SEAL Brotherhood 06 - SEAL My Destiny (6 page)

“Yes,” Luke said, avoiding eye contact. “We just met.”

“What did I tell you? Huh? She’s single, and I think she’d be just your type.”

I’m not hearing this. This isn’t real.
“Julie, Luke, here, is a Navy SEAL.”

Check that one off my list. Figures.

Her anger at how completely fucked up this all was gave her strength. “Oh, is that so?” She lowered her eyelids and spoke while tilting her head back, viewing his face through the tiniest slits her eyes could make. “Looks more like a UPS driver to me.”

“Ha. You’re funny, sis,” Colin said. He leaned into Luke and whispered just loudly enough so she could hear him. “I think she likes you,” following it up with a waggle of his eyebrows. Colin threw his arm around Luke’s shoulders, which looked ridiculous since Luke was nearly three inches taller and probably outweighed him by forty pounds. He dragged Luke to the kitchen.

Julie slammed the front door so hard it sounded like a sonic boom. Voices in the other room immediately stopped. Her mother poked her head around the corner, her eyebrows knitted.

“Sorry. The wind caught it.”

Her mother smiled and disappeared again.

Luke stood by his sister and was shaking hands with several of the other groomsmen and being introduced to family members. He shook hands with Julie’s parents, which was one of the strangest scenes Julie had witnessed in a long time.

Julie decided she’d just ignore him. Whenever he moved into her line of sight, she’d turn her back. She’d stare to the side to avoid having to see him out of the corner of her eye. She’d look down, or check her fingernails—she’d look anywhere and everywhere but in his direction. There was no way she was going to tolerate his scrutiny before she’d had a good and thorough talk with herself and perhaps a nice, long, private cry.

Very quickly, Julie ran out of places she could look without appearing to be a social deviant. She began to feel like one. Her mother had come over to her several times, asking if she was feeling well. That meant her efforts to look casual and unaffected were definitely not working.

The minister arrived, and the rehearsal began in earnest. She was put into position behind Stephanie’s friends. And—of course!—Luke was placed in the corresponding position on Colin’s side.

Great.
She wondered what else could go wrong. And she didn’t have to wait long to find out.

The minister wanted the bridesmaids and groomsmen to walk in together, all the pairs from the wedding party, arm in arm. She tried her very best not to touch him, which was naturally impossible. She tried not to have their legs brush against each other, which was also impossible. She tried not to think about the electric sizzle of his arm as he hugged hers to his side. And while she got more and more tense, he relaxed.

And he threaded the fingers of his right hand through the ones on her left, holding them tight against his chest. He rubbed the length of her forefinger as she tried not to move hers, but the warmth of his fingertips on the back of her hand, along the sides, and between her fingers in an intimate linking was making her ears buzz. She even had to tolerate a knowing smile from her brother, and his wiggling eyebrows. She gladly parted company with Luke and took her position at the end of the line of bridesmaids.

Thank goodness they didn’t have to do that again. The rehearsal was declared a success and everyone retired to the kitchen to get their food.

She scrutinized Stephanie carefully, maybe subconsciously looking for some evidence she wasn’t really Luke’s sister, which she already knew was ridiculous. Julie could see the family resemblance. Stephanie’s blue eyes were the same shade as Luke’s, her lips were full. She was pretty, and appeared to be having a good time.

Glancing around the room, she couldn’t find Luke and began to relax, thinking perhaps he had decided to leave early. He couldn’t have misunderstood her coldness. Perhaps he’d gotten the message, finally.

But no such luck. Her back stiffened when she heard him call out to her from behind. Though it wasn’t very smart, she turned around. No helpful distractions were within earshot, unless she yelled.

“I’ve thought hundreds of times about what I’d say to you if we met someplace. All the things I rehearsed have just gone out of my mind. Completely vanished.” He pressed his fingers against his forehead.

She didn’t want to drink in the cool blue liquid of his gaze, but she couldn’t help it, finishing it off with a quick glance to his lips that grabbed his attention. His nostrils flared and his breathing deepened. Within seconds, their breathing was in tandem…the magical chemistry enveloping them both.

She saw movement at her waist and saw one hand begin to rise.

She immediately took a step back.

“Don’t,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Julie. I truly am.”

“Good.” She whirled away and marched back into the kitchen to join other partygoers.

Julie didn’t have
any trouble avoiding his gaze the rest of the evening. Luke seemed to disappear. And then she was told he had left.

Thank God.

She poured herself a big glass of red wine and sank into the family room couch. She listened to the happy banter of the bride and her girlfriends. She watched her brother joke with a couple of his groomsmen. Her parents danced to something on the radio. The caterers were busy clearing the kitchen.

And Julie wasn’t here at all. She was back in San Diego on the beach, replaying everything that had happened with Luke.

How could something, which felt so right, have been so wrong?

‡

L
uke went straight
to the motel and crashed. Up until tonight, he’d been sleeping well without the medication. Tonight, he wasn’t so sure he could.

He knew it would be a mistake to watch TV. Something would snag him, and then he’d be off on that loop in his brain, like a hamster in its wheel. Of all the messed-up situations. He was now going to be family with the woman he’d had a truly momentous one-night stand with. It had been a beautiful evening and morning after, until his past had overwhelmed him. He knew he was damaged goods. It would have been better for her if they’d never met again.

But it was impossible now. The marriage of his sister and her brother made meeting Julie unavoidable. It was selfish on his part, but he was angry with his sister and her brother. Angry about their love. Angry about their normal future.

Not that he blamed them, actually. He’d made different choices with his life, and because of his choices, he was forever altered in a totally fucked-up and negative way.

He could never have what Stephanie and Colin had. He knew how much work it would be for a woman to create some kind of normal life with him, and it was dangerous. In trying to save him, it could well cost another woman her life.

Julie was such a sweet thing. Which was why it felt so bad, knowing he had hurt her. She’d lovingly kissed his scars and tats, given herself to him with a full and open heart, unafraid.

I don’t do uncomplicated.

No, she wouldn’t understand the complicated jumble that was his brain, otherwise she wouldn’t say such a thing. If she only knew.

I want to be sorely missed when I’m gone.

That was the thing, though, wasn’t it? Falling in love meant losing someone when they didn’t come back. That was no way to treat another human being. Much better to keep them from waiting at all, from ever knowing him. It would be kinder.

Except it was too late now. He knew her, all right. He knew her little mewling sounds, the way her body yearned for him, her pure heart. Though he’d known it was wrong, he hadn’t been able to help giving her hope in a happily ever after. He’d wanted, for just one night, to live the fantasy of being someone’s hero—to be
her
hero. The guy who could rock that sweet woman’s world and give more than he would take. It was almost like a little piece of bright crystal had broken off her and had lodged in him somewhere. Some little piece of the good that was her spirit.

Though emotionally injured, he wanted to be the warrior who was worthy of the medals he wore, still worthy of the Trident he’d earned. Be the man who could feel emotions without having to cover them up under a hundred pounds of equipment. Who didn’t have to dive from a plane at midnight just to feel fully alive, to be present without the risk of death to define his boundaries.

He fell into a deep sleep.

The woman in red came to him, finding her way under the covers, stretching out against him, her face hovering just above his. He was aware she was a dream, because he didn’t feel her so much as sense her, see her. She gave him the look that said she wanted to be taken. But when he lifted his mouth to hers in his dream, her lips were not there. Her iridescent body called to him, just as her lips had, but he could not touch her. He could hear her, but couldn’t hear the sound of his own voice. He heard the steady pulsing of her heartbeat and her breath pushing in and out of her lungs as if she was inside him. Their hearts beat in unison.

Luke,
the lady whispered.
I’m waiting for you, Luke.
Her voice faded while he watched the ambulance take her beautiful, warm body to some eternal resting spot. Where she wouldn’t laugh or cry, or hear the sound of her own child being born. He’d done that. He’d taken it all away from her. He’d taken it from himself, too.

Luke. I’m waiting.

He was just about to follow her, figuring he’d better hurry, when he woke up.

His body was heaving like he’d been running, and he was short of breath. He’d fallen asleep in his clothes, which were so soaked they dampened the sheets as well. His clammy T-shirt stuck the front of his blue shirt tight against his chest.

He sat up to listen. He’d heard breathing. Or was it the ocean? He’d seen her slip under the sheets, but he was above the sheets in his tiny motel room.

He lay back into the white cotton pillows, staring through the blackness toward the ceiling he couldn’t see, and tears rolled from the outside corners of his eyes and onto the pillowcase. The torment and pain of knowing he was not whole scared him. Rolling to the side, he brought his knees to his chest. He buried his face in the cotton pillowcase, bringing one arm over his ears to block any sounds of her breathing or her heartbeat. If she called his name he didn’t want to hear it.

He began to cry in the dark and all alone, hoping sleep would come soon and give him peace.

‡

J
ulie got a
call on her cell from a number she didn’t recognize. It was a San Diego area code, so she figured it was one of Stephanie’s friends.

It was Luke.

“I hope you don’t mind.”

Part of her wanted to tell him to go to hell, but she heard something in his voice that alerted her concern. “I don’t mind. Are you all right, Luke?”

He paused for a few seconds. She heard traffic in the background on his end of the line. He was outside somewhere, or near an open window.

“No.” He cleared his throat and, into the silence he asked, “Are you still there?”

“Yes, Luke. I’m here.”

“I wanted to apologize for my behavior—”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Over at Aroma Roasters.”

She looked at her bedside clock. It was nearly seven thirty. “You want some company?”

“Not sure it’s a very good idea, Julie.”

“Then why did you call me?”

“To apologize. I thought since we were going to be family from now on, we should bury the hatchet.”

“Which hatchet? The one between my shoulder blades or the one between yours?”

“Funny.”

She heard his breathing; it was a little raspy, like he was shaking between breaths. The smooth, confident sailor she’d been with that magic night had turned into a teenage boy, she thought.

“Why don’t you give me a few minutes, and I’ll come over and we can have breakfast.”

“I don’t think it’s necessary. I said what I had to say.”

“So you don’t want to have breakfast with me?”