Crossing Abby Road (9 page)

While begging my body to calm down, down, down, I tried to keep my expression blank, or at least keep a hold of the bemused expression that had been there two seconds before. “How do you know that?”

Abby sat back and braced herself on her hands. “Oh, I know a lot about you Marines.” She was giving me the flirty eyes again.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Okay. To tell the truth, a copy of Oliver North’s autobiography was left under my hotel bed a few years ago. My Kindle died when I was overseas and no one had a replacement charger. It was the only book I had with me. For a while, I became a little obsessed with him and his service years. Before all the Iran-Contra crap, he trained Marines in Okinawa for, like, jungle combat. Isn’t that so cool?”

Wait a minute—this was too weird. I watched her profile as she stared off toward the Gulf, holding her hair back from a gust of wind. There was no way this sexy, interesting, fascinating girl who checked out my ass and knew the USMC motto was also an aficionada of Colonel North. It was way too random, and it made her way too…perfect for me.

I unscrewed the cap of my water but didn’t take a drink. “It wasn’t
Under Fire
, was it?”

“That’s the book. He’s on the cover in his dress uniform.” She bit her lip. “So hot. I mean, for an old guy.”

I felt my jaw unhinge, too stunned to speak again, silently wondering if my sisters had set this up as a joke. I wouldn’t put it past them.

Abby’s eyebrows bent and she huffed out a breath. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” I had no idea.

“Like…” She huffed again, sounding annoyed. “Like you’re completely shocked that I know American history, or that I even know how to read. I’m not illiterate.”

“No, it’s not that,” I said, trying not to laugh at the irony. “I read
Under Fire
for the first time last summer. He became a sort of hero of mine. Made me want to re-enlist.”

Her defensive stance eased. “Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

This girl was killing me. “Exactly,” I said, concentrating on my sandwich, though unable to ignore another piece of common ground between us. “Abby, you do realize that book is almost thirty years old? Interesting that we both read it recently.”

Interesting. Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.

“I know.” She smiled down at her sandwich. “I find the whole thing pretty…heroic.”

“My experience wasn’t much like Ollie’s, unfortunately.” I formed my fingers into a pistol and fired imaginary shots at some birds flying overhead. “After boot camp and training, I spent a lot of time in the grunts, doing my job. Nothing glamorous.”

No, nothing at all glamorous about taking someone out from fifteen hundred meters without him having a clue it was coming. Just follow your orders, Marine. Don’t waste time wondering if he has a wife or children. Those ghosts would come later, in droves.

“Do you ever miss it?” Abby asked. She had her water bottle pressed against her cheek.

“I’ve never really thought about it,” I said, intrigued by her question. “I guess I do miss some of it, in a way.” I grinned, remembering my trip to New York over Christmas, and Nik’s idea to rent out an entire arena and pack it with our family and friends. “But I get my fix every once in a while. I love ambushing my dad at paintball.” I laughed, picturing Dad’s face when I’d jumped out of nowhere.

“I was three semesters away from getting my degree,” she said.

“You went to college?” I asked, passing Abby her turkey sandwich. She set it on her leg.

“You sound surprised again.”

“I’m not,” I said. “Besides how you like dolphins and how you’re willing to take down anyone who comes between you and your red currant jam, I don’t know much about you. For all I know, you’re a child musical prodigy and you’ve been home schooled your whole life.” I took a bite of my sandwich, and when Abby still didn’t follow suit, I said, “Before I say anything more, will you do me a favor?” I glanced at the untouched sandwich on her lap. “Eat.”

She lifted it to her mouth and took a bite. I was sure even the oil rigs anchored off the coastline heard the moan that escaped her lips. She took another bite, eyes closed this time. Another moan of sheer pleasure. Jeez, if she got this turned on by a sandwich…

I leaned back and watched for a while, entranced by the movements of her mouth and tongue, her throat, and the noises she made when she was particularly gratified.

“Enjoying yourself?”

Her eyes opened and she laughed, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.

Moments like now—when she revealed genuine bits of the real her—reminded me that I
had
to be with her today, for every second that I could, and those seconds were counting down way too fast. Chandler had already texted like I’d asked, reminding me.

I tried to push away the heavy feeling that weighed on my chest when I thought about leaving her, and the equally heavy feeling knowing this might be the last time I’d get to just sit around like this and really take in my surroundings, the beach, the blue water and sky, all the sounds and smells…all the kick-ass reasons I’d chosen to live in Seaside in the first place.

Abby kept eating until nearly half was gone, which was impressive because Modica’s sandwiches were huge.

“So, your college days?” I asked, going back to my own food.

“Yeah,” she said, her mouth full. Messy but charming. “I liked it at the time, my classes and labs. I was going for a degree in fine arts, but didn’t know what I wanted to do with it—probably painting or drawing. Maybe teaching. Math was my strong subject, though. Those long algebraic equations came really easily.” She took another bite and chewed slowly. “It was never my intention to drop out of school like I did. I guess I really didn’t have a choice back then, since the career stuff happened so fast.” She looked out at the waves. “I wonder sometimes if that was a mistake.”

This new regret behind her eyes was also weighing on me a little. She had to know she wasn’t different, that we all screwed up when planning our futures. “Don’t even get me started about regrets,” I said.

“You have regrets?” She laughed sarcastically. “Your life seems pretty perfect to me. I mean, hello, look where you live.” She pointed out at the water, just as a pair of jet skiers whizzed by, catching major air as they crested the waves. I could hear their laughs and whoops carried by the wind.

My chest hurt again. Yes, the life I was living was damn near perfect. But it was all about to change. “You make it sound like your life is over,” I said, trying to spin the conversation back to her. “I’ve made plenty of mistakes.”

“At least you get to make decisions on your own and you don’t have to run everything by a freaking committee.”

“I’m not that free,” I admitted. “I’ve got this”—I paused and rubbed my jaw—“this thing I’m supposed to do for work. It’s a big damn deal, and a good thing, but it’s been weighing on me for the last, I don’t know, hour, I guess. Which is really weird. Not like me at all.”

Abby’s forehead wrinkled, and she lowered her sandwich. “What is it?”

I shook my head and drew a line in the sand with my finger. “Doesn’t matter, but it’s making me take stock.” I paused to laugh. “Hell, it makes me sound ancient to say I’m ‘taking stock of my life,’ but I guess I am. There’s a lot riding on this, and my father’s involved—which is great, but, I don’t know…” Maybe subconsciously, I rubbed a hand over that place on my chest that hurt. “I guess I’m feeling all the pressure that’s coming.”

“Pressure sucks.”

I looked at her. Yeah, she should know about pressure. And then I glanced down at my lap where my free hand had been balling up a stack of napkins in my fist, squeezing the hell out of them. I hadn’t even noticed. I released my fist and exhaled.

“I’ve never been very good at dealing with pressure,” Abby continued. “I just kind of ignore it until I explode.” She fluttered her eyelashes at me. “It’s very attractive.”

I chuckled. “I’m sure it is.”

She laughed quietly and shook her head. “Seriously, though. Today, this
vacation
I’m trying to be on?” She waited for me to nod. “I kind of demanded it because I swear, if I had to look one more time at the same people I see every day—the same people I’ve seen every freaking day for the past eighteen months—I was gonna go straight-up crazy. I just needed to get away and regroup, recharge or something. I don’t know.”

She twisted the lid of her water, and I leaned forward, not just because she looked extra sexy when she got excited—even in a frustrated way—but because I could relate.

“I’m sure my therapist told me the same thing a hundred times,” she added, “but before three days ago, it wasn’t like I could just kick off my shoes and go sit on the beach.” She sighed and drew her own squiggly line in the sand with the tip of her finger. “So yeah, pressure’s a huge bitch, and the only thing that keeps me even close to sane is knowing there’ll be another moment just like this…at some point in the next year.”

She lifted her chin and gazed out at the water.

“That’s what’s really important, ya know?” Her voice was softer. “Finding the quiet moments. Holding on and relishing them. Money and success and…and the happiness people
think
come with that, it’s all such bullshit. It means nothing. You can’t take any of that home or hold it in your heart, but all the stress that comes with it sure the hell keeps you up at night.” She rubbed her forehead. “Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling the need to rub my own forehead, or that aching spot on my chest again. “Unfortunately.”

“If I could stop everything right now and stay just like this, I totally would. Wouldn’t you?”

It took a second, but I nodded.

“But it’s not like I can, and I’m sure you can’t, either. You’ve got your store and Chandler and all those T-shirts to fold.” She smiled. “Must keep you busy.”

“Yeah, it does.”
And that’s only one store.

Abby kept her eyes on me, gazing with curiosity. A moment later, she picked up the plastic bowl of pasta salad and slurped in a forkful of noodles. “So, speaking of big life decisions,” she said after chewing. “Why didn’t you stay in the Marines?”

I was grateful for the attempted subject change. Had Abby sensed the frustrated wheels turning in my head? The elephant-sized weight on my chest that had come out of nowhere?

“My mom made me go AWOL,” I said, wanting to lighten the mood. “So lower your voice.”

She stared at me for a second, then threw a napkin at my face. “Come on.”

I laughed. “No. Actually, at the end of my last deployment, I didn’t know if I should stay in the military or just finish school. I was stuck at a crossroads.”

“Really?”

“Totally vacillating. I had options, though. I thought about the FBI for a while, even applied.”

She blinked and inched forward. “Did you get in?”

I didn’t answer her, but took a bite of bread and let the question sit.

“Ah, I see.” That pretty, flirty grin. “Of
course
you got in.”

I still didn’t answer, wondering what she’d make of that.

“And the CIA didn’t interest you, either?” Teasing was in her voice again, like that jab about Sinatra.

“Not for long.”

She gaped at me and lowered her fork. “You approached the CIA?”

Ramping up the suspense, I leaned toward her and dropped my voice. “Actually, they approached me.” I peered behind me, like I didn’t want to be overheard. “But the rest of that story is classified. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” I shot my arms out and took her by the shoulders. “Then
eat
you.”

A startled, breathy gasp escaped from between Abby’s parted lips as she stared back at me, her smoky eyes wide and gleaming. My hands on her bare shoulders felt secure and heavy, and I didn’t move them. I’d wondered about it before, even felt a few pretty strong impulses, but this was the first time I really thought about kissing her, right this instant, like I could already taste her lips, breathe in her skin at the side of her neck, feel the curves of her body against mine as I eased her back onto the sand, my fingers tangling in her soft blond hair, sliding under her clothes…

Holy damn. Nothing had happened, and yet I couldn’t even breathe. The thought of really touching Abby, my hands all over her, had lit me up then frozen me solid. Her eyes hadn’t once drifted from mine. At least she was breathing because I could hear it, the jagged intake of oxygen between her lips, and how it shook her body. If neither of us moved, the air between us would surely catch fire. My chest burned, and heat seared the palms of my hands where I was still holding her shoulders.

And I’d just talked about eating her.

I was the first to blink.

“You’re…” Abby said, her voice barely a whisper. “You’re so full of it. The CIA probably sent you here, and you’re really an undercover bodyguard.” She pulled back one corner of her mouth. “Is that the big decision that’s been weighing on your shoulders like Atlas? If that’s the case, I definitely think you should call it off.”

Her nervous humor broke my concentration, and I dipped my chin, strangely relieved that I wasn’t caught up in her eyes anymore. The weight on my shoulders she’d just described felt even heavier now. Not that I still didn’t want to kiss her, feel her tongue slide against mine—nothing would be better right now.