Contract with a SEAL (Special Ops: Homefront Book 3) (19 page)

This party was about Joe. About Joe’s
future. And the more she listened, the more she knew she wasn’t a part of it.

It was dark when Joe and Vi finally had
the house to themselves again.

“Do you know how happy it made me to see
you in that audience today?” he asked her, hand still on the doorknob, not two
seconds after the last couple had left.

She had thought that. And when she had
met him in the receiving line, and he picked her up and swung her around, the
emotion she had thought she felt from him was… almost love, she had dared to
imagine.

Had it all really been a show? Just like
the first time she had come down here?

He reached for her hand, and she meant to
take it, not wanting to reveal the questions that were burning in her throat. But
she pulled her hand away, headed to the kitchen counter to begin cleaning up.

“Vi, what is it?”

Damn, there was no getting anything past
him, was there?

“Nothing. I’m just tired, Joe.”

“I’m sorry we had so many people over. I
would have told you, but you said you weren’t coming. It’s tradition. I’m sorry
if it’s not what you were expecting.”

“No, no. It’s really fine. It was nice to
see everyone.” She gathered a stack of unused napkins. “What do you want to do
with these?”

“Recycle them. I have to have this place
completely empty tomorrow morning before I leave.”

Biting her lip, Vi looked around. It wouldn’t
be too hard for him. It was pretty empty as it was.

Joe took the napkins from her and held
her hand. “Vi, talk to me.”

“I just—didn’t realize there was
another party. I guess I wasn’t prepared to—you know—play a role
again. Like I did at your other party.”

His hands touched her cheeks. “That’s not
why I invited you. You know that, right?”

“Well, then why did you invite me?” She
cursed herself for asking.

The pause between them was lengthy. Deliberate.

His lips formed a thin line as he darted
his head to the side, seeming to swallow a curse. Finally he looked at her
again. “Because I wasn’t ready to say good-bye. Because I wanted you there. Because
this has been one of the best commands I’ve had in my career, but the greatest
thing that happened to me during it didn’t have a damn thing to do with the
Navy and everything to do with you.”

She didn’t know what to say, only fell
into his arms. “It would have been a lot easier to say good-bye if I were mad
at you.”

“I promise I’ll piss you off before I
leave tomorrow.”

They didn’t make love his last night. Vi
was actually grateful for that, as though her body needed to slowly adjust to
being away from him. He just held her close, nestled into the uncomfortable air
mattress, listening to its squish-squeak noise any time one of them moved.

It didn’t allow for much sleep, but Vi
didn’t think she would have anyway.

In the morning, she followed him to long-term
car storage off base. After signing a few papers, he joined her in her car.

“You really didn’t have to drive me to
the airport.”

“I wanted to,” she said, trying to sound
casual, even though her heart was shattering to pieces behind her ribcage.

As they approached the exit for the
airport, the tension grew thick in the car, almost suffocating her.

“Vi, I—”

“Don’t, Joe. Don’t say it. I know you
won’t stay in touch. I know you’ll be busy. I know all that we shared meant a
lot to you. Just like it did me. I won’t be wallowing away in self-pity, or
waiting for an email from you. Or a text. Or a Skype. That’s not what we agreed
on. And it’s not what you need right now. It’s not what
I
need right now,”
she assured him, even though it was the furthest thing from the truth.

Pulling into the drop-off lane at the
airport, Vi felt a pressure building in her head, and could hear her pulse
vibrating against her eardrum. She popped the trunk. “Need some help with your
bags?” she asked, knowing he’d say no, but not knowing any other way to break the
silence that she might soon fill with sobs.

“No.” His hand touched her chin, and he
gently pulled her face toward him.

A tear fell onto her cheek.
Dammit
.

He brushed it away. “I just didn’t want
this for you, Vi. No broken heart, remember?”

She blotted another one that threatened
to fall. “I’ll be fine. It’s hard to see you go. So far away, you know? But
I’ll be fine as soon as I pull away. Promise.”

He stared at her intently, as though he
wanted to say something, but was holding himself back.

“Don’t,” she said quickly. “Don’t be like
this, worrying about me. I want you to focus on your new job now.”

“And you yours.”

“Exactly. I’ve got a lot of change in my
life right now. All good,” she lied. There was nothing good about the change in
her life that was taking the man she loved away from her forever.

Hearing an impatient honk from the person
behind her, she leaned in to kiss him, one last time. She felt the warmth of
his skin against hers only momentarily, breathing in his scent, memorizing the
contours of his lips, before she pulled away. For a last kiss, it was too quick,
too rehearsed.

Too final.

“Just promise me you’ll be safe out
there.” And call me, text me, email me, Skype me. She wanted desperately to
list her demands, but swallowed them one by one. Clingy and pathetic, indeed. She
wanted to wrap her arms around his body so tight that he’d have to pull her off
with a pry bar.

“I will. And you too, Vi. You’re an
amazing woman. There’s so much more to you than you ever let on.” He glanced
down at her hands momentarily, as though he might take them in his own. But he
didn’t. “You promise me that you’ll spend the rest of your life doing what you
want, not what others want for you. And don’t settle,” he added. “For God’s
sake, don’t ever settle on anyone again, because you deserve so much better.”

He kissed her again, this time on his own
terms, it seemed—his lips parting hers, tasting her, his hand pulling her
head closer, angling it so that more of their skin could meet.

Then he slipped out of her car, leaving
it feel cold and empty without him. She watched him lift his bags from her trunk,
slam it shut, and give her car a reassuring thump twice before he walked toward
the airport entryway. And disappeared out of her life.

Blotting her tears with her sleeve—she
could barely even see past their blur—she flicked on her turn signal and
pulled into traffic.

It started to rain.
How appropriate.
Turning on the radio, she searched for something that might distract her. But it
all seemed like noise to her, so she turned it off again.

She could picture him now, standing in
the line, waiting to pass through the security gate. Shoes off. Removing his
laptop from his briefcase. Putting his carryon luggage in the plastic bins. Pulling
out his ID. His tickets. She knew the routine.

And then he’d pass through those gates
and start a new life, never knowing she loved him.

What if he got hurt? Or worse. What if he
was in pain and didn’t know that someone was here in the States, loving him, aching
for him every second of the day and night?

What if he had no face to conjure up,
when he needed the comfort of knowing that someone believed in him, that someone
loved him? Desperately.

She should have told him.

Oh, God. To hell with being clingy or
pathetic. What did it matter when he was leaving anyway? She should have told
him. Even if he didn’t love her back, at least he’d go away knowing that
someone cared… that much… about him. So much it was like a vise on her heart
squeezing, with each step he took closer to his plane and further from her.

Glancing briefly at the purse in the foot
well of the car, she knew the logical thing would be to call or text him. That
was logical. Practical. Like Vi had been all her life. But approaching the short-term
parking lot, she found herself slicing across two lanes of traffic to make the
exit off the road.

What am I doing?

She lowered her window and pulled a ticket
from the machine.
Please let there be a space
. But there wasn’t—at
least not as close as she needed to be able to make it back into the airport before
he disappeared past the security gate. Once he passed it, she wouldn’t be able
to follow without a ticket in her hand.

Finally seeing someone pulling out of a
space, she put on her turn signal. Come on, hurry up, she willed the person,
who slowly, carefully, pulled out of the tight spot.

She pulled in, grabbed her purse, and
tore across the parking lot, so grateful she wasn’t wearing heels. Nearly
slipping on icy patches twice, she didn’t falter. She just pressed on, her
heart pounding, reminding her that she really did need to get to the gym more
often than she did.

Finally reaching the airport, her eyes
darted through the line, searching for his face. But he was gone. She raced to
the barrier and saw Joe down the hall in a swarm of other passengers on the
other side of security.

“Joe!” she screamed his name, knowing she
was attracting more attention than she usually would dare. She could call him
on his cell, she consoled herself, trying to tamp down the panic. But what if
he had already put his phone on flight mode? “Joe Shey! Joe!”

“Ma’am, you’ll have to step to the back
of the security line,” a man in a TSA uniform told her.

“No, you don’t understand,” she said,
giving him a passing glance, and then letting out one final shout. “Joe Shey!”
before he disappeared around the corner.

“Ma’am, you’ll have to step to the end of
the line or you’ll be detained,” a second security guard warned her.

“Please. I don’t have a ticket. I’m not
trying to get past security. I just need to get that man back here.”

“Isn’t that Vi Owens from TV?” Vi heard
one man say to another, pulling out his phone and snapping a photo.

Oh no.
She hadn’t really thought this through, had she?

Another person pulled out a camera and
aimed it on Vi.

Maybe this could help, she thought
suddenly. Ken thinks she caused a buzz?
You ain’t seen nothing yet.

She looked at the security guard, “Please.
I’m Vi Owens, and my boyfriend is SEAL Commander, Joe Shey. He’s about to leave
the country and I need to tell him I love him. Please, can you call him back to
the security gate?”

He looked unimpressed. Clearly the guy
didn’t watch the financial networks. “Lady, I don’t care who you are. I’m not
calling someone back to the gate just so you can have your Hallmark moment.”

“Aw, come on, dude,” a guy in line called
out. “You do it all the time when people leave something behind by accident.”

“Hey, I saw their photos on Twitter. She’s
telling the truth,” a woman piped in.

“He’s a SEAL,” a man said from behind his
camera. “Don’t you think you can make an exception for a freaking war hero?”

Never before had Vi so appreciated the
benefits of being mildly recognizable.

“Please. This is my last chance before he
leaves the country.” Tears streamed from her eyes and she didn’t hold them
back. With people now taking video on their smartphones, the extra guilt laid
on security right now could only work to her benefit.

The TSA men glanced at each other. One
rolled his eyes and shrugged, while the other said, “Okay. We’ll call him
back.”

Vi’s small audience cheered from behind
the barriers, and Vi mouthed her thanks to all of them.

***

“Joe Shey. Please report to the security
gate. Joe Shey. Please report back to the security gate.”

Shit
. He thumped the side of his pants and felt his wallet safe
in his pocket. At least he didn’t leave his wallet behind. Glancing down at
this hand, he saw the Academy graduate ring he had taken off before passing
through security was on his hand. Not that either.

Giving a mental shrug, he turned around. Must
have left something. He dropped his tickets, maybe? He touched the pocket in
his jacket. No, that’s not it either.

Feeling fortunate he left early enough so
that he still wasn’t pressed for time, he strode down the corridor to the
security gate. In the distance, among a sea of faces, he picked out one
familiar one.

Violet
.

God, what happened? Maybe he’d spent too
much time in the SEALs, but his first instinct was always pressing him to assume
that something had gone wrong. She didn’t look good, and being surrounded by
security personnel and a flurry of cameras focused on her held by random
people, certainly didn’t make the situation look less grim.

He picked up speed, then stopping in
front of her. “Violet? Are you all right?”

“No. I’m not. Not till I tell you that I
love you.”

He felt the wind knocked out of him.
“What?”

Her eyes, locked on his, sparkled with
tears. “I love you, Joe Shey. And I don’t care what we agreed. I’m not letting
you leave this country till you know just how much I love you.”

He stood there a moment, struck mute by
her words. But his arms could still function, and they pulled her so close that
he could count every sparkling gold fleck inside her brown eyes. Finally the
words came. “I love you, too,” he said, stunned by how easily the flowed from
him. “I love you, Violet Owens and I’ll never stop.”

He kissed her, and even with his lips
still pressed against hers, a laugh escaped them both when they heard cheering from
the crowd of onlookers. He could picture this moment, captured on at least a
dozen cameras in the crowd, going viral. And the only way he’d be able to
explain this to his chain of command is if he managed to, one day, convince
this woman to be his bride.

She pulled back from him, only about an
inch, and said quietly, “I need a favor, Joe.”

“A favor?”

“Yeah. I sort of need a date.”

He grinned, knowingly. “A date, huh?”

“Yeah. In a year, for your welcome home
party. I plan on going, but it would really look bad if I didn’t have a date. You
understand, don’t you?”

He nodded sagely, playing along. “Yeah. Yes,
I understand completely.”

“So you will do it?”

“In a year?”

“Yep.”

“I think I can squeeze you in.”

“Good.” She smiled, looking up at him
from beneath a curtain of lashes.

His eyebrows raised. “But I might need something
in return.”

“Oh, yeah? What?”

Lowering his lips to her ear, he
whispered something so tempting he hoped it would fuel her dreams for the next
twelve months. Then as she laughed in response, he lifted her, swinging her
around 360 degrees. “I love you, Violet.”

Once he set her on the ground, she pulled
back from him, biting her lip. “You better go now.”

Joe nodded, murmuring his thanks to the
security officers that still were watching them warily. Lifting his hand to
their small audience in triumph as they cheered again, he stepped backward, and
felt a chill being that much further from Vi.

“I might get clingy and pathetic, Joe,” she
warned him.

“Me, too,” he countered, as he took a few
more steps away from her.

“I’ll email, you know,” she called out.