Talon (Uncompromising #1)(30)
“Why Daytona Beach?”
“Came here on vacation years ago. It stuck.” I didn’t tell her the last memory I had of Leigh was on this beach. I’d taken her to dinner then we’d walked along the shore and I’d asked her about starting a family. She’d said she’d always thought she’d have kids. I’d been so fucking ecstatic, I hadn’t noticed her detachment or the way she’d phrased her answer. The next morning, she’d said it was over and she walked out. It was the last time I saw her alive. “Steaks are done. Grab the salad out of the fridge?”
“Sure.”
She disappeared inside and I inhaled to clear my head. Instead of a lungful of ocean, I got jasmine laced with memories. A week ago, the thoughts of Leigh would’ve ruined my mood.
Siren came back, set the salad on the table and took a seat. “It smells really good.”
I plated our steaks, wondering if I’d simply traded the thoughts of one woman crowding my head for another. “Hope you’re hungry.” I sat.
She studied me a moment. “You okay?”
I took in my surroundings and for the first time in two years, I didn’t have to force my past out of my present because it was naturally taking a back seat. It felt good, really fucking good. “Steak on my plate, beautiful woman next to me, the ocean at my feet—doesn’t get much better.” I wasn’t flirting.
She blushed. “Thank you.”
“Quit thankin’ me. Eat.”
Like she seemed to do everything else, she gracefully held the fork in her splinted hand while using the knife in the other to cut her steak.
I got off on watching her movements but the urge to cut the steak for her was overwhelming. “Need help?”
“No, thank you.” She put the bite in her mouth and her eyes closed.
It was the same look she’d had this morning in my kitchen and my dick stirred at the memory. “I am wonderin’ one thing though.”
“Hm?” She took a bite of her potato, savoring it.
I wanted to pull her across the table. “How much of that steak you actually gonna manage to eat? It’s bigger’n you.” I winked.
She laughed.
She fucking laughed. Musical, delicate, honest. Everything disappeared except that laugh and I grinned.
“You’d be surprised what I can manage.” She smiled coyly.
No way. “Did you just flirt with me?”
“Yes.” Still smiling, she took another bite.
“Damn. I knew you were a siren.” Now I was wondering at all the things she could manage.
“Hardly.”
“Oh, darlin’,” I teased. “Life’ll be much easier for you when you realize I’m always right.”
“Except for when you’re wrong.”
“Never happens.” The second the words left my mouth, the nagging feeling about André I’d pushed away all day hit me hard.
I’D TRIED ANDRÉ BEFORE NIC and I went out to the beach but he hadn’t answered. My instinct telling me something was off, I cut our walk short and turned us around after a mile.
Nic glanced behind us. “Can we go a little further?”
“Not tonight.” Ariel was right, André didn’t go off the grid. I needed to find out what was going on. And I had an errand to run.
“I’m okay, really.”
I glanced at her. Long legs, hair blowing in the breeze, she was more than okay. I’d rushed like fuck to get home to her. “I know, darlin’.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “We’ll go further tomorrow.”
“Okay. Can I ask you a question?”
“Anythin’.” Didn’t mean I’d answer it.
“What do the matching bird tattoos on your chest mean?”
Absently I rubbed at one of them. “They’re swallows. They’re supposed to bring sailors good luck. I got the left one when I first enlisted in the Navy. Swallows always return every year to the same location to nest and mate. Tattooing the first one was supposed to guarantee I came home but if I didn’t, legend says it’d carry my soul to heaven. After my first tour, I got the second one as a symbol that I made it home.”
“I thought you were in the Marines.”
I smiled. She’d paid attention, I’d give her that. “The Marines don’t have their own medics, the Navy provides ’em. After the Navy trained me, I went Green Side and was assigned to a Marine Force Recon unit.” I didn’t tell her it took two years of advanced Navy and Marine Corps training as well as the Army’s Special Forces Medic course to earn the distinction of SARC.
“And the stars on your arms?”