Claiming Her SEAL(18)

"Sure, love." The woman nodded toward the center of the village. "Numba four. He share with Mr. Evan. They inside."

"Thanks." Emma smiled and then realized she was stuck.

If she went back to the resort, this woman, who obviously knew Dex,  would probably mention it to him, particularly the part where Emma had  walked all this way and then didn't seek him out. He'd know she'd come  chasing after him but had chickened out. That wasn't going to work.  Maybe she could pretend like she'd set off in search of the proper  bungalow so the woman would be fooled, but then veer off before anyone  else saw her.

The woman waved cheerfully as Emma skirted a palm tree on her way to  number four. She scouted around for a detour, praying she'd find it  before she got too close and ran into Dex by accident.

Except Dex wasn't inside number four-he was outside. In the small yard.  Their gazes connected, and there was nowhere for her to hide. Her  eyelids fluttered closed for a beat as he broke off his conversation  with another man who wasn't Jace but had been cut from the same cloth.

Oh, it was so easy to see these guys were ex-military, now that she  knew. They were all built from solid muscle and an even more solid  command of themselves. Like Dex and Jace, this unknown guy had a swoon  factor, but it was uniquely his own, with a stubbly jaw that pushed him  way out of the realm of merely good-looking and straight into the path  of hello.

Both men watched her approach. Dex leaned one hip against the old-school  style picnic table that served as the only outdoor seating in the  sparse, scraggly yard. Gardner, he was not. Dex still wore the board  shorts that he'd had on earlier but had donned a white T-shirt featuring  a logo with a silvery trident crossed over a black anchor. The words  Aqueous Adventures circled the logo, which must be the name of his  excursion company.

"This is Charlie St. Croix," Dex said smoothly as if he and Emma had  just parted ways a few moments ago and the swirl of uncertainty between  them didn't exist. "And he was just leaving."

"I'm Emma Richardson," she said with a small frown at Dex for being  rude. "Nice to meet you, Charlie. I've heard absolutely nothing about  you."

Charlie shook her hand with a wide smile that lit up his face, turning  it instantly more interesting. "Likewise. I'm guessing there's a reason  for that. Which I will apparently not get to hear right now because, as  I've just learned, I'm leaving."

They watched him disappear between two houses, and then there wasn't any  way to keep procrastinating, so she glanced at Dex. His jaw was set so  tight she couldn't fathom how his teeth had escaped being crushed under  the pressure.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, his voice unnaturally low. "You can't barge into the place where I live and-"

"I came to apologize." Her pulse picked up. "For earlier. I shouldn't have walked away."

"You …  what?" He shook his head, hard. "Yes, you should have, and you never should have come looking for me."

His hands curled into fists at his side, and he was almost vibrating  with tension. It was a vastly different pose than when he'd faced down  the cretin on the beach. He'd been so very calm then, almost lazy about  it, like he could have handled that situation with one hand tied behind  his back and still taken time to pull an old lady's kitten out of a  tree.

The tension ratcheted up as he stared her down, unmoving, clearly  furious. How was she supposed to tear down his walls when he'd thrown up  a few more in the scant hours since she'd last seen him?

And then she realized what the problem was.

"Take a walk with me. Please," she threw in as he started to shake his  head. "Five minutes, and then I'll leave if I'm not saying anything  worth listening to."

He huffed out a little noise of disgust, which she chose to interpret as  an affirmative answer, and then he followed her to the end of the short  block.

The last dying rays of sunlight had speared across the sky in violent  shades of purple and deep red. The ocean had turned darker, hiding what  lay below the surface. But she'd been under it, knew what lived in the  water, even though she couldn't see it. The man at her side had  instilled that sense of faith. And just like the ocean, she knew what  was below Dex's surface.         

     



 

Without hesitation, she kept walking as they hit the beach. Straight into the water.

"I'm not going swimming, Emma." The steely set of Dex's jaw was mirrored in his tone.

She kept going, wading out until the water hit her midcalf. Waves rolled  in every few seconds, splashing higher on her legs and throwing salty  drops up on her dress.

Turning, she called back to him, "Neither am I. I can't talk to you on the beach. Come on."

Rolling his eyes, he kicked off his flip-flops and followed her into the water.

He didn't have to do it. He could have turned on his heel and left. But he hadn't. That had to mean something.

"What do you want?" he mouthed succinctly as he halted a good ten feet from her. Way too far for what she had in mind.

Didn't matter. He was in the water. Exactly where she wanted him. "Still have a bad attitude I see. Let's give it a minute."

"My attitude is a direct result of you." Sighing, he crossed his arms.  "Is this the part where you say it's okay, you're fine with all the  bodies? Insist that we should talk about it and express our feelings and  you just want me to be happy. Here's a rainbow and a puppy to make it  all better."

That sounded suspiciously like something that some clueless woman had  said to him before. Probably minus the rainbow and puppy part though.

"No, this is the part where I say I'm sorry I ran away. You have a lot of bad stuff inside, and I didn't handle it well."

His eyebrows shot up. "You weren't supposed to. That was the point. It's  not something to handle; it's something to fear and avoid."

"But you can't. So why should I?"

The dying throes of sunlight cast him in shadow but not so much so that  she missed the subtle shift. His tension eased a fraction as he stared  at a spot just over her shoulder. "Because it's not your burden to bear.  Dexter is who I am, and I can't erase it. Nor do I want to."

But it haunted him. The ghosts she saw in his gaze-that was what she  wanted to help exorcise. He'd been bearing his burdens by himself for a  long time, apparently, and it wasn't getting any better.

"I'm curious. What's your real name if it isn't Dexter?"

His face closed in and he hesitated so long she thought he wasn't going  to tell her. "James …  Riley. No one calls me that except my mother and  only when she's mad."

A brief burst of triumph gushed through her. She was gaining ground.

James. She rolled it around in her head. He looked nothing like a James,  but neither did he embody Dexter either. Dex suited him, as he'd likely  realized, and thus adopted. But using the name Dex meant he embraced  that piece of himself, at least partially.

And maybe that was the key to unlocking the puzzle that was James Dexter  Riley-he didn't want to be Dexter but couldn't figure out how to be  anything else.

"James." She drew out the syllables and then held up a finger as he  started to speak. "You had your turn earlier. Now it's my turn, and I  have a few things to say. We've got some stuff to work through, you and  I, and I want to do it without the specter of Dexter hanging over us.  So, for right now, you're James. Deal with it."

His mouth closed, but it was the only visible sign he gave that he'd heard her.

She'd take it.

Never had she thought this would be easy. But she hoped it would be  worth it, at least for his sake. He deserved that exorcism if for no  other reason than because she owed him for everything he'd done for her.

"I meant what I said," she continued. "I came to apologize for letting  you scare me away. I shouldn't have walked. But I'm here now, and I'm  ready to be the woman I promised you I was."

"What is that supposed to mean?" he burst out. "You haven't promised me anything."

"I did. I said I was strong enough to take it and then didn't follow  through." She risked inching toward him, hoping he wouldn't back away.  He didn't. "But I'm here now, and I want to hear the rest of it."

"There's no rest of it."

"Yes, there is," she corrected. "What happened when you came home from  your last tour, James? What drove you all the way to the Caribbean?"

The mutinous cross of his arms tightened, and that's when she realized  he was holding himself in, as if he might fall apart any minute without  something to bind him together. Her heart softened.

"If I'd wanted you to know those things, I'd have told you," he bit out.  "Besides, what does it matter? You've ignored everything else I've  said. Especially the part where I made it clear you shouldn't trust me.  Yet here you are, barging into places I-"