Rescue Me: A Bad Boy Military Romance (3 page)

I have a ridiculous, absurd idea flash through my mind. “Luke,” I reply. “I want to call you something.”

She looks a little taken aback but recovers. “You can call me whatever you want.”

She pulls my shirt over my head and drops it on the floor. I reach down and untie her trench coat, pushing it off her shoulders. I realize she’s lost her underwear and is completely naked other than her high heels. I run my hands down her neck, over her shiny auburn hair, and down to her breasts, massaging them in my paint-covered hands.

She groans and it doesn’t sound artificial.

I move my hands down her sides and around, grabbing her ass. I reach between her legs. She’s already wet. I slide my fingers gently around her nub, feeling myself get harder with every touch. I slide my fingers into her and she gasps, closing her eyes and biting her pink lips. I lift her onto the bed and take my pants off, sliding on a condom and getting on my knees on the mattress.

I grab her chin and tilt her lips up to mine. “Ella,” I say. I haven’t said that name aloud in years. Maybe in my sleep, but I wouldn’t know. I slide into her and she screams in pleasure at my size.

If I close my eyes I can pretend she’s her.

Almost.

The next morning, my alarm clock rings bright and early but I ignore it. The only thing that gets me out of bed an hour later is my throbbing leg. I reach over to my nightstand and toss a few pills back. I don’t even need water to down them anymore. I hop over to the windows of my bedroom and throw open the curtains. The sun blasts my eyes and I realize I must be running late.

I shower with no time to shave, throwing on clothes and grabbing the lunch I packed earlier in the week.

I check my phone to see I have ten missed calls, all from different numbers. I sigh as I climb up into my pickup truck, the bright sun blasting my eyes. I almost drop my phone onto the dirt and gravel of my driveway as I attempt to juggle it along with my keys.

The first call is from Tanya, Tim’s mom. I press play on the voice message. “I don’t know if you’ve heard the news, but we found a doctor-”

I crank the key and the engine roars to life. I love the sound of it, but it drowns out Tanya’s next words. I hit the next button and hear Tim’s voice as I pull out onto the crunchy gravel of my driveway, plumes of dust erupting around me in the shafts of morning light that fall through the trees.

“…barely got any sleep last night, but managed to be up in time for the inspection. Anyway, I’m guessing you’ve gotten calls from half the town at this point.” Tim takes a deep breath. “I thought you’d want to know. Ella’s coming home.”

I nearly drive my prized truck off the road in shock. I hang up the phone and breathe through my nose, my heart pounding.

Ella’s coming home.

CHAPTER FIVE

LUKE

ELEVEN YEARS AGO

“Y’all know a girl named Ella Hanover?” I ask the locker room. The sound of metal lockers snapping shut echoes against the painted cinderblock walls. I’m not sure anyone can even hear me between that, the sound of plastic buckles and pads hitting the floor, and the hissing of the shower heads.

“I know her,” says a blonde kid I recognize as being a freshman. “She tutors the freshman science classes.”

I crook my finger at him and his round eyes go wide. “Come here,” I say. I tap my bare foot on the worn wooden bench. “Sit. Talk. Tell me everything you know about her.”

“Uh, she’s nice, I guess,” he stutters.

“What the hell are you doing, Davis? Torturing this kid?” I hear the voice of Tim Wilkins call out across the locker room. I look up to see him toweling his hair dry.

“Just gathering some intel, that’s all Wilkins,” I retort, pulling off my towel and slipping on my boxer briefs. “Keep talking.”

“She’s really smart. Really, really smart. And she’s nice, too. She helped me when I failed my last test. I didn’t fail this time, though,” he says with an innocent grin.

“Who’s he talking about?” Tim asks, opening the locker next to me and pulling out his clothes.

“Ella Hanover,” I reply. “Or at least he would be if you didn’t keep interrupting him.”

“What do you want with Ella Hanover?” Tim asks with a laugh. “I saw you with her earlier in the hall. I thought you were going to pull a prank on her.”

I think back to earlier in the hallway when I stopped to help Ella off the floor. She’d caught my eye when Amy Waters had pushed her way past her. I know Amy well enough to know that she doesn’t bother fucking with people she doesn’t feel threatened by. And then I saw Ella’s red hair and her green eyes. And there was just…something. It was ridiculous. But it was like I was seeing her for the first time.

“Hello? You in there, Davis?”

Tim is waving his hand in my face. I shove him away. “Nothing,” I reply. “Just like to know who’s who on campus, you know me.”

“Trolling for prom king votes?” says a deep voice from behind me. It’s Dean.

“Shut it, Dean!” I yell back. “So what else? Likes, dislikes?”

The kid on the bench looks like he’s run out of ideas. “I think she likes sour candy,” he says.

“Sour candy? Like what kind?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I saw her eating some gummy worms after class one day. One of my friends brought her some. He has a crush on her. Who can blame him. She’s stacked.”

“Probably down to fuck, too. All the nerdy girls are. Desperate for attention. They’ll spread their legs for any guy who looks sideways at them in the hallway.” Michael Evans strolls by me, that cocky ass grin on his face that seems to be permanently plastered there.

I grab his arm and shove him up against the lockers. He just smiles at me. “Do it, Davis. You know you want to.”

My heart is beating, and I hear the voice of my guidance counselor in my head warning me to stop what I’m doing if I have any chance of joining the Marines. I let go of his shirt and shove him back to where I found him. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a stick of gum, chewing it open-mouthed like the asshole he is. “Just slip it into her already, Davis. You know you want to.”

Both Tim and Dean have to grab the back of my shirt to keep me from lunging after him as Michael leaves the locker room. “I hate that asshole,” I say, seething and resituating my shirt. I take a few deep breaths and nod at Tim and Dean. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Dean replies.

“Michael’s a real dick,” Tim adds. “His daddy’ll sue you so fast it’ll make your head spin. He’s not worth getting into trouble over.”

I slam my locker door shut and pull my duffel bag over my shoulder. “Yeah. But
she
is.”

CHAPTER SIX

ELLA

PRESENT DAY

The blue sky above Texas is as pure as I remember it being as a kid. I take a deep breath and inhale. It smells like cigarette smoke and old books. But that's because I'm still in the back of this taxi that is only going eighteen miles an hour through the straight, unobstructed roads. Well, unobstructed until a cow meanders out of the trees and stops in the road. The driver slams to a halt.

"Could we hurry this up?" I ask him, slipping him another twenty dollars.

"What do you want me to do? Get out and push her? I don't think she'll fancy that much," the driver replies.

I roll my eyes. "I mean once this cow moves." I tap my manicured nails on the armrest of the taxi. The fake leather is so worn it looks like suede. I rub my fingers against the black covering and enjoy the little flakes that pill up around my fingertips.

The cow finally moves and the driver accelerates another eight miles an hour.

"I said faster."

"This
is
faster. Sweetheart, we do things on our own time here in Texas. You'd best get used to that."

I open my mouth to protest that I'm well aware of how things proceed in Texas, since I was born and raised here, but I swallow my words. The air conditioner is blasting cold air but it's barely reaching me back here. Humidity is condensing on the inside of the glass. I put my hand up to my hair and realize the curls I'd straightened out of my auburn locks sometime this morning, two time zones away, have returned with a vengeance. My foundation is running off my face as well.

Looks like I’ll be back to the curly, freckle-faced redhead I grew up being in a matter of moments. Texas doesn't care about transformations. It just wants you how it wants you.

The taxi finally reaches Buxwell, and my breath is ripped out of my chest by the familiarity. There's the diner where I kissed Johnny Marshall in the eighth grade. There’s the stone-clad library with towering cottonwood trees surrounding it. There's a cadre of red tricycles outside of the library and I realize it must be afternoon story time.

Nostalgia is rocking my body with waves that are more like tsunamis. I dig my nails back into the armrest like I'm trying to hold onto the person I’ve made myself into outside the confines of this tiny, tiny town. "Where to, again?" the driver asks. 

I pull the crumpled letter out of my pocket and squint at the address like I haven’t had it burned into my memory. I grew up going to this clinic. I say the address out loud and close my eyes, wishing I could pretend I was somewhere else. But the taxi edges out of the falling-down, decrepit downtown and a funny feeling comes over me like someone just walked over my own grave. I open my eyes to see a glimpse of a tanned, muscular guy lifting lumber out of the back of his truck. I do a double take and nearly get whiplash turning to look.

It can't be him, though. 

It can't be.

"Everything alright back there? We didn't pass it, did we?" asks the driver. I think about how far he has to drive to get back to Dallas after this.

"No, you didn't pass it. You've got quite a drive back to Dallas, don't you?" I ask him to change the subject.

He shrugs. "It's just time and tires, darlin'. Don't you worry about it."

I lean back, my heart still pounding at seeing
his
ghost in my wake. Or what I
thought
was his ghost. He wouldn't have come back here. Would he? "Make a right here," I say automatically as we drive by a dirt road.

The driver glances back at me. I'm nearly blinded by the blank compact disc hanging from his rearview mirror. "I thought you said you'd never been here before?"

I sigh. "Just drive. It's only a few more yards."

The tires kick up clouds of dirt and the rumble of the tires over the mixture of dirt and gravel sends a shock of nostalgia through me unlike any I've experienced so far today. I glance out the passenger side window and I see the wood clapboard house. It looks like it's about to fall over, but there's a charm about it that tickles me. I see the tiny cottage in the backyard and realize with a small twinge of guilt that my mother always talked about living in a cute house like that. I shake it out of my memory. "Out front here is fine," I say.

"You sure, darlin'? Don't look like nobody's been here in a week's time," the driver says with fatherly concern.

I snap open my knock-off Louis Vuitton purse that Sam and I bought when we'd gone up to San Francisco a few months ago and pull out a hundred-dollar bill. "Keep the change," I say.

I step out of the taxi into what I hope is mud and not manure. It squelches around my high heels. "Welcome home," I say to no one.

I'm so windblown by the events of the last few days I barely know where I am, what day it is, or what time zone I'm in. The taxi driver rolls down his window.

"You want some help takin' this stuff inside?" he asks.

I shake my head. "I've got it, thank you," I say. I hear the smallest twang of accent come back in my 'thank you' and I cringe. He pops the trunk and I pull out four rolling suitcases: my entire life fits in these bags. I can’t believe that it does all fit, but I guess that's what four years of med school followed by residency gets a person. It's not like I've had a lot of time to shop or collect much of anything other than the dark circles underneath my eyes.

I stumble over to the toppled old ranch fence which is now just low piles of rocks; someone who didn't know what they were would probably think they were some sort of symbolic offering to a pagan god. I scrape my heel on a flat stone to get most of the manure off. It mostly works. The taxi driver is still idling.

"Just want to make sure you get inside without the door falling off in your hands," he quips with a smile.

I wave him away. "I'm fine. I promise. Thank you again for driving me all the way out here."

"You get you a nice little car or something, alright? Something with AC. I think it's hotter here than in the city." He wipes his sweating, wrinkled brow with a handkerchief.

"Welcome to Buxwell," I say.

He laughs. "Good luck here. Don't let the ghosts get to you, you hear me?"

I freeze in my tracks. "Ghosts?" I ask, my heart thudding in my chest. "Why would you say that?"

He laughs. "Darlin', I know you've been here before. Ghosts are more than just spirits in an old house. It's hard comin' home. You take care of yourself." And on that note, he drives away, back down the dirt road.

I get my breathing back in check and turn around to haul my bags up the sagging porch steps. I test the porch itself with a tentative toe. It looks like it's rotting from the inside out, but it's steady enough. I pull my bags up and check the lopsided screen door. Next to it is a rusted letter box and a worn, carved wooden sign.
Jackson Smith, M.D.,
it says.

I know Jackson's been dead and buried for a while now. I push at the door and it flies open at my touch.

"Hello?" I say into the space.

Mosquitoes buzz in my ear and I flap them away. The place has the feeling of a room not occupied by humans in a long time, but at least someone thought to put dust covers over the waiting area furniture, front desk, and office chair. I set my bags down and open the blinds. Spiders scatter and I shriek. I guess I'm going to have to get over that if I'm going to at least pretend to be a brave, city doctor. It’s Texas. There are plenty more crawling insects where those came from.