Chapter 19

Alex pulled Becca’s truck into the drugstore parking lot, trying to puzzle out this strange turn of events.

“You can just stay here,” she suggested over brightly.

Such a damn puzzle. “You want me to stay in the truck while you go buy some mysterious thing at the drugstore?”

“Well, it’s not mysterious.”

“Then why can’t I go in with you?”

“I’m…just…I’m going to buy something that’s kind of embarrassing. So I just thought maybe you should stay in the car.” Her eyes focused on the doors of the store. “I don’t know when I’ll have time to run to town again, and it’s an item that, um, well, you know, I might need soon. Maybe.”

“Is this some weird feminine thing?”

“No! No.” She blinked at him, her cheeks turning pink. “Not that. Just…” She took in a breath and studied him. He knew she was assessing him in some way, but he never could figure out what she was looking for or what she wanted from him. She was so inherently difficult to figure out.

Who knew what the hell was wrong with him that he got something out of that? That he enjoyed it in some mixed-up way. “Okay, maybe I’ll just stay in the truck,” he said.

“Great. Be right back.” She scurried out of the truck like a spooked animal.

Alex could only stare after her and wonder how he’d gotten himself into whatever this was. Wondered how he could muster up the sensible reaction, which would be anything that would stop this from continuing.

But the thought of stopping anything when it came to Becca was ludicrous. She was like summer and freedom. She was truly unique and smart and funny. It was a weird thing to admit, even just to himself in the privacy of his own thoughts, but he hadn’t dated much. The navy hadn’t left much time for relationship-type things, so most of his experiences with women were hookups. Maybe a week’s worth of them. His one and only relationship had been his high school sweetheart, and they’d mostly fumbled through trying to figure the opposite sex out. It wasn’t some great true-love thing.

It wasn’t smart to get caught up in a relationship with Becca. They had a lot of things to accomplish that were very important before they started worrying about…futures. Futures with people.

But, damn, he’d enjoyed every second of this night. Every last ridiculous second. He liked watching her eat, and he loved listening to her talk. He liked the way she laughed at him and asked pertinent questions when he told her a story.

Maybe Gabe and Jack weren’t totally off base that he should have some happiness of his own. Maybe that was an important piece of their life now. Maybe.

It took a few more minutes before Becca returned, and when she did, her entire face was beet red and she clutched the drugstore bag to her chest like it was a treasure. Actually, more like it was something she would be ashamed of anyone seeing.

“You okay?” he asked when she climbed into the passenger seat.

“Sure. Great. You know, new experiences.”

“You know this is killing me, right?”

“What’s killing you?” she asked.

“The curiosity.”

The flush on her face did not disappear in the slightest bit. If anything, it got darker.

“I was just thinking about the future,” she said in an odd, squeaky voice.

“The future?” he repeated. Seriously, something was wrong with him that he got such a kick out of the circuitous way she talked.

“Yes. The future. What I might want to do with it.”

“And that necessitated an emergency drugstore run?”

“Yes,” she returned with a firm nod.

“Are there any more emergency errands you need to run?”

She paused for a second as though seriously considering it. “No. I think anything else would take more time than I’d be willing to have you wait in the car for.”

“Anyone ever told you that you’re a strange girl?”

“No, but that’s probably because I didn’t have friends.” She said it so matter-of-factly. As though that was just life. She never even seemed to expect him to feel sorry for her.

It…affected him. Bothered him maybe? Or was it that he wanted to fix it for her? Give things to her? He shook the thought away and backed out of the parking lot. “So is that why you talk to the animals the way you do? Because you had no one else to talk to?”

The blush that had receded returned, if a little different this time. Just two small slashes of pink across her cheeks.

“I guess. I mean, I could talk to Mom about a lot of stuff, but if I was mad at her or didn’t agree with her or needed someone to vent to about her, the animals were good listeners. I was thinking about that the other day, actually, after the bar. I love animals and they’ve given me a lot, but they can’t talk back. It’s nice to have someone around who can talk back.”

“Hopefully you don’t kiss them too. I can share conversation, but…”

“Well, mostly not,” she returned deadpan. “Ron Swanson requires a little extra love and attention.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her grin.

“I had you a little worried there for a second, didn’t I?” she teased.

He chuckled. “I was mostly sure you haven’t been making out with your goat, but I do have to say you’re a constant surprise. One would never know for sure.”

“A constant surprise and a constant delight, right?”

It was his turn to grin at her. “You are that too.”

She settled back into her seat, her smile going a little soft. Pleased.

“You’re very good at this whole conversation thing. I think you are my perfect first date.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. Perfect made him nervous, and first date made him even more nervous. He hated to be nervous. Nerves created mistakes or made you miss important things.

But this wasn’t war. It was just Becca.

“Well, I’m glad you think so because I certainly don’t have that much experience either.” And apparently nerves also made him say stupid, stupid things.

She sat up straighter, though she still clutched the bag to her chest. “What do you mean you don’t have that much experience?”

He didn’t respond.

“Oh, you’re a virgin, aren’t you?” she asked with mock concern.

He snorted out a laugh. “Not a virgin, no. But not well versed in the ways of long-term relationships either. Not that…” Oh, so many stupid, stupid things.

“So you’ve never had a girlfriend, you’ve just had lots of one-night stands?”

“I think ‘lots’ is in the eye of the beholder. I did have one girlfriend. Once.”

“I can’t believe you’ve only had one girlfriend. We’re practically on the same experience plane.”

“I doubt that.”

She just kept grinning at him. “Okay, tell me all about the one and only relationship you’ve ever had. Was she the love of your life and she broke your heart, so you had to find solace in a string of women’s vaginas? I think that’s the gist of James Bond, right?”

“No. And no.” He shook his head, eyes on the road and mountains as he tried to stop himself from focusing solely on her. “She was a girl in high school. She was hot and she liked cows enough she’d come hang out on the ranch. We dated for two years, and then I joined the navy.”

“Was she brokenhearted? Were you brokenhearted? Did she—”

“My but you are a curious one,” he muttered.

“I don’t have any experiences of my own. I have to live vicariously through other people’s.”

“I do not believe she was brokenhearted. In fact, I think she had someone lined up for once I shipped off.”

“So you were brokenhearted?”

“Hardly. I was eighteen and joining the navy. I did plenty of experiencing in the years before I was deployed. But being a SEAL doesn’t offer much stability to make a relationship work.”

“And that would be very important to you, wouldn’t it?”

“What? Stability?”

“The ability to give someone else that stability.”

“I guess so. I wouldn’t want to let anyone down. I wouldn’t want my choices to be hard on anyone. Or at least harder.”

She leaned over the bench between them and brushed her mouth across his cheek. Something sweet and light.

“What was that for?”

“I just think you’re a really great guy.”

Her gaze was a little too dreamy, and he fidgeted. “I am not without my faults.”

“Oh, I know that. Trust me, I could list them for you if you’d like.” She smiled at him when he slid her a look.

“I’ll pass.”

He drove them into and through Blue Valley, up to the ranch. Silence settled over them as darkness encroached. It was another beautiful spring night—cool and dark, with a clear, bright sky.

“I love spring,” Becca said on a sigh. “There’s so much to do and every time you get a chance to rest and relax it seems like there’s so much promise in the air.”

He glanced over at her as he brought the truck to a stop. Promise. Yes, there was definitely a lot of that in the air.

He didn’t like putting too much stock in that or allowing her the idea that he had much to give. But he also knew he was a hard worker, and as Jack had said the other morning, they’d gotten themselves out of a lot of sticky situations. This couldn’t be harder than dealing with crises in Afghanistan and surviving a car accident caused by a grenade explosion.

He could handle Becca Denton. He could handle seeing what they could do together. And if they couldn’t do anything together…well, they could probably both deal with that too. How hard would it be to make some rational choices?

“You want to drive up to the north pasture and look at the stars?” he offered.

She smiled at him and then looked at the bag still clasped in her hands. She frowned a little, but soon enough the smile was back. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

* * *

Alex drove them up and around the barn to the north pasture. Because it was on a hill, most of the house, barn, and stables were hidden behind a swell of land.

All that existed were stars and mountains and moon. It never failed to make Becca feel small and awed and so darn hopeful.

Alex pushed the truck into park and Becca looked down at her bag.

“There are some blankets in the back. Stay put with the heater till I get it set up.”

In another moment, she might have argued, but Alex fussing with blankets gave her time to pull the box of condoms out of the drugstore bag. He slid out of the truck and she scrambled to pull the box out of the bag and rip it open. She tried to detach one of the condoms from its row, but Alex knocked on her window and she jumped about a foot.

She shoved the whole box into her coat pocket. Luckily it was as dark in the cab of the truck as it was outside, so he likely couldn’t have seen her guilty reaction.

She slid out of the truck and into the inky black of night only punctuated by a steady beam of moonlight and the faded glow of a million stars.

It was cold, and Alex handed her a heavy work coat that must have been in the back of the truck. She pulled it on over her own jacket as they walked to the bed of the truck. She could barely make it out in the milky light of a clear night, but a handful of blankets had been laid out in the back of the truck, creating a nest of sorts.

Her heart fluttered in happy anticipation as she crawled up into the lump of blankets. She rearranged a little bit to roll one of the blankets into something like a pillow for both of them. She made sure to sit where the lumpy pocket full of condoms would be next to the truck side, not Alex.

Her heart hammered at the thought of the condoms, but…but life was short and who knew what would happen tomorrow? Did she really want to put this off and maybe put off the chance of it ever happening?

In an easy, fluid move, Alex maneuvered next to her, laying his head close on her makeshift pillow. He pulled a blanket over them, and it smelled like horses and hay, but it was warm.

He was warm. Even through the layers of their clothes, she could feel it seep into her. She wriggled her way closer, until their sides were pressed together.

The dark enveloped them, cool but something of a comforting presence. The sky stretched out like their very own cinematic masterpiece. Stars winked, planets gleamed, the Milky Way swirled across a section of the great canvas above them.

She’d done this before—laid out under the stars, breathed in the vast beauty, wondered at the amazingness of it all, but she’d never had company. Not human company anyway.

“This is nice.” Which, to Becca, was a million shades too muted for what this all was. The culmination of every fantasy, but real and something she’d hold close to her heart always.

He turned his head, brushing his lips across the hair at her temple. Nice. A sad, paltry little word in comparison to what that did to her insides—melted them, lit her up, made her feel like the world was too big and beautiful to bear.

So she tilted her head up, trying to see his face in the dark. Moonlight outlined his features, hard and sharp, sculpted with ruthless slashes.

Except for his mouth, which was a curve, warm and inviting. She knew it could go sharp, hard, but not now. It wasn’t that now. It was irresistible and she pressed her own to it, stretched herself against him as much as she could.

He rolled onto his side, his arms coming around her, everything about that hard, strong body enveloping her into himself. The kiss was slow, poignant, his arm pulling her closer, his other hand brushing against her cheek and through her hair.

It was magic and hope, something indefinable in all her limited experience. Or maybe experience had nothing to do with it. Maybe kissing Alex would always be this warm, sparkling thing that itched along her nerve endings and soothed her heart all at the same time.

This wasn’t like those first two kisses, all hard and demanding, fierce and desperate. This was as soft as the night sky. Shimmery as starlight. Magic like the moon. Everything about it was gentle and sweet, and she made a little protesting sound when he pulled his mouth away from hers.

But he pressed it to her cheek, and then her temple, featherlight brushes that made her shiver.

“There,” he said, his voice a whisper against the quiet night. “Finally, a nice kiss.”

“You should probably do another grabby one so I can immediately compare and contrast.”

He chuckled into her hair, his fingers still tracing all the curves and angles of her exposed skin. “You don’t need to compare and contrast.”

“How will I decide which one I like better?”

“You could just like them both. Like them all.”

She grinned, because that sounded about perfect. She nuzzled closer, experimenting with how her head fit against his chest, listening to the beat of his heart. Steady. Strong. So Alex.

Though she knew the air around them had to be cool, the little burrow they’d created was nothing but warm and comfortable. So she traced her finger up his coat zipper, grasping it and tugging it down far enough that she could get her hand in underneath.

“Are you cold?” he asked, rubbing his hand up and down her back, though with two coats and a sweater on she could barely feel it.

“Nope,” she replied cheerfully. She nudged the zipper down farther and farther until she could get her hands under his shirt as well. His skin was hot and she could feel hard muscle and coarse hair.

She wanted to feel all of him. She wanted to see all of him. But mostly she just wanted…him. To experience it all and to give in to it. She didn’t want to think or worry or feel nervous. She wanted to open herself up to all of the possibility. All of the feeling, regardless of what the ramifications might be.

“Though I do have a confession to make,” she said, pressing the flat of her palm to the hard plane of his abdomen.

He cleared his throat. “What’s that?”

Alex, of course, hadn’t returned the favor of unzipping her coat, because he was probably too worried about her temperature. Too overly worried about a million things, and she wanted to be the opposite of that. For herself, but more for him. He deserved a little letting go and opening up too, and she’d probably have to pry that out of him. But she could. Maybe she could.

“When I went in the drugstore, I might have bought something that’s pertinent to our current situation.”

“What’s our current situation?”

“Alone. With only the stars and possibly coyotes around us.”

“You talk in the strangest riddles, Bec.”

“Okay, no riddles. Condoms. When I went into the drugstore, I bought a box of condoms.”

He was completely still and he didn’t say a word and she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Because it was ridiculous. What she’d done. Telling him. It was just all so…silly.

Except it wasn’t, because she was going after what she wanted. She wanted to have sex with Alex Maguire.

“And I was thinking we could use one. Now.”