She was special to him. More so than he’d realized when he’d come back to San Diego looking for answers. Now he had those answers and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Alysse was the only woman in the world that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
And if life were as easy as television shows and Hollywood movies made it seem, that would be all it would take for them to commit themselves and spend the rest of their days together. But this wasn’t a TV show or movie and he knew that despite his good intentions he’d never be the man that Alysse needed.
She knew it, he suspected, but because they’d spent so much time with each other she was probably thinking, as he was, that there was some way to make the magic last for them. But the truth was there was no elixir that would cure him of his past. No potion that would make his shattered soul whole and no real chance that he’d be able to live in this cute little suburban house with Alysse for the rest of his days.
The water was starting to cool, so he stood up and climbed from the tub, drying himself off quickly before helping Alysse. He dried her carefully from head to toe, lingering over her entire body because he’d never have enough of touching her. He dreamed of her skin and the softness of it when they were apart.
“Why are you treating me like I’m made of glass?” she asked.
He wasn’t sure what to say. Didn’t know what was the right or wrong thing and looking into her amazing blue eyes he settled for the truth. “To me you are the most precious thing.”
She swallowed hard and then threw herself into his arms and he held her close, breathing in the floral scent of her skin. He closed his eyes and tried to figure out a way he could keep Alysse without shattering her dreams for the future.
But he’d seen the way she’d looked at Lucien and India tonight. He knew she wanted a relationship like that and he couldn’t give that to her. He just wasn’t that kind of man.
He found her nightshirt on the hook behind the bathroom door and put it on her before leading her to her bed. Once they were both settled beneath the covers and she was nestled close against his side, cuddled up on his chest, he felt her relax. She put her hand over his chest and kissed him right there over his heart.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For?” he asked. He didn’t think he’d done anything for her that she didn’t deserve. Alysse had given him gifts that he’d just taken blindly before he recognized how much she meant to him.
“The best day,” she said. “I have spent the entire day with you and it wasn’t at all what I expected.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. You were everything I ever dreamed you would be. I thought this morning that we were headed for a breakup tonight but the day turned around, didn’t it?”
Her words were like a dagger to him. He couldn’t give her days like this. Today had almost been the end of him because he’d felt too much. Men who had this much to lose never made it back.
“Today was nice,” he said. “But it wasn’t anything too special.”
“It was to me. No one—not even my dad—has ever given me a day like this. You made me feel like a princess and not the little-girl kind.”
“What kind then?” he asked her.
“Like a woman who can have it all. You were my white knight today. It was perfect.”
She was killing him. She was unable to contain her excitement, and he knew that was because she’d started caring for him again.
And he didn’t want to—hell, he wasn’t going to let her down again. So if that meant that he had to stay here with her for the rest of his life then he’d do it. He didn’t know how he’d do it but he’d figure it out.
For that smile he’d move the world.
“Why are you watching me like that?”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Kind of sad and sort of...scared almost,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “And I don’t know about being any knight. My armor is tarnished. Can’t you see that? There is nothing hero-like about me at all.”
She gently kissed him on the chest. “Everything about you is heroic.”
He knew she was wrong. Still, he stayed where he was and held her as she drifted off to sleep. He was surrounded by Alysse and it was the closest thing to heaven that he knew he’d ever experience in this life or the next one.
Her breath stirred the hair on his chest and, as her sleep deepened, she snored softly and even that tiny imperfection just made him love her more. He held her as close as he dared so he wouldn’t disturb her, and he felt the way he had back in that Vegas hotel room—afraid of her and for her. Afraid to be the man she clearly needed him to be because he wasn’t sure he really had it in him.
He’d never in his life wanted anything more than he wanted to keep Alysse with him. But he knew just as surely as the desire formed inside him that he would hurt her, and he couldn’t live with himself if he did that.
He tried different scenarios in his head, trying to figure out how he was going to be able to keep her safe and keep her in his arms at the same time, but there wasn’t one that would keep her happy.
As the first fingers of dawn crept across the room he loosened himself from her hold and slid out of her bed. He found his clothing in the living room and dressed quickly, getting a hard-on from remembering the sexy dance they’d shared here last night.
And from the memories of their wedding night. He picked up his leather jacket, which she’d kept from the morning balloon ride, and the picture of the two of them that the pilot had taken fell out. He stooped to pick it up and then stood staring at them. He looked too hard for her.
She deserved that white knight she’d always wanted. A man who could love her and not worry about her leaving. A man she didn’t have to worry would leave her. And if he didn’t walk out this door today, Jay knew there was always a chance that he’d be taken from her life by war.
He had no other training and even if he worked with Lucien there was no guarantee that he’d be back home with Alysse every night. He’d promised her mother that if he couldn’t ensure Alysse would be happy with him, he’d get out of her life and never come back.
At the time he’d hoped to find a way to stay with her but now it seemed there wasn’t a way. And he knew exactly what he needed to do. But it was harder this time.
Last time it had only been lust between them and this time he had started caring for her, and that made each step he took heavy and hard.
He walked to the door that overlooked her backyard and remembered standing there with her at the pond and feeling maybe a little hope for the future. But he’d been kidding himself since the moment he’d returned here.
He was truly a loner and he only knew how to be comfortable in his own skin when he was on a mission in the field with his scout next to him. He liked the world through the view of his scope. It was safer that way. He could control everything when he was looking through the sight.
He knew that his life would always be gray after this, but it was better than attempting to be someone he wasn’t and failing miserably. Better than trying to make things work with Alysse and breaking her heart again, only worse because he’d seen the real woman this time, not the girl on vacation. He slowly turned and looked around her living room before walking through it toward the door.
He had hoped to find answers here and he guessed that he had. He’d hoped that maybe this time he could make their ending different. He knew he was the one who was leaving, but he also knew it was just a matter of time before Alysse knew that he couldn’t be the man she wanted him to be.
He’d got to the foyer when he heard the creak of the bedsprings and knew he could either run out the front door as he had before or wait and confront her. And he wished he were a stronger man, but he reached for the front door, undoing the deadbolt and turning the handle as quietly as he could.
“Running again?”
13
A
LYSSE
HAD
GOTTEN
USED
TO
sleeping with Jay and sleeping lightly enough that when he got out of bed he’d waken her. She’d thought at first that maybe he was just getting a drink of water as he sometimes did, but then, as the time lengthened, she knew he was leaving.
She’d lain there in her bed debating confronting him and suddenly it seemed so cowardly for her to be lying there while he was sneaking out. So she’d gone to confront him and found him standing at the front door with his hand on the handle and her heart broke.
He wasn’t leaving for work or an early meeting, he was leaving for good and they both knew it.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be. Just tell me why,” she said.
“I think I’m going back into the Corps,” he said.
As if that would explain everything and make this all okay somehow. “Really? Why did you stay last night then? What was that all about?”
She was beyond upset and well into angry now and she wasn’t about to take this sitting down. He was leaving her twice. This was her worst nightmare and here it was coming true. Dammit, she had been planning to be the stronger one this time, why wasn’t she?
“Can we not do this?” he asked. There was something in his expression that she couldn’t read and that bothered her more than she wanted to admit.
“No, we’re doing this,” she said. “The last time I just let you walk out on me. Well, to be honest, I didn’t hear you leave, but even if I had I would have lain there and let you go without a fight. But I’m not willing to do that this time.”
He sighed. It was a heavy one as he finally came toward her. He stopped when there was six inches between them but it might as well have been a gap as big as the Grand Canyon. He was eons away from her and there was nothing she was going to say that would bring him back.
But last night she’d admitted she loved him. Last night he’d been the tender man she’d always dreamed of finding and she wasn’t going to let him throw that all aside. She just didn’t know what she could do to make him stay.
“Leaving isn’t easy for me,” he said. “But I can’t stay. I saw your face last night when we were in the club with Lucien and India. I know that you hope that someday we will be that kind of a couple. But I can’t be like that. I’m always going to be more inward and less social.”
She shook her head. “I never asked you to change.”
“I know that. You won’t do it either. But I’d have to watch you wither and grow disappointed in me because I’m not the man you need me to be.”
She wondered if that were true. But then she realized that even if there were shards of honesty in that statement, the reason he was leaving was more complex. “I don’t believe that’s why you’re sneaking out of here, Jay Michener. You’re leaving because you’re afraid you will like it here. That you’ll start enjoying the life that we could have together. And you’re afraid. Afraid to change and let yourself really feel something.”
“And you’re afraid to just let me go,” he said. “As much as I enjoy being alone, you’re afraid of that very thing. You surround yourself every hour of the day with family and friends, and you have to ask yourself why? What is it you are so afraid of?”
“I don’t see that,” she said. “You’re grasping at straws because if you aren’t looking at a target through the safety of your scope then you don’t let yourself relax. You aren’t living life. You are observing it.”
He looked taken aback. And she felt a twinge of guilt at what she’d said, but there was no hiding from this. He was leaving and there was nothing she could say that would make him stay.
“You may be right,” he said, a sudden quietness in him and in his voice. “But I don’t think I can change. I’m sorry, Aly. I wanted a different ending for us. But I think I was fooling myself into believing I was a different sort of man.”
She closed the gap between them and reached out to touch his beard-stubbled jaw. “You don’t have to be a different man, you just have to be the man you are inside here.”
She drew her hand down his chest and tapped lightly over his heart. She knew that as tough as he was on the outside, Jay was soft inside. And that was why he fought so hard not to let anyone in, even her.
She hugged him because she was going to miss him more than he could ever know. His arms stayed by his sides and she felt her heart break wide open. It wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t love her and there was nothing she could have done to make herself not love him. She’d thought she could bring her warrior in from battle and show him the beauty of being a part of her community, but he wasn’t ready to give up fighting and she doubted he ever would be.
“Goodbye.”
He stepped back and looked at her and she easily read the anguish in his eyes.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you again,” he said.
It bothered her more than she wanted to admit that he knew that he’d hurt her but somehow hadn’t been able to see that she loved him.
“Is that really your only regret?” she asked.
“No, but we don’t have time for me to list them all,” he said, turning and walking toward the door.
“Coward,” she said. “There’s no pride in walking away now. You are just proving that you aren’t all you can be.”
“That’s the army slogan,” he said.
“I don’t care whose it is. You pride yourself on being a soldier, a warrior, but you don’t have the guts to stay and fight for something you said you wanted. Or have you changed your mind?”
* * *
J
AY
HADN
’
T
EXPECTED
Alysse to let him just walk out the door but he didn’t expect this amount of anger. Why not? Was he that insensitive that he’d missed something important here? He knew that she’d been hoping—hell, he knew nothing. She was still a big mystery to him and it seemed as if she always would be.
“I’m not a coward. I’m doing this for you,” he said.
“For me?” she asked, the incredulity in her voice enough to make him take a step back toward her.
“Yes, for you. Do you think I like knowing that even though you are with me I’m not the man you want? Do you think I like seeing disappointment in your eyes?”
“No. I never meant for you to feel that way,” she said. “I can work on that.”
She could try, but it wouldn’t change the fact that he was always going to be who he was inside and she couldn’t change that or accept it. He needed to make this break and never come back here again. He needed to walk away and keep Alysse tucked safely into his memories.
“You can’t. We’ve been trying to build something out of nothing here. That’s my fault. I’m sorry this didn’t work out better.”
“Sure,” she said. “I guess it doesn’t matter if I love you.”
His heart stopped beating for a second. No one in his adult life had uttered those words to him and he wanted to hold them close and hold her close. Was there a way he could make this work? Could he be the man she needed him to be?
He’d thought about the job with Lucien but to be honest he was afraid to risk it and find that he couldn’t stomach the job. He was a mess and had not been in the right place to start up his relationship with Alysse again. He’d made a mistake but he couldn’t bring himself to say those words out loud.
She watched him carefully, he suspected she was looking for some kind of sign that he’d figure out how to work this through, but he was tired of keeping them both on this roller coaster. He just wasn’t the right kind of man for the long haul. It didn’t matter that he felt like he should want something more. He was too afraid to go after what it was he wanted. He deserved the moniker of coward that she’d given him.
“Your love is a gift I will treasure forever,” he said.
She shook her head. “No, you won’t. You’ll shove it deep down inside you so you don’t have to deal with it. I’m just sorry that I couldn’t show you that life is more than your missions.”
But she had. And that was the part that scared him. He stalked back over to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Of course I saw that. Do you think I don’t crave this idyllic life with every fiber of my being?”
“Then why are you leaving?”
“Because I know how quickly this can be taken away. You know who makes the biggest sacrifices in Afghanistan?”
She shook her head.
“Those with the most to lose. Those with spouses and kids back home. It’s never the loners. And I’ve been shown a lot of karma in this life. Who’s to say if I try to make this work that we will have a lifetime together?”
“No one can guarantee that. No one,” she said.
She lifted her hand toward him, brushing her fingers over his brow. Then down the side of his face.
“I’m willing to take the chance, Jay.”
He knew he could make this easy on himself. Just open his arms and draw her into them. Pretend for her sake that everything would be okay. But he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to cause her more pain by staying. And a part of him was sure he would. Or worse—he’d stay and she’d realize that the love she thought she had for him wasn’t real. He didn’t want to leave her. Hell, he wasn’t an idiot. It was just that he knew that by going now he’d save them a much bigger heartbreak later.
“I’m not willing to.”
Her arms dropped to her sides. She stared into his eyes with that electric-blue gaze of hers and he felt that she was peering deep into his soul. He hoped that she didn’t really see into that bottomless well because he’d seen too much in this lifetime. Things he never wanted her to know about. She sighed and then nodded.
“Okay, then.”
She walked around him to the front door and opened it. The sun was coming up over the horizon and the neighbors were out walking their dogs and getting ready for work. A perfect normal morning and yet he felt shell-shocked. As if he’d just withstood a barrage of enemy fire.
He wanted to pat down his body and look for holes but he knew exactly where the pain was coming from. He crossed the small hallway of her house and when he got to the threshold he knew that if he took one more step he’d never be welcomed back here again.
He was afraid of that step and hesitated. If he thought there was a way that he could have her and keep her for the rest of his life he wouldn’t do this but he couldn’t see it.
“Have a good life, Jay,” she said. “I hope you find some peace.”
He nodded, and as soon as he was outside on her front porch he heard the door close behind him with a finality that echoed down to his boots.
* * *
T
HREE
DAYS
LATER
Jay went to the enlistment office on base to sign his papers, but the entire time his heart felt heavy and Alysse’s words kept ringing in his ears. Was he afraid to change?
The weather didn’t seem to notice his mood and stayed sunny and temperate as if to shame him with his own black thoughts. He missed Alysse more than he’d thought he would. He hadn’t had a single night’s sleep since he’d left her because he kept waking up to search for her.
Hell, he knew that was partly why he was right back here. This was the one place in the world that he trusted. Then he admitted that wasn’t true anymore. He trusted himself when he was with Alysse and he should never have left her.
In fact, he loved her. He’d been in love with her for the last four years. He’d struggled to keep his distance from her only because he’d never felt good enough for her. He still wasn’t sure that he was good enough for her, but the way she’d fought with him had told him that he was the man she wanted.
But leaving the way he had... Trying to sneak out on her again. He hoped he hadn’t killed her love for him. It was going to be impossible to win her back. He knew he could do it because she loved him, but he had to plan it. And do a better job than he had when he’d called her to the beach at the Hotel Del Coronado.
The first thing he did was to sign his separation papers for the Marines. Then he left Pendleton and headed toward the offices of Company B. Someone who worked as hard as Alysse deserved a man—a husband who worked just as hard, if not harder.
He pulled into the parking lot and felt a moment of sheer terror as he realized he’d left the only home he’d had since turning eighteen. To be honest, he hadn’t had a home since his mother had left when he was eight. His dad had never been good with people, a trait Jay guessed had been passed on to him. But he was damned sure he was going to be good with Alysse. And he’d do everything in his power to make sure they were never apart again.
“You okay, Jay?” Lucien asked, coming out of the offices of Company B and standing next to Jay on his bike.
“No. I’m not. I just left the Corps.” Oh, man. He was unsure of this decision as soon as he said the words out loud, but then he thought of going home to Alysse every night and some of the tension eased.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Lucien asked.
“It’s going to be a very good thing if I can convince you to give me a job,” Jay said.
“It’s yours, buddy. I wanted you to work with me from the beginning,” Lucien said. “Come inside and we can get the contract drawn up and have you sign it.”
Jay got off his bike and followed Lucien inside. “So what made you decide it was time to go private-sector?” Lucien asked him.
“Alysse,” Jay said. He wasn’t ever going to be comfortable talking about his personal life, but in this instance he didn’t mind sharing it with Lucien. “I want to marry her again and do everything right this time.”
“Good for you. Got an idea of how to propose?”
“No,” Jay said. “And I screwed up so I have to win her back.”
“Can I help?” Lucien asked.
“Be my best man?”
“I will.”
It took forty-five minutes to get the contract drawn up and for Jay to sign all the paperwork that was needed. When he left the Company B offices he was an official employee.
Next on his list was a call to Toby. He needed Alysse’s family on his side if he had any chance of pulling off his plan. He knew he’d never be able to trick her to the beach twice, and it was very important to him that he have all the details right this time. He wanted her to know how much she meant to him.