Breaking Away (30 page)

“Yes, I have.”

Those three words spoken with such barren control jerked her panicked thoughts to a standstill.

“I was seven when social services took me from my mother. Her boyfriend was using us both as punching bags and she wouldn’t leave him. She let them take me because the drugs he supplied her were more important than me.”

His words hit her with the force of a punch. He seemed so rock steady, so controlled, so normal. “I’m sorry,” Sam blinked back the instant tears. Tears for him and for herself.

Tim sat down beside her. “I won’t let him do anything to hurt you or Joy.”

“You can’t be here with us twenty-four hours a day. He works for his father and can take off any time he wants to do things to torment you. He’s a master manipulator. He doesn’t live by the same rules the rest of us do.”

“He’ll have to if he’s back in jail,” Tim said. There was a dogged determination in his voice and his expression.

She wanted desperately to believe him. More than anything.

The front door opened. “Mommy,” Joy’s voice came through the screen on the storm door. “Can I change the channel?”

“I’ll do it for you.” Sam stood.

“I’ll need to come in and check the windows. I’ll be putting sensors on them.”

“I don’t have the money for this.”

“It’s my fault you need the system. I’ll pay for it.”

“No you won’t!” She drew a deep breath to try and control the anger finally surfacing. At him for putting her and Joy in this position. And at Will for having triggered it. As always, Will was creating heartache and grief and financial hardship in her life. And she still had to drive the car with that word scratched across the side. “Two months free rent ought to pay for it.”

“Part of one will be enough.”

Now
he was being reasonable.
Now that he’d gotten his way.

Men were all the same.
She jerked the storm door open. The house had been a haven since she’d left Will. She wasn’t ready to let anyone break the sanctity of her home. Not even Tim. No matter what his reasons. Resentment high, she strode into the living room, leaving the door open but not really inviting him in.

The great room combined with the kitchen stretched across the width of the house. The high cathedral ceilings with intricately woven wooden beams crisscrossing the space always surprised anyone who entered the house. Tim’s gaze jerked upward. “This is really something.”

“My grandfather. He ripped out the attic above these two rooms, opened up the space, and put a skylight in the kitchen. There are smaller things throughout the house, too, that constantly make me think of him.”

“If you ever needed to sell the place, this and the garage apartment would cement the deal.”

Just the thought brought emotion surging through her.
Never!
She’d go hungry first. “I’ll never sell. This is home. I’ll work two jobs before I’ll see that happen.”

He nodded. “I won’t damage anything. The units I’ll be putting in are small.”

“Mommy!” Joy used what Sam called her universal kid voice. All children used it to remind their parents of their presence and their needs.

She turned aside without comment to change the channel for her.

“Want to watch cartoons with me?” Joy asked Tim with a smile.

He grinned back. “I haven’t watched cartoons since…Dumbo.” He paused. “Maybe I can do that another time. I’m going to do a special job for your mommy.”

“’Kay.”

Sam’s hands clenched. What had happened to him after they’d taken him from his mother? Had he been able to have a normal childhood?

“We don’t have any sliding glass doors leading out of the house, but we do have double doors that lead out of the master suite onto the patio out back.”

“I’ll check the locks and reinforce them if they need it. It’s part of the package.”

She nodded. She’d hoped she’d never have to make the house a fortress. In doing so, it felt like Will had won yet another battle to make a mess of her life. But if it ensured she and Joy were safe, maybe it would be worth it.

“I’ll show you the rest of the house.” She walked him through the two smaller bedrooms and the master suite. The two bathrooms had small windows she or Joy might be able to wiggle through, but not anyone larger. When she commented about that, Tim shook his head.

“I’ve slid through something as small as that by popping out the top pane.”

She studied him for a moment and waited for him to further clarify what he meant. “When you were in the service?”

“Yeah.”

Guys in the Navy stayed on board aircraft carriers, submarines and vessels like that didn’t they?
Didn’t they?

“Were you in Iraq and Afghanistan?”

“Yeah.” His gaze, so clear and blue, remained steady on her face.

“Were you Naval Intelligence?”

“I can’t tell you what I did, Sam.”

The anxious knot in her stomach tightened again. He wasn’t regular Navy. Special forces? Or something like that. She bit her lip. “Okay.” Her voice came out a little strangled. Should she be afraid of him?

“It isn’t because I want to come off all mysterious. We just don’t talk about what we did or where we did it.”

“O-Okay. I need to start lunch for Joy. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Wait.” Tim grasped her upper arm, his touch careful, light. But the pads of his fingertips warmed her skin. Tiny jets of awareness raced through her breast where the backs of his fingers rested so close. If she shifted even an inch, the contact would become a reality.

“For the last seven years, I’ve been putting myself between innocent people and the assholes trying to hurt them, Sam. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

With her long-dormant sensuality stretching toward him
yes, she did.
She cleared her throat. “I’m not afraid of you.” Her voice came out soft and breathy. She swallowed and tried for a stronger tone. “But I have to be wary of everyone. And I can’t depend on you or anyone else to protect me. Once your business takes off, you’ll move on. Joy and I will still be here, on our own.”

His jaw tensed. “Then I’ll teach you how to defend yourself.” His fingertips ran down her arm to her elbow before he released her.

She leaned back against the wall, her legs feeling weak from the release of tension. She fought the urge to rub the spot where his hand had rested. “You can do that?”

“Hand-to-hand. Weapons. Yeah, I can teach you.”

The idea of being able to fight back… She felt stronger just thinking about it. “Truly?”

“Yeah.” He tipped his head. “Truly.”

“When can we start?”

He smiled and his teeth flashed white in the dim light of the hall. And her heartbeat soared.

“I’ll be a little busy today taking care of the hole I dug by shooting my mouth off. And tomorrow I have a job to do. But I’m free on Tuesday.”

His admission that he’d done the wrong thing went a long way to soothing her resentment, but not her anxiety. As much as she had enjoyed hearing Will laid flat verbally, she was too aware of the possible repercussions to forget or forgive. But maybe learning some self-defense would help alleviate her PTSD symptoms. “It’s a date.”

Realizing what she’d said, she bit her lip and hazarded a glance at him.

Tim shifted closer to her, his movements slow and measured. “I won’t read more into that than you meant.” He paused. “Not this time.”

Her mouth grew dry as desert sand beneath the intentness of his regard. Her gaze dropped to his lips, then to the pulse that beat in his strong, tanned throat.

“You’re a beautiful woman.” His deep voice grew husky. “I’d have to be made of wood not to notice. But I’m not your ex. And I don’t force myself on women.” His throat worked as he swallowed. “I’ll go organize my stuff and get started on the system.” He brushed past her, so close she felt the warmth of his body. His steps quiet, he walked on down the hall to the living room.

Sam took several deep breaths to steady herself. He’d fired up her rusty sexuality with just the brush of his fingertips. And he’d even gotten close enough to kiss her and she hadn’t felt one moment of fear. She allowed herself to bask in the experience.

But his parting words,
I’m not your ex. And I don’t force myself on women
, played through her head. Her stomach plunged and a writhing humiliation killed those wonderful sensations. Was he making a statement about himself? Or had he guessed that Will had forced her?

CHAPTER 24

M
arsha breathed in the scent of grilling meat and nausea rolled over her in a rush. It would pass. They said that smell was the strongest sense tied to memory. If that was true, maybe if she just immersed herself in it, this would stop.

She focused on tearing the lettuce into bite-sized pieces in two salad bowls, then added sliced cucumbers, shredded carrots and wedges of tomato. She sprinkled the croutons James liked on his.

Tucking the baby monitor under her arm, she carried the bowls to the door that led out into the back yard. The front door and sliding glass door in the living room had been replaced after the break-in. While they’d all been in the hospital, a team of SEALS had pitched in and done the work. The wonderful perks of being a member of a close-knit community.

The house looked just as it had before the incident.

Except for the memories.

She had to put this behind her.
She was fine. Alex was fine. James was fine. This was just a place.

It had been a happy place for the last five years.

Could she lay all that had happened aside and get those feelings back? She studied the late afternoon sunlight as it reflected off the pool. James swam in it every day. How could he bear it? How could he walk the same steps he’d walked that day? He hadn’t walked, he’d staggered. She didn’t know how he’d survived the beatings.

For the first time she acknowledged her husband’s incredible courage He just kept putting one foot in front of the other and
would not give up
. She needed to follow his lead and quit being such a wuss.

She unlatched the door, slid it open, and stepped out onto the patio. She avoided the pool and carried the salads to the glass-topped table under a bright red umbrella. James had already set the table.

“I’ve opened a bottle of the red wine you like,” he said, motioning toward the sideboard next to the grill.

“Thank you.” Maybe if she drank enough… No, she couldn’t do that. Alex might need her.

“Would you like a glass?” She moved to the sideboard.

“Sure.”

He preferred beer and was just trying to be…pleasant. James was never pleasant for conformity’s sake. He usually just said what he thought, but rarely how he felt. A side-effect of being in charge of a platoon of SEALs. In the last two weeks he’d shared more of his feelings with her than he had in the previous ten years. He was trying. She could see that. It was time to make up her mind whether she was going to meet him halfway.

She poured two glasses of the wine, walked over to where he stood, and set his glass next to him on the wooden platform attached to the grill.

“Thanks.”

Marsha buried her nose in her glass and took a large swallow. Irish courage? Or did that have to be Irish whiskey?

This was her husband! Why did she suddenly feel nervous? He’d never touched her with anything but gentleness. Even in his passion he took care. And, as he’d said, he’d never rush her into anything. But he’d planned this evening to ease her back into them being together. Earlier he’d even suggested a date night once a week so they could have time for just the two of them.

James flipped the steaks with long-handled tongs, then closed the lid on the grill.

“One of my men is in trouble,” he said.

Marsha stared at him. In ten years, he had never talked to her about any of the men, except to pass on scuttlebutt about marriages, engagements, breakups, and babies. “What kind of trouble?”

He took a sip of his wine and looked down into his glass. “Before we transferred home he hooked up with the FBI to do some undercover work for them in Iraq, and followed through when he got home. There were other personnel who were approached who did the same.” He shifted his weight and raised the lid of the grill to check the meat. “Just a few more minutes.” He took another sip of his wine.