Between Duty and Desire (3 page)

She opened her mouth as if to protest then seemed to think better of it.

“Let me buy you breakfast,” he said, moving toward the coffee shop.

She groaned. “I’m so overheated I’ll never be able to eat,” she muttered.

“We’ll see,” he said.

Twenty-five minutes later—after Callie had downed three glasses of ice water, a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee—she was tearing into her hotcakes, eggs and bacon as if she hadn’t eaten in days.

“More syrup?” he asked, lifting the small pitcher.

She shook her head. “Thanks, no.”

“More pancakes?” he asked, unable to keep his humor from his voice.

She glanced up at him with her mouth full of pancake and searched his gaze. She chewed and swallowed. “Go ahead and say it,” she said, taking a sip of coffee.

“Say what?”

“That you told me I’d want breakfast. How did you know, anyway?”

“If what I saw on your kitchen counter was any indication of what was inside the cabinets then you must be craving some substance. Cereal can’t satisfy forever. How long has it been since you’ve had some protein?”

“Not that long,” she said with a trace of defensiveness in her voice.

He nodded. “Good. What’d you have?”

Chewing another bite of pancake, she blinked then looked away. “Last week I had some cheese…”

Her words had faded and turned unintelligible. “Excuse me? You had some cheese what?”

She frowned at him and played with the strawberry garnish on her plate. “I had some cheese crackers last week.”

“Oh,” he said, swallowing a grin. “Good to know you’re sticking with the pyramid diet plan.”

She picked up the strawberry then set it down. “I don’t put a high priority on eating when I’m on deadline.”

“Hey, I’m with you. When I’ve been in a crunch, I’ve eaten peanut M&M’s and coffee.”

“Well it’s good to know you bow to your baser urges every now and then. I suspect it doesn’t happen very often.”

Not as often as he’d like to give in to his baser urges, he thought as he watched her lift the strawberry to her lips.

“Are you sure you want to itch all day?”

Her eyes widened and she set the strawberry down. “How did you know I was allergic to them?”

“Rob told me.”

She rolled her eyes in disgust. “What a big mouth. What else did he tell you?”

“Just your complete family, health, educational, professional and romantic history.”

“Well that stinks,” she said. “You know everything about me and I don’t know diddly about you except how smart he said you were and what a good leader he said you were and how fast he said you could run.”

Brock felt an itchy discomfort at the thought of Rob’s praise. “Can’t run all that fast anymore.”

“You can outrun me.”

“Yeah, but you’re totally out of sh—” He broke off as her eyes widened.

“I didn’t have any Marine training to get your buff body,” she said, lifting her chin. “Look at those muscles,” she said, pointing to his arms. “You’re just a show-off.”

Brock chuckled at the same time he felt a strange rush of pleasure at her backhanded compliment. He gave her feminine curves a once-over then a twice-over for good measure. “Trust me. Your body is no hardship on the eyes.”

She met his gaze and something snapped and flickered between them.

She cleared her throat and took a sip of ice water. “You’re too kind,” she murmured. “Thanks for breakfast. I think I can walk back to my cottage now.” She smiled. “See, now I have the excuse that I shouldn’t exercise after I’ve just eaten.”

“True,” he said, tossing a few bucks on the table to cover the tip. “Must have felt great, though, your blood pumping through your veins, the ocean breeze on your face, the sun shining down,” he teased.

“The onset of heatstroke,” she added, deadpan. “Are you sure the Marines don’t train you to have a sadistic streak a mile wide?” she asked over her shoulder as they left the coffee shop.

“Nah,” he said, his gaze latching onto her curvy backside.
You can look, but you can’t touch.
“Masochists. We’re all masochists.”

Marine Lingo Translation
Semper Gumby: Unofficial motto—
Always Flexible.

T
he next morning when Brock knocked on Callie’s door, she was still in her nightshirt, but she was awake.
Progress,
he thought as she opened the door. “I’m running a little late. I got on a roll and didn’t go to bed until the middle of the night,” she said. “Although I’d planned to go to bed early so I wouldn’t embarrass myself during our run this morning. Looks hot out there.”

“Eighty-two and the humidity is—”

“Three hundred percent,” she said with a wry grin. “One of the charms of living at the shore. It won’t take me but a minute to change. Are you sure you don’t want to go by yourself? I’ll just hold you back.”

No, she wouldn’t.
He’d already gone for a run
once this morning. “Not a chance. Hey, when are you going to show me your etchings?”

“I don’t know,” she said warily. “I haven’t been feeling all that confident about my work lately. I think I’d rather show my scars than my art.”

“Is that your appendectomy scar or your bicycle accident scar?” he asked.

Her eyes widened like saucers. “There you go again. Geez, was there anything he did
not
tell you?”

“I’ll tell you when I notice something.”

She gave a grumble of disgust. “Well, this has got to change. It’s not fair. You’re going to have to cough up some information about yourself.”

He shrugged. “No problem. There’s not much to tell though. I’m not nearly as fascinating as you are.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.” She wagged her finger at him. “Give me a minute and be prepared to answer some questions while we’re running.”

A few minutes later, they hit the beach and she immediately started shooting questions at him. “Favorite color?”

“Same as yours, blue,” he said.

She smiled and shook her head. “Birthplace?”

“Columbus, Ohio. You were born in Pine Creek, North Carolina.”

“What will you do now that you’re out of the Marines?”

“Architecture. I majored in architecture in college and specialized in structural analysis. I’ll be working for a major firm in Atlanta.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like big cities.”

“Yeah, I know. Rob mentioned that. Atlanta’s got a lot going on. That was my best job offer and it seemed like a good place to start over.”

She slowed. “Do you mind when people mention your military career?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I just don’t want to talk about it a lot. As you know, it didn’t end the way I thought it would.”

Her gaze softened with sadness and sympathy. “You’ve had a rough recovery, haven’t you?”

He wanted to say that it could have been worse, but he didn’t want to make her feel bad. “My drill instructor from boot camp visited me when I’d been in the hospital just a couple of weeks and told me if I started feeling sorry for myself, he was going to round up his men and hold a Victoria’s Secret panty party for me.”

“How charming. Was that supposed to be motivation?”

He chuckled. “In a way. Sergeant Roscoe is an expert at motivation. He called us all kinds of flattering, uplifting names in boot camp. Ladies, knuckleheads, maggots—I probably shouldn’t repeat any more.”

“What a jerk. Every time Rob told me about boot camp, it made me nuts. It’s so barbaric, so disrespectful.”

“The point was to learn respect and loyalty in a short amount of time.”

“Well, I don’t see why they had to be so rude about it.”

“It offends your artistic sensibilities,” he said, unable to keep a grin from his face.

“It offends my every sensibility,” she huffed, shaking her head. “Okay, another question. Your favorite food? Let me guess, steak and potato.”

He couldn’t resist teasing her. “I was going to say quiche or those little cucumber sandwiches they serve at tea.”

She did a double take. “Oh, you’re pulling my leg.”

“You have two very nice legs. Why can’t I pull one?”

Her lips lifted in a smile and she chuckled. “You’re funnier than I would have predicted,” she said.

He looked at her eyes. Still not sparkling the way they had in that photograph he’d looked at so many times when he’d been in the desert.
You’re sadder than I expected,
he thought, but didn’t say it aloud. He wanted to change it. It was strange as hell, but he wanted to see her laughing with abandon again. He wondered what it would take.

“You’re trying to distract me into slowing down, so you don’t get a good run,” he said, picking up the pace just a little.

She made a face. “Haven’t we already had a
good
run?”

Brock just gave an evil chuckle.

By the time they returned to her cottage, she had extracted from him bits of his family history and even some of his romantic history. His leg was starting to ache.

She must have noticed his limp. “Come in and have something to drink before you leave.”

“Do you have anything?” he teased, reminding her of her bare cupboards.

She gave a moue of reproach. “Of course I do. I have water and coffee. I may even have a flat soda.”

“How can I resist? Throw in a tour of your studio and it’s a deal.”

She wrinkled her nose as she pulled open her screen door. “Do I have to?”

“You could always show me your scars,” he suggested.

Her gaze met his and he felt the crackling sensation zip between them again. “Okay, I’ll show you my studio, but make it snappy.”

Curious, he accepted a glass of water and followed her into a back room with only bedsheets for window coverings. It was filled with drawings, and the floor was carpeted with discarded, balled-up sheets of paper. A large table sat before the window.

He drew closer to a casually arranged collection of drawings of a little girl with wide eyes and blond hair that stuck out. In one, the clouds hovering over her had wispy faces that looked like monsters. In another, the wind whipped her against a tree. In another, rain drenched her even though she carried a red umbrella.

“She doesn’t look like she has a lot of luck with weather,” he said.

“Those are the dark pictures I told you about. Now I need to do the bright, happy, sunny pictures. I’m not sure how.”

“You could fake it,” he suggested.

“Fake it?” she echoed in disapproval.

“You could pretend to be in a bright, happy, sunny mood for a few hours and see what happens. We had to pretend to like a lot of things we really didn’t like when I was on active duty.”

She looked skeptical. “I don’t know. Art is about being authentic.”

He nodded and shrugged. “Just a suggestion.” He glanced around the room and his gaze fell on a picture of the ocean on a cloudy day. The way she’d mingled blue, gray and white drew him. A discarded red life preserver drifted aimlessly.

“What do you think of it?” she asked.

“Do you want me to be honest?”

“Yeah, I can take it,” she said with a smile in her voice.

“There’s something moody and sexy about it. The red of the life preserver reminds me of red lipstick. This isn’t going in your kid book, is it?”

“No.” She laughed. “I guess you could say this is one of my few grown-up pictures.”

“Ever thought about having a show?” he asked.

“Not unless I’m forced.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it might be easier to walk naked down Main Street. I put so much of myself in my paintings.”

“Hmm,” he said, looking again at her grown-up picture.

“What does ‘hmm’ mean?” she asked, looking at him curiously.

“I just had a philosophical thought,” he said and grinned. “Don’t worry. It’ll pass.”

“What?” she asked. “What’s your philosophical thought?”

“What do you see as the purpose of your art?” he asked, thinking back to the art appreciation course he’d taken in college.

She paused thoughtfully. “I think my art may be multipurpose. There’s self-expression, of course, and with Phoebe over there, there’s sympathy and emotion. Identification. Haven’t we all had a bad day when the weather was horrible?”

“So your pictures make people feel less alone,” he said.

She paused again then slowly smiled. “I guess so.”

“And a show might give some different people the opportunity to enjoy your drawings and feel less alone,” he said.

“I hadn’t thought of it that way. I just break out in a cold sweat thinking about exposing myself.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Rob always wanted me to do a show.” She closed her eyes. “But Rob also wanted me to skydive, ride a bicycle with no hands and go skinny-dipping in high school.”

“Extreme boyfriend,” he said with a chuckle.

She smiled and met his gaze. “That would be
right. He was always dragging me off on one adventure or another.”

“Did you like it?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I just wanted to be my little boring self drawing on a pad of paper while I sat under the kitchen table.”

“Now, see, I would think it could get a little cramped under the kitchen table.”

“Think of it as a pup tent. It felt safe.”

She was so freakin’ cute he had the overwhelming urge to take her in his arms and make her feel safe. Which wasn’t like Brock at all. Maybe that concussion had left permanent damage? “How’d the skinny-dip turn out?”

She tossed him a sideways glance. “We got caught. Well, I guess I should say I got caught. When we heard someone drive up, Rob pulled on his shorts, but my clothes had disappeared. I stayed in that creek so long my entire body turned blue.”

Brock swallowed a chuckle. “That’s a new one. I never heard that story.”

“Probably because I told Rob I wouldn’t speak to him again if he told anyone.”

Brock saw her expression change from amused frustration to wistfulness and felt his gut twist. He shifted his stance and the papers rustled beneath his feet, distracting her.

“Look at this mess,” she said. “I need to pick these up and toss them.”

He bent down to help her. “I noticed there was more on the floor than on the walls or easels.”

She laughed. “A lot more. One of the secrets of
getting past a block is not being afraid to waste some paint by drawing something that really stinks.”

He started to uncurl one of the balled-up pieces of discarded paper and she immediately caught his hand.

“Oh, no. Absolutely not. I let you look at my studio, but I draw the line at allowing you to look at my stinkers.”

“How do you know they’re really stinkers? I might think they’re good.”

“It doesn’t matter what you think. It matters what I think.”

He glanced down at her slim, artistic fingers over his larger hand and felt an odd stirring inside him. He looked up into her resolute don’t-mess-with-me gaze. “Are you sure you’ve never been a drill instructor? You sure can be bossy for a little thing.”

“I may not be able to control what goes on outside this room, and I’m not always happy with what I create inside this room, but I make the rules for this room.”

“The goddess of your little corner of the universe,” he said, understanding her need for control.

“I wouldn’t use the term ‘goddess,’” she said dryly.

“You’re not looking at you,” he said and surrendered the ball of discarded paper even though he was curious as hell.

She stared at him and he felt the electrical zap between them again. She must have felt it, too, because he saw her catch her breath. She quickly pulled her hand from his.

“He told me you were good with the ladies,” she said. “Flattering a woman must be second nature to you.”

He shrugged, but didn’t say anything. He knew a no-win conversation with a woman when he saw it coming.

“What? No answer? What are you thinking?”

“You don’t really want to know.”

“Yes, I do.”

He shook his head and scooped up another piece of paper. “Nah.”

He felt her hand on his arm. “I want to know. Fair is fair. You know all about me.”

Uncomfortable, he sighed. “Okay, you’re gonna think this is cocky as hell, but I don’t have to flatter women. I haven’t had to work that hard to get a woman’s attention.”

She opened her mouth then shut it. “That’s pretty cocky.”

“I told you.”

“Right,” she said. “Rob told me you didn’t keep any of them around too long, either.”

He shouldn’t care what she might think of his lack of commitment, but he did. “I never made promises I couldn’t keep. Everything always felt temporary—in college, in the Corps.”

She nodded, but he could tell she didn’t under stand and it bothered him. “I don’t know why I always had it easy with females.”

“Oh, I know,” she said. “They want to tame you. You have this dark, restless look about you that makes women want to domesticate you.”

“You said women,” he told her in a low voice. “Does that include you?”

“N-no, no no no,” she said, taking a step back. “I may illustrate children’s books, but I don’t live in never-never land. I’ve never gone for the dark, brooding type. They always seemed like too much work and angst.”

Glimpsing a reluctant fascination in her gaze that belied her words, he casually took a step toward her. “You think I’m dark and brooding?”

“Well, you’re not exactly a laugh a minute,” she said, biting her lip.

“Do I make you nervous, Callie?”

Her eyes said
yes,
but she shook her head. “Not really.”

He shook his head and narrowed his eyes. “Why do I make you nervous?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I just said that you don’t.”

“I’m not convinced.”

She looked away from him and sighed. “You’re just different than what I’m used to.”

“You’re used to the boy-next-door dragging you off on little adventures.”

“Yeah.” She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, and the expression in her eyes held warring glints of
grief and a forbidden curiosity that was all too easy for him to understand, because he felt the same burning curiosity about Callie.