Uncommon Pleasure (35 page)

When she got to Sean’s borrowed house and rang the doorbell, a woman answered. “Can I help you?”

The bottom dropped out of Abby’s stomach as she looked into the woman’s eyes. “I’m looking for Sean,” she said.

“I’m Camilla,” the woman said. “He’s gone home for his last night before he leaves for Virginia.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointed. “Okay. Thanks.”

“Are you Abby?”

She turned back. “I am.”

“He said if you came by to tell you to come over to the house. I think his mother planned a tailgating party to disguise his going-away party. Knowing Sean, he’s probably desperate for a break. He’s so outnumbered by girls at home. He said to tell you he’d be waiting for you.”

Her heart knocked so hard against her breastbone she reached for the railing to steady herself. “Okay,” she said inanely. “Thank you. I’ll go over.”

Camilla closed the door. Abby got in her Celica and floored it.

Sean had to admit his parents knew how to throw a party. He’d
refused to have a big fuss made over leaving for Quantico, so his mother covered it as a Saturday football tailgating party that started at eleven and at five in the afternoon was only picking up speed going into the Texas game at seven. Half the neighborhood was watching television on the flat screen set into the brick patio wall, and his four sisters were there. Bronagh and Bridget drove down from Houston with several friends from work, and Kiera and Naeve invited a whole pack of girlfriends from high school and college that thankfully did not include the girl from the drive-through at Wendy’s. Between friends of his sisters and his mother, women outnumbered men in the house and in the yard three to one. He did his best to cope politely with the press of chattering females ranging in age from fifteen to sixty, but when the chips, beer, and hard lemonade ran low and his father nudged him and asked him if he wanted to run to the store for fresh supplies, Sean jumped at the chance.

“You drive,” he said to his dad, and tossed him the keys to the Mustang on the way down the steps. “Take the long way around.”

His dad just laughed. Sean slumped in the passenger’s seat, letting the engine’s rough purr lick over his nerves like a mama cat’s soothing tongue. They stopped at a superstore on the outskirts of town and loaded a grocery cart full of chips and salsa, sandwiches, salads, drinks, an array of alcohol that would have made an entire platoon whoop for joy, and a big cake. There was a brief skirmish over wallets when the checkout clerk rang up the total, but Sean got a few twenties into her hands before his dad could stop him. They filled the trunk with the contents of the shopping cart, keeping a bag of Doritos for the drive, and slid the cake into the backseat.

“How’re you doing?”

Sean tore open the bag of chips as he considered how to answer that question. All things Marine considered, he was fine. He was home, his men were home, everyone was alive. No one seemed to be struggling, but he’d keep in touch with all of his men for…well, forever. But not a word from Abby since she walked out of Camilla’s house days ago. “Fine,” he said. “I guess.”

“Want to talk about it?” his dad asked as he headed south on the Gulf Freeway.

He pulled his cell phone from his cargo pants pocket and ran his thumb over the screen. Nothing. “I screwed something up,” he said. “Then I screwed it up worse, trying to fix my first screwup. Now I just have to wait and see what happens.”

“Takes a strong man to admit his mistakes,” his dad offered stolidly. “Is this about the girl from last year?”

“Yeah.”

“You want my advice?” His father wisely didn’t wait for an answer. “After thirty-six years with the same woman and fathering four girls, my advice is to be patient. They usually come around, but you can’t rush them if they’re not ready to be rushed.”

“Where were you weeks ago when I started all of this?” Sean muttered as his cell phone rang. “Probably Mom, wondering where we are,” he said as he pulled it from his pocket. But the picture on his screen wasn’t of his mother crossing the finish line at the Houston marathon.

It was a smiling bright-eyed redhead on a picnic blanket. “Abby?” he said.

“Where are you?” she demanded. In the background he heard the noise and laughter of his parents’ party. “Because I’m in your parents’ backyard with about sixty other people. I have a beer and a sandwich, and I’m under orders to sit here until you get back. One of your sisters, Bridget or maybe Bronagh, told me not to leave until you got here. She’s really quite fierce, and a little scary.”

“That’d be Bronagh. I apologize for Bronagh. I’ll be there in less than five minutes,” he said, and gestured to his father to hurry the hell up. “Don’t leave. Please.”

“I’m not leaving,” she said. “I’m going to eat a sandwich and drink this beer and pretend there aren’t fifty women looking at me out of the corners of their eyes. But hurry. I really want to see you.”

“We’re on our way.” He hung up, sat up straighter in his seat. “Step on it,” he barked before he remembered the man beside him was his father, not the lance corporal who usually drove him.

“Patience,” his father said. “This car’s a cop magnet. If Bronagh’s got her, she’s not getting away.”

They pulled into the driveway, and his dad loaded him up with four cases of beer and two bags of groceries stacked on top. He came through the front door of the big white house to a rousing round of cheers, set everything on the kitchen counter, looked around for Bronagh, but found only Naeve.

“Backyard,” she said as she dug through the chip sack. “No Cheetos? You didn’t buy Cheetos? Sean! How could you?”

He chucked her the keys to the Mustang and his wallet. Her
squeal of delight followed him through the sliding glass doors to the expansive brick patio, where he found Abby sitting on a chaise, Bronagh sitting next to her, both of them pretending to watch the pregame show. When he appeared Bronagh stood up to make room for him. “You’re welcome,” she said, and swept into the house.

“Hey,” he said. “Want a burger? Potato salad? We have chips now.”

She looked at him, wry amusement shining in her eyes. “You’re always showing up and surprising me. I thought I’d turn the tables. I was going to leave when I figured out you weren’t here, but Bronagh felt I should wait for you.” She looked around, then leaned a little closer. “It’s like being in a fishbowl. Everyone’s watching us.”

“I have four sisters,” he whispered back. “They find my personal life very interesting.”

“Do they know about us?”

“They know I broke up with you and I regret it,” he said. “Nothing about what happened this month.”

She looked at him, no challenge, no shutters, just Abby in those spring-green eyes. “About that…I know you don’t have much time left with your family, but can we go somewhere else and talk? Just for a little while?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “But you have to drive. I just gave my sister Naeve the keys to the Mustang to get her off my back about forgetting Cheetos.”

He took her hand and towed her through the melee, out the front door, where he found seven teenage girls trying to cram into the Mustang. He took a moment to ruthlessly evict all of the girls except Naeve, then leaned into the passenger window. “One passenger, Naeve.”

“I can’t choose between my six best friends,” she wailed.

Behind him, Abby stifled a laugh. Sean took a deep breath, counted to five, then turned to the gaggle of girls clustered on the front lawn, twisting hair and whispering. “Throw for it,” he said.
Fifteen seconds of rock paper scissors and a preening brunette slid into the passenger seat.

“Seat belts,” he barked as the Mustang backed out into the street.

“You sure you’re okay with this? We can wait until she gets back,” Abby said.

“She’s a good driver,” Sean said. “I taught her to drive a stick in that car. She’ll be fine. It was the six chattering BFFs with cell phones that worried me.”

After the party and his sister’s friends, the silence in the Celica rang in his ears, but still he waited. Abby drove them to the park. “You want to go for a walk?” he asked.

“Not really,” she said. “I just want to talk to you. I want to know why you came looking for me at Ben’s.”

She looked at him, and in her calm, serious gaze was Abby, ready to be wooed again. Very, very slowly. He pointed at her foot and beckoned. She shifted in the driver’s seat so her back was to the door and her feet rested in his lap. He tugged off her flip-flops and dropped them on the floor, then put his thumbs to the soles of her feet in slow, rhythmic strokes. “Because even though I cut you out of my life, I couldn’t cut you out of my soul. I could keep you out of my mind for days,” he said as the sun set. “Then I’d be on night patrol, looking up at the stars. They lay in a swath across the sky because there’s no light pollution, and every time I looked up they reminded me of your freckles. And I felt better. Less alone. Less lonely.”

“It’s hard to forget someone when the night sky reminds you of her,” she said.

“It’s hard to forget someone when she’s carved into your soul,” he replied. “The stars just reminded me of what I’d thrown away, and what I wanted back.”

She gave him an absent little smile. “Now tell me everything that happened after you broke up with me,” she said.

“Everything?”

“As much as you want to tell me,” she amended.

“That’s everything,” he said. “This could take a while.”

“All night?”

He slid her a quick glance. Abby was flirting with him. Very gently. Very tentatively. Flirting. “At least,” he said.

“Better get started,” she said lightly.

So he did. He told her everything he could remember, impressions and sounds and stories about life on base, patrols, his men, their families, missions, the details that comprised
everything
while night fell around them. During the foot massage she’d gone boneless in the seat as she watched him. When the darkness registered in his awareness, he checked his watch.

“Do you need to get back?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I just realized I’ve done all the talking.”

“I think you needed to get some of that out,” she said.

To her. To the woman he wanted by his side forever. “I think you’re right,” he replied.

Another flashing little smile in the dusky light. She opened the door and got out of the car, stretching with a soft, satisfied sound. “You’ve got more stories, right?”

He walked around the hood of the car and stood in front of her. “I do. Do you want to hear them?”

“I do,” she said.

“So we’re not done?”

“We’re not done,” she replied.

“Then I need to talk to you about something,” he said. “John Langley, the former Marine who owns Langley Security, offered me a partner position in his firm. Another guy from the Corps is coming on board to head up personnel. They want me for research and strategy. It’s here in Galveston. There’d be travel, but at least I wouldn’t be stationed in Virginia while you were here.”

She blinked. “Are you asking me if I think you should resign your commission and go into the private sector?”

“That’s what I’m asking, Abby. At the very least, I want you to know the option is there.”

“Go to Quantico,” she said without hesitating. “The whole point of deploying was to gain insights into modern-day warfare, then apply them to help keep Marines alive. That’s who you are.”

“Are you sure?” he said, peering into her eyes for any hint of resistance.

“Yes, I’m 100 percent sure I don’t want you to give up your dream, your plan, and your future just because I’m here and you’re there,” she said tartly. “We would have survived you deploying to Afghanistan. We’ll surely survive you living in Virginia while I finish school. After that, we’ll figure it out.”

He wanted to race in a circle in the parking lot, jump in the air, and pump his fist. Instead, he kissed her, soft and sweet, and felt her melt against him. “Yes, we will,” he said softly.

She smiled at him, then looked up at the night sky. “That’s what you saw that reminded you of me?” she asked.

“Too much light pollution,” he said, and he didn’t even need to look up to know that. “I saw something much more amazing.”

“Pretty romantic,” she said.

He stepped close and pulled her into his arms. “After this month we can both agree I suck at the Prince Charming stuff,” he said.

She tipped her head back and smiled at him, her eyes gleaming. “That’s okay. I’ll take my U.S. Marine.”

Towering evergreen trees waved their spiny branches in Abby’s
face as she waded knee-deep in snow behind Sean. The day after she arrived in Virginia a major storm dropped fourteen inches of heavy, wet snow on the region, and Prince William Forest Park at seven in the evening was dark and still.

“It’s all very pretty,” Abby commented to Sean’s back, a few feet up the trail from her, “if you’re inside, drinking peppermint cocoa. With marshmallows. In front of a fire.”

He turned around, his blue eyes dancing under his pulled-down black watch cap as he reached for her hands. “You cold?”

“Let’s see,” she said as she pulled down a fleece scarf. “I’m wearing wool socks, boots, silk long underwear, flannel-lined jeans, snow pants, a turtleneck, a wool sweater, a parka, gloves, and a scarf.” The clothes were her Christmas present, doled out item by item during a few hours of a whirlwind leave between Christmas and New Year’s, and nestled in one boot was a round-trip plane ticket to Virginia during her winter break in January. The card
tucked in the plane ticket read
You’ll need this for continued conversations under the stairs
.

She’d been overwhelmed by the number of expensive items, considering that she had one gift to give him, but his reaction when he saw the hardcover photo album reassured her. She’d secretly contacted his gunnery sergeant and asked for his help gathering digital photographs of the men in his platoon in Afghanistan, then spent hours arranging the photos, using the stories the men sent with the pictures as the captions.

The memory of Sean’s expression when he opened the box, then lifted the cover, would stay with her forever.