His date-who-wasn’t-a-date was a little tipsy. She wasn’t precisely drunk—she had only had two and a half mojitos over the past two hours—but he could tell she had let down some of her barriers and seemed more soft and relaxed than he’d seen her since he’d come back to town.
She yawned in the middle of a conversation about which band she preferred—Tiffany’s, obviously—and he smiled a little. “We should probably get you home. It’s late.”
“I don’t want to go home,” she declared with a hint of defiance in her voice. “It’s too quiet there.”
The bar didn’t close for another hour, but without the live music it had lost most of its appeal for him. Other than The Haystacks, the options for late-night entertainment in Cannon Beach weren’t exactly what anyone could call extensive.
“I guess you’re right, though,” she said with a sigh. “We can’t stay here all night.”
She rose and started gathering her purse and the jacket she had brought along. She walked out to his dad’s SUV with her usual elegant grace, but stumbled a bit when she reached to open the door.
“Here. Let me,” he said.
She gave him a broad smile, another hint that she might not be completely sober. “You’re just as sweet as your father. Don’t tell him I said so.”
“I won’t,” he promised. He made sure she had her seat belt on securely before walking around the vehicle, climbing in and starting it up.
“Oh, look at that dog,” she exclaimed as they passed a late-night dog walker with a large yellow Lab on a leash. “I wish I had a dog. Too bad I can’t borrow Fiona, but Rosa took her with her out of town. Everyone is gone.”
She seemed genuinely sad, but that might have been the mojitos talking.
“Do you want to borrow Max for the night? I’m sure he would be happy to have a sleepover.”
She leaned back in the leather seat. “Maybe.” She closed her eyes. “He’s so cute. He can sleep on the floor by my bed and warn me if any bad guys come around.”
He had to smile a little at that and hope he didn’t fall into that category. “He can be pretty fierce.”
“That’s what I need. A fierce dog like Max to protect me.”
The idea of telling her he thought she needed a worn-out army doctor sounded ridiculous so he said nothing. “I’ll stop at my dad’s place and grab Max for you, and I can swing by in the morning to pick him up. Does that work?”
“You are the best boss ever. I mean it. The best!”
He couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. For some reason, she gazed at him, an arrested expression on her features.
“I wish you would do that more often,” she said.
“What?” The word seemed to hang between them, shimmering on the air.
“Laugh. I like it so much.”
He caught his breath, aware of a strange tug, a softness lodged somewhere under his breastbone. This was dangerous territory, indeed. This woman threatened him in ways he wasn’t at all prepared to handle.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he murmured.
She smiled and closed her eyes, leaning against the leather seat back. A few moments later she was asleep, her hands tucked under her cheek like a child’s.
At a stoplight, he looked over, captivated by her. In some ways, she resembled the sweet-faced cheerleader he’d had a thing for back in the day, but he could see now that was an illusion. She was so much more. She had grown into a woman of character and substance, her world changed and shaped by life.
At his father’s house, he paused in the driveway for a moment, wondering if it was a stupid idea to loan her Max for the night. She would be fine without him and might find the dog more trouble than he was worth. But Eli had promised. If she would find some solace and comfort from having another creature in the house, Eli wasn’t about to stand in the way.
As for Max, the dog would probably treat the whole thing as a fun adventure. He’d been at loose ends with Wendell in the rehab center and would probably enjoy being needed again.
Max trotted up to him as soon as Eli walked inside, making it an easy matter to scoop up the schnauzer, his food and water bowls, his leash and his favorite blanket. He carried all of it back to his dad’s vehicle.
Melissa was still asleep, her breathing soft and measured. After another moment’s hesitation, he set the dog and all his comfort supplies on the back seat, then reversed out of the driveway to head the short distance up the hill to Brambleberry House.
If anything, Melissa seemed to have fallen more deeply asleep, snuggling into the leather of the seat. He turned off the engine, reluctant to wake her. He could see Max was snoring away in the back seat, too. Apparently, Eli’s company wasn’t very scintillating to anyone.
He smiled ruefully and sat for a moment in the stillness of the vehicle. The rest of the world seemed far away right now, as if the two of them and Max were alone here in this quiet, cozy little haven.
Outside the windows, he could see the glitter of stars overhead and the lights of Arch Cape to the south, twinkling against the darkness. A strange, unexpected sense of peace seemed to settle over him like a light, warm mist.
The night was lovely, the sound of waves soothing and familiar. Little by little, he could feel the tension in his shoulders and spine begin to ease.
This...
This was the calm he had been yearning to find since he returned to town. How odd, that he would discover it here in his father’s vehicle with a snoring dog in the back seat and a beautiful sleeping woman in the front.
He wasn’t going to argue with it. He was just going to soak it in while he had the chance.
Eli closed his eyes, feeling more tension trickle away. He hadn’t even realized how tightly wound he had been, yet he found something unbelievably comforting about being here with her. He couldn’t have explained it; he only knew she soothed something inside him that had been restless and angry for months and allowed him to set down the twin burdens of guilt and grief for a moment.
Like Max and Melissa, there was a chance he may have fallen asleep, too. He didn’t intend to, but the day had been a long one and he felt so very relaxed here beside her.
He awoke sometime later, disoriented and stiff from the uncomfortable position.
Something was different. He opened his eyes and realized with some degree of wonder that she was in his arms.
How had that happened? He hadn’t moved, was still behind the wheel, but now he held a woman against him. Her arms were around him, her head resting in the crook of his elbow, and he cradled her against him like a child.
He looked down at her lovely features, tucked against his chest, and was astonished at how absolutely right she felt in his arms.
No. This wasn’t right at all. Hadn’t he been telling himself all night how he couldn’t be the kind of man she needed?
None of that seemed to matter, not here in the darkness. Here, he could admit the truth he had been running from since he’d returned to town.
He was falling for her.
More accurately, he supposed, he was finally allowing himself to acknowledge that he had fallen for her a long time ago and simply had been biding his time, waiting for life and circumstances to bring them together again.
He didn’t want to admit it, even to himself. What good would it do? There was no happy-ever-after in the stars for them. He had obligations elsewhere.
His heart ached at knowing this was all they could ever have, these few stolen moments together in his father’s SUV in the darkness while the waves pounded relentlessly against the sand.
He wasn’t sure if his sudden tension communicated itself to her or if he made some sound or perhaps the dog did, but she began to stir in his arms. She opened her eyes, and for one startling moment there was a blazing joy in her expression, as if she were exactly where she wanted to be, then she seemed to blink a few times and the expression was replaced with confusion and uncertainty.
“Eli. Wh-what are you doing here?” She sat up a little and pulled back to the passenger side of the vehicle, hands in her hair. “What am I doing here?”
“We went to see Puddle of Love, remember? Then we stayed for the next group and the next, and there’s a chance you may have had a little too much to drink. You fell asleep as I was driving you home. I waited in the driveway for you to wake up but I must have fallen asleep, as well.”
She looked out the window, where a light, misty rain had started to fall.
“Okay. That’s embarrassing.”
“For you or for me? You at least had a moderate degree of alcohol consumption for an excuse. I had one beer all night.”
She looked around. “Alcohol or not, I’m still not sure what we’re doing here in your SUV in the middle of the night. And how did Max get here?”
Quite clearly, he was the one who should be embarrassed about the situation. “You, uh, didn’t want to sleep alone tonight so I offered to bring Max up to stay with you.”
She shook her head, massaging her forehead. “Well, that will go down in history as one of the most awkward episodes I’ve ever had with a coworker.”
She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “Is it really after one?”
“Yes. If it’s any consolation, I think we only dozed off for an hour or so.”
“I should probably go inside. Either that or go down to the beach and dig a giant hole in the sand to climb into.”
“You have no reason to be embarrassed, Melissa. Seriously. It was kind of sweet, actually.”
He shouldn’t have said that. He knew it the moment the words were out. She gazed at him, her blond curls tousled and her eyes soft and her mouth parted slightly. It was all he could do not to yank her back into his arms.
“I’ll walk you in,” he said, a little more gruffly than he intended.
“Thanks.”
“Would you still like Max to stay with you for the night? I can take him home if you’d rather not bother.”
She looked at the dog in the back seat, who was beaming at her with that goofy look of his. “I’d like to say no, but I would actually appreciate his company. Having him here might help the house not feel as empty.”
He opened the rear door for Max, and the dog trotted up the sidewalk as if he owned the place. Eli grabbed Max’s blanket, leash and bowls.
As they walked toward the house, she pulled out her key. “I’m suddenly starving. Are you hungry? I’ve got stuff on hand to make an omelet, if you want.”
He was torn between his conviction that it wasn’t a very good idea to spend more time with her and his overwhelming desire to do exactly that.
As if to seal the deal, his stomach suddenly growled and he realized dinner had been hours ago, before he picked her up to go to The Haystacks. He had nibbled a bit on bar snacks, but apparently that wasn’t enough.
“There you go,” she said with a winsome smile. “Come in.”
“I can grab a sandwich at home.”
“I’m not super talented in the kitchen, but I do make a mean omelet. They’re kind of a specialty of mine. Come on. It’s the least I can do, after you were kind enough to let me sleep in your car.”
It would be rude to refuse, he told himself. Plus, he wanted to make sure she would be okay on her own without her daughter.
“An omelet does sound good right now.”
She smiled and unlocked the door. “It will hit the spot. Trust me.”
He did. He trusted her more than any woman in a long time.
The question was, did he trust himself?
* * *
What had seemed like a brilliant idea while the two of them were standing outside on her porch suddenly lost a great deal of its shine once they walked inside her apartment.
Melissa was having a hard enough time resisting the man. Sharing late-night snacks alone in her kitchen when there was a chance she might still be slightly buzzed could very well be more temptation than she could resist.
She was still trying to deal with how perfect it had seemed to wake up in his arms. She had felt safe and warm and cared for, though she knew that was ridiculous. How had she ended up there? She still wasn’t quite sure. He had explained that she had fallen asleep in the vehicle on the way home from the tavern, but that didn’t really explain how she had gone from sitting on her side of the vehicle to being cradled so tenderly in his arms.
Had she snored? Drooled? Done anything else completely mortifying? She had no idea. She also didn’t understand how he had let her keep sleeping when he could have awakened her the moment he pulled up outside Brambleberry House. Why hadn’t he just honked the horn or shouted in her ear? He could have just opened the door and pushed her out, for that matter.
Still, waking up in his arms had felt completely right, somehow.
She was falling for him and she had no idea what to do about it. She knew perfectly well it would only end up in heartbreak for her. He had made it clear he was leaving at the first opportunity. Under other circumstances, she might have followed after him and used her own skills to help those in need.
That was utterly impossible at this stage of her life. She had a daughter. They were settling into life here in Oregon. She didn’t have the freedom to let herself fall for someone whose heart was somewhere else. Been there, done that.
She swallowed. She had invited him for an omelet, which was the least she could do after he had been so sweet about trying to distract her from being upset about Skye spending the night with her father.
So she had slept in his arms for a few moments and had awakened with a powerful urge to kiss the dark shadow of his jaw and pull his mouth to hers. She hadn’t done that, which meant she had more self-control than she gave herself credit.
She only had to keep her hands off him for the ten minutes it would take her to fix him an omelet and the ten minutes it would take him to eat it. She could handle that.
She led the way into the kitchen, flipping on lights as she went, and quickly tied on an apron.
“This won’t take long,” she promised him.
“I can help.”
“There’s not much to do. I suppose you could cut the peppers while I do the onions.”
“Sure.”
She pulled a green pepper out of the refrigerator, pointed him to the cutting board and handed him a knife, then put on the food-grade gloves she used so onion juice didn’t seep into her skin.
After sniffing around it, Max settled into the corner on the pillow Skye kept there for Fiona’s visits, and a comfortable silence filled the kitchen, broken only by the sounds of chopping.
She was the first to break it.
“Who is Miri?”
His knife came down hard on the cutting board, and if she hadn’t been watching him she might have missed the sudden bleak look that he quickly blinked away.
“How do you...know about Miri?”
“I’m not sure. I think you may have said her name in your sleep. I thought maybe I’d dreamed it, but obviously not.”
He let out a breath and then another, and she could tell the question had upset him.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I was only curious. You don’t have to tell me.”
He turned his attention to briskly cutting the peppers. Any smaller and they would disappear in the omelet. After a moment, she took them from him and added them along with her chopped onions to the sizzling oil in the omelet pan.
The smells made her mouth water even as her attention remained focused on him.
“I told you about Justine the other day.”
“Your doctor friend who died in the suicide bombing. Or was she more than a friend?”
“I’m not sure what we were,” he admitted, confirming her suspicion. “We had dated a few times, if you can call it dating when you’re in a war zone, surrounded by people facing starvation and violence.”
“You said she was there with Doctors without Borders. What was your role? Can you talk about it?”
He hesitated for a moment, and she wondered if she had overstepped, then he spoke. “For the last twelve months, I’ve been deployed to the Middle East, providing medical care in various refugee camps and setting up clinics in small struggling villages trying to recover from decades of unrest.”
“Not an easy task.”
“I’ve been deployed most of the last five years. After the first tour, I asked to go back. It had its challenges but there were many rewards. These are courageous people who have already lost so much, facing truly horrible circumstances.”
Every time she heard about people living in rough conditions like Eli was talking about, Melissa regretted her propensity to feel sorry that her life hadn’t turned out the way she’d planned. She had so many amazing things in her world. She had a job she loved, good friends, a great apartment next to one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. No, things weren’t perfect, but on the whole, her life was extraordinary.
“We were trying to improve conditions,” Eli said. “I like to think we were making progress. Justine was absolutely dedicated to the cause and was a real inspiration to everyone.”
Features pensive, Eli pulled Max onto his lap and scratched the schnauzer beneath his chin. “As you can imagine, the camp had more than its share of orphaned children.”
“How sad.” She didn’t like thinking about children who had no one to love them.
“There was one in particular who always wanted to help the aid workers. She used to ask to sweep the floor of the medical clinic.”
“Miri.”
“Yes. She was about seven or eight, the sweetest girl, with a huge smile.”
He let out a soft, tortured sigh. “Everyone in the camp watched over her, but she and Justine had a special bond. Miri used to bring her little bouquets of flowery weeds or pretty rocks she’d found. Justine wanted to adopt her, take her back to France with her, and was trying to put the wheels in motion.”
She wanted to say how wonderful that such sweetness could survive the horrors of war, but she sensed she didn’t want to hear what was coming next. She could see by the tension in his shoulders and the way he gripped his hands tightly together that the rest of the story wasn’t as tender.
“What happened?”
She flipped the omelet, wishing she hadn’t asked any questions and started them down this grim road.
“One day, Justine asked me to go with her to a village about five or six kilometers away from the camp to help with a clinic for pregnant women and children. A routine trip, we both thought, something we’d done a dozen times in other villages. It was well within my mission as part of a PRT, Provincial Reconstruction Team, trying to help these war-torn areas rebuild.” He paused. “She thought it would be fun to take Miri with us. The girl was very good at putting villagers at ease and convincing them to trust us.”
He was silent, his eyes haunted by memories she couldn’t begin to guess at.
“I didn’t want to, but it made both of them happy so I relented. I liked to see them smile. Miri had started doing it more and more, especially when all three of us were together.”
“What happened?”
“It was market day and the area was busy. We didn’t stop working all morning and saw maybe twenty women, but then things began to slow down a little. I... Miri and Justine decided to walk to the market square to grab some lunch for us and look at some of the local goods on sale. I should have said no, that we should stick together. I’d been uneasy all day, feeling a weird energy.”
“Would Justine have stayed behind simply because you asked her to?”
He made a face. “Probably not. She was fiercely independent. If I had told her I had a weird feeling, she would have laughed at me and called me Monsieur Poule Mouillée.”
“Mr. Wet Hen,” she said, smiling at his quite excellent French accent. Hers wasn’t great, but she understood better than she could speak from studying it in school.
“I told myself I was imagining things. There was no potential threat. Why would there be? We were aid workers. I stayed behind at the clinic and didn’t go with them because I was too busy showering all my knowledge on the village’s young, inexperienced midwife. I had just about run out of things to yammer on about when we heard the blast.”
“Oh, Eli.”
His features were grim. “Apparently, there were still opposition forces in the area angry that the leadership of this village would accept foreign aid workers. They killed fifteen villagers at a peaceful market square for no reason, along with a sweet orphan girl who only wanted to help.”
“Miri,” she whispered, heart aching for the devastation she heard in his voice.
“She died instantly. Justine was conscious and in agony for only a moment after I arrived on scene. I tried to stabilize her, but she’d lost too much blood and the shock was too great. She went into cardiac arrest. I told you I did CPR while we tried to call for help but... It was too late. I couldn’t save either of them.”
She had no words, nothing that could comfort this sort of deep pain.
“Miri was only a girl, with a future that was much brighter than it had been a few months earlier, before Justine came into her life. I hate knowing that future was wiped out because of me.”
“Why do you blame yourself?”
“I could have made other choices. I shouldn’t have let them go into the market alone. I should have been with them. We should have taken more protection with us.”
“Could any of those things have stopped what happened?”
He looked helplessly at her and she knew the answer. No. He would have been a target, too.
She removed the omelet from the stove to a plate, choosing her words with care. “You can’t blame yourself, Eli. You didn’t plant the explosives and you couldn’t have known someone else would. You were there to help people.”
“I know that intellectually. Convincing my emotions isn’t quite as easy.”
The torment on his features broke her heart. She was a nurse, driven to ease suffering where she saw it, and she hated knowing she couldn’t help him.
She couldn’t resist going to him and wrapping her arms around his waist. She wanted to tell him not to blame himself, that she understood he had been there to help others and he couldn’t hold himself responsible for the evil actions of a few, but she knew that would be cold comfort.
Still, something in her touch must have calmed him, as she hoped. After a few moments, she felt some of the tension in his muscles seep away. He returned her hug with a grateful embrace before he stepped away.
“I’m sorry. I keep thinking I’ve dealt with it. It was six months ago and most of the time I’m fine. Every once in a while, I let down my guard and the memories wash over me like a flash flood.”
“I’m glad I was here to keep them from drowning you.”
“So am I.” He gestured to the table. “But I hate to waste a good omelet, especially when you’ve gone to all the trouble to make it. Should we eat?”
For all the sadness of his story, she found the meal surprisingly restful. They spoke of mutual acquaintances and some of the changes that had come over the town in the years since both of them had lived here. She didn’t want their time together to end, but the long day finally caught up with her and she couldn’t hold back a yawn.
He glanced at his watch, shook his head and rose. “I should go. It’s nearly two. Thank you for the omelet and the evening. I enjoyed both.”
“Thank you. I forgot all about missing Skye.”
He shrugged into his jacket and headed for the door. She walked him there, with Max trotting at their heels.
“If you want to take Max home with you, I should be okay. I feel silly I was ever worried about being alone. This house just feels so big when I’m the only one here, especially when I know Sonia and Rosa aren’t in town.”
“Keep him until Skye gets home, if you want. He’s good company. To be honest, you’re better company to him than I will probably be. He’s been lonely, I’m afraid. I think he misses my dad. And I’ll be at the rehab center most of the day, so he would be alone otherwise.”
He planned to spend his Sunday with his father, which filled her with a soft tenderness. “You’re a very sweet man, Eli.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why? Because I have a good relationship with my dad?”
“You care. Too many people who have been through what you have would harden their soul against letting in any kind of softer feelings, but you haven’t. You care about your father, you cared about Jim the other day on the beach, you care about our patients and about your refugee patients thousands of miles away.”
She had to kiss him. Though she knew it was potentially dangerous, she couldn’t resist rising on her tiptoes and pressing her mouth to his.
He remained frozen for one breathless moment, and then he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her as she realized both of them had been craving all night.
It was raw and hot, his mouth searching hers, his body pressed against her. She realized as his arms tightened around her that she had been fooling herself. She hadn’t kissed him out of tenderness or empathy but because she had been craving his kiss since those magical moments the day before, outside the beach gate.
She made a soft sound and wrapped her arms around his neck, her mouth angled to allow him better access. Her breasts ached where they were pressed against him. Everything ached.
His mouth was urgent and demanding on hers, and the hunger in it aroused her.
He wanted her.
She didn’t need to feel the hard nudge of his arousal against her to sense it in his hands and his mouth and his body. They were alone in the house. She could take him by the hand and tug him into her bedroom, and they could spend the rest of this rainy, misty night wrapped together, pushing away the shadows.
The temptation consumed her. How easy it would be to take that step. It had been so very long since she had felt wanted and needed and cherished like this.
And then what? If she and Eli spent the night together, where would that leave them? He was still committed to leaving. He had just told her all his reasons for it. He was driven to continue the work he had been doing, providing medical care to people in need. She understood now that he was motivated by a complicated tangle of guilt and grief and obligation. She also understood that she would be a fool to think she would be enough to keep him here.
Her heart would be broken. Just like her marriage—which she had known even as she was saying I do was a mistake that never should have happened—it would be her own stupid fault.
One the best ways she had found to discipline Skye on the rare occasions her daughter misbehaved was to redirect, to encourage her to make a better choice. Those words, make a better choice, were often all she needed to say when Skye was throwing one of her rare tantrums or doing something Melissa had told her not to do.
She needed to listen to her own advice to her daughter. She had no hope of creating happiness in life if she made choices she knew from the outset would only lead to heartbreak and pain.
She couldn’t make love with him, as much as she ached to feel his arms around her all night long, to learn all his secrets and explore that delicious body.
It would leave her too vulnerable. She was already half in love with the man. Spending what was left of the night together would push her headlong the rest of the way.
She had entrusted her heart and her life to one man who put something else ahead of her. Fixing her mistake had cost her dearly, and her child would pay the price for that the rest of her life, forever separated from one parent or the other through the tangled maze of custody and visitations.
She couldn’t wander blindly into a similar situation. When he walked away to return to the military and the life that gave him such purpose and meaning, Melissa was very much afraid she would never put back together the pieces of her shattered heart.
She didn’t want to end the kiss. She wanted to stay right here forever, with his warm, sexy mouth teasing out all her secrets. Just a few more moments...
He was finally the one who broke the embrace. He eased his mouth away and rested his forehead against hers.
She thought she smelled roses again, but this time the scent was wistful and almost sad.
“Didn’t we say we weren’t going to do this again?” he said, his forehead pressed to hers.
She wanted to make some smart response but couldn’t think of anything. “Kisses don’t count in the middle of the night.”
“I think that’s when they count the most.”
After a moment, he stepped away, eyes haunted with regret. “I need to go, before I forget all the reasons why I can’t stay.”
Her chest ached and she wished with all her heart that things could be different, that she could be the woman for him.
“What about Max?” he asked.
Already the house seemed to echo with emptiness. For all that the ghosts of Brambleberry House seemed friendly enough, she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to face them alone tonight. “He’s here and he seems comfortable enough. If you don’t mind, I’ll keep him overnight.”
“No problem.”
He looked as if he had other things he wanted to say, but Eli finally headed for the door. When he opened it, Melissa saw the light rain of earlier had turned into a steady downpour. It matched her sudden mood—dank, dark, dismal.
“Good night,” he said with one last, backward look that seemed filled with regret.
Was he regretting that he had to leave?
Or regretting that they both knew he couldn’t stay?
After he walked out into the night, Melissa locked the door behind him, then went through her apartment turning off lights, grateful for Max’s company as he followed along behind her.
Her heart ached as she thought of the story Eli had told and the sadness behind it. He must have cared about the woman very much to shoulder such a burden six months later. This Justine person must have been remarkable. Not the kind of woman who basically fell apart simply because her daughter was spending the night with her father.
She had learned to be tough after the divorce, and she needed to call on that strength. Something told her she would need all the courage she could find after Eli left Cannon Beach once more.