Rescue Me: A Bad Boy Military Romance (7 page)

Alexa lets out a low whistle and sips her wine. "That man is in love with you, honey."

I choke on my first bite of noodles. "He is not."

Alexa rolls her eyes. "You're delusional."

"
I'm
delusional? No. No way. I just got back here. We haven’t seen each other in eleven years, and we didn't exactly part on the best of terms," I remind her. Sadness pricks at my stomach, and the secret I’ve been keeping for a decade is threatening to spill out. But not here. Not now. It can’t.

“Luke goes to the city every week and spends the night. Adam went with him once, said that they went to a strip club and Luke pays for sex.” She lets the words hang in the air.

“Good for him,” I say, snippier than I mean to be. “He’s a grown man with needs. He should fulfill them.”

“He stopped going a few weeks ago when he found out you were the new doctor,” she says lightly. “Just thought you should know that.”

I pause, wishing my stomach didn’t do a backflip of celebration hearing that. “Well, that’s a shame. A waste of a good libido.”

Alexa sighs. "I don't know what happened between the two of you and honestly? I don't really want to know. I just know that you're stubborn and he's been pining over you since he got back to town three years ago and you weren't-"

"Waiting for him at the bus stop where he left me crying?" I finish for her. I feel heat rising in my cheeks, but this time it’s not from Luke. It's from me trying valiantly to hold back tears. Tears that I've been holding back since -

"He joined the army, Ella."

"Yeah, the one thing I didn't want. But he didn't care about that, did he?"

"You were eighteen. You were both just kids. Cut him some slack," she intones.

"Subject change, please," I say. My phone buzzes on the counter, and my eyes glance over to it. It's Jason. I hit the ignore button, my cheeks burning this time from guilt.

"Who's Jason?" Alexa asks, glancing at my phone.

"My recently
ex
-boyfriend," I explain to her.

She raises her eyebrows. "Really? Is he cute?"

"He's...Jason. I don't know," I demur.

"Ooh, sounds like there's more to this story than what you're saying."

"He wanted things I didn't want, that's all," I say.

"Like kinky things?" Alexa wiggles her eyebrows. "Tell me, please. I've been married for seven years and am desperate for news from the outside world."

I laugh. "No, not like kinky things. Like, marriage. And babies. And I don't want that."

"There's the Ella I remember so well." Alexa's eyes are kind as she gazes at me knowingly. "I like that you had a plan and you stuck to it. It's refreshing."

I swallow my bite of spaghetti. "Yeah, well, it didn't
entirely
work out, did it? I'm back here."

"You'll get used to this place, Ella. You might see it as the same, but you should poke around downtown when you get some time. Things are changing."

"Like what? Do we finally have our own postman? Do Mrs. Culver's cows no longer escape and block all traffic in and out of town?"

Alexa tilts her head. "For one thing, we have this great new doctor in town."

I roll my eyes and laugh at her.

"Give Buxwell another chance, Ella. You might like what you see after all."

***

The next day, I'm steaming wallpaper off of the bathroom wall in the clinic and I'm doubting Alexa's words mightily.

"It's so hot today, I don't think you actually need the steamer," Luke quips from the bathroom door.

Tingles glide down my spine when I hear his voice. I turn around to look at him. He’s leaning against the doorway, peeling an apple with his pocket knife. The skin is coming off in one single, even corkscrew.

"I never did figure out how to do that," I say with a smile.

"The heat must be getting to you," he replies, slicing off a bit of apple and handing it to me.

I take it gratefully, biting into the flesh with a satisfying crunch. "Why's that?"

"Because you just smiled at me for the first time in, oh, I don't know. Eleven years, give or take a few days."

I sigh. "It must be from staring at these kittens all day. I think I’m losing my mind." We both look at the hideous wallpaper covered in leaping kittens and laugh hysterically.

"Dr. Jackson's wife had terrible taste, honestly," Luke says. We sit in silence eating our shared apple. Then Luke wipes his hands off on his jeans. "You want to talk paint colors, by the way?"

I stare at him, surprised. "Paint colors?"

“Yeah, for the walls.”

I blink. “I know what the paint is for. I’m asking why you’re asking me about it. I’m not hiring you to paint.”

Luke laughs and tosses the apple core like a basketball into one of the trash cans. “I’m not asking you to hire me. I’m doing it no matter what you say.”

“I’ll lock the doors,” I reply.

He laughs. “And I’ll make new keys, then, and come in here and paint the walls electric orange.” He walks out of the exam room laughing at me. I’m furious.

But I’m also relieved. That’s one less thing I have to do. I follow him into the waiting room, which is looking better by the minute. “We’ll need stripper,” he says.

My stomach does a few backflips. “We need a what?” I ask him.

“Stripper.” His eyes glint at me. “Paint stripper. For the wood trim in here.”

“Oh,” I say.

Luke grins at me, leaning one gorgeous arm against the wall. “I mean, if you want to drive down to Ft. Worth, hit up a few places with some girls, I wouldn’t be opposed to that, either,” he says with a smile.

I toss a pile of dirty rags at him. “You drive, then,” I say, fuming.

We spend two hours at the tiny hardware store together and leave with arctic white paint for the walls and cherry red for the trim. I can hear people whispering as they see us perusing the aisles together, and the past is pawing at me. I try to push it away.

“It’ll match my truck,” Luke says on the drive back.

“What?” I ask him, grateful to be back in air conditioning after the brief walk across the parking lot.

“The red trim. It’ll match my truck perfectly.”

“Yeah,
that’s
why I chose the red paint,” I say sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

“I’ve got a house now, you know,” he says as a non-sequitur.

“Mm,” I reply, feigning disinterest. But I
am
interested. “You always said you’d die before you bought a house.”

He shrugs. “Lot of things have changed about me. You’d know that if you took the time to get to know me again.”

“And why would I want to do that? I feel like I’ve heard plenty,” I say with spite.

“From who?”

“Doesn’t matter from who.” I realize I sound like a total child, but I can’t seem to stop. “I hear you’ve had plenty of women to be around since you came back to town.”

Luke guffaws at this. “I’m a red-blooded American man, Ella.”

I shiver at him using my name again. “Well I never said you couldn’t or anything,” I add lamely.

“Glad to know that I haven’t needed your permission all these years,” he says with a smile. His hands are so easy on the wheel of his truck. It makes me think about him touching me like that, running his strong hands and fingers down the sides of my back with a gentle, loving caress…I realize too late that I’m staring. And Luke’s noticed. He smirks at me. “It’s okay to peruse the merchandise,” he says.

“Right, like I’m doing that,” I say, turning my head to look out the passenger window.

I practically run out of the truck when it pulls up to the clinic. This is the first time I’ve been away from it since I got here, and seeing it with fresh eyes is a little shocking. The mown grass alone has transformed this place, but add in the newly-planted flowerbeds and clean windows and I might have driven past it entirely. Luke walks up behind me carrying the paint, and he whispers into my ear. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

I almost melt into him at these words said so close to me, but I collect myself in time. I clear my throat. “I’m thinking we might even be able to open up a week early at this rate.”

Luke strides past me into the house, easily carrying two five-gallon buckets of paint like they’re feather pillows. I try not to admire his ass in those jeans but I fail. Miserably.

And for the first time, I realize he’s walking with a bit of a limp. My mind flashes to Alexa telling me that he was injured in the line of duty. I find myself wondering what he looks like under those jeans.

I bite my lip and run after him into the clinic. I have work to do, and no time for daydreaming.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LUKE

The air conditioning still isn’t working. Despite clouds falling across the sky, it’s sweltering inside this clinic. I roll another few layers of paint onto the walls of the waiting room. With each stroke, the room becomes ten times brighter. I pause and wipe my face on my shirt. I glance back at the hallway. “You doin’ alright in there, Ella?”

“Yep,” comes her terse reply.

Hearing her voice after all these years is like sweet honey to me. “You need any help with the rest of that wallpaper?”

“Nah, I’m almost finished,” she says. “I’ll be out in a minute so get a tray and roller ready for me. The drywall’s in good condition so it won’t need any spackling.”

Perfect.
“Will do!” I call back to her. Even though she’s resistant to me, I can tell she’s softening, which is exactly what I want from her. I rest the wet roller on the paint tray and pull my sweaty t-shirt over my head.

Air rushes to the sweat on my body and evaporates, instantly cooling me. I sigh with relief, bending down to pour out a fresh tray of paint for Ella. When I’m finished, I get back to painting. I love the smell of fresh paint, and the sound of the wet roller against the wall is like a symphony to my ears.

It’s another few minutes before I hear Ella’s footsteps and I brace myself for her reaction, turning around to see it. “I’m ready for that tray of-“ She gasps and stops dead in her tracks, her jaw dropping. She waits a few seconds before turning away from me. “You’re shirtless,” she says, facing the other way.

“You’re a doctor, right? You’ve seen a half-naked man before? Well, I know you’ve seen an
all naked man
before but you know what I mean.”

Ella turns around to face me again, and I can tell she’s vowed to herself to look directly into my eyes and not move her gaze down to the tattoos on my body. “
Paint
,” she says. “This isn’t a peep show.”

I laugh. “Darlin’, you’ve never been to one of those.” I reach out to tickle her ribcage as she gets closer to me. “You’re way too uptight for that. Always have been.”

I see the hint of a smile even as she wiggles out of reach. She takes the paint tray and the roller and heads back into the bathroom. “Warn me next time you’re stripping,” she says.

“Why would I do that? It’s way too much fun to surprise you,” I call after her. I wait until I hear the sound of the roller on the wall before walking into the bathroom. “You’re doing that wrong.”

She glares at me. “I am
not
doing it wrong. You can’t do this
wrong
. It’s painting.”

I shrug. “Your funeral.” But I can’t stand how she’s going back and forth over the same spot. It makes me cringe. “You’re pulling off more paint than you’re putting on the wall when you do that, Ella.” I love the sound of her name in my mouth. I think about other things of hers I’d like in my mouth and grin.

“Fine!” she yells, handing me the roller. Her lips jut out and I want to bite the lower one. “If you’re so smart, you do it, then.”

I push the roller back towards her. “Hold onto it,” I say. I step behind her and wrap my arms around her body, putting my hands on her left arm that’s holding the roller. She stiffens at my touch but she doesn’t object. “You do it like this, like the letter W,” I say into her ear. Her red curls tickle my cheek and I breathe in the scent of her lemony shampoo. It’s the same kind she used back in high school. I’ve never forgotten it. One day I went to the base exchange and opened every bottle on the shelf to see if I could figure out which one it was.

I move her arm up and down and across the wall. She says nothing, but I can feel her heart beating through her damp t-shirt. “Great,” she finally whispers.

It’s just in time for me to feel something waking up beneath my jeans. I step back. “You got it?” I ask her.

She nods, wordlessly, and continues painting. “Thanks,” she says. “For showing me how to do it.”

I shrug. “Least I can do. I wouldn’t have graduated high school without you tutoring me, after all.”

“That is hardly true. You only wanted me to tutor you so you could get in my pants.” She smiles at me.

“Prove it,” I say challengingly.

Ella opens her mouth to answer me but her phone rings. She fishes in her pocket, the moment between us ruined. “Ella,” she says. “Oh, hi, Tanya.” She bites her lip and turns away from me. “Tomorrow night? Alright, then. Yeah. I’ll be there. Seven o’clock? Okay. Thanks.”

“Barbecue, I take it?”

Ella nods and gets back to painting. I start to leave the room but she calls after me. “Will you be there?”

I smile to myself and turn back. “Wouldn’t miss your official homecoming for the world.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ELLA

ELEVEN YEARS AGO

“Solve for
x,
” I say to Luke in the library. I speak in hushed tones even though we’re the only people in here. Even the librarian’s gone home for the day, the sun setting through the windows.

Luke nudges his thigh against mine and I’m happy I’m sitting down. The heady rush of hormones through my body would probably make me collapse if I were standing up. “
You
solve for x,” he whispers back to me with a smile on his lips.

I blush and push my hair back, trying to focus my attention on the sheet of math problems between us. “I’m not doing your homework for you.”

He laughs and puts his hand on my thigh. “I have a confession to make,” he says.