“Hold on there little darlin’,” Ensign Dan Rivera said as he came out of the attic stairwell. He caught Zoe around the waist and swung her out of the way as his two companions muscled a chest of drawers through the door and down the hall to the bedroom.
“Bowie--unhand that woman and grab the nightstand,” ‘Doc’, Ensign Zack O’Connor said as they disappeared into the bedroom with the chest. Neither he, nor Lieutenant Junior Grade Harold Carney, Flash, Adam’s Executive Officer, seemed to find the bulky chest too burdensome.
“What if I don’t want to unhand you, Zoe? How would you feel about that?” Bowie’s brown eyes held a warmth she hadn’t encouraged.
When he flashed his dimples at her, she thought he might just have some idea how potent his smile was, and how to use it to his advantage. What was wrong with her that her heart didn’t leap at all the male sex appeal he exuded? The electric thrill seemed to be reserved for Adam “Hawk” Yazzie. He could walk into the room and every nerve in her body came to life.
“The only man I’m interested in right now is the Sandman, Bowie. I intend to take a long, long nap, as soon as you get the bed up. I’m beat.” She knew she looked it, too. Since getting the go ahead from the neurologist, she’d spent every moment, from dawn to midnight, at the hospital.
Bowie’s masculine tones held a hint of west Texas. “I’ll ask again, when you’re not so wore out.” He stepped away then looked over his shoulder at her. “I like long, slow kisses, cuddling, and I’ve been told I have a light touch. You might want to keep that in mind, while you’re deciding whether or not to give me a chance.”
The heat of a blush flared in her face. She found it impossible to come up with any kind of answer.
Bowie’s smile widened. “We’ll get the bedroom squared away for you right away.” He went up the stairs to retrieve the nightstand.
She stood at the doorway of the bedroom, but didn’t go in. “There’s lasagna, salad, and garlic bread in the kitchen, when you want to take a break.”
Doc looked up, his eyes as green as his Irish ancestor’s homeland. His short auburn hair stood on end where he had raked his hands through it. “We’ll be there ASAP, as soon as we get this bed frame together, and the mattress and box springs from upstairs.”
“Lasagna is my favorite,” Flash commented as he tightened a bolt, while Doc held the metal frame in place against the footboard. ”Is it a family recipe?” A slight Boston undertone flavored Flash’s voice with New England charm.
His quiet soft-spoken manner seemed more restful than the others and his blond, blue-eyed good looks were very appealing.
“My mother’s.”
“Do you cook?” he asked.
“Not a lick,” she fibbed, a smile tugging at her lips.
Flash glanced up. “That’s all right, I do.” He winked at her.
She smiled. “Do they give a class in flirting, along with weapon maintenance and hand to hand combat, when you train to become a SEAL?”
“Naw, ” Flash shook his head. “We just pretty much know what we want, keep our eye on the prize, and don’t give up. It’s a characteristic of the breed.”
She’d lived with two people growing up who fit that bill. Her father and her brother. She figured she could handle that.
“I wonder how you two would react if you met up with a female with those same characteristics?”
The two men looked at one another. “Run,” they said together.
She laughed. It seemed like months since she had done so. It felt good.
“What’s going on?” Hawk asked from directly behind her.
She turned and looked over her shoulder at him. He held a wooden lamp he had been repairing, a slight frown on his face. He had discarded his crutches for just the brace and she hadn’t heard his approach.
“Nothing, we’re just talking.”
“Food’s getting cold,” he said as he slipped past her. His hand lightly brushed the small of her back, with just enough pressure that her nerve endings zinged, and her heart picked up its rhythm.
Bowie dodged around her with the nightstand. “Don’t have to tell me twice when chow’s on. Let Flash and Hawk take care of that, Doc. You and I can bring down the box springs and mattress.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” Doc straightened and stepped out of the bed frame. The two went upstairs.
Zoe returned to the kitchen and helped herself to a small bowl of salad. She wandered out to the screened-in back porch and sat down in the old metal glider Hawk had renovated and placed against one wall. Green striped lounge pillows cushioned the seat. Propping her feet up on the brown wicker coffee table, she set the glider in motion. The sunset deepened to rose, maroon, and then purple painting the laminate floor with color. Through the screened windows, the sweet scent of honeysuckle wafted on the breeze. The cadence of the crickets thrummed in a synchronized ebb and flow, the sound draining the tension from her shoulders and neck.
The porch was fast becoming her favorite spot. She gravitated there to unwind when she arrived home from the hospital. Her bowl empty, she set it aside on the wicker end table beside the glider and eyed the sunken hot tub a few feet away. Maybe she could fill it after dinner when everyone left. With the aid of a few potted plants, and the canvas shades that could be lowered over the windows, she could find some privacy. Perhaps it would ease the pain in her calf from standing too long.
Imagining Hawk in the hot tub with any number of buxom, blonde beauties cost her more than a twinge or two of jealousy. A jealousy she tried to deny. Along with the feelings that inspired it. Every time she experienced the rush of excitement when he entered the room, or the hypersensitive tingle of heat when he touched her, a lingering ache centered just beneath her breastbone.
Better the ache of regret than the pain of caring for him more deeply and something happening to him. The sound of her mother’s soft sobs coming from her bedroom late at night when she’d thought they were all asleep echoed through her head and gave her heart a sharp pinch.
Waiting for letters, emails, telegrams, had only played a small part of their life in the military. Praying they never got a visit from an official two-man detail to notify them that their loved one was dead had played a bigger one. And damn, if it didn’t overshadow the rest. It made remembering any of the good times harder.
Drawing her bare feet up on the seat, she hugged her knees and rested her head atop them. She rubbed the sharp pain that lanced from her knee to her ankle as the damaged muscle stretched. She tried to forget about her leg, tried to function as normally as possible. There were days she succeeded, when the pain remained slight. When her calf burned and throbbed from standing or walking too much, she resented pandering to it but was forced to wear the brace she hated.
“Zoe,” Clara Weaver spoke from the open doorway.
She straightened and turned her head to look up at her. The kitchen light lanced across her mother’s face, setting alight the coppery tones in her hair. Some of the strain, apparent from the week before, had drained from Clara’s features, easing the fine lines around her eyes and mouth. She had housework and shopping to attend to, which offered her a distraction and a sense of normalcy.
Her own discomfort at being so close to Hawk would be worth it, if living here gave her mother some respite from her worry over Brett.
“The men are finished. Come eat.”
She lowered her feet to the floor and rocked forward to rise then stood stationary for a moment to make sure of her balance.
“You brought your brace, didn’t you?” Clara asked.
“I don’t need it.”
Clara brushed a few strands of hair from Zoe’s forehead, the gesture familiar as the look of concern on her face. “You’re pushing yourself too hard.”
“I just haven’t done my exercises in a couple of days. I’ll do them tonight after dinner.”
Clara nodded and stepped back to allow her to enter the kitchen.
Hawk and Doc looked up from serving themselves from a
large pan of lasagna on the stove. She fell in behind them.
He took her empty plate and traded it for the one he had just filled.
“Cut me a smaller piece, Hawk.”
His gray gaze fixed on her a moment before he scooped the lasagna onto her plate and traded with her. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to eat a little more,” he said, his deep voice only a rumble. She wondered what it would be like to hear that tone whispered in her ear as his long, lean body covered hers. Her mouth went dry and she bit her lip.
She had to quit doing this to herself. Fantasies aside, she would never be brave enough to leave herself open to that kind of rejection again. Though he was doing all he could to make up for the situation, he had still uttered the words that guaranteed she would never let him close, “It’s my fault Brett was hurt.”
Why did she have to keep reminding herself of that? Her loyalty belonged to her brother, not to a man she barely knew.
Bowie pulled out her chair for her as they joined the rest at the dining room table. Doc poured her a glass of ice tea when he noticed she had forgotten a drink. Was the men’s solicitous behavior motivated by friendliness? Or was it pity? She flinched from the idea.
She hadn’t encouraged any of their advances, and if she did? The poor man would eventually run once he saw her scars anyway. It was good she needed all her energy for Brett. She’d return home, once her brother was back on his feet, in exactly the same condition she’d arrived in California. With her heart in one piece.
“After dinner, want to go out for ice cream?” Flash whispered from beside her.
“No fair making time with my woman, Flash,” Doc said.
“All things are fair in love and war, Doc.”
She shook her head at their good-natured competitiveness.
Her mother winked at her. “Unless you’re ready to walk down the aisle tomorrow, my daughter won’t be making time with anyone,” she said in her best schoolteacher voice.
The men looked at one another. Flash laid an arm along the top of Zoe’s chair. “Where should we have the rehearsal dinner, sweetheart?”
She laid a hand on flash’s knee and leaned close. “There’s something I have to tell you, Harold.”
“What’s that honey?” He covered her hand and focused on her with the eagerness of a bird dog spotting a pheasant.
“I always keep my eye on the prize, and I never give up.”
His look of surprise had Doc bursting into laughter.
“You don’t really want to see a grown man run in fear, do you?” Flash asked.
She shook her head, a smile playing about her lips. Her eyes rose to Hawk’s face to find a frown just short of a scowl drawing his dark brows together. He had been uncharacteristically quiet for most of the day. With all the upheaval of giving up his office to offer her a room, was he regretting asking them to move in? If so, they could be out of there in next to no time.
Her reasons for being so eager to find an excuse to move out sobered her. She was running scared, the intensity of her feelings, when he was around, beyond her experience.
Flash touched her arm, drawing her attention back to his face. He spoke softly, for her ears only. “That new husky sound you have when you speak is sexy as hell. And as much as I’d like for you to whisper in my ear, I feel like I need to be teaching you some of the hand signals we use so you can rest your voice.” His blue eyes held a serious light. “You need to pace yourself, Zoe, and let us take up some of the slack. Okay?”
Too touched by his concern to speak, she nodded. “I’ll try.”
He flashed a smile and turned to answer something Hawk asked from the other end of the table.
The men seemed determined to keep the dinner conversation light and as entertaining as possible. Though she enjoyed their company, exhaustion had her fighting off the repetitive urge to yawn by the time the meal came to an end. Flash’s hand rested beneath her elbow as she struggled to her feet. She murmured her thanks as she found her balance.
She carried her plate into the kitchen and started to load the dishwasher.
“You and Clara prepared dinner. We’ll clean up,” Hawk said as he joined her.
“It’s all right. It’ll only take a minute to load the dishwasher and wash up.”
He caught her wrist as she reached for another plate to rinse. “You’re all in, Zoe. Go rest. And as sexy as a hoarse female voice sounds, you need to rest your voice as well.”
Sexy? She placed her hand against her throat. “I’m fine.” Her gaze rose to his face. Where Flash’s earlier concern had touched her, the concern she read in Hawk’s expression made her defensive. She didn’t stop to think why. “You don’t have to make concessions for me because of my leg. I can still pull my weight around here.”
His eyes narrowed and his cheekbones flushed with color. As Doc and Bowie entered the kitchen carrying plates and glasses, he pulled her out onto the porch and closed the door.
“It has nothing to do with your leg, Zoe. You’re up at dawn and don’t go to bed until one or two every night. You don’t have an endless supply of energy. No one does. If you’re going to be in this thing for the long haul, you’re going to have to pace yourself.”
She recognized the truth in what he said, but resented he was the one to say it. “I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for a while now.”
“Then you know what you need to do, so do it.”
She stiffened at his tone. “Look, I’m not one of the men you can call onto the carpet and dress down.”
His gray gaze raked down her slender form. “That’s something I’m not likely to forget.”
Her heartbeat accelerated. She experienced the stomach quivering sensation of riding a roller coaster car to the top of a tall-tall peak.
“Brett would be telling you to take care of yourself, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes,” she agreed. The word came out soft and breathy around the airless feeling beneath her ribs.
“If he were here, he’d be warning you about his fellow teammates. Flirting is fine, but should you start to date one of them, it’s going to cause some hard feelings between them.”
“They’re only kidding around, Hawk. None of them are really interested in me. They’re just competing for attention. They’d be behaving like that with any single female of datable age within a five mile radius.”
“I disagree. I’m not going to have the three of them going at each other’s throats over a woman.”
The heart dropping sensation felt worse than any roller coaster plunge down a steep track. Pain whipped through her. That he had viewed her banter with Flash as something more than just light-hearted teasing was unimaginable.
“Well--I’ve never been viewed as a femme fatale before, or a manipulative tease.” Her throat tightened with tears. “You’re right about one thing though. I’ve had enough for one day. I’m going to bed.” She shoved past him.
“Zoe--wait a minute--”
She jerked her arm from his grasp, and pushed open the kitchen door.
Flash, Doc, and Bowie working to set the place to rights, gave the large kitchen the feeling of being crowded.
She pulled up short, and tried to gather her composure. The screen door closed as Hawk entered the room behind her.
“Guys, I really appreciate all your help getting the bed set up and everything.”
“No problem, Zoe,” Bowie spoke for the group.
“I hope you’ll understand if I excuse myself and go on to bed.”
“No problem,” Doc said. His green gaze traveled from her to Hawk, then back again, speculation in his expression.
Suddenly, the full weight of exhaustion pressed down upon her shoulders and she drew a tremulous breath.
“If you or your mom need anything, Zo, don’t hesitate to call,” Flash said, his features set in a frown.
She nodded and offered them all a hasty thanks, and a goodnight. As she closed the bedroom door behind her, she wished she were anywhere on earth,
but in Hawk Yazzie’s house.
CHAPTER 4