SEALed With a Kiss: Even a Hero Needs Help Sometimes... (21 page)

"There was a wash-over in a couple of places. The highway patrolman said the biggest problem was sand blocking the road." Now that he was here, he couldn't think of how to ask her. "I tried to call you."

"Yes. The electricity came back on, but now the phone is out." Pickett moved her slender shoulders in one of her humorous shrugs. With him sitting in the high-off-the-ground SUV and her standing, their height difference was cancelled and their eyes were for once completely level. Her eyes were sunny-sky blue right now. "So what are you going to do? Are you going back to Raleigh?"

"No!" Tyler spoke up from the backseat. "We're going to stay here!"

Pickett's eyes flew wide with surprise, and sought Jax's. When their eyes met, he felt a kind of ripple go through him, as if her surprise had transferred to him. Jax felt his cheeks grow warm. "I was going to think of a nice way to ask you."

Her smile cooled. It was as if the sun had gone behind the clouds in her eyes. "Jax, I don't know ..."

Damn. That cloudy, wary look was back in her eyes. Even last night in the bathroom when he had rushed her, she hadn't looked like that. He hated that he had put it there. But he wanted to stay here, and it wasn't just that he dreaded the thought of trying to keep a four-year-old amused in a hotel. A hotel would have a pool and they'd be okay. Only, there was something about being
here
that was right.

No amount of training and planning could cover every contingency. SEALs looked for leaders who had good instincts. Oddly, just for an instant Jax felt like that was what he was doing: taking his team in a new direction because it was right.

"Pickett, don't say no. I know we've already imposed on you enough. We'll try not to get in your way, and we'll figure out the sleeping arrangements for me and Tyler so you don't have to give up your bed."

"I know!" piped Tyler. "I can sleep in my room upstairs and you can sleep in Pickett's bed with Pickett."

The sensual image of that innocent statement jolted through Jax, compelling in its hunger and also confirming the sense of Tightness. Jax struggled not to let the blast of sensual heat show in his face.

Jax shook his head ruefully. "You never know at what moment he's going to start listening. But seriously, we'll come up with arrangements you'll be happy with."

"I can't say yes right this minute. I need to think it over, and we need to talk away from—" Pickett nodded toward the backseat.

"Daddy! Get me out of here. I need to go find Patterson and Lucy and Hobo Joe."

Jax was out of the driver's seat and reaching for his son in one smooth motion. As he worked the straps, he met Pickett's eyes. "I'm not going to pressure you. We'll talk. But I want you to know that that's the first time he's called me Daddy since his mother died."

Drat and blast that man anyway! Pickett pulled the wet sheets from the washer with uncharacteristic, unnecessary force. When he left this morning she thought they had things on some kind of reasonable footing. He was interested, she was interested, he would call her. They would try things out sans child.

Now what was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to act? She hadn't missed that hot look in his eyes when Tyler suggested—okay, innocently—they share a bed. Even now her stomach got on a fast elevator when she imagined lying on her bed, his dark face intent with sensual promise above her.

Pickett had never regretted her nerdy teenage years or the cum laude on her diploma more. All those years reading and studying, but she didn't know what she needed to know right now. Every woman in her group at the base was better equipped to handle a situation like this than she was.

Suppose they went to bed together and it was a disaster? She would have to face him all the next day, and act normal around Tyler.

Pickett stuffed a towel in the dryer. It had smelled like him when she got it from the bathroom. So had the sheets.

He said he wouldn't pressure her, and she believed him, but that wasn't the problem. Actually it was the problem. Because if he didn't come on to her again, how would she know if he was still interested?

What would happen if she made a move? This morning Pickett had faced the truth that her sexless state hadn't been caused by disinterest. There had been guys, and a couple of professors, who had looked past her being overweight, or maybe liked a bit of cushion. And she had several male friends. The truth was she put out strong do-not-touch vibes any time a man showed more than friendly interest.

She was attracted to him in a way that she hadn't allowed herself to feel in years, maybe ever. The trouble was she had no experience with flirty looks and come-hither glances. A bush-league player trying to start out in the major leagues.

Some part of Pickett was aghast at herself. Was she really thinking that the complication of a man staying at her house was whether or more precisely,
how,
to go about seducing him? A man she had only known for four days? She, who always told clients to go slow, get to know the person? A long-term, meaningful relationship couldn't be jumped into.

Two factors were different here. One: she probably knew more about Jax in four days than if they had dated once a week for four weeks. Two: she wasn't looking for a long-term relationship. Not with a man who was a SEAL. Every day she counseled families in crisis. In truth, many of the problems they came to her with, they'd probably have had in any circumstances. But every problem was made worse by the corroding effects of stress, long separations, rootlessness. That was the crux of it. Military families faced all the challenges ordinary families faced, but they lived under conditions that made the challenges harder.

Looking at her situation logically, though, although she certainly wouldn't marry a SEAL, she would like to marry the
right
man and have children. For all her knowledge about relationships, however, she lacked experience. She needed a couple of practice relationships, before she tried to make so serious a choice.

Pickett didn't like to think of herself as a user but Jax was perfect to practice on, really. The big reason he wanted to stay here was that he wanted her help with his child, and if he got a little sex on the side, that would be okay. He wasn't likely to get his heart broken.

She felt better now that she'd put the decision on a rational footing.

"Pickett." Jax stood silhouetted in the doorway. "What are you doing?" With his features obscured, the sense of his physical presence loomed even stronger. It wasn't that he was larger than most men; it was that he was so very
there.

Pickett gave an involuntary gasp. "I'm loading the dryer."

"It looked like you were in a wrestling match without a referee. Take it easy on those sheets and towels."

Pickett blinked at the accuracy of Jax's observation. She had been wrestling with her thoughts and taking it out on the laundry. The sheets and towels, all twisted and tangled, were a pretty good metaphor for the state of her feelings.

"They're all tangled."

"Let me." Jax reached in the washer and lifted the heavy, wet mass with ease, separating sheets and towels. Pickett placed them in the dryer as he handed them to her. "What's the matter?"

"Louie asks we what's the matter,"
Jan had said in Group the other day. "Why does he ask? He ought to know. I just thought to myself, if you don't already know, there's no point in me telling you."

"Hon," Faye, the earth mother, spoke up, "the thing you gotta understand about men is that they are clueless most of the time. Even the good ones. Isn't that so, Pickett?"

Pickett nodded to Faye while keeping her eyes on Jan. "Men and women think very differently. It is hard for a man to guess what a woman is thinking, and why."

"Yeah." Kim, who rarely spoke up, shifted in her corner chair. "The problem is they've got two heads, and half the time they're trying to think with the one that doesn't have any brains."

Wild, raucous laughter greeted the dryly expressed witticism. Pickett thought it was time to redirect the discussion.

"Jan, what do you tell Louie when he asks what's the matter?"

"I said 'nothing.'"

"Was that the truth? Was nothing the matter?"

"I was mad, and it made me even madder that he had to ask. That's why I said 'nothing.'"

"Every woman in this room understands, but it's the kind of thing that just makes a man crazy. Because he
didn't
know what was going on, but he could tell it wasn't the truth.

"So, he was clueless before, but now he's clueless and
confused."
Pickett moved to a different point of view. "Let me ask you this: did you get anything you wanted by saying 'nothing' when there really was something?"

"No, he just picked up the remote." As one, every woman in the room sighed. "So you think I shoulda told him?"

"Relationships that grow despite lies and misunderstandings only work inside the covers of romance novels. In real life it's like trying to make a chocolate cake by substituting coffee grounds for chocolate. It won't matter if you do everything else right. It will still taste terrible."

"Pickett?" Jax's voice pulled her back. "Where did you go? I asked you what was the matter."

"I was thinking about something that was said in an all-women therapy group the other day. We were talking about what to say when a man asks you 'what's the matter.'"

"You mean you had to discuss that? Women make everything so complicated sometimes."

"Yes, and I guess that was what I was doing. Making everything complicated."

"Let's start over. I say what's the matter and you just tell me."

Pickett was having a hard time squeezing any air past the thundering of her heart. Suddenly the underlying reason for all her wrestling with her thoughts was clear. She was scared.

"Okay. The matter is: this morning everything was clear. You had your life, I had mine. We were attracted to each other. We would try seeing one another to see if we wanted to go any further." Pickett closed the dryer and set the controls. "Now, we're all mixed up together again. We're living together. Except not. We skipped over all the steps. And I don't know how to deal with it."

"You're attracted to me, hmm?" Trust a man to hear that part out of all she had said.

"You know I am. The problem is I won't know whether you're really attracted to me or if I'm just a convenience."

"And you want' steps' ? What steps do you want?"

"I want you to take me to dinner. Or dancing. Or both. And I want
you
to ask
we."

"Okay. I already did ask you to dinner this morning but I will again. Will you have dinner with me, Ms. Sessoms? If I can find a sitter?"

"Yes. And we'll ask the White's oldest girl, Virginia, to babysit."

"You already had that part figured out, didn't you?"

"Yes." Pickett caught a glimpse of the clock. "Oops! My client will be here in twenty minutes. I'd better get moving. I still have to change clothes."

Quickly, she gave Jax directions for using the front door when she was with a client. She was grateful for his ready comprehension of her client's privacy needs. Fortunately, the arrangement of the rooms made keeping the therapy suite and living quarters separate easy.