One Summer (20 page)

“Oh?” As her warm gaze instantly frosted, he was surprised it hadn’t turned the drizzle to sleet. She folded her arms. “And what would you think that might be?”

Intrigued by the way what he’d originally thought was innate and unrelenting sunshine could turn icy, Gabe shrugged.

“Pretty much what most women want. A house, white picket fence, two-point-five kids, a guy who comes home at six Monday through Friday, and coaches the kids’ soccer games on Saturday.”

Able to view himself with the same brutal lens he turned on the subjects of his photos, Gabe knew that he was too emotionally bankrupt to give her any of those things.

“Wow. Are all Marines such a throwback to the cavemen, or are you merely an exception?”

The ice in her eyes had turned, in a blink of one of those siren eyes, to humor. Instead of being annoyed at his purposefully exaggerated chauvinism, she appeared to be laughing at him. The same way she’d been when he’d first shown up at her door.

The weird thing was it only made her more appealing. Which could mean that it had definitely been too long since he’d gotten laid.

“Are you saying you don’t want a family?”

“No. What I’m saying is that while I may not want to follow in my mother’s Louboutins, my vision of what a family entails has actually graduated beyond
Father Knows Best
. And even if I had a sudden urge to morph into a Stepford Wife, which, for the record, I don’t, just because I happen to lock lips with someone doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m looking for it to lead to a diamond ring and a walk down the aisle.”

“What happened to that moratorium?”

“The moratorium was on
sex
. What you and I just shared was merely a kiss.”

His skepticism must have shown on his face because she added, “Okay, it was a rock-the-world kiss that may have landed on my top ten kisses of all time if it’d continued for another few seconds. But surely you don’t marry every woman you kiss?”

“Of course not.”

“How about sex?”

“I’m a guy. Which means, in principle, I’m for it.”

“I meant, do you have sex with every woman you kiss?”

He threw the question back at her. “Talk about the third degree. What do you think?”

“A lot of women go for men in uniforms.”

And didn’t he know that all too well? “And you don’t?”

“We’re talking about
you
.”

Which was exactly what he was trying
not
to do. “No. I’m not saying I have sex with every damn woman I kiss.” Frustrated, he rubbed the bridge of his nose. If he’d screwed up a mission as badly as this, he wouldn’t have made it home to even be having this discussion. “I’m just trying to do the right thing here and warn you that this—whatever the hell it is—can’t go anywhere.”

“What makes you think I want it to? Am I attracted to you? Sure.” She shrugged. “That should be obvious even to someone as clueless about women as you appear to be. But just because we admittedly seem to have chemistry doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly smelling orange blossoms and looking for ever-afters. Or, for that matter, even looking to sleep with you, though I won’t deny that there was a moment there when I was tempted. So what’s the problem?”

The damn problem, which he wasn’t willing to share with her, was that the sexy veterinarian with the skin of silk terrified him.

“Are you always this honest?”

“I’m afraid so,” she admitted. I deplore lies. And having watched too many of my mother’s marriages fail due to lack of communication, I’m also a firm believer in getting things out into the open.

“Look,” she suggested, placing a hand on his arm when he didn’t immediately respond. “We’re going to be spending a lot of time together.” She paused. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about helping out at the camp?”

“No. Whatever else you might be thinking, I’m not the kind of guy to welsh on an agreement. The Marine code—honor, courage, commitment—isn’t just words. It is, as we say in the corps, what you are in the dark. If I give my word, I damn well keep it.”

She was studying him again. In that searching way of hers. Gabe felt her on the verge of saying something when an incoming wave suddenly rushed in, coming close to drenching them.

“I’m glad to hear that,” she said. The moment had passed and she was back to the friendly, focused vet who’d opened the door to her pretty sunshine yellow house and tilted his world on its axis.

“We’d better be getting back before we end up stranded. Do you want to meet out there at the camp?” she asked conversationally as they headed back down the damp sand. Or would you rather just stop by the house and we can drive out together? That way I can introduce you around.

“The first half day is mostly a getting-acquainted, laid-back type of deal, so I won’t be taking the dogs out until we set up teams and figure out how many we need. You can bring yours over to the clinic. We have a doggy day care and he’d probably love playing with others.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll dump him on you and leave town?”

“Nope.”

“You’re that sure of yourself?”

“No.” Her laughing gaze turned serious again for a moment. “I’m that sure of you.”

Gabe had always been able to compartmentalize. Not only had it been imperative as a Marine on a mission; he’d developed the talent early, living with his parents. But the way she’d managed to continually switch gears not only impressed him; it also made him want to get to know her better. To start peeling away those layers he was discovering.

Of course, the safest and easiest thing would be to just keep as much distance from the woman as possible. But just as he’d never been a fan of
safe
, a lifetime of experience had taught Gabe not to trust easy.

“What time do you want me to show up?”

“The buses never arrive until noon. So why don’t we make it around one? That way I can make sure everything’s set at the clinic before we take off.”

“Works for me.”

“Super.”

Her smile lit up the foggy dusk. Then she laced her fingers with his in a casual, uncalculated gesture as they continued back toward where he’d left the Jeep.

A mistake, he warned himself yet again. As he breathed in the seductive scent of flowers wafting on the sea air, Gabe vowed to remember that.

It would have been so easy, Charity thought as they drove toward Shelter Bay while a silvery rain beaded the windshield. He wanted her. She wanted him. They were both adults, after all. And even if she was looking for a happily ever after, which truthfully she was,
someday
, Gabriel St. James would be the last person she’d consider.

How far, she wondered, would things have gone if he hadn’t had that surprising attack of conscience? It would have been so easy just to give in to instinct and take. And be taken.

But then what?

There were more important issues at stake than just scratching a sexual itch. She wasn’t like her mother, following her heart, not even seeming to notice the destruction she was leaving behind in her wake. It had been Lucas, the stepbrother whose wedding gift had resulted in her coming to Shelter Bay, who’d spelled things out for her when the marriage between his father and her mother had disintegrated just weeks after that Shelter Bay summer vacation.

She’d been nine. He’d been eleven, which, looking back on it, she realized wasn’t nearly as adult as she’d viewed him at the time. He’d come into her bedroom, where she’d been sobbing her shattered heart out into her pillow, and told her that from what she’d told him about her mother’s marital record, and from what he’d witnessed for himself, Charity was never going to have anything resembling a normal family life.

So she had two choices. She could spend the rest of her life eating worms and throwing herself pity parties, or she could suck it up and realize that the only person you could ever really depend on to make yourself happy, or fulfilled, was yourself.

Which was, he’d shared with her, something he’d learned to do when his little sister had died after a long battle with leukemia when he was in the third grade. The pain the family had suffered during those three years she’d been ill had mortally wounded his own parents’ marriage. His mother had returned to her hometown in Colorado, leaving him with his father. Although he visited her during alternate Christmases and three weeks every summer, he’d never found any way to lighten the sorrow that seemed to have embedded itself into Janice Chaffee’s every pore.

Looking back on it now, Charity realized how mature Lucas had been for his age. He’d been tall, his eyes the color of melted chocolate, his brown hair streaked by the summer sun. At the time he’d been the cutest boy she’d ever met, and although she would never have admitted it, she, along with every other girl in Shelter Bay, had a bit of a crush on him.

He’d also been the most caring, compassionate, and intelligent individual she’d ever met. Which was why, after he’d dried her eyes and shared a Milky Way bar with her, she’d decided to try to follow his advice.

Which she had over the years with varying success.

As much as she’d desperately hoped for a “normal” life, whatever that was, her parents’ failed relationships, along with her own, lay behind her like flotsam littering the beach after a storm. Sometimes Charity wondered if she even knew
how
to be part of a couple. If she was even capable of figuring out what it took to create a family. After all, it wasn’t like earning her DVM. For that, there’d been courses to study, exams to take, and grades that pointed toward potential success. Given the divorce rate, half the people who walked down the aisle every year could probably use some marriage training.

Perhaps she was one of those women destined to spend her life alone. With only dogs and cats for companions.

And wow, wasn’t that a fun thought?

She’d assured herself that her sexual moratorium had been the logical thing to do. Didn’t all the relationship columns and self-help books warn against rebound romances? Taking some time off, especially when she’d had so many things on her plate, made perfect sense.

She had, over the months, convinced herself of that.

But then Gabriel St. James had kissed her and she’d felt ice she hadn’t even realized she’d built up around her heart cracking.

Instead of welcoming the sudden thaw, Charity was unnerved by it. Because—and, yes, it was a cliché of romantic movies and novels—she’d honestly never felt that way before.

Her mother had always been a drama queen, given to wide mood swings, her emotional pendulum never seeming to stay at calm center.

Charity, on the other had, had always been focused. Deliberate. Even when she’d accepted Ethan’s proposal, and again when she’d called off the wedding, she liked to think she’d been behaving rationally. Reasonably.

There was nothing reasonable about the storm of emotions brought about by that shared kiss. She’d felt as if she were standing atop the edge of the cliff. One more step and she could have been flying.

Of course, you could just as easily fall crashing back to earth,
she reminded herself.

The fog blowing in from the sea had thickened to a swirling white blanket that wrapped around the car windows. A stand of Douglas fir trees screened both sides of the winding roadway, making it seem as if they were driving through a narrow green alley.

“I was married,” Gabriel said as they waited for the bridge, which had lifted for a ship to pass out to sea, to lower.

He had dropped that bombshell so unexpectedly, and so quietly, deep in introspection as she’d been, Charity wasn’t certain she’d heard him correctly.

“Excuse me?”

“I was married.”

“Oh.” And wasn’t that a scintillatingly brilliant response? She tried again. “Are you now?”

“What?”

Oops. Apparently that wasn’t any better, since he shot her a look that could blister the paint off a Humvee. The fact that he didn’t answer immediately was another clue—along with the back-and-forth motion of his jaw—that he wasn’t exactly pleased by her follow-up question.

She cleared her throat and tried not to feel intimidated. Which admittedly she was. Just a bit. While he might make his living taking photos, Gabriel St. James was a warrior. All the way to the bone.

“I asked—”

“I got that.” His words were clipped, his eyes hard. “What I want to know is how you could possibly believe I’d even come on to you—kiss you,
touch
you, dammit—if I had a wife sitting at home somewhere.”

“Some men might not find that an impediment.”

She could have sworn she saw sparks shooting from those gunmetal gray eyes. “I’m not
some
men. Maybe you weren’t listening when I mentioned that little detail about the Marine code about being who you are in the dark.”

And wasn’t that part of her problem? Charity had been thinking—and dreaming—about what this particular Marine might be like in the dark since they’d first met.

“It’s a great motto. But—”

“I said I
was
married,” he cut her off again. “Past tense.”

“I’m sorry.”

She was sorry about his marriage failing, since she knew even the most cordial breakups could be painful. But she was not sorry they were having this discussion, because it allowed her to peel back yet one more layer in the mystery that was Gabriel St. James.

“So was I.”

“Since you brought it up, am I allowed to ask what happened?”
Hello, pot. This is kettle.
Although she hadn’t offered up full disclosure herself, Charity was curious.

“It’s not that unusual a story. I married a woman who fell for the snazzy uniform and the idea of a Marine husband. What she hadn’t bargained for was being left alone for months at a time while that husband was deployed in war zones.” His voice echoed, deep and rich in the intimacy created by the fog. “So she found someone else to keep her company.”