21 Marine Salute: 21 Always a Marine Tales (151 page)

“Exceptionally, though I admit to being ahead of the curve since you told me about your fiancé.” He chose a stuffed mushroom and offered it to her. Accepting the bite, she shivered at the way his gaze lingered on her mouth and the stroke of his thumb along her lower lip as a bit of mushroom tried to escape.

No one ever fed her—it was an intimacy she couldn’t recall ever experiencing. Tom offering to do so was novel enough. That she allowed him to, even more so. “I don’t mind that you know about Steve.” Oddly enough, she really didn’t. “I don’t talk about him anymore. Most everyone who knew about us back then have gone on with their lives. It’s been thirty years, so for them it’s a distant memory. A sadness from the past. Amelia remembers, but even for her, he was her brother and she misses him. But her life went on.”

“And yours didn’t.” Tom shifted in his chair and drummed a finger against the tabletop. “Why?”

“I don’t have any easy answer for that. At first, I know it was because I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. It was everything I could do to put one foot in front of the other. If my parents hadn’t made me stay in college, I think I would have dropped out.” Folding her arms, she leaned on the edge of the table. Those first years after Steve died remained hazy in her memory. She vaguely recalled school and classes, but college life lost any luster. “I finished my degree, graduated with honors, got a job—kind of went down the checklist of life and did everything I was supposed to do. But guys didn’t interest me.”

Chewing the inside of her lip, she picked up her wine glass and considered Tom. “Honestly, I don’t think it occurred to me to find one that interested me. Then I was thirty and I didn’t see much of a point in changing, and when I turned forty—well, by then Amelia had been married for years and her three kids are all my godchildren. I lived vicariously through them.” Grimacing at how forlorn all of that sounded she shook her head. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me or think, wow, what a crappy life. It hasn’t been crappy.”

“I don’t feel badly for you.”

Relief nearly had her sputtering her wine. “I’m glad because I didn’t tell you to have you pity me.”

“You’re a beautiful, accomplished woman. You’re confident, smart, and funny—an altogether attractive package. Am I sorry you were hurt? Yes. But pity you? No.” The categorical way he stated it might have sounded harsh in any other situation, but she found his honesty refreshing. “I know what you mean about living vicariously through others. My best friend got married and I treated his family a lot like my own. I was the favorite uncle. I spent holidays with them when our leaves coincided, and when Dex retired out to spend more time with his family, I made a point of visiting them. Then life took a hard left turn and sheered away that family. I mourned them as I would have my own.”

“That’s—sad.”

This time, he shrugged. “No, darling. That’s life. We get two choices when bad things happen. We go on or we don’t. I’m proud of the choice you made.” He shifted his attention behind her briefly. “Would you care to order some dinner? Our waitress is hovering because she doesn’t want to interrupt.”

Swallowing a smile, Brenda nodded. “Why don’t you order for me?” The offer startled the hell out of her, but he didn’t miss a beat.

“Any food allergies or intense dislikes I should be aware of?”

In any other situation, she would have demurred to answer the question. She wasn’t allergic to any foods and she didn’t like to make waves or put other people out. Tom’s laser focus held her captive, and somehow she suspected if she weren’t honest—he’d be disappointed.

“Not a big fan of chicken or pasta.” For one, she had to eat it at every damn event she went to and for another—she’d simply never cared much for either.

“Anything else?” Satisfaction brimmed in his tone. Yes, he did like her frankness.

“No salad or soup. I always end up feeling too full by the time we get to the real food and I don’t enjoy it as much.” Her face warmed, but what the hell. Considering everything else she’d shared, and the ultimate goal of the evening, she had a hard time not embracing this side of the conversation.

“Oh, thank God.” He motioned the waitress over. “I hate rabbit food.” Switching his attention to the waitress, he held up two fingers. “We’ll take one of the porterhouse steaks, thirty-two ounce cut, cooked medium. Two plates so we can share. One large, baked potato, and two orders of the steamed vegetables.”

“Absolutely, sir. Should I leave the appetizers?” And it wasn’t until she’d asked that Brenda realized they’d demolished three-quarters of the plate.

Tom checked with her and she smiled. “The wine is fine until the steak gets here.”

The waitress lifted the platter out of the way and slipped out of their private alcove. A whisper of sound brushed across Brenda’s senses and she glanced back to see the curtains drift closed. While they’d hardly been subjected to any other noises, the hush filling their private space added another layer of intrigue to the evening.

“Why didn’t you ever marry?” She watched him curiously. Tom rested his arm along the back of her seat and the warmth of his jacket heated her bare shoulders.

He didn’t sugarcoat the response. “Never met the woman I wanted to leave the service for—or that I wanted to make those kind of concessions to. I have been a Marine first and a man second, for a long time. Wives, girlfriends…they need men. I couldn’t give to both, so I didn’t try.”

“You didn’t want to retire, did you?” It didn’t matter that he wore a suit and tie. Everything from his haircut, to his posture, to his personality declared exactly what he was—a man in control, and one who knew how to get to his destination even if it continued to shift on him.

“Not really, but I aged out and it was time.”

“What are you going to do now?” Her job at the bank was just that; a job. One she enjoyed, certainly, but besides giving her income and a place to be everyday, it didn’t do much else.

“That is the ten-thousand dollar question.” He shifted to refill both their glasses and handed hers to her before settling once more with his arm around her shoulders. The casual ease of the possessive gesture wasn’t lost on her, but she enjoyed the way he bracketed her, too. “One I’ve been thinking about for weeks.”

“And you haven’t come up with anything?” What would it be like to walk away from the bank and have the empty road of the future in front of her—if she could do anything she wanted? What would she do? She’d stopped thinking about what if—or her future—a long time before. Her stomach gave a nervous flutter.

“No, my godson runs a rehabilitation facility here, and he’s offered me a job. But I’m not sure I’m suited to it.”

“Well, you’re very easy to talk to.” And she meant it as a compliment.

Tom stared at her for a long moment then chuckled. “That’s exclusive to my present company. Most Marines would tow the line to the rank and I doubt I’d be that interested in their backstory.”

He cared more than he let on, but she let it slide. “Well, what would you like to do? I am assuming you’ve got opportunities. Computers? Banking? Teaching?”

His expression didn’t change with any of her suggestions. “Fish.”

“That’s it? Fish?” Disbelief filled her. “Wouldn’t you get bored?”

“Boredom never killed a man. I think I’d like to be bored for a time. Maybe get a boat on a lake, or head out to deep sea and do some sea bass fishing. Enjoy the time away from the noise.”

“You could sail to the Caribbean or the Bahamas. They have some beautiful resorts.” She’d always wanted to go to one, come to think of it. She had several travel sites bookmarked on her computer and daydreamed about vacations all the time.

“It’s just an idea; one of many, I’m afraid.”

“When do you have to make a choice?” Regulations, as she recalled, governed most of a Marine’s living arrangements and activities. A confirmed bachelor like Tom probably lived on a base or at least through base-subsidized housing. When he retired, that would go, too.

“January fifteenth. I’ve already packed up the apartment, and I can move it all into a storage unit. What about you?”

“I’m not retiring.” She laughed. “At least another fifteen years before I’m eligible for social security.”

“But I thought you said you’d been at your bank for twenty years or so.”

“Twenty-five.” She made a face. Had it really been that long?

“And you’re not eligible for retirement benefits now?” The quirk of doubt in his voice made her laugh.

“Retirement sounds old. You don’t ask a woman if she’s old.” She wagged a finger at him and he captured it.

“I wouldn’t dream of calling you old. You’re a sexy, beautiful, dynamic-as-hell woman. But you don’t have to be stuck in a bank unless that’s where you want to be.” The compliment added another log to the fire his company had been stoking since she arrived. “Let’s say you could retire—what would you do?”

She opened and closed her mouth twice while rethinking her response. Tom shifted as their food arrived and the line of questioning was tabled. The moment the scent of the steak and potato hit her nose, hunger cramped her stomach and her mouth watered. The appetizers had helped, but she was most of the way through her second glass of wine. Warm from the alcohol, she didn’t feel at all muddleheaded, but she had relaxed.

The chef had taken the time to cut the meat into two equal halves. Tom took over serving after the waitress left them and he settled a portion on each of their plates and split the baked potato right down the middle. As it turned out, she liked hers loaded with butter and sour cream and he preferred only butter with a bit of pepper.

They both sipped wine, though he’d barely touched his second glass and she’d needed a third to wash down her meal. “So you were saying,” he murmured between bites, “what would you do if you could retire?”

“Damn, I’d hoped you’d forgotten the question.” She speared a chunk of meat with her fork and considered it as though it might provide her with an answer. “I don’t know—”

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” he reminded. “We’re allowed to refuse one or two.”

“It’s not a matter of refusing, it’s more a matter of truly having no clue as to what I’d do. I belong to a book club, I go out once a month and meet five other women to discuss what we’ve read, we share a bottle of wine and then I go home. I have two cats. I—I go to Amelia’s some Sundays after she gets home from church and we play cards while her husband watches football. A couple of times a year, I invite her kids to stay at my place so Amelia and Ron can have some quality time together. Beyond that—all I have is work.”

What the hell? She really was turning into the crazy cat lady. When had that happened?

“What’s wrong?” His deep gray eyes fixed on her, and she tried to smooth out her frown, but her lips were pinching together in distaste.

“I just realized what a tremendous bore I am.” Utterly disgusted with herself, she clicked her teeth together at his soft chuckle. “Why are you laughing at me?”

“Not laughing at you at all.” He stroked her cheek with a light caress of his thumb that was as sweet and caring as it was intimate and easy. “I’d wondered how long it would be until you wanted a refund after being stuck with a tired, dried-out, old prune like me.”

When he put it like that—her lips began to twitch. “That’s a terrible thing to say, you’re very handsome.”

He raised his brows, skepticism flaming hot in his eyes. “Hardly.”

“Are you telling me I don’t have good taste?” She bit the tip of her tongue between her teeth to contain her amusement. The arch tone worked on recalcitrant bank employees who tried to tell her how to do her job when they’d been there six months, but it didn’t so much as ruffle Tom.

“Not at all, I’m too damn grateful for it.” And while she was still trying to wrap her mind around that, he kissed her. It was the lightest, swiftest of contacts—but her system went a little haywire. Heat flooded her cheeks and her heart began to pound in earnest against her ribs.

Skin tingling, she tried to get her breathing under control. “What was that for?”

“Because, ma’am, you are a woman who should be kissed.” And on that note, he took another bite of his steak and she tried to get her rioting neurons under control.

The rest of the meal passed in similar fashion. Every statement he made, she challenged with her own experiences—and while he’d taken a chance with that kiss, it paid off in spades. Her lost vulnerability vanished. The heat in her cheeks reflected in the sparks in her deep brown eyes. He watched her, in between bites and whenever she spoke. Her gaze snagged on his time and again.

Direct contact didn’t bother her, nor did his attention. If anything, she grew more daring as they finished their meal and traded out the wine glasses for coffee. Any time he came into contact with her, she leaned into it—and she’d long since angled her leg against his beneath the table.

She loved television, and he had no idea what half the shows were that she mentioned. It surprised her that he wasn’t as big a sports fan as most, though he didn’t mind watching the big games on the holidays. Neither had any interest in hunting, but he loved fishing—and she’d never been. She loved the idea of traveling to exotic ports, and he nixed about of five them right off the top of her list as being unsafe for travel. The other five—well he wouldn’t mind taking her to see them.

They’d gone through an entire carafe of coffee when the waitress stepped in to murmur that they would be turning the lights down soon. At Brenda’s slow blink, Tom checked his watch. It was five minutes to midnight. Surprise jerked him upright, and he motioned to the window. “Do you want to watch the fireworks from here? Or would you like to go upstairs?”

All evening they’d skirted the night portion of their 1Night Stand-planned assignation and he hadn’t minded in the slightest. It had been a long time since he’d had that much fun. Still, she’d had trouble with New Year’s Eve before—a harsh reminder of her loss.

The quiet animation drained away from her expression. “It’s almost midnight, isn’t it?”