Waiting... On You (Force Recon Marines) (11 page)

He’d felt like a damn fool for not
using a condom. He’d always been careful about unprotected sex, but things had
gotten out of control so fast last night, and he had still been a little fuzzy
from all the beers he’d consumed at Yancy’s.

At first he’d tried to ask Lance to
keep an eye on her, without telling him why. But that had been a futile effort.
Naturally, his brother had wanted to know why.

“Keep an eye on her? What does that
mean?”

The inability to get his request
across without explanation had angered the hell out of Nick. “Yeah, keep an eye
on her. Let me know if she’s okay— you know, physically; if there are any
changes in her health.”

“Changes in her health?”

Lance had looked so absolutely
clueless that it had irritated the hell out of Nick. His brother kept repeating
everything he said. Because of his concern for Hanna and his guilt over not
having used a condom, his patience was practically nonexistent at that point.
“Shit! Are you going to repeat everything I say?” he’d snapped.

Lance, of course, had responded in
kind. “Well, yeah, if you aren’t going to make yourself clear, bro!”

“What’s so damn unclear about keep an
eye on her?”

“Hanna’s perfectly healthy, as far as
I know. Do you know something I don’t know? Is something wrong with her?”

Now Lance had become anxious, and Nick
knew he’d made a mess of things.

“No, she’s fine, I assume.”

“Then what are you beating around the
bush about?”

“I want you to let me know if Hanna
gets pregnant, damn it!” he’d been forced to reveal.

“Pregnant?!”

Nick remembered how the passengers
standing near the rail with them had looked over at them at that point. “Yeah,
pregnant,” he’d hissed through clenched teeth. “Now lower your voice, for
christsakes!”

“Why the hell would Hanna get
pregnant? As far as I know she doesn’t have a boyfriend. And she’s ....well,
I’m pretty sure she’s never done it with anyone.”

“And how the hell do you know that?”

“She told me.”

“Why?”

“None of your damned business!”
Squared off, facing each other, they had stared at one another for several long
tense moments. “What happened between you two and when?” Lance had finally
demanded.

“I don’t think that’s any of your
damned business!”

But some of the anger had gone out of
Nick by then. He’d begun to feel guilty about taking what Hanna might have
wanted to keep for a man who would have stayed in her life, instead of popping
in and out.

“The hell if it isn’t!” Lance had
hissed back. “I care about Hanna, and I know how she feels about you. If you
took advantage of her....”

“It wasn’t like that,” was all Nick
had been willing to tell his brother. “I just didn’t use any protection... and
now I’m worried about her.”

Lance had taken a step closer, until
he’d been in his older brother’s face. All of Nick’s hand-to-hand fighting
skills hadn’t fazed his brother, he’d been so furious. “I ought to beat the
living crap out of you!” he’d growled. “Is Hanna okay?”

“Yes.” But Nick had been thinking
about the blood on himself that morning, and on the sheets he’d thrown out so
as not to embarrass her.

“Did you tell her you were leaving?”

“I tried to get her on her cell phone.
But she must have turned it off while she was teaching. She left early this
morning before I got the call from my commander. She’s in Seattle, at the
University Medical Center.”

“This just happened last night? The
last I heard you wanted to stay home and go to bed early.”

“I couldn’t unwind, so I went into
town— to Yancy’s. I had one too many beers, and got into a fight with some guy
who took exception to me being Marine. The cops were called. Someone got hold
of Hanna at the hospital. She came over and got me out of there before I got
thrown in jail.”

“And you took advantage of her,
drunk?!” This time Lance was so furious, he grabbed his brother by his shirt,
but Nick caught his hands and pried them loose.

“Leave off, little brother, before I
get mad and knock you on your ass!”

“Go for it!” Lance swung at his
brother, but Nick caught his fist with lightning speed and twisted it down
between them. No one around them was aware of the rising violence between the
two brothers.

“Damn it, settle down, Lance!” Nick
had growled.

Lance had backed off, but his eyes had
been full of fire. “What are you gonna do if you knocked Hanna up?”

“Handle it!”

“Handle it? Bullshit! You haven’t been
home for more than a few days at a time in twenty goddamn years! There’s no
room in your military life for a wife and baby.”

“There could be.”

“Yeah, sure,” Lance had replied sarcastically.
“Besides, Hanna wouldn’t want you to marry her just because she was pregnant.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. But you
write and tell me if she gets pregnant, damn it, because knowing Hanna and her
pride, she won’t.”

By the time they had arrived at the
Naval Air Station on Whidbey Island, they had barely been speaking to one
another. Lance did manage to wish Nick well, but there was no affectionate,
brotherly hug between them like there had always been. For two months
afterward, Lance hadn’t answered any of Nick’s letters, either.

Hanna hadn’t gotten pregnant, and
eventually Lance had gotten over being angry with him, for which Nick had been
extremely grateful. He loved his younger brother. He’d never wanted there to be
animosity or anger between them.

Nick’s first letter to Hanna after
making love to her hadn’t been easy, either. Being so far away and having to
communicate all his feelings to her, via a letter, instead of in person, had
been impossible, in the end. He’d settled for telling her how special their
intimacy had been for him. But she’d never replied to what he’d written, so
he’d let the matter drop. Eventually, their relationship had returned to its
normal routine of friendly letters, occasional long distance calls, and gifts
exchanged on special occasions.

But Nick hadn’t forgotten their one
night together. He had always been attracted to Hanna. He’d just never been
home long enough to act on it before. The last time he and Hanna had any
extended time together, she’d been barely fifteen years old! Getting involved
with her that way then hadn’t even been a consideration.

But making love to her three years ago
had been a singular experience for him— definitely more than just sex. Being a
soldier, he’d had a lot of one-nighters. Until Hanna, he’d never had the inclination
for more than that.

His life was so thoroughly committed
to the Corps and its elite unit, Force Recon, that he hadn’t really ever
thought of altering it, not until three years ago, anyway. He was good at what
he did, and for the most part, he enjoyed it. He took pride in being a good
Marine. He did what was asked of him, and he focused on his missions, which
were always challenging and full of risk. He worked hard and trained hard. He
stayed alive, and, except for once, kept the men under him alive while they did
their job.

He didn’t get involved with women
beyond a night or two. He didn’t really have time for any long-term
relationships. For twenty years, he had lived too dangerous a life, in too many
remote locations, too far away from home, to even think about marriage or a
family.

A lot of the men he teamed with were
married and had families, but Nick had promised himself long ago that he’d
never do that to a woman. He’d seen firsthand what had happened to his mother.
With what he did for a living, he didn’t want a wife worrying about whether
he’d return or not.

He didn’t even have a place of his
own. He lived in officer’s bachelor quarters on base. It would have been a
waste of money to make monthly payments on a place he never lived in. He didn’t
own a car, either. He’d had motorcycles. Like he’d told Hanna, they were easy
to put in storage.

The women he had sex with were easy to
put out of his mind the next day, too. But that hadn’t been true of Hanna. He’d
thought of her constantly since taking her to bed. And it had nothing to do
with being her friend or feeling guilty about taking her virginity.

Making love to her had impacted him
emotionally in ways he hadn’t expected. He’d frankly never felt like that
before. In just one night, Hanna had become more than a lifelong friend to him.

In fact, she had become an ongoing
distraction. There probably wasn’t a day that went by that he failed to think
of her in his quiet moments. When he hit his bunk at night, her image was the
last one in his head, and his dreams of her would have made her blush ten
shades of red if she knew. The shy, quiet, brilliant girl he’d grown up with
had become the subject of some of his most erotic fantasies.

He was thirty-eight, and he wanted his
life to become more settled, more stable. He’d accepted his promotion and
re-enlistment with a request to be assigned to the Naval Special Warfare
Command in San Diego. He’d spent nearly all his twenty years in the field,
mostly in foreign countries, involved in unconventional covert deployments, and
he was ready for a change.

He’d surprised himself with thoughts
about having what other men his age enjoyed along with their careers— a wife
and family. And when he thought about sharing his life with one woman, he
thought about Hanna.

They had been close friends for such a
long time. He was smart enough to know friendship was a good thing in a
relationship. They got along well, and enjoyed the same things. They were both
dedicated to a principle, and were passionate about it. He genuinely liked her,
and he sure as hell still wanted her physically. Now, he wanted to know if she
was interested in him as more than just a friend. He had assumed that since
she’d given him her virginity three years ago, she had to have felt something
more for him.

But he was unsure of her current
feelings. Coming home to Lance’s disappearance and Dylan’s death didn’t make
ideal conditions for exploring Hanna’s feelings, but he’d been hopeful there
might still be some interest on her part, especially after he’d kissed her in
the park, last weekend.

But her reaction to yesterday’s kiss
had deflated some of that hope. Maybe there wasn’t anything there to explore.
Three years might have brought some significant changes in her life. She could
be in love with Lance. Or maybe she was seeing that resident doctor she worked
with. Maybe he should back off. Hell, he’d only been home a week, and he’d
kissed her twice, without even knowing whether she welcomed his attention.
Maybe he had imagined her reaction, anyway.

He lifted his head off the sofa and
ran his fingers though his hair, swearing. Geez, he’d drive himself nuts
analyzing this any further! He decided to just back off with Hanna for a while.
If something happened between them, fine. He wasn’t going to obsess over it
anymore.

What the hell! Maybe he’d take Ashley
up on her invitation to have a drink after work. She had always been a gossip
and knew everything about everybody. Maybe she could tell him about Phillip
Douglas and Sheriff Thomas. Maybe, he could even find out if Hanna was seeing
anyone.

CHAPTER 8

“HEY, YOU TWO, are we going to the
park today to play football?” Nick called out as he came into his mother’s
kitchen and found Hanna cutting Christopher’s hair. “It is Sunday.”

It was her first day of vacation, but
it sure as heck didn’t feel like it! Hanna looked over at him as he stood in
the doorway, between the kitchen and dining room. He was dressed in cut-offs
and an old sweatshirt with USMC lettering on it. He had long ago cut the
sleeves out so that his arms were bare from the shoulders down. The alteration
displayed all the muscles that rippled and bulged from his biceps down to his
dark-haired forearms.

For thirty-eight, he was a remarkably
fit man. Of course his line of work demanded he be in the best shape possible.
His fitness wasn’t for looks. It was for survival. He was a big man, tall and
powerfully built, but there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He had all the
physical prowess of a seasoned warrior.

And damn him, he always looked so drop
dead gorgeous! The years had only made him more handsome than he’d been as a
boy. The lines that maturity and weather exposure had etched on his tanned face
had simply added character. Bitterly, Hanna wondered how many times Ashley
Davis had drooled over him last night.

“Antie Hanna cutting my hair!”
Christopher announced exuberantly, squirming in his chair beneath the plastic
cape placed over his narrow shoulders. Hanna admonished him to sit still while
she trimmed around his ear with her scissors.

“I can see that, sport, but what about
playing a little football today?” Nick persisted, stepping into the kitchen and
taking a seat at the table. “You two going to be ready to go when you’re
finished?”

“Antie Hanna not feeling good.”

Nick studied her with a frown. “What’s
wrong, Hanna?”

“It’s no big deal.” She shrugged,
refusing to look at him. “Just some cramps.”

“Oh, female stuff.”

Irritated, she shot him a quick glare.
“Yeah, something like that.” She used her scissors to shape the top of
Christopher’s fine, light brown hair. “I’m not going to play football today.
You and Christopher will have to go by yourselves. Christine’s visiting
friends.”

“Okay, how about cutting my hair then,
too,” he suggested as he picked up a cookie from the plateful on the table. “I
could use a trim.”

“I don’t do Marine…” she said, pausing
with a pointedly frosty look “…haircuts.”

Nick grinned. “How about a Marine who
just wants a regular cut?”

She glared at him, annoyed. “Just
little boys— good little boys.”

Nick teased her with a grin. “I can be
good...  for you.... and a haircut.”

Hanna’s pulse fluttered, but she refused
to acknowledge his teasing.

She’d had to work yesterday. On her
way out of the hospital, Ashley Davis had asked her if she intended to see Nick
today. When she said “probably,” the ER nurse had told her to tell him that she
got off at seven, not six. She then proceeded to explain that Nick had asked
her out, for a date, last night when he’d been at the hospital waiting for
Hanna to finish up in the operating room. The excitement and anticipation Hanna
had seen in the woman’s eyes had driven the information home like a well shot
arrow.

Besides having her monthly, she’d been
in a miserable mood all day, thinking about Nick and Ashley together. No matter
how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop seeing them in each other’s arms, in bed
together, Nick’s splendid body covering Ashley’s small, voluptuous one. When
Jessie had asked her to come over to cut Christopher’s hair, she’d wanted badly
to refuse. But she loved little Christopher to pieces, and she knew he needed a
haircut. She also knew she wasn’t going to have much time to get around to it
for the next couple of weeks.

Now that she was finished with her
task, though, she was going home. After removing the plastic cape from
Christopher’s shoulders, she helped him get off the elevated chair. He wasn’t the
most coordinated little guy.

While she was getting the broom to
sweep up, Nick quickly moved into the chair his nephew had just vacated.

“My turn.”

Hanna spun around and put her hands on
her hips. “No! Go away, Nick Kelly.”

Nick gave her his most charming,
boyish expression. “Please,” he begged. “I don’t have time to go to the barber
with all we’re going to be doing this week.”

Of all the things he could have said,
that did the trick. He was here to help her find out about Dylan’s death and
Lance’s disappearance, after all. She needed to put aside her personal feelings
and work with him. Anyway, she’d always known he wasn’t for her. Even though it
would break her heart, he’d find an Ashley someday and marry her. The Ashleys
of this world got men like Nick, not the Hannas.

“You’re going to have to sit in a
regular chair,” she told him, relenting with a disgruntled frown. “I can’t
reach you on this stool.”

He jumped down and drug over a dining
table chair so fast, he pried a tiny smile from her. Shaking her head, she
moved behind him and draped the cape over his broad shoulders. His hair was
clipper cut around the sides and up the back, not shaved high and tight the way
most normal Marines wore it. It looked as if it hadn’t seen a barber in a
while. The lines were a bit shaggy.

She ran her comb, then, unable to
resist, her long fingers through the longer strands on top. It was a very dark
brown, nearly black, and oh so silky and warm. Essentially, it was straight,
thick, and fine. She wanted to indulge herself in the feel of it all day, to
bend down and bury her nose in it.

Instead, she picked up her small
cutting shears, grateful he couldn’t see her. “So how do you want this?” Her
tone was clipped to hide her distress.

“Anyway you want.”

His tone was husky and suggestive. It
sent little shivers racing up and down her spine. She wondered testily if he
had said something like that to Ashley last night.

With a hunk of hair between her
forefinger and middle finger, ready to cut, she gave it a yank and asked
tartly, “How ‘bout if I just shave it all off?”

Nick yelped, Christopher laughed, then
Nick scowled.

“Hey, sport, why don’t you go show
grandma your new haircut?” As soon as Christopher was out of the room, Nick
reached behind him to hook an arm around Hanna. With one strong tug, he pulled
her in front of him. “Okay, what’s wrong? You’re not usually this grouchy and
moody?”

“How would you know, Colonel?”

She tried to squirm away from him, so
he trapped her between his hard muscular thighs. “I know,” he insisted, further
securing her with a big hand on either hip. His thumbs dug lightly, but firmly
into her pelvic bones. She glared down at him, and he stared back up
inquisitively at her. “Did you go into the hospital to do some last minute
paperwork yesterday?”

She nodded sullenly, still in his
disturbing grip, her breathing a little erratic.

“You didn’t call me to give you a
ride.”

“You fixed my car.” She sent him a
snide smile. “By the way, thank you. It runs great.”

“It runs like crap. You need a new
car.”

“So, everyone has told me.”

“Did you talk to Ashley?”

“Of course. I work with her.”

He nodded like he had just figured out
the reason for her mood. “So, she told you I asked her out for a drink after
work, didn’t she?” The look on her lovely, disgruntled face gave him his
answer. He saw the flash of jealousy. It pleased him immensely, but he hid his
pleasure, knowing if it showed, it would make her even angrier. “That’s all it
was,” he tried to pacify her. “A drink after work.”

Hanna shrugged, adopting her best
nonchalant pose. “Your love life is none of my business.”

“I don’t have a love life.” His thumbs
started to caress away any hurt her might have inflicted on her hip bones. “I
don’t have a girlfriend, here or anywhere else— in case you were wondering.” He
saw her try to hide her pleasure at that bit of news. He was glad that she
liked the fact that he wasn’t involved with anyone. “Ashley is and always has
been one of the biggest gossips in the community. She knows everything about
everybody. I just wanted to pump her for a little of that information.”

Hanna couldn’t help it. The way he had
put that made her burst into a laugh. “Pump her for information? Geez, Nick!
That sounds terrible!”

He smiled because she was laughing and
had apparently forgiven him. “Would you like to know what I found out?”

“Okay. What did you learn super sleuth?”

She saw his eyes travel along the
length of her bare legs, stopping at the hem of her shorts, which were only a
few inches from the juncture of her thighs. His assessment was heated and slow.
She took a little breath, feeling all shaky inside, as well as disappointed
when he dropped his hands from her hips and released her from the grip of his
bare legs. Her eyes flashed quickly to the juncture of his thighs. She could
see the outline of his arousal. Nervously, she reached out to adjust the drape
of his plastic cape, then retreated to a safer position behind him again.

He hadn’t answered her first question,
so she asked what she’d been wondering all last night. “Where did you and
Ashley go?” How perverse of her! Did she really want to know?

“To Yancy’s.”

“Wow, aren’t you the cheap date!”

“I just took her for a drink, nowhere
else.” He turned his head to her, but she doubted he saw her look of relief.
“Yancy’s is an interesting place after the dinner crowd leaves.”

“Scary is more like it. The clientele
all seem to be bikers, drunks, and thugs. I get to patch a lot of them up on the
worst nights.”

“Last night wasn’t one of those. It
isn’t as bad as it was three years ago.”

He was still looking at her over his
plastic draped shoulder, and she couldn’t hide the recognition the memory of
three years ago brought to her expression. “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been
back into the bar past seven o’clock since then.”

He turned around, with his back to her
again. Hanna began cutting his hair, forcing herself to concentrate on her
task, not him.

“Anyway, Ashley told me Phillip
Douglas lives pretty darn well on a police chief’s salary. He’s got a big new
house, a fancy cabin cruiser, and a couple of new cars. His kids go to private
school, and he’s got a mistress in Seattle.”

“How does Ashley know that?”

Nick shrugged. “Who knows? She didn’t
know much about Jeff Thomas, though. I guess he’s fairly new to the area. None
of his deputies like him too well.”

Hanna moved to his side to trim the
hair around his ears.

“Because we were at Yancy’s, Ashley
told me what she knew about him, too.”

Some of what he told her, Hanna
already knew. Because he ran a popular downtown business, a lot of the town
people knew about Yancy. He had lived in the community for six or so years.
Nick was correct, though. Ashley had been a good source of information.

After his haircut was finished, he
tried to coax Hanna into going for a ride on his bike. He had bought two extra
helmets, one for Christopher and one for her. But there was no talking her into
getting on the back of his motorcycle. Christopher was more than eager to go
for a ride with his uncle, though, despite Hanna’s concerns for his safety.

While they were gone, Hanna helped
Jessie with dinner since both families were eating together again. She loved
switching back and forth between the two families for Sunday dinners. Jessie
and Colleen were both fantastic cooks. Sitting around the table, sharing an
excellent meal and lively conversation was a highlight of her hard work week.

“So, is everything okay between you
and Nick?” Jessie asked as Hanna vigorously tore up a variety of greens for the
salad.

“Sure.”

“I was afraid you were upset with him
for some reason since you had me take you home the other night.”

From her peripheral vision, she saw
how closely Nick’s mother was watching her. She turned and reassured her with a
smile. “Everything is okay, Jessie.”

“I heard about that kiss in the park
last Sunday.” Jessie laughed at the startled look Hanna shot her. “Christopher
told me all about it. He thought it was yucky.”

Hanna laughed, but she could still
feel the heat in her cheeks as she hurriedly began chopping fresh tomatoes for
the salad.

“I gather you’ve forgiven my son for
Ashley Davis.”

Hanna shook her head, grinning. Jessie
missed nothing. “She’s probably more to his taste, anyway,” she commented with
an audible sigh.

“Nonsense!” the older woman disagreed.
“If he wanted her, he could have had her twenty years ago.”

“He could have had me, too, twenty
years ago, Jessie,” Hanna confided quietly.

“You were fifteen,” Jessie reminded
her. “Even then, Nick was not the kind of man to take advantage of that.”