Possession: A Little Harmless Military Romance (8 page)

Deke rolled his shoulders. “Okay.”

“Besides, I try to stay on my sister’s good side, and leaving you stranded here in Hawaii would set her off.”

He eyed his brother-in-law. “Yeah? Since when are you afraid of your sister?”

“These days, there isn’t much about her that doesn’t frighten me. She’s either yelling at me or crying. Either way, I am always the bad guy.”

“So, you’re ready to let me be the bad guy?”

He grabbed his keys off the counter and smiled at Deke. “Yep. And I am going to love it.”

*  *  *  *

Samantha stepped out of her room dressed and feeling a bit better. She looked around and didn’t see anyone until she spotted Fiona on the lanai. She was sipping her morning tea and taking in nature. Sam wished she could be more like her friend. Fiona had always been a woman who could handle anything life threw her. Sam could, too, and had in more than one way, but Fiona never seemed to deal with the unexpected. Even before Fiona had gotten the word of Brett's death two years ago, she had known. She had called Samantha in tears, and normally she would have brushed it away, but with Fiona, Sam had learned not to do that. She had been at Fiona's little apartment in California when the news arrived of her twin's death.

It was the only time she had seen Fiona fall apart.

She stepped out onto the lanai. The sun was shining, with just a little fog clinging to the mountains.

"Hey."

"Hey, yourself. Feeling better?" Fiona asked.

"Yeah."

"I think we should do some reiki on you later."

She nodded. "Have you seen Mitchell, or did Zoe keep him in her room?"

“He's with Deke."

"What?" Samantha jumped up out of her chair, but Fiona took hold of her hand.

"Sit down. They will be fine. They need to work some things out. These two men are very important in your life—in more ways than the one they are now."

Oh, God, Fee was talking in riddles again. She respected Fiona because she did seem to have an intuition that made Radar on
M*A*S*H
look normal, but sometimes she just would like to ignore her.

"Okay, but they could hurt each other."

"They won't. You need to sit and enjoy, Sam. You have only a few months left for quiet mornings."

She sighed and knew that Fiona was right. She settled into her chair again.

"Did Deke say anything about how he felt about the baby?" Fiona asked.

She shrugged. "I kind of stunned him, then he yelled at me for not telling him sooner."

Fiona nodded. "He felt guilty for not answering."

She shrugged. "I guess."

"I guess you didn't get to talk more about the plans?"

She shook her head. "No. It's the same, though."

"It isn't the same, Sam. There is a baby involved here."

Fiona wasn't admonishing her. That wasn't her way. Her way was to help someone get to where they needed to be emotionally. It was a gift that Sam always wished she had.

"I wish I could tell what he was thinking."

Fee snorted. "Probably that he wants to have sex with you."

"That sounds like something Zoe would say."

She gave her a smile. "The way he looks at you...very sexy. He loves you so much. And I see the same in you. Make sure you don't mess that up."

She chuckled. "Maybe he'll mess it up."

"He could, but he's been warned. I think he will listen.” Fee glanced over at her. "What are you afraid of?"

Of course, she knew Sam was afraid. "That he'll leave."

"He won't."

"He's a Seal. He'll leave."

"Being a Seal is his job, but it isn't who he is with you."

She sighed, wishing for once that Fee wasn’t so direct. She had Sam thinking of things that were better ignored. "You don't understand."

“I do, but I don't think you do."

She frowned at Fiona. “I’m getting tired again.”

Fiona laughed. “Okay, with the rest of the world, he’s a Seal. But with you…he’s just a man. He might just be figuring that out.”

Sam sighed. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Fiona grabbed her hand. “I told Deke it would work out. Don’t worry. Now I have to get ready. I have a few clients later and there has been much to muddy my aura today.”

With a light squeeze to Sam’s hand, Fiona left her to her thoughts. But she couldn’t really think. So much was going on, so much turmoil. She pulled her feet up and rested her head on her knees. Life before now was easier, so much easier.

And now that Deacon Berg was with her forever, come hell or high water, she was going to have to figure out just what to do about him.

Chapter Nine

Deke glanced over at Mitchell. “So, you didn’t kill me.”

Mitchell flashed him an evil smile as he pulled onto H201. It was almost identical to the one Samantha gave when she had a really good hand at poker. He knew to fold as soon as he saw it. Still, Deke hated to admit that he was kind of happy Mitchell had shown him around. He sort of knew his way around the island, but he hadn’t spent much time on the bases. It had been much easier to go with his brother-in-law.

“I might have been an ass this morning, but I should have known better than to come at you head-on. You’re old, but you are a Seal. If I kill you, it will have to be something really shady.”

Deke snorted. “Consider me warned.”

Mitchell nodded as they stopped at a light. “Listen, I know I was an ass, like I said. But…you have to understand—”

Deke held up his hand. “Say no more. If it were AJ, I would have the same reaction. I completely understand.”

In fact, he had a little more respect for Mitchell. He was a bit overbearing, but he understood that brotherly love a little more since his sister had started dating several years ago. There were quite a few years between his sister and his brothers, being that she was his parents ATMB or After the Military Baby, as they liked to call her. Although Deke wondered if his baby sister would ever tell him she was pregnant until it was much later. Like when the kid was graduating. She had learned to keep things from her brothers being the youngest and the only girl.

“Okay, and I will admit right up front, I told her not to tell you.”

Anger had Deke curling his fingers to keep from smacking the major. It probably wouldn’t end well for him, though. He outranked Deke, and besides that, Mitchell was driving. And while Samantha might not be too mad eventually, she would initially be upset. That just wasn’t something he wanted to do to her. Not right now.

“I will accept the broken nose as punishment for that,” Mitchell said.

His nose was a mess, his eyes blackened, and that was going to be hard to explain when he went to work on Monday morning, so Deke let it go.

“I would have found out.”

“Yeah, I know, but you have to understand. She…she’s fragile. Never in my life have I thought of Sam that way. I might have given her shit before.”

“Like when she gave you your first broken nose?”

He snorted then winced. “Fuck that hurt. Yeah, but she has always been sort of the strongest woman I know. She found out she was pregnant and then it was all weeping and hormonal. It brought back memories of her hitting puberty.” He shuttered. “It was horrific.”

“Sam was weepy.” He shrugged. Deke wasn’t about to admit that it bothered him.

“No. I mean, I know with the hormones it happens sometimes. I’ve been working behind a desk since I moved here a year ago, so I have been around women more. We had two women in the office pregnant this year. That was just too much for me to handle.”

“I hate to say it, but you are Air Force. I’m a Seal. I’m trained for these kinds of things. I wouldn’t freak out just because a woman got a little weepy.

He shot Deke a look. “Yeah? It will be interesting to see what happens when she goes off on you. But you weren’t there when she was a teenager. It was bad. Really bad. She took that hormonal imbalance and put it into action. She would spend days devising things to drive me insane. And she’s mean.”

Deke chuckled, thinking of a teenage Samantha being the bane of her brother’s existence. He could just imagine the things she would devise to torture her older and overbearing brother. She would be cute.

“Younger sisters are not the easiest to deal with then. I was lucky that I was out the door before mine hit that age.”

“Yeah, well, Sam was nasty. Especially to me. But, now…if I look at her the wrong way, she starts to cry. And, I’ll admit, I blamed you.”

Deke hated to admit that he could understand Mitchell’s point of view. “Then why didn’t you contact me so I could deal with it?”

He shrugged as he took the turn off to H-3. “I’m a guy, and according to Zoe, a dumbass.”

“Yeah, she said that more than once this morning. She’s not too happy with you about last night.”

He made a face. “Zoe has been on her own too long. She doesn’t understand how to be careful.”

Deke heard the proprietary tone in Mitchell’s voice, but he figured it wasn’t his place to comment.

“So, Deke, are your intentions honorable?”

He looked at her brother. Sam and Mitchell definitely looked like brother and sister. There was no doubt about it. But there was an edgier quality to Mitchell’s facial features. His eyes were a little darker, as was his hair.

“The fact that it’s taking you so long to answer that is making me kind of nervous.”

“Of course my intentions are honorable. I just have to make sure that I don’t let Sam know I plan on talking her back into marriage.”

There was a beat of silence as Mitchell pulled around a van.

“You’re telling me you’re scared?”

Like a little boy, but he wasn’t about to admit that to his brother-in-law. “I didn’t say that.”

He snorted. “Listen, son, I don’t blame you, but just know this. You better do right by her or all those medals on your chest won’t mean a damned thing. I will make sure you’re ruined.”

For a second, he couldn’t believe her brother had just threatened his career.

“You just threatened to ruin my career?”

“Answer me this, Seal. What would you do if AJ was in the same situation?”

He glanced at Samantha’s brother. “I would hide the body.”

Mitchell chuckled.

“I just want to make sure you keep your nose out of it,” Deke said.

“And if I don’t?”

Deke shifted in his seat. He didn’t know how much to tell Samantha’s brother. He wasn’t accustomed to sharing things with people. He held back things from Mal and Kade. It was his nature. In a family filled with so many siblings, he’d always been kind of a loner.

“I can’t convince her that she should marry me with you hanging around.”

The silence lengthened, and Deke started to worry he was going to have to fight both brother and sister.

“I shouldn’t. You broke her heart when you left.”

He knew, in a way, that was true. It wasn’t the whole story, because they were both broken when he left. She had told him to leave, and he had been stupid enough to do it. There wasn’t a second that went by in his life that he didn’t regret it. Even more now that he’d had a few close calls with death.

“You know that I don’t have a choice,” Deke said.

Mitchell sighed. “I know, but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with Sam.”

Deke nodded. He couldn’t argue with her brother. He didn’t think he had a right, and if he did, Mitchell would just fight him. Mitchell took the exit that led to the condo the women shared.

“So, you want me to back off, give you space?”

He could almost see the wheels turning in the major’s head.

“Yeah. It might work better. If I am always fighting you, I have to divide my energy. It’s going to be bad enough dealing with the new job.”

“You took it for her, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I…well, we had a pretty bad mission about a year ago. Lost a few guys, almost lost a few more. It made me think of what I wanted most in life. I was offered two jobs. One was in Coronado.”

“You were offered a job teaching?”

He nodded. “But they wanted me here. They wanted me to be involved in planning. They have some odd idea I can help.”

“You gave up the chance to teach to do something you might hate?”

“Yeah.”

Mitchell sighed. “And that was for Samantha, of course.”

He gave Mitchell a surprised glance. “Yeah.”

“Hey, I know you love her. I know she loves you. That doesn’t always mean you should be together.”

Something in his voice caught Deke’s attention.

“Are you speaking from experience?” Deke asked.

“What does that mean?”

He shrugged and went against his earlier thought. “There seems to be a lot of heat between you and Zoe.”

“Good lord, no. That woman,” he shook his head. “I’ve been grateful to her and Fiona for helping Samantha, but I definitely don’t want anything to do with that woman. She’s a pain in the ass.”

If it had been a friend, he would have given him crap. There was definitely something there. But he needed Mitchell’s help. He pulled into the driveway of the condo.

He turned and faced Deke. “Okay, I will give you some time, but you don’t make her happy and I’ll make your life a living hell. You might be a Seal, but I will take you down for hurting my sister.”

He eyed the younger man and knew without a doubt that Mitchell would follow through.

“You got it.”

Because if he failed, he wasn’t too sure he wouldn’t want Mitchell to kill him.

*  *  *  *

Sam wanted to die. She wanted the world to end, for the earth to crash into the sun, and she didn’t give a damn who died with her. It was justified in her opinion. No one should escape. She just wanted to be able to eat a meal and not feel like this. It was definitely another sign to her that God was indeed a man.

“Sam?” Deke asked through the bathroom door.

Oh, God. She hadn’t known they’d gotten back. She had hoped to be done with this before they did. Life just wasn’t fair. Dammit, couldn’t her brother and Deke find something to do?