The Cornerstone (13 page)

She couldn’t make it easy on me, that was certain. She couldn’t be a spoiled bridezilla brat who required a big-ass wedding. She couldn’t even be a bitchy workaholic who threw tantrums when forced to take a day off. She wouldn’t fit into any neat compartment, and maybe it was time to stop trying.

“I’m hungry,” she announced. “Point me in the direction of food. Preferably good food, and decent adult beverages.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

We headed to a casual restaurant away from the town’s quaint center, and sat at the outside bar. She asked me about Kaisall over dinner, and provided an oblique explanation of her refusal to eat anything off a bone. Ribs, wings, fried chicken: all out of the question.

That was no way to live.

The girl was a handful, but…it was amazing to watch her stress melting away. Some of it remained, but she was
present
. Her words softened and flowed more freely. Her body loosened, as if she wasn’t bracing for battle anymore. Her gestures slowed, and her smile…that smile. The real thing was unexpectedly powerful, like a riptide.

Once the plates were cleared, she studied the dessert menu like she was being quizzed on it. I ordered another beer and let a deep sense of contentment wash over me. The salt air was sinking into my skin, there was a feisty lady at my side, my belly was full of low country barbeque, and unless there was an act of war this weekend, my time was my own until Tuesday.

“Okay, commando,” she said. “I’ve done all the talking. Now it’s your turn. What are you all about? I want the Will Halsted story.”

“You should know I’m obsessed with IPAs,” I said in my best lilting hipster voice. Shannon’s fist landed on my shoulder, and the smiling scowl on her face told me she didn’t find that kind of comment amusing. Not entirely.

“Meatheads can’t handle conversation. Noted,” she said, raising her arm to catch the bartender’s attention. The chick with the skinny jeans and nose rings who took our order was busy at the other end, and a big, fisherman-looking dude sidled up.

“What can I getcha, sugar?”

I narrowed my eyes at the bartender. Setting aside that overactive sense of possession for a second, was it not obvious that Shannon was here with
me
? If she was anyone’s sugar, she was
my
sugar.

“Irish whiskey. Whatever’s top shelf. Three fingers,” she said, “on the rocks.”

“Sure you can handle that?” he asked while dropping ice into a tumbler with a wink. He fucking
winked
at her. What kind of asshole winked?

I cleared my throat and draped my arm over the back of her chair. That was my first warning. This guy did not want to see my version of a second warning.

“Oh I’ll be fine,” she said, jerking her thumb in my direction. “Muscles over here will throw me on his shoulder and get me home. He can’t have a conversation, but he’s really good at manhandling.”

“Shannon,” I growled.

“Here’s my best top shelf Irish. It’s a Midleton, the Barry Crockett,” he said, setting the tumbler on a napkin in front of Shannon. “It’s smooth. You’ll like the way it feels in your mouth.”

Yep, I am going to have to kill this guy now.

Shannon let out a raucous laugh. “I usually do.”

“Let me know if you need anything else, sugar.”

“She’s good,” I snapped. “Thanks.”

The bartender glanced at me for the first time since arriving at this end of the bar. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, backing away. “Of course, man.”

“If you two want to whip your dicks out, I’ll find a measuring tape,” Shannon said. She lifted her glass in salute to no one in particular and took a hearty sip. “I might have an app for that. I’d need my phone, but some lawyer-fucking meathead stole it.”

“Shannon,” I said through clenched teeth. I continued glaring at the bartender as he moved to another group.

“That was entertaining,” she said. “I always knew you were a savage, but whoa.”

Her gaze skimmed up and down my body while she sipped her whiskey, and I couldn’t tell if that look was contemptuous or predatory, or a little of both.

“I do like the feel of this in my mouth,” she said. “It feels like it’s getting me drunk tonight. You’re going to tell me stories.”

I groaned internally. My whole life was classified, and for good reason. Operational security was a big deal. A big fucking deal. There wasn’t much I could tell her, and honestly, I didn’t want to burden her with the details. “What kind of stories?”

She reclined against my arm—another benefit of relaxed Shannon: free-flowing affection—and I let my fingers travel over her shoulder. “What do you love?”

The question took me by surprise, and I paused to get my thoughts in order. “The ocean,” I started. “Spending the day out on the water. My family. Being back home in San Diego.”

Kidnapping mouthy redheaded lawyers
.

“Has San Diego always been home?” she asked.

“Yeah, Dad was stationed there before any of us were born. I’ve seen a lot of this world but it’s home to me. It’s the only place I want to be. Even when I leave the teams, I’ll stay in San Diego.”

“When will that be?”

“If,” I said. “I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

She wrapped her tongue around her straw—yeah, I was halfway hard—and squinted at me. “And what is it that you do?”

“Most of it is highly classified,” I said. “But I can say I spend most of my time tracking high-value terrorist targets.”

“Like…
Zero Dark Thirty
?”

I nodded. I wasn’t on that raid, but that was exactly what I did.

“You kill people,” she said, her words barely a whisper.

“When they put the lives of Americans in danger, yes, I do,” I said.

“That’s scary,” she said. “Everything you just said, it’s scary.”

“Fear is a choice,” I said. “Danger is real, but you decide whether or not you allow fear into your mind.”

“But it’s dangerous,” she said. “Really dangerous. You have scars from…being over there. I’ve seen them.”

“It comes with the territory,” I said.

“But you could be seriously injured or, or…” She glanced up at me, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth. “Why do you do it?”

“I have a duty to serve and protect my country. I have a set of skills few others have and that puts me in more hostile regions and risky missions, but it’s a challenge I willingly accept.”

Shannon stared into the tumbler, her eyes tracking the ice cube as it clanked against the glass. I couldn’t read her and I didn’t know what to say. Most of the women close to me knew as much about SEAL life as I did. My mother and Lo lived it, my college girlfriend’s brothers were Marines, and that was it. I didn’t have any other women. Sure, there was the perky comm officer at the Sigonella base but that only happened a couple of times, and she knew the drill.

Shannon knocked back the rest of her whiskey and signaled for the bartender. Thankfully, Nose Ring responded this time.

With a fresh drink in hand, Shannon said, “We gave you a nickname.” A broad smile filled her face and her cheeks were pink. The alcohol was hitting her. “Only special people get nicknames. It’s a thing we do. When Riley was little, he had the worst stutter. It was so hard for him to talk, and he gave up. He just didn’t speak.”

Tears filled her eyes but she blinked them back before they slid down her face. She reached for her glass and looked away. There were only a few emotions Shannon willingly shared: anger, derision, frustration, contempt, impatience. She kept sadness and pain all to herself, but it was obvious they were there. A dark history lived in her, and I saw it when she didn’t think I was looking.

“My father refused to let the school test him for speech disorders. He said Riley was just lazy or looking for attention, and whipped him with a belt every time he heard a stutter. There were some years when Riley didn’t speak at all,” she said. “But he loved comic books and action figures and all that stuff, so I started reading comics to him. His job was to say some of the words with me, and he was down as long as I called him Batman and he was allowed to use the Batman voice. That was the only thing that worked for him. So we read together every afternoon for years, and in the process, he assigned superhero names to me and my siblings.”

There was no correct response to Shannon’s confession. It was another layer to tuck away and examine later, and I continued stroking her shoulder without comment.

Nose Ring appeared and broke the silence. “Any thoughts about dessert? The chef has a really wonderful grilled peach with brown sugar and walnut crumble. Would you like to try that?”

Shannon turned away from me and discretely wiped her eyes. What would it take for her to look me in the eye while she cried? Would she ever let herself give up that much? Would she ever give that much to me?

“Yeah,” I said. “Two peaches.”

She pulled her sleeves down over her fingers and folded her arms on the bar. “He’s the master when it comes to assigning nicknames, and you should feel pretty damn special that he’s bestowed one on you,” she said, laughing.

“I do,” I said. “I’d like to hear it, and yours.”

“They call me the Black Widow.” She grinned over the rim of her glass, and Riley was dead-on with that one. Natasha Romanov was a nurturing assassin, and one gorgeous, ass-kicking redhead. “You’re Captain America.”

“Captain America?” I repeated.

“Yep, and I know
The Avengers
inside and out—hell, I’d have to after reading them, over and over and over. Steve never gets into Natasha’s bodysuit. It’s a sign.”

“No one does,” I said. Comic book knowledge didn’t live in the forefront of my mind these days. “Right?”

Nose Ring returned and set two miniature cast-iron skillets loaded with grilled peaches in front of us. “They’re hot,” she warned.

“Right?” I repeated.

“Wes got a nickname, too,” Shannon said, ignoring me as she picked at the basil leaves atop her fruit. “Thor. That one works for me. I mean, Wes is
really
hot. You’re adorable and all, with your chiseled good looks and crusty personality, but if Wes broke into my apartment…well, let’s just say I’d be all over that hammer.”

“You are not Wes’s type, peanut,” I murmured.

Her little fist popped my shoulder. “What the hell does that mean?”

“My brother is gay,” I said, shocked that Lo hadn’t mentioned that. “Despite the fact that you demand I suck your dick, I’m well acquainted with that region of your body and know you don’t have the anatomy Wes prefers.”

“But…he was totally flirting with my sister at the wedding,” she said, incredulous. “I saw and thought, ‘Wow. He’s way too old for her.’ He’s lucky I didn’t have a few words with him about that, because let me tell you something: I’ve had plenty of
words
with Nick since then. That bastard’s on my list. But back to Wes. If he’s gay, why was he putting the moves on her?”

I definitely needed to see Shannon taking Wes to task at least once before I died. My life would not be complete without it.

“He came out to me when he was in high school but he’s in the closet around our parents,” I said. “My father enforced Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell when he was a commanding officer, and he’s made enough comments over the years to let us all know where he stands. But every time I think about it, I know he wouldn’t shut Wes out. He’d need some time with it, but wouldn’t disown Wes.” I shrugged and dug into the vanilla ice cream accompanying the peaches. “If there is anything I know to be true, it’s that my mother would stage a coup before that shit went down.”

“You don’t think I could turn him?” Shannon forked a piece of fruit and held it up, examining it before taking a bite.

I dropped my hand to her thigh and leaned into her. “Your pussy is busy enough with me. It doesn’t need another challenge.”

Peach juice glistened on her lips like an invitation. My hand moved to the back of her neck and I pressed my mouth to hers, sucking the sweetness from her skin. Her fork clattered to the ground as she sighed against me.

“I like you like this,” I said, my fingers twisting in her hair.

“Drunk?” she asked. “I’ve heard that before. All of my law school friends said I was too much to deal with until I’d had a few beers.”

“Relaxed,” I clarified. “You’re never too much for me. But right now, you just look…” I leaned back and cupped her face, my thumb sweeping across her flushed cheek as I studied her. “Like you aren’t holding up the world. Like you’re as sweet and simple as summer peaches. But sweet and simple are the last words I’d use to describe you. You’re smart and beautiful and really fucking complicated.”

“Too complicated?”

“Probably not,” I said, my lips brushing over her neck. “Why don’t you sit on my face while I think about it?”

“I like you like this, too,” she said.

I kissed along her jaw and cheeks until I landed on her mouth, and there was no way I could pretend this wasn’t the way I wanted the weekend to unfold. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t want
every
weekend to unfold this way. “That’s good because you’re going to disappear with me in November.”

“I am?” she asked. I gave her a quick nod while my fingertips grazed her collarbones. “That’s a nice idea but I’ll have to think it over.”

“Mmhmm,” I murmured against her jaw. “You can think all you want while you’re sitting on my face, but know this: I’ll be seeing you again, peanut.”

SHANNON

Fifteen months ago

I
t wasn’t easy
leaving Montauk.

We stayed in bed until Monday morning turned into afternoon and then evening, and though we’d planned to catch an early ferry, we agreed a later one was equally good.

I never revisited Will’s mention of November, and now, standing on the ferry with his chest against my back and his arms locked around my waist, I found myself in the awkward position of wanting to
talk
.

But also, I didn’t.

“Stop it,” Will growled against my hair. “You’re stressing. It happens when you think. Just chill the fuck out.”

“How does the government trust you with top secret information when your answer to is everything is ‘chill the fuck out’? Is there anything you take seriously?”