When he took another rag from the pile and joined her, she said not a word. They worked in silence, him at the front and her at the back. It didn’t take long for it to occur to her that they’d meet in the middle eventually, and she’d be close enough to smell him, to feel his body heat. Even if he was in need of a bath, she’d probably still drool. She was so freaking pathetic.
Stupid tears burned her eyes, but she refused to let him see her cry. Dropping the rag, she walked away. With no destination in mind, she ended up at the path leading to the beach. Halfway down it, Jake called her name. She kept going.
“Maria,” he said again, closer.
The sand was hot on her bare feet, but she hardly noticed. Not caring that she wore cutoffs and a T-shirt, she walked into the Gulf, leaned against the breaking waves, and when she was past them, started swimming. Maybe she’d swim to Key West, adopt some of the six-toed descendants of Hemingway’s cats and screw every beach bum that crossed her path. Okay, probably not that last part. That’d be too much like Lovey Dovey.
The salt burned her eyes, a perfect excuse for the tears she couldn’t hold back. The water next to her rippled and Jake swam up beside her. She changed direction and he moved with her as if they had practiced a synchronized swimming routine. No way she could outpace a SEAL, so she turned for the beach, her unwelcome shadow at her side.
Furious that he wouldn’t leave her alone, she spun to face him. “You’re an idiot, Jake Buchanan. You’re in love with me, but you’re as stubborn as a donkey and won’t admit it, even to yourself. There’s going to come a day when you’ll want to poke your eyes out for not seeing it. And if you’re really, really lucky, it won’t be too late. In the meantime, there’s a gallon of double chocolate fudge brownie ice cream calling my name. Who knows, I might get brain freeze and forget you even exist.”
There was the barest twitch of his lips. “I freely admit that I’m a donkey, stubborn or otherwise.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. But that works too.” The hint of a smile on his face, though, gave her hope that he was ready to talk. She turned to leave, praying he would stop her.
“Chiquita, please. Don’t go.”
It seemed sometimes prayers were answered. At the edge of the surf, she sat and stared at the horizon as the waves pushed sand into her cutoffs, not at all surprised when Jake settled next to her. As the silence stretched between them, she had to bite her bottom lip to keep from speaking. If she opened her mouth, she’d likely make a fool of herself by begging him to love her.
“The way I treated you was unforgivable,” he finally said.
There was a sad truth. A sand crab scurried to bury itself before the next wave and she kept her attention on it. If Jake wanted her to speak, he needed to say a lot more than that.
“I want . . . no, I need to tell you what happened in Egypt. I mean, I know you already know what happened, but I want you to understand . . . shit, I don’t even understand half of it.” He punched his heel into the sand as if he were furious with that particular spot.
“I’m listening.” She’d known losing Rick was eating at him, but he’d used his grief and guilt to build a wall between them. She could have lived with that for a while, but not with the way he’d treated her and the things he had said.
If he couldn’t share his heartaches with her, along with his joys, there was no future for them as a couple. That he sat with her now, willingly ready to talk, gave her hope. As he spoke, she drew a heart in the sand at her side where he couldn’t see, then watched as a wave washed it away.
“Tennessee panicked. I knew he was on the edge of losing it, so I put him at the end of the hall where I thought he’d be safest. He would have been safe if one idiot bad guy hadn’t needed to take a piss.”
Taking a deep breath, he continued. “All Tennessee had to do was slip around the corner and we’d never have been noticed. I guess something snapped inside him. He started screaming like some kind of wild man . . . firing his gun . . . just screaming over and over. Christ, I still hear him every time I close my eyes.”
“Go on,” she said softly and slipped her hand into his.
He brought their joined hands up and stared at them. “Between the yelling and the gunfire, the other two Tangos woke up. No surprise they had guns. Stewart and I managed to kill them, but Bayne was also shot. I ordered Stewart to get the kid out of the house and . . . and . . .”