Last True Hero (29 page)

“Nope, I think that's it,
sir
.” She picks up my game, exaggerating hers and I feel warmth spread through my body starting in the very center of me.

“Funny girl.”

After I help her into the Jeep—ignoring her protests about her being wet—and turn on the engine so that the air conditioning is blasting, I turn and jog back down to the beach. I grab my surfboard and hers under one arm and load her bag onto the other.

Even though I'm only taking her to the doctor, and it's been months since I've seen her, I can't stop the feeling of giddy anticipation overwhelming me at the thought of seeing her sitting there in my car.

After Berkeley, I changed a lot about my life. I stopped answering to my asshole father. I gave my mother an ultimatum. I changed my job trajectory in the navy, entering the SEALs training program against my father's wishes. I sold the Audi and bought a Jeep. I also bought a small house in Lone Sands; close to the beach I'd always loved so much instead of living on base.

The one thing I hadn't changed was my relationship status. I was definitely in the
single
category. My parents and I had basically planned my life around their goal for me to marry Berkeley one day. And I'd stupidly bought into it; because she and I were so close there wasn't anyone else I could imagine spending my life with. Any girl I dated before then was just a distraction.

And now any girl I dated was the same thing. A distraction. A way to pass the time. I chose girls who knew the score, girls who typically dated guys in the navy because they weren't going to be around for long. Nothing serious, no strings attached.

But as I climb into my Jeep and glance over at Greta sitting there with a genuine, sweet-and-sexy smile on her face, with that body that could cause men to jump off of bridges, something inside me stirs and stretches. Something that had been dormant for a long time. Something that tells me Greta Owen isn't going to be like other girls. I'm not going to be able to love her body one night and then walk away the next day.

Without even saying a word, she demands to be more than that.

I look down at my left leg. I'm not even a whole man anymore. I'd been through some shit in the last year that had changed me fundamentally, both inside and out. There's no way I can be everything to someone else.

I know it in my gut.

I'm going to drive Greta to the doctor and make sure she's okay. And then I'm going to walk away.

Because at this point in my life, that's the best possible thing I can do for a woman like this.

Just walk away.

Diana Gardin is a wife of one and a mom of two. Writing is her second full-time job to that, and she loves it! Diana writes contemporary romance in the Young Adult and New Adult categories. She's also a former elementary school teacher. She loves steak, sugar cookies, and Coke and hates working out.

Learn more at:
DianaGardin.com
Twitter: @ DianalynnGardin
Facebook.com/AuthorDianaGardin

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