CHAPTER 11
LIAM

 

The gunfire around me was heavy. My face was planted to the ground and the stench of urine filled my nostrils. I clawed my fingernails into the dirt, trying to get to the sound of someone screaming. I could feel my skin on fire while my blood chilled like ice. But then I tugged on my restraints and realized I couldn’t go anywhere.

I jerked awake when my phone started ringing. How in the world was a phone call getting through during weather like this? I picked up the phone and put it to my ear while sweat trickled down the back of my neck.

“Canter! My man. How are you?”

“Hey there, Paxton,” I said.

“Dude. You still asleep? It’s almost eleven in the morning.”

“What?” I asked.

I held my phone out and took a look at the time. Never in my life had I ever slept this late, not even when I was a teenager. My nightmare must’ve pulled me into a deep, dark recess because I could still feel my fingertips tingling from the residual phantom pains of that deployment.

“You good?” Paxton asked.

“Uh, yeah. I think.”

“Another nightmare?” he asked.

Paxton was the only person I’d ever mentioned them to and it wasn’t like we had drawn-out conversations about it. We talked long enough for me to figure out he was struggling with them, too. Then, that was that. Sometimes, we called each other when we woke up in the middle of the night but, since I’d been at the cabin, I’d kept to myself quite a bit.

“Good thing I called to check up on you,” he said. “Wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” I said, groaning.

“You sweating?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“Aching?”

“Uh huh,” I said.

“You thought about talking to someone about them?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” I said.

Silence fell on the phone call and I sighed. I raked my hand through my wet hair, grimacing at how it felt. I wouldn’t have to change the sheets but I would have to change my pillowcase and I could feel how scraggly my hair was becoming. My beard was uneven and the hair on top of my head was growing past the tops of my ears. The Navy would’ve had a field day with what I currently looked like but, as I sat on the edge of the bed and listened to the silence on the phone, a realization crossed my mind.

I wasn’t in the Navy anymore.

I knew it had been over a month since I’d officially been retired but that had been my life for most of my upbringing. From the time I was fifteen, I knew I wanted to join the military. I enlisted before I even graduated high school and I didn’t attend my own graduation because I was too busy attending basic training. I had them send me my high school diploma and I still had no idea where the hell that thing was.

I breathed the military. I strove to do everything I needed to do to succeed. I took the classes, I got the certifications, I did the training, and I put up with the schools. I went through the terrible command heads and I trudged through the hospitals on the battlefields. I did rotations in areas of medicine I never wanted to touch again because that was all I could see myself doing.

And now the one thing I’d thought about and relied on since I was fifteen years old was gone. All I had was a cabin and my truck.

“Look, take it from me,” Paxton said. “You need to open up to someone about it. Even if it’s not some professional or whatever, you gotta talk to someone.”

“Do you talk to anyone?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “My commander sometimes. When it gets bad.”

“Why don’t we talk about it anymore?”

“Because you stopped talking,” he said. “It was just me talking at a brick wall. That didn’t help me. It might help you, talking to someone who doesn’t talk back, but for me, it didn’t do much.”

“I’m sorry, man,” I said.

“Don’t be sorry. Just find what works for you. That situation we went through was rough. Rougher than anything we ever expected to experience. You’re not at fault but you do need to talk to someone about it. Even if you just ramble and it doesn’t make sense.”

“You think a woman would listen?” I asked.

“Why the hell would you ask that?”

I sighed and I could practically feel Paxton’s grin through the phone.

“You sly dog,” he said. “Are you dating someone?”

“No, but I am trapped with someone.”

“Wait, what?”

“The storm,” I said. “You know, the one you told me to look out for? It got bad. And this woman… she was just out hiking like there was nothing wrong with the world.”

“And she found your cabin?” he asked.

“No, I saw her coming and figured she was lost. She took off running up this hill and tumbled right over it. Dislocated her ankle and rolled herself into a damn tree.”

“So, you took off running like her savior,” he said. “Is she cute?”

“What?”

“The woman? Is she cute?”

Anyone with a pair of eyes could see Whitney was a beautiful woman but that was beside the point. I couldn’t even trust myself to sleep. How the hell could I trust myself to have sex? That took more emotion, more energy, and more mental stamina than anything I was currently prepared for. “Sure, I guess,” I said.

“You’re cooped up with a woman you’re taking care of and you don’t even know if she’s hot?” Paxton asked.

“How do you know I’m taking care of her?”

“You said she dislocated her ankle and rolled into a tree,” he said. “I’ve seen you try to help stray dogs on the side of the fucking road, Canter. You’re taking care of her.”

“Well, she’s invading my fucking space. I came here to get away from people and now I’m stuck in a snowstorm with a person who won’t stop talking about herself.”

“Is she self-centered and high-maintenance?” Paxton asked. “Or has she tried asking you questions and you’re just sitting there like a dick?”

“A dick?” I asked.

“Look, I’ve known you for years, Canter. You’ve always been quiet and girls like that shit. The quiet and mysterious guy. But after what happened to us, you closed up. If this woman is just mindlessly talking about herself, then deal with it until the storm lets up. But if she’s trying to talk to you and you’re not talking back, then you’re being a dick.”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone, Paxton,” I said. “That’s why I came up here.”

“And there’s nothing you can do about this situation but make the best of it. You don’t have to tell her about your nightmares, man. But just fucking talk to the chick.”

Even though I didn’t want to admit it, he had a point. Whitney was essentially talking at a wall because I wouldn’t talk back to her. Every time she broached a subject that even remotely meant I had to open up, I’d just leave her by herself in front of the fire on a couch that was still foreign to her. I didn’t owe her my entire life story but the least I could do was make her comfortable.

Even if her version of comfortable wasn’t my version of comfortable.

“Well, I gotta go,” Paxton said. “Duty never stops calling around here.”

“When do you deploy?” I asked.

“Couple more weeks,” he said. “I’ll be out to sea for about ten months.”

“Call me again before you head out.”

“I was planning on it,” he said. “But the next time we talk, I want a story about how you talked to this girl and you finally found out she didn’t have cooties.”

“You’re a dick,” I said.

“Which means you can’t be one,” he said. “Two dicks don’t get along, so go out there and talk to her.”

“Fine, fine. I’m going.”

“I expect a juicy story later,” he said.

“I never talk and tell.”

“Wow, how scandalous,” he said, chuckling. “Talk to you later.”

I tossed my phone onto my bedside table and stood to stretch. I needed to shower but I wanted to have a cup of coffee first. Despite the weather reports, the snow was still coming down outside, which meant I’d need to check the generator as well. I couldn’t have that thing running out of gas while I was in the middle of washing my beard.

I walked out into the room and saw Whitney standing at the kitchen island. She was sipping on a cup of coffee she’d made herself but I could tell she had been waiting for me. She whipped around and offered me a weak smile and I couldn’t help but flicker my eyes down to her ankle.

“Don’t worry, I’m hopping around,” she said.

“How does it feel?” I asked.

“Not terrible but not good,” she said. “I’ll live.”

“Let me get a cup of coffee and a shower and I’ll wrap it back up.”

“Please, let me make you breakfast.”

She said it so fast, I almost didn’t understand her. I watched her dark blue eyes widen, almost like she was begging me, and that was when I realized how rigid and closed off I had been with her. I studied her body for the very first time, taking in the supple curves of her form while her blonde hair fell down her back.

Despite myself, I felt my dick twitch in response to her. “If you’d like to cook breakfast, that’s fine,” I said.

“Wait, really?” she asked.

“Really. But you sure you’ll be up to it? With your ankle?”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve endured worse.”

I watched a strange expression cross her face before she smiled a tight-lipped grin. She cleared her throat before she picked up another coffee mug and proceeded to pour me a cup. She slid it across the kitchen island and I caught it. The smile that slid across her lips warmed a place inside of me I hadn’t touched in almost two years.

“How do you feel about shrimp and grits?” she asked.

“I suppose it’s almost lunchtime,” I said.

“I’m just glad you got some decent sleep,” she said.

I watched her posture tighten and that was when she confirmed my fears. She did hear my nightmare that first night, which meant I had woken her up with it. I sipped on my coffee, trying to fight the urge to flee from the situation. No matter how much it sucked to stick out shit like this or how much I convinced myself I needed to be alone, until we could get through this situation, I needed to compromise.

And that meant talking a little to this whirlwind of a woman.

I stood back and watched her cook like she’d been doing it all her life. She searched for seasonings for the shrimp while she turned them in the pan, leaving the grits to bubble slowly on the backburner of the stove top. She added a bit of cheese to give the grits a kick and then she started pouring it into bowls I’d handed her while the shrimp finished searing off.

She topped the shrimp onto the thickened grits and handed me my bowl and, I had to admit, it smelled phenomenal. I pulled out a drawer and got us a couple of spoons. Then, we leaned against the counter and began to eat.

The food tasted pretty good but the look of pride on her face made it much better.

“Could I ask you something?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said, trying to take Callen’s advice and not be a dick.

“Are you going for the whole shaggy-dog thing or do you just not know how to trim yourself up?” she asked.

I looked over at her and couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I was just thinking about how I was getting a little shaggy, yes,” I said.

“If you want, once you’re done eating, I could help. I picked up a few things from my friend Gwen.”

“The hairdresser,” I said.

“So, you were listening?” she asked, grinning.

“Yes. I was. To all of it.”

Her eyes connected with mine before she spooned some grits between her lips and the glimmer in her eye was unmistakable. She was unlike any other person I’d ever come into contact with and I couldn’t help but feel honored just to be in her presence. I found myself wishing I was a different person. A different man from the one I’d turned into. The romance I could pour over her and the heights of pleasure I could bring her to would’ve swirled her mind and rendered her speechless.

She was the kind of woman that deserved all those things. She didn’t deserve to chisel away at a broken man’s crumbling walls.

“So, you want to cut my hair?” I asked.

“And trim up that beard. Something tells me you don’t want to shave it but it does need to be cleaned up.”

“You’re right on that part,” I said as I fingered the hair on my face. “And it grows so far up my face. It’s odd.”

“I realized that yesterday when we were talking. Plus, it would be a way for us to pass the time since we’re sort of stuck here until the weather lets us out.”

“Getting bored already?” I asked.

“I mean, who doesn’t want a bum ankle while being in a small cabin with two feet of snow piling up outside?” she asked.

“And you learned how to do this from your friend,” I said.

“My best friend.”

“Yes, yes. How could I have forgotten that part?”

“I don’t know but we can work on that memory, too,” she said, giggling.

The sound alone was enough to relax my bones. Unlike the high-pitched giggles many women had, hers were filled out with low notes that vibrated through my ribcage. Her giggle started off a bit breathless but those low tones kicked in and it felt like someone was pouring liquid velvet all along your ears. I stood there watching her while we finished the food she’d made and then she proceeded to stack all the dishes in the sink.

“I can get that,” I said.

“Nope, I’ve got it,” she said. “Go get yourself a chair, a towel, your shampoo and conditioner, and a pair of scissors.”

“I didn’t realize I’d agreed to this,” I said.

“You did,” she said, winking.

“I’m not sure if this is a good idea,” I said.

“What? We don’t have anything else better to do and you just said you felt you were looking a bit haggard.”

“Haggard and shaggy are two different things.”

She just stared at me until I grinned.

“If you want me to clean you up a bit, I’ll need a razor, too, if you have one.”

“Nope,” I said. “I don’t have one of those but I do have an electric shaver.”

“Does it have the straight edge tip or is it one of those that has those three circular shaving things?” she asked.

“It’s a straight edge tip. I’ll bring it with me.”

I went to gather up the things she requested while she washed the dishes. I brought everything from my bathroom and set it beside her and the sink. Then I picked up a chair I had in my bedroom and brought it out. She scooted the chair right in front of the sink before she turned on the water. Then she motioned for me to sit.

“Come on. I don’t bite,” she said.

I sat down and leaned my head back while the water poured over my hair. She took her time, her soft fingers massaging my scalp while she shampooed me. I closed my eyes and allowed the warm water to rush over me and her ministrations along my scalp lulled me into a relaxed state. She washed and conditioned my hair before she turned off the water. Then she dried my hair off with the towel before she wrapped it around my shoulders.

With a steady hand and a concentrated eye, she got to work. Small chunks of hair fell around my shoulders and I could feel the mental fog being lifted from my mind. It was like I had been hiding behind my hair while I hid in this cabin and, with each chunk of hair that fell from my head, a little more of me was revealed. She trimmed my hair until the longest part of it sat half an inch above my ear. Then, she moved in front of me and surveyed her work.

The smile that crossed her lips was worth the anticipation of how she was going to make me look.

She took the towel from around my shoulders and dumped it out into the trash. I could hear her fiddling with the plug beside the sink while she tried to strike up the electric shaver. I had to admit, I was a little nervous about her attacking my beard. Even in its thick and uneven state, I’d really grown to enjoy it.

But once she got the shaver plugged in and the towel back around my shoulders, she picked up the scissors again.

Little by little, she went around and trimmed my beard. Some chunks were bigger than others but she wasn’t cutting all the way down to my skin. She moved around to the underside of my neck and really started to go to town and that was when I pulled away from her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not getting rid of your beard. But you are a hairy beast. For your beard to be even, I have to clean up your neck completely.”

I looked into her eyes before I nodded my head and she got back to work.

I knew it was shorter but I honestly couldn’t feel a difference. I could look down and see all the hair on the towel but it wasn’t like I could feel a draft on my chin or anything. She picked up the electric razor and turned it on, the sound roaring to life as I jumped.

She eyed me curiously for a second before she dipped down in front of me.

“Lift up your chin,” she said.

I tilted my head back and closed my eyes. The shaver touched my chin and I could feel the skin on my neck growing smoother. She came all the way around, cleaning up the edges of my beard with a steady hand and a keen eye. She worked around the globe of my chin, edging out the last of the uneven hair that was beginning to curl in on itself. Every once in a while, I could feel her breath pulsing against my face and I found myself closing my eyes and taking in its warmth.

After about twenty minutes, the electric shaver shut off and she surveyed her work.

She took the towel from around my shoulders and dumped it out into the trash. The water turned on as my hand migrated to my face but she stuck her hand out and grabbed my wrist before I could. I looked up at her before she started wringing out the towel in the sink. Then, she brought the warm cloth to my face and began to clean me up.

“Don’t want you getting stray hairs on your hands,” she said.

Her eyes danced around my features, taking in all the edges to make sure they were even, I guessed. I’d never put this kind of time into what I looked like, so I was honestly unsure as to why she was. But she was right. It was a good way to pass the time.

And I could tell by the sparkle in her eye that she was proud of herself.

She tossed the towel behind my head before her hands cupped my cheeks. She tilted my face from side to side, her eyes following along a steady line. I had no idea what she was trying to look at or what she was trying to measure, but two things were clear: she was very close and her touch felt very nice.

Her eyes connected with mine and she smiled. She allowed her fingertips to flow through my beard and, in an instant, I felt my blood beginning to heat up. Her touch was so kind—something I hadn’t experienced in years—and I became painfully aware of how close her lips were to mine.

Her gaze settled and I watched her eyes darken. Before I knew it, our faces were gravitating toward each other.

Our lips connected in a fervent kiss and suddenly the whirling of my mind stopped.

In that moment, there was nothing. There was no cabin and no snowstorm. There was no military and no past. There were no nightmares, no fear, and there sure as hell was no memory of a haircut. I felt her lips move against mine, massaging mine to life as I pressed my face closer to hers.

I stood up from my seat and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her body into mine while my lips devoured hers.

She was water and I was fire. I was raging out of control and she was doing everything she could to keep me at bay. I felt her moan against my lips as our tongues connected for the first time. My body backed her into the kitchen island and I pinned her between myself and the edge.

I planted my hands on the counter behind her while her hands raked through my hair.

In that moment, nothing was more important than her. Sparks that hadn’t flown in years ignited a raging forest fire that burned throughout my bones. I could feel her hands tugging at my shirt, the buttons coming undone before she splayed her lusciously soft hands out along my skin.

She curled her fingertips into the hair of my chest and I scooped her up and started down the hallway with her.

I was going to allow myself to lose control. I was going to give myself permission to indulge in a woman I didn’t deserve. For the first time since that fucking deployment, I was going to allow myself to be happy.

Even if it was only temporary.