she giggled like a schoolgirl as he tugged on a lock of her hair. She never giggled a day in her life!
“Something smells good in here,” he said, walking toward her oven and pulling it open, then making himself right at home. She wasn’t sure how to take that, or that he never agreed they were on the same page.
She decided to continue to push it from her mind for now. “Lasagna. I just put it in. I’ve been cooking the sauce for the past hour.”
“You must have left work early for that,” he said, sounding surprised.
“I did. I took half a day.”
Thankfully none of her brothers realized that or they’d bust her butt about it. They complained she never took time off, but if she tried to for any reason they always had to make a big deal about it. There was no privacy in her family at all.
“Anything I can do to help?” he asked.
“I’m all set. Can I get you a beer?”
“I could kill a beer right now,” he said.
She opened her refrigerator and stepped back. “Take your pick.”
“I’d love to get my mouth around an Ella.”
She rolled her eyes, deciding to take the comment as it was intended, as a joke that she seemed to miss from him so often before and grabbed the bottle of Fiercely Ella that her brother Mason released for the first time trying to be cute. She popped the top and poured it into a glass, then handed it over to him. “You’ll have to tell me which Ella tastes better.”
“No question about which one I’d really like to get my mouth on.” She held her tongue and just stared at him, causing him to laugh. “Are you going to have one?” he asked.
“I’m good. I don’t drink often. I enjoy it, but it’s more like an indulgence. I had a beer last ni
ght.”
“An indulgence? What do your brothers think about that?”
“Not much,” she said. Her family was used to her eating and drinking habits. But since she had been known to throw a beer back on an occasion with them, they didn’t say much about it.
“So tell me something deep and private about yourself and we can call it even,” he said.
She stared at him to see if he was joking and found he wasn’t when he held her gaze. His brown eyes were deep and she was losing herself in them. Before she could stop herself, the words just tumbled out like he’d cast a magic spell on her. “I’ve got no confidence at all when it comes to men.”
“Why?” he asked. “You’re beautiful. You’re strong. You’re intelligent. You exude confidence when you walk in a room. Why not have it with men? I’d think you could have any man eating out of your hand with the bat of your eyes.”
“For all those reasons. Not a lot of men like that. Not a lot of men want to be with a woman that can take care of herself. That doesn’t need a man. Or some men only want to be with me because I’m an object on their arm with a name that they’d like to lay claim to.”
“None of those men were worthy of you,” he said bluntly.
“No. They weren’t. But between that and my brothers scaring away anyone I was truly interested in when I was younger, it’s been easier to just push it all into a deep dark place. When you push it all away, you get out of practice. My life is all about perfection. I get that way because I keep at something until I get to the point where there is no improvement. If it’s pushed out of sight, I’m not practicing it.”
He burst out laughing at her and she narrowed her eyes. “Oh my God, Ella. That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. I was there with you until the part about practicing to perfect dating or relationships. There’s no perfection in any relationship. Or dating, for that matter.”
Things she’d heard a lot in her life from her mother. “I know. Maybe it’s excuses or it’s the truth because I’ve said it to myself enough.”
“Or maybe you were just waiting for the right person to show you that no one is perfect and yet they could still be interested in you when you let your guard down.”
“Maybe,” she whispered.
Funny Memory
“He didn’t do that,” Travis said.
“Yes, he did. Cade thinks he’s so funny. He was always playing jokes on us as kids.”
“He dropped a snake in the kitchen when your mother was cooking dinner?” Travis asked again.
He couldn’t imagine doing something like that to his mother when he was a kid. She’d take her wooden spoon and chase him around the house with it, then make him come back and get the snake and put it outside where it belonged. That thought brought a smile to his lips. Ella had no clue she’d given him a much-needed funny memory of his mother. That wooden spoon was long gone, but it’d found his knuckles a few times as a kid.
“Yep. He’d just gotten in trouble for hiding a toy snake in Brody’s bed a few days before. But he never learned. I heard him telling Aiden if he was going to get in trouble for something he might as well go all in and a toy snake wasn’t worth it.”
“So he went outside and found a live one?” Travis asked, picking up his beer and drinking it. They were sitting at her small kitchen table talking about their personal lives. Or Ella was talking about hers right now.
“No. Cade didn’t like getting his hands dirty,” Ella said. “He went to the pet store and bought one. When he came in the back door with it in a glass jar, my mother thought it was another fake one. He wouldn’t even reach in the jar and get it, but dumped it out and ran. It was just a baby garter snake.”
“Did you scream when you found out?” he asked.
“Nope. My mother was screaming and chasing Cade, who was dashing out of the kitchen the minute he dropped it. Mason was in his room studying and Aiden and Brody were swimming. I was just coming down the stairs for a snack when all the crap hit the fan.”
“What did you do?”
“I marched into the kitchen, cornered the snake and then dropped a pot on top of it, keeping it out of the way until someone else could pick it up.”
He should have figured she’d stay calm and do that. “Sounds like you were a tomboy as a kid.”
“I was until I was around fourteen. It was fun besting the boys.”
“I’m sure they didn’t think so,” he said.
“Not often.”
“So tell me something else someone did. I’ve got to imagine your house was full of mischievousness. I’m an only child, so nothing like that ever went on in my house.”
“I could go on and on. Brody and Cade were always beating on each other. Mason was blowing things up doing science experiments in the garage. Aiden was constantly lecturing my mother on her cooking and then showing her how to properly make things. I won’t tell you the number of times our dinner was burned.”
“What about you?” he asked.
“I sat back and watched it all. I guess you could say I was the observer a lot of the times.”
“The calm one in a crisis?” he asked, not surprised that they seemed to share that trait too.
“Pretty much. When the four boys were going at it, I’d watch and figure out how to do what they couldn’t. How to one up them. It used to drive them insane. They were always rushing to get something done while I took my time and did it right the first time.”
“You would have made a pretty awesome Navy SEAL.”
She laughed. “Are their women SEALs?”
“Not many, but I bet you could do it.”
“Mentally, maybe?” she said smiling. “But I doubt it.”
“Because you can’t stand the uniforms?” he asked, tilting his head.
“Why didn’t I know you had this great of a personality?”
“Because you never talked to me before now. I never thought you were afraid of me.” She snorted. “I just figured you couldn’t be bothered with me. I had no clue it was my utter male presence that made you so nervous.”
“Don’t rub it in,” she said. “So enough about my family. Tell me about yours. You’re an only child, you said.”
“Yes. My house was pretty quiet compared to yours.”
“Anyone’s house was quiet compared to ours,” she said drily. “Your father is still around, right? I met him a few times before you took over. What about your mother?”
His smile faded. “She’s in a nursing home. She has Alzheimer’s.”
“I’m sorry, Travis. It’s a horrible disease. Is that why your father retired, to care for her?”
“Yes. I always knew I’d take over the business someday. I just never thought it’d be this early.”
“Did you think you’d stay in the service longer?” she asked.
“A few more years. But things happened and it was time.” He wasn’t going to say his dream was more than a few years, but he was willing to compromise. He always believed when you loved someone you worked things out together and made decisions as a couple. He learned he was the only one that thought that way in his relationship.
He held his breath to see if Ella would ask about Julia, but she didn’t. It was for the best right now. “Do you see your mom often?” she asked.
“I visit once or twice a week. It’s a good day when she has a memory that makes her smile or can remember names. A bad one when she is just looking at the wall and not talking at all.”
“I can’t even begin to comprehend that.”
“It’s not something anyone should have to go through. You shouldn’t have to watch a loved one just waste away. My father spends every day with her.”
“That’s so sweet.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“Travis. That’s love. Whether your mother knows he’s there or not, your father won’t leave her side. He sounds a lot like my father. He’d never leave my mother’s side for anything either. I like your dad. He’s a good guy. A nice guy.”
“And you thought his son was an ass?” he asked, grinning at her.
“Maybe once in a while.” She winked at him. “I had no idea what was going on in your house though. Not even your personal life and it just reminds me I shouldn’t have judged you at all.”
“My father is a great guy. I live next door to him. He stopped over to see me last night.”
“Did you buy that house so you could help out your dad with your mother?”
“I did,” he said.
“Then you’re a good guy too.”
“I try to be.” He wanted her to know he’d told his father about them. “Like I said, he stopped over last night. I thought it was because maybe he wanted the company, but it’s because he wanted to talk to me about my life.”
“What about?”
“He keeps closer tabs on me than I thought. I mentioned I was on a date.” He wasn’t going to tell her the rest of that part of the conversation. How he was used to sleeping with women as opposed to dating them.
“Did you tell him who you were on a date with?” she asked.
She wasn’t looking annoyed or scared. “I did.”
“What was his response?”
“He asked me if I thought it was wise to date a client. I figured we’re both smart enough to avoid any issues there.”
“I think we are,” she agreed. “It was only one date.”
“Two now,” he said.
“Very true.”
“I told him that I told you the reason why I left the Navy and that I didn’t think we’d have another date anyway.”
“Because I was the one that acted like a jerk?” she asked.
“I didn’t use those words. I know it was uncomfortable for you.”
“I’m glad you told me. And I’d never use that as an excuse to not go on another date with someone. If one date was all it was going to be, I would have told you last night before I got out of the car. I just didn’t know how to say anything else though.”
Strong, just like his father had told him. “So now what? Are we dating in the open or behind closed doors? Are you going to tell your mother so she doesn’t try to set you up with someone whose face I’d have to rearrange?”
