Read Online Still Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 10) by Anne Marsh - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Anne Marsh
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isn’t terribly sentimental. She’s bold, direct, and way too frank. She’s also impossibly impulsive and if life’s a game, I’m playing Battleship while she’s wielding the club in a game of Whack-A-Mole. I’m going to win the war—and she’ll end up with a stuffed tiger the size of a minivan.
I actually didn’t see our divorce coming. I’d married her. I’d made promises I had every intention of keeping. She knew I was active-duty, and I thought I’d explained what that meant. As soon as I was overseas, boot-deep in sand and shit, some things became perfectly clear. We might have felt a connection and I might love her, but we were totally wrong for each other. She said stay with me . I left.
“You remember how we ended?” She makes us sound like a football game, and not even a good one. Not the kind where the win has come down to the wire, and your boys have this one last chance to get the ball across the line and score.
I frown a little. Hard to forget a day like that. “I came back from my tour and you were sitting outside my apartment. You were supposed to be in New York City, but instead there you were, waiting for me in Coronado. You’d lost the key I’d given you.”
“You were late.” She sounds both sad and amused.
“I didn’t know I had a date.” We were fourteen hours late hitting wheels-down. I can’t even remember why now. Shit to blow up, bad guys to stop, lousy weather, AWOL pilot. Fuck if I can remember now or if it even matters. I’d been planning a cross-country run to see her, had been trying to figure out the logistics, and then there she’d been. Ass planted on my steps.
I’d killed the engine and been out of that truck so fast you’d think I had incoming gunning for me. I’d been part elated, part scared as shit because she hadn’t warned me she was coming and that had to mean bad news.
“You had a duplex.” She kind of squints off into space, like she’s trying to remember the details of my real estate. Not sure what it says that she can’t bring it to mind. I brought her there once, and yeah, I fucked that up, too.
“I rented from the widow of an Air Force pilot.” Shut up about the details. She doesn’t fucking care.
A grin tugs at her mouth. “You had the emptiest damned porch ever. I’d planned to wait for you, but there was nowhere to wait. My butt was sore for days.”
I’d never had time to buy furniture and I didn’t do plants. Plants require time. You have to remember to water them, move them in or out of the sunlight. You have to do shit, and she doesn’t have to say it for me. The only commitment I had time for then was Uncle Same. I couldn’t stick around for a goddamned plant, let alone for her. I thought saying the words on our beach had been enough, when what I should have been saying was goodbye.
The empty porch had been familiar, but Hindi herself wasn’t the same wild, free girl I’d fallen for in Florida or the one I’d briefly rejoined in New York City a few months before. She’d looked more polished. Maybe that was the studio people. They’d cut and colored and made her up until her wilder edges blurred and she almost seemed like a stranger. A gorgeous, hot, totally fuckable stranger—but not the woman who’d swum naked in the ocean, sold me a beach and a slice of her heart. And when I leaned down to kiss her, she brushed her mouth over mine and then pulled way the fuck back. Funny how four inches of empty space could feel like the Grand Canyon and a few weeks could feel like forever.
“You didn’t text,” she’d said.
No. I hadn’t. I’d opened my mouth, because that was how it went sometimes in the field. No Internet, no connection, no way to reach out. No time, no permission, no whatever. Yeah. I can hear the fucking excuses, too. Except when I’d checked my phone when we reached US airspace, my inbox hadn’t exactly been overflowing with messages from my beloved wife. Blame was a two-way highway with enough
I actually didn’t see our divorce coming. I’d married her. I’d made promises I had every intention of keeping. She knew I was active-duty, and I thought I’d explained what that meant. As soon as I was overseas, boot-deep in sand and shit, some things became perfectly clear. We might have felt a connection and I might love her, but we were totally wrong for each other. She said stay with me . I left.
“You remember how we ended?” She makes us sound like a football game, and not even a good one. Not the kind where the win has come down to the wire, and your boys have this one last chance to get the ball across the line and score.
I frown a little. Hard to forget a day like that. “I came back from my tour and you were sitting outside my apartment. You were supposed to be in New York City, but instead there you were, waiting for me in Coronado. You’d lost the key I’d given you.”
“You were late.” She sounds both sad and amused.
“I didn’t know I had a date.” We were fourteen hours late hitting wheels-down. I can’t even remember why now. Shit to blow up, bad guys to stop, lousy weather, AWOL pilot. Fuck if I can remember now or if it even matters. I’d been planning a cross-country run to see her, had been trying to figure out the logistics, and then there she’d been. Ass planted on my steps.
I’d killed the engine and been out of that truck so fast you’d think I had incoming gunning for me. I’d been part elated, part scared as shit because she hadn’t warned me she was coming and that had to mean bad news.
“You had a duplex.” She kind of squints off into space, like she’s trying to remember the details of my real estate. Not sure what it says that she can’t bring it to mind. I brought her there once, and yeah, I fucked that up, too.
“I rented from the widow of an Air Force pilot.” Shut up about the details. She doesn’t fucking care.
A grin tugs at her mouth. “You had the emptiest damned porch ever. I’d planned to wait for you, but there was nowhere to wait. My butt was sore for days.”
I’d never had time to buy furniture and I didn’t do plants. Plants require time. You have to remember to water them, move them in or out of the sunlight. You have to do shit, and she doesn’t have to say it for me. The only commitment I had time for then was Uncle Same. I couldn’t stick around for a goddamned plant, let alone for her. I thought saying the words on our beach had been enough, when what I should have been saying was goodbye.
The empty porch had been familiar, but Hindi herself wasn’t the same wild, free girl I’d fallen for in Florida or the one I’d briefly rejoined in New York City a few months before. She’d looked more polished. Maybe that was the studio people. They’d cut and colored and made her up until her wilder edges blurred and she almost seemed like a stranger. A gorgeous, hot, totally fuckable stranger—but not the woman who’d swum naked in the ocean, sold me a beach and a slice of her heart. And when I leaned down to kiss her, she brushed her mouth over mine and then pulled way the fuck back. Funny how four inches of empty space could feel like the Grand Canyon and a few weeks could feel like forever.
“You didn’t text,” she’d said.
No. I hadn’t. I’d opened my mouth, because that was how it went sometimes in the field. No Internet, no connection, no way to reach out. No time, no permission, no whatever. Yeah. I can hear the fucking excuses, too. Except when I’d checked my phone when we reached US airspace, my inbox hadn’t exactly been overflowing with messages from my beloved wife. Blame was a two-way highway with enough
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