Swift Strike (SEAL Team 14 Book 2) (13 page)

“Where in Virginia did you grow up?” he asked.

“Hendrix. It’s a medium-sized town just outside of Richmond.”

“Walvis Bay is a long way from Virginia. Why move here?”

“I moved to Africa for a job. A few years back, my mother bought this house in Namibia as a vacation home. She gave it to me last year as a present for graduating from my postdoctoral program.”

“That’s one helluva graduation present.”

“Yeah, it was. But my mother stopped visiting here regularly, and since I was moving to Africa upon my graduation, it was a practical choice at the time.”

“Oh okay.” God this food tasted incredible. So this woman had beauty, brains, a good sense of humor,
and
she could cook. Be still, his beating heart.

“How does it taste?”

“Really, really good. Very tender.”

She smiled then, a genuine smile that caused his already quickly pumping heart to skip a beat.

“Do you cook a lot?” he asked her between mouthfuls. He tried to slow down the speed at which he was shoveling the delectable morsels into his mouth for fear that she’d think he was a slob with no table manners.

“I love to cook. Cooking and baking tend to calm my nerves. Needless to say, I’ve been cooking a lot lately. I’m a science geek by nature and cooking is a lot like conducting an experiment—especially if you aren’t going by a set recipe.” Taking a large swallow of wine, she asked, “How about you? Do you enjoy cooking?”

“Enjoy is a strong word. It’d be more accurate to say that I
can
cook, if need be. I’m more of a survivalist chef. So you know, if you are truly in a jam I can throw something together that’s reasonably edible. Enough to keep you going until the experts arrive on the scene.”

She let out a soft, husky laugh. It was the first time he’d heard her laugh, and the musical sound of it put a smile on his face.

“So, do you always check up on the people you save?”

“No, we don’t...I don’t. You’re the first, actually.”

“Really? Why am I the lucky girl?”

It was a good question, one he was still struggling to answer. He decided to go with the truth. “Honestly...I don’t know. I was just worried about you. The last time I saw you, you didn’t look too good. I mean, you looked...lost. In my line of work, I see a lot of death and destruction. Going through what you went through inevitably changes a person. I just wanted to make sure that you were dealing with things okay.”

Lena didn’t respond to his comment immediately. She looked behind him into the distance, circumspectly mulling over his words. “You’re right. I was lost.”

“And now?”

She looked down at her plate, her slender fingers tightly gripping the fork in her hand before she glanced back up to stare directly into his eyes. “Now, I’m less lost.”

Fair enough.

“Have you seen a shrink since you’ve been back? It’s usually recommended after going through something like you went through. I bet it would do you some good.”

“No, I haven’t. I think I’m doing okay. When I first came back, I had nightmares. But I haven’t had one in a few days.”

He hated the idea that she was plagued by nightmares about what she’d endured. It’d been something he’d expected—Lord knows he’d had his fair share of nightmares himself over the years—but still. The thought that she couldn’t sleep peacefully without dreaming about the terror of the past few weeks didn’t sit well with him. “I know it’s not really my business, but I think you should talk to someone, professionally. I’m sure you’re dealing with a lot of feelings from your time in captivity. It can only help you, you know. To sort things out.”

“Maybe,” she said with a noncommittal shrug. “You didn’t bring a bag with you?” she asked him, switching the subject.

“What?”

“A suitcase.”

“Oh. I’m checked in at one of the local hotels. About half an hour from here. I dropped my stuff off before I came over to your house. I wasn’t planning on staying here in Africa for long. Like I said, I just wanted to check up on you. I have a flight back home to the States tomorrow afternoon.”

“Well, I’m glad that you came by to see me.” She flashed him another smile. It wasn’t like the tentative one that she had given him earlier on the ship. This time her eyes were smiling too. And lucky for him because she had a really dazzling smile.

She seemed to finally be relaxing around him, and remarkably, he also felt himself starting to unwind. He had never gone to this much trouble to pursue a woman. And as much as he tried to convince himself that he was just checking up on her as a friend, he knew he was lying to himself.

Jesse
couldn’t keep his eyes off her soft lips. Couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to kiss her. Couldn’t help but wonder what she would taste like.

“Are you?”

“Yeah, I am. I was surprised when you knocked on my door earlier. My mother left a few days ago for Florida, so I’m here by myself. I didn’t expect any friends over tonight. A knock on the door this time of the evening scared me. I’m sorry if I came off as rude.”

“There’s absolutely no need for you to apologize. Like I said, I should have reached out to you sooner to make sure that it was okay with you if I dropped by. I wasn’t thinking.”

“So why do you do what you do?” Lena asked him abruptly, the change in conversation catching him off guard.

“What do you mean?”

“Your job. It’s obviously extremely dangerous, and it has got to be a rather thankless job. Did you always want to be a soldier?”

“Not always. You know, I absolutely love what I do. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it’s the best job in the world, and I couldn’t picture myself doing anything different. But that wasn’t always the case. I kind of broke my family’s plan for me. I was supposed to be a cowboy.”

Now that definitely caught her attention. Her brown eyes lit up and widened in incredulity as she asked, “Excuse me, what?”

“Yeah. I’m not shitting you. I was supposed to be a rancher, and I suppose it would be accurate to say that I was a cowboy—at least for a little while. But some would say once a cowboy
always
a cowboy.”

He winked at her and was rewarded with another lyrical laugh.
Sweet
. “You see, my family owns a horse and cattle ranch in the outskirts of Louisville. From birth, I was destined to follow the path of a long line of ranchers.”

“Interesting. What prompted the change? Cowboy to soldier is a big jump.”

“A Navy recruiter in high school sold me on the idea of enlisting. I love my country and being able to serve in this capacity was a no-brainer for me. It was also a challenge. A way to prove to myself what kind of a man I was. You know, the type who would buckle under pressure or thrive. I joined right after my high school graduation.”

“That’s a huge commitment.”

“One of the biggest.”

“And you don’t have any regrets?”

No one had ever asked him that question before, not even his closest friends or family. He considered it for a moment. “No. No regrets. I mean, sure, there are some things I guess you could say I missed out on, but nothing that would make me regret enlisting. There aren’t too many careers out there where I would have had the opportunity to have such an immediate and direct impact on the world. How about you? Why engineering?”

“Science and mathematics were second nature to me. I was more inclined to postulate on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity as opposed to sitting and writing paper for history. Also, my father is an engineer.” She paused before saying, “I suppose for me, this path has always been the easiest road to travel.”

“I thought your father was a businessman?”

“Oh, he is. But he got his start in mechanical and electrical engineering at Virginia Tech. By the time he was in his mid-thirties, he’d started his first company, Westlake Enterprises. Westlake Enterprises now owns the largest stake in WG Oil.”

“Wow. That’s a huge accomplishment.”

“Yeah.”

Jesse looked at her then—really looked at her. The sadness in her eyes didn’t have anything to do with the tragedy of her recent circumstances. He found himself wanting to know what was causing her so much pain. He wanted to know her.

“Are you and your father close?” he asked, carefully watching every shadow that fell across her face.

“No, not particularly. Not anymore. We used to be a very long time ago.” She looked like she was poised to say more, but she stopped short.

“Are your parents still together?”

“No. They divorced when I was still in high school.” He didn’t know what else to say. She seemed very hesitant to provide any more information. He didn’t want to push her too hard before she was ready to share with him. “Have you ever been in a long-term relationship, or are you strictly the love ‘em and leave ‘em type?” she asked.

Now it was his turn to clam up. “I was in a long-term relationship for two years.”

“What happened?”

“She died,” he forced the bitter words past his tongue, which had lodged firmly in his throat.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered, looking chagrined. “I’m sorry, Jesse.”

“It’s all right. It happened years ago. It’s just not something I like to talk about.”

Her eyes looked sad.
She
was sad for him. Jesse didn’t know whether to take that as a good sign or bad one when she asked, “Another glass of wine?”

“Sure.” Jesse hated wine, especially white wine. But if swallowing that swill meant he could stay and talk with her a few more minutes, he’d gladly do it.

“Are you seeing anyone?” she asked him, returning to the table with two refilled wine glasses.

“No, I’m not. Are you?”

“No.”

“I guess that was a stupid question for me to ask you.”

“Why do you say that?”

“If you were dating anyone, I am sure that they would be here right now with you—given all that you’ve had to deal with lately.”

“Perhaps, but you’d be surprised how much people can let you down sometimes.”

Clearing his throat, he said, “If something like what you went through happened to my girlfriend, I wouldn’t let her come back home to an empty house.”

She lifted her eyebrow at his comment. “Protective, are we?”

“You have no idea.”

****

Lena could not believe that she was pouring her heart out to anyone, let alone to this man who was nearly a stranger to her. Maybe it was true what people said, that it was easier to confess your sins to someone you didn’t know rather than to your closest friends.

They sat there at her kitchen table and talked for hours. They talked about his career goals, quirky tales from some of his past missions, and the everlasting friendship that he shared with his brothers in arms. The only topic that appeared to be off limits was the death of his girlfriend. And to his credit, he had managed to coax some more information out of her about her relationships with her parents, Steven, and her half-brother. They’d even touched on her work as an engineer and her ex-boyfriend. It was nearly two a.m. before he stood up to leave.

“It was great getting to see you, Lena,” he said, walking over to place both of their empty dishes in the sink. “I’m really glad that you’re doing better now.”

She was surprised when he turned on the water and begin to wash the dishes for her. A guy who washed dishes without being asked? Wow. She practically stared at him in slack-jawed awe.

“It was nice talking to you too,” she said. “Thank you for coming all the way out here on your vacation just to check up on me. It means a lot.”

He walked toward her then, and Lena thought he was going to do what she had done earlier on the ship—stretch out his hand to shake hers. He might have thought about doing that, but he must have changed his mind at the last minute because he wrapped both arms around her in a big bear hug.

It’d been a long time since she’d been held like this by a man. Just the sheer strength of his sinewy arms around her waist felt incredible. His long, tapered fingers gently massaged the curve of her spine. Before she knew it, she was returning his hug, completely melting into his touch. She didn’t know how long they stood there like that, embracing one another. She felt more content than she had in a very long time.

But then he pulled away. Smiling down at her he turned to leave, to walk out the door, to walk away from her. A pit grew deep inside of her stomach when she realized that she didn’t want him to go. She didn’t want him to leave her. She grabbed his hand, preventing him from walking away. She didn’t say anything, just steadfastly held onto his fingers. She didn’t have to say anything. She was positive that the desire that she felt for him was imprinted on her face.

Jesse looked directly into her eyes and
she
knew that
he
knew that she wanted him to stay right here with her. To stay the night. The air practically sizzled between the two of them.

Leaning down, he gently cupped the sides of her face with his large hands. Tenderly touching his lips to hers, he trailed his fingertips along her fragile jaw line. A slow shiver crept up her spine. Her skin was on fire, every nerve ending in her body was acutely tuned in to his touch.