I stepped back a pace and tried to glare at him. I don’t think it came out as a glare, though. Just seeing him made me want to smile, to grin, to laugh out loud. I hated him for making me so unhappy, but I loved him anyway, damn the man!
“Thank you for coming,” I said, gathering my tattered courage. “I need to talk to you. Actually, I need to ask you about these.”
I opened the Manila envelope I’d kept folded to my chest and pulled out the sketches he’d left for me.
He looked surprised. “You kept them? I thought you might toss them in the wastebasket.”
“Why would I do that? They’re wonderful. You have a real talent. You’re good at so many things.” I stopped, hesitated, and then plunged on, “Why did you draw me so lovingly? You made me far prettier than I am, and yet the sketches don’t feel like flattery. I mean, they aren’t idealized. They’re accurate, real. They show my flaws. And still they somehow make me look beautiful. Why is that, Shane? What does it mean?”
He stared at the drawings and then he smiled at me. “They’re the way I see you, Cass. You’re beautiful to me.”
I swallowed hard. That was lovely to hear, but where did it leave me? Where did it leave us?
I had told him I loved him that night in Cabo. If he didn’t have the guts to say the same to me, I wasn’t going to repeat it.
“Did you hear about our parents? It seems we’re not gonna be stepsiblings, after all.”
“I just heard. My mom told me a little while ago when I got back to town.”
Silence fell between us. I heard a sea lion bark nearby and I was grateful for the distraction. I half turned away and look down toward the water. I didn’t know what else to say to Shane.
Then he spoke: “I need to talk to you, Cass. I’ve been doing some thinking. I’ve been trying to process everything. You know?”
I refused to nurse the spark of hope that flared in me then. “Last time we were together you didn’t want to talk about anything. And then you left me. You told your mother you were leaving Mexico, but you didn’t tell me!”
The accusation burst out of me. Not good. But I couldn’t hold it back. Part of me wanted to beat with my fists upon his chest and scream, “Why don’t you love me? Why don’t you? Why, why, why?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. Which amazed me. Shane didn’t seem like the type of guy who apologized too often. “I haven’t had any real girlfriends before. I mean, women that I cared about. Real relationships. I just, you know, fucked. My mom has always said I was relationship-handicapped. But now I think she believes there might be hope for me.”
“There’s hope for you?” I was confused. I wasn’t sure what he was saying and I didn’t dare believe there was hope for me. For us. “What do you mean? Did you tell her about us? When we were in Cabo? Because somehow or the other, she knew.”
He looked away for a moment, and then back at me. “My mother’s the only woman I’ve ever really been close to. Before you came along, I mean. So, yeah. I may have told her that I was in love with you.”
Were my ears ringing or had he just said he was in love with me? “You told her what?”
He caught one of my wrists and pulled me close. “I love you, Cassie. Don’t make me say it again. Once a day is probably all you’re gonna get.”
Joy was running through my veins instead of the blood that had been there a couple moments ago. But there was no way he was getting away with this! “You leave me alone in Mexico and disappear for a couple more weeks and you don’t even call me or text me or anything and now all of a sudden you’re in love with me?”
“Shut up,” he said. His arms came around me and his mouth came down on mine. After we had both kissed so hard we nearly fell over, he raised his lips to say, “You talk too much. You always did.”
I laughed again, hearing my own voice ringing out. But after another long kiss, I said, “Sometimes a couple has to talk. I mean, I love you, you love me…now what?”
He grinned. “Now we fuck?”
I poked him in his rock-hard shoulder. “Shane, you have to give me something. Some tiny hope that you’re not going to keep disappearing on me and leaving me to wake up alone!”
“Shit, Cassie, I don’t even know if I can ever make you happy. You don’t know what you are getting into dating a Team guy.”
“So tell me.”
“I get deployed a lot. It’s a dangerous job. You will go months without knowing if I’m alive or dead. It’s not fair to ask you to put up with that. You might end up hating me and wishing you’d never met me.”
Did he think I’d never considered that? It would be difficult, I knew. Worrying about him and missing him would be the worst. I hated to even think about how hard it would be. But other women did it when they loved their man.
“I hear what you’re saying, but I have plenty going on in my life to keep me busy while you’re away. I’m in grad school, I work, I do research projects. Hell, I do yoga. I don’t need you to hold my hand every day to make me happy. Have I ever seemed to you like a woman who couldn’t get along without a guy?”
“Well, no,” he admitted. He paused for a bit, and then added, “But you know what I do, right? I kill people. You’ve seen that first hand.”
“You defend people. You protected me. Shane, you saved my life." Was he worried that I’d reject him because I’d seen him kill those two motorcycle thugs? I knew what SEALs did. I knew that those creeps weren’t the first men he’d killed, nor would they be the last. But if I hadn’t accepted that side of him long ago, I never would have let myself fall in love.
“I don’t see you as a killer. The way you were with Meztli, with me, with that baby you helped pull out of the rubble. I see you as a healer and a protector, Shane.”
He still looked a little dubious.
“Look, you’re passionate, smart, and incredible in bed. You’re principled, honorable and artistic. Shane, you’re everything I want, everything I need.” I kissed him again, hard. “I fucking love you.”
As his arms enfolded me tightly, I noticed a sea lion staring up at us. The scarring around his neck suggested that he was the one I’d saved. The now almost full-grown pup who had brought us together. Was he rooting for us from his home in the sea?
Perhaps you are a whale-whisperer too, Metzli had said.
When Shane finished kissing me thoroughly, he lifted his head and gave me that old familiar leer. “I think you’re a little crazy if you can love a guy like me, but you’re my kind of crazy. Crazy beautiful. You’re coming home with me, babe. Right now.”
“Oh yeah? What for?”
“I’m gonna fuck you silly, that’s what for.” With one arm firmly around my waist he dragged me up the path to the parking lot. Okay, he didn’t have to drag. I was jogging along beside him, as eager to get to a bed as he was to take me to one.
“Look what your dad did,” he said, taking me to…wow…the Harley. All bright and shiny and repaired and looking as good as new. “He had the whole thing refurbished for me after shipping it back up here. Nice, huh? I wouldn’t have thought a prof like him even knew anything about bikes, but I guess he’s not as much of a stick in the mud as I thought. He confessed he’d had a Harley of his own when he was young.”
“My father did that?” I’d had no idea Dad was fixing Shane’s bike.
“He didn’t tell you?”
“Nobody tells me anything!”
He grinned at me. “I love you.”
“Well, I love you, too, you big jerk!”
“Then get on the bike. Because I’m gonna make you prove it tonight in about a hundred ways.”
I laughed and hugged him hard. Then he mounted his shiny Harley, the one that had borne us a thousand miles into the wilderness and been a cold metal witness to our love, and I climbed on behind him, pressed myself against his ass, and hung on tight.
This was where I belonged, and this was where I was gonna stay, no matter where the next road trip took us. This badass was mine and I was his.
Forever.
THE END
Linda’s Bio
Linda Barlow is the author of 25 novels, with more on the way. She lives in New England with her spouse (who sleeps during the day, which has often made her wonder if he's a vampire) and their equally enigmatic and nocturnal cat.
Linda has written in various genres, including historical and contemporary romance, romantic suspense, paranormal romance, New Adult romance, family sagas, and general mainstream fiction. Publishers have included Doubleday, Dell, Penguin, Warner Books, Hachette, New American Library/Signet, Berkley/Putnam, Silhouette and Harlequin.
Linda is a
USA Today
bestselling author. She's proud to have earned a few awards over the years, including the Rita from Romance Writers of America for
Leaves of Fortune
; New Historical Novelist of the year from
Romantic Times
for
Fires of Destiny
; and a Career Achievement award from
RT
.
If you love bad boys, check out Cassie’s hometown friends:
Stephen
: I want it all: whips and chains. Hearts and kisses.
The Dangerous Hero
.
Nick
: She thinks I'm dominating. Cruel. But I've got a dirty job to do.
Uncover Me
.
For more information on Linda’s other novels, please subscribe to her
newsletter
or visit her
Amazon author page
,
website
or
Facebook page
.
Alana’s Bio
Alana Albertson is the President of Romance Writers of America’s Contemporary Romance chapter and former President of RWA’s Young Adult and Chick Lit chapters. Alana Albertson holds a Masters of Education from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Stanford University.
A recovering professional ballroom dancer, Alana currently writes new adult, romantic suspense, contemporary romance and paranormal young adult romance. She lives in San Diego, California, with her husband, two young sons, and four dogs. When she’s not spending her time needlepointing, dancing, or saving dogs from high kill shelters through Pugs N Roses, the rescue she founded, she can be found watching episodes of House Hunters, Homeland, or Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team.
Want to meet Shane’s SEAL buddies?
Meet Pat!
I had one chance to put on the cape and be her hero.
Invincible
Meet Grant!
She wants to get wild? I will fulfill her every fantasy.
Conceit
For more information on Alana’s other novels, please subscribe to her
newsletter
or visit her
Amazon author page
,
website
or
Facebook page
.