SEAL'd Perfection The Complete Collection: A Navy SEAL Romance (20 page)

Hilda didn’t say anything, but I could tell she was surprised at my choice of words. She looked at me and I noticed she suppressed a smile from the twinkle in her eyes.

“Nothing happened!” I insisted. “He made me dinner and, well, actually, I yelled at him.” I winced slightly at the memory. I didn’t regret turning down his offer, but after he’d left, I’d wished my delivery had been a little softer.

“You yelled at him?” Hilda repeated, completely bewildered. “Dear, where I come from, if a man makes you dinner, you marry him, not yell at him!”

I laughed softly. “I know, I know. He was only trying to help, but I don’t know, he just said something that bugged me and I guess I overreacted.”

Hilda nodded sagely. “That’s understandable. What did he say?”

I hesitated for a moment, not wanting to offend Hilda. “He said he wanted to pay for a lawyer,” I explained.

At my confession, Hilda sighed. She reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “My dear, sweet Katherine, tell me, why won’t you let him help you? He cares about you and is doing the only thing he knows to show you.”

Her words pricked at my heart, but all I could do was shake my head. “I don’t know, Hilda.” I looked down at the table, trying to keep my composure while a hurricane of emotions ripped through me. “I guess, I just feel like I’d be some kind of charity case, to you, to him. I don’t want to be a burden. I got married so young, and, the last two years were really my first years truly on my own, and it’s not always picture perfect, but I’ve been making it work and doing everything in my power to provide a good life for me and my baby—” I stopped, swallowing a lump of emotion in my throat, unable to even say Jax’s name. In his three years, I’d never gone a day without talking to him. Even on his weekends with Mitch, I always got a phone call and got to hear his little sleepy voice say goodnight and tell me he loved me.

“I can’t speak for Jace, but to me, you’d never be a charity case, and I have a feeling he would tell you the same thing. We care about you and want you to be happy, and that is tied to having Jax around,” Hilda reassured me.

I nodded and blinked away the new tears from my eyes. “I’ll figure it out.”

Hilda considered me for a moment, and I got the sense she had more to say, but she seemed to decide against whatever it was, and handed me another donut instead.

* * * *

Somehow I managed to drag myself to work later that morning. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but I needed to get out of the house, and if I was about to have legal bills in addition to all my others, I needed the money. Around three o’clock, I started getting restless and went about cleaning, and then re-cleaning, the counter and all of the appliances on the other side. The coffee pots, salt and pepper shakers, and napkin dispensers had never sparkled so brilliantly as when Patrice finally came over and took the cleaning rag from my hands and dropped it into a dirty bucket near the sink.

“Why don’t you take a break,” she suggested gently. “Get some lunch.”

I let her lead me away from the counter and sit me down at one of the tables, like I was a paying customer, and then she went off to get me a glass of lemon water. I picked up the menu, studying it even though I already had every dish listed memorized. My head jerked up at the sound of the front door bell chiming, and my heart followed at the sight of Jace’s broad shoulders filling the doorway. He swept the area with his eyes and locked in on me instantly. I shrunk back in my seat, replaying our last conversation in my mind. He offered me a small smile and to my surprise, turned and went to his normal table that was across the restaurant from where I was sitting. Patrice swooped in to take his order, and although she gave me a curious look when she dropped off my glass of water and wrote down my order, she didn’t say a word, and continued to wait on Jace as though it was normal.

I picked at my sandwich, unable to concentrate with Jace mere yards away. He was making quick work of his lunch, and a clock was ticking in the back of my mind, reminding me that if I was going to go talk to him, I needed to get my ass out of the seat and move, but as I cycled through potential opening lines, I realized I really had nothing to say to him.

He finished his meal, paid, and although he threw a quick glance my way—he left without a word to me.

Seeing Kat, being that close to her without actually having a connection to her, was fucking torture. It was bad enough she was running around the inside of my mind, her parting words from the night before still stinging whenever my mind slowed down long enough to replay them.

I left the diner and went back across the street to the shop, each footfall heavier than the last, as I trudged through the door. John sprang to attention as soon as I was inside, and started snapping at people to get in place. I had two clients waiting for me. They’d been lined up for several weeks, repeaters from my days in Chicago. I did my best to plaster a smile on my face, block out the cameras, and go to work—all the while, tamping down the ache in my chest over the beautiful woman sitting in a booth across the street.

Filming went smoothly, the clients were relaxed and managed to pull me out of my funk long enough to get some decent footage. When they said goodbye, and I started to close down the shop, John actually complimented my attitude, before rounding up the crew and taking off.

“Two more weeks,” I said to myself as the door swung closed behind one of the sound assistants. That was all I had to push through before John would be out of my hair and the show would be wrapped. I’d have some appearances to make when the show aired, to sign autographs, take pictures with fans, and sell a crap ton of T-shirts, hats, DVDs, and whatever other shit the powers that be came up with between now and the time the show premiered.

Then what was I supposed to do? The show would likely get extended, the ratings were too strong to shut it down, but I had the option to say yes or no. My current contract was only through the second season. Did I want to continue? I’d moved away from Chicago to get out of the limelight and start over. Reboot.

A lot of good that had done me.

In the small podunk town there was nothing to do, which, at first, had been the main appeal. The pace of life was slower and there weren’t temptations on every corner, calling out to me like sirens, waiting for me to crash on the rocks so the world could watch me implode again.

After I’d first moved, and met Kat, I’d felt completely validated. I’d thought Kat and I could maybe build something real, and that maybe, there was such a thing as fate and destiny and that my move had been—I shook my head, clearing the thoughts from my mind like they were the markings on an Etch-a-Sketch. Whatever I’d thought had clearly been delusional. Kat didn’t want me, and how could I blame her? Since I’d arrived, her whole life had derailed and became about a thousand times more complicated.

I jerked up from my chair, sending it flying back, crashing into the wall. I had to get out, the walls of the shop were getting too close, and my entire body was antsy, like an itch I couldn’t scratch. After fixing the chair, I flicked off the lights, shut the blinds, and turned off the flashing Open sign in the window. I had just clicked the lock in the door, about to go upstairs and put on my workout gear to go for a run, when I saw a shadowy figure crossing the street. My body went tight, as I realized it was Kat headed my way. I unlocked the door and swung it open. As she stepped onto the sidewalk, her face became illuminated by the light above the shop, and I could see the deep lines of exhaustion and stress etched into her face, and the dark half moons under her eyes, telling me that she hadn’t slept much, if at all, the past two nights.

“I saw you closing up,” she explained, pointing over at the dim neon Open sign in the window. She brought her eyes back to mine before continuing, “Uhm…I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for being a bitch last night. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that, you were only trying to help, and I just wanted you to know I really do appreciate it,” she paused, gathering her thoughts. When she looked back at me again, her green eyes shone with a gloss of unshed tears.

I reached for her, wordlessly pulling her into my arms. She relaxed into my embrace and I squeezed her tighter, my arms overlapping around her thin waist. “It’s all right, Kat. It’s okay.”

I’d spent the past few days agonizing over a way to fix the problem, to get her son back, and to make sure her ex never messed with her again, but so far, I’d turned up empty handed. But as she sobbed against my chest, all I could do was reassure her, that somehow, we would find a way out of the mess and make things right.

“God, I’m such a disaster,” she whispered, still sagged against me, all her strength drained away.

“You’re not,” I replied softly. I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, holding my lips against her warm skin, drinking in her scent and feel. It was the worst possible timing, but I couldn’t stop my body from reacting to her nearness. Holding her, breathing in her subtle floral scent, and even placing my lips on her face, wasn’t nearly enough. I wanted more. I wanted her—all of her. “Kat, listen to me,” I said, backing her up a step so she was forced to look into my eyes. “We’re going to figure this out. You tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. I get that I got too aggressive last night, I pushed you too far, so now—you set the tone, you tell me what you need, okay?”

She sucked in the corner of her lower lip, nibbling it while her eyes frantically searched mine, as though the answers were hidden somewhere on my face. “I need a friend, Jace. Will you be my friend?”

Friend?
My stomach twisted at her simple request. I was standing with her, aching to have her, to be her hero, her knight in shining armor, and what she was asking pushed me about as far away as she could without telling me to stay away from her altogether. I shoved down my own selfish disappointment, and smiled down at her. “Of course. You don’t have to ask.”

She nodded slowly, a smile spreading over her face. “Thanks.”

“Do you wanna get a bite?” I asked. “We could go out to Damon and Gigi’s,” I suggested, referencing the biker bar I’d taken her to on our first date. “The ride and the music would do us both some good.”

She paused, and my heart fell, waiting for her rejection, but after a moment, she smiled more broadly and nodded. “You know what, that sounds pretty good. But I have a meeting tomorrow, so I can’t be out too late.”

“You got a deal. Let me go grab my jacket and the spare helmet and I’ll be right back down.”

* * * *

It was impossible to not let my mind get carried away in a world of dark desires as we rode together. With Kat’s arms around me, her thighs opened wide straddling the bike, grazing mine, as she held on for dear life, memories from our night together came back to me. Every sensation reverberated across my skin, every muscle tight with anticipation, and thinking about the way our naked bodies fit so perfectly together, got me hard less than five miles outside of town. I knew I’d need to get myself in check before we got to the bar, especially since I’d just agreed to be her friend not twenty minutes before, but for the time being, I let my mind run wild, without worrying about how I was going to manage to not cross the line she’d just drawn.

The ride flew by and as soon as we hopped off the bike, I missed her closeness. She handed me the helmet and flashed me a heart-stopping smile. “That was even better than the first time.”

My cock twitched, knowing that fucking her again would be better than the first time, too. I smiled, but it was strained, mixed with the discomfort of trying to tamp down my overwhelming arousal. Luckily, Kat didn’t seem to notice, as she took the lead towards the bar as though she were a regular.

Ten minutes later, we were seated at the end of the bar, each nursing a beer, waiting for a pool table to open up. The conversation was light and fun, and although I could sense it was a struggle, Kat managed to talk about Jax without breaking down into tears as she told me stories of him when he was a little younger. I shifted the topic to her classes and couldn’t help but smile as she animatedly chattered on about different design methodologies like it was common knowledge.

“You ever get that couch situation figure out?” She asked after discussing a recent home design show she’d gone to as a part of her class. She took a long sip from her beer, eying me over the edge, while she waited for a response.

I laughed. “No, it’s as sad as ever. You see, there was this woman who promised me this solution, and then she never got back to me. I guess she lost interest or something.”

“What a tease,” Kat said, laughing along with me. “I’ll call my friend tomorrow.”

I waved her off. “Don’t worry about it—you’ll get to it when you have time. No pressure.”

Kat nodded but something changed behind her eyes, a layer of sadness that had been absent all night, returned to cloud out her sparkling energy.

“Whatcha thinking about over there?” I asked, fighting the urge to take her hand.

After a pause, she shook her head, blinking frantically a few times. “Nothing. So, what color are you thinking?” She asked, obviously trying to recapture the easy teasing from moments before, but the mood had flickered out and died like an extinguished candle.

“Kat, friends talk to each other,” I said softly.

Her eyes bounced to mine. “This feels wrong.”

For the second time that night, my gut twisted inside me, and it was hard to take my next breath. “Being here?” I asked, leaving off my fear that the rest of the sentence would be…
with me
.

Kat looked down at her frosty glass of beer, running her nail over the etched logo on the side. “I’m not with my baby, I might’ve lost him for good, and I’m out at a bar. I don’t know what I was thinking…” her words carried off, getting lost in the chaos and noise of the room around us.

I signaled for the bartender to close us out, and set my hand on Kat’s back. “I can’t say I understand, ‘cause I’m not in your shoes, but if you wanna go, we can leave, no hard feelings.”