Authors: Mary Margret Daughtridge

SEALed with a Ring (17 page)

He didn't deny it. He also didn't move away. "You're a passionate woman. We would be good together. What's the objection?"

"The truth?"

"That would be best, yes."

"I know what you're like. You see a pretty girl, decide you're going to have her, you do, and then you see the next pretty girl and it's the same moves; rinse, repeat. A week or so later, you don't remember her any better than you remember what you had for lunch that day. I can deal with that—in fact, I prefer it—but not if I'm the one you can't remember."

She turned her back to him to hoist herself from the pool—the coping was too high for her to manage the more graceful lift—even though her position would give him an eyeful. At this point she didn't care what he saw.

Out of the water, sticking to the earth as land crea tures do, she felt heavy. Her feet made wet slaps on the concrete. She crossed to the chair where she had draped the towel brought from her bathroom. She wrapped it around herself, tucking it securely under one arm.

He lifted himself to the coping as she had but far more easily. If there was one thing her ballroom-dancing hobby had taught her, it was that grace was a combina tion of strength and of always knowing where all parts of your body were. The sight of his shoulders and sculpted back rising from the water, silver water sheeting from him, the shape of his buttocks, the perfect timing as he caught the coping with his foot—his consummate coor dination, caught her breath.

His feet on the concrete made almost no sound. Disregarding his nudity and his still more than half aroused state, he came to stand in front of her. "You think I'm pretty much a lightweight, don't you?"

"Not in every way. I can see you're devoted to your family. I don't think you got to be a SEAL without an unusual degree of dedication and determination, plus willingness to make sacrifices." She tilted her head, test ing the fairness of her assessment. "I'm not even sure it's your fault, but women drop into your hands like ripe plums. And you don't turn them down."

"You seem very sure of that."

"Oh, I am."

"Did you know someone like me—like you think I am?"

JJ chuckled cynically. "You could say that."

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing. The experience taught me not to do some thing I was going to regret. I had the same problems in the morning, but, in addition, I had to recover my self-respect."

David couldn't believe what he was hearing. "So, you're willing to marry me, but you're not willing to have sex with me?" Oh man, did they need to talk. "I'm not going without sex."

"I've already told you I don't expect you to. I'd just rather you didn't do it in Wilmington. But I have no control over that."

"I meant sex with you."

"Think again, stud. Anyone you want, but not me."

"You."

"Why?"

"I don't screw around."

"I find that hard to believe. Are you saying you've ever been faithful in the past?"

He'd usually—once he was out of his teens—limited himself to one girl at a time, but he admitted it never lasted long, and he stuck to his rule largely because it made one less thing to keep up with. Best not to go there. If he could have what he knew
she had to give
, he'd have no need to look elsewhere.

"You don't think much of me, do you?" he countered.

"I told you I admire your dedication. Frankly I'm awed by the sacrifices you have made."

"Dipoma—diplomatic answer. I mean what you think of
me
. The man, not the SEAL."

"I think you're intelligent and you can be trusted to do your duty—to put duty first. I believe those qualities would allow us to be on the same page."

"Well, let me tell you something else about me. As long as I'm married, I intend to be as married as I know how to be. I don't do anything halfway. I will give you the best I have. But I won't do it, I can't even think about doing it, if there's no way you'll give yourself to me." His sincerity rang through every note in his dark, smooth voice, was written on every line of his stance, could be read in the vulnerable look in his eyes. She might doubt his ability to live up to his words, but he believed what he was saying. That kind of genuineness could create the mother of all con jobs. "Don't tell me you're in love with me!"

To her surprise the uncompromising lines of his face shifted. He looked a little sheepish, adorably boyish. He didn't let his eyes waver, though she thought they looked a little pained. "Well, maybe. Some."

She laughed in disbelief
. "Some?"

In his life he had never heard one syllable packed with such incredulity and indignation. "How the hell do I know?" He lifted a frustrated hand, reaching for what he didn't know, and let it fall to his side. "All right, that sounded lame, but what do you expect me to say? I'm attracted to you."

The pain, which had been just inside the threshold of awareness, suddenly twanged hotter, harder, longer. Sometimes it escalated; sometimes it didn't. He needed to finish this up and get out of here.

"I don't know about love. I get wanting sex, you know? But sex with someone else isn't going to satisfy. I want you. I know that much. Girl, you say yes, and I'll do you in every one of the eighty-six
Kama Sutra
positions. Twice. But now… I can wait. I'm not going to force you. I'm just telling you where it's going to end up. Take it or leave it."

"You want me?"

"You are the stubbornest woman in the world. What part of
want
don't you get?"

"And you'd be willing to turn down everything else I have to offer, if you don't have that, too?"

"Is
that
what I said?" The words he meant were not always the words that came out. He mentally replayed his words. The pain in his skull flared with acetylene torch intensity with every heartbeat. He couldn't believe he'd found a way to take care of everyone, to be free to return to the Teams as soon as he was better, and he was getting ready to throw it all away. Had he lost his mind as well as scrambled his brain?

And yet whether he had thought it through before hand or not, he
had said what he meant. He and Rile
y might wind up living on his disability and eating a lot of beans, but so be it.

Pain lashed at him. Nausea. He couldn't think. Couldn't explain or argue any longer. He spotted his jeans, a dark heap against the lighter concrete. He scooped them up. "Look, JJ, we've talked enough. Go to bed. Think it over."

Lucas rarely slept long or deeply anymore. He heard the distinctive click of the door to the pool. In a few min utes, he opened his eyes long enough to see the young man, Dave, slip from the room.

Didn't take an Einstein to figure out where he was going.

While Dave had made himself a bed with sheets and blankets on the sofa, Lucas had probed but learned nothing of how the courtship, if that's what you could call it, was progressing.

Lucas had been clumsy with the young man earlier. It was never good to look too eager. He could blame it on the fact that he had been rattled, badly.

In the ER, he'd faced the truth that so far his strategy, every part of it, had backfired, and he really might not live to see this thing all the way though. But when JJ showed up with Dave, Lucas recognized the kind of luck a man doesn't get but two or three times in his life.

He didn't see how his granddaughter could be indif ferent to this young Adonis—no, not an Adonis. Adonis made him think of empty perfection.

Lucas wasn't a sensitive man. He'd never understood why people would want to look at art. Sure, he could ap preciate beauty or great design, but that wasn't what art aficionados (what kind of a word was that—aficionado?) were talking about. He'd had the liberal education of his day, which damn well wasn't an education in how to be a liberal. He'd only gotten art once when Beth had hauled him through Florence, through hoards of tourists, to view Michelangelo's David.

He looked at it and felt like he had been opened just as easily as you sink a knife into the heart of a ripe wa termelon. The humanity-saturated air of the place had hit his soul. Now, the state of his soul he considered to be the Lord's business, and, since there was no need for him to worry over it, he'd just as soon not have to feel it.

This Dave looked like the man Michelangelo's David might have been when he was fully grown—deep chested, shoulders padded thick with muscle, and arms those of a man, the marks of experience as well as char acter on his face. Still, you never knew.

He'd almost dozed off again when something made him open his eyes and he saw Dave walking toward his bathroom. He turned on the light, and, in the second be fore the door closed, Lucas saw quite clearly that Dave was wet, naked, and carrying his jeans.

So. His granddaughter and this young man.

So. The two had been skinny-dipping.

Skinny-dipping was good.

Chapter 29

THE NEXT MORNING, JJ SURVEYED HERSELF IN THE THREE way dressing-room mirror.

From the cocoa-colored sweater, which had seemed stylish when she bought it but had proved to be a mis take, to black patent sling-back pumps that snagged at the hem of her trousers with every step, she was wearing clothes she didn't like.

Not really intended as a year-round residence, the cottage didn't have a lot of closet space. JJ stored there only those items she needed for each season. The closet in this house had become a repository of clothes she didn't wear. On her list of Sunday chores had to go weeding it out.

She'd had to make do with the lipstick and mascara in her purse. She'd dealt with her hair by twisting it up and securing the twist with a faux tortoise-shell pin through clasp.

Fortunately, her office at Caruthers had a small bath room completely stocked with makeup, hair dryers, and curling irons for times when a complete change was re quired and her schedule too crowded to run to Topsail. As she had so many times before, JJ comforted herself that she would be all right once she got to Caruthers.

She wasn't all right now though. She glanced at the clock and wondered if David would be up yet. Wondered if it would be cowardly to sneak out without talking to him. After a nearly sleepless night, she still didn't know what she was going to say to his counteroffer.

On impulse, she pulled her cell from her purse and dialed Bronwyn.

"JJ." Uh-oh. Only Bronwyn was allowed to shorten JJ's name to Jay. When she didn't, it was a bad sign. "Did you,
seriously
, wake up a woman who has
just come
off a thirty-six-hour shift t
o ask me t
hat?" Bronwyn'
s disgruntled tone was scratchy with sleep.

"Bronwyn, you've got to talk to me. I've already apologized for waking you. You're the only one who knows the entire story."

"I thought you told Mary Cole."

"About Lucas yes, but I can't tell her what happened at
her daughter's wedding. If it had been someone else'
s daughter maybe—no. Not even then."

Bronwyn yawned. "I guess I see your point—although technically, the hot sex didn't occur
at
the wedding."

"Close enough. Anyway, you're the only one I can talk to about it. I've gone around and around so many times, I'm dizzy. It feels like the world is turning backwards."

Bronwyn huffed. "You already know what I think you should do: tell your grandfather to take Caruthers and shove it! I know, I
know
," Bronwyn raced on. Her tone dripped long-suffering. "It's just for a year, and you have all those people who trust you, and, at the end of the year, you will have everything you want finally and forever."

"That's right. And now I've found the perfect man to have a non-marriage with, except he insists on sex."

"Let's recap. You were willing to go to bed with Blount the Bland but not the man you know for sure can make you see stars when you come."

"I never said 'see stars.'"

"Don't quibble. You called me; I didn't call you. Bland Blount or Super-SEAL? Which one would it be a hardship to have sex with? Let me see."

"You don't understand. He's unpredictable. He takes over. He does what he pleases without a by-your-leave."

"Aha. The light dawns! He stands up to you, does he? Not impressed by your money or job title. Gets in your face a little?"

"Bronwyn, that's an unfair picture of me. You know I don't walk over people."

"I know you don't
like
to walk over people. There's a difference."

"You make me sound like a terrible person."

"Jay, hon." Bronwyn's voice softened. "Listen to me. Some people are too intimidated to speak up to you. You know it, and you bend over backwards to be considerate. Wouldn't it be nice once in a while not to
have to
—with someone besides me? Like, a man your own age?"

Her and Bronwyn's friendship had endured the years since college because they didn't need kid gloves. Each paid the other the respect of believing her friend could take care of herself.

"Here's the way I see it," Bronwyn went on. "You're hesitating to marry him because he insists upon his conju gal rights. And your problem with
conjugation is that yo
u know you would enjoy same. So guaranteed enjoyment of sanctioned sex is why you don't want to marry him. We in the medical field have a word for that. Nuts!"

JJ rubbed her forehead. "Somehow it made more sense in the wee hours of the morning," she acknowl edged wryly. "I guess all he's really doing with his de mand is forcing me to get honest. Agreement or not, he's right. Sooner or later, it would happen, and it would just as likely be me who started it as him."

"Let me go on record as saying I do not think you should let yourself be coerced into a marriage at all, but if you believe you must, then you owe it to yourself to enjoy it."

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