The SEAL's Valentine (Operation: Family) (15 page)

“What?” She feigned shock. “A big, strong guy like you bothered by a little heat?”

He splashed in her direction, but not hard enough for Mackenzie to get wet. “While you were up in the stands, chowing on three snow cones—I counted—me and the guys were out there hard at work.”

“You counted?” Now she splashed him.

“What can I say? I
really
wanted one.”

“We’ll get you one tomorrow—make a day of it. Take Cayden minigolfing. After all the work he’s done this summer, he deserves multiple celebrations. You, too, for that matter. His hit today wouldn’t have been possible without you.”

He ducked his gaze. “He’d have eventually gotten better. Just would’ve taken more time.”

“Don’t discount what you did for him. He’s changed so much, and all for the better. All because of you. His therapist even says you’re good for him.”

“Brynn...” Not meeting her gaze, he swished his hands through the lukewarm water.

“What? Go ahead, take credit where credit’s due. I’m not sure what Cayden would do without you. You’ve been so great for him—and me.”

When he finally got around to replying, he still looked everywhere but to her. “I appreciate your kind words. Really, I do, but...”

“Wait—is this weird mood of yours about you leaving?”

“Yes. We’ve talked about this, remember?”

Stomach churning more from his gloomy expression than too much potato salad, she said, “Sure. We talked about it, but I didn’t think anything was definitively decided.”

“Of course it was. For a while. You’ve just been sticking your head in the sand.” His words were uncharacteristically cruel.

“Where is this coming from? Especially on what’s supposed to be a happy occasion.”

He stood, walking the short distance to sit beside her. “Look, I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to say anything about it, but when you assumed I was available to play tomorrow, I—”

“What are you doing?” she asked with a heavy heart and narrowed eyes.

“Packing for my trek back to base.”

Chapter Fifteen

“You’re kidding?” Brynn’s tear-filled gaze pierced Tristan as painfully as if one of the boys had rammed a marshmallow-roasting stick through his heart.

“I have to go. You know that.”

“No.” She vehemently shook her head. “You haven’t talked about it in so long, I thought that meant you’d changed your mind. That you’d decided to stay here, with me and Cayden and Mac.”

“Let’s not do this here.” He rose from the pool.

“Then where?” Mackenzie on her hip, she followed him across the wood decking. “Tristan Bartoni, don’t you dare drop a bombshell like this one on me and then walk away.”

“Ask Vivian to watch the kids,” he said in a low tone. “Then meet me in the truck.”

With him still in swim trucks, drenched with sweat in the front seat of his ride, he watched Brynn emerge from the house, tossing Vivian her keys. She expected their talk to take so long that her friend would need to drive home with the baby?

“All right,” she said upon climbing into the truck beside him, “I’ve got all the time we need.”

In heavy silence, he drove to Turtle Lake.

Though it was technically a city park, due to vandalism, aside from holidays the gate was usually kept locked. Jason once told him there was a spare key to the gate’s chained padlock housed in a magnetic holder behind the main sign.

He parked the truck and got out.

The key was where he’d expected. He pulled the truck through, closing the gate behind them.

Parked in the lot, he turned off the truck’s engine, then sat, waiting for Brynn to talk first.

His wait wasn’t long. “You are some piece of work.”

“How so?”

“You told me you hadn’t decided whether or not you’re leaving, but all along you knew.”

“No.” He hated fighting with her, especially when they were left with so little time. “That’s not how it was. And if you don’t mind, it’s hot as hell in here. Let’s head down to the lake.”

“Whatever.”

He gestured for her to lead the way down the dirt trail. “I don’t understand how you can be upset with me for needing to work.”

“I’m not. What I’m frustrated about is that I thought this was a decision we were making together. I—” At the lake’s edge, she spun to face him. “I thought you felt the same as me, that we should take it slow, but one day, we might share a future?”

“I want that, too, but all of this is happening too soon.”

“Is it really, Tristan? Or are you just too scared to even consider another commitment?”

“Of course I’m scared,” he shouted, startling a flock of crows. “Aren’t you? Hell, Mack’s only been gone a year. What do you even want with me?”

“Are you kidding?” She lifted her hand as if angry enough to hit him, but then stormed down the shore. “I loved Mack with every breath of my being, but he made some horrible judgment calls that turned out not only to kill him, but a large part of
me.
Being with you makes me feel normal—like I might actually have a shot at living again, after all. But now?” After a brittle laugh, she raised her arms only to slap them to her sides. “I hate you. I seriously, honest to God hate you.”

“No, you don’t.” He went to her, cupping her precious face. She could say anything to him, but not that.
Anything,
but that.

“I...hate...you!” she said between sobs.

“No...” He kissed her hard, forcing her tears and angry words away. When she kissed him with equal fervor, he backed her against a picnic table, hiking up her bikini cover.

Lips still pressed to hers, he dragged down her bikini bottoms. She helped by wriggling her legs.

He tugged at his swim trunks until he freed his erection. “You sure this is what you want?”

Kissing his neck and chest, she nodded.

Assuming it’d been a while, he explored her first with his fingers. When she cried out in pleasure with her fingers in his hair, he entered her—slowly at first, but then lifting her, urging her legs around his midsection while pumping increasingly deeper and harder.

Their kissing turned frenzied.

Late-afternoon sun baked already sweat-slick bodies.

Only when she cried out again, stiffening in his arms for an instant before total release, did he give in to his own happy ending.

Arms around his neck, his member still inside her, she said in a voice raspy with passion, “I’m sorry we fought.”

“Me, too.”

Still holding her, he stepped all the way out of his trunks, backing their fevered bodies into the lake’s cool water.

When she kissed him again, moaning her pleasure, he feared never being able to let her go. She’d bewitched him, and he’d become her all-too-willing captive.

* * *

A
FTER
THEIR
SWIM
,
WHILE
B
RYNN
shyly dressed, Tristan found the picnic blanket they’d used for the Fourth stashed in the back of his truck. He stretched it beneath the tree where they’d first kissed, and they napped for a good hour.

Brynn woke before him, taking a mental picture she’d forever carry. Now that they’d made love, had everything changed? She knew he had to return to Virginia Beach, but would it be only temporarily? What they’d shared had said more than words ever could. His body made promises he wouldn’t dare break. There was no way the two of them could share something so intense without it carrying significant meaning, right?

He woke to catch her staring. “Like what you see?”

“Seriously? That’s the first thing you say to me?”

He pulled her against him, kissing her until her bikini top was too much fabric between her breasts and his rock-solid chest. “Better?” he asked with a dead-sexy grin.

“Getting there...”

When he next kissed her, she nipped his lower lip.

“Ouch. I never pegged you for the type who liked it rough.”

“I’m not. But sometimes a bad boy like you needs punishing...”

He laughed, rolling atop her for kissing and exploring and making love at a much more leisurely pace.

An hour later, back in the lake as the sun made a lazy fall from the sky, she said, “I never thought to ask, but are there alligators in this water?”

“Probably.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Also, a few water moccasins, snapping turtles and maybe even alligator gar.”

“So we’re swimming why?”

He tossed back his head and laughed. “Damn good question.”

Lifting her into his arms, he carried her from the water, kissing her along the way. He set her on the picnic table before asking, “Want me to build a fire or should we check on the kids?”

Hugging him, she said, “I like the sound of that—the two of us together, checking on
our
kids. Because you know Cayden already loves you like a father.”

He bowed his handsome head. “I love him, too.”

“Since you’re not leaving, are we back on for tomorrow? We’ll already be in Shreveport, so I thought we might also hit that new Bossier City walking mall by the river. Maybe see a movie? Vivian said the theater’s really nice. Plus, Bass Pro’s always fun.”

“Whoa.” Holding up his hands, he slowly backed away. “I think we have a misunderstanding. Brynn, being with you just now was amazing—beyond amazing—but that’s all it can be. I can’t commit. Not right now. You know that. I’m a mess inside and afraid. As much as I enjoyed what just happened, that doesn’t change the fact that first thing Monday morning, I’m leaving.”

* * *

“
H
E
’
S
HORRIBLE
,” V
IVIAN
SAID
when Brynn finished telling her the shameful outcome of her afternoon with Tristan. After more bitter fighting and tears, she’d had him drop her at her friend’s house so she’d have her kids and car. “I don’t know why I encouraged you to go for him. Obviously, it was a bad call.”

Temporarily out of tears, Brynn sniffled.

“Know what?” Vivian moved to the sofa, patting Brynn’s leg. “This is probably for the best. Sean said they just hired a new guy at his firm, and he’s single. Do you know how rare it is to find a single attorney our age? I’ll have Sean get his number and we’ll have a barbecue.”

“Stop,” Brynn said. “Last thing I need is to meet another man. I was stupid for ever letting myself fall for Tristan. I knew better from the start, but he was so good with Cayden and easy to talk to and always making me laugh—he even mows the lawn.”

Vivian chimed in, “Lord, does he look fine doing that...”

“See? That’s what I’m talking about. He was too good to be true and I was too blind to see.”

“What are you going to tell Cayden? He’ll be crushed when Tristan leaves.”

Groaning, Brynn leaned forward, covering her face with her hands. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“He was so happy after today’s game.”

After losing his second
father
in a little over a year, Brynn feared her son might never be happy again.

* * *

“
Y
OU
’
VE
MADE
A
LOT
OF
BAD
decisions over the years,” Tristan’s mother said Sunday morning while he changed the oil in his truck, “but this one takes the cake, cookies and muffins.”

“Thanks, Mom. Appreciate the vote of confidence.”

She snorted. “Pardon my French, but if you ask me, you’re a damn fool.”

“Didn’t ask anyone—let alone, you.” On his back, he tugged extra hard on the nut holding the oil pan in place and damn near got a face full of dirty, black goo.

“I heard you call her earlier about setting up a time to say your goodbyes to little Cayden. I never took you to be deliberately cruel.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He finished draining the old oil. “I did everything in my power to help the kid.”

“Agreed—including forging a genuine relationship. He believes you care for him.”

“I do.”

“Then how can you stand to leave him? Over the summer, I’ve seen the two of you together. He worships you, and it’s plain to see whenever you’re around him that to you, he’s become like a second son.”

“Please, Mom...” Tristan reassembled the oil pan, then slid out from under the truck. “Just like I do with Jack, I’ll keep in touch. I’ll see him every time I come see you.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just marry his mom?”

“Then what?” He hated snapping at his mother but wasn’t sure how else to get his point across. “How am I supposed to support a family with no job? Should I move back here and clerk at a convenience store? I’m a SEAL. That’s all I know how to be. Why tie down Brynn and her kids to a man who not only regularly gets shot at, but is never even home?”

She turned her back on him to huff onto the front porch. “Excuses, excuses.”

“It’s reality!” he shouted, kicking his truck’s front tire.

She’d already slammed the door.

* * *

“W
HY
’
RE
YOU
CRYING
, M
OM
?”

The Sunday afternoon sun cast a lacy shadow through the curtains and onto the hardwood floor. Brynn squinted and dried her eyes with the pillowcase before rolling in the bed to face her son. When she’d put Mackenzie down for her nap, she assumed she’d been alone. “Cayden. Thought you and Dom were in your fort?”

“We were, but he had to leave to go school shopping.” He sat on the foot of the bed. “When’re we gonna go?”

“Real soon, sweetie.”

“Okay.”

She sat up, blowing her nose on a tissue she took from the box on the nightstand.

“You never did say why you were crying. You sick?”

Sort of.
Did she prep him? Telling him why Tristan would be over in a little under thirty minutes?

“’Cause if you are, I can get you medicine. I promised Tristan I’d take care of you and he told me a SEAL never goes back on his word.”

Really?
But then Tristan had never made her promises as much as she’d made assumptions.

“Thanks, pumpkin, but I don’t need anything but a nice, big hug.”

“Okay!” He bounced over the bed to ambush her from behind.

From downstairs came the sound of the doorbell.

“Who’s here?” he asked, jumping his way off the bed.

Brynn’s stomach knotted.

It was the wrong time of year for Girl Scout cookies and Georgia was spending the afternoon with her granddaughter’s family, which could only mean Tristan was early.

Cayden bounded down the stairs. “It’s Tristan! I’m letting him in, Mom!”

“Hey, bud.” Brynn heard Tristan say from where she hovered at the top of the stairs. She couldn’t imagine Cayden’s reaction—didn’t want to.

“Mom!” her son shouted. “Tristan’s here!”

Her flighty hands trying to bring order to her hair, she took her time on the stairs. Should she act surprised he was here? Would he have wanted her to get Cayden prepared for his visit? On the flip side, why would she help him break her son’s heart?

Upon seeing him sitting ramrod straight on the sofa, holding a faded ball cap in his hands, all her dry mouth could handle was a simple, “Hi.”

They shared a long, cold look.

Her body stupidly craved his touch. She hated that—how her brain knew he was trouble, but the rest of her only wanted more.

“Wanna play catch?” Cayden asked. “I left my mitt at Dom’s, but I can ride my bike real fast to get it.”

Tristan cleared his throat, looking to Brynn as if she might better know how to deliver his news. But he’d be wrong. “That sounds fun,” he finally said, “but I need you to sit down.” He patted the sofa cushion beside him. “I’ve got something kind of important to run by you.”

“Okay. Then we can go outside?”

“Nope. Not today.” Tristan repeatedly flipped the cap. A nervous reaction? Buying time to think up something to say? Or all of the above?

“How come?” Cayden asked with a scowl. “Now that I made a home run, I’ve gotta get ready for the state tourney.”

“I know, and Coach Jason already promised me he’d find someone to help.”