SEAL Of My Heart (13 page)

“Then I’ll take you to dinner,” he said formally.

“You don’t have to do that, Randy.”

“Humor me, Kate.” He examined her hand and saw that she’d removed the ring.

“Wait here,” she said as she dashed upstairs. Retrieving the ring from her cosmetic bag, she brought it back down and placed the sizeable rock in Randy’s palm.

“Kate,” he tried to keep her hand in his, but she was quicker.

“I can’t marry you, Randy. I just can’t.”

“But why? Is there someone else?”

Is there someone else? Someone else with blue eyes, someone who made her feel wonderful just standing next to him?
She wasn’t ashamed of what they’d done. She was ashamed she’d allowed herself to go along with a wedding and a life that she never should have agreed to in the first place. Would this be something she could explain? Suddenly the fog began to lift and she realized what she had to do.

“Randy, come. Let’s sit.”

Over the course of the next few minutes she explained her hesitation without saying anything about Tyler. Because she wasn’t calling off the wedding because of Tyler. Tyler had never made any promises. They had no plans. And that was the honorable thing for him to do too.

“I don’t want the life you can offer me, Randy. It’s a generous, wonderful life, and you deserve to be happy with someone who truly wants to share it with you. I apologize for being so selfish and not understanding that this is not the life I want to live. It isn’t fair to you, your parents, my parents, and it isn’t fair to me to try to pretend, play a role I don’t want to play. I don’t think I ever did, Randy.”

“So what changed your mind?” He was detecting something.

“I watched people on the plane. I see my sister’s life here without a husband. I think about all the things I’d like to do with my life. What you want? It’s your life. Your parent’s life, their winery. But it’s not what I want to do with my life.”

“What do you want to do, Kate?”

She smiled. “Maybe write steamy novels, Randy. I don’t know. I might go back to school. The point is,” she slid over towards him on the couch and took his hands in hers, “I’d be taking the space someone else should occupy. And that someone else would love you and work with you and give you everything you deserve.”

He looked down at where their hands joined. Though he spread his thumbs over her knuckles, she didn’t reciprocate.

“I care for you and your parents. I thank you for your devotion to me, for everything they’ve done for me. Everything
you’ve
done for me. But I’m not the one who should be marrying you, Randy. I’m really not.”

She held his gaze until she saw moisture in his eyes as the realization sank in. She had spoken her truth, and Randy understood it.

Tyler was on
his fifth glass of champagne, and he was tipsy. The stuffed shrimp and mushroom buttons were nice, but not substantial enough to keep him from getting drunk. He told himself it wasn’t about Kate.

What will be will be.
The little phrase was bumping around in his head like a bee in a Mason jar. His father finally asked him where Kate was, the girl he said he was bringing to introduce to them.

“Gone. I think she’s gone, Dad.”

“Nonsense. Fashionably late. Women like to be fashionably late.”

But then another hour went by, and after Tyler checked his phone to see there was no call from Kate, he began to understand she wasn’t coming after all. And in a way he was glad. Glad that perhaps she was finally going to live the life she had mapped out before he met her. Before he got in there and messed things up as he’d told Kyle. He’d told himself he was ready for either consequence, but somehow this one was a more bitter pill than he’d expected.

He grabbed a bottle of champagne and retreated to a quiet corner, where his drunkenness wouldn’t be a spectacle or reflect negatively on his mother.

The sound of his mother’s voice nearby got him to sit up and carefully place the bottle under the chair he was sitting on. It did no good. She saw it anyway.

“There you are,” she said.

“Yes, Mom. I’m right here.” Dizziness hit him harder than he’d expected. Thinking back on what a beautiful day he’d had in the hotel room with Kate, he realized they’d skipped lunch, and the finger foods at the gallery were a poor substitute for dinner. He leaned his back against the wall and his mother split into two.

Great.

Except that the other vision of his mother was wearing a red dress and her long hair wasn’t grey. He squinted, not sure he was seeing correctly.

“Kate?” he said slowly.

She looked down at him, bemused. “You don’t hold your liquor well, Tyler. I guess I’m going to have to teach you.”

“I didn’t eat.”

“Yes. I remember,” she said as she winked at his mother. She leaned in and planted a kiss on his lips.

That’s when he knew he’d be okay.

“Tyler, I’m going to take you down the street to the pancake house, and you’re going to sober up,” she said.

“Oh, yeah?” He was feeling masterfully giddy and ready to spar. “Or else what?”

“I’ll fuck your brains out drunk, if you can get it up.”

“I can get it up.” He did like her comment. He realized after he’d responded exactly what she’d said. “Hey, you said a nasty word.”

She leaned into him, allowing him a good look down her low-cut red dress. “That depends on who you’re talking to.”

Her chest mesmerized him. Before he could reach out to touch her, she had moved to brace him under one armpit, helping him stand. “I like your tits,” he said in what he thought was a whisper, but he noticed several guests nearby looked in their direction.

“Tyler, you need to straighten up and walk out of here like a soldier.” Cupping her palm to his ear she whispered, “And after you sober up, you get to play with my tits.”

“Deal,” he said.

‡

T
hey played footsie
while he ate his pancakes. He drank three cups of strong, black coffee and was beginning to think he had sobered up sufficiently, since he found himself regretting his drunkenness. All the same, he didn’t want to drive, so they walked the ten long blocks, miraculously without rain, until they reached the steps of the little hotel.

A recording of a French singer was playing in the background while they made their way through the lobby to the elevators. Tyler had threaded his fingers through Kate’s with a grip he softened when she shook her hand in front of him. He wasn’t going to stop holding it, but he relaxed.

Their room had been left with the sheets tangled, which looked sexy as hell. Kate slipped off her red shoes and her dress, but left her pearls on and her red undies.

“I like those,” he said, pointing to her red bra and panties.

“I kind of thought you would. Bought them on the way up to Gretchen’s this afternoon. I knew I was going to borrow this dress.”

“I like the dress, too, but I like those better.”

“Come here, Tyler. And take your shirt off first.”

“Yes ma’am.”

He removed his shirt and pants after kicking off his shoes. He stood before her in his boxers with the American flags on them, his compass tat bulging proudly over his heart.

“Nice touch. I wear red, but of course you had to wear the red, white and blue,” she said to him. “But you can leave those behind, too.”

“Glad to.” He slipped them down his thighs. His erection bounced to attention. He remembered the little square packet in his pants pocket, since he’d spent the evening checking to be sure he hadn’t forgotten and let it slip out onto the floor for all to see. After sheathing himself, he crawled up on the bed and nestled Kate in the pillows as he kissed his way from her lips, down her neck, between her breasts to her belly button. While his tongue played there, he slipped a finger along the waistband of her red panties and removed them, exposing her soft pink pussy.

He sighed. “Now that’s a thing of beauty,” he said as he inserted one fingertip and watched it disappear inside her. Kate moaned and spread her knees wider, arching her pelvis up to his mouth. Her sweet juices sent an electric jolt to his cock.

She pulled at her bra, squeezing herself while his fingers rubbed over her nub.

He was becoming familiar with her body, even though the sun had barely set on their first encounter. It was like she was made for him and he knew he could please her, rock her world as she so deserved. He climbed up her writhing body, drawing her face up to his and whispered to her mouth, “I love you Kate. I can say that now.”

She hesitated, watching him.

“You don’t have to say it back—”

“But I do.” Her fingers brushed over his lips. She pulled at his ears and sifted through his hair. “I think I fell in love with you on the plane. It was like you were the one I was always looking for.”

“Me too,” he said. “I knew it instantly. Never happened to me before.” He kissed her as she wrapped her knees around his waist. When he was positioned to enter her, he stopped. “I wish I didn’t have to go the day after tomorrow.”

“But you’ll be back.”

“Yes, nothing could keep me away.” He thrust deep, loving her sudden inhale as she accepted his girth.

“Tyler,” she said between kisses, “I’ll write to you every day.”

“Every day, baby. I’ll write you back. I’ll be with you every day through your letters. Those letters will bring me back to you, sweetheart.”

“Yes.”

“And Kate?”

“Whaaaat?” Her head was thrashing from side to side, her body straining toward him, toward release.

“I write good letters.”

‡

T
he farewell was
harder than she’d imagined. They’d spent every second they could together, and most of that had been in bed. As she watched him walk through the gate and wave to her from the other side of the barrier separating them and then board the plane to San Diego, she held her breath so he wouldn’t see the sobs threatening to erupt. She so wanted to be strong. To give him the confidence he really didn’t need. The idea that a SEAL would need her to show a stiff upper lip was ridiculous, of course. But that didn’t mean she didn’t want to show it. Give him everything she had that was strong.

The bow he gave at the top of the stairs before he disappeared into the metal cylinder of the prop jet that would whisk him away—maybe forever—delivered the final blow. She wobbled backward and knocked into a man sitting in a wheelchair, almost falling into his lap. He sported a Navy cap, and when she saw him she felt as if God was twisting her heart in her ribcage with a set of pliers. There were no accidents, she thought, as it hit home that Tyler could come back damaged, come back without legs or arms, or with some other disfigurement. And he’d still say he had done what he wanted to do. That it had been worth it.

And she’d have to agree. It would be worth it. As long as he came back to her. She’d take him in any condition, just as long as he made it home.

She made her apology to the Navy vet and turned back to the window, watched the plane taxi down the runway, the nose and windshield heading full into the sun. With that golden kiss and in front of the backdrop of grey-blue skies full of clouds, Portland’s usual condition, he lifted off, and her heart felt like it was flying behind desperately trying to catch up.

She returned to Gretchen’s car in short-term parking, turned on the ignition and heard the pinging of her cell phone messaging:

Love you, Kate. I’ll write every day. Every day will be one day closer to coming home to you.

She answered him,
Miss you already. Painful. Is it possible to love someone too much, Tyler?

She waited, but there wasn’t a response. He was probably out of range. She’d have to get used to this. It would be something she would have to learn about herself. It was cruel to discover something as wonderful as their new love, only to have to live without it.

A young couple walked by, kissing, arms entwined. Her flowered backpack was slung over his right shoulder. They were oblivious to the rest of the world. A plane could drop from the sky and they’d not notice, she thought. The moisture that flooded her eyes and blurred their outlines obscured their image.