The Navy SEAL's Bride (11 page)

Caitlin hadn’t meant to let anything slip. Had had no intention of telling him she’d been an army brat, that her dad had been a Marine. “Something I must have heard somewhere,” she lied. “So, do you have one?” Caitlin pressed, forgetting all about her sore ankle again.

“Ha, I sure do.” Tom started to run, feet thumping on the trail. “Hey Baba-lou-ba, SEAL team training.”

He kept running before stopping and staring down at her.

“The whole purpose of this is for you to repeat after me,” he said, his expression serious.

Caitlin laughed at the stern look on his face. “Me?” She wasn’t going to let on that she knew a
thing
about them.

Tom rolled his eyes. “Well, it’ll just sound stupid if
I
have to repeat it.”

She went to laugh again but his mouth caught hers, took her by surprise before she had the chance. Caitlin wriggled in his grip before relaxing into the possessive way his lips moved over hers. It still made her heart pound from fear as much as excitement, but she was starting to get used to it.

“Ready?” he asked, breaking away and looking all serious again.

“Ready,” she answered, forcing her face to be as serious as his.

“Hey Baba-lou-ba, SEAL team training,” Tom chanted.

“Hey Baba-lou-ba, SEAL team training,” she sang back.

“I joined the Navy now people think I’m
cra-zy.
”

Caitlin started to giggle and then laughed so hard she had tears streaming down her cheeks. She looked up to see Tom’s big smile.

She tucked her head back against his chest and sighed in between hiccuping bursts of laughter.

She was being carried through a trail after a failed hiking attempt, singing as though she didn’t have a care in the world, in the arms of a man she’d never dreamed she could be attracted to. She was facing her fears head-on, and she liked it.

It was quite possibly one of the best days of her life.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
OM
put Caitlin gently on her feet beside the car. He almost kept hold of her, but after nearly twenty minutes of walking with her against his chest, he had to give her up. Any longer and he’d have to start explaining himself.

He didn’t remember the last time he’d held a woman like that. Wondered if he ever had. It was like learning to touch again, to feel, to connect with another human being. He’d been close to the men he worked alongside, but he hadn’t had
contact
. Holding Caitlin against him was like reigniting someone he used to be, stirring the flailing embers of a fire and slowly coaxing them to flame again.

“How you feeling?” he asked.

Caitlin turned her face up toward him and smiled. “Okay. I think maybe it’s not as bad as I thought.”

He resisted the urge to bend down and touch the delicate skin at her ankle again. She’d flinched earlier, had looked almost panicked, as if she’d thought he was going to hurt her.

Tom pulled his thoughts away from earlier. It was stupid, he must have been mistaken. There was no way Caitlin could have actually been scared of him. Maybe she was jumpy, but she couldn’t be
scared.
Could she?

Tom tried to change his focus, dragging his eyes from her mouth and trying to forget all about what had happened back there. Or at least he wished he could. Because that kiss had his mind spinning.

“Do you think I should get it checked out?” Caitlin asked.

Tom opened the door for her and guided her down to the seat so she didn’t have to hop on one leg. “I’m sure it’s fine. I had a pretty good look at it. But I bet you’ll need some crutches for the next few days.”

Caitlin pulled her hair tie out and ran her fingers through her long hair, before tying it back up into a more orderly tail again.

His throat ran dry.

She had no idea what she was doing to him. No idea how her every action was affecting him.

“Tom?”

And he had no idea what she’d just said. “Sorry?”

Caitlin gave him a curious look. “I was asking if I should just ice it when I get home.”

“No,” he blurted.

“No? Should I put heat on it? I thought I’d need to ice it, but then you’d know.”

“I don’t want you going home alone. How about you come over for dinner so I can keep an eye on it for you?”

Caitlin’s eyebrows raised. “You cook?”

“Well, no. I mean yes, I do cook, but I’m not cooking tonight,” he corrected.

Now she looked even more confused. “Take-out’s fine. I mean, if you’re sure you want me to come over. I kind of ruined your fun last night and now I’ve ruined your hike, so I don’t mind if you want to run and never see me again!”

Tom’s mouth went dry. She had no idea. Seriously
no idea
how beautiful she was or how cute she was being all chatty and innocent. She’d made him wild last night, sure, but ruined his night? Been on his mind all night, more like. And today couldn’t have been more enjoyable if he’d planned it, aside from her being in pain over her fall. Today had been exactly what he’d needed.

“We’re actually all having dinner tonight, my whole family, so it’ll be my mom’s cooking and I can definitely vouch for it being great.”

Caitlin visibly relaxed. “So you’re asking me to your family’s get-together…” Her sentence trailed off. “Are you sure they won’t mind?”

Tom chuckled as he leaned in toward her, arms folded over the door as he looked at her. “Mind? I’ve never taken a woman to my mom’s house for dinner in my life, so I’d say their reaction would be the complete opposite of
mind
.”

Caitlin stared at him, didn’t say anything. But a gentle smile did make her lips curve.

“I didn’t mean to freak you out,” he apologized. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal at all. We can go out to a restaurant instead if you’d like?”

Her smile widened. “I don’t mind either way. I’d love to come.”

Tom was relieved. “Well, alrighty then.”

Caitlin was still smiling when he got in beside her. “Maybe you should phone ahead, text your mom or something to tell her that I’m coming. I’d hate her to freak out at the thought of you bringing a date.”

Now it was Tom trying not to laugh. A date, huh? If she wanted it to be a date, then he had no problem with that. At all.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” he asked, just to be sure.

“I don’t have any family, Tom, so it’d be kind of nice to spend time with yours,” she told him, cheek against the headrest as she wriggled in her seat to face him, watching him. “It’ll be fun.”

“You don’t have any family?” How could he not have known this already?

Caitlin kept smiling at him, but it was sadder this time, the happiness not reflected in her eyes. “Nope, just me.”

“Can I ask what happened?” How could she have
no
family at all?

“Nothing to tell,” she said, her upbeat words at odds with the look on her face, too forced.

Tom nodded slowly, trying to gather his thoughts. What he needed was to change the subject, give her an out. He understood all about needing to keep some things close to his chest, so he wasn’t going to pry.

“So you survived your first hike, huh?” he said, instead of questioning her further.

Caitlin held up her ankle, propping it on the dash. Her smile was grateful. “Only just.”

“Well, it was better than being attacked by a bobcat, so count yourself lucky.”

Tom grinned at her before focusing all his attention on the road as he pulled out of the parking lot. Yesterday, he’d been feeling down. Now, he felt invigorated, the way he only ever usually did after a serious workout session or a mission when he was a SEAL. Even if he was itching to know more about Caitlin and why she was so totally alone.

He was under no illusions. Caitlin was the cause of his euphoria and he wanted to be in her company. There was something about the pint-sized ballerina that intrigued him, made him feel alive as he hadn’t in a long time.

When he’d left his unit, he’d felt as if his future was over. As if he’d never find even a blink of happiness ever again.

But Caitlin had changed that. She’d made him see that he was capable of smiling again, of feeling happy, and for that he owed her big-time.

* * *

“So why did you become a teacher?” Tom called out as he sat in Caitlin’s living room, running one hand up and down her cat’s back as he waited for her to get dressed. He’d never heard a cat purr so much in his life, but it wasn’t helping to distract him. All he could think about was the fact that she’d been naked, only a room away from him, while he sat trying to pretend she wasn’t.

He was behaving like a sex-starved teenager. It had been way too long since he’d been with a woman, and now it was a particularly beautiful woman that he was craving.

Tom stifled a laugh. His SEAL buddies would be hooting with laughter at him if they could see him.

“Caitlin?”

“Sorry,” she called back, sounding breathless. “Getting ready without being able to walk is kind of trickier than I thought!”

Tom leaned back into the sofa and shut his eyes, thinking about all the ways he could help her. He seriously needed to think about something else.

“So tell me,” he asked again, trying to keep his mind from the gutter and only just succeeding. “What is it you like about teaching so much?”

“Did I say I liked it?”

No, but she sure as hell looked as if she loved it when he’d seen her with the children. “I already know you like it, but I need to know why.”

She hopped into the room before leaning against the door frame. “I love it because the kids are like little sponges, and I get to help them soak up everything they need to learn.”

Tom nodded, ignoring how cute she looked in her jeans. “So you like them because they’re small and impressionable?”

“I guess, but I like the fact that I’m helping them, too. You know, that it’s me they look to for guidance.”

He patted the cat some more instead of running his eyes up and down her body. Even in bare feet she looked perfect, all tiny and delicate, her hair still pulled up into a high ponytail that fell halfway down her back.

“Are we talking about me or you right now?” she asked.

She was smarter than he’d given her credit for.

“I’m struggling with the whole teaching thing,” he admitted. “I guess I’d never really thought about being the teacher. I’ve never had a problem learning, pushing myself to do better, but being on the other side is…”

“Different, I know,” she finished for him.

“You do?”

Caitlin hopped some more and fell into the chair beside him. “Once you realize how important your job is, you’ll make peace with it.”

Tom doubted he would ever prefer teaching over being in the field, but right now he didn’t have much choice. “So you think I’ll like it better than the real thing one day?”

She shook her head, a gentle smile telling him no. “I doubt it. But without great teachers, no one succeeds, so whatever you’re teaching you have to make sure you’re the best leader your pupils can have.”

Tom laughed at her words of wisdom. “Are you sure you haven’t been attending some U.S. Navy training courses? Because you sure seem like you’re giving me a formal pep talk.”

Caitlin tucked her good foot up beneath her body and watched him. He liked that she was relaxed. Sometimes he got the feeling that he made her jumpy.

“Once you come to terms with it, I’ll put money down that you’ll love it.”

“How much?” he joked. “I’ll match you dollar for dollar on that bet.”

Caitlin waved her hand at him and hauled herself to her feet again, looking the least graceful he’d ever seen her as she tried to keep the weight off her sore ankle. “Come on, let’s go. I don’t want to make a bad first impression on your mom by being late.”

Tom leaped to attention, taking her by the elbow to help her walk. “Once she sees you, there’ll be no checking the time. She’ll get all flustered and flap about in the kitchen like she’s a bird about to take flight.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes. “Even more reason for you to have phoned ahead and told her,” she insisted.

Tom just grinned and opened the door before flicking the lock and pulling it behind them. But he couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said.

First impression.
Jeez
.
Did that mean she wanted to make another impression on his family? That she was thinking about seeing him again?

Had he been too quick to ask her over? Tom stilled his fingers even though they were itching to tug through his hair, ignored the part of him that was freaked out.

When they’d lost a man in the field, when the ringing in his ears wouldn’t stop and when it had been replaced with almost silence, he’d thought his life was permanently dislodged onto the wrong track. Like a train veering off on the wrong line, with no hope of being pointed back in the right direction.

But he felt as if Caitlin was changing the rules, tugging at those invisible boundaries. As if she was testing him, pushing and pulling him in different directions, and he wasn’t disliking it. Wasn’t sure what the hell was happening, but not disliking it. He’d overreacted the other night, and he still felt bad about that. After so many months of everyone around him trying to pretend that they understood loss, as if they could comprehend how much he’d lost this last year, he’d snapped. He should have kept his feelings in check, but he hadn’t and Caitlin had borne the brunt of it.

But not again. She deserved to be treated better than that, he’d just had to figure out where exactly he was heading and what his intentions were.

There was a chance here that he could move on. That he could go back in time to when he was at peace with his life, when demons weren’t chasing him in the night. To have a normal future. So no matter how hard it was, he had to at least try to move on. To move forward. To figure out how to change things.

Because if he didn’t, he had a feeling it was something he’d live to regret forever.

* * *

Caitlin was more nervous right now than she’d have been if she was about to perform. Her preshow jitters had always made her jumpy, but walking up to the front door of Tom’s mom’s house was even worse. She had no idea why she’d agreed to come. Or maybe she did. Because after years of dreaming of a proper family, of one where parents sat down to nice family dinners and didn’t argue or scream at each other or worse, any chance to be part of a real family made her yearn for that type of childhood. Even just to be part of a snapshot for one night.