Goddess Rising (64 page)

“Figure if I do well enough in the minors, I might get called up to the majors by the time I graduate.”

“And if not?”

“Pay my dues another way.” Wes leaned back. “Either way, I know what I want and I’m going after it.”

Chris made a face.

“What?”

“That’s what you said about Sammy,” Chris reminded him grimly. “And you sure as shit made a mess of that.”

“How is she?” Wes asked after a moment, his breath hitching at the end of the question.

Chris glanced at him. “Better.”

“Without me, you mean.”

Chris shrugged. “In spite of you, maybe.”

“I never missed anyone before her,” Wes admitted after a long moment.

“I know it,” Chris replied, drinking his beer. “Sam’s the kind of girl you’ll miss your whole life.”

Wes glanced up. “How do you know?”

Chris shook his head at him. “How do you
not
know?”

Wes took a slug of his beer, staring up at the ceiling.

“I need to apologize to her,” Wes told him honestly. “I fucked up royally, and she’ll probably never talk to me again, but I said some things I’m not proud of. Things I knew would hurt her.”

Chris crossed his arms. “She’s better off without you, Wes.”

“Maybe, but I’m not better off without her, and I ain’t ashamed to admit it.”

Chris considered him for a long moment. “You tore the heart right out of her.”

“I did,” Wes replied gravely. “I tore the heart right out of me too while I was at it.”

“She’s getting things back on track. Give her a little time, okay?” Chris told him. “I know you probably want to charge right back in there, but I’m telling you, she needs some space to figure things out. Let her.”

Space. The irony was not lost on him. Keeping his distance from her had been what got him all screwed up in the first place. And now, when she needed the space, he probably would fuck up any apology if he didn’t give it to her.

“Does she have training out at Fort Hood or Camp Swift over the break?” Wes asked.

“Nah,” Chris replied. “She’ll be in Houston. She’s got a meeting with some big wig over at a naval office. I think she’ll stay there the weekend.”

The Kennedy Irregular Warfare Center. A picture of Travis standing at her kitchen table and telling her to call him so he could take her out next time she was in Houston flooded Wes’s mind. His fingers tightened around the bottle.
Shit.
He’d basically stepped aside and allowed Travis to get exactly what he’d wanted, hadn’t he? Wes wanted to charge right over to her and grab her up in his arms. To hell with space and waiting. Wes stood.

Chris shot him a look of censure, like he knew
exactly
what Wes was thinking. “Sit your ass down.”

Wes glared at him.

“You need to stop putting your feelings and your wants in front of hers, jackass,” Chris told him. “You love her? Then leave her alone. Sammy’s just getting it back together. She doesn’t need you derailing her because you just figured out you made the biggest mistake of your life.”

“I’m going after what I want,” Wes argued.

“Oh, yeah?” Chris taunted. “How well did that work out for you last time?”

He had a point there. Wes knew he’d have to make amends, if only because Sam didn’t deserve some of the vitriol he’d laid at her door. He wasn’t sure if Miranda was right—in fact, he sincerely doubted Sam would ever consider giving him another chance, but he knew her well enough to give her a little time before he went charging back in there. Sam was the kind of girl who’d want to stand on her own feet, either way. Wes pushed a hand through his hair, rubbing his neck. “Christ, I hate it when you’re right.”

Chris smiled grimly. “Just sit down and finish your beer. Tomorrow’s a new day, and you got your own shit to sort out, don’t you, Wes?”

God, do I ever
.

*

October—Same Time, Friday Night

Sam’s Apartment, Texas A&M

S A M A N T H A

“Jesus Christ, I
hurt
,” Rita groaned from where she was sprawled out on Sam’s couch. Sam tossed her another frozen bag of peas from the kitchen. Rita caught it without blinking—and without dropping the spoon she had dipped into the half gallon of Blue Bell ice cream she was holding. “You think they could make ice cream with painkillers mixed in?”

“Why? So you could overdose on sugar and opiates at the same time?” Sam teased, sitting down beside Rita as she reached forward to press play on the movie they were watching.

Rita held the bag of peas to the knot on her head that she’d gotten during the FTX they’d finished a couple hours ago. “How is it you’re not hurting as bad as me?”

“Who says I’m not?” Sam countered, glancing at her friend. “Been hurting so bad the past week, it’s all just becoming a state of mind, I guess.”

Rita dropped her hand from her face, her eyes softening. “You doing okay
, jaina
?”

Sam shrugged, pushing her spoon into the ice cream they were sharing while they waited for pizza to arrive. What a pair they made, both black and blue, too tired to do more than hang out on her sofa and eat junk food on a weekend night while the rest of the cadets took the SEALs out and showed them a good time.

“Nothing time and a lot of ice cream won’t fix,” she said to Rita with a sad little smile.

“You kicked some serious ass today,” Rita told her with a grin. “That’s got to count for something. You and Alejo are definitely back at the top of the pool after today’s little performance.”

Sam shrugged nonchalantly, though she thrilled at the win on the inside.

“God, that bath did me good,” Rita groaned, setting her spoon down on the coffee table and stretching. “That’s a big plus of having you in your own apartment. You have a full-sized tub.”

Sam had suggested Rita stay over after they’d both agreed they weren’t going out with the rest of the cadets, and Rita had jumped at the chance to take a proper bath while Sam ordered pizza and made up the sofa bed. Truth told, Sam was also tired of being alone. It’d been a long and rough week, and having Rita around made her feel unaccountably better.

“Why don’t you stay here while I’m in Houston this week?” Sam suggested. “Call it a mini-break from the dorms. And you can water my plants.” Rita wasn’t going home to Chicago. Not enough money and not enough time, she’d said. And Alejo would be going south to Padre Island with Vin and a few of his buddies. Sam figured it would be a win/win.

Rita rolled her eyes. “You have a cactus.”

“So keep him company. I named him Guillermo.”

“When do you head to Houston?” Rita asked.

“Wednesday. Right after class.”

Rita nodded and stretched. “Where are you staying in Houston?”

“My dad has a penthouse on top of the Wyatt Petroleum building. I have a room there, though I barely use it,” Sam explained.

“Of course you do,” Rita drawled, rolling her eyes. “
Cristo,
what it must be like to be rich.”

“It’s not my money,” Sam reminded her, taking another scoop of ice cream.

“Sure it is
, jaina
,” Rita answered. “You just don’t like to admit it.”

Sam sent her a look. “What does that mean?”

Rita lifted the remote and pressed pause on the movie they weren’t really watching anyway. “Sammy, I give you shit about being a rich girl, but really, it doesn’t matter. Just like it doesn’t really matter that I come from a tenement on the south side of Chicago. You have money—so what? What’s the big deal?”

“I don’t want to be judged for it,” Sam pointed out.

“The penthouse, the money—that’s
not
who I am, Rita.”

Sam’s mouth compressed in a line. “I don’t want to be given special breaks.”

“Too late,
jaina
,” Rita chuckled. “The genie’s out of the bottle on that one.”

“And I don’t want my dad trying to control me with the money.”

Rita shook her head, laughing. “Have you met
you
? You just laid out a full-grown, specially trained
killer
today. I don’t think anyone has a chance of controlling you, with or without cash money,
jaina
.”

Sam was quiet a while, thinking about what Wes had said to her a week ago in this very room. “You think I dated Wes just to piss my father off?”

Rita glanced at her in surprise. “Did you?”

Sam drew a hand down her face, touched her swollen chin. “I’m not sure anymore. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I was attracted to him in the first place. But that’s not what I felt up until the moment he walked out.”

“Girl, you were attracted to that fine ass motherfucker because any straight woman in their right mind would be attracted to a guy who looks that good,” Rita answered with an amused look. “Let’s just call a spade a spade.”

“But he said I was using him as an axe to grind,” Sam continued. “Just to avoid ending up with a guy like Travis. Someone my dad clearly approves of.”

Rita shook her head. “I can’t think of a girl who needs her dad’s approval less than you, Sammy, but he may have a point.”

Sam looked at her friend in surprise. “How so?”

“You may not want your dad’s approval, Sam, but you’re like every little girl in the world when I say you do want your daddy’s love,” Rita told her gently. “There’s no amount of money that changes that fact. It’s the way it’s always been since Eve.”

And there it was
. The unabashed, bald truth. The one thing Sam wanted all her life but was never really sure she had. Not from her father, anyway.

“As for whether Wes was right about you preferring him over a guy like Travis—why don’t you test the theory?” Rita suggested, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Go out with the guy while you’re in Houston and find out.”

“You’re a troublemaker,” Sam replied, though she wondered if Rita was right. And Travis had offered to take her out…

“Maybe,” Rita shrugged. “But you know what they say…the fastest way to get over a guy is to get under a new one.”

Sam tossed a pillow at her and Rita batted it away, laughing. And just then, the doorbell rang.

Rita grinned, hopping up. “Pizza’s here! Now enough of this
boo-hoo,
woe-is-me
sad talk,
jaina
. Let’s do what all girls do in moments of distress.”

Sam lifted a questioning brow as she reached for the money to pay the pizza guy.

“Let’s eat our feelings,” Rita said with a broad grin before swinging open the door.

*

October—Same Night

Wyatt Ranch, Texas

R O B E R T   W Y A T T

The phone rang
in the study a couple times before Robert reached to pick it up. He was alone in the ranch house tonight. Grant and Hannah had taken the boys out to a local rodeo that some of the more adventurous hands were competing in, giving him a rare, quiet evening to read. He’d left the doors to the library open, enjoying the cool night air even as he had the fire going, relishing the luxury of the contrast and the scent of burning wood.

“Wyatt,” he answered, not bothering to look at the caller ID.

“And here I thought I’d get your voicemail,” David Sasser said at the other end of the line.

“No such luck,” Robert replied. “You get those SEALs I sent up?”

David laughed a little. “Don’t know how you pulled that off, but it was one hell of a spectacle.”

“Easy as pie,” Robert responded. “The trick is to get an admiral to owe you enough favors and some guys off deployment with a couple weeks’ worth of leave. Then anything’s possible.” And that’s exactly how he’d played it. Well, that and several thousand-dollar bonuses in cash and a cushy ride on the Wyatt jet. Forty-eight hours to teach a bunch of bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed cadets. In and out. Who would say no to that?