Chapter Thirteen
Every time Claire turned around, Nate seemed to be scowling at her.
Dipping her brush into the can of paint sitting on the stepladder beside her, she applied it to the hull. By unspoken agreement they’d moved to opposite ends to paint, but eventually they’d have to meet in the middle. Hopefully, by then he’d have found some perspective.
She’d woken this morning determined to think of him as a friend only, and his disapproval had made it easy. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he was uncomfortable with the idea of her dating. And that annoyed the hell out of her.
She’d had to rebuild her life one day at a time. And she’d done it. Stepping out alone had been terrifying; at times it was still terrifying.
The acrid paint fumes collected in her throat. Briefly she left her station to open the second roller door.
When she’d noticed his smirk at John’s flimsy attempts to impress her she’d been annoyed enough to say yes to the tradesman’s invitation. John was a nice man, trying his best to move forward after his wife’s death. He needed encouragement, though she’d emphasized that having coffee was a friendly gesture only.
Obviously, Nate required a reminder that it was her decision when she resumed a love life. And that was a lesson Claire was more than happy to deliver.
The breeze created by the through draft lifted the corner of a drop sheet.
“Careful,” Nate warned, but it had already flapped across the hull, leaving a streak in Claire’s new paintwork.
“Damn it!” She pinned the sheet with a paint can and glared at Nate, who had the sense to keep his mouth shut.
When the young mechanics had started flirting with her, she’d flirted back, assuaging the small core of hurt left by Nate’s dispassionate scan last night. His disapproving face had only made it more fun. Recalling it cheered her up. As she feathered out the streak, she picked up the tune Nate had been whistling earlier.
On the last chorus he joined in. “I’ve been a jerk,” he said.
“Yes, you have.” Claire swept the brush across a new section, leaving a bright swath of cobalt on the gray undercoat. “It felt like I was ripped in half when Steve died,” she said. “If it wasn’t for Lewis and Ellie needing me, I would have lain down on my bed and never got up. It’s taken a long time to get to the point where my life feels like it’s mine again. Where I’m excited about the future.”
She bent to refill her brush then covered the patches the first stroke had missed. “Maybe I’m not quite at the point of dating again, but I want to approach the process with an open mind.” She glanced sideways at Nate. “I don’t need you making it harder.”
“Fair comment,” he said in a low voice. “Just…be careful.”
“I will.”
They resumed painting, but Nate was still restless. She lowered her brush. “What!” Swear to God, one more crack—
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for you after Steve died.”
It was the last thing she’d expected. Claire took a few seconds to reply. “That’s okay,” she said. “It wasn’t something you could make better.”
Shaken, she wiped a spot of paint off her forearm with a solvent-soaked rag. Grief was a personal journey and everyone’s road to recovery was different. She was further along that road than Nate—and she was starting to understand why.
He was a protector. Even in his new persona he hadn’t given up looking after people, albeit a spoiled rock star. He did volunteer security for a women’s shelter. Safeguarding people was a primal need for him. That’s why he took Steve’s and Lee’s deaths so personally.
Realizing she was staring at him, she scrubbed at another paint splatter on her wrist.
Nate was punishing himself with exile because he hadn’t saved Lee in the ambush. But the odds of Nate’s finding him while an attack raged—and with a critically wounded Ross to save—were tiny. No one knew whether Lee survived the initial blast that threw him clear of the vehicle. Claire prayed not. Believing he’d been conscious, dying when the rebels strapped him with explosives was too terrible to contemplate.
She dropped the rag and moved her stepladder along to the next section of unpainted hull. Did Nate feel guilty because he’d survived and Steve—the family man—had died? It would explain why he didn’t want to see Lewis. In hindsight, telling Nate about her son’s troubles hadn’t helped. But not all Lewis’s delinquency could be attributed to being fatherless. Some of it came down to being a stroppy teenager.
Nate needed to see that.
And Ross was no longer the bitter disabled soldier Nate still believed him to be. He needed to see that, too. It wasn’t enough to tell him.
“I need some fresh air,” Claire said abruptly, putting down her brush.
His gaze searched her face. “You okay?”
“I will be.”
As always her mind settled as she took in the sweep of water narrowing as it wended its way out of sight into the bush-clad hills. Nate hadn’t found it easy seeing Ellie again, but it had been good for him, good for Steve’s mother. An old man fishing from the footbridge lifted his hand in a wave. Claire waved back. In this peaceful place, bound by tides, she could always see the big picture.
It was the big picture that helped her reach for her cell.
* * *
By late afternoon the following day they’d coated one side of the hull with the glossy blue paint and were nearly finished the second. It was a late-spring scorcher, heralding a hot summer. The iron roof creaked and groaned as it expanded in the sun, the corrugated sides absorbing the heat and releasing it inside.
The sinking sun streamed through the open roller doors and made the space even hotter. But the doors had to stay open to vent the fumes.
Claire peeled down her coveralls and tied the sleeves around her waist, working in a baby tee. She worked distracted, trying to remain positive by not dwelling on what she’d done yesterday. Her nervousness had grown as the day progressed and the moment of reckoning approached. She was standing at the roller doors, restirring the paint drum prior to refilling her can, when Nate put down his brush and removed his shirt. Rolling it into a ball, he tossed it out of splatter range and raised his arms in a spine stretch.
She blinked. A couple of nights ago there’d been tantalizing glimpses of his torso through the towel, but this…
With an effort, she resumed mixing. Unlike the young marine mechanics who’d flexed for her, Nate’s body reflected long years of Special Forces conditioning, with each muscle clearly defined under skin tanned honey by a Californian sun. He bent to pick up the brush and his torn jeans tightened over a muscular ass and solid thighs.
His brain calculating completion time, Nate stepped back to assess the finish of his section and decided he was pleased with it. The surface reflected like a mirror. He could even see Claire behind him, slowly stirring paint with a stick.
Her gaze drifted down his bare back, and up again, lingering on his shoulders, and he froze. Her teeth caught her lower lip and she seemed to shake herself, refocus on the mixing, before her eyes lifted, almost guiltily, for another scan. Nate’s breath caught, his groin tightened at the very feminine assessment. He didn’t know what to do, what to think. How to think.
If the surface hadn’t been wet, he’d steady himself against the hull. Instead, he concentrated on replenishing his brush. Okay, he’d imagined it. Some trick of the light. Or the fumes getting to him. As he lifted the brush, his gaze returned inexorably to her reflection. He clenched his teeth. Hell, Claire, you can’t go around looking at men like that. You’ll end up… Nate had a sudden vivid mental image of where she’d end up and stared at the paint dripping down the hull because he’d forgotten to stroke the excess out of the bristles.
Inwardly cursing, he feathered it out. Okay, Claire checking him out had nothing to do with him and everything to do with being celibate for nearly two years. That didn’t explain the sudden hopeful leap of his pulse.
He had to put a stop to this.
Nate turned, deliberately catching her in the act, his gaze challenging. Hers dropped, hot color flooded her cheeks. Yeah, that was better. Control. This wasn’t personal. It was just the male-female dynamic, his response a reflex.
Her lashes lifted, she met his eyes with a “got me” smile that held another element that years of friendship made easy to interpret.
Shy invitation. It punched Nate in the gut because her response was so intrinsically Claire. She’d always been courageous in her willingness to be vulnerable.
For a timeless moment he saw possibilities so bright that they blinded him. Saw everything he’d ever wanted, everything he’d believed beyond his reach. “When do you know you’ve found the right woman?” he’d once asked Steve. It had been after his breakup with Bree and he’d been dating women who ticked all the boxes but one. He couldn’t love them.
And his friend had answered, “When even the tough times with her are better than good times with any other woman.” The truth of that struck Nate now with blinding clarity.
His fingers tightened on the handle. Where was Claire’s judgment? He was the last man she should be attracted to. He’d run away when she’d needed him, been derelict in his trustee duties, in their friendship. She knew he was relationship trouble. He’d dumped one of her friends, for God’s sake.
And he’d left her husband to die alone.
He remembered Steve the last time he saw him, the anguish in his eyes—“Tell Claire I’m sorry.” Guilt jerked him back to reality. “Let me tell you another story about your husband.” It was Steve she had to love, Steve she had to forgive, and Steve who would always stand between them. They both needed a reminder of that.
There was a pregnant silence. “I’ll just refill my paint pot.”
When she returned to her end of the boat, he saw the flush of humiliation fading on her cheeks. Ruthlessly Nate closed his mind to her hurt.
He could live with her thinking him a cold bastard; he couldn’t live with her seeing him as worthy.
* * *
Claire resumed painting in an agony of embarrassment. She thought she’d seen a bounce-back of attraction when Nate caught her looking. Her encouragement had been instinctive, without considering consequences. Turned out she’d horribly misread the situation.
What must he think of her? Maybe she was overreacting, maybe Nate hadn’t understood her smile…. No, that was a faint hope. He’d understood and he’d shut her down. Now she experienced shame in front of him, as though she’d denigrated Steve’s memory. Except she hadn’t been thinking of Steve. Oh, God, she was so confused.
She wanted to talk about this, but what if that only made things worse? No, all she could do was minimize the humiliation. Gaze glued to the hull, she picked up her brush and cleared her throat. “What story do you have for me?” she managed to say casually. Now he wanted to talk about Steve. Another blush heated her cheeks.
“The one about how he nearly got us killed,” Nate said, and reflexively she glanced over. He was grimly intent on his painting. “It was the tour before last and we’d been driving thirty-six hours to a rendezvous point for pick-up. Steve drove into a ditch. Our vehicle ended up on its side, wheels spinning.”
Embarrassment turned to shock. “Was anyone hurt?”
“Scrapes and bruises, Steve had a mild concussion…nothing requiring an air-vac. One of the other vehicles winched us out.” He glanced over, but she wasn’t ready to meet his eyes yet.
“He’d lost concentration worrying about you dealing with the miscarriage alone. More bad news was the last thing you needed, so we all agreed you’d never find out.”
Nate paused, clearly waiting for a response, but her throat had tightened.
“Steve became like a machine after the accident,” he continued. “Didn’t matter what reassurances we gave, he couldn’t get past the fear of endangering our lives. I wonder—” Nate stopped.
Slowly she turned her head. “You wonder?”
“If he took the next deployment because he felt he still had restitution to make.”
Defending Steve. She loved and hated him for that. “I don’t believe he had any intention of quitting,” she said. “You know why? Because he didn’t tell you about our deal at the beginning of the tour. I even know why he didn’t tell you.”
His turn to avoid her eyes. Oh, yes, Nate knew, too. Claire said it anyway.
“Because he didn’t want you badgering him to do the right thing.” Blindly she set down the brush.
“Hell, Claire, don’t torture yourself.”
She found herself caught to a broad, bare chest and kept her arms rigidly by her sides, overwhelmed by an avalanche of conflicting emotions—sadness, anger, a resurgence of grief for Steve along with a dawning suspicion that her life was sweeping in a direction she hadn’t anticipated.
“I only told you about the accident to show how often you were in Steve’s thoughts.” Nate’s chest lay warm and smooth against her cheek, his rapid heartbeat at odds with the gentle stroking of fingers on her hair. Claire closed her eyes on a horrified revelation. Lust was bad enough, but this…not this.
She pushed free, shielding her face so he wouldn’t see her confusion. “I’m okay.”
His hand landed on her shoulder, tightened. “I figured if you knew how much Steve loved you…”
She’d forgive him. “I don’t doubt that Steve loved me,” she said, because one of them could be comforted. That didn’t fix everything, but Claire wasn’t going to go into it with the guy threatening to tilt her world on its axis.
If she ever fell in love again it would be with a man wholly unconnected to her past, to Steve, to the SAS. Not her husband’s best friend, not the guy still mourning him. The hand on her shoulder suddenly felt like a weight, a burden. She didn’t need these feelings, didn’t want them.
Suddenly his earlier rejection felt like a lucky escape.