Authors: Mary Margret Daughtridge

SEALed with a Ring (14 page)

Why. JJ had asked herself that over and over. David's "why" wasn't an accusation the way hers had been. It was a simple request for information. She searched for how to explain it. "Watching Emmie and What's-his name get married—"

"Do-Lord."

"Anyone could see how in love they are, how right for each other. I've never been in love like that—have you?"

"Like that? No. Not yet."

"And Jax and Pickett. The air between them sizzles."

"So, you were envious of them."

"Maybe. Partly. I could have dealt with that. But then I almost kissed you. And I thought, 'Where did my integrity go?'"

"Huh."

JJ wouldn't have thought one grunt could contain that much satisfaction. She stole a sideways glance. She'd already noted that the scarred side of his face was less moveable, but even so, she could see the way he held back a smile.

JJ laughed against her will. "Oh, wipe that smirk off your face!"

"One almost-kiss, and you ditch him? Come on, girl, a kiss that powerful is smirk-worthy."

"It's not, and that's not the way it was." She smacked him on the arm with the back of her hand. "It's just that when I couldn't make myself spend the night with him be cause I felt so guilty,
he
got pissy and acted like a jackass.

"I had to threaten to call 911 and say I was being kid napped before he would stop the car to help a dog. A
dog
." Her ire rose again at the memory of Blount's cowardice. "Nobody was asking him to run into a burning building. A phone call was all it took. And I lost my temper."

"I'll bet that doesn't happen much. How did it feel?"

"Better than most sex I ever had."

"Huh."

"Are you smirking again?" she asked dangerously.

"No, ma'am! Not me!"

"You are. I can
feel
you over there, laughing."

"No, I'm not. Sex that bad is serious!"

"I didn't say I had bad sex."

"You didn't have to."

"Be that as it may, good or bad, the high afterwards was just as short-lived. I had blown my future and the future of everything I cared about. I walked around in a daze for about twenty-four hours. Then I had the idea of asking you to marry me. I had hope again."

"Tell me again, why me?"

"Because you're the only SEAL I know."

"Oh, right. And SEALs are never around. You wouldn't have to face me at breakfast."

"I didn't mean it that way. I meant your time is al ready occupied. It's also that you don't care anything about me. I didn't have to worry about hurting your feel ings every time I put Caruthers first. Not even to save Caruthers am I willing to break someone's heart or ruin their life. But you're not in love with me, and I'm not in love with you. Best of all, SEALs have a ninety-five percent divorce rate. It would come as no surprise to anyone when we split up."

JJ put on her signal to make the turn onto the U.S. 17 Bypass. They would make better time now. "It doesn't matter now. You're not interested in what I have to offer. So you ask me if I'm okay. Well, I'm worried and guilty and angry and sad and hopeless. And I'm off to the bedside of a man I'm not ever going to forgive—" Her stomach shook with pained laughter at what a mess she was. "But I'll probably be at his bedside the next time he needs me, even so."

Chapter 24

HER PAINED LITTLE LAUGH WAS FULL OF AFFECTIONATE irony. Like the precordial thump—a blow to the sternum administered before initiating the chest compression part of CPR—it surprised his heart into a different rhythm. She was a woman of deep feelings who didn't give in to them—not when they conflicted with her principles. She would never abandon those for whom she was responsi ble. She wouldn't cut and run when the going got tough.

Morally, he was turned off by her cold-blooded offer. Marriage was only a means to an end with her, but even if he'd never thought it was in his future, it meant some thing to him. At the same time, she had qualities he ad mired in a man but that he'd never sought in a woman. Her fundamental kindness, her strength, her unflinching shouldering of responsibility, and her willingness to do what had to be done were qualities he respected and were a surprising turn-on. He had come to her beach house prepared to make her an equally cold-blooded counteroffer, but now he knew there was no way. This wasn't a woman he could marry and walk away from.

She reached for his hand. "Even though you're turn ing me down, I appreciate your coming with me. I'm glad I'm not making this drive alone."

Her fingers were chilly, revealing the stress she didn't allow to show on her face. She withdrew them quicker than he wanted her to.

"I didn't say I'm not interested in marrying you," he told her.

She flicked her eyes from the rain-washed street to give him a disbelieving look. "Sounded like it to me. You don't want money or presents or I forget what else. You have your own money—I remember that part. You don't have to try to soften the blow. It's fine."

"I'm not softening anything. I've got another deal I want to talk to you about."

"Fine." She flicked on the turn signal and moved into a right turn lane. "You want to make me a deal. Talk fast. We're only a couple of blocks from New Hanover County Hospital."

"I'm serious."

"Okay. But pardon me if I don't get my hopes up again." Her phone rang and she brought it to her ear. "Hey, Ham, I'm almost there… Yes, I know Lucas
made
you call me… It's okay. I'm turning into the parking lot now… Okay." She closed the phone with a sigh and a bewildered shake of her head. "I guess you heard. I don't know what Lucas thought Ham could do to make me go any faster!" He could see her mentally shifting gears as she spied a parking place and expertly whipped the Lexus into it. She switched off the ignition. "Now, you were saying something?"

"This isn't the right time." She wasn't listening. Not really. Her mind was already on what she would find when she saw her grandfather. She was always two or three steps into the future.

"Maybe this will grab your attention." He slid his hand under her hair. He grasped her nape firmly enough to immobilize her head and captured her mouth with his. He suspected she opened her mouth more in sur prise than anything else, but he was too much a SEAL to let an opportunity like that pass. He ran his tongue over the silky inner face of her lips before sealing his mouth to hers.

He had intended to make it quick. As soon as he felt her tongue move in response, he decided to go for
thorough
. She tasted incredible. Her breathing quick ened. He damned the console that separated them. He wanted to feel her breasts flatten against his chest. He angled his head for a deeper taste. He wanted to taste her everywhere.

When he slowly let her go, there was something thoroughly satisfying about the startled look in her green eyes and her soft, slightly parted lips. "Just don't go offering your hand in marriage to the first doctor or orderly or hospital security guard you see. Keep in mind that we are still in negotiation. You're not free to make any other deals until you've heard me out."

She blinked the startled look from her eyes. "Ooo-kaay."

He reached for the door handle. "We'll talk about it later. Let's go see how your grandfather is."

The tired-looking doctor, short and dumpy in her white lab coat, was with Lucas when they arrived at the ER. She told JJ they had run an EKG and drawn blood to check for cardiac enzymes but had found nothing alarming.

"Can you tell me what medications he's on?"

JJ produced a card from her wallet. "Here's the list with dosages and schedules. On the other side are con tacts for his family doctors and his cardiologist."

The doctor's eyes lit with respect. "This is great. I wish everyone came in with something like this."

"Lucas has a card just like it in his wallet."

"He was a little disoriented when he came in. He prob ably didn't remember it." She glanced at the chart again. "We'll run some more blood work," she added, "but I re ally think his symptoms were caused by dehydration."

"Dehydration?"

"It's one of the commonest reasons for admission of elderly patients. Sometimes there's an underlying problem, but sometimes it's just that they don't drink enough water. Older people don't always feel thirst the way younger people do."

JJ wondered if Lucas had faked his symptoms to get her to come to him, but she abandoned that theory when she saw how pale his papery cheeks were. The thin hos pital gown revealed only jutting bones and deep hollows where his strong shoulders used to be.

Anger and betrayal, pity for the loss of his power, fear that she would have to face life without him some day, relief that he wasn't going to die today, and love— spine-softening love—all clashed together under her breastbone. She had the disorienting sensation that the floor beneath her feet was sinking.

"Sit down, JJ." Davy's strong arm supported her back.

JJ stiffened her back. "I'm fine."

"Gotta hang tough, huh?" His clear brown eyes twin kled. "Okay. Sit down
please
—as a favor to me."

He was maneuvering and manipulating her, charm ingly. He had her number, no doubt about it, and it felt so comforting to be understood that she couldn't object. She allowed him to push her gently onto a rolling stool. He stood beside her, one hand resting on her shoulder, while he questioned the doctor about Lucas's condition.

"If there's someone who can stay with him, he'll be better off at home," the doctor finished. "Then you could take him to his regular doctor in the morning for follow-up."

If there was one thing in the world JJ didn't want to do, it was take Lucas home and care for him. The anger burning in her chest made her long to fling Lucas's words back at him and tell him he was on his own. She calculated how many hours she would have to stay before the home nursing agency they had used for her grandmother would be able to send someone.

"No problem," she heard Davy say, as if from a long distance. "We've got it covered."

Chapter 25

DAVY KNEW JJ WAS RICH. HE HADN'T GIVEN A LOT OF thought to her lifestyle, though, until they had followed the Lexus 460L carrying Mr. Caruthers and Ham to a floodlit house built of yellowish stone. Through a sil very curtain of rain, he had the impression of soaring two-story columns at least six feet in diameter across the front of a central section, flanked on either side by single-story wings. The place was a frigging mansion.

They had gone in through a rear entrance, with JJ leading the way and turning on lights, as he and Ham had helped Mr. Caruthers to the master suite, which contained, beyond the predictable bedroom and bath, an office and a short hallway that led to an indoor pool. In a bathroom larger than his mother's dining room and tiled in travertine marble, he had helped Mr. Caruthers brush his teeth and use the toilet.

The old man's urine was clear and pale yellow, a good sign that he was no longer dehydrated. After David saw that the old man was managing fairly well on his own, with no signs of dizziness or disorientation, he moved to the doorway—close enough to be at hand if he was needed but far enough away so that Mr. Caruthers wouldn't feel hovered over.

When David was growing up, his stepfather, a CPA, had provided a comfortable living. His mother, a nurse practitioner, had worked mainly because she wanted to. As David had told Lon, he had never thought much about money. What he had wanted was to test himself outside the safe boundaries of middle-class normality. And that seemed to have nothing to do with a world in which you got good grades so you could get into a good college which would allow you to get a good job that would provide enough money to send your kids to a good school so they could get good jobs—and so on to infinity.

For the first time, he was looking at the difference between a three-hundred-thousand-dollar house—the absolute most he could hope to sell his mother's house for—and one that would never change hands for less than a couple of million. And that was just the house. He didn't know what you called the simple yet sumptu ous style of the king-size four-poster bed and dressers. The greens, yellows, and blues in the rug and upholstery fabrics on the small grouping of sofa and chairs around a marble fireplace gave the room the feel of a magically secluded springtime garden. Even by his inexperienced calculations, it was obvious you couldn't furnish a room like this for double what he made in a year.

When she had said that she didn't want to be married for her money, he'd had no clue how much money was in the equation. He had been salving his conscience with the thought that since he was taking nothing for himself, he was clean.

SEALs were sometimes accused of not respecting authority, and in a way, it was true. SEALs were a meri tocracy. Officer or enlisted, nothing—not money, not background, not skin color, not even size (there were SEALs who were 5'2" and SEALs who were 6'7") would make a man a SEAL except his intelligence, abil ity, and indefatigable spirit. SEALs respected character and competence.

Right now, recovering from traumatic brain injury, his competence might be in doubt, but he still had his character. He had never done anything only to make money. It didn't set well with him that the first time he did, he was starting with marriage.

It was ironic. He couldn't have taken on a wife at this point in his life—not with Riley, Harris, and Eleanor to take care of until they were independent. Marriage would be out of the question for him if his bride didn't have money.

He was more determined than ever not to accept any money for himself.

For himself, he wanted only her. And want her, he did. That much had become clear to him as they drove to the hospital.

He wasn't going sign a few papers, call himself mar ried, and walk away.

Back in the bedroom, David poured Caruthers a glass of water and handed it to him. "Have you been hav ing trouble with peeing too frequently? Is that why you haven't been drinking enough? So you wouldn't have to get up so often at night?"

The old man ignored the question. "Where'd my granddaughter find a male nurse this time of night?" he demanded as he dried his hands on a monogrammed, sea-foam green towel.

"I'm not a nurse. I'm a hospital corpsman."

"Navy medic?"

"Yes, sir."

"My brother was in the Army. He joined because he had flunked out of college, and it was that or be drafted, but I think he took a notion he wanted to be a Green Beret, and that's why he flunked out. Our daddy would have had a fit if he'd known that's what Clive was up to."

As soon as he told older people he was in the Navy, they had to tell him about some family member who had served. Like he had to know they, too, had stood up for their country. It was good the old man wanted to chat. David had some things he wanted to bring up himself. To keep Mr. Caruthers talking while he looked for an opening, David asked, "Did he make it—become a Green Beret?"

"Oh, yeah. He got to go to Vietnam, just like he wanted to. Three tours. They took him to Japan when he was wounded the last time. Couldn't save him. Where did they take you—when you got that?" He waved to ward David's face.

"Germany."

"We got on a plane, my brother's fiancée and I. We were there when he died. Did any of your family come to Germany?"

"My mother. Where do you keep your pajamas? I'll get them for you."

"Can't stand the damn things, but since JJ is in the house and will probably come in here to check on me, I reckon I better put on something. Get me a T-shirt from that top dresser drawer. I'll keep on my shorts."

David extracted a shirt from the drawer while Mr. Caruthers sat down to untie his shoes. "While you have your shirt off, I need to listen to your chest. JJ said you have a stethoscope and blood-pressure cuff here."

"I don't know where the damn things are. You'll have to ask JJ. What did you say your name was?"

"David Graziano." He glanced around the room for a likely storage place for medical equipment. "She said they were in here. Mind if I look?" He opened another dresser drawer.

"Graziano. That's Italian. Are you Catholic?"

Nothing but clothes in the dresser. He moved to the armoire. "My father was," he answered Mr. Caruthers.

"He's dead?"

"He died when I was three. My stepfather was Congregational or something. We didn't go much." David shut the doors of the armoire. Nothing there.

"Look in the credenza."

"What's that?" These people didn't just have fancy furniture. They had fancy
named
furniture.

"That cabinet over against the wall."

David went to the piece of furniture he pointed out—a long, tallish thing with doors, made of swirly grained wood.

The pressure cuff and stethoscope were behind the first door he opened.
That did it.

He extracted them and turned to face his patient. "You manipulative old coot. You knew where these were all the time, didn't you? You were looking for an excuse to call JJ in here."

The old man shot him a wily look and snorted. David figured that was a yes. Mr. Caruthers' green eyes, the color of JJ's, were shrewd as he continued questioning David. "The Episcopal church recognizes Catholic baptism. Would you be willing to have your kids raised Episcopal?"

"I never thought about it." David suddenly under stood where the idle-seeming inquisition was headed. He leaned against the credenza and folded his arms across his chest. "Why do you ask?"

Other books

A Small Person Far Away by Judith Kerr

Tangled Web by McHugh, Crista

Bishop as Pawn by William X. Kienzle

Healer by Linda Windsor

Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company by Alex Freed

The Untold by Courtney Collins

Poster Child by Emily Rapp

A Soldier's Story by Blair, Iona

Where You Are by Tammara Webber

Wilder's Mate by Moira Rogers