The Officer Says "I Do" (11 page)

Dwayne tossed his pen on the desk and leaned back in his chair. “That depends. Are you going to put me on medical leave if I go a few rounds with you? I deploy soon. Can’t jeopardize that so you can abuse me for your own satisfaction.”

Tim blew out a breath. “Fine. I’ll go find Jer and see if he wants to spar. Maybe he isn’t being a pussy this morning,” he added as he started to close the door.

“Damn, man. Below the belt hit and it’s not even nine in the morning.” Dwayne started putting papers back into a folder and Tim knew he’d scored a spar partner. “What crawled up your ass and died?”

He leaned a shoulder against the door as his friend shut down his computer and left a note for his assistant. “Nothing. Just feeling the urge.”

Dwayne grabbed a gym bag and slung it over his shoulder, but Tim shook his head.

“Boots and uts. No gym clothes.”

Dwayne sighed and dropped the bag. “Why is it I can’t even be comfortable while you kick my ass? Boots and uniforms, seriously?” Then, with a grin, he motioned to head down the hall. “The urge to beat the shit out of something usually comes from frustration of some kind.” He stopped to give Tim a comical once-over. “Probably sexual frustration.”

“Spare me the Good ’Ole Country psychiatry.”

Dwayne laughed, as if his suspicions were confirmed. Tim growled and kept walking.

Dwayne easily caught up at the door. They pushed open at the same time and stepped into the humid air.

“Damn, it’s a sauna out here.”

The sweat started to roll after three feet. “Good. Let’s do this in the yard.”

Dwayne looked at him like he was crazy. “You’re insane. The gym’s three blocks away. And it’s got AC.”

“I want to work up a sweat.” Tim started toward the open grassy area to the side of the battalion building.

“That’s what the walk to the gym is for!” Dwayne called after him.

***

Skye drained her third cup of coffee and made a face. Coffee was never her first option. But the caffeine was more necessary than oxygen. She was tired, her sleep schedule still not adjusted to waking up at the ass-crack of dawn like Tim. But she needed to get used to it. If she hoped to find a job in this area, they’d keep “normal” business hours.

She missed that about Vegas. The flexibility. Restaurants were often open twenty-four seven. If she wanted to work from eleven at night to seven in the morning, she could. And often did.

She stood outside Fletchers, the upscale restaurant, and debated going in. The place was a little more upscale than she was used to. This was no Applebees. But it wasn’t crystal glassware either. This was the sort of place you held rehearsal dinners or celebrated graduations. A little bit nicer than average. The sidewalk bistro tables, with their wrought-iron chairs, were a nice, classy touch.

As she walked in, she was glad she wore her old work uniform to pound the pavement. The black pants, white shirt, and vest definitely fit in here. Skye asked for the manager and waited for ten, then twenty minutes by the host stand. She was about to leave when a short man with a nearly bald head in a dark suit and steamed glasses came hustling up.

“Can I help you?”

Skye held out a hand and gave him her best
Trust
me, I’m good at this
smile. “I’m hoping it’s the other way around, actually. My name is Skye McDermott and I wanted to drop off my résumé for consideration. For management,” she clarified.

The short man breathed in and out, looking confused. “Mac Stone. Did you know Angelina?”

“Who?”

“Angelina. Our floor manager who just left. We haven’t even advertised the position yet. I haven’t had time, too busy covering shifts. I just assumed you… well, never mind. Do you have experience?”

Skye’s smile widened. “Oh, a little.” She handed him her résumé as he sat down on a padded bench. “I was a floor manager for several years at Cloud Nine, a restaurant in the Celestial Palace hotel and casino in Las Vegas. Along with a bachelors in hospitality management from UNLV.”

The man’s eyes bulged behind his frames. Or, what she could see of them through the steam on his lenses. “You almost sound overly qualified.” He tipped the frames down and peered at her over them. “You aren’t gunning for my general manager position, are you?”

Skye laughed. “I actually like being on the floor and working with customers.”

“When can you start?”

“Yesterday.”

Mac laughed, almost with relieved vigor. “Thank you, God. Follow me back to my office and we can talk further.”

She walked behind Mac, observing the restaurant as she did. Low music, minimal, muted décor, and what appeared to be food plated with presentation in mind confirmed her suspicion that the restaurant was definitely a step up from a typical chain. The smell from the kitchen as she walked by was mouthwatering, and she wondered if she’d have time for a bowl of soup before she left.

Mac Stone walked into a small office off the side of the kitchen. Even with the door closed, the aroma of good food followed. The room boasted two desks, both piled high with papers and folders and boxes, and a small window. She could see samples scattered on the floor, order forms tacked to a bulletin board.

Looked like home. Here, in the cramped back office of a restaurant, Skye knew her place. She understood the lingo, the order, the sometimes
lack
of order. The rest of her life might have turned upside down, but this she understood.

“What brought you to the area?”

“Hmm?” Skye ripped her eyes away from the second desk, and from the plans she was already forming in her head for how to organize the chaos. “I’m sorry?”

Mac held up her résumé. “Says here you left your previous position at Cloud Nine about a month ago. What made you leave Vegas?”

“Oh. Lots of life changes.” Which might sound like the understatement of the century. But it was the truth.

“Huh.” Mac sat back in his chair, the metal squeaking with the movement. “Now that’s a new one. Most people I interview here are spouses. You know, military spouses. Looking for work while their husbands are away.”

“Oh.” Should she say something? Skye knew he couldn’t ask her directly if she was married. Not legally. But this was more conversational. And would she look like a liar for not saying anything?

“Some of my best employees have been military spouses. Shame to know they’ll eventually pull up stakes and head out. But that’s the nature of the beast.” Mac’s pen flew across the paper as he filled out a form.

Okay, she couldn’t ignore it any longer. She would feel wrong otherwise. “Actually, I’m one of them. I married a Marine.” Why did that seem more like an admission than a simple statement?

“Well.” Mac sat back and laced his fingers over his abdomen. “I appreciate the honesty.” After a long pause, Skye wondered if she should just walk back out. But then he continued. “There’s still a lot of good here. Just on snap judgment, I like your personality. Your qualifications are nothing to sneeze at either. And frankly, I’m in a serious jam right now with three managers doing the work of four, and not doing it well, I might add. So I need someone soon, yesterday soon. Who knows, maybe you’ll be around longer than the usual.” He gave her a wink and went back to filling out the form, handing it over after a minute. “Go ahead and finish this, bring your ID tomorrow morning, and we can get the rest filled out.”

Skye sat at the second desk, pen in hand, poised to fill out the employment form. But her thoughts strayed back to the conversation. Marines moved often, didn’t they? Would she run into this with every move? Having to find a new job, then knowing her employer would be disappointed when she left?

There was so much more to this marriage than she ever could have anticipated.

Fate, you better have a darn good payoff at the end of this road.

Skye stepped back from the bed and surveyed the final product. Every piece of clothing she’d brought from Vegas was now piled on the bed. Some folded neatly, others in a tangled heap. Jeans, tanks, skirts, shirts, and underwear all with nowhere to go. She stared at the organized chaos until the bright colors melted into one big tie-dyed jumble in front of her and she had to blink a few times. The question was… how did she have so many clothes? They must have been making little clothing babies while they were shoved in her bags.

No, the real question was where could she put it all? Putting her things in the guest bedroom closet wasn’t an option, given Madison’s things were still in there for the moment. None of the master bedroom drawers were full, but they all had things in them. Same with the double closet. Not even half full. With some rearranging of Tim’s clothing and creative stacking, she could fit everything she’d brought into drawers and have room left over for the stuff she had left behind in Vegas. But was that rude to do without asking?

One thing was for sure. She couldn’t keep living out of suitcases like a guest. She wasn’t a guest, damn it. She was a wife. It might be an unconventional marriage at the moment, but she refused to live a temporary lifestyle. That wasn’t positive thinking at all.

And she had a lot to be positive about. Especially after the morning she’d had. Tim had actually offered up the ID card, the registration, everything. Without a single nudge.

The sound of a car pulling up caught her attention. A few minutes later she heard the front door open and slam shut.

Skye raced down the stairs as she heard the front door close like a little kid whose dad was coming home after a business trip. The back of Tim’s head was visible as she turned the corner of the landing. She followed him into the living room, not wanting to startle him. He flopped down on the sofa, and she stepped in front of him.

“Tim, you’ll never guess what—what the hell happened to your eye?”

Her husband, who had left that morning hale and hearty, had a massive black eye, which currently appeared to be swollen shut. He let his head drop back and roll to one side, turning his good eye to her. She could then see the dark bruise darkening his jaw from chin to ear.

“Were you mugged?” She sat down next to him and gingerly touched his chin, snatching her hand back when he winced.

“Feels like it.” He shifted and groaned. “Definitely had the shit kicked out of me. Which was kind of the point, to be honest.”

“What? You mean this was on purpose? Did you just go around asking people to punch you?” Men were so stupid. But didn’t they usually play this game with punches to the stomach?

“MCMAP. Marine Corps Martial Arts Practice,” he explained when she raised her eyebrows. “A mixture of different martial arts and hand-to-hand combat techniques. More practical than karate in battle, but less disciplined.”

“And someone hit you?” She shouldn’t feel so outraged. It was a part of his training. Still, they weren’t supposed to kill
each
other
. They were supposed to kill the bad guys. Counterproductive, anyone?

“I started sparring with Dwayne. My friend,” he clarified. “You remember the big hulking giant from Vegas?”

“The one with the honey-coated southern drawl?”

“That’s D. We were just working out, burning off some energy. Then a few other guys showed up and it turned into a group exercise. I wasn’t concentrating. Let someone get an elbow in, then took a boot to the chin.”

“We should go to the doctor. Get back in the car; I’ll drive you to that hospital on base.” What if he had a concussion?

“I already saw Doc.”

That gave her pause. “You went to the doctor already?” Didn’t men have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the doctor’s office?

“Doc, our battalion corpsman, checked me out. Standard procedure. I was informed I’ll live,” Tim said dryly.

What if she was overreacting? She silently sighed and rolled her eyes at her own behavior. Tim wasn’t a child. Time to be more wifely.

“Do you not have the headache from Hades?” When he closed his eye and nodded, she tapped his shoulder and scooted over. “Lie down.”

He cracked his eye back open and looked at her from the side. “Where?”

“Just do it.” When he shifted, she angled his shoulders until his head rested on her lap. He had almost no hair to play with, it was so short on top and all but nonexistent on the sides, but she scratched her fingers over his scalp anyway. His good eye drifted closed and he settled deeper in the couch.

“Feels good,” he murmured, turning so she could reach around the back.

“I’m glad.” She smoothed fingertips over his face, carefully avoiding the bruised areas. He all but purred at the feeling. From warrior-like tiger to sweet house kitten in thirty seconds flat. “I got a job today. Manager position at Fletchers. Seems like a nice place.”

He only hummed in response. Not quite the excitement she had expected for her news, but the man was near-concussed. She’d forgive him.

“Tim,” she asked, keeping her voice low and soothing. “Do you think I could have some drawer space for my things?”

“’Course. Whatever you need. We’ll go back to base in a minute. Almost forgot about the IDs and stuff,” he slurred, turning his face into her until his nose pressed against her stomach. His hot breath spread across her thighs, seeping through the thin skirt.

“Shh. We can do it another day.” She paused, waiting for the argument. When it didn’t come, she looked down. His face was relaxed, his chest moved in a deep, even rhythm. Out cold.

Should she wake him up? You were supposed to wake up people with head injuries every hour or so, right? That’s what they did on TV anyway. But he’d said the doc—no, Doc, the person—took a look at him.

And when did she turn into such a mother hen? She made the choice to say a quick prayer to whatever healing goddess was on duty and then stood, careful to lift his head and place it back down on a pillow.

He was so peaceful looking, even in his full uniform, minus the hat—cover. Not the stern warrior he normally looked like. She smiled when she saw his boots were still on. If she didn’t think he’d wake up, she’d take them off. Or maybe she could manage them after all.

She glanced again at the huge tan boots with tight laces and multiple knots.

Maybe not.

She headed to the kitchen, at a loss with what to do. So she kept herself busy with chopping veggies for a salad. It was a quick and easy dinner, and if she wasn’t eating at the restaurant, it was a great quick meal to tide her over—

Wait. Did Marines eat just salad for meals? Of course they ate salad. But that didn’t seem like enough to sustain a guy Tim’s size with his level of activity. After a workout like he had today, he’d wake up starving.

Skye quickly scanned the fridge for dinner possibilities. Chicken, people put chicken on their salads. But with her having zero idea how to properly cook meat without killing someone, she was mostly at a loss.

Guess
it’s time to be a good wife and order in. Second night living as a married couple and already I’m ordering food. Good job, Skye.

Skye dragged out some more veggies and began chopping herself a snack. She wasn’t being fair to herself. How could anyone expect someone to turn into June Freaking Cleaver overnight? But still, the description that Tim gave of his mother combined with the photographs she’d seen around the house melded in her mind to create some hyper-breed of woman. Super-Mom and Super-Wife all rolled into one. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, all while holding a plate of warm cookies fresh from the oven.

Walking back to the living room with a bowl of carrots, she sat in the big chair and watched Tim’s chest rise and fall with steady breath. The sight was a comfort. She wanted to drag him upstairs and toss him into the big master bed, curl up by his side, and nap with him. Soothe him back to sleep if he woke up. Take care of him.

She quietly munched on her snack, wondering what her husband really thought of their marriage. Was he just humoring her? Did he see temporary advantages for himself? Or was he in it for the long haul?

Being married was exhausting.

***

“Careful with that!”

“Squirt, if you can do any better, come on over and give it a whirl,” Tim told his sister through a clenched jaw. He juggled the back end of the couch as he walked down the moving van’s ramp. How was it her sofa weighed three times what a normal couch would? He wouldn’t put it past her to have slipped rocks between the cushions, just for her own personal amusement of watching her brother struggle.

“Why was all your stuff in storage?” Skye asked, carrying a box into the foyer.

“When I first got here, I crashed at the BOQ. Bachelor Officer Quarters,” she explained for Skye. “Temporary housing basically, like a hotel. Nowhere to put my stuff. So I had the movers put it in storage until I could find an apartment. And when Tim was leaving so soon after I got here, he asked if I wanted to crash at his townhouse during the deployment. Since his place is furnished, still didn’t need the furniture.”

Jeremy, who was walking backwards through the front door of Madison’s apartment, called, “Hey, where is this going?”

“I taped a sign on the wall!” she called back. “It’s got an arrow and everything.”

“It would kill her to just come in and tell us where it goes, wouldn’t it?” Jer asked Tim across the length of the couch.

Tim smiled at him. “Don’t look at me. I tried to beat the insolence and sarcasm out of her at a young age, but our parents stopped me every time.”

“Unfortunate,” Jer mumbled as they finally maneuvered the couch through the door.

Dwayne—thanks to his long-ass arms—was able to carry the armchair himself. The man was like Babe the Ox when he put his mind to it. Lucky for them the ox was still around and not gone. Yet.

They set the couch and chair down in the designated spot. Tim was tempted for a moment to switch the entire room around before Mad came back in, just to mess with her. Once a big brother… But he’d grown out of that stage in life. Barely.

He and Jeremy dropped onto the couch, resting for a moment. Dwayne shook his head and went back out for more stuff.

“Not all of us can be an extreme hybrid between mountain man and pack mule!” Jeremy yelled at his back.

Dwayne gave a one-finger salute over his shoulder.

“You still pissed we aren’t going over and he is?” Tim asked.

“No. Just anxious about what’s coming down the pipeline. If we’re not deploying now, then when? You know?”

Tim could relate. In the Corps anymore, it wasn’t a question of if you would deploy, but when. And how often. “Never thought canceling a deployment would cause more problems than actually going on one.”

Jeremy chuckled. “No joke.”

Skye floated into the room and plopped down on the chair. Her shorts showed off her long legs, and for once her feet were in tennis shoes instead of sandals or barefoot. Her simple V-neck T-shirt was damp from sweat, a result in equal parts from the activity and the humidity. Her hair, which he was always used to seeing curling and waving in a mass around her face and shoulders, was tied back into a messy knot on the top of her head.

She looked average. Like any other wife he’d met along the way.

Shockingly, Tim found himself mentally redressing her in one of her trademark long, loose skirts and lightweight tops. But he’d keep her barefoot. Barefoot seemed to fit her.

Of course, that would be completely impractical for the afternoon’s work.

“So Tim told me you found a job, Skye,” Jeremy said.

“Yup. One of the restaurants was hiring. Thanks to my experience—not to mention their current desperation due to a previous manager leaving suddenly—I had a serious leg up. I’m low man on the totem pole, but that’s fine. I like that job. Less paperwork, more interaction with the customers.”

“Which restaurant is it again?”

“Fletchers, downtown. Pretty nice place. Not exactly white glove service, but close.”

“Yeah, I know it. They often cater the birthday ball dinners or dining outs.”

“Huh?” Skye looked at Tim for clarification.

He shrugged. “Formal events. I can explain later.” He still forgot sometimes how little she knew about the military lifestyle. It wasn’t a strike against her. But it was definitely odd having to explain things that he considered second nature at this point in his life. Being raised on military jargon had given him unrealistic expectations, he supposed.

A shriek of laughter had them looking toward the door. Dwayne walked in carrying a box in each arm and Madison on his back. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, legs around his waist. She laughed when he made a quick turn, grappling for a better hold so she didn’t slide off.

“Un-fucking-believable,” Jeremy muttered.

Tim looked at him. His jaw was hard, his eyes were boring holes into the two clowns. It was a small overreaction to them goofing off. Sure, everyone wanted to get done as soon as possible, but it was too damn hot to not take breaks. A little playing around wasn’t that big of a deal.

He glanced at Skye and saw she, too, was watching Jeremy. But her eyes were soft and concerned, like she was watching a lost puppy wander the streets. What the hell was wrong with everyone today?

“So,” Madison said, walking into the room and dusting her hands. “We’re about three-quarters of the way done unloading. What should we do? Split into two and have half start to put stuff away so the other half has room to unload the rest of the junk? Or keep unloading and do one big pack-in later?”

“Let me guess. You and Dwayne will hang out in the AC and unpack shit while the rest of us do the bitch work in the heat,” Jeremy said acidly, getting up and heading to the kitchen. There was silence, and everyone could hear the fridge opening.

Madison pasted a false, overly cheerful smile on her face. “I guess that means Jeremy really wanted to unpack my delicates,” she joked.

“I’ll talk to him.” Tim started to stand up, but Skye beat him to it.

With a hand on his shoulder, she pushed him gently back down. “I need some water. I’ll talk while I’m in there.” When he looked at her, uncertain of how much to let his new wife interfere with his friends, she smiled. “I’ll be gentle, I promise. Why don’t you go help your sister unpack the guest room? Take advantage of the cool room for a bit. We can unload more stuff later.”