Barefoot in White (Barefoot Bay Brides)

  “I take it you’re not buying that?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t on that side of things. I didn’t come here to tell you that story.” He slowed as they reached the open docks of Pleasure Pointe Harbor, stopping to let the clanging of sail rigging punctuate his comment. “I wanted to tell you what happened to me.”

  She studied him in the dim light, doing a quick inventory of his lines—there were definitely new ones. Worry lines between his brows that must have formed while he sat in some emergency room waiting area.

  “Oh, God, Dad, why didn’t you call me?”

  “Honestly, it happened so fast and was so chaotic while they were trying to revive her, I didn’t think to call you. Then she woke up and insisted I not tell you a thing.”

  And, of course, he did what Ona wanted.

  She wrapped her arms around him again and held him tight. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry you went through that alone.”

  He took the hug, but she could feel him shaking his head. “No, no. Didn’t come here for pity or your apologies.”

  She didn’t quite understand why, but she let it go. “When did this happen?”

  “Six, seven months ago.”

  Oh, God. She’d had no idea. She should have—

  “Hey.” He tapped her chin, reading her expression as he always had. “Regrets are for idiots. Don’t bother with them.”

  She tried to take that advice, but she couldn’t help feeling like shit. “I’m the worst daughter.”

  “She was no picnic as a mother.” He guided her to a bench that faced the long wharves with sailboats and pleasure cruises lined up, a yellow glow from a dock light illuminating the area. “But here’s the thing, Willie.”

  She didn’t cringe at the name for once. Yes, it reminded her of her old fat self, but that was what her Dad called her, and it sounded right.

  “What’s the thing, Dad?” she asked, taking one of his hands between hers and holding on to it.

  “Life is so fucking short.”

  She just looked at him.

  “One second you’re here, living, working, singing, bitching, golfing, laughing…loving. And the next, you’re watching a corpse be wheeled into an ambulance, and everything that you thought mattered…poof.” He made his fingers explode. “Gone.”

  “God, Dad. How did you keep it out of the media?” At least if she’d read about her mother going to the hospital, she would have gone home.

  Or would she have stayed and…stewed?

  He laughed at her question, and she knew the answer. Money, of course. “And while she was wrapped in rainbows and making deals with the Big Man, I realized that nothing—and I do mean nothing, child—matters in this world, because it’s over in a blink of an eye.”

  “I know that, Dad, but—”

  He held a hand up to silence her. “The people you love and the people who love you, no matter how piss-poor a job they do of showing it, are all you have in this life.” He took her hands this time, squeezing. “If she had died—or, if she had stayed dead, because she was gone—you would have spent the rest of your life despising her for how she treated you.”

  Yes, she would have. She planned to, in fact.

  “Then you would have gotten older and maybe had a child of your own.” He angled his head and lifted one of his brows. “You do know you have to actually have sex for that to happen, right?”

  She elbowed him. “Finish.”

  “Well, when you are a mother yourself and you make all manner of dumb decisions because you don’t know any other way to do a job that is really too hard for anyone, then…” He took a deep, slow inhale to elevate the drama of his pronouncement. “Then you probably would wish you had made up with her before she died.”

  “Maybe I would or will, Dad, but you don’t understand how trapped she made me. I spent more than half my life—which doesn’t seem short when you’re in the middle of it—hating myself because I couldn’t be what she wanted me to be.”

  “No one can be that,” he said. “Even I can’t be what she wants, but you won’t be find me running away, avoiding her, and hating her. You’ll only be free to be and love yourself—and someone else, I might add—when you forgive, forget, and be a family again.”

  “I’m free,” she said, sounding defensive. “I’m completely free for the first time in my life. Free of the weight, literally and figuratively.”

  “Are you? Is that why you’ve never fallen for a man long enough to unload that virginity you carry around like a big ol’ suitcase?”

  “You don’t know how I carry it around.”

  He grinned. “Did we not just discuss my superpower of knowing people better than they know themselves?”

  “I appreciate what you’re trying to tell me, Dad.”

  “Do you?” he asked. “Because if there is one simple, single lesson I can impart to you, it’s this: Don’t waste time, because you don’t have any time to waste.” He frowned and tilted his head. “There’s a song in there somewhere.”

  She stared up at the night sky, all the day’s thoughts muddled in her mind. “What would you have me do, then? Act like the last thirty years never happened?”

  “They don’t matter, Willie. What matters is the next thirty years or days or, possibly, minutes. They may be all you have.” He took her hand again and looked into her eyes. “Use them wisely.”

  He was right, of course. And how could she most wisely use the next thirty minutes?

  Nick.

  The thought hit her like a hammer to the head—and heart. Nick. He was how she should use her next thirty minutes…or maybe thirty hours. Nick was all she wanted. Maybe it was just sex, but damn it, she wanted that.

  She shot up. “You know what, Dad? You make a lot of sense.”

  A smile tugged at his lips as he reached for her hand. “Music to a father’s ears, those words.”

  “You’re right. I’m going.”

  He stood next to her. “Fantastic. She’s waiting at the Ritz in Naples.”

  “Let her.” Willow worked a crick out of her neck, her own broad smile pulling. “I gotta go somewhere else, Dad.”

  “Where?”

  She reached down and kissed him on the cheek, then started backing away. “No time to waste. I’ve got some baggage to unload.” And only one man in the world could do that job. “You understand that, don’t you?”

  She saw the moment the realization hit his eyes, followed by a wry smile. “I’m afraid I do.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Nick kicked the volume up to an ear-thrashing level and pressed the soft sides of the noise-canceling headphones over his ears. What difference did it make now? The Navy made its decision on his future, and he sure as shit didn’t need to baby his deaf ear anymore.

  Donny Zatarain howled while Mikey Brooker hammered the drums and Graham Mitchell’s bass line thrummed a vibration down through Nick’s bare body.

  This is it. This is love.

  He opened his mouth to sing the words, but nothing came out. He couldn’t sing that song ever again. This wasn’t love. He’d blown that chance.

  He stuffed a pair of camos into the bag and reached for the last of his clothes in the drawer. He’d be packed in ten minutes and out of here when the sun came up the next day. Off to the shithole of a desk job.

  Come and take it, don’t ya fake it, we can make it…

  But they couldn’t make it. They couldn’t even fake it.

  As much as he wanted Willow—physically, emotionally, mentally, and whatever the hell other way he could have her—they couldn’t make it.

  The guitar wailed as Donny screamed the next line.

  Will ya, will ya be my girl?

  He stopped packing long enough to air-drum the riff along with the band.

  Will ya, will ya…

  He imagined the concert when Donny proposed to Ona, thinking of the man wailin’ on the song, getting on one knee, and the whole stadium screaming, “Will ya, will ya…”

>   He sucked in a deep breath so he could howl the amended lyrics. “Marry meeeeee—”

  The headphones snapped off, silencing Donny’s scream, but not Nick’s. He whipped around, arms out, eyes wide as he met familiar blue ones.

  “Hey.”

  Willow.

  She stood with one hand on her hip and the other holding out the headphones, the reedy screech of the song still coming through.

  “Do you never knock?” he finally asked.

  “Do you never dress?” She let her gaze drop over his body, lingering below the waist where, of course, his cock twitched under her scrutiny.

  She didn’t wear much more, a tank top, sports bra, and very short shorts. Her skin glowed with the flush of exercise, and the tendrils falling from her sloppy ponytail were damp with sweat.

  “Did you run here?” he asked.

  “No, but I was running. I need a shower.” She handed him the headphones and stepped past him, glancing over her shoulder to take another look at his ever-hardening johnson. “You’re fine the way you are. Just, you know, get what you need.”

  What?

  He watched her head into the bathroom, but then she froze. Slowly, she turned to the bed and looked at the open duffle bag and then she shook her head silently, disappearing into the bathroom. Fifteen seconds later, the shower was running.

  No fight? No attack? No demand for an explanation or some epic groveling for his mistake?

  Because he would have done all that and more for…

  Just, you know, get what you need.

  She meant condoms, no doubt. Not candles or champagne. Not soft music and sweet promises. Not what he’d wanted for her—and for him.

  She just wanted to…

  He squeezed his eyes shut, wiping out every word for the act that came to mind. That’s not what he wanted, damn it. Not like this. Not like this. She deserved better. Hell, they deserved better.

  He marched into the bathroom without knocking. Steam already filled the small room and fogged the glass of the shower. He yanked that door open, too.

  She sputtered, pulling her face from the waterfall, soap suds sliding over every inch of her. For a second, he forgot what he wanted to say, because she was so damn naked and wet and gorgeous.

  “Yes?” she asked, somehow managing to arch a brow despite the water on her face.

  “No,” he replied.

  Confusion flickered, and that dissolved into disbelief, which faded into…hurt.

  Shit. “I mean, not yet.”

  She let out a soft grunt. “I’ve waited long enough, Nick.”

  “I know, and I don’t want to wait either, but, Willow, we can’t fall into bed and have sex with all this…this business between us.”

  She closed her eyes, reaching for the wall as if she needed support. “You’re turning me down…again?” She barely whispered the question.

  “Willow, listen to me.” He twisted the faucet to turn off the water and grabbed a towel from the rack, handing it to her.

  She held the towel in front of her. “Really? You’re going to put me through the same thing you did years ago?”

  “You know damn well this is different.”

  “Do I?” She pressed the towel against her chest. “I’m not going to beg, Nick. I gotta have a shred of dignity.”

  Then he had to tell her the truth, no matter how vulnerable it made him.

  “Willow, I really, really care about you. And I know you’re pissed as hell at me for what happened with your mother and this wedding that isn’t even a wedding. And I don’t want that hanging between us the first time.”

  She clutched the towel so tightly her knuckles turned white. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “Would I kid about his? When this first started, and you wanted me to be the one to take your virginity, I thought I’d make it special and meaningful. I didn’t know…this would happen. I didn’t know I’d want it to be meaningful for me, too.”

  Her eyes flashed, hot and hurt, and then instantly, her expression went blank. “Fine.” She reached to close the shower door, but he stopped her.

  “That’s all you’re going to say? Fine?”

  “Yes. Fine.” She tugged at the chrome handle.

  He stared at her. “Don’t you have anything else to say? You understand? You believe me? You feel the same? You’re still mad about your mother?”

  “Yeah, that one. C’mon, Nick, this is mortifying enough. Leave me alone.”

  “Mortifying?” He spit the word out. “I just told you that I care about you. That this means something to me now.”

  She looked away, staring at some distant point as though it pained her to even look at him. Was she really going to shut him out now?

  “Don’t you understand?” he asked. “I can’t just fall into that bed and…and mindlessly do it.”

  She let out a dry cough. “Apparently not, no matter how many times I ask.” Each word was loaded with sarcasm and pain.

  Damn it! He reached for her shoulder. “You and I both know this isn’t just sex anymore.”

  She finally looked at him. “You have no idea how much I want to believe you.”

  “Then why don’t you?” He narrowed his eyes as the futility of the argument squeezed his guts.

  “Because you went behind my back, you sided with my mother, and you lied to my face. How can I trust you?”

  “But you’re willing to sleep with me.”

  She shrugged a shoulder, her color rising as his point hit home.

  “And about what happened, Willow. I’m sorry. I made a decision that I thought was best for you.”

  Her eyes sparked like gas flames. “You decided what was best for me? Do you have any idea, any inkling at all, how much I hate manipulation like that?”

  “I do, and I was completely wrong. But I had to make a choice of who to hurt—you or me. So I chose me.”

  She nearly choked. “You? I was the one who—”

  “Your reconciling with her is more important than whatever happens with me. Because nothing can really happen with me if you don’t make things right with her first.” Didn’t she see that? “I want you to be happy, Willow.”

  “I am happy,” she insisted. “I’d be happier if I weren’t the world’s oldest living virgin.”

  He gave a dry laugh. “Believe me, I’d love to do my part, but, Willow, I want more than that now.”

  Inhaling slowly, she closed her eyes. “You’re doing it again.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Deciding what’s best for me.”

  “What’s best for us.” He leaned into the shower. “Dry off, put a robe on, and let’s talk. I want to explain my side of what happened.”

  She swallowed hard. “I can imagine your side. The blind side. That’s where my mother puts everyone.”

  “That’s true, but we still need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About all that shit that’s holding you back. I want to help you. Like you helped me come to terms with what happened in Iraq. Because until you’re truly and genuinely free of that, I honestly don’t think you can give me what I want from you.”

  “I can’t give something you won’t take,” she said.

  “I want more than your body,” he said simply. “I don’t know when that happened, but it did. And now I’m not going to be satisfied with less.”

  Very slowly, she inched back, as if his words finally hit her heart. “Then what do you want from me?”

  He swallowed hard, knowing this was it. He’d lose her or not when he admitted this. But he couldn’t lie.

  “Everything,” he whispered right before he closed the shower door. “I want everything.”

  * * *

  Goosebumps blossomed over every inch of Willow, her skin turning to ice while her heart folded in half and his parting words melted with the last of the steam.

  Strictly to stay warm and think, she tossed the towel and turned the water back on, letting the stinging spray wa
sh all the confusion away. Why was she confused? It was very clear what just happened: Nick turned her down…again.

  The punch of that reality was tempered by the next thought: He said he wanted everything.

  Was it possible he meant that? Or was that just the nicest rejection ever offered from a man who was obviously packing to get the hell out of Dodge? Because, no matter how you paint and shade that rebuff, it was still a flat-out no.

  Oh, God. And it still hurt, no matter what he said.

  Of course, part of her—the whole, healthy, unscarred little part of Willow—wanted to not only believe him, she wanted to go out there, talk the hell out of this, and maybe even have that same kind of conversation with her mother. Not a Band-Aid conversation, either. A real one.

  But the other part—the big, fat, scared, insecure, protective, desperate-for-control Willie—wanted to run. And run. And run some more.

  She pressed her fingertips against the cool tile, her thoughts whirring.

  What exactly did he mean by everything? He meant the kind of love he said he’d always wanted but didn’t believe in. He meant forever.

  Or, a little demon in her heart suggested, he meant to let her down with the least amount of pain.

  Which was it? Well, there was only one way to find out.

  She stepped out of the water, realizing how breathless she was as she dried and wrapped the towel around herself to face her moment of truth.

  She turned the knob and opened the bathroom door, peering into the dark and empty room. Walking toward the bed, she noticed the open, partially packed duffel bag again. One foot out the door before they’d even talked.

  No, no. She tamped down that thought, determined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’d been redeployed. She didn’t even know. Just as she was about to call his name, a scuff and a sigh from the patio caught her attention.

  She spied him standing in the moon shadows, dressed in baggy shorts now, his hands in the pockets as he stared out toward the water of Barefoot Bay.

  She took a long moment to drink him in, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness until she could see his profile, his shoulders, his chest rise and fall with another sad, deep sigh.