A Major Distraction (12 page)

She smiled at the memory of his little show in his bedroom. Brad was a success with the drive to further thrive. He would one day make general if he wanted. An accomplished man she trusted to be honest with her. When he had a problem, he talked to her about it. He trusted her to be herself. They shared and communicated. And how rare was that in this day and age?

She continued to walk around the neighborhood until the sun started to go down. By the time she returned home, she saw his truck in front of his house and walked to his front door.

She knocked, but the face of the man who answered the door was not that of the man she’d been seeing. This Brad looked guarded, upset, and then…blank.

“Genevieve.”

“Brad, are you okay?” Worried, she reached out to cup his cheek.

He closed his eyes, as if in pain, then opened them. He took her hand from his face but didn’t let go of it. “We need to talk.”

Nerves ratcheted the tension already in her belly, especially when he drew her to the outside porch bench instead of welcoming her inside his home.

“Did something happen? Oh my God. Is it your family?” What else would put that anxiety in his eyes, that lack of expression on his face?

He stared at her, blew out a breath, then left her on the bench to pace. “Are you sleeping with your boss?”

She started. “What?”

“Toby Westover. Your new boss. Are you getting a promotion?”

“I should when it becomes available. But we’ll have to go over all that when the time comes.” She scowled. “Why are you asking about Toby? Did you ask me if
I’m sleeping with him?
”

He sighed. “I didn’t want to believe it.”

“Believe what?” She tried to make sense of him and pieced together his questions. “Wait a minute. You aren’t honestly suggesting I’d sleep with Toby Westover to get ahead, are you?” She physically hurt that he could think such a thing.

“No.” He huffed. “It’s just that someone mentioned they’d seen you.”

“Having lunch with Toby, yeah.” She stood and crossed her arms, defensive. “He came back down to Lejeune today to talk to me. With his
wife
.”

“Wife?”

She didn’t like that he sounded relieved. She only knew he’d thought badly about her and mentally condemned her without knowing the facts. And why should he know she’d never cheat on him? Just because
she
believed in
him
and thought she knew him didn’t mean he was as close to her, apparently.

“Yes, wife,” she repeated, feeling wooden. “Toby brought his wife down to visit relatives, and he wanted to reassure me that he wasn’t like Burrows. That I wouldn’t have to worry about him being inappropriate. He introduced me to his pregnant wife, and we all had lunch. Together.”

He blinked then rubbed his eyes, seeming suddenly tired. “Fuck. I’m sorry, Jenny. It’s just…”

“Why would you think I would sleep with him in the first place?”

“I was talking to Batista, asking about your tires. I don’t think he had anything to do with them being flat.”

That she’d never considered. “What?”

“Then I left him to find you. But I overheard someone talking about you and Westover. Hugging, sleeping around. Bullshit, I know, but—”

“But you immediately assumed it was true.” And that really hurt.

“No. Yes. Hell, Jenny. I didn’t want to believe it, but I started wondering.”

“Seriously? Have I ever given the impression I’d sleep my way into a new job?” She glared at him and held back angry tears. “That’s what you think of me?”

“No, I don’t.” He sounded so sure of her now. She had no idea what to think.

Brad pulled her with him onto the bench. “This mess is more my fault than yours.” He sighed. “I was married once. I told you that.”

“Yes.” But he hadn’t told her much more than that it hadn’t worked out.

“Well, I fell hard for Dana. My parents have such a great relationship. I really thought Dana was it for me. We dated for a while before marrying. We were together for two and a half years before she left me for the major she’d been sleeping with behind my back.”

“Oh.” That was awful.

“Yeah, oh.” He exhaled on a groan. “To say I had—
have
—trust issues is putting it mildly. After Dana, I dated, but nothing serious. I didn’t want that much more from a woman. And it’s been years.” He paused and took her cold hand in his. “Until you.”

“Until me.”
The woman you can’t trust.

“I won’t lie. I fell for you, Jenny. Hard enough I’m scared of falling flat and never getting up. Overhearing Marcy’s gossip took me back to a bad place.”

“Marcy? Tell me exactly what she said.” Genevieve buried the hurt and tried to get some answers.

After he’d recounted Marcy and Lieutenant Sheer’s conversation, she knew she needed to look further into the matter.

She pulled her hand from Brad’s and stood, needing some space.

“Jenny, I didn’t believe her.”

“You didn’t
want
to believe her.”

“No, I didn’t,” he said softly. “But instead of having a fit and acting like a jealous moron, I took some time to think. I believe you.”

“But you didn’t before. The problem, Brad, isn’t that you listened to gossip. It’s that you could honestly question my integrity after what we’ve been to each other. Or, at least, what I thought you’d been to me.”

“So you’re saying if you heard I’d been with another woman, you wouldn’t doubt me at all?” He sounded disbelieving.

“My first instinct would be to disbelieve it, yes. I’d come to you and ask you about it. To give you the benefit of the doubt because of what we mean to each other.” The truth. The Brad she knew might yell or argue, but he’d never cheat on her. She knew that even more now, knowing what Dana had done to him.

While she could understand he’d been hurt and why he might have trust issues, that didn’t absolve him of not believing in her from the get-go.

“What do I mean to you?” he asked.

“The question that matters is, what do I mean to you? Obviously you don’t trust me. So you can’t love me. What exactly do we have? A sexual relationship with some fun thrown in on the side?” She left him with that question and went back inside her home. Then she texted him to think about what she’d said and not talk to her for a few days. She wanted him to give himself time to figure out what they were doing.

She’d thought they were building something, but apparently she was only a stopping block, another temporary fling on his road to undoing the pain Dana had caused.

Angry and wanting to do something about it, she focused on the puzzle of the weird memos, the flat tires, and Marcy’s odd rumor. Time to do some electronic sleuthing and find some answers.

Genevieve had called Brad into her office and asked him to join her behind her desk. She hadn’t answered his texts or calls last night, and she seemed seriously angry that he’d dared question her honor. Well, sue him, but Brad thought he had a right to be leery. Would she really not question him if someone had mentioned rumors about him having an affair?

It warmed him to think she’d blindly trust him. And it hurt to think he hadn’t been able to say the same to her.

“Marcy, please come in,” Genevieve said with a smile as she invited Marcy to sit before her desk.

Brad kept his poker face on, but he could sense the anticipation in the air. He stood next to Genevieve behind her desk and watched in silence. Marcy gave him a shy smile, but he knew all was not as it seemed.

“Marcy, I called you in here to explain to Major Cava why you felt the need to pop my tires and start rumors about me. And maybe you can explain why your electronic signature is buried under my supposed emails to Major Cava, emails that if distributed outside the G2 would have made the colonel extremely displeased.”

Marcy’s lips pinched as she denied any involvement, and Brad studied her with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Marcy?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She sounded innocent, but there was a quaver in her voice, a rapid blink of the eye that told him she lied.

“Not only do I have the IT department’s proof, I also interviewed Lieutenant Sheer, your gossip buddy, and Toby Westover’s wife, who remembers meeting you in the ladies’ room at the restaurant where the three of us ate lunch the other day. Odd you never mentioned you’d followed me, or that you’d met her.”

Marcy glared, the real woman coming to the fore. “You don’t deserve him, you know.”

Brad blinked. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You nearly sabotaged Genevieve’s career over jealousy?”

Marcy glared at Genevieve even as she started to cry then looked to him. “We were meant to be together, Brad. I understood you needing space. It’s tough to work with the woman you love, being around each other all the time. But then you hooked up with
her
. You can’t honestly tell me you love her.”

“Yeah, I do,” he snapped. “I can’t believe I listened to your lies. Marcy, you need help.” He turned to Genevieve and apologized. “I am so sorry. I’m going to the colonel right now about this.”

She nodded. “I’ve already talked to Marcy’s civilian boss. She’s going to be reassigned, if she’s lucky. Demoted for sure,” Genevieve stated, shaking her head. To Marcy, she said, “We should be working together, you know. Women, civilians in a military environment, are in the minority. But you had to take things too far. Get out, Marcy. You’re done working systems under my watch.”

“But…”

“Come with me.” Brad nodded to the door. Once there, he called for Lieutenant Sheer. She joined them on a march to the colonel’s office, where he ordered the lieutenant to keep watch on Marcy, who was not to reenter her workspace until she’d been handled by the colonel.

After a brief conversation with the lieutenant, which revealed she’d thought hard about what Marcy had said and had a hard time believing her, he believed Sheer when she said she hadn’t shared what she’d heard, not wanting to bring down a female in charge. Brad felt comfortable leaving Marcy in her care.

The colonel’s secretary let Brad into his office, and after explaining things to Colonel Drey, Brad left his boss to deal with the wacky woman.

Now how to handle
his
woman, the one he loved, and the one he’d hurt most.

Three days later, as Friday came to a close and the weekend loomed, Brad figured he’d given Genevieve enough space. Time to beard the lion in her own den, he thought with nervous humor.

She’d told him to take some time, to reevaluate what he thought about her. And in that time, she’d no doubt been reevaluating
him
.

Brad had finally found a woman he could trust, and he’d let fear nearly get between them. Then again, if one simple mistake between them could ruin their relationship, what did they have between them anyway?

He knocked on her door. No one answered. He knocked again and turned the knob. It opened. “Jenny?”

His Jenny. Genevieve Cava. He liked the sound of that. A little freaked at thoughts of permanence so soon, he also knew that living behind a wall of casual dating and physical pleasures paled next to the mass of emotion he felt for Jenny all the time. He was ready to commit to marriage and, even more preferable, to a long engagement.

If she’d give him a chance.

“Up here,” she called from the second floor. He heard a sneeze.

Curious, he walked up the stairs and entered her spare bedroom, now cluttered with a ton of crap. Clothes and boxes of trinkets lay scattered. “I’m spring cleaning,” she muttered. Her shorts and top had dust smudges. The bandana holding back her dark red hair did nothing to detract from her beauty, though she looked more like a cleaning lady than a genius behind a computer.

“Spring cleaning? You just moved in. Besides, it’s almost summer.” In just two more weeks.

“Yeah, well, I had nothing better to do.” She glared at him.

He sighed. “Come here.”

“I’m busy.”

He yanked her off her feet, away from a pile of knickknacks, and draped her over his shoulder.

“Let go, you bully.”

Typical redhead. He loved her temper. After carrying her into her bedroom, he tossed her onto her bed and pinned her down with his body.

“Get off!”

“No. You’re going to listen to me, you stubborn woman. I love you. You’re a pain in the ass, and I have trust issues. My problems are mine, not yours. I’m still learning to deal with them. But you have to give me some leeway. If we can’t get beyond that, we have no future.”

She blinked up at him. “You really love me?”

“Figures you see through the bullshit to the most important part.” He kissed her. So warm and soft, she felt like home underneath him. A home he wanted to sink into while they both found their pleasure. “Look, I told you my ex messed me up. You’re the first woman I’ve wanted to spend a future with in…well, since Dana.”

“Seriously? You’ve dated since her.”

“Not with the intent to keep dating. Usually my partners and I had nothing more than simple fun in mind. With you I want more.”

“You do?” Her green eyes looked so deep, so hopeful.

“God, Jenny. I love you.”

“I thought you were kidding on Tuesday.” Her eyes grew glassy. “We barely know each other.”

“Really? Because you said you knew me well enough that you’d never doubt me.”

“I, well, yeah.”

“So why doubt me now? Because you don’t love me?” He’d swear—prayed—she did.

“I do love you, though you’re a
huge
moron.” She blinked away angry tears.

He sagged with relief until she coughed and complained of his weight on top of her. He leaned up on his elbows and stared at her. “Okay, good. So what’s the problem then?”

She pinched his side, and he winced but refused to budge, knowing she’d bolt. “My problem is that you don’t trust me.”

“I do. It’s just… Look. Dana messed me up. Imagine falling so hard for someone that you get married then find out they were just using you until something better came along. Over four years of my life spent with a woman I’d imagined having babies with. So yeah, I have trust issues. But you mean something to me. I didn’t just accuse you of cheating, you know. I thought about it. Reasoned the facts that didn’t add up. It didn’t feel right.”