“He was swimming the other day,” Grace said. “In the ocean. I was sitting on the beach pouting after spending gas money to get to Seattle for interviews that went nowhere. Anyway, he swam for like two hours straight. Didn’t know anyone but a Navy SEAL could do that. Did you know a Navy SEAL can find or hunt down anyone or anything?”

“So?” Amy said.

“So, I bet a guy like that could locate a cl*twithout any problems.”

Both Amy and Grace looked at Mallory expectantly. Mallory choked on her cake, and was still choking when someone came up behind her and patted her on the back.

She knew that touch. Intimately. Whipping around, she came face to face with Ty. Her heart clutched at the sight of him. Traitorous heart. And she couldn’t help but wonder, had he been a SEAL? It made perfect sense. He’d sure had absolutely no problem finding her clit…

His gaze met hers for an unfathomably long beat, and as always, just at the sight of him, she got a little thrill. And also as always, he looked bigger than life, and a whole lot more than she could handle. But there was something different about him tonight. Tonight he seemed weary and a little rough around the edges, and her heart clenched again.

God, she’d missed him.

She didn’t understand it, but he’d never looked more appealing. Or real. She wanted to take his hand in hers and kiss away his problems. Hold him.

She wanted to hold a caged lion.

It made no sense but it was the truth. She knew he was leaving, and he’d be taking a big piece of her heart along with him when he did, but that was a done deal. She also knew something else—that she wanted whatever he had to give her in the meantime. Because with him, she wasn’t a caretaker. She wasn’t a sister. She wasn’t thinking, planning, overseeing.

She was just Mallory. And she felt…alive. So damn alive.

His eyes smiled. He touched the corner of her upper lip, then sucked on his finger. “Mmm,” he said. “Chocolate.”

Amy’s jaw dropped open. Grace fanned herself. Ty looked at them, and they suddenly got very busy. Though Amy did give Mallory a “see, meeting interrupted again” look before she went off to serve a customer, and Grace remembered something she had to go do.

Which didn’t stop everyone else in the diner from staring at them. “Oh good Lord,” Mallory said. “Come on.” She took the caged lion’s hand and led him outside.

The stars were out in force tonight, like scattered diamonds on the night sky. The waves crashed up against the shore. They walked along the pier, past the dark arcade and the closed ice cream shop. Past everything until there was nothing but empty pier ahead and the black ocean. There Mallory stopped and leaned over the railing. “I’m sorry about the other day,” she said quietly, facing the water. “I mean, I started this thing between us. I laid out the rules. So I had no right to change them on you without saying so, and then hold it against you.”

He didn’t say anything, and she turned to him, searching his impassive face, hoping to see understanding. Forgiveness. Or at the very least, a sign that he understood.

She got none of that, and her heart sank.

After a minute, he mirrored her pose, leaning on the railing to stare out at the water. “I grew up with military parents,” he said. “I went into the military. And when I got out, I went to work for a private contractor to the government, doing…more military-like work. It’s my job, it’s my life. It’s who I am.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“It requires things of me,” he said. “Being alone, being the protector, keeping myself protected.” He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know how to be anyone else.”

“I don’t want you to be anyone else, Ty. Ever. I like who you are.”

He was quiet, absorbing that. “Frances is my boss. She’s…proprietary.”

To say the least. But he wasn’t giving her all of it. “You’ve been with her. Sexually.”

“Yes,” he said, bluntly honest as always. “Before I worked for her, a very long time ago. It’s over.”

“For you,” she said. “It’s over for you.”

He acknowledged that with a shrug. Not his problem. So it wouldn’t be Mallory’s either, she decided.

Turning to her, Ty ran a finger over the dainty gold chain at her neck, then beneath the infinity charm, looking at it for a moment. “After I lost my team in the plane crash, I spent the first six months recovering alone, by choice.” He let out a breath and dropped his hand from her. “I couldn’t…I didn’t want anyone close. I still don’t want anyone close.”

He’d lost his parents, his friends. Everyone. She couldn’t imagine how alone he must have felt.

Or maybe she could. Hadn’t she, even surrounded by all the people in her life, still felt alone? Mallory scooped her necklace in her palm and tightened her fist on it. “Karen gave this to me right before she—” She closed her eyes for a minute, and pictured Karen’s own laughing eyes. “It’s the infinity sign,” she told him. “Forever connected. She wore it all the time, and I always bugged her to let me borrow it. I wanted to be just like her. It used to drive her nuts. Then one day, she took the necklace off and just put it around my neck. She kissed my cheek and told me to be good, that being good would keep me out of the trouble that she’d always found herself in. She made me promise. Then she said she’d be watching me, guiding my way, making sure I was okay. I thought—I thought how sweet, but then…” Her throat tightened almost beyond bearing. “It was the last time I saw her,” she said softly. “The next day she…” She let out a shuddery breath and shook her head, unable to speak.

With a low sound of empathy, Ty slid his hand to the nape of her neck, drawing her in against him. It was her undoing, and she fisted her hands in his shirt as a few tears escaped.

“I know your losses hurt,” she managed. “But you’re not alone, Ty.” She said this fiercely, choking out the words. “You’re not. I mean the pain doesn’t go away, it never goes away, but it gets easier to remember them. And then one day, you’ll remember them with a smile. I can promise you that.”

He tightened his grip on her and nodded. They stood like that, locked together, a light breeze blowing her hair around. A strand of it clung to the stubble on his jaw and he left it there, bound to her, liking it…

“I thought maybe you’d left,” she said.

“Not yet.”

But soon…Those words, unspoken, hovered between them. When he got medically cleared, he’d be gone.

“Maybe you can’t walk away from me,” she said, meaning to tease, to lighten the moment.

“I can always walk away,” he said. “Discipline runs deep.”

Okay, so he wasn’t feeling playful. Shaken, she took a step back and came up against the railing, but he put his hands on her and reeled her back in. “I need to get back to what I do,” he said.

“You aren’t your work.”

“I am.” Maintaining eye contact, he tightened his grip on her. “But I’m not ready to go yet.”

“It’s the sex,” she said.

“It’s more than sex.”

“Not if it’s still something that can be walked away from,” she said.

He held her gaze, his own steady. Calm. So sure. “It’s the way it has to be, Mallory.”

She already knew that, oh how she knew it. The question was the same as always—could she live with it?

Yes.

No.

For now…Because the alternative was losing him right now, right this very minute, and she’d tried that. It didn’t work for her. She wasn’t ready to let him go.

He pressed his forehead to hers. “Your call,” he said quietly. “Tell me to f**k off. Walk away from me right now and avoid any more heartbreak, I’m not worth it. Or—”

“Or,” she said with soft steel. “I choose the or.”

“Mallory.” His voice was gruff. “You deserve better.”

She pulled him farther down the pier, past the yacht club entrance and around the side of the building where no one who happened by could see them. There she pushed him up against the wall and kissed him. She took full advantage of his surprise, opening her mouth over his, causing a rush of heat and the melting of all the bones in her legs.

He was a soldier and knew how to turn any situation to his own advantage, and this was no exception. In less than a single heartbeat, he’d taken complete control of the kiss, stealing her breath and her heart with one sweep of his finger.

“If the decision is mine to make,” she said breathing hard, her voice utterly serious, “then I’m keeping you, for as long as I can have you.”

Chapter 18

Falling in love is like eating a whole box of chocolates—it seems like a good idea at first…

The next day, Ty woke up in his bed with a gloriously na**d woman sprawled out over the top of him. Not that he was opposed to such a phenomenon, but this gloriously na**d woman was all up in his space, and he’d always valued his own space. He was a big guy and he didn’t like to feel crowded. Mallory was half his size, and as it turned out, she was a bed hog. She was also a blanket hog and a pillow hog.

It’s okay, he told himself. It was okay that they’d slept together because they both knew what this was and what it wasn’t. They’d fallen asleep together, that’s all. It didn’t mean anything. Now if it happened again…well, then he’d panic. “Mallory.”

She let out a soft snore, and he felt his heart squeeze. Fucking heart. “Mallory. Are you working today?” He already had one hand on her ass. Easy enough to add the other. When he squeezed, then went exploring, a low appreciative moan escaped her lips, and she obligingly spread her legs, giving him more room to work, murmuring something that sounded like “don’t stop.”

Then she froze and jerked upright. “Whattimeisit?”

“Seven,” he said, nuzzling his face in her crazy hair.

“Seven? Seven? I have to be gone!” She leapt out of the bed, frantically searching for her various pieces of clothing.

Enjoying the Naked Mallory Show, he leaned back, hands behind his head.

“Where are my panties?” she demanded.

“Under the chair.”

She dove under the chair, giving him a heart-stopping view that made him groan.

“They’re not here!” she yelled, voice muffled from her head-down-ass-up position.

“No? Check under my jeans then,” he said.

She straightened, and hair in her face—hell, hair everywhere—gave him a narrowed gaze.

He smiled.

She crawled to his jeans, another hot view, and snatched her panties. With her clothes in her arms, she vanished into his bathroom. Two minutes later she reappeared, dressed and looking thoroughly fucked. “Come here,” he said, smiling.

“Oh hell no. If I come over there, you’re going to kiss me.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I am.”

“And then you’ll…you know.’

He laughed, feeling light-hearted and…happy. “I do know. I know exactly what I want to do to you. I want to put my mouth on your—”

“Oh, God.” She shook her head and grabbed her keys. “I have to go!”

“Five minutes,” he said, and thought he had her when she hesitated, biting her lower lip, looking tempted. “It’ll be the best five minutes of your day,” he promised.

“I usually need more like fifteen minutes.”

“Not last night you didn’t. Last night you only needed four before you—”

“Bye,” she said, laughing, and shut his door.

Ty lay there smiling like an idiot for a few minutes. Then his phone beeped. Rolling out of bed, he accessed his messages. Once upon a not-so-long-ago time, there were only messages from Frances. That was no longer the case. The first message was from Ryan.

“Hey, man,” the vet said. That was it, the full extent of the message. Pretty typical of Ryan, and it could mean anything from “let’s have dinner” to “I’m jonesing and need someone to talk to.”

Matt had called as well, looking for a sparring partner. Josh had called inquiring about his health—and Ty knew Josh meant his mental health, not his leg.

Ty stared at his phone in surprise. At some point, when he’d been busy resenting like hell this slow-paced, sleepy little town and everyone in it, something had happened.

He’d made ties, strings on the heart he wasn’t even sure he had. His smile faded as he listened to his last message, which contained no words, just a seething silence.

Frances.

He should call her and check in. After all, he was cleared to go back. But he didn’t call. Instead he checked up on Ryan, then he finished the last of the cars lined up for him—Matt’s Jimmy.

Now he could go back.

Almost.

He showered and drove to the Health Services Clinic just as it was closing up for the day. It was Thursday, and he knew there were no activities or meetings scheduled there that night.

He’d checked.

The front room was empty, but he could hear voices so he followed them and found Mallory in one of the small rooms, door open. She was facing a woman in her sixties. The woman was sitting in a chair, her face pinched like she’d eaten a sour apple.

Mallory was wearing purple scrubs today, and it was a good color for her. Her hair had been tied back, probably hours ago, and as usual, strands had escaped.