Off the Coast of Hawaii Near Midway Island

Charlie painstakingly followed the line of the door, being careful not to do any damage to the body of the pilot inside. Pretty blue and yellow fish darted around her as she worked, this time in scuba gear. She was currently in the South Pacific, not far from the famous little island of Midway, where one of the defining battles of World War II took place, changing the tide of war to the American side.

These men deserved to be recovered and laid to rest. A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed to push it back down. She was still getting over it. Getting over him.

Blue. Ocean Beckett.

She had to stop because her mask was fogging, and her hands were shaking.

She wasn’t there yet. She blinked to clear her eyes, focusing once again on the job. Would she ever get there?

After all that they had shared, after everything they had done for each other, after all the rules they’d broken and the personal sacrifices they had made… She turned off the torch, and Steve said through the comm, “You okay, ace?”

She pushed back her tears and turned on the torch again. “I’m good, partner.” She finished the job, and very carefully, with reverence, they removed the remains of Airman Walter Osgood, Captain in the Army Air Forces who had flown in defense of the United States of America back in 1942 just before the Battle of Midway.

After they surfaced, and the body was taken from them, Charlie sat on the deck, staring out to sea. Steve sat down next to her. “What’s up? You look like shit, and I know something is heavy on your mind. Best to sort that before we go down again. Don’t you have some leave coming to you?”

She looked down at the bottle of water he’d placed in her hands. “I’ve been in the navy for a long time. You know what happened to my family.”

“Sure, I do.”

“Well, I consider the navy my family. They rescued me out of the ocean. I thought I was going to die out in the water like my dad, mom, and sister. My body floating to feed the fishes, and no one would ever miss me.” Her throat got tight. “There wasn’t anyone left to even care enough to search.”

“Aw, Coventry. You get me every time, kid. So what’s eating at you? The Navy SEAL…Blue?”

She unscrewed the top of the bottle and took a drink, looking away without answering.

“That’s a yes,” he said, taking a gulp of his own.

She sighed and closed her eyes. “The navy is everything to me. I don’t know what would have happened to me if that ship hadn’t discovered me.”

“You think you owe the navy your loyalty.” He laughed and shrugged. “It’s true. We do feel connected to what we do and who we do it with. But in this case, ace, you’re scared shitless to go after what you want here.”

She grimaced and gave him a sidelong glance. “You have such a way of cutting through my bullshit, partner.”

He laughed again. “Look, the navy can be your family, but sweetie, it ain’t going to keep you warm at night, wrap its arms around you when you need a hug, and give you children when you’re ready. Can the SEAL do all that?”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. God, she missed him every stinking second of every freaking day.

She looked at Steve, and he smiled at the expression on her face. “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.” He rose and chucked her under the chin. Go for what you want, ace.” The affection in his voice made her eyes tear. “You deserve it. This job is a job. Whatever you feel for it, that’s all it’s going to be at the end. But a man you love and who loves you…well, kid, that’s everything.”

Before she even realized what she was going to do, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tight. His arms went around here. “Thank you, Steve, for being there for me. My dad would have been proud to have such a man fill in for him. You’ve done that for me, and I just wanted you to know.”

He patted her back awkwardly and chuckled. “It’s been an honor and privilege, Charlie.” Someone called his name and they separated. She kissed him on his bristly cheek and he smiled at her. Then he rose. “Go get what you want, Charlie. Everything else is just not important.”

She remembered with quiet clarity one of her reoccurring dreams. The one where she was flotsam in the ocean, carried across the vast waves and swells, up and down without purpose, a prisoner of the currents. There was no way for her to navigate to go anywhere except where the water demanded. It terrified her so badly because she sometimes felt the need to hold onto something solid, so she would be anchored, so she couldn’t be carried under and disappear as if she’d never existed.

The navy had been her anchor. When her parents and sister had died, floating away from her on the currents like flotsam caught in the power of wind and tide, her loss had been so complete, she wasn’t sure she would even survive the agony or the fear. But then they’d come. Those wonderful sailors who had pulled her from the water, taken care of her, kept in touch with her and made her their honorary swabbie. They had taught her everything she knew, and they had given her what she needed, her first real home, a place where she belonged, and, in time, recognition and respectability. She was no longer flotsam. She belonged to something powerful and vital. She was a navy diver with a decorated career, a person with roots and self-esteem.

But Ocean “Blue” Beckett was her nemesis. He had been, right from the very first. He had tempted her and teased her and taught her how to swim with the sharks. She wanted a life with him more than anything, but she was afraid to let go. He thought it was because she didn’t trust him—and maybe, on one level, she hadn’t. Maybe she was afraid he would disappear like her family had, and she would be caught bobbing with no anchor, lost forever.

Looking back out to sea, Charlie wiped her face and stared blindly at the great expanse of her “office,” every barrier she had ever erected in pieces at her feet. She had convinced herself that she couldn’t handle any change because she owed the navy everything. But that had been her protective cover, her excuse, something to hide behind.

She couldn’t use that as an excuse any longer. She had kept her heart guarded because she was afraid of exposing it to the kind of love Blue had offered her. Unconditional, beautiful, theirs and only theirs.

Now all she could see was Blue’s transformation from the damaged man he had been to the confident man she’d helped him to find inside. Helped him see past his shame and humiliation to his courage and defiance, to his resistance to the twisted coercion. Helped him sort out his parents’ well-meaning disregard for him and his word, his need for justice and how that buried wound to his honor had started the damage that had almost destroyed him.

Her chest expanded, and the tears she’d been holding back for weeks slid down her cheeks. As the boat docked, she swiped at them with nothing but understanding in her. She’d worked through the anger, overcome the bitterness, and now…now the fear was gone.

She gathered her gear and walked down the gangplank, preoccupied with what she wanted to do. She stopped to adjust her backpack, and someone touched her shoulder. It was Steve. “Looks like your boy had the same idea.”

Her head snapped up. She drew a deep, stabilizing breath, her heart squeezing so hard she thought she was going to faint. Suddenly face-to-face with the man she desperately wanted to talk to, her body moved seemingly of his own accord. Her running feet tapped on the metal. He stood just to the side of the path of exiting personnel. He looked completely exhausted. He had on a pair of jeans and a dark blue T-shirt with NAVY in yellow across the front, a wrinkled yellow shirt, loose and unbuttoned. He had that dark, dangerous gunslinger look, his jaw rigid and unshaven. On the surface, he looked as hard as nails and almost threatening, but the expression on his face eased as she raced toward him. His eyes were so open. After launching herself at him, she hit him, their bodies colliding just as their souls had already done. She had just been too blind and scared to see it.

After the hardest hug on the planet, he released her enough to look down into her face. There was a deep-seated fear there, and it wasn’t until this moment that she realized how badly she had hurt him. A sick feeling of guilt washed through her, and she swallowed hard, unable to look away.

“Charlie,” he whispered, his chest heaving, “Tell me what to do? Leave the SEALs, travel, make promises, get on my knees, beg…anything. I’ve tried, but I can’t live without you. I don’t want to.”

She tossed her bag down, a fierce protective feeling washing over her like a tidal wave. She pressed her face against him and tightened her hold, her throat clogged with tears. It tore her to shreds, knowing she had hurt him so badly, but here he was spilling his heart to her, showing her that he was the most courageous man she’d ever met.

He tensed, not sure even now which way she was going to go, and Charlie touched his mouth again, her fingers trembling. “Oh, Ocean, I’ve been so scared for so long,” she said, trying to explain past the awful cramp in her throat. “I just kept thinking things couldn’t change. I’ve only known the navy. They were my family, all I thought I needed. Safe.”

Blue continued to give her his full attention, that hope that had blossomed only moments ago getting stronger.

“But as much as I’ve put my trust in them, and I’ve felt completely comfortable, I realized only a few minutes ago that I’ve harbored this terrible fear that I couldn’t have love and the navy and make it work. That I was undeserving of you. I’ve never trusted a man before…until you. I thought it was going to make everything complicated, our jobs, jobs we both love. The navy we both love and serving our country is so ingrained in us that it’s hard to separate who we are without it.

“But all of it was nothing but an excuse to protect myself against feeling again, getting hurt. You deserve my full trust, everything I have to give. I wasn’t sure I had the courage.”

“And now?” he whispered as if he couldn’t bear for her to turn away from him again, his gaunt face filled with hope, his eyes never leaving hers. Regret rushing through her, she touched his mouth, her tears warm against her cheek.

“I was that kid looking for my family, not realizing I had found it in the navy and in…you. I’m sorry, Blue,” she whispered brokenly. “So sorry.” With love infusing every bone in her body, every pore, every line and curve, she said, “I love you, Ocean. I love you beyond measure.”

He closed his eyes as his arms came around her in a desperate, crushing embrace. Holding onto him with every ounce of strength she had, she turned her face against his neck and choked back a sob. She waited for the awful ache to ease, then she hugged him, closing her eyes tight against the swell of tears.

“God, I can’t live without you either.”

Caving in around her, Blue tightened his hold and tucked his head against hers, and she felt him release a pent-up breath. Experiencing such a wealth of love for him, she cradled his head against her, giving him what comfort she could, her relief nearly as wrenching as his. He came here for her, and right then, that was all that mattered.

Releasing a ragged sigh, he lifted his head and loosened his hold, kissing her temple. She gently smoothed over his short hair as he rested his forehead against hers. For one awful moment, she realized what she had stupidly thought she should give up, how she would have lost him. She could feel him trying to pull himself together. She cupped the back of his neck, gently stroking him, and he released another unsteady sigh and shifted his hold. She heard him swallow, then he raised his head and met her searching gaze, his eyes so full of the love she knew was in her own.

He shifted his gaze and tucked a strand of hair that had escaped her now messy ponytail. It always happened when she dived. “Are you free now?”

Her throat suddenly tight, she smoothed her hand across his ravaged face. “Yes, I’m off-duty now. You have something in mind?”

He started to speak; then he abruptly looked away, and she could see the glimmer of moisture in his eyes. Her eyes burning, she lowered her head and grabbed the side of his shirt, needing that connection with him.

Shifting his hold, Blue caught her along the jaw and tried to raise her head, but she resisted, not wanting him to see the tears in her eyes. He rubbed her chin with his thumb, his voice very husky, very soft when he spoke. “Yeah, I got something in mind.” He covered her hands, holding them still against his chest. “Come make love with me.”

Her throat cramped hard, and she closed her eyes and rested her head against his, struggling against the swell of emotion. “That sounds just wonderful,” she whispered. “So wonderful.”

He bowed his head, but Charlie saw how hard he was fighting to keep from losing it, and she refused to let him go. She drew his head down against her shoulder, and he tightened his arms around her. She waited until she felt him take a steadying breath, then she gently eased away and took his hand in hers.

All she cared about was getting him out of there. He looked so exhausted and ravaged. He didn’t say anything on the ride to a beautiful hotel she passed often on her way from their quarters. He sat with his head resting and his eyes closed, dark stubble accentuating the hard set of his jaw. His stillness was complete except for the hand resting on her inner thigh. That physical connection was everything to her.

There was only a faint aura of light remaining on the western horizon when she pulled into the parking lot. She did all the work of getting them a room. She led the way up the stairs, but when she turned around, he wasn’t behind her.

Alarmed, she went back down and found him leaning against the railing, his eyes closed, and even in the faint light she could tell that he was exhausted, both mentally and physically. Her vision blurring, Charlie went to him, something painful happening to her when she saw how overcome he was.

She slid her arm around his waist. “Come on, baby Blue. Let’s get you into bed.”

For a moment, he looked up at her, his face impassive, then without warning, he pulled her into his arms, flush against his chest. Without any effort, he carried her up the rest of the stairs, stood there while she unlocked the door. He carried her inside and then released her legs, letting her slide down every inch of his hard, aroused body.

He took his time taking her clothes off while she stripped him of his, baring his incredible form. Cupping the side of his face, she tipped her head and pressed a kiss to his wide, muscled chest, licking over his nipple and making him groan. She looked down at the raised scars that marked his groin and shaft, knowing that he no longer needed to hide from her, his shame banished and his honor restored.

He back-walked her toward the bed, then folded down with her, his heavy, warm body enveloping her as he pulled her beneath him, his weight braced on his forearms. As he hugged her against him, he murmured, “I need you, Charlie. I need to make love to you.”

Shaken to the core by the agony of need in his voice, her body primed for the feel of him, she clutched at him, rubbing her wet heat against him. “I’ve so needed to hear that, babe,” she whispered, her voice fracturing from the frenzy of hot, surging desire.

Blue roughly tightened his hold and made a low sound, and Charlie arched her back and lifted her pelvis. There was no need for dominant and submissive here. He went rigid in her arms, another low, ragged sound wrenched from him as he entered her in one thrust.

There was no room for gentleness or patience. There was only room for urgency and a fever of need—and greed, a driving, desperate, frantic greed that consumed them, drove them, carried them to the very edge of an emotional precipice. Then Blue clutched her and drove into her one final time. The blackness exploded into splintering shards of silver, then all the pieces of them settled into place in the brightness of that blinding release that took them both under, completely, blissfully two parts of the same whole.