Basic Training (19 page)

She’d probably write him a letter or send him an e-mail to keep him posted on her progress. Just like those chatty notes with the hometown gossip that had entertained him over the years, except now
she’d
be the center of those stories—who had noticed her, who was hitting on her, who was taking her out.

Right. A note like that would drive him nuts. She’d granted him two weeks of seductive basic training. But now, instead of knowing he’d walk away feeling good about how two longtime friends had helped each other achieve their personal goals and mutual pleasure, he was feeling a little queasy about the whole idea of another man enjoying the fruits of her journey toward self-discovery.

He hadn’t considered that feelings of possessiveness might come into play when he’d agreed to pursue this attraction—an attraction that must have been there all along, simmering beneath the surface—unnoticed, unexplored. Over the years, they’d needed each other as friends more than either had needed a lover. Or maybe those were just the roles they’d gotten used to playing. Tess had talked about how Ashton’s residents were too set in their ways to see her as anything but a sexless tomboy and future spinster. Travis had been equally guilty of stereotyping.

It had taken a near-death incident to strip away his
cocky self-image. Ashton’s Action Man could no longer guarantee his ability to charm a woman in every port, and the desire to do so had lost its appeal. With injury and uncertainty came a vulnerability he’d never experienced before, and with vulnerability came the need to trust on a level he’d never reached with any other woman. Who better to look to than an old friend for that kind of connection?

Maybe it was that unfamiliar need inside him that had finally allowed him to see Tess in a new way.

Nope, handing her over to another man at the end of this affair wasn’t going down very well at all.

Smiling at the tuneless melody coming from the shower, Travis opened his laptop and typed a military address into a new e-mail.

Clarksie—

How’s it hangin’, Big Guy? Man, I still can’t get over that one. No wonder Becky’s so devoted to you. Can’t be the good looks, eh? Seriously, man, you know she’s counting the days until S.O. 6 is back in Virginia. Maybe even the hours. Minutes? Seconds? I know you are, too. As ready as we’ve always been to get ourselves into the thick of things, we were always more ready to head back home.

Travis looked up from the message he was typing and glanced over the familiar sights of his father’s home around him. He’d made no secret of how little he’d wanted to return to Ashton this time. Coming home felt like quitting, like tossing in the towel and saying he was done with the Corps. But he’d done it—just to put his
father’s worries to rest and to show his superiors that he could still take an order, even one he hated.

But he’d never intended to stay. He’d never intended even to want to stay.

Was that driving need to return to S.O. 6 still eating at him? Or was his insistence that Special Ops was the only career that interested him another erroneous stereotype he needed to change?

The humming in the shower stopped just before Tess turned off the water. She’d be stepping out of the tub now, dripping wet, rubbing herself with a towel. In just a few minutes she’d be back here in the living room with him, bringing her smile, her warmth, and her unabashed joy for sex, life, and his company, despite his moods.

She’d made this homecoming far different than what he’d anticipated—and worth every damn minute.

She’d made this summer so perfect he never wanted it to end.

“Hey, Trav?” she called from the bathroom. “Are the T-shirt and sweatpants for me?”

“Yeah,” he hollered back. “I didn’t want to send you back to your mom’s house completely naked. She still thinks I’m a gentleman.”

Tess laughed—a sound that rarely failed to make him smile—and Travis went back to finish his message to Clarskie.

Hey, just between us, I’ve got a question for the old married guy. How did you know the Beckster was the one? You know, different from those other girls we used to pick?

Just wondering, of course. In case I meet someone
and get involved. I wouldn’t want to let a good thing go just because I didn’t recognize it, right?

Keep your head down and watch your back or I’ll be over there personally to kick your ass. You’ve got such a great lady to come home to, I’d hate to have you screw up the reunion.

See you soon.

Action Man

Travis sent the message and tucked the laptop under the couch before Tess strolled around the corner from the hallway, cinching the drawstring on his sweats so that they wouldn’t fall any farther than where they caught, low on her hips. She already had the legs rolled up. The sleeves of his paint-stained USMC T-shirt hung past her elbows. His baggy clothes should have masked everything and made him think of comfort and sleep instead of T and A, but even a glimpse of her belly button as she adjusted the pants seemed to stimulate the blood flowing inside him.

Or was that the feeling he was going to get every time he saw her from this night on—no matter what her state of dress or undress?

In one fluid movement, she dropped the hem of the shirt past her thighs, grabbed a couple of gingersnaps from their late-night nosh and curled up on the couch beside him. That sense of excitement didn’t abate.

Clarksie, I’m in deep.

“I, for one, am glad you’re not a gentleman all the time.” Tess took a healthy bite and leaned back with a tired sigh. “Is it still raining out there?”

Travis curled his arm around her shoulders and offered himself as a leaning post for some quiet talking
and warm snuggling. He glanced out the two narrow windows on either side of the front door. “Yeah, it’s still coming down. I don’t hear the thunder anymore, so I imagine the worst has passed us by. But we’ll have some flash flooding by morning.”

“What about your dad? Are you still worried about him?”

“A little,” he confessed. “He said they’d be safe on the island another night, and he’s been dealing with storms worse than this his entire life—”

“—but he’s your dad and you love him.”

“Yeah.” He hugged her even closer and discovered he could still enjoy companionable silence with his best bud.

She bit into the second cookie before speaking again. “I was young when Dad died, but I think what you’re feeling must be pretty similar to what Mom went through whenever he was shipped out on assignment. Even in the Quartermaster Corps, he went to some dangerous parts of the world sometimes. She worried about him when he was gone because she loved him and didn’t want to lose him. But she had to trust his skills and experience. Trust that the Corps had trained him well and that he and his comrades could handle themselves in any given situation. She could say her prayers and hope for the best, but ultimately, she knew it was out of her hands.”

Travis had heard similar stories from his own mother.

Tess went on. “It’s normal to worry. But you have to trust that your dad knows what he’s doing. He won’t take any unnecessary risks that will endanger him or his crew. He’ll do his damnedest to survive because…,” she linked her fingers through his at her shoulder and offered a comforting squeeze, “he loves you, too. And
he wants to come home, just as much as you want him back in one piece.”

He turned and pressed a kiss to her temple, thanking her for knowing what to say and that he needed to hear it. She’d shared a truth that every soldier needed to hear. “How come you’re so smart?” he teased.

“Well, while I was waiting for you all these years to come home and indulge a few fantasies, I had time to develop some other skills.”

“I happen to think you’re a very well-rounded woman, Miss Bartlett.” He lingered where he was and nibbled on her ear. “A few fantasies, huh?”

“Travis. You’ve worn me out.” Her beautiful blush took away the sting of any scolding. She pushed his chin away and offered him the last bite of her cookie, and he gladly dipped his head to eat the sweet, spicy treat. She smelled like a treat herself. Her freshly washed skin radiated her own personal scent, and the smell of his masculine shampoo on her damp hair made him feel like he’d put his stamp on her all over again

“C’mon,” he urged her, stealing a kiss from her lips and turning her in his arms. “You’re in better physical shape than any woman I know. Besides,” he fell back onto the cushions, dragging her with him so she lay across his chest, “what a way to go.”

He stopped up her answering laugh with a kiss and felt her relax on top of him.

A loud, deep thump from outside startled him from his fascination with her bottom lip. Travis turned his face to the side and strained his ears to identify the sound. “Did you hear that?”

“That’s the sound of me trying to stifle a yawn.” She
pressed a kiss to his exposed neck. “Believe me, I’m willing, but the body—”

“No. That’s not it.” He did a sit-up, spilling her onto his lap. He wasn’t losing it. He’d heard something besides the storm outside.

“Trav?” Now he’d transmitted his alarm to her. He felt it in the way her fingers dug into his shoulders. “Another ghost?”

“No.” The enemy.

The screech of tires spinning to find traction on wet pavement was unmistakable.

“I heard
that
,” she said, scrambling off him as he pushed to his feet and dashed to the front door.

He paused a moment to spy through the windows, ensuring whatever danger he’d sensed wasn’t just outside his door. “Stay put,” he ordered. “Leave the lights off.”

Seconds later, he swung the door open and snuck out into the moonless canopy of rain. The sound of a well-tuned muscle car being pushed through its gears diverted his attention to the west. Travis ran down the front sidewalk in time to catch a pair of red taillights spinning around the corner and disappearing into the night, heading toward the heart of downtown Ashton. He had no chance to get a license plate or even the make of the car. “Damn.”

Their private road didn’t get much traffic during rush hour, much less at three in the morning. And no one cruised through at that speed unless they were drunk or being chased by the cops. Or avoiding detection.

He glanced behind him down the road and peered into the darkness around him, finding no signs of burglary or vandalism or an accident. The road was deserted. Not one house had its lights on.

If he hadn’t sensed someone watching him or Tess the other night at the concession stand, he might have written the speeding car off as some teens out for a joyride, or a drunk driver. But there
had
been someone watching. He felt that same threat creeping along his spine now, just as surely as he felt the chilling rivulets of rain on his face and shoulders.

Slapping through puddles in his bare feet, Travis hurried back to the house to find Tess huddled just inside the front door. He slipped the dead bolt and gave her a reassuring squeeze before hurrying down the hall to dig up shoes and a shirt and dress in double time.

Tess followed him to the guest room and hovered in the doorway, hugging her arms around her waist. “You’re freaking me out a little, Trav. What’s going on? Did you see somebody?”

He tied the second shoe before going to her and rubbing his hands up and down her arms. But he had to keep moving before the rain washed away any more clues.

“Bring me a flashlight.” He swatted her rear and scooted her down the hall ahead of him. “Kitchen. Top drawer to the left of the sink.”

Like a dutiful soldier, she went. But she wasn’t so cooperative about staying put inside the house when he went back out to the street to investigate.

“I said to stay—”

“I’m staying with you, thank you very much.” She laced her fingers through his and held on. “If someone’s prowling around the house and spying on us, I’ll feel safer with you than on my own.”

Safer with
him
? Hell. He dug down deep and found what was left of the hero inside him. He might not be
functioning at one hundred percent of the soldier he once was, but he’d use every bit of what he did have left to keep this special woman safe.

“All right.” He turned his hand and latched onto her with a more secure grip. “But if I tell you to run or hit the deck, you do it the instant I say it. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Why didn’t he believe that?

Because as soon as he turned on the flashlight, she asked, “What are we looking for?”

We
. Like a team. Like she intended to conduct her own search, no matter what safety advice he gave her.

“Anything that’ll give us a clue to the make of his car. Or tell us if he actually got out and stood.”

“Like the popcorn we found the other night.”

“Exactly.” She pulled away to search the street and sidewalks alongside him. “Stay close,” he warned.

“You, too.”

Though the rain and night made searching difficult, it didn’t take Travis long to locate a tire track, ground into the mud on the opposite side of the street. As the track filled with water, he knelt down and measured off the length and width of it with his hand.

Tess braced her hand on his arm and looked over his shoulder. “Can you tell what kind of car it was by that?”

“Not exactly. But it was small. Something sporty. Judging by the depth of the track, it had a heavy engine.”

“Travis, look.” He trained the light to the muddy spot where she was pointing. “Footprints.”

Half of one, at any rate, that was clear enough to identify a lug sole. Other prints had been driven over and tromped on and obscured by the rain.

“Maybe someone had a flat tire and stopped here to change it,” she suggested.

Travis shook his head. “The prints don’t line up with the where the car was parked for that to be the case.”

He studied the footprints again. Standing on the pavement, he turned himself in the direction of the print. If more lights were on, he’d be getting a clear gander inside the living room to his father’s couch. As it was, he could still make out the shadowy shape of the furniture where he and Tess had been intimate. Twice.
Sick
. “No way.”