Into the Blue (A Wild Aces Romance) (16 page)

We collapsed on our sides, our limbs entwined, and the combination of a long day, alcohol at dinner, and two mind-numbingly good orgasms had me losing the fight against sleep. Just before I drifted off, it occurred to me that my heart was wide-fucking-open, but at the moment, I just didn’t have it in me to care.

I watched her sleep, my fingers clutched tightly in her fist, my heart in her palm.

I still loved her. No question about it. I’d never felt this way about anyone else, would never feel this way again. Becca was it for me, and even as I watched her fight it, I damned well knew I was it for her.

You couldn’t fake what we had. Couldn’t duplicate it. We were so fucking lucky to have found each other once, and even as I’d always suspected it, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that letting her go was the biggest mistake of my life.

Now I needed to fix it.

I’d started thinking about my options, trying to figure out what I wanted to do next. I had a year left on my Air Force commitment, but that would probably get extended a
bit due to our deployment to Afghanistan. The squadron needed bodies, and I had the experience they would rely upon. Technically they couldn’t force me to extend past a year if I decided to get out of the military, but I owed the Wild Aces and the guys I flew with, and if I could fix my problems in the cockpit, then I wanted to have their backs in combat.

I was about to pin on major in the next month and I should be getting my next assignment. All of my choices had been Viper combat squadrons, and at the time, location hadn’t mattered much to me.

Now it did.

Even if I got Shaw, even if I had three years close to Becca, I would still finish out the rest of my time until retirement going through normal PCS moves. That would mean seven years of the same problems we’d fought about when we were together. Neither one of us was getting any younger; she wanted a family, and given the way she’d grown up without parents, I was sure she would object to having kids only for me to be gone and miss the important events in their lives—first steps, first words, birthdays, holidays.

Then there were the Guard and the Reserve, which had the benefit of keeping me in the Viper, but they were a crapshoot in terms of availability. They were a pretty sweet gig considering they gave you all the perks of being a fighter pilot without the hassle of moving all the fucking time, so they were as competitive as hell and you had to hope the stars aligned and a spot opened up when you needed it. I couldn’t make that promise to her because even if I made the decision, there was no guarantee that there would be an available spot for me to take.

Rock, meet hard place.

I could get out completely, but I was still left feeling like
my skills were pretty fucking limited—
can blow things up with a missile
looked pretty useless on a résumé—and considering how much time I’d spent advancing in my career, I wasn’t sure I wanted to start all over again.

But if anything would convince me otherwise, it was the girl sleeping next to me.

“I don’t want to interrupt your bang-fest.”

I laughed at Lizzie’s not-incorrect characterization of the past two days with Eric. “I promised to babysit. You know I love Dylan. It’s no big deal. Honestly. Besides, you and Adam need a bang-fest of your own. Get a hotel room and show your husband the lingerie you bought.”

Lizzie sighed. “I’ll give you one last chance to back out, because as much as I feel like an asshole taking you up on your offer, I haven’t gotten laid in three weeks. Dylan’s taken to sleeping in our bed again, and Adam is starting to get growly and not in a good way.”

I grinned, shifting the phone to my other ear as I flipped through the file for an upcoming case. “I’m there. Does six o’clock work? That should give you guys plenty of time.”

“Bless you. That’s perfect.”

“Good. Tell Dylan that I’ll make his favorite dinner and we can watch a movie.”

“By his ‘favorite dinner,’ do you mean animal-shaped pancakes?”

I winced. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I didn’t realize sugar at night was kind of a no-go for a six-year-old, but he got so excited that I didn’t have the heart to tell him no. What can I say? I’m a sucker.”

Lizzie snorted. “Hey, you’re the one who has to deal with the fallout. Have fun.”

We said good-bye, and I hung up, dialing Eric’s cell next. We’d had tentative plans to hang out and I felt bad for canceling, but I also thought it might be a good thing to have a night apart. We’d spent the past two nights and mornings together, and I was already growing way too used to seeing him when I came home every day, to him sleeping next to me, supplying me with orgasms, and then being there when I woke up in the morning. We hadn’t talked about the fact that he was leaving soon, but it was only a matter of days, a week at the most, and I needed to slowly start weaning myself off him, because the withdrawal symptoms would be a bitch if I went cold turkey.

He answered right away, sounding out of breath. “Hey, babe, what’s up?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just painting my grandmother’s house.”

I grinned. “I thought it was just the kitchen.”

“It was just the kitchen. Now it’s the whole house.”

Okay, that was a little cute.

“She says ‘hi,’ by the way.”

“Tell her I said ‘hi’ back.”

I’d always had a soft spot for his grandmother, and she’d continued to treat me like I was a part of the family even after we’d broken up.

“Wait . . .” Silence filled the line. “Okay, we’re invited to Sunday brunch.”

I froze. Sunday brunch was kind of a tradition. She had it after church and always hosted a big crowd in her tiny house. We’d gone when we were dating and engaged, but I hadn’t had the heart to go in the years after, always making up an excuse when she invited me. It felt too weird to be back in that house without Eric beside me.

“And I promised that we’d go to church with her,” he added, his voice cheery.

Oh, hell no.

Church in Bradbury was an
event
. Everyone went. If I showed up with Eric and his grandmother, the gossip would spread throughout the town before the service ended.

No freaking way.

“Sorry, I think I have plans. You should totally go, though.”

“Come on, don’t be a heathen,” he teased.

I snorted because I was pretty sure there was a snowball’s chance in hell that Eric had seen the inside of a church unless he’d done so at his grandmother’s insistence. I had no problem with going; I just didn’t want to go with him.

“I have to cancel our date tonight,” I said, ignoring his invitation.

“Why?”

“I promised Lizzie I’d babysit. She and Adam really need a night out.”

“They have a kid?”

Sometimes I forgot how much he’d missed.

“Yeah, Dylan is six. He’s my godson, and a holy terror, and he’s relying on me to make him animal-shaped pancakes for dinner.”

He chuckled. “I would never stand in the way of a cat-shaped pancake.”

“Actually, Dylan likes zoo animal–shaped pancakes. He’s discerning that way.”

“I see. And you can make these?”

I heard the skepticism in his voice, and considering he’d seen my artistic and culinary skills—or lack thereof—I didn’t blame him.

“I use a mold,” I admitted reluctantly. “But seriously, he thinks it’s magic and I can’t lose my godmother street cred. Competition is fierce. Adam’s sister has a pool in her apartment complex.”

Eric burst into laughter. “God, I forgot how competitive you could be.”

Valid.

“Okay, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll forgive you for canceling our date if you agree to come to church and brunch on Sunday.”

I groaned. “No.”

“Come on, babe.”

“Don’t call me ‘babe’ at your grandmother’s.”

“Pretty sure I called you ‘babe’ before.”

“Yes, but that wasn’t using sex voice,” I hissed.

He cracked up again. “Sex voice?”

“DO NOT SAY IT OUT LOUD.”

It took him a minute to get his laughter under control enough to speak.

“Well, now you have to come; she’ll be too worried about your immortal soul if you don’t.”

His grandmother was one of the nicest, least judgmental people I’d ever met, so he only said it to appeal to my sense of guilt—of course, it worked.

“Fine. But no hand-holding. No kissing. No mentions of our sex life.”

He snorted.

“No one can think we’re anything other than friends.”

“I was worried we were just fuck buddies, so friends is a vast improvement—”

“DO NOT SAY ‘FUCK BUDDIES’ AT YOUR GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE.”

My cheeks flamed as horror flooded me. I buried my head in my hands as he burst out into more laughter. When the laughs had finally subsided, it hit me.

“She’s not anywhere near you, is she?”

“Nope,” he answered cheerfully. “She went outside to garden after I asked you about church.”

“I hate you,” I muttered.

“You wound me.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Wait.”

“What?”

“Go to the Harvest Dance with me.”

Jesus. What was up with him today?

“No way.”

The Harvest Dance was pretty much
the
event in Bradbury. They held it at an old farm on the outskirts of town with hayrides, dancing under white lights, and marshmallow roasts. It was a huge tradition that I’d experienced every single year Eric and I were together.

You didn’t go to the Harvest Dance with someone you were just sleeping with. It was so sweet, it was saccharine, and while I secretly loved the rustic romance, there was no way we could go to something like that and keep things casual. When Eric eventually left, I’d be the one stuck here
with the questions, and the pitying looks, and the whispered conversations about how I couldn’t find a man no matter how hard I tried.

“You owe me a date.”

“Dinner followed by dessert. If you’re lucky, I’ll put a blowjob on the table. No Harvest Dance.”

“You love the Harvest Dance.”

“Correction. I
loved
the Harvest Dance. I haven’t been in a while. It’s not the kind of thing you go to single.”

His voice went a little funny. “But you said you’d dated.”

“In a decade? Yeah, I wasn’t sitting at home knitting.”

“But no Harvest Dance dates?”

“It just never worked out.”

Because the Harvest Dance was ours. Because all of my memories were inextricably tied to him, and the one year I had tried to go, I’d ended up freaking out before I even saw the white lights and wound up on a date at a fast-food restaurant.

“Come with me.”

I put my head in my hands. “Did you just decide to call me to be annoying today?”

“Um, you called me.”

Shit. So I did.

“Becca?”

I groaned. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Not a chance.”

“Why? Why is this so important to you? It’s just a stupid dance.”

“It was never a stupid dance.”

No, it wasn’t.

I sighed, already feeling exhausted. “Fine. I’ll go.”

I hung up the phone before he could get the last word in. Somehow it still felt like he already had.

*   *   *

Oh God, I should have just gone with a mix. I was wearing more flour than had made it into the stupid bowl, Dylan was jumping around playing with some kind of faux-medieval sword, the TV blaring in the background, I had the migraine to end all migraines, and I was about to cry.

I’d forgotten how exhausting these babysitting nights could be, and honestly, considering I only had to watch him for five hours and then I could hand him back to his parents, I had no clue how Lizzie did it. I was getting her a spa day for her birthday along with a giant bottle of wine. She was my freaking hero.

“Dylan, buddy, can you sit down for a second?” I called out. “Do you want to watch me make the pancakes?”

I figured “watching” was better than “helping,” considering he was definitely responsible for a solid third of the flour caked on me. The other two-thirds were the result of my own ineptitude with cooking, which somehow made it worse.

“Can’t. I have to kill the dragon.”

God, he was a bloodthirsty kid. He was smart as a whip, but definitely a handful.

The doorbell rang, mixing with the cacophony of the blaring TV, and I looked down at my clothes again—thanks to the flour, I’d channeled either a zombie or a ghost—wondering if the neighbors had finally given in and called the cops to report the chaos. And then another thought hit me—I really hoped it wasn’t Lizzie saying she’d forgotten something, because I was pretty sure she would freak if she saw the destruction I’d wrought to her normally clean kitchen. I figured I had four hours to somehow get it back to the state I’d found it in.

I padded through the living room, wincing slightly at the
sight of flour falling onto Lizzie’s pristine carpet. I was definitely going to have to vacuum later.

Shit.

The doorbell rang again.

“Coming,” I shouted, rounding the corner and colliding with Dylan, sword in hand.

“I got you!” he yelled.

“Am I the dragon?” I was strangely hurt by that.

He shook his head emphatically. “Nope.”

Okay, I gave up. I had no idea what game we were playing, but I went with it.

“You did. You’re the fiercest knight.” I really needed to get that sword away from him before dinner. It was plastic, but it could do some serious damage to Lizzie’s house.

“Does your mom usually let you play with that inside, buddy?”

He shook his head again. “No. Last time I did, I broke something and Mommy got mad.”

Fuck.

I scooped him up on my hip, my knees buckling a little at his weight—he’d definitely grown since the last time I’d done this—and tried to pry the sword out of his hand before he could realize what I was up to.

The doorbell rang again.

I groaned. “I’m coming!”

Dylan laughed. “You’re getting mad like Mommy.”

I couldn’t help grinning. “Sort of. Yeah.”

He cuddled into me, and something inside me melted. I forgot about the stupid flour, and the sword, and the headache, and the blaring cartoon.

I opened the door, a smile on my lips, and my gaze connected with Eric, standing on the other side of Lizzie’s doorstep, a bag in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other.