Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 9) (24 page)

The angst and confusion of the last year swirled through his breastbone along with all of the ugliness that still cut through his psyche daily. How did he begin to forgive and forget when she kept throwing out new bombs on a regular basis?

And if she was pregnant, marrying her was
still
the right thing to do. Obviously, he’d misspoken to Anderson about his impending martyrdom. It sure felt like his entire body was being burned at the stake.

“Just out of curiosity, how was it your fault?” he asked brokenly. “Did you ask Anderson to get back at me for breaking up with you?”

Seemed as good an explanation as any since she wasn’t spilling the real one.

Her face paled. “Why the hell would I do that?”

Still not a reason. Or did she not even realize she hadn’t answered? “I don’t know. That’s the biggest problem here. You won’t tell me what’s going on, so I’m being forced to guess.”

Guilt flashed through her gaze along with no small amount of condemnation. “That’s rich coming from the master of deflection. I haven’t pressed you to tell me what happened in Iraq. Have I?” Her voice rose as she crucified him on the cross of his own making. “I thought we were taking it slow. Waiting until the fragile bonds of trust were woven into a support system that we could both agree would hold the weight of the truth. Was I alone in thinking that?”

“I told you,” he ground out. “That’s not something I can discuss—”

“And I accepted that! You know how hard that is for me?” She jumped off the couch, hands on her hips as she faced him down. “I live in constant fear that you’re going to leave, just like my dad did. Like Isaac did.
Like you did the first time
. But I stuck it out. I’m still sticking it out, even though you’re not giving me any reason to. Give me a reason, Charlie.”

God, she was so strong and beautiful that his chest hurt. She was every inch the woman who could handle him, just like Rachel had said that night outside the restaurant.

So why was he picking this fight when he’d rather sweep her into his arms and spend the next nine hundred hours naked with her? Because that was the thing he wanted to do. But it wasn’t the right thing. “You shouldn’t accept that.”

That caught her off guard. “What?”

He loved her, yet he held back from fully committing to her, sniffing around for reasons to end things again so he could avoid being hurt when he found out her angle. Selfish women were his downfall. But she kept surprising him, twisting what he’d assumed was the truth until he didn’t know what he believed anymore. After all, he’d totally glossed over the fact that she’d gone to Anderson to try and fix the problems she’d caused.

If he pressed her, she’d tell him the truth. That he believed. And he couldn’t reciprocate. Jared’s parting words echoed in his head. Against his will. But he couldn’t unhear them. Charlie hadn’t been strong enough for her, together enough. She’d likely never go back to Jared, but that wasn’t the issue—it was that she’d stay with Charlie and she shouldn’t.

“You deserve better, Audra. You always have. I wasn’t there for you when Isaac died. I can’t promise I’ll be there for you in the future. You shouldn’t settle for that.”

Pain flashed through her eyes, and then she whisked it away. “You can’t tell me what to do, Charlie.”

Something pricked at his eyelids. No he couldn’t, nor did he want to. But neither could he stand knowing that he’d probably hurt her again. “I have to go.”

Tears shone in her eyes as she nodded. “I figured that was coming. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

Of course she would be. She’d been preparing for him to flake out. If that wasn’t a conviction of his character and a tribute to her strength, he didn’t know what was.

He wanted to tell her he’d be back, that he was going to find a way to be worthy of her. But that would require a miracle, if it was even possible to fix what was broken inside.

The reasons he needed to try were legion.

He owed his team a solid and centered leader who could handle the threats against their well-being, not the least of which was the potential loss of their business license, and right now everything was swirling together in what promised to be a massive triggering of his PTSD symptoms that he didn’t want her to witness.

It was time to order the chaos once and for all.

I
nstead of returning to Duchess Island, where there was nothing but reminders of how he’d failed his team, Charlie took a cab to the airport. It was worth whatever astronomical amount of money he had to pay to get out of the Caribbean before he hopped back into bed with Audra. She’d welcome him, he had no doubt, but sex wasn’t the answer to these deep-seated problems. It complicated everything, especially the threat of binding them together permanently via an unexpected pregnancy.

She deserved better than a default proposal owing to his annoying tendency to do the right thing. The next time the word “marriage” came out of his mouth, she’d know it was because he loved her and couldn’t stand the thought of letting her go again.

When the ticket agent asked him where he wanted to go, Albuquerque fell out of his mouth without a second thought. If there was anyone who would open her door immediately, it was Mama Custer, and he needed cookies straight from the oven, a view that didn’t include a beach and to be in the presence of someone who loved him unconditionally as he sorted through his next steps.

Charlie was running away, pure and simple, and everything inside balked at it. But he couldn’t do the same ineffective things over and over again.

The plane lifted off, and the particular shade of blue that had etched itself onto his heart spread out below him. Miles and miles of water and he couldn’t find a moment’s peace anywhere in the vicinity. He’d left his team behind to pick up the pieces of his dream. The fact that he’d assured them—and himself—that he’d only be gone a few days didn’t help. How did he know how long it was going to take to get his crap together?

He let himself feel like a heel until the plane landed at Sunport, the airport closest to Mama Custer’s house, and took a cab to the one-story pueblo-style house where he’d spent a week acclimating to being back in the states after he’d left the Navy. It was the closest thing to a home he’d had since he’d left his father’s house.

Sheila answered the door on the first knock and shook her head as she folded Charlie into her embrace. “Lord, honey. Haven’t you heard of sunscreen? You’re nearly the same color as my leather couch and have twice as many places where you’re worn.”

Charlie hugged her back, letting the silver-haired woman’s love surround him, a feat considering he topped her by nearly six inches. But that was the whole reason he’d come here—she had enough mothering in her heart to cover all the big, badass SEALs she could get her hands on, despite having two of her own.

“Hey, Mama C. Sorry I didn’t call.”

She shushed him. “Family doesn’t call ahead. Come in and tell me what in the world you’re doing on my part of the globe.”

“I needed cookies.”

Linking elbows, she guided him inside, and sure enough, the smell of sugar and spice and everything nice hit him in one fell swoop as he walked with her to the kitchen.

But the cookies were apparently already spoken for. A familiar dark-haired hell-raiser sat at the pinewood table with a huge platter in front of him. He jumped to his feet with a cocky salute the moment he spied Charlie.

Blake Custer. Of all people he’d expected to see in Albuquerque, a carbon copy of his Duchess Island roommate was not it.

“Look what the cat dragged in.” Blake stuck out his hand.

“Custer.” Charlie shook hands with Jace’s twin brother, who was—last time he’d checked, anyway—still in the teams. “Didn’t know you were on leave. How’re they treating you?”

With a smirk, Blake returned to his cookies, sticking a whole one in his mouth. “Like a rock star, as always.”

Which meant hundred-and-twenty-degree temps, sixty pounds of gear, and HALO drops from a Blackhawk—the VIP treatment for sure.

Blake was a model SEAL: fearless, loyal, and loved his job so much Charlie couldn’t have talked him away from the teams for anything. Nor would he have tried. Jace, on the other hand, had been easy to recruit for Aqueous Adventures because his loyalty lay with Charlie, not the Navy.

Mama C whacked her kid on the back of the head. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Son. I taught you better than that.”

As both Custer boys’ former platoon commander, Charlie had seen them do stuff that would make their mother faint if talking with a full mouth got the head smack. But he kept his lips zipped because there were a lot of things that happened in Iraq that no one wanted to talk about.

Least of all him.

“I didn’t know you had company,” Charlie said as he took the cookie Blake had extended. “ ’Specially not one this ugly.”

As Blake sputtered around his mouthful of cookies, Mama C turned her side-eye on Charlie. “My boys are both gorgeous, and you know it.”

Charlie laughed, happy he was still able to. “They take after their mother, no doubt.”

She grinned, crinkling up her eyes, and shooed the compliment away. “Charm will get you everywhere, smooth talker. Speaking of talking, sit your rear end down and tell me about your girl troubles so we can fix it.”

With a side-eye of his own, he sank into the mission-style chair. “What makes you think I have girl trouble?”

“Two sons who plowed through the female half of Albuquerque before they moved up to the big leagues, remember?” She waggled her brows. “Plus I didn’t find them under a cabbage plant one day. I’ve had sex a time or two in my life, and I’m a girl. So don’t try to snow me. Spill.”

“Jeez, Mom.” Blake slapped flat hands over his ears and screwed his eyes shut. “Are you trying to give me nightmares? I’ll make myself scarce if that’s how you’re gonna be.”

He took a handful of cookies and dashed from the kitchen. Mama C watched him go and then reached out to smooth a hand over Charlie’s forearm. “Thank you for the pictures you send me from the Caribbean. They’re full of amazing things. Beautiful beaches, gorgeous water. My kid with a huge grin and a beer in each hand, which I’m pretty sure he would rather you had not sent, by the way, as I blistered his ear with a talking-to about the evils of overindulgence.”

Ouch. Yeah, that one had been an accident. Jace usually let his mother’s lectures roll off, but it was good to keep that in mind for the next time he needed leverage against his roommate; he’d snap a picture of Jace in some compromising position and then threaten to send it to his mom. Presto. No more obnoxious roommate.

Mama C tapped his arm. “You never send me pictures of girls though. Which is pretty telling for a strapping guy with such great cheekbones and beautiful eyes. Are you still carrying a torch for that redhead?”

That was the problem with moms, even when they weren’t blood. They recalled every last word you said for the rest of your life.

“I can’t believe you remember me mentioning Audra,” he mumbled. “That was over a year ago.”

But as if saying her name opened the floodgates, the whole story spilled out before he could catch it. Mama C listened without interrupting, and at the end, it was every bit the catharsis Charlie had hoped. For the first time in so very long, he wasn’t giving orders or taking command of a situation, and it was a relief to not have that weight for once.

She nodded as he wound it up. “You have to fix things with Audra. You screwed this up.”

The bands around his chest loosened, and that was the only reason he was able to nod. “I know. That’s why I’m here. But I don’t know what to do.”

“You do know,” she corrected gently. “You have to let her love you. And you have to be where she is instead of here. You seem to have missed that point in all of this.”

Pain lanced through his gut as he shook his head. “You weren’t listening. I’m not in a place where I can be with her. I have way too much left over crap in my head from being in the Navy.”

“
You’re
not listening. To yourself or to me, sweetie.” Gently, she covered his large hand with her smaller one. “You’re using that as an excuse because you think you don’t deserve something wonderful. That’s simply not true. Bad stuff happened because you were on the front lines. But not just to you. To Evan and a lot of other people, all who made their choices to be in a war zone. They knew the risks. Don’t take that guilt on.”

“But it’s my fault.” That could never be erased, no matter what. “What happened in Iraq. That I left Audra to deal with her brother’s death. That I can’t stop looking for the exit before I hurt her again. Worse, I keep looking for reasons to blame
her
for the fallout of the choices I made.”

That was the hardest thing of all to take. That he couldn’t even talk to her about their problems because he constantly had to second-guess whether he had a genuine grievance to air or he was letting his own guilt color the situation to the point where he couldn’t be rational. And he wanted to do the right thing.

He hadn’t left because he didn’t want to be with her. He’d left because he did.