SEAL: A BWWM BAD BOY NAVY SEAL ROMANCE (14 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CALI

The Hillcrest Farmers Market was packed, like it was every
Sunday. I was lucky I could easily walk over to it from my house and had no
parking hassles.
Kesha
didn’t live in my neighborhood
and loved using city transit, so I waited for her at the nearest trolley stop. I
couldn’t tell if the overcast sky foretold rain, or if it was simply California’s
usual “June gloom”.

I spied
Kesha’s
bright, orange
baseball cap in the crowd and yelled out to her. We greeted each other with a
hug and I felt a familiar, round ball wiggling under her clothes. As usual, she
had her tiny Yorkie, Rufus, tucked down inside the front of her corduroy jacket.
I was careful not to squish him too tightly during our embrace.

“Looking for anything special today, Cali? We’re all out of
Rufie’s
artisan, organic dog treats so I need to get a box
of those for sure. He especially likes the Peruvian goat cheese flavored ones.”

“I mainly just need to stock up on fresh fruits and veggies.
There’s also supposed to be a Thai food cooking demonstration that I’d kind of
like to see. And, if Flora the tamale lady is here today, I might buy some of
those too, if she’s got any of the green corn kind left”

The farm vendors that lined both sides of Normal Street
always had the freshest produce and we couldn’t resist popping their tasty samples
into our mouths as we shopped. We had planned on having lunch at one of the cute
little bistros nearby, so we made a pact not to fill up too much on all the
tempting offerings.

I bought a pound of Bing cherries, but not before eating a
juicy handful of them. Most of the farm folk knew me, since I frequented the
market almost every weekend. They seemed to be a little more tolerant and generous
with me than they were with the out-of-towners. I turned around just in time to
see
Kesha
wandering off with her nose in the air…….

  
“Don’t
farmers
markets smell great?! God I love it! Little
Rufie’s
nose is twitching too. What do you smell, little
one? I think he’s trying to tell me he wants one of those sizzling brats over
there!
Mmmmm
……with grilled peppers and onions! I hear
ya
little fella. Do you
wanna
share one with mama?”

“Don’t go getting one of those now,
Kesha
,
and then tell me you’re not hungry when it’s time to eat lunch later. Here,
let’s walk upwind of the aroma, so you won’t be tempted.”

 
I grabbed her arm
and pulled her toward the vendor tent with the dried apricots, figs and dates.
I bought my mom an assortment box, since she really had a thing for dried
fruits. I don’t know why she liked them so much. Their little shriveled up
fruity faces gave me the creeps. Even
Kesha
and Rufus,
(both far from being picky eaters) turned their noses up at them.

“I can’t believe your mom eats those wrinkled little turds.
What’s going on with her and that politician, anyway? Is she still pretending
they’re not dating?
Haha
!”

“Don’t even remind me. I hate thinking about it. I guess
opposites attract… She finally fessed up to the dating part, though. I think
she just got tired of kidding herself. She’s out sailing with him right now,
actually. I don’t know why it bothers me so much,
Kesha
.
She’s very happy and I should be happy for her. Shouldn’t I?”

“You probably
would
be
happy for her if your relationship with Devlin hadn’t turned to shit.”

Kesha
never was one to mince words. She
was usually blunter than blunt. But, that was probably one of the things I
loved most about her. She was bawdy and ballsy and didn’t seem to care what
anybody else thought about her.

My refreshingly frank friend’s words, about Devlin and me, had
barely left her lips, when we came upon a fresh-cut flower vendor. One of the
water buckets was filled with daffodils and daisies, just like the bouquet
Devlin had bought for me. I bit my lower lip to keep it from quivering and forlornly
fingered the flower petals and leaves……

“Devlin gave me a big beautiful bouquet of these once……
….sigh
…”

But,
Kesha
was out of patience now,
and she didn’t hesitate to let me have it, like only a true friend would:

“Girl, you have
got
to forget him, already! You fell in love with the
wrong
man. Period. It happens. Do you think he’s pining away over
you? I seriously doubt it. He’s probably been pierced-dicking everyone and
their sister, because he’s a
manwhore
, just like you
said. You need to stop acting so pitiful and move on now.”

Deep down, I knew
Kesha
was right.
I was so certain I would have heard from Devlin by now. Especially after hearing
all the stuff my mom told me about. Like all the sweet things he said that Richard
had mentioned during their first meeting; how he had such special feelings for
me. But nope……nothing at all. Just silence. How could he be like that? Maybe
Richard had made up a bunch of shit the way all politicians do.

At that moment, the vibration and buzzing of my phone in my
back pocket, made me jump and alerted me to a text message. I figured it was
just momma sending me more photos of her yachting adventure; probably more sea
lions on buoys. I pulled the phone out of my jeans and looked at the screen. Oh
my god!

It was Devlin! His message was brief…

“Cali I need to see you.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DEVLIN

Still no reply from Cali. She hadn’t responded to any of my
texts or calls. My mind went through the usual desperate list of possibilities:
Maybe her phone was broken. Maybe she got a new number. Maybe she was out of
the country. Maybe she had amnesia. Of course, I knew none of those reasons
made sense. Maybe she was just done with me, for good.
Now that one made sense!

As a last resort, I went onto the
PacificMed
website and did an online booking for a 4PM physical therapy appointment that
afternoon. I made it under the fake name of Cliff Hanger. If I had to pay to
see Cali, so be it! All day long, I rehearsed what I was going to say to her to
get her back. She was sure to give in, once she saw me, and heard my heartfelt
apology. She would have to agree it was all just a colossal misunderstanding; nothing
but a simple breakdown in communication.

Or maybe she was just plain sick and tired of my misunderstandings,
excuses and apologies. Maybe I had completely blown all my chances with her.
Who could blame her?

Heading down the hallway to the PT offices, I couldn’t help
but think back on the first time I had followed Cali back there. An involuntary
smile spread over my face as I thought about her adorable, sexy ass bobbing
back and forth in front of me, while I trailed behind her like a little puppy.

Just then, the office door swung open and out strutted Travis
Whatshisname. And he looked at me like the cat that just ate the canary.
Something told me he obviously had some sort of bad news that he couldn’t wait
to taunt me with. I hated that super-smug idiot.

“If you’re looking for Cali Jamison, she’s not here. I heard
her tell her partner
Kesha
, an hour ago, that she was
leaving. So, I guess you’re just shit out of luck, Darren.”

Travis sounded exactly like a bratty child in a sandbox. I
almost expected him to stick out his tongue at me and go, “So there! Nah nah
nah nah nah nah!”

But if what he said was true, then I really was SOL at the
moment. I would have to wait even longer before I saw Cali and talked to her. Come
to think of it, I hadn’t noticed her car in the parking lot, when I pulled in. My
anger started to get the best of me again.

“First of all, my name is Devlin and second, why don’t you
mind your own business, asshole!”

“Don’t you want to know where Cali is? Probably out with the
guy I saw her with in the parking lot last week. Guess you didn’t make a very
good impression on her if she’s already moved on, huh?”

Like a bull, I was seeing red now. I might have even been
snorting steam out of my nose. I grabbed Travis by the collar of his workout
jacket and slammed him up against the wall.
Kesha
must have heard the racket in the hallway, prompting her to pop her head out
for a look-see.

“Hey! You two better break it up out here before I call the
cops!”

I decided I should let go his collar before I actually hurt
him.

But when she did, the idiot got right back in my face for
another round. Only this time he went way too far. He made his first mistake by
poking me in the chest repeatedly. His second mistake was insulting Cali:

“Face the facts, soldier boy! She’s fucking some other dude
now and there’s nothing you can do about it! I’ll bet she’s probably sucking
him off right now!”

He sealed the deal with his fist, throwing a
suckerpunch
to my gut that damn near knocked the wind out
of me, and he was moving in to follow it up.

My blind rage was immediately ignited. Before I could even
blink my eyes, I’d caught his next punch and countered it with a savage blow to
Travis’s face, sending him flying back against the wall and onto his ass. He
was still conscious but he had a lot of blood coming out of his nose and upper
lip. I stood over him, still seething with anger. It took every ounce of military
discipline I had not to jump on top of him and slam his head against the tile
floor.

I could have easily killed him.

“You mother-fucker! You can say whatever you want to about
me, but if I EVER hear you say anything crude or disrespectful about Cali
Jamison again, I will rip your fuckin’ arms and legs off!”

“Yeah, I heard
you
asshole! And so did
my witness over here. He just assaulted me AND threatened to kill me? Right,
Kesha
? You heard him didn’t you? I’m
gonna
sue your fucking ass off. I’ll bet your rich daddy would rather settle out of
court too, rather than have a nasty public trial. You are SO fucked. You’re
gonna
be sorry you ever put your hands on me!”

A small, curious crowd of gym members was starting to gather
now, but
Kesha
had been the only witness to Travis’s
ass-whooping. Good
ol
’
Kesha
.
She looked straight into his now blackened eyes, and deflated his little
bubble.

“I’m sorry Mr. Walsh, but I saw a man defending himself. I
watched you hit Mr. Danes first. And if you don’t stop causing a commotion right
now, I’m going to call the police and have you arrested!”

She turned and headed back into her office.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CALI

There was no way in hell that I was going to do Physical
Therapy on Devlin Danes, today. And that stupid fake name he used; Cliff
Hanger? Come on! Did he really think we wouldn’t know that was him?
Kesha
could take him, if she wanted to, but I had to get
out of there. Devlin was a persistent and tenacious guy, though. How long could
I avoid him? I wanted to see him, but just not yet. Not until I had a little
more time to think things through.

Why was he suddenly contacting me? It couldn’t be just for
PT. It definitely sounded personal. Was he trying to start things back up with
me by reestablishing our patient-therapist relationship? Did he just want to be
friends now? Or did he just want to fuck me and humiliate me again? His texts
and voice messages sounded like that of a desperate man. I was reasonably sure
he was trying to lure me into taking him back. But did I
really
want him back? My heart was tired of all the emotional
gymnastics.

Just then, I heard my phone vibrating and buzzing in my
purse. I had a suspicion it was a text from Devlin, but I was afraid to look at
it. I should have assigned a special ringtone to his phone number, then, I
wouldn’t have had to guess. I kept threatening to, but I just never got around
to doing it.

Reluctantly, I checked the screen. I relieved to see that it
was only
Kesha
, asking me where I was. I quickly shot
a message back to her that I was down by the bay, sitting on a park bench. She
responded with a request for the details of my location and texted that she was
heading right over.
What was the urgency?
My curiosity was piqued, to say the least.

About 20 minutes later, I spotted
Kesha’s
favorite orange sports cap coming out of the Convention Center parking lot. I
waved to her and she joined me on my waterfront bench. Unfortunately, the perfect
view of Coronado Island, that I had been enjoying minutes ago, was now almost
completely blocked by the Dole Pineapple barge. The barge was a regular
inhabitant of the port, so I wasn’t at all surprised to see it. I just wished
it would’ve docked a little later.

“What’s going on
Kesha
? Didn’t
Devlin show up for his PT appointment, after all? I thought you’d still be with
him? Oh, wait a minute, what am I saying? Excuse me………I mean Cliff Hanger!
Didn’t Cliff Hanger come in?”