The Sound of Consequence (Puget Sound ~ Alive With Love Book 1) (6 page)

The boat’s engines roared to life, gearing up to push off from the dock. Stacie swore she heard her name on the wind. She must be crazy. After all, what were the chances? Then she heard it again.

She moved to the end of the ferry. Twilight dimmed the sky, providing only enough daylight to see a recognizable figure hunched over the fence where she had waited.  Owen pounded his arms on the metal bar of the fence.

He was here. He had missed the boat.

Her heart raced as she called his name. Waving her arms, Stacie hoped to get his attention. The ferry quickly cleared the dock, moving swiftly into the sound. Owen became a small silhouette in the distance when he finally straightened from his hunch. Calling his name was futile at this distance, but she continued waving, hoping he’d see her. Instead, he turned and walked away.

Diesel fumes stung her nose, followed by a sharp pain shooting between her temples. Stacie stumbled back, vertigo forcing her to sit or fall. The bench caught her and she dropped her head into her hands, elbows balanced on knees. Squeezing her eyes shut, the black void filled with shapes. No, not shapes. A moose sprawled across the hood of a car. Audrey’s smiling face. The back of a hand swinging through the air.

Stacie understood what she was seeing. Memories. Consciously, all she knew about the car accident was what she’d been told. She had no memory of what actually happened, or of that entire day leading up to it. She was haunted by a foreboding feeling that something awful had happened to her, something besides the crash that had killed her friend.

Applying pressure, Stacie rubbed her temples. The pain started to subside just as the captain announced their arrival in Seattle. She stood, the vertigo spiraling, making her head spin and stomach churn. The rail worked as a guide to get her to the front of the boat. Stacie tried to be subtle, not wanting to draw attention to herself. By the time she joined the queue of departing passengers, her white knuckles ached and her breathing was labored. Shuffling along with the crowd, she took the first seat she reached in the terminal.

Based on past episodes, Stacie knew she was in for at least another hour of the pain and vertigo. The slow throb moved from her temples to forehead. Dropping her head into her hands again, she closed her eyes and prayed it would pass quickly. As soon as it did, she would head home and climb into bed. She obviously needed a good night’s sleep.

Time stood still or maybe passed quickly, Stacie couldn’t be sure, but when she heard the horn sound, announcing another ferry’s arrival, she knew it was time to make her departure. She couldn’t let Owen see her like this. He’d already been the victim of an episode at the café when she’d spilled coffee all over him. Fortunately, the big brown stain on his white shirt was enough of a distraction that he probably hadn’t caught sight of her eye spasms. That was perfect. If she was forced to explain the vertigo, she’d have to talk about the accident, something she couldn’t do. No one knew about the memory loss. She was determined to keep it that way. The guilt from surviving and not remembering was enough to deal with silently. No way did she want to acknowledge it publicly.

Gaining her bearings, Stacie realized passengers were already disembarking. She hoped it was the Bainbridge ferry, not Bremerton, but didn’t take the time to figure it out. She was leaving. It’d be better to meet Owen some other time. Or maybe this was just a bad idea that she should let go of. Either way, she wasn’t seeing him tonight.

When Stacie reached the stairs to exit the terminal, a tingle raced down the back of her neck. Suspicion was replaced by familiarity as she caught the musky bergamot scent that was Owen’s. She didn’t startle when strong hands grasped her waist, nor when a hard body pressed into her. When soft lips caressed her neck, she was putty in his hands.

“Baby, you weren’t on the boat,” he said with that deep sexy drawl that heated her like a searing fire.

“More like you missed the boat,” she said turning around to face him.

Before she could take another breath, he pulled her into him, his mouth covering hers. The soft caress of his lips quickly gave way to a deeper, possessive draw of hers. The teasing stroke of his tongue sent waves of need through her, weakening her resolve, turning muscle to mush. Thankfully, the possessive hold of his arms kept her upright. The visions beyond the dark void of her eyelids now showed the two of them horizontal, naked.

They needed to get back to his place. Fast.

Owen drew his tongue away and loosened his hold, his lips seductively brushing against hers as words escaped on his warm breath. “Let’s go get a drink,” he said.

She opened her eyes to find him staring at her. Or into her. The darkness of his eyes interlaced with a flicker of desire. A drink was the last thing Stacie wanted. Exploring that flicker was at the top of her list. “Don’t you want to go back to your place?” she struggled to form the words with his lips still touching hers.

“If we go back to my place, we both know what’s going to happen.” If she didn’t understand his words, that sexy curve of his lips would have given him away.

“I’m fine with that,” she said.

“Stacie,” he said on a long breath as his lips continued to caress hers. “Baby, I really want to make love to you again. I’d also like to get to know you.”

The way he said her name, emphasizing the word want, practically had her reeling from an orgasm right there in the ferry terminal. Convincing herself that she wasn’t interested in the getting to know you part of the evening was the problem. Everything about Owen was intriguing…his sensuous touch, the way the rest of the world disappeared when he looked at her, his poetic banter. He said he wanted to make love, not just have sex.

Good Gatsby, when was the last time Greg had said he wanted to make love to her? Had he ever? All Stacie could remember was him asking if she wanted to
do it
or if she was
in the mood
. His bedroom talk had been as much of a turn off as the rest of his khaki personality.

Stacie felt like Sybil, struggling with multiple personalities. There was the one that wanted to feel the heated touch of Owen’s skin and just indulge in the sexy fling with no strings attached. Then there was the whispering voice of subjection, questioning whether she was capable of such a frivolous affair.

Stepping back, Owen’s furrowed brow warned Stacie of a pending question. Had he read her thoughts? She had the neck tingle thing going on with him, so maybe he was psychic.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” Stacie answered and wondered about the concerned expression on his face. “What?”

“Your eyes.” He paused, a mix of awe and confusion narrowing his eyes. “There’s something really wrong with them.”

The worst part of the
vertigo had passed. One of the more annoying symptoms remained.

Stacie knew how freaky the eye spasms looked. She had a student a few years back who had suffered from vertigo and Stacie never got used to seeing his eyes spasm when he had an attack.

“You’re eyes are bouncing back and forth. Really fast.”

“It’s just the fluorescent lights,” she said. “My eyes are pretty sensitive. Maybe we should get out of here.”

Owen seemed satisfied with that explanation as he took her hand. “Come on. There’s a quiet pub just around the corner.” A sexy smile crossed his lips. “We can get to know each other a little better.”

It was Monday night, the dinner hour had long ended, and there were no professional ball games scheduled in SoDo, so there were only a few patrons scattered throughout the large pub. Owen pointed to a small table in the back corner, away from the large windows that walled in the place on two sides. Stacie was grateful for the dim lighting, hoping her eyes would settle down before Owen inquired further about her condition. The brown vinyl seats of the bar chairs creaked as they sat at a bar table.

The server, a short, thin woman dressed in khaki slacks and a black collared shirt with the pub’s logo, appeared immediately. She flung her blonde hair over a shoulder, revealing a black name tag with Trudy etched in white letters. She pulled a pad and pen from the half apron tied around her waist. “What can I get for you tonight?”

“I know you like Jäger,” Owen said, “but I’m guessing you want something a little lighter tonight.”

Jägermeister sounded fantastic, actually. It wasn’t much of a sippin’ drink though. Slammin’, yes, sippin’, not so much. “Just a glass of your house red,” she said as Trudy smacked her gum. 

“I’ll have the same.”

When Trudy made her way toward the bar, Owen turned to Stacie. They hadn’t had a drink together at the club. All they’d done was dance. “How’d you know about the Jäger?” she asked.

“It was still on your tongue when you kissed me at the club that night,” he said through that mind-numbing sexy smile.

The vinyl moaned as Stacie leaned across the table. “Oh.” 

Studying his lips and the sexy smile that seemed to be a permanent fixture on his face, she caught herself licking her own lips. Owen’s gaze dropped to her mouth, the tension growing between them. Stacie was ready for him to meet her halfway and dive into the kiss. Instead, he lifted his gaze and let out a long exhale. Taking that as a cue to get the getting to know you conversation started, she sat back and smiled.

“So how does a Ragin’ Cajun end up in Seattle?” She figured it was smart to get the spotlight focused on him. There was nothing really exciting from her life to share. That’s why she was starting a new one.

“I guess I could ask the same thing of a Swank Yank.” He caressed her hand gently with his fingers, sending butterflies spiraling low in her belly. The temperature in the room spiked about a hundred degrees.

“Yes, but I asked first. Besides, what makes you think I’m a Yankee?” she asked just as Trudy and her obnoxious gum returned with their wine.

“Thank you,” they both said as she dismissed herself. Owen pushed his glass aside, his attention never leaving Stacie. She had to reach across the hand he was fondling to pick up her glass.

“The almost-but-not-quite Boston accent gives you away. You do a good job pronouncing your r’s most of the time.” His delicious lips curved into a shape begging to be kissed. “Occasionally it slips. Classic New England.”

Stacie took a sip of wine. “Oh,” she said, putting the glass down and fiddling with the stem. She’d never had a heavy accent, and for years denied having one at all. She lived her entire life in Maine, except for the four years when she went to college in Boston, so no amount of denial would keep the New England from lingering on at least some of her words.

Owen held up his glass in toast. “Here’s to the Ragin’ Cajun and Swank Yank,” he said.

Stacie raised her glass to his until they clinked lightly. “Che-ahs” she said, playing up the New England drawl.

Owen gave his wine a sniff and took a long pull from the glass. “Not bad for the house,” he said.

“You’re avoiding the conversation,” she said. Though if he wasn’t interested in talking, they could skip this formality, head back to his place, and get down to business.

“I came to Seattle to start a new life,” he said, never losing eye contact with her. “I was in the army, ten years. Then I got out and moved here.”

Stacie found it interesting that he too was starting a new life. The army sounded fascinating. Even though some of her students had joined the military after graduating, a few coming back to visit during their leave, she’d never known anyone who had been in longer than a few years.

“I had been stationed at Norfolk Naval Station for a special assignment when I first enlisted and I met my buddy Bryan. He was in the navy at the time. Well, still is. That was about eight years ago. We stayed friends, even after I left Norfolk. He’s stationed here at Bremerton and invited me out to stay with him after I was discharged, hooked me up with a job and once I was on my feet again, I bought the condo. I work three shifts a week, twelve hours, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Some weeks I pick up extra shifts.” Owen picked up his glass and took another drink.

This was great. All logistics. That was a cue she could follow until adequate time had passed and she could suggest they had back to his place for less talk and more action. “What do you do in Bremerton?”

“I’m a security systems analyst.”

Like she knew what that was. He laughed a little, obviously reading the ignorance in her expression.

“I basically work with software. A lot of the software used at the Naval Station is developed by contractors in-house. I lead a team that tests and analyzes the different programs and suggests improvements. We do a lot of troubleshooting and look at a lot of reports. It’s actually a lot more interesting than it sounds.”

Stacie didn’t get the allure of computers. Greg’s life revolved around them. By day, he taught technology at the high school. By night, he was always writing some kind of software code. None of it made sense to her, but maybe that had more to do with Greg than what he was doing.

“The shifts are great. It gives me a lot of time off and I can pick up extra shifts almost any time. Plus I love riding the ferry.”

Now that was something Stacie could talk about. “Today was my first time ever riding a ferry,” she confessed. “But I’m thinking about getting a multi-ride card. I loved the fresh air and the sound of the swooshing water. On the way back this morning, there was the seal barking at us from a buoy just outside Bremerton.” She giggled, recalling a black seal, sitting lazily on the buoy, only not so apathetic that it couldn’t make an effort to bark good morning to the passengers sailing by.

“I loved watching the clouds pass in the sky. And the planes taking off from SeaTac and making their way over the city. It was so peaceful.” Stacie released a happy sigh, knowing things like seeing seals in Puget Sound and watching airplanes take off were among the many reasons she’d moved to Seattle to start her new life. “Life should be that simple.”

Stacie took another sip of wine, studying Owen. Getting to know him hadn’t been part of the plan but she found herself wanting to know more about him. Plus, the more he talked, the longer she could avoid sharing her boring past with him. “So, why did you get out of the army?” she asked, then took another sip of wine.

“I’m going to be honest here, because frankly, I don’t know how not to be,” he said, making Stacie nervous. This seemed like a strange time for such a revelation, or confession, but what did she know. She’d been with her high school boyfriend forever. She wasn’t sure how to engage in conversation with someone she didn’t know and had been intimate with.

“OK. Honesty is good.”

“Honesty doesn’t always work for me. I was married.”

“Are you still?”

“No,” he responded immediately, then took a deep breath as though trying to muster up a good helping of courage. “I came home one day and caught my wife in bed with another man.”

Stacie was stunned. He was so gorgeous and so amazing in bed. Of course, it took more than good looks and sexual skill to make a relationship work, but still, she couldn’t fathom his wife cheating on him. “That’s terrible. Is that why you got out of the Army?”

“Yeah. My discharge wasn’t voluntary. That day, when I saw my wife like that, well, I got a little crazy.”

Oh, Grendel! He’d hit her. An open palm moving swiftly through the air flashed in her mind, then vanished. It was a vision she had often, though she couldn’t make sense of it. It was more like a dream, actually. One of those emotional dreams that stuck with you long after you’d woken up. She couldn’t recall the entire dream, just the moving hand. The memory always came with a deep, foreboding feeling, like something awful was going to happen. So when his hand moved toward her face, she flinched.

“I didn’t hurt my ex-wife,” he said, gently caressing her cheek. “And I’d never hurt you. I hope you believe that.”

Stacie did. Even though this crazy fire burned between them, he hadn’t hurt her that night she went home with him. In fact, he’d practically been a gentleman. Well, when there was an opportunity, anyway. She actually felt incredibly safe with him, which was odd given that he was still a stranger.

She let the tension drop from her face and took his hand in hers, squeezing it gently.

“So what happened?”

“I did beat the other guy up. He was an E7 in my unit. I was an E6, getting ready to go up for the E7 board. That was a pretty big deal at ten years in the army. Especially for my MOS.”

“Wait,” Stacie said, shaking her head. “You’re losing me with all this army jargon. I don’t know what E6 or E7 or MOS mean.”

Owen elaborated for her, explaining how ranks in the military worked and that MOS was the generic label for army jobs. When he was finished explaining all the technical stuff, he just shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe all this had happened to him.

“I had always been a good soldier.” The hurt shown on his face and Stacie desperately wanted to wash it away for him. She just didn’t know how. “Something snaps when you see your wife in bed with another man. I lost control.”

She couldn’t see how any woman would want to cheat on him. What little she knew about him revealed a passionate, attentive man who was incredibly sexy and fun to be around. Just being with him was exciting. And she knew how exciting he was in bed. Stacie could hardly blame him for losing control. She’d never known the kind of betrayal that cheating qualified as, but somehow knew it was devastating. “It doesn’t seem fair that you got punished for that,” she said, squeezing his hand.

“There had been a lot of adultery and a lot of violence in my unit and my commander was fed up, so he decided to make an example out of me and the guy who screwed my wife. Fortunately for me, my first sergeant was on my side. Instead of getting a dishonorable discharge, I got busted down to an E4. That meant I had to be discharged because my time in service exceeded what was allowed for the E4 rank.” He paused for a moment and shook his head again. Stacie could tell it was painful for him to relive the experience.  She leaned closer and kissed him on the cheek. 

“What happened to your wife?”

“Ex-wife,” he said harshly, then looked down at their hands as he squeezed hers. “I filed for divorce immediately. She begged me to take her back, but I was done.  I think we had fallen out of love a long time before then, if we were ever really in love. We got married too fast and once we were married, it was too easy to stay together. I guess in the end, she really did me a favor.”

Stacie could relate, staying in a loveless relationship. It had been that way with Greg for a long time. She had tried to convince herself for months, possibly even years, that she still loved Greg and that marrying him was the right thing to do. She was relieved to have finally found the courage to leave.

Owen lifted his eyes and smiled. As he gently swept a stray hair from her face, the light caress of his fingers left a pleasant tingle in their midst. “I’m a hell of a lot happier now.”

The gesture made her a little nervous. Had he just said that without touching her, she wouldn’t have thought too much of it, but his touch was so gentle, so romantic. And the piercing gaze of his eyes, as if he was looking straight into her soul, telling her she was the reason he was happy. This was going to be a disaster. If he kept looking at her like that, talking like that, touching her like that, she was going to fall in love with him. Just what she didn’t want.

Stacie was thinking about an escape strategy when he pulled his hand away and took a sip of his wine. Drinking seemed like a good idea, so Stacie followed his lead. Then he started talking again and the sound of his sultry voice had her completely distracted from thinking about another escape.

“Once the divorce was final, I sold most of my stuff, shipped what was left out here, and racked up with Bryan for a while. I closed on the condo about a month ago. I’ve still got some unpacking to do though.”

“Yeah, I noticed some boxes when I was there,” she said, blushing a little at the recollection of being in his condo.