Last Virgin In California (Mills & Boon Desire) (24 page)

A cold wind raced through the tiny forest of perfectly sculpted pine trees. The fresh clean scent of the Christmas tree lot filled the air, and the thick layer of sawdust covering the bare earth behind their feet muffled their footsteps. Dozens of people wandered up and down the aisles, admiring, then dismissing the pines in the quest for the perfect Christmas tree.

From a small wooden snack stand near the office came the aromas of hot chocolate, hot dogs and popcorn. The sky overhead was cloudy, but the sun continued to peek in and out, giving the lot a dappled, shady look that only fed into the feeling that Christmas was just around the corner.

And in the midst of happy families and professional carolers, two people stood uneasily, staring at each other.

“You didn’t have to do this,” Marie said for the third time in five minutes.

Davis looked down at her, shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and nodded. “Yes, I did,” he said. “I promised.”

He’d promised. That’s what he’d said when he’d turned up at the Santini house a half an hour ago. Marie hadn’t actually expected him to show up. Not after what had happened the night before. But
apparently, she’d underestimated Sergeant Davis Garvey’s sense of duty.

At least Jeremy was happy, she thought, her eyes skimming the crowds for her nephew. But the boy had disappeared again. He’d spent the last fifteen minutes darting in and out of the trees like a young Daniel Boone. In fact, he was having the time of his life, completely unaware of any discomfort between the adults accompanying him.

“Look, Marie,” Davis said, and something inside her cringed. She didn’t want to talk about last night again. She didn’t want to remember, as she had all during the sleepless hours of the longest night of her life, the look on his face when she’d blurted, “I love you.”

“Jeremy’s having a good time,” she said in an effort to keep their conversation centered on the hunt for a Christmas tree. Darn it. Why hadn’t Gina or Angela come along for the ride? Why had they left her alone with the man who was breaking her heart by inches?

“Yeah, he is,” Davis said, never taking his gaze from her.

Tugging the cowl-necked collar of her sky-blue sweater a bit higher, Marie said only, “He would have understood though, if you hadn’t shown up. I could have explained.”

He snorted a choked laugh. “Explain what? That
a marine was too scared to face his aunt, so instead he broke his word to a kid?”

“I could have come up with something,” she insisted. And it would have been far easier than this. A dull, throbbing ache started up around her heart and it seemed as though it grew with every pulse beat. How hard it was to stand so close and yet so far from him. To remember the feel of his arms around her and the soft brush of his breath on her flesh and to know that she’d never experience that again.

“No reason for you to,” Davis argued, dragging her attention away from her lovely self-pity party. “Kids have a right to expect an adult to keep his word.”

Something flickered in his blue eyes, and she thought she caught a flash of remembered pain in his expression. It’s not just Jeremy he’s talking about, she told herself, and wondered what broken promises Davis had weathered as a boy. And if they’d had anything to do with shaping the man he was now.

“There he is,” Davis said suddenly, and pointed off down the aisle on the right.

“Guess we’d better catch up to him.” Marie started walking and tried not to enjoy it too much when Davis fell into step beside her.

“This is nice,” he said, glancing around him at the lot and the strings of colored lights hanging overhead.

“Yes,” she said, willing to talk about anything other than last night. How difficult could it be? They’d
spend an hour together and then he’d be gone, leaving her to lick her wounds in private. “We’ve never been here before, though Jeremy’s always wanted to.”

“Grocery store lots,” he said.

She laughed quietly. “He told you.”

“Of course.”

Marie searched for something else to say and finally came up with “Actually, to me, these are not really Christmas trees.”

“Could have fooled me,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Was it her imagination or did his shoulders look even broader in that plain black sweatshirt? Immediately she pushed that thought aside and grasped at the dangling thread of conversation.

“Nope,” she went on firmly. “A nice Douglas fir. That’s my kind of tree. It’s tradition. What we’ve always had.”

He nodded vaguely.

“What about you?” she asked, determined to have a nice, civilized conversation, even if she had to drag words from him. If she was dying inside, she didn’t have to let him know it. “What kind of tree did your family go in for?”

He reached out a hand and dragged it through the long needled boughs of the trees they passed. “Plastic.”

“Fake trees?” she asked, and couldn’t hide the dismay in her voice. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yeah.” Davis shook his head and stuffed his hand back into his pocket. “One place I remember had a pink plastic tree and they had a colored light wheel they used to shine on it every night. Looked hideous.”

One place? she thought.

“And then another time, there was no tree at all. But I remember thinking the menorah was kind of pretty.”

Menorahs and pink trees?

“Where did you grow up, Davis?” she asked.

“St. Louis,” he answered stiffly, then slowly turned his head until he was looking at her. “In a series of foster homes.”

How sad, she thought, and instantly ached for the child he’d been. “What about your parents?”

He shrugged as if trying to rid himself of a years-old burden. “My mother died when I was about Jeremy’s age.”

She couldn’t imagine anything worse than not being able to grow up as she had, safe in the knowledge of her parents’ love. “I’m so sorry, Davis.”

“Long time ago.” He inhaled sharply, deeply.

“What about your father?”

“My father put me up for adoption a few months later.”

He sounded so cold, so matter of fact, his voice, as much as what he’d said, tore at her. What a horrible
way to grow up. Never knowing a place to call your own. Never having a family to depend on.
Knowing
that your only living parent gave you away.

Maybe, she thought, this was part of the reason behind Davis’s wariness about love. Maybe being denied something for most of your life left you unable to accept it when it was finally offered.

“Davis, I don’t know what to say.”

“Nothin’ to say,” he told her. He pulled one hand free of his pocket and shoved it along the side of his head. Mind spinning, Davis wondered why in the hell he’d chosen to tell her the story of his childhood. He never talked about the past. Tried not to think about it.

“It must have been awful for you,” she said softly.

He stiffened at the sympathy in her tone. He didn’t want pity. Didn’t need it. A big woman pushing a screaming kid in a stroller passed them and Davis waited until she was a few steps farther away before saying, “Don’t feel sorry for me, Marie. I don’t need your sympathy.”

“Don’t you?” she asked, and her green eyes became warm and liquid.

He steeled himself against that soft expression of hers and reminded both of them, “It was a long time ago. I’m not that lonely kid anymore.”

“I think you’re wrong, Davis,” she said, and reached out to lay one hand on his forearm. Even
through the thick fabric of his sweatshirt, he felt a trickle of her warmth seep into his bones, swirl into his bloodstream.

And for one brief, incredible moment, he felt alive again. As alive as he felt every time he joined his body to hers. Then she spoke again and the moment was gone.

“I think there’s still some of that boy in you, Davis.” She looked up at him, silently daring him to look away. He didn’t. “A boy who didn’t have a family, so he told himself he didn’t need one. A boy without love who convinced himself love wasn’t necessary.”

Every word she uttered chipped away at the hard, protective shell he’d erected around his heart so many years ago. Every glance, every touch, warmed a soul that had been cold ever since he could remember.

And still he fought her.

If he admitted, even to himself, just how much Marie and even her family had come to mean to him, then he’d have to acknowledge just how much he’d missed in his life. And how much he would go on missing because he couldn’t bring himself to tear down the wall he’d built up around himself.

“I can’t change what happened to you when you were a child, Davis,” she said. “And only you can change the way you live your life now.”

Could he? he wondered. Or was it far too late for him to be anything more than he already was? Could
a man who knew nothing about love really learn to give and accept it? A part of him wanted badly to believe it was possible.

“Hey, you guys!” Jeremy shouted at them, and his voice arrived a split second before he slid to a stop beside Davis, kicking sawdust up into the air.

“What’s up, kiddo?” Marie asked, giving the boy a forced, too-hearty smile.

“I found it,” he said with a grin. “The perfect tree.” He grabbed Marie’s hand and started pulling her after him. “C’mon, before somebody else gets it!”

She threw an over-the-shoulder glance at Davis, and the emotions churning in her eyes nearly staggered him. She loved him. Marie Santini actually loved him. Now the question was, was he man enough to do something about that?

Grumbling to himself, Davis followed after Jeremy and Marie. He was grateful the kid had found the tree he wanted, because at the moment there was nothing Davis would like more than to chop at something with an ax.

“A
ll I’m saying is that you could at least
fight
for him.”

Marie glared at her younger sister. Between college break and only working part-time, Gina was around far too much lately. Gina had been saying the same blasted thing for three days now, and it was getting old. As if Marie didn’t want to fight for him. As if she didn’t want to have him here, with her. But damn it, she had
some
pride, didn’t she?

She’d told Davis she loved him. She’d told him it was up to him to decide how he wanted to spend the rest of his life…with her or alone. What more could she do?

Gina answered that question for her.

“You ought to go down to that base, look Davis dead in the eye and tell him you love him.”

She choked out a strained laugh. “Gee, what a keen idea. Too bad it won’t work.”

“How do you know unless you try?”

“What makes you think I didn’t?”

Gina sat down hard on a stool by the workbench. “You’re kidding. You told him you love him and he left anyway?”

“Amazing, huh?” Marie retorted, then bent over the engine of Laura’s Honda again. The darn thing was back in the shop. Her mind wasn’t on work. It was, as it had been, on Davis. Still, a part of her realized that she’d have to find a cheap used car for her friend. No way was this poor Honda going to keep running for another year.

“Jeez, honey, I’m sorry.”

Marie winced beneath Gina’s sympathy and understood just what Davis had meant when he’d told her he didn’t want her pity.

“Why didn’t you tell me to shut up or something?”

Marie straightened briefly, pinned the other woman with a look and reminded her, “I have been telling you that for three days.”

Gina shrugged and gave her an “oops” look. “So I don’t listen as well as I talk.”

“Now there’s a news flash.”

“Hey, I’m on your side, remember?”

“How can I forget?” Marie asked, turning her attention back to the dirty spark plugs. “You, Angela and Mama keep reminding me of that while you’re all telling me how to fix my life.”

“Well, somebody has to,” Gina snapped.

One eyebrow lifted. “Like your life is so perfect.”

Gina jumped off the stool, marched across the concrete floor, leaned both hands on the Honda’s fender, looked at her sister and said, “Look, if you don’t want my help, just say so. There’s no reason to be insulting.”

“Good.” Marie glanced at her. “I don’t want your help.”

“Man,” Gina huffed, “who would have thought a man could make you so crabby? I thought sex was supposed to improve your outlook, not ruin it.” Stepping back and away from the car, she turned for the set of open double doors. “Since I’m not needed, I’ll just go home.”

“Good plan.” Finally. Peace.

But the minute Gina left, the silence in Santini’s crowded in on Marie. A twinge of guilt poked at her. She shouldn’t have come down so hard on her sister. It wasn’t as if it were Gina’s fault Marie was so miserable.

Sighing, she straightened up again, gave the Honda’s tire a good kick and resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn’t be getting any work done today,
either. The garage seemed too empty. Her own breath practically echoed in the quiet. She’d thought she wanted to be alone. But now that she was, alone didn’t sound so great.

She tossed the wrench she held on to the rolling mechanic’s bench and walked to the doorway. Gray skies and a sullen, cold wind did nothing for her mood. Stuffing her hands into the pockets of her overalls, she tried not to remember the last time she’d worn them. She fought to keep at a distance the memory of her overalls dropping to her living room floor. She didn’t want to recall the feel of the cold door pressing against her back as Davis took her wildly, passionately to a world she’d never hoped to enter.

But despite her best efforts, the memories came, flooding into her mind, one after the other, never pausing, never giving her a chance to catch her breath. His eyes, his hands, his mouth, his voice. All these things and more she remembered in vivid detail and wondered hopelessly how long the memories could last. What? Twenty, thirty years, tops?

“Oh, man…”

“Marie?”

She jumped, startled and half turned to look at her mother. Maryann Santini stood watching her, a worried expression stamped on her familiar features.

“Mama?” Marie said past a sudden, tight knot lodged in her throat. “What are you doing here?”

The older woman shook her graying head. “What? I can’t stop by to say hello?”

“Sure, it’s just—” Understanding shone in Mama’s eyes and Marie felt her resolution to be strong, crumbling. The tears she’d been holding at bay for three long days and even longer nights quickly pooled in her eyes, blurring her vision. She gulped hard and gave in to the misery aching inside. “Mama…why doesn’t he love me?”

Mama held her arms out and Marie stepped into them, just as she had when she was a child. And just like then, she felt the strong net of Mama’s love surround her.

“What do you mean you don’t have the reports finished yet?” Davis practically snarled into the telephone. The corporal on the other end of the line stammered some half-witted excuse and Davis cut him off. “Save the stories and get the damn work done by this afternoon. Understood?”

He dropped the receiver into its cradle and stared at the black phone as if it was behind all of his problems. Hell, he knew he was overreacting. A month ago, he wouldn’t have cared if the corporal was a little late.

Now, though, it seemed the smallest things could set him off. He’d noticed that his fellow marines were
walking a wide berth around him, and he couldn’t blame them. Hell, if he could have figured a way to do it,
he
wouldn’t spend any time with him, either.

The last three days without Marie had been the longest of his life. His apartment seemed lonelier, his world emptier and his future…too damned depressing to think about.

Marie. It all came back to Marie. He’d walked away, leaving everything unresolved between them. For some idiotic reason, he’d convinced himself that he
could
walk away, as he had done so many times before. But it had been impossible. Not seeing her didn’t help any; his mind just conjured up memories of her face, her hands, her voice, her laugh.

He’d told her that he wouldn’t go far until they knew if they’d made a baby or not. But what would he use for an excuse to stay close once that information was in? And what if there
was
a baby?

At that thought, a tiny flicker of light flashed for an instant, deep within him. Was it
hope?

Jumping up from his chair, he paced the office. Back and forth he went, his combat boots smacking into the worn linoleum floor with an even regularity that pounded in his head like a second heartbeat. On his third time around the room, he paused briefly at a small window and stared down at the base stretching out below him.

Marines, going about their business, hustled across the tarmac. From a distance, he heard the muted roar
of the helicopters as the chopper pilots flew training exercises. Trucks loaded with supplies rolled past his building and everything looked as it should.

For more years than he wanted to remember, this base and others like it had been his world. It had always been enough, too. The corps had given him what he’d been cheated out of as a boy. Family. A place to belong. A sense of pride and accomplishment. Honor and duty.

It was who he was, he told himself as he stared down at the faceless marines going about their work. This place, this life was all he had. All he’d ever had.

Turning around slowly, he stared at his desk across the room and his gaze landed on a certain sheaf of papers. His reenlistment was due. If he didn’t re-up, he’d be out of the corps within six months.

He caught himself at the thought.
“If?”
he said softly. He always signed the papers. Never considered
not
signing them.

Until now.

Suddenly his future opened up in front of him. Davis saw himself moving from one base to the next, always packing and unpacking in strange apartments. Always alone. Always starting over. Never belonging. Never having ties to anyone or anything beyond his stretch in the corps.

And when he faced mandatory retirement, he wondered, what then? Who would he be? What
would he have to show for his life? A string of commendations? A few more ribbons on a uniform he could no longer wear?

Davis reached up and laid one hand against the window jamb. His vision blurred as he stared past today and into the years ahead. He would be alone, as he always had been. He would have lived his life on the edges of real life. He would have spent years, closed up on himself. Not touching or being touched. Not loving or being loved.

His fingers curled tight around the wooden molding and his back teeth ground together.

For the first time, he realized that the years ahead looked as empty as those behind him. An instant later, in a blinding flash of insight, Davis acknowledged that sort of future didn’t fit him anymore. He’d tasted belonging. He’d seen what being loved could be like. And he couldn’t go back to being the way he was. A future without Marie in it was just too bleak to consider.

The image of her face swam to the surface of his mind and he started thinking again, as he had for the last three days, about everything she’d said to him that day at the Christmas tree lot. Started thinking about a lot of things.

When he was a kid, he could remember lying in the dark, wishing things were different. Wishing he had a place to call home. Now he was finally being given a chance at that gift and he, like an idiot,
was running from it. Afraid he’d be found lacking somehow. Afraid he’d mess it up and have nothing.

“A helluva thing,” he muttered grimly as he slammed a fist into the wall. “A
marine
running scared.”

“You having a nightmare?” a deep voice startled him and Davis looked up as Gunner Sergeant Nick Peretti strolled into their shared office.

“Nightmare?”

“Yeah,” Nick said on a laugh. “A marine, scared?”

Davis laughed, too, but there was no humor in it.

Nick noticed. Sympathetically he said, “It’s a woman, isn’t it?”

“Not just any woman,” Davis told him. “
My
woman. If I haven’t blown it all to hell.”

The other man’s eyebrows went straight up. “Is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

Davis laughed aloud, crossed the room and slapped Nick on the back heartily enough to stagger him. “Not just yet, Teacher. I’ll let you know.”

As he headed for the door, Nick shouted, “Good luck!”

“I’ll need it,” he called back, and hoped to God he hadn’t come to his senses too late.

“All right now. Dry your eyes,” Mama said sternly, handing Marie a tissue.

She did as she was told, and when she was through, she shook her head. “I don’t know what to do, Mama. I mean, I knew he’d leave eventually. I just didn’t expect it to hurt this badly.”

Mama caught her daughter’s chin in her hand and turned her face up. “What do you mean, you knew he’d leave?”

“Every other guy I’ve ever liked has.”

“And you think you know why?”

“Sure,” Marie told her. “I’m not pretty and perky like Gina or Angela. I’m a mechanic, for Pete’s sake.”

“So what’s wrong with that?” Mama’s voice took on a fighting edge.

“Nothing,” Marie said quickly. “I like what I do. It’s just not very…girlie.”

“And do you think Davis liked Gina or Angela better than you?”

“No,” she said with a half smile, remembering how tense Davis got while waiting for Gina to be quiet for a while.

“So, he doesn’t mind you’re a mechanic?”

“No.” she said, thinking about it as she said it. “But that’s not the only problem, Mama. He’s never had a family. He doesn’t think he knows how to belong. How to love.”

“Piffle.”

“What?” Marie laughed and looked at her mother.

“So he’s never had a family. So what? He was never in the marines until he joined, was he?” Mama patted Marie’s cheek and leaned in to say, “A person can learn, Marie, honey. With enough love, anything is possible.”

That was the problem though, wasn’t it? He didn’t love her. Or if he did, he didn’t love her enough.

“It’s up to you, what you want to do,” Mama said as she stood up and smoothed out the fall of her dress. “But if it was me, I wouldn’t be so quick to give up.”

“I don’t know….” She wanted to think there was a chance, but wouldn’t that just be keeping her hopes up for another crash landing?

“You think about it,” Mama said. “Maybe,” she added, “if you expect him to stay, he will. Meanwhile, I’m going home to get Jeremy ready for his Christmas pageant. You coming home to change?”

“No. I brought my things here. I’ll just meet you guys at the school.”

“Okay. Don’t be late, though. Those kids’re so excited, the play is bound to be entertaining.”

She waved and walked off down the sidewalk toward home. It was a long walk, but Mama insisted she liked the exercise. Marie watched her go, her mind racing with thoughts, hopes, dreams.

Two hours later, Marie looked into the bathroom mirror and fluffed her hair one last time. She gave herself a quick once-over and decided she looked pretty good, considering she’d been crying her eyes out only a couple of hours ago.

There was a new determination in her eyes and a firm set to her chin, too. She’d thought about what Mama said and had made up her mind to go see Davis in the morning. She’d face him down on his own turf and
order
him to admit to loving her. No way was she going to give up on him—
them
—this easily.

If he thought the marines were a tough outfit, he just hadn’t seen the Santinis in high gear.

Grinning at her reflection, Marie put her holly wreath earrings on, affixed the holly pin Jeremy had made for her to the left shoulder of her lemon-yellow sweater, then left. She’d already locked the service bay doors, so she walked through the office and out the door, locking it behind her.