Her Last Line of Defense (15 page)

Her eyes widened. “You wouldn’t.”

Janey gave her a baleful glance. “Try me. You’re making yourself sick with weeping over this guy? And you’ve only known him a week.”

She dabbed her nose. “I told Luc I loved him. He was the first man I ever said that to, did you know that?”

Janey nodded.

“I told him I loved him and he said, ‘Oh.’”

“Oh’?” Janey’s face mirrored Claire’s own dismay. “Oh. Anything else?”

“He said he couldn’t love me. He said he knew we’d become close over the past week or so, but he didn’t want it to interfere with my plans. In other words, don’t let the tent flap hit you on the way out.” She sniffled again. “It only took that bastard one week to make me fall in love with him, and he told me to go ahead with my plans.”

“You should go ahead with your plans. You know he will.”

“That’s right, he will. And to think I was thinking about canceling my trip to San Lucas to be with him.”

“Geez, Claire, did you tell him that?” Janey grimaced.

“Well, not just to be with him. I thought I could call the social services office near Norfolk to see if they had any assignments nearby.”

“Nearby to home, or nearby to Fayetteville?”

She shrugged. “I did mention Fayetteville.”

Janey shook her head. “No wonder he bailed on you. You probably turned his life upside down, too.”

“Oh, I did not. He probably does this all the time. Takes a woman out into the woods, trains her in survival skills, makes her fall in love with him, dumps her back in civilization literally and figuratively…” She balled up her tissue and threw it away, like Luc had thrown her away.

“Sounds like a lot of work for a guy who’s hot enough to go into a bar and get a dozen invitations for sex within the first ten minutes.”

Claire needed to stop thinking about Luc having sex with other women or else she was going to cry again. “Speaking of sexy guys in bars, whatever happened between you and that blond guy Olie?”

Janey’s face hardened. “Never you mind that. Let’s just say he’s off my Christmas card list.” She tapped her fingers on the table. “So Luc said he didn’t love you?”

“No, he said he couldn’t love me. Big difference, huh?”

“Actually, yes. Maybe he does love you, but he thinks it’s impossible.”

“He’s worried about impossible?” Claire jumped to her feet and paced like a madwoman. “Janey, this guy has done more impossible things in his life than a million other guys. He survived being exploded out of a boat, shot at and nearly drowned before trekking one hundred miles alone through some of the worst jungle in the world and—let’s face it—he trained me to not get lost in the woods and to skin and gut small animals without throwing up. If he can do that, he can practically leap tall buildings with a single bound.”

“Luc’s a real hero, Claire. Olie said he’s being awarded for a Silver Star for the enemy reconnaissance he conducted in Afghanistan. That’s classified, though.”

“Well, he’s not earning any medals for valor from me. He’s a chicken when it comes to important stuff like love and happiness.”

“You can’t make him into somebody he’s not, and you can’t be someone you’re not. If he wants to love you, that has to come from within him. Remember Felicia?”

“From college?”

“The very one. She picked out a boyfriend who liked blondes, so she went blond. He liked tall girls, so she wore heels all the time and wound up needing the foot doctor. He liked dumb girls so she flunked most of her classes. And what happened to her after the university asked her to leave for bad grades?”

Claire winced at the memory. “Her boyfriend dumped her for a short, brunette Rhodes scholar. He said his new girlfriend was ‘genuine.’ And Felicia got arrested for breaking all the windows in his car.”

“Bad hair, bad feet, bad grades and a criminal record. The moral of this story is to be yourself. What do you want to do? Not what do you want to do if Luc does this, or if Luc does that. What does Claire Adeline Cook want for herself?”

“I don’t know. I’m a chicken.”

“Don’t tell me that! You were the one who bathed and fed her mother as she was dying. You were the one who took care of her dad when he was so sad he wanted to die. You dummy, you’ve been brave all along. Eating snakes and sleeping in trees has nothing to do with bravery.”

Claire stopped midstep. “You know what, Janey? You’re right. I’ve had mental toughness the whole time, and Luc hasn’t. Just because he’s a hard-ass soldier doesn’t mean he knows doodley-squat about anything—especially this love stuff. He was all gung-ho when we were having sex four or five times a day, but he started kissing my hair and telling me things he’d never told anyone else before. It was too much for him to manage.”

“Sex four or five times a day?” Janey whispered faintly. She blinked several times and fanned herself.

“Yes, and it was great,” she said. “He showed me things I never even dreamed of doing.”

Janey hesitated briefly and gave in to her curiosity. “Like what?”

Luc didn’t love her, so why would he care if she bragged a bit? Claire smugly gave her the general outline, enjoying being the sexpert for once. But when she described how they’d acted out several fantasies, Janey interrupted her with a groan.

“Enough, enough! A week ago you were practically a virgin. Now you’re into roleplaying?”

“When the right man comes along, Janey my girl, anything is possible.”

“Keep it up and you’ll make me sorry Olie and I didn’t hook up that night.”

“I expect you to tell me what happened with that.”

“Not now. One crisis is enough. Focus, Claire. Get your mind off Luc’s poor overworked ding-dong and figure out what you want to do about the rest of him.”

“Nothing.” She shook her head. “He knows where I am. He can come to me.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

Claire sighed. “I leave for Virginia tomorrow, and I leave for San Lucas three days after that. If I don’t see him before then, I’ll know he wasn’t brave enough to fight for me, decorated hero or no.”

“No, I had some paperwork to read and well…” He shoved a hand through his silver hair. “I don’t want you flying off to San Lucas before we have a chance to talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“Anything you want, Claire. Your trip, your time in the woods, your…” He trailed off again.

“My mother?” she guessed.

“Her, too.” He sat facing her on the seat.

She didn’t want to talk about her mother, so she picked option one. “I leave the day after tomorrow, and I’m really excited.” But she sounded about as excited as someone looking forward to cutting the grass.

“I’m glad.” Dad looked away. “I’m sorry about how I handled everything, including those stupid electronic trackers. I shouldn’t have tried to talk you out of going to San Lucas and I shouldn’t have pressured you into last-minute survival training.” He finally smiled at her. “You finally ran away from home—most kids do that when they’re teenagers.”

“I guess I’m a late bloomer.”

“Dads never like to see their daughters grow up into beautiful women, but…” He lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “You’ve become a beautiful woman and I’m very proud of you.”

Claire stared at him. “Really?”

“Of course. Don’t I always introduce you as ‘my beautiful, talented daughter, Claire’?”

“Oh, that.” She leaned against the wall. “At political rallies? I could look like a plow horse in a skirt and everyone would still clap.”

Dad frowned. “Just because I’m a politician doesn’t make me a liar about you. My constituents can see for themselves, you know. And if you want to use your talents to help those unfortunate souls in San Lucas, you have my blessing and support.” He rested his loafer on his opposite knee. “Hmm. I may need to organize a congressional fact-finding mission to San Lucas. After you get settled in, of course,” he added hastily as she narrowed her eyes at him.

“I will be fine. I actually did learn a lot about jungle survival from Luc—Sergeant First Class Boudreaux.”

“Did you?” Dad tapped a finger on his ankle.

She took a deep breath, surprised at the pain that hit her middle when she thought of Luc. “Yes, how to find clean water and food, map-reading, avoiding poisonous snakes—did I tell you how I swung myself into a tree branch with an angry cottonmouth swimming at me?”

“Yes.” He closed his eyes and shuddered. “I’d prefer to forget that horrible image. But you did well. I knew Sergeant Boudreaux was the right man for the job.”

Claire tried to keep a neutral expression on her face, glad for the dark room.

“Of course, I never expected you to disappear into the rural Low Country alone with the man,” her dad mused. “If I’d known that, I would have picked someone who wasn’t quite so handsome and dashing.”

“Don’t forget heroic.” She couldn’t keep a tinge of bitterness from her voice. “Janey says he’s up for a Silver Star for action in Afghanistan.” Too bad he was a coward when it came to her.

“Indeed.” He nodded. “I hope he enjoys the medal because if he’s hurt you, they’ll present it to him along with his discharge papers.”

“What?”

“I may be an old widowed dad, but I can still recognize certain manly emotions, shall we say. And that young Cajun had a boatload of them crossing his face when you left.”

“Like what?”

“Regret, sorrow, affection…maybe even love?” He lifted a bushy eyebrow.

She was already shaking her head. “No, Dad. Luc may have been fond of me after working together so closely, but his love is for the army and his band of brothers. That’s how he thinks of his team. No women allowed.” She gave him a weak smile.

Dad grunted, obviously not convinced. “If you won’t let me abuse my congressional powers and ruin his military career, can I at least punch him in the nose?”

That shocked a giggle out of her. Punching seemed so low-class for a man like her patrician father. “We’re Virginians, Dad. How about you horsewhip him?” They had several whips in the stable.

“Excellent.” He brightened immediately and declaimed in a theatrically hammy Southern accent, “Suh, you have offended the Cook family honuh. Prepay-uh for your trouncin’.’”

She was laughing hard enough to hurt her sides. “Oh, Dad, you should have been a professional actor.”

He grinned at her. “My dear, I already am. Some days the Capitol dome is the best-looking theater in America.”

“It will be strange to be so far from it,” Claire mused.

“Your mother threatened to go back to San Lucas at least once every election cycle. But she loved me more than I deserved and hung around anyway.”

“I miss her.”

“I do, too.” Dad pulled her into a hug. “I wasn’t much help when she was so sick, I’m sorry to say. But you were the brave one. You always have been.” He kissed her forehead.

She choked back a laugh. “Everybody has been telling me that—that I was brave all along but didn’t realize it.”

“It’s true. You are a wonderful young woman, and woe to anyone who doesn’t know it.” He wrinkled his nose as if he’d smelled something bad. “Even that doltish young sergeant.”

“Dad, forget about him.”

“Can’t I lie in wait for him outside his barracks late one night and jump him?”

She laughed. Her dad, a silver-haired, Mr. Rogers look-alike, leaping onto the back of a Special Forces soldier. “No.”

“How about I key his monster truck?”

“No.”

“Puncture those huge tires?”

“No.”

“Sprinkle itching powder into his army-issue boxers?”

Claire decided not to tell her dad Luc wore briefs. “No.” She was laughing too hard to speak clearly by then.

“Curses, foiled again.” He twisted an imaginary mustache. “Then he’ll just have to live with his own regrets like the rest of us.”

“Did Mom have any regrets?”

“Only that she couldn’t stay with us longer. None about how she lived her life, and especially none about you.”

“That’s a good way to live.”

Her dad kissed her cheek. “Amen.”