Husband-and-wife duo Lori and Tony Karayianni are the power behind the pen name Tori Carrington. Their more than thirty-five titles include numerous Blaze® mini-series, as well as the ongoing Sofie Metropolis comedic mystery series with another publisher. Visit www.toricarrington.net for more information on the couple and their titles.

A Few Good Men

by

Tori Carrington

MILLS & BOON®

www.millsandboon.co.uk

We dedicate this book to Brenda Chin, who never fails to inspire us with her vision and eye for a great book.

And to the men and women of armed forces everywhere, we offer our eternal thanks for your dedication and sacrifices. OOH RAY!

Prologue

Nicosia, Cyprus 07:00

THE WHOOP-WHOOP OF THE CHOPPER’S blades forbade normal conversation so the five men were silent, each staring out the open doors at the Mediterranean island, but none of them seeing it as anything but the first stop in what would be a long journey stateside and home.

Matt Guerrero squinted against the sun rising in the east, a winter sun that held little warmth, shedding cool January light on the landscape and the situation that awaited him in Columbus, Ohio.

“Hey, Lieutenant, what say we jump out and swim the rest of the way?” Lance Corporal Eddie Cash shouted.

Matt grinned. “You start, I’ll follow.”

All five men chuckled and relaxed from the tense stance they’d taken upon embarkation from the USS Stennis anchored a mile offshore.

Matt took each of them in. They looked too serious for men who were returning home from the front lines, either on break or for good. Usually the prospect of some fine sex and time off was enough to leave them all smiling like stupid fools.

Then again, this was no ordinary trip for any of them, was it? Not given what each of them faced at home.

Not given what had gone down a month and a half ago that had left one of them facing court-martial.

Matt tried to push aside the somber thought.

Eddie Cash was always the first to break the ice. A good kid who was quick with the wit and even quicker with his M-16. Although at twenty-five he wasn’t much of a kid anymore.

Not that there really were any kids in the marines. Whether they were twenty or thirty-eight, like he was, the classification of kid was further away than even home.

Eddie Cash was returning to North Carolina to a woman he barely knew…and the kid—Eddie’s kid—she would bear in a couple of months, a result of a shore leave romance that had ended when he’d shipped back out. Eddie believed with all the gusto of a tried-and-true marine that he loved her. She insisted she didn’t love him and wasn’t interested in marriage, but had been de-termined to have the child.

Matt pushed back his helmet. He supposed there were worse things. In fact, he knew there were.

He watched Lance Corporal Eric Armstrong slide his M-16 from his shoulder and hold it upright between his large, beefy hands. Hands that had seen more combat in the past fifteen months than Guerrero had seen in his entire first tour of duty almost twenty years ago. While he wouldn’t admit it, he knew Eric was thinking about the woman he’d forged an online relationship with, only to have her disappear when he told her he would be on leave and wanted to see her.

Cybersex. Matt shook his head and looked at his own weapon, freshly oiled and ready to go. He supposed it wasn’t much different from what he and his then new wife Ana had done years ago with racy handwritten letters to each other. But back then there had been no risk of their missives landing in the wrong e-mail box. And he certainly had known what she looked like and where to find her.

Thoughts of his wife erased the grin from Matt’s face. She hadn’t responded to the message he’d left on the answering machine when he’d called to say when he expected to be home. He wondered if she somehow hadn’t gotten the message, if the line had gone dead while he was leaving it.

But he was afraid it was his entire marriage that was suffering a long, slow death.

He looked over at Lance Corporal Chris Conrad, the one man he’d met in his years of service that didn’t deserve to be called a man much less a marine. He was responsible for the professional pall that hung over them like an impending desert storm. And if Matt had had his way, he wouldn’t be on this transport with them.

Matt’s hands tightened on his weapon and he ordered himself to stand down.

He forced his thoughts away from Conrad and shifted his attention to Captain Brian Justice. All Matt’s personal concerns instantly paled in comparison to what he faced.

Justice was by far the toughest out of the group and their supervising officer. Matt recalled one of his lighter moments, when one morning Eddie had filled Justice’s cereal bowl with shrapnel. Matt had nearly busted a gut laughing when Justice had actually spooned the metal into his mouth and commenced chewing.

But there was nothing funny about what Justice faced stateside. With a court-martial and dishonorable dis-charge hanging over his head, his eight-year career in the marines could very well be brought to a screeching halt.

Eddie came to take the seat next to Matt and elbowed him, pointing through the open door. They were descending onto the landing strip.

Matt’s gut constricted. In concern over what each of them faced professionally and personally. In fear that a wrong would never be made right. In dread for what waited for him at home. And with desire for a woman he would never stop wanting, but he was afraid no longer wanted him…

Eric

Chapter 1

ERIC ARMSTRONG HAD come home on leave to surprise his online dream woman…instead, she was the one who’d surprised him.

He sat on his cot in the base barracks, staring at the name scribbled on a slip of paper he held in his hands. Much as he had in the days since he’d accepted the real name of “Samantha” from Tommy “The Tech” Onassis. After she’d pulled a cyber disappearing act about a month ago, he’d suspected Samantha had been an alias. But there was no way he could have known he was already familiar with the real woman.

“Are you sure this is it?” he’d asked the stocky Greek-American, whose finesse with a computer equaled that which most men put to use seducing a woman. Not that Tech seemed to have any trouble in that area. He used that overloaded, giga-pumped laptop of his to make sure he had women waiting for him—and whichever fellow marine won the lottery he held to go out on a double date—at each port of call.

Tech had stared at him. “You so didn’t just ask me that.”

And they’d left it at that.

Eric had walked around the base in a daze ever since, trying to decide what to do. If he were running on all cylinders, he’d walk away, go home to spend his leave in Texas, and forget all about “Samantha” and the deep impression she’d left on him.

But he was having trouble wrapping his brain around the truth.

His cell phone rang, earning him looks from a couple of his bunkmates. He picked up.

“Hey, where are you? We were expecting you home two days ago.”

Eric stuffed the piece of paper into his pocket and smiled at the sound of his younger brother’s voice.

“Hey, yourself, Trace.”

“Are you going to answer my question, or just leave me hanging on the vine like an overripe tomato?”

Eric drew in a breath and exhaled. “I have some things I need to clean up here in Virginia first,” he lied.

“The guys had a whole welcome-home barbecue planned. Killed the cow and everything. They’re going to be awfully disappointed.”

“I’m sure they’ll enjoy the food without me,” Eric said absently.

The line was quiet for a moment or two. Then his younger brother asked, “When do you think you will be home?”

Eric straightened, causing the cot to squeak. “Wish I could tell you, bro. Wish I could tell you.”

“Is everything all right? You haven’t gotten yourself into trouble or anything, have you?”

He thought of his fellow marine and supervising officer Brian Justice and the court-martial he was facing. Following quickly on the heels came the dark incident that had brought it about. A scene he feared was forever etched into the backs of his eyelids. “No, no. Nothing like that. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Well, then, you make sure you give me a heads-up when you know, ya hear? The guys will want to do something to commemorate your return.” He chuckled. “Or at least be ready for it.”

Eric grinned. It was nice to know he was missed.

He talked to his brother for a couple more minutes and then hung up, exchanging the phone for the slip of paper again.

He remembered when he’d first hooked up online with the mysterious woman named Samantha. He’d been in a chat room, just shooting the breeze, doing the cyber equivalent of flexing his muscles, and she’d popped up, calling him out on some of the false details he’d supplied.

“Me and the guys went into Bahrain last night and tied one on,” he’d written.

“No, you didn’t. You’re anchored off the coast of Kuwait and there was no shore leave,” Samantha had replied.

She’d been right. And he’d been smitten. A woman who withstood his bragging and not only managed to wittily defuse it, but stuck around to enjoy real conversations.

And then, six months in, their daily missives had ventured into sexier territory.

“What are you wearing?” he’d asked her, much as he had every other time within five seconds of logging on.

Her usual response was “a ratty old sweatshirt and jeans.”

But not that day. That day she’d described, in sultry detail, the delicate lace of the new thong she’d just bought at Victoria’s Secret. The red silk nightie that just brushed the top of her thighs. How her smooth legs and waxed delicates felt against her Egyptian cotton bed sheets.

Eric had instantly entered a period he described as being like a fully loaded M-16 with nothing to shoot at.

From then on, all he could seem to think of was Samantha. The fact that she’d never sent him a picture of herself, merely gave him general stats like five-six, one hundred and twenty pounds, combination of Denise Richards, Scarlett Johansson and Angelina Jolie, hadn’t hindered his fantasies. If anything, not knowing what she looked like seemed to feed them. He’d lie in his cot at night thinking about the woman a half a world away, sleeping alone in her own bed. He’d go into a port of call with the guys and not really see the female sailors or locals hitting on him, his only goal to get to a cyber café where he could see if Samantha was available to chat.

He’d never considered that her name wasn’t really Samantha at the time. He’d figured that since she’d refused to share her last name, the first had to be real.

He stared at the piece of paper in his hands and knew that wasn’t the case. And that everything he’d believed in both his fantasy and real life had come crashing down around his ears.

“Samantha” was in truth Sara Harris…and Eric had been best friend to her late husband; a man who had saved Eric’s life, giving up his own in the process.

“So I WAS THINKING that you and I could go to the sym-phony together,” Sara’s mother-in-law Gertrude Harris was saying. “You know how Howard hates the sym-phony and none of my friends…Well, they wouldn’t enjoy the production as much as I know you will.”

Sara took a bite of her chicken salad. She hated the symphony. Not that she’d ever tell her mother-in-law that. It would break Gertrude’s heart to think that she’d been faking an interest all this time. Five years to be exact, when Sara had married Howard and Gertrude’s only child, Andrew. She’d wanted so desperately to belong that she’d done a lot of nodding and smiling and not nearly enough speaking up.

“Just tell her, Sara,” Andy had told her after the first time she’d sat through a production of Beethoven’s First Symphony with his mother. “She’ll understand.”

“Yeah, she’ll understand that I’m a liar and a fraud and the absolute worst daughter-in-law in the world.”

Andy had chuckled and set about giving her a shoulder rub to make her feel better. And had progressed to rubbing other areas of her anatomy, making her feel much, much better.

But Andy wasn’t here to make her feel better about anything anymore. And he hadn’t been for a year and a half.

How young she’d been then, when she’d married Andy. Nineteen going on forty. And her top priorities were, first, to make her new husband happy. Second, to make her in-laws not only like her, but love her.

How much older she felt now. Much older than the five years that had passed.

“Sara?”

She looked up into Gertrude’s face.

“Is everything all right?”

She forced herself to sit straighter and smiled. “Of course. What would make you ask?”

“I don’t know…you seem a little distracted lately. Not like yourself.”

If only she knew who she was anymore.

So much of her life lately seemed to be about going through the motions. After the two marines in full uniform had appeared at her front door to deliver the news that her husband had been killed in action, it had been hard enough to drag herself out of bed every morning, take a shower, and go to the small graphics design company where she worked. Simple things like eating became a chore, but she did it. Partly because she didn’t know what else to do. Mostly because Gertrude and Howard had needed her to help see them through the sad ordeal.

Then came the day six months after the military funeral at Arlington when she woke up to discover that she hadn’t allowed her heart to grieve the loss of the only man she’d ever loved. And her soul rebelled.

She’d spent a week shut off from the world, wishing she had been the one to go instead of Andy. After all, he’d had his family to live for. What did she have?

She’d had him. And now…

Sara looked at Gertrude. Now she had his family. And no matter how much she hated going to the sym-phony, or helping Gertrude organize Saturday luncheon and afternoons out with “The girls”…Well, putting herself out there, even as someone she feared she wasn’t, it was all she had. And she would never, ever do anything to risk that.

Her cheeks felt hot. Liar, a little horned devil sitting on her right shoulder whispered.

She had done something to upset the status quo. The good thing was, no one but her knew that.

Well, no one but her and her late husband’s best friend and fellow marine Eric Armstrong.

No. She was wrong on that account. She was the only one. Because there was no way Eric would ever know that her online identity of Samantha was really her. Would never know that she had been the one to reach out to him as an anonymous friend during that weeklong isolation, or that he had been her salvation, the sole reason for her to finally end her seclusion and continue an existence that sometimes loomed unbearable without Andy.

Then came the time six months ago when she’d given in to the feminine yearnings pulsing inside her, parts of her as neglected as her heart clamoring for attention. And she’d finally returned Eric’s desire to take their online connection a little further. To venture into unknown territory with racy e-mails and instant messages. But rather than satisfy the sexual ache, their online flirtation had merely amplified it.

Until Eric told her he would be returning stateside for leave and needed to meet her…

Sara hadn’t hesitated to erase Samantha’s entire identity. The risk was too great for her to take. No matter how much it had hurt at the time to do so, no one could know what she’d done. Ever. She would never betray her husband’s memory in that way. Never put his parents through the pain of knowing she’d indulged in provocative behavior with the man who had been her husband’s best friend.

Never again allow herself to love a man whose job it was to put his life on the line for his country. She’d already lost one. Losing another would destroy her.

Gertrude was looking at her oddly again. Sara forced a smile. “I was thinking that I’d like for you and Howard to come over for dinner this Sunday,” she said. “I could make that pot roast he likes so much.”

“Andy’s favorite.” Gertrude immediately relaxed. “We’d like that. It’s when we’re at your house that…Well, that both of us feel the most like Andy might walk through the door any moment.”

And therein lay the rub…

Chapter 2

IT WAS ONE OF THOSE rare winter days when the sun slanted in just such a way that it was easy to be lured into believing it might be July instead of January. Temperatures were mild, the scent of the Atlantic Ocean permeated the air, and Sara’s small house in Virginia Beach looked welcoming rather than foreboding.

She let herself into the one-story, two-bedroom bungalow she and Andy had bought five years ago and accepted the excited welcome and face wash she received from Truman, her four-year-old golden retriever.

“Oh, yes, you missed me, didn’t you, boy? Yes, you did.”

She let Tru out into the backyard to do his business, then put food out for him in the kitchen before going into her bedroom to change into sneakers and a sweat-shirt so she might take Truman to the beach and enjoy the early sunset. It was only five o’clock and the rest of the dark night stretched in front of her like a black wall she couldn’t figure out how to scale. As she slipped out of her low-heeled shoes and knee-highs, she reached out with her right hand to boot up her laptop, as was her normal routine. She took off her blouse and put on a T-shirt, then pulled the sweatshirt on over it, shaking out her shoulder-length brown hair before clicking to check for e-mail.

Her hand hovered over the mouse as she realized what she was doing. She was looking for a message from Eric.

How much she’d come to rely on those daily exchanges. It had been over a week since she’d been in contact with him. Worse, ten days since she’d deleted the e-mail account she’d used to communicate with him and, in essence, erased a part of herself.

She moved her hand from the mouse to the top of the screen and closed the laptop.

A moment later she had Truman on his leash, had filled a bottle of water, and left the house for the brisk, quarter of a mile walk to the beach, determined to forget that there would be no more e-mails from Eric waiting for her.

ERIC HAD HIS HAND on the door handle. He’d watched Sara pull her eight-year-old compact car into the drive-way of the small house he’d visited on countless occasions, then go inside. It was the first time he’d seen her since before Andy’s death. And the reality hit him full force, like the forceful butt of a weapon to the stomach.

He had the hots for his best friend’s girl…

It was the first thought that went through his mind. A thought he’d never expected to have. Sure, Sara had always been attractive, but she’d always been Andy’s girl. Off-limits. It had never even crossed his mind to think of the possibility of anything more. Partly because marines didn’t go screwing around with other marines’ women. (Well, good marines didn’t, anyway.) Mostly because Andy and Sara had been so much in love that it had sometimes been awkward to be around them.

He hadn’t gone to Andy’s funeral. The Corps had offered to fly him back for the event, but he’d refused. He’d lost his best friend, but he still had friends in his unit that depended on him. And the enemy that had taken Andy’s life was still a threat to the others. He couldn’t leave them behind.

Eric closed his eyes and bounced the back of his head against the seat. Who was he shitting? He hadn’t had the guts to face Sara or Andy’s parents. Had been too big of a coward to admit that despite everything he’d done, he had been unable to save Andy.

And now here he sat, trying to reconcile that life then with life in the here and now. Remembering how happy the couple had been…and how hot he’d been for the woman named Samantha with whom he’d shared a closeness he’d never had with another human being outside the brotherhood of the marines.

He forced his thoughts outward.

Sara looked so much like the woman he remem-bered, yet not at all. He supposed the new filter he viewed her through was to credit. But there were physical changes, as well. For one, she’d cut her hair. Where the honey-brown strands had been almost waist-length before, now the ends barely touched her shoulders. And he could tell even under her loose clothing that she’d gotten thinner. Her once va-va-voom curves were now almost girlishly slight. She even seemed to hold herself differently, as if she no longer had the strength to hold herself upright, as if her shoulders bore the weight of the world and she was a straw away from collapsing altogether.

During his conversations with Samantha, he’d never really imagined what she’d looked like beyond the little tidbits she fed him, which could or could not have been the truth. He’d look at female marines and wonder, when any of them bore the same physical traits. Take in women who passed during shore leave and contemplate any possible similarities. So sitting there in his car now, he didn’t experience disappointment. If anything, seeing her in person, despite the truth of her identity, merely made him want her more.

He started to pull the handle to get out of the car, unsure of what he might say or do when he came face-to-face with her, but sure that he had to do something.

Instead, he watched as Sara exited the house again, this time wearing sneakers and a USMC sweatshirt, patting a panting golden retriever before jogging down the block in the opposite direction.

Eric waited until she was out of sight and then scrubbed his hands against his face. What in the hell was he doing?

He didn’t have clue. But what ever it was, he had to do it now. Fast. Before he was faced with another sleepless, endless night that was worse than anything he’d experienced except during a lull on the battlefield…

THE BEACH WAS ALMOST empty, a person here and there apparently out for the same reason Sara was, to enjoy the unseasonably warm evening and take in the sun setting in the west. She tossed a piece of driftwood and Truman took off after it, leaving her to stare out into the dark horizon of the Atlantic. Waves crashed against the shore, the roar drowning out most of her own thoughts and spraying the hem of her jeans with salt water. Truman brought the stick back and she bent to pet him, talking to the only male who had shared her bed in the past eighteen months.

“Good boy.” She scratched him under the chin and then raised the wood above her head. He barked, ran a couple of feet, and then turned back and barked again, ready for the next round.

It was getting dark fast, the sun already having sunk below the fence of stout buildings lining the beach. The instant it did, the air seemed ten degrees cooler. She threw the wood and then pulled the sleeves of her sweat-shirt down to cover her hands and crossed her arms.

She’d long ago forced herself not to think about how many times she and Andy had walked this same stretch of beach, in the beginning alone and arm in arm as a couple, then later with Truman. She’d come to under-stand that if she stopped doing everything that they used to do together, then she would stay locked up in the house and do nothing at all.

She squinted into the growing dusk, trying to make out Truman in the distance. She hadn’t thrown the stick that far, had she?

There. There he was. Standing by the dunes some hundred feet up, his tail wagging a million miles a minute. She moved closer, thinking he might have found a bird’s nest or a crab or other small animal.

Then she saw him.

The man in fatigues who was crouched down petting the retriever.

Sara’s heart hiccupped in her chest.

Andy…

How many times had she dreamed scenes like this? Of Andy popping back up into her life as if he’d never been gone? As if he’d never shipped out to serve first in Afghanistan and then later in Iraq? Too many to count. But none of them had ever been this vivid. This real.

The man spotted her and gave Truman a final pat before rising to his feet. The heart that had hiccupped now surged up into her throat, threatening to choke her. She wasn’t losing her mind. There was a man there. A man in fatigues. But it wasn’t Andy. On closer inspection, he looked nothing like her late husband.

Where Andy had been short and stocky, this man was tall and lean, although no less powerful. Where Andy had had blond hair, this man’s close-cropped cut was dark. Where Andy had always been ready with a smile, this man had frown lines etched deep into his striking face.

Sara’s footsteps slowed and then stopped altogether three feet from him, shimmering need pooling low in her stomach.

“Hi, Sara,” Eric Armstrong said, the greeting nearly lost in the sound of the surf. “Or should I say Samantha?”

Chapter 3

ERIC STOOD STOCK-STILL, staring into Sara’s confused face, watching emotions slide like clouds across the setting sun. When she hadn’t immediately returned to her house, he’d shadowed her footsteps, following her to the beach. There, he’d found her hugging her arms around her slender body, looking so small against the endless sea that he wanted to encircle her with his own arms.

Now, her lips popped open, as if needing to say something, but without the words to say it.

God, he’d never really realized how tantalizing her mouth was before. How downright naughty. Her lips were provocatively full, the upper larger than the lower. He couldn’t seem to drag his gaze from them, wanting to trace the lines with his tongue.

The minute he’d come face-to-face with Sara, she’d stopped being merely “Samantha” or Andy’s widow…she’d become a woman to whom he felt an irresistible attachment. With whom he’d joined virtual hands when he’d most desperately needed human touch.

The waves crashing against the beach mimicked the need surging within him.

“Eric…”

The wind snatched the softly said name from her even as he leaned forward to claim what it seemed he’d been waiting his entire life to have.

Her lips were moist and cool, the tang of seawater only adding to their appeal. Eric groaned and curved his hand around to the back of her neck, pulling her closer, demanding a deeper meeting. Sara complied, parting her lips to allow him to plunder the depths of her mouth with his tongue.

It was both the greatest pleasure he’d ever known and the greatest torture. He wanted to follow the desire in him to its natural conclusion, to fulfill all that he’d dreamed about over the past six months, the thoughts of which had kept him alive, and claim Sara body and soul right there on the beach. But he couldn’t. Not because it was a public place and the act would be behavior unbecoming, but because while he tasted the sea on her lips, he became aware of the tang of salt from another source: her tears.

Eric groaned and broke contact, drawing her into his arms instead. She snaked her hands so that they grasped his shoulders from behind, her face tucked into his chest.

“God, oh, God, Eric…I’m so, so sorry. This…you and me…” She drew back.

He marveled at the dampness in her eyes glistening like the stars beginning to emerge on the eastern horizon. “I should never have contacted you. Should never have let things get out of hand…”

“Shh. We don’t have to talk about that now.” Eric found it impossible to swallow past the dryness of his throat. “I just want…need to hold you right now. Please. Just for a little while.”

Her response was instant and complete. She burrowed further into his chest, her hip resting against his arousal. Eric closed his eyes and rested his chin on the top of her sweet-smelling head. In that one moment, he knew that if the option were offered him, he’d sell his soul to the devil in order to remain like this with Sara forever.

AN HOUR LATER BACK at her house, Sara felt as if she was violating some sort of unwritten code. Against her better judgment, she’d invited Eric in. He now sat in the old wood rocker next to the cold fireplace, holding a beer in his hands, the chair looking comically too small to hold his large frame.

She’d forgotten how big he was. Much larger than Andy had been. He seemed to fill every corner of the house with his presence. Something lost not even on the dog; the golden retriever lay at Eric’s boots, his head on his paws while his watery eyes watched his every move in case there was another pat in the offing.

“I…I think the pasta must be done,” Sara said quietly, breaking the silence that had settled between them.

She couldn’t have ducked out of the room more quickly had there been a pack of coyotes nipping at her heels. It wasn’t until she was alone in the kitchen again that she allowed herself a deep breath that did nothing to steady her.

What was he doing here?

She leaned a shoulder against the refrigerator, having imagined Eric’s return countless times in her dreams. Her fantasies, really. Harmless musings that found him claiming her mouth the way he had on the beach and much, much more.

Of course, she’d never intended for them to come true. Had been convinced that she’d done a good job covering her cyber tracks.

How had Eric found out it was her? Was it something she’d said along the way? Oh, God, had he known all along?

“I think I have you figured out,” Eric had written three months ago.

Sara’s fingers had hovered over the keyboard, afraid to respond, wondering if she should shut down, pretend she hadn’t heard what he’d said. She hadn’t wanted it to be over. Needed for exchanges between her and Eric to continue for as long as she could safely arrange it.

“There’s a bad girl lurking within you, Samantha. And I want to tempt her out.”

She’d relaxed when he’d used her alias. He hadn’t been talking about her real identity at all, but responding to her sometimes-raunchy posts about what she’d like to do to him if they were in the same room together.

“Sara?”

The sound of Eric’s voice behind her nearly made her jump out of her skin.

The pasta!

She forced herself to take the pan from the burner and emptied the contents into a colander in the sink, following with a burst of cool water to cease the cooking process. No matter that her fingers burned from where she’d left the metal handle over the heat, her mind kept marrying the contents of their e-mails to each other with the fact that they now were in the same room.

And damn her wanton soul, she wanted to act out on every one of those cyber fantasies. Her favorite of which had taken place right here in this room.

“How can I help?” Eric asked.

His voice sounded right behind her, too close, too intimate.

The bottom dropped out of her stomach, making her feel oddly weightless. She turned to ask him to wait in the other room until she finished, to tell him that she couldn’t think when he was this close…and found herself unable to say anything at all.

He stood with his hands jammed into the pockets of his fatigues as if trying to keep them from doing something else. The saying, “idle hands are the devil’s play-things,” rang through her mind…and immediately trailing it was, I want to be that bad girl.

She stepped the few inches necessary to bring her within touching distance, raking her gaze over his fine, male physique. Damn, but marines had to be the sexiest guys on earth. Raw, solid muscle and deadly intent. And if she was correct, Eric had just put her directly in his sights.

Sara leaned in to kiss him, possessed by a flash of desire to yank fantasy into mind-blowing reality. He didn’t hesitate to return her kiss, his groan reaching inside to a place she’d long forgotten about. A place that had been hollow, empty, for much too long and now clamored for attention, demanded to be filled. Pure, unadulterated need zinged through her veins. She tugged his khaki shirt from his waist and he sucked in his stomach to help her. Finally, her fingers were touching the rippling waves of his muscles. Hot, so strong. Her mouth watered and she kissed him more deeply even as he hauled her sweatshirt up and off, barely breaking contact before she melted against him again, flesh against flesh.

She wanted to feel all of him…now.

She couldn’t seem to take his belt off fast enough, and the same applied with him and her jeans. Finally, they each abandoned their efforts and focused on their own clothing until nothing separated them but unwanted air.

Sara knew a heartbeat of pause as she stared at the exquisite male specimen in front of her. Eric could easily have been carved from granite, standing at least six-three without a cell of unwanted weight on him anywhere. His prime physical condition made him virtually ageless even though she knew he was thirty.

He seemed to be asking with his gaze alone if she was sure she wanted to do this. That even now if she wanted to turn back, he would. The knowledge made her grateful…and all the more determined to have him…

SWEET JESUS, SHE WAS everything and more than he’d imagined.

Eric wrapped his arms around the hotly naked woman who stepped closer to him. She was soft and warm where he was cold and hard. And she smelled better than any-one had the right to. A bit of lavender with the tangy scent of the sea.

And her mouth…dear Lord, her mouth was the thing of which dreams were made.

He couldn’t have been more surprised when Sara had stepped into his arms. He could have sworn she’d been about to throw him from the kitchen. Ever since they’d returned from the beach, she’d been antsy and uncomfortable in his presence.

Then she’d turned and kissed him and he’d forgotten about everything he’d wanted to say to her and focused on everything he’d been waiting to show her instead.

Every moment of every long night of the past six months were packed into his kiss. If he could devour her, he would. She tasted like salvation and pure temptation combined. Her tongue was merciless, dipping in and out of his mouth so that he felt like he was chasing it, chasing her. He raised his hands to rest on either side of her head and held her still, breaking contact briefly to stare deep into her eyes, and then leaning in for another taste. She clutched his wrists in her hands.

The two of them stood there, completely naked, just kissing for a time Eric was helpless to measure. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been with a woman, much less only kissed her when he could be doing much more.

She made a small sound at the back of her throat and he smiled, finally moving his hands from her head to her shoulders, and then down over the hot silk of her back.So long…so graceful. He pressed his fingers along the line of her spine, following it down to the high swell of her bottom. Then farther still, dipping into the shallow crevice inward until he probed her swollen womanhood from behind. He was surprised to find her so wet, so ready.

He groaned and picked her up. She automatically curved her legs around his hips, sandwiching his erection between her engorged labia. He turned her toward the kitchen island and sat her down, resisting the urge to enter her to the hilt right then and there. Instead, he reached for his discarded pants and took out the single condom there.

“I’m…I’m on the pill,” she whispered into his ear before he sheathed himself.

He pulled back slightly to look at her.

“I…I never stopped taking it.” She licked her lips, her pupils dilated so that her eyes were nearly black with need.

He kissed her deeply…and still sheathed himself. Confusion registered on her face.

“My dad always told me that you should always protect a lady,” he said.

She opened her mouth to protest as he hauled her hips closer to him until she was on the edge of the counter and entered her.

Whatever words she might have uttered were eclipsed by a soft gasp. Her eyelids fluttered closed and she arched her body, sensation appearing to take over. He helped her lie back against the counter. Eric’s blood surged double time, her immediate response to their joining heightening his own reaction.

He’d waited so damn long for this. Too long. He planned to take his time getting to a destination that he had only dreamt about.

He grasped her hips and withdrew, wondering at the sight of his tanned, rough skin against her pale softness. She clasped his wrists and wriggled against him, hungry for what he’d only given her a taste of. He sank into her to the hilt again, gritting his teeth to keep from coming too soon.

She felt so good. Hot, wet, inviting.

“Please,” she whispered, moving her head from side to side. “Please make love to me…”

And he did…

Chapter 4

SARA ROLLED OVER IN bed, pressing herself against the warm body next to her.

“Andy...”

It was a dream she’d had a thousand times before. Of waking up next to her husband…only to find he wasn’t there. And she always cried.

But this was the first time someone actually comforted her.

“Shh.” Arms encircled her.

Sara burrowed her nose against a rock-hard chest, clutching to the impenetrable wall that could protect her from everything. Her grief, her fears, the world.

Then she realized whose arms held her. And what name she’d said in her half sleep.

She rolled quickly away from Eric, the night before rushing back in snippets of sweaty flesh, soft cries and red-hot passion.

“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching for her robe.

“Don’t be. I miss him, too.”

She looked over her shoulder at him. He looked so damn sexy lying against the pillows, the top sheet draped dangerously low across his hips.

“Yes, but I don’t think you’ll be calling anyone else by his name.”

He glanced away, and she glimpsed the pain he must be feeling but was trying to hide.

“I’m going to be late for work,” she said.

“It’s Saturday.”

“I work Saturdays.”

Liar. Worse, she suspected he knew that. They’d talked about their hours during their many conversations and she’d complained about the nine-to-five grind and how she wished she could work from home with flex hours because sometimes she was best inspired during her time off.

Truman came in, toenails clicking against the wood floor, tail wagging, tongue lolling.

“I’ll make breakfast and take Tru for a walk,” Eric offered.

“I don’t eat breakfast and I’ll take care of Truman,” she countered.

She gathered the clothes she needed and headed for the bathroom. Before closing the door, she turned to look at where he still lay, grinning at her as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Neither of them said anything for a long moment. Sara watched as the smile slid from his face.

He cleared his throat and propped himself up on his elbows, almost causing the sheet to drop lower. “Would you like me to leave?”

“Yes.”

ERIC FELT LIKE HE’D taken a rifle butt to the gut.

Last night…well, last night had been one of the best nights he could remember experiencing in a long, long time. Merely holding Sara postsex and listening to her soft snores had made him feel more of a man than the past five years in the service.

Of course, her calling out Andy’s name this morning he could have done without.

He ignored the pain that made it almost impossible to breathe, trying to conjure up a response.

Sara’s brow wrinkled. “Did you just expect to stay here your entire leave?” she asked.

Yes, he realized, he had. They’d made such a connection that despite the considerable obstacles they faced, he’d assumed that once she let him into her house, she’d let him in all the way.

How wrong he’d been.

He scratched the back of his head and stripped the sheet off, moving to sit on the side of the bed. He noticed the way she watched his movements, especially a particular area of his anatomy with which she’d become quite intimately acquainted the night before, yet now apparently appeared embarrassed to see.

“I don’t get it,” he said under his breath. “You’re like a faucet alternately running hot and then cold.”

“Would you prefer lukewarm?”

“I prefer a consistent temperature.”

“Sorry if I’m not made of metal with knobs you can adjust.” She picked up his clothes with jerky movements and tossed them to the bed. His T-shirt hit the side of his head and stayed there so that he had to drag it off.

“What did you think when I disappeared from the Internet?” she asked, giving up her efforts and stopping to stare at him. “That I was playing hard to get? That if you showed up on my front step I’d throw open the door and welcome you into my bed?”

Her cheeks pinkened at her words. Eric didn’t speak the obvious because both of them knew that in the end, that’s exactly what she’d done.

“I don’t need…” She gestured with her hand. “Want any of this, Eric. I’m not up for a relationship with anyone, much less my late husband’s best friend.”

“So you’d rather continue to play the role of grieving widow?”

“What?” she whispered. What color had seeped into her cheeks drained out.

Eric sighed and ran his hand over his close-cropped hair. “That didn’t come out the way I meant it to.”

“Well, what way would you have preferred it to come out? Because from where I stand, there aren’t very many ways to mean what you just said.”

“Then let me take it back.”

She shook her head slowly back and forth. “You should know that you can’t put the bullets back in the gun after they’ve been shot.”

“Damn it, Sara.” Eric stood up and faced her.

She turned away. “Please…just go.”

She disappeared into the bathroom and he was left with little alternative as the door clicked closed behind her.

Truman’s soft whine brought his gaze down to the questioning canine.

“You think you’re confused?” he asked the mutt.

He got dressed, gathered his things and headed for the front door, Truman following his every move.

SARA CLEARED the dinner plates from the dining-room table and brought in the apple pie she’d made from scratch. Her father-in-law had moved his chair back to make more room for his expanding stomach and rubbed the area in question, a satisfied smile on his face, while her mother-in-law stood in front of the banquet against the wall, picking up the photos there as she did every time she visited. Nearly every shot contained Andy. On the first vacation together in Colorado, their first anniversary, Christmas with the in-laws…every photo marked a moment in their lives that would never be repeated.

“We had a surprise visitor yesterday,” Gertrude said, putting down a shot of Andy and Truman as a puppy.

“Oh?” Sara used the server to cut the pie and picked up a dessert plate.

“Eric Armstrong dropped in as if he’d parachuted from a C-150.”

“C-130,” Howard corrected.

Neither of them seemed to notice that Sara had dropped half a piece of pie onto the white tablecloth.

Gertrude turned from the banquet. “You remember Eric, don’t you?”

“Sure, I remember him.” If they only knew that she had memories to draw on that were much more recent than their own.

Howard picked up his fresh fork to dig into the pie. “He said he stopped by here to pay his respects.”

Gertrude looked at him. “You didn’t tell me that.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t think I had to. He was Andy’s best friend. He was there when he went down. Of course he’d want to see his widow.”

“Yes, but why didn’t you tell me?”

Sara was glad the two were too occupied with each other to see her reaction to the news that Eric had told them he’d stopped by there.

She tried to stop her hands from shaking as she handed Gertrude her pie.

“You’re not going to have any?” she asked.

“No, no, I’m…” She swallowed hard. “I must have eaten too much pot roast.”

“You didn’t eat any at all. Howard ate enough for all three of us.”

He chuckled, his mouth full of pie.

“You’re getting too thin, Sara. Is everything okay? You barely eat when we go out, your clothes are at least one size too big, if not two.”

Howard looked at her. “She looks all right to me.”

Gertrude gave an eye roll. “Of course, you would say that. Men don’t notice anything until it’s waving flags in front of them…or a gun.”

“I’d notice if she’d gotten fat.”

Her mother-in-law ignored him. “Sara? You haven’t answered my question.”

“Actually, I think I will have some pie,” she said, concentrating on cutting herself a piece.

“Good,” Gertrude looked satisfied.

Problem solved. For now…

LATER THAT NIGHT she sat in front of her glowing laptop, her fingers hovering above the keyboard. There was a time not so long ago when she’d looked forward to logging on to her e-mail account and checking for new messages. Rather, she’d been eager to check “Saman-tha’s” box. But now that Eric knew who she really was, would he seek her out at her regular account? And if he did, what would she do?

“Ignore him,” she whispered.

Easier said than done.

Despite the awkward moments with her in-laws earlier, every time she turned around she was reminded of her time with Eric the other night. She hadn’t changed the sheets yet because at night she snuggled into the side he’d slept on, crushing his pillow to her nose, absorbing the scent of sandalwood and hot male.

He’d tried calling, but she’d had the answering machine on. His first two attempts he’d merely hung up. On the third, he’d left a message: “Sara, call me, please. You and I need to talk.”

What was there possibly to say? She’d made a mistake. A mammoth mistake. And while there was no taking it back, she did have a say on whether or not it continued.

Sara drew a deep breath and entered her password. She clicked on the mail button and scanned the contents. A couple of spams, an e-mail from a cousin in California and…nothing.

She squinted at the screen, sure she was seeing things.

She deleted the spam, then opened her cousin’s e-mail, which was essentially a vent about work.

“I hear you. Some days are a bitch to get through,” she wrote back. “I—”

An instant message popped up in the middle of her screen, scaring the daylights out of her.

Sara stared at a screen name she’d come to know very well over the past few months.

Armstrong3001 had written a simple: “Hey.”

She swallowed hard, trying to decide whether she should respond or to shut down the feature.

Before she knew that’s what she was going to do, she typed back: “Hey, yourself.”

She sat staring at the blinking cursor in the message box until her eyes grew dry and she had to blink.

What did Eric want? She’d been both afraid and hopeful that he would seek her out again. After the other morning, she wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t want to speak to her again. After the other morning, she was afraid she’d eagerly welcome a repeat if he offered it.

She remembered her mother-in-law holding the photo of Andy earlier and guilt settled around her shoulders like a heavy cloak.

Sara began to shut the laptop when the IM chimed and Eric’s response appeared.

“I can’t forget about the other night.”

The frank admission caught her off guard and her hand slowly dropped from the monitor as if of its own accord.

Although she was reluctant to admit it, her every other thought was about how nice it had been to be held by him.

The problem lay in that the other thoughts were about her betrayal of the memory of her husband.

“It seems like every time I takea breath, I smell you…”

Sara gave an eye roll.

“I swear I detect the scent of lavender and vanilla everywhere. Then I remember that it’s not around me now, but rather a memory of you.”

Her soap and bath oil.

Okay, so it would have been easy to dismiss his initial words as so much hype, but his specific mention of her fragrance told her he was being genuine.

Of course, if she overlooked the part of her brain that told her that any contact with Eric was a bad idea, she would have recognized his honesty. Would never have questioned his sincerity. It was those qualities that had captured her attention and had drawn her to him time and again when she needed to feel connected to someoe not her in-laws or work associates.

Someone who would be as honest with her as she was with him.

Her heart beat a steady, heady rhythm in her chest.

“You’re more beautiful than I ever dared to imagine Samantha might be,” he wrote. “More than just physical…although I loved touching you.”

She swallowed hard, captivated by his words.

“There’s a vulnerability about you, Sara. Yet you’re fearless when it comes to something that you want. The combination fascinates me. You fascinate me.”

She caressed the keyboard with her fingertips, but the words refused to come.

“Your skin…”

Her pulse hummed.

“You’re so soft. Softer than anything I’ve ever had the privilege to touch before…”

When they’d traded e-mails and IMs before his return, their sexy posts had been almost carnal in nature. Now there rang an emotional edge that reached out for her more powerfully than his hands.

“I loved making love to you…Hearing your quiet gasps…your low moans…You felt so good wrapped around me. Tight…Wet…Then there was your mouth…”

Sara found her lips were parched and she ran her tongue over them as if in preparation for his kiss. Only he wasn’t here. He was probably back at the base writing to her on his laptop.

“I want to touch myself right now just thinking about it, Sara. Just thinking about you…”

He might want to, but she was.

Sara found that her right hand had moved to rest against her neck. Right there, just below her ear, where he had kissed her, driving her insane with desire. She slowly trailed her fingers down over her opposite shoulder, feeling her bra strap under her T-shirt. She reached back and unfastened the confining material, letting it bow open, but not removing it.

“Your breasts…”

Yes…her breasts. She ran her palm over her right one, the nipple already drawn taut and achy.

“I could have kissed your breasts forever and never wanted for anything more…”

Sara wet her fingertips and lightly pinched her nipple, gasping as she imagined it was Eric’s hand against her rather than her own.

“Then there was the surprise waiting down below…”

Sara’s breath caught as she remembered him tugging her underpants down and gazing at her bare flesh. She’d started waxing when she was in her early twenties and had never really stopped, liking the feel of the clean skin against the sheets…against a man.

“I remember how ready you were for me…how engorged…”

She popped the button on her jeans and dipped her fingers inside the waistband, touching her swollen flesh through her panties first, then burrowing inside so that she caressed her hot, sensitive flesh.

“You were so wet…so ready…”

She was now, too. Oh, so ready.

“And you tasted like pure honey warmed by the summer sun…”

She dipped her index finger inside her sex and her own juices coated her skin. She pulled it out and fondled her clit, drawing small, wet circles even as she continued reading his posts through half-lidded eyes.

“But nothing compares to the moment I first entered you…”

Sweet Jesus…

“Feeling your body surrounding me, squeezing me…I’ve never felt for another woman what I felt in that one moment…”

Sara stiffened her first two fingers and slid them into her moist heat. But two wouldn’t do. Not when Eric had filled her so thickly. She added a finger and thrust them up into her wetness.

“Knowing you were so hot for me made me feel like I was burning up from the inside out…And then you moved your hips…I had to grab your bottom and hold on for dear life I was so afraid I was going to come right there and then…”

Sara shivered all over, running her tongue along her lips restlessly, longing to stretch out on the bed behind her but not daring to miss one word Eric was typing.

“I want you again, Sara…Now. Please let me in…Invite me over.”

“Come…please,” she wrote.

Chapter 5

ERIC COULDN’T BELIEVE he’d written what he had. But once it was out, there was no taking it back. Nor, he realized, did he want to.

On the front line, there was no room for hesitation or second-guessing. To do either was to risk being killed. And after two days of torturing himself over Sara’s odd behavior, he’d come to recognize that they were at a standoff of sorts. Not on a professional battlefield, but on a personal one. And he needed to pull out all the stops if he had any chance of winning this challenge.

Of course, he’d never expected Sara to accept.

But he certainly didn’t plan to give her a chance to change her mind.

What would he do if she did change her mind? He’d spent so much time fantasizing about “Samantha” that he hadn’t really adjusted to the fact that she was actually Sara. But somehow everything just clicked the instant he’d stood in front of her on that beach. He’d felt as if he’d known her. Not just over the past few years through his friendship with Andy, but for his entire life.

And he wanted her in his life, fair play or foul, he didn’t care. He couldn’t imagine a future without her in it.

He began to log off so he could drive to her place when he noticed he had an e-mail. Thinking that maybe Sara had zipped him off something before shutting down, he double-clicked the icon to find fellow marine Matt Guerrero’s name in his box.

He opened it.

“Hey. Just heard from Eddie. Court-martial is on for Brian. The date has been set for the third…”

Whatever hope that Eric felt slid off like an unbuttoned shirt.

IT TOOK ERIC TWENTY minutes to drive to Sara’s, and every minute that passed, the more he feared she’d changed her mind.

How many times over the past six months had he imagined events just like this? Feeling a need so deep, so hot, that he’d do anything in order to reach Sara?

Of course, nowhere in those imagined circumstances had she ever refused him. But now the possibility emerged a very real one, indeed.

Damn. How did he go about convincing her that his feelings were the real deal? That she needed him as much as he was coming to need her? Her stubbornness was the stuff of which wars were made. Two factions refusing to budge and meet in the middle. It was either their way or the highway. And that highway ended up being a crater-filled no-man’s-land where deadly bombs were detonated and things escalated to the point where there was no truce to be had, only seething bitterness.

He didn’t want that to happen with Sara. Wouldn’t let it happen.

He tightened his hands on the steering wheel, understanding that he could defuse the situation himself in a simple, quick manner…

He could back out before tempers got too hot. Leave Sara to believe that hers was the right decision. Deny his own need for her.

Not an option, he argued.

He pulled into her driveway and stalked toward her front door, determined to face whatever it was she threw his way.

Thankfully, she grabbed his arm and hauled him inside and kissed him wildly.

She hadn’t changed her mind…

MASTURBATION, no matter the implements, was no comparison to the real thing.

Sara pushed a surprised Eric down onto her bed and stripped her clothes off, item by item before going to work on his until they were both nude. Then she climbed up onto the bed, straddling him in a shameless way that might have mortified her under normal conditions.

But what she was feeling was anything but normal. Her blood was on fire, raging through her body like a licking blaze, burning up every practical thought in her head. She was acting on pure instinct and fundamental desire.

And she had never felt better, more in control.

She knew that this was nothing more than an illusion. That her body’s desire to mate with Eric was making her think she was in control, when actually her hormones were ruling her actions. But just then she couldn’t have cared less. She just wanted to feel Eric inside her…now!

She scooted up his thighs, the springy hair there lightly scratching her as she bent to kiss him.

Eric groaned and held her head in that way that made her feel special. Like he could merely kiss her and he’d be the happiest man alive.

But she wanted more, oh, so much more.

She slid to cover his rock-hard erection between her pulsing folds, shuddering the instant the thick knob knocked against her hypersensitive clit.

Oh, yes.

Her own fingers could never bring her this much pleasure. The pure bliss of his hot, satiny hardness against her slick softness.

She reached between them to guide him inside her, reveling in the long, thick length.

“Whoa,” Eric whispered roughly. “Hold on a second while I get a rubber.”

“Can’t…wait…”

She ignored his attempts to stop her as she sank down over him, inch by delectable inch, taking him in.

He groaned and stopped fighting. Both of them stayed like that for a long moment, unmoving, absorbing every sweet sensation created by their joined bodies.

Sara swore she could feel her heart beating in every part of her body. Almost as if her body was her heart. One giant, pulsing organ capable of nothing but pure emotion. It was almost impossible for her to catch her breath.

Eric’s hips bucked as if involuntarily and sheer ecstasy rocketed through her.

Yes…

Bracing her palms against his wide shoulders, she tilted her own hips forward, then back, drenching him in her essence…

ERIC COULDN’T remember the last time he’d felt a woman’s flesh without the barrier of a condom.

A voice at the back of his head told him he should stop, sheath himself, protect her. But, Lord forgive him, he was incapable of doing anything that would impede the scintillating heat running over him in spectacular waves.

Was this really Sara stroking him with her body, her breasts swaying, her face a sketch of heaven?

God, but at this moment she was so beautiful she stole his breath away. She was a goddess who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid of going about getting it, land mines and lists of demands be damned. This wasn’t a truce, this was a coming together that transcended differences and preconceptions and flew up so high that the road that divided them was no longer visible.

Eric closed his eyes and ground his back teeth together to keep himself from coming too fast. She felt good. So good.

He grasped her hips and edged his fingers inward toward the bare flesh between her legs until both his thumbs slid into her shallow channel, finding the tight bud at the apex.

Sara gasped and arched her back, her breathing erratic, her stomach trembling. Eric knew that all he’d have to do was blow on her sensitive skin and she’d shatter into a million crystalline pieces. But he knew a fear that when he did that, she’d also wake up from whatever sensual haze she’d surrendered to and go back to the woman who refused to let him into her house, much less her heart.

So he moved his thumbs and fastened his roving fingers to her hips. Her tiny sound of disapproval was followed by another gasp as he thrust upward. He wanted to make this as long as he could. To claim her on a level that would be almost impossible to ignore or push away. He wanted her to remember him, to know that only he was capable of giving her this much pleasure.

A groan rose in his throat. Of course, he was forgetting that the woman absolutely wrecked him. She could have been Mata Hari demanding to know every last secret he’d ever been trusted with and he would have told her. Standing above him in dominatrix boots holding a whip and he would have begged her to lash him. Anything to keep her near. Anything to stop her from pushing him away.

He recognized her low moan and realized she was on the crux of orgasm. He tightened his grip on her hips and instantly rolled her over off him. Her sound of protest was loud and not very ladylike.

Eric grinned as he repositioned her on the bed next to him. If he had any hope of holding off his own climax,he needed to impose as much control as possible. So he turned her to her stomach and hauled her hips back so that she was on all fours. Then he nestled himself between her smooth bottom cheeks and parted her farther, baring every sweet inch of her to his hungry gaze.

He was determined that this time when she came, he would come with her…

SARA WOKE IN THE middle of the night feeling sated and sore…and more than a little remorseful.

Eric lay next to her, his soft snores telling her he was asleep, but not deeply. She slowly shifted to get out of bed only to be kept in place by Eric’s arms where he held her. The snores had stopped.

“Where are you going?” he said quietly.

She swallowed thickly. “Bathroom.”

“You just went.”

He had her there.

She debated on whether to fight him, to insist that she had to go again. But she was too exhausted to do anything more than melt back against him despite the arguments ringing through her brain.

She felt his lips against the top of her head. “Please…don’t do this again.”

Guilt piled on top of Sara’s entire body.

“Please don’t pull away from me.”

She searched for words to tell him. To explain what was happening inside her mind.

Instead she found the strength to draw away. She sat on the side of the bed, but forced herself to stay there instead of run for the door to the bathroom like she wanted to.

The bedsheets rustled and she looked over her shoulder to watch Eric lift himself up onto one arm, propping his handsome head on his hand.

“I want you to come to Texas with me,” he said.

She squinted at him in the darkness. “What?”

Her heart beat a million miles a minute.

“I need to go down to take care of some things at the ranch before I leave again for Afghanistan. Come with me.”

Sara’s eyes burned as she pulled the top sheet up to cover herself as best she could. “I can’t.”

“Why?”

There was the question she’d been dreading. The one she’d been running full out from since the moment she’d first spotted him on the beach. The one she’d known was on the tip of his tongue since he’d figured out she was Samantha and that he didn’t care, he wanted her anyway.

“Sara...”

She told her feet to move, but they refused her.

“I know that you think you’re betraying Andy by being with me, but…”

She shifted to look at him in the darkness, the only light in the room provided by the full moon looming large outside the bedroom window.

“Hey, look, I loved the guy, too, you know?” He ran his free hand restlessly over his close-cropped hair. “You don’t think there’s a day goes by that I don’t wish I could have done something more to save him?” He looked everywhere but at her. His voice dropped lower. “You don’t think there’s a moment when I don’t wish that it had been me instead of him?”

Sara’s eyes burned and she bit her bottom lip to keep from making a sound.

“But that’s not what went down. No matter how much I wish differently, Andy’s still gone…”

She absently budged her wedding ring around her finger, seeing no more than a blur through her tears.

“But you’re here, Sara.” Eric reached out and touched her. “I’m here…”

Chapter 6

ERIC HADN’T FELT SO convinced of something since he’d first signed on to become a marine. He knew down to his boots that asking Sara to come with him to Texas was the right thing to do. He needed her to take a step outside the past she held on to like a cocoon. Needed for her to see him as something other than an enemy and her late husband’s best friend.

He needed her to see him.

He could tell this battle was going to be all uphill. With potentially no end to the hill.

He reached out and touched her bare shoulder, marveling at the satiny feel of her skin.

“Sara, I’m not asking you to marry me. At least not yet.”

She shifted to stare at him so quickly that he was afraid she might fall off the side of the bed.

He grinned. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it. As a marine, I know that around every corner, behind every bush, someone may lurk, someone determined to end my life…I don’t have to explain it to you. You’ve lived long enough around marines to know that we tend to have a different view of time clocks. What might loom too soon for some seems too late to a marine.”

“But don’t you see…that’s what I’m afraid of. I’ve already lost one man…I couldn’t go on, couldn’t survive if I lost you, too…” Her words drifted off.

Eric had fully expected her to shut him out. To counter his proposal with an offensive that would leave him bleeding his emotions all over the sheets.

Instead she’d finally laid her heart, her fears, open to him.

He sat up, for the first time hope emerging, pushing through his array of weapons.

“You won’t lose me, Sara. I won’t allow that to happen.”

“How can you say that?” she whispered. “You don’t know what might happen tomorrow, or the day after that.”

“Neither do you.” He longed to haul her into his arms. “So why waste time we can spend together worrying about what if?”

She looked at him. The pain shining bright in her eyes sliced like a knife through his heart. “What about my job? Truman?”

He knew a strong relief. But also knew he had to act fast, before she shut him out again. “Take some time off. You can probably see to a lot of your tasks on your laptop, right? And we can take the Lab with us.”

She didn’t appear convinced, as if she’d expected a different answer. Or perhaps it wasn’t the answer at all, but the question that should have been different.

“What about Gertrude and Howard?”

Andy’s parents.

Eric blinked. In all honesty, he had never considered the older couple. Andy had been their only child. And when he’d visited the other day, he couldn’t help feeling awkward in their company. Because of the circumstances of his past with Andy, yes, but there had been something more…almost as if their continued close connection with Sara allowed them to buy into the delusion that their son was only away on assignment and he would be returning any day now.

“Tell them you’re going on vacation.”

She laughed without humor. “I never go on vacation.”

He reached out and cupped her chin with his hand, wiping some of the dampness from her skin. “Well, then, it sounds like it’s long time since you started…”

To his surprise, she leaned into his touch and then melted into his arms, allowing the sheet to drop. Eric closed his eyes, marveling in the warmth of her skin against his. How small. How sexy.

Her movements doubled the hope swelling inside him. Did he finally have her? Would she come to Texas with him?

He thought of his family and all he’d introduce to her. Show her. From the stables to the back nine where he used to spend so much of his time as a kid chewing on stalks of straw and contemplating the world from under his Oilers ball cap.

“I can’t.”

She’d said the words so quietly, he nearly didn’t hear them.

But hear them, he did. And his heart dipped low in his stomach. But rather than let go of her, he held her closer.

“Thank you, Eric. Your offer is the best one I’ve heard in a long, long time.”

He heard the deep click of her swallow even as she clutched him like she might never let him go, despite the meaning of her words.

“But I can’t.”

He tried to open his mouth, push out the word sitting on the tip of his tongue: Why? But it refused to come. Mostly because he didn’t have a breath on which it could exit.

She pulled slightly away, searching his face in the dim light. “I have so much to thank you for. For being patient. For making me feel alive again when I’d felt like I’d died right along with Andy. For…well, for making me look to the future again with curiosity rather than dread.”

“Then come to Texas with me, Sara. Take that step into the future.”

She looked down and slowly shook her head. “I understand that you have your timetable, Eric. What you must understand is that I also have one. And it has yet to adjust to all the changes you’ve wrought in my life in the past week.” She blinked up again and caressed the side of his face much as he’d done to her moments before. “I can’t move at your pace. Too many people will get hurt if I do.” She smiled a ghost of a smile. “Including me.”

“I’d never hurt you.”

“No, you wouldn’t. At least not purposely.”

He opened his mouth to protest and she rested her hand against his lips.

“Shhh. I’m not done yet.”

He forced himself to shut up and listen.

“I need you to promise me something.”

He wanted to say he’d do anything she wanted. Then he realized that this particular promise was going to be something he didn’t like.

“I want you to promise that when you leave here tomorrow morning, that you do so without looking back.” Her voice caught and she appeared to have trouble keeping her breathing even. “I want…no, need you to promise me that you won’t try to contact me. Not by phone. Not by e-mail. Not by IM. Not by any means.”

“Sara—”

“Promise me, Eric.”

He drew her close again and she rested her cheek against his shoulder, holding him just as tightly.

It was all so confusing.

If she was admitting that she wanted him, with both her words and her body, then why was she still pushing him away?

“I can’t,” he whispered fiercely into her hair, holding a fist full of it gently. “I can’t imagine not being able to see you, Sara. Not being able to talk to you.”

She made a small sound as she kissed his arm. “Who said you wouldn’t be doing either?”

“But how…”

He stopped.

“If this is going to happen, I have to be in control. If you force me into it, I may end up regretting it later. Regretting you. And I don’t want to do that.”

He didn’t want that to happen, either.

But he couldn’t stand the idea that he would have no sway over her. Didn’t trust that the moment he walked out of her front door that she wouldn’t go back to being Andy’s widow and lock herself out from the world all over again.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.