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“Know that my wife...?” He stopped. Took a breath. Started again. “Know that my former wife and her team risked their lives to repair an abandoned runway outside Mosul? That they opened the airstrip despite heavy enemy fire so US aircraft could use it as a base to repel an ISIS attack? Yeah, I know about it.”
Okay, that gave her a warm buzz. Almost warm enough to mitigate the fact that he hadn’t known she was now assigned to Luke. Not quite warm enough to erase the news Ben had imparted last night, though. She looked down at her now sludgy coffee. Looked up. Took her courage in both hands.
“Cowboy told me you’re getting married again.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Anyone I know?”
He hesitated, shrugged. “Alicia Johnson.”
Dammit all to hell!
Somehow, someway, she managed to keep from crushing her cup and slopping coffee over the table. A bitter realization stayed her hand. As much as she disliked the nauseatingly effervescent pixie, she had no right to castigate Gabe for his choice of partners. God knows, he hadn’t castigated her when she turned to someone else out of desperate loneliness.
“Whatever you decide,” she got out, despite lungs squeezed so tight she could hardly breath, “I hope you find the ‘forever’ we were so sure we had.”
He stretched out a hand, covered hers. “Same goes, Susie Q.”
It was the silly nickname that did it. His pet name for her from the fifth grade on. Forever associated in both of their minds with the package of cream-filled chocolate cupcakes she’d brought to his bedroom when he fell out of a tree and broke his collarbone.
She tried, she really tried, to keep her smile from wobbling. Twisting her hand, she gave his what she intended as a companionable squeeze. His fingers threaded through hers. So strong. So warm. So achingly familiar.
He raised their joined hands. Brought the back of hers to his lips. Brushed a kiss across her knuckles. Once. Twice. Swish didn’t even try to pull away.
Until he gently, slowly, lowered his hand and eased it out of hers.
Chapter Two (#u8e7b309c-768b-5299-ac40-8d796f459d12)
“I...uh...”
Gabe smothered a curse as his wife—his former wife!—stammered and tried to shrug off the impact of their brief contact.
One touch. One friggin’ touch, and she looked ready to bolt. He should let her. God knew it wouldn’t be the first time. Instead, he soothed her obvious nervousness with a safe, neutral topic.
“I didn’t get to talk to Cowboy much over the phone. It sounded like he’s enjoying his foray into fatherhood, though.”
“He is.”
She relaxed, bit by almost imperceptible bit, and Gabe refused to analyze the relief that ripped through him. He’d think about it later. Along with the ache in his gut just sharing a booth with her generated.
“Did you know his wife, Alex, designs glitzy tops and accessories for high-end boutiques?”
“No.” He gestured toward the tiger draped over her shoulder. “Did she design that?”
“She did.”
“Nice.”
Very nice. Although...
Now that he’d recovered from the shock of their unexpected meeting, Gabe wasn’t sure he liked the changes he saw in the woman sitting opposite him. She was older. That went without saying. But she’d lost weight in the three years since they’d said their final goodbye. Too much weight. She’d always been slim. With a waist he could span with his hands and small, high breasts that never required a bra when she wasn’t in uniform. Now her cheekbones slashed like blades across her face and that sparkly, stretchy black tank showed hollows where her neck joined her shoulders.
And those lines at the corners of her eyes. Gabe knew most of them came from the sun. And from squinting through everything from high-tech surveying equipment to night-vision goggles. But the lines had deepened, adding both maturity and a vulnerability that tugged at protective instincts he’d thought long buried.
The eyes themselves hadn’t changed, though. Still a deep, mossy green. And still framed by lashes so thick and dark she’d never bothered with mascara. The hair was the same, too. God, how he loved that silvery, ash-blond mane. She’d worn it in a dozen different styles during all their years together. The feathery cut that made her look like a sexy Tinker Bell. The chin-sweeping bob she’d favored in high school. The yard-long spill she’d sported in college. How many times had he tunneled his fingers through that satin-smooth waterfall? A hundred? Two?
He liked the way she wore it now, though. Long enough to pull through the opening at the back of her ball cap, just long enough for the ends to cascade over her right shoulder. Gabe had to curl his hands into fists to keep from reaching across the table and fingering those silky strands.
He sipped his coffee, instead, and tried his damnedest to maintain an expression of friendly interest as she brought him up to date on other mutual friends. Pink, getting ready to ship across the pond again. Dingo and the showgirl he’d been seeing off and on for over a year now. A real wowzer, if even half of the adjectives Suze used to describe the buxom brunette were true. Cowboy’s wife, Alex, expanding her clothing design business even faster than they were expanding their family.
Strange, Gabe thought. He always associated their friends with their call signs. Yet he never thought of Suze as Swish. There were several different explanations of how she’d acquired that tag. One version held it resulted from the detailed analysis she’d sketched on a scrap of paper during a fierce, intrasquadron basketball game. In swift, decisive strokes she’d demonstrated the correct amount of thrust and proper parabolic arc to swish in a basket.
Another version was that she’d gained the tag after one of her troops mired a Swiss-made bulldozer in mud. Suze reportedly climbed aboard, rocked the thirty-ton behemoth back and forth, and swished it out.
There was another version. One involving beer, a bet and a camel, although Suze always claimed the details were too hazy for her to remember.
Gabe knew his reluctance to use her call sign was only one small indicator of the rift that had gradually, inexorably widened to a chasm. He hadn’t resented sharing her with the Air Force or with the troops she worked with. Not at first. Not until they became her surrogate family. But she always was, always would be, Suze to him.
Or Susie Q. The pet name came wrapped in so many layers of memories. Some innocent, like the time he broke his collarbone and she’d perched on the side of his bed to feed him bits of her cream-filled chocolate treats. And some not so innocent. Like the time...
Without warning, Gabe went tight. And hard. And hungry. Smothering another curse, he shoved the image of his wife’s nipples smeared with whipped cream out of his head. But he had to drag in long, slow breaths before his blood started circulating above his waist again.
“I can’t tell if Dingo’s serious about Chelsea or not,” Suze was saying. “He hooks up with her whenever he’s in Vegas. And they spent a week together in Cabo a few months back. But neither of them seem to be talking about long term.” She cocked her head. “Gabe?”
“Sorry. I was thinking of something else.”
“Right.”
She fiddled with the tab on the lid of her cup. They’d covered every banal topic they could while dancing away from the only one that mattered. Silence stretched between them. Gabe was reluctant to break it, and even more reluctant to end this strange interlude. Suze finally took the lead.
“Well, if you’re going to make Albuquerque this evening, you probably should hit the road.”
“Probably should.”
“Unless...”
She flicked the tab. Up. Down. Didn’t quite meet his eyes.
“Unless?” he prompted.
“Unless you’d like to swing by my place for breakfast first. It’s out of your way but...” The barest hint of a smile flitted across her face. “I still can’t cook worth a damn but I have learned to concoct a relatively passable Mexican frittata.”
It was an olive branch. A tentative step toward putting the past behind them and becoming friends again. That’s all it was, Gabe told himself fiercely. All it could be. Yet he snatched it with both hands.
“You’re on.”
* * *
Even before he snapped his seat belt and keyed Ole Blue’s ignition, his thoughts had done a one-eighty. This was a mistake. Possibly one of epic proportions. There was no way in hell either of them could back to being just friends. But as Gabe trailed her maroon sports car through the now-bright Arizona morning, he came up with a dozen different explanations for his temporary insanity.
Neither of them had tried to deny that their frequent separations while they were both in uniform had created the first cracks in their marriage. The cracks had gotten wider every time Gabe suggested they choose different career paths, ones that wouldn’t put them on opposite sides of the globe so often. The fissures had become a yawning crevasse when he’d issued a flat ultimatum.
Looking back, he knew he shouldn’t have forced her to choose between him and the Air Force. Or hung up his uniform and headed for Oklahoma while they were still struggling to balance the deep, visceral satisfaction she got from her job with his gnawing need to get back to his roots.
And he sure as hell shouldn’t have let her admission that she’d turned to someone else for comfort eat like acid on his pride. They’d been separated for six months by then. Already talking around the edges of divorce, when they talked at all.
That was when he’d heard the rumor. Third hand, passed via a friend of a friend of a friend. It hadn’t meant anything, the well-meaning pal had assured him. Suzanne had already given the guy his marching orders.
Gabe knew then he should’ve swallowed his rage at the thought of Suzanne, his Suzanne, in another man’s arms, jumped on a plane and tried one last time to heal the breach.
Which is exactly what he would’ve done if she hadn’t called back while he was in the process of throwing a few things in an overnight bag. Every word icy and clipped, she’d told him she’d applied for two weeks’ leave. She needed to get away. Think things through. And, like a fool, he’d let her go. Didn’t ask where. Didn’t try to track her down. Just stubbornly, stupidly believed deep in his heart they’d find a way back to each other. He’d continued to believe it right up until she FedExed him the divorce papers.
As the memories flashed by with the same speed as the miles, his mind went to a place he knew it shouldn’t. Maybe Suze had offered more than an olive branch back there at McDonald’s. Maybe these past three years had been as lonely for her as they had for him. Maybe, just maybe, she was giving him the chance to correct the most colossal blunder of his life.
If she was, and if he did, all ten levels of hell would freeze over before he let her go again.
* * *
The fierce vow probably explained why she’d barely closed the door of her condo behind them before he made his move. That, and the fact that a swift glance around her airy living room revealed no reminders of their broken marriage. Even with the wood shutters tilted against the morning sun, enough light slanted in for Gabe to see the furniture was new. So was the triple panel of bold, slashing color mounted above the sofa. Even the oversize area rug that looked like it had been woven from fabric scraps in dozens of different colors and patterns.
She must have caught his frown as he studied the rug. Tossing her keys and small clutch purse on the tiled counter that separated the living room from the kitchen, she addressed the issue head on. “I’m only renting this place until I decide where to buy.”
He answered with a shrug that added an edge in her voice.
“It came furnished, so I put our Turkish...” She stopped, restarted. “So I put the Turkish carpets in storage with the rest of my things.”
For some reason that deliberate midcourse correction pissed Gabe off. She couldn’t admit they’d ever shared a home? Couldn’t cherish the small treasures they’d collected from all over the world?
Conveniently forgetting that he’d boxed up pretty much every item he’d carted back to Oklahoma and stashed them in the attic of his home, Gabe forced a grin. “Seems like I remember us rolling around naked on those Turkish carpets a few times.”
The surprise that flashed across her face gave him a dart of fierce satisfaction. It also provided a chance to dig the spur in a little deeper.
“More than a few times, now that I think about it. Often enough for one of us to get a little carpet burn on her ass, anyway.”
When he waggled his brows, she laughed and shook her head.
“That was you, big guy. After which, you threatened to tell folks you’d been wounded in the line of duty.”
“At which point you threatened to pin a purple heart on said wound.”
“Would’ve served you right if I had!”
They were both grinning now, and Gabe moved in for the kill. Lifting a hand, he brushed his knuckles down her cheek. “We had some good times, didn’t we?”
Her laughter faded. The twin emerald pools he’d seen himself in so many times stared up at him. Gabe waited, his heart slamming against his ribs, until her breath left on a whisper of a sigh.
“Yes, we did.”
He opened his palm and cupped her chin, then feathered his thumb across her lower lip. His pulse was drumming in his ears now. And in that instant, he knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t—take Alicia up on her increasingly unsubtle hints that she was ready to move in with him. Permanently.
This was the only woman he’d ever loved. The one he’d ached for with the fumbling, frantic passion of youth. The one he’d promised to share his life with. There wasn’t room in his heart for anyone but her.
“I’ve missed you, Suze.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” Tears dimmed the luminescent green of her eyes. “So much I hurt with it.”
His palm slid to her nape. His other hand came up to ease off her ball cap. With it out of the way, he tugged at the squishy elastic band that held her hair. The wind-tangled strands came free and framed her face.
“There,” he said, his voice gruff. “I’ve been aching to do that since the moment we walked into that McDonald’s.”
“Gabe...”
It was half sigh, half plea. Heat roiling in his belly, he tightened his hold on her nape.
“I’ve been aching to do this, too.”
He fully intended to keep the kiss gentle. To stoke her hunger carefully, slowly, until it matched the fire now smoldering in his blood. But she fitted herself against him with a familiar intimacy that sparked searing pleasure at every contact point. Her mouth, her breasts, her hips. All straining against him. All filling him with a raging need that made him whip an arm around her waist and haul her even closer.
* * *
Swish reacted instinctively. The feel of him against her, of the hard press of his mouth on hers, shattered the dam. Hunger, hot and urgent, poured through her. Panting, gasping, her lungs burning, her lips frantic under his, she hooked her arms around his neck. The last shreds of sanity screamed at her to pull back. Now! While she still could! But the rest of her, every atom of the rest of her, wanted Gabe with a ferocity so intense it seared her soul.
She wasn’t sure who attacked whose clothing first. She might’ve yanked up his black T-shirt to get at the hard, tanned muscles of his chest. Or maybe he whipped her tank top up and off. She didn’t know. Didn’t care. She was too busy heeling out of her half-boots to think about it.
She kicked the boots away at the same instant his hands went to the zipper of her jeans. He shoved them down over her hips. She shimmied the rest of the way out. She hadn’t bothered with a bra. She never did when not in uniform. So all she had on when he scooped her up was the thin layer of her black lace hipsters.
“That way,” she gasped, pointing to the arch that led to the two bedrooms. Unnecessarily, as it turned out, as Gabe was already halfway there.
The master bedroom suite echoed the same eclectic style and bright colors as the living room. Red, yellow and turquoise pillows in varying shapes accented the sage-colored comforter. The collage of desert sunrises and sunsets arranged above the headboard picked up the same colors.
Gabe didn’t so much as glance at the gorgeous display. He almost dumped her on the bed and dragged off her panties before stripping off the rest his own clothes. Boots. Jeans. Jockeys.
Jaw taut, nostrils flaring, he turned back to her. His eyes, those green-brown eyes flecked with bits of gold, raked from her neck to her knees. Suze could see herself reflected in the dark irises. Her arms flung up beside her head in wild abandon. Her breasts bare, the nipples already hard and aching for his touch. Her stomach hollowing as the muscles low in her belly clenched in greedy anticipation.
Then, just as she opened her legs to welcome him, he turned away. She lay frozen, unable to move or think or understand why he reached for the jeans he’d just discarded. She whipped her arms down and pushed up on one elbow. She was all set to torch him like one of the commercial high-pressure propane flamethrowers her fire protection troops used when he faced her again, a crumpled foil packet in his hand.
“I have no idea how long I’ve carried this in my wallet,” he said with a wry grimace. “A year maybe.”
Which implied, she thought on a surge of primal satisfaction, he hadn’t delved into his secret stash for prissy missy Alicia Johnson.
She dismissed as totally irrelevant the possibility that Alicia might have supplied the necessary protective measures herself. The only thing that mattered to her now was that Gabe, her Gabe, apparently hadn’t initiated a sexual encounter.
Until now.
“Let me.”
Her heart stuck in her throat, she rolled onto her knees and held out her hand. She squeezed every ounce of pleasure she could out of tearing open the packet and sheathing his now rigid erection. The veined shaft rising hard and pulsing from its nest of wiry chestnut hair triggered atavistic instincts as old as time. This was her mate. The man she’d given her heart to years before she gave him her virginity.
