Chapter 20 #3
“There.” He lowered her feet and wrapped himself around her back, happy when she rested her head against his chest. He pointed it out to her.
“This can’t be comfortable for you.”
“It’s perfect.”
“If I’m going to lean on you, then put your legs on either side of me,” she ordered. “You don’t have to be uncomfortable just because I’m sprawled across you.”
Uncomfortable?
Try in agony because that pert butt of yours is now resting against my cock?
Every ounce of discipline he had was going to be needed to keep from pushing against her. He didn’t want to break the spell which was weaving around them.
“Why Italy?” she asked after long moments of silence where they’d just enjoyed being together, right here, right now. “Why not home in the US?”
“Many reasons.” He rested his cheek against hers. “But the main one is here is the one place Gillian can’t get a Visa for. Europe is out of her range unless she wants to pay for an investment Visa, which she won’t because if she had five hundred K, she’d spend it on handbags, shoes, and shit.”
“All the children and puppies who could eat for that kind of money.”
He agreed. Just because you had money didn’t mean you had to spend all of it at once, or in one store. “Right.” She moved out of his arms, and he immediately felt the loss until she stretched out on the blanket next to him and propped one cheek in her hand and smiled up at him.
Sipping wine. Laying on their sides. Just talking about movies, books, places they’ve been, where they would like to go. Everything and anything which popped into their heads, neither noticed the hours passing.
“What’s your favorite color? Nope, no…” Jorja giggled. “Let me guess, black.”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “Orange or red.”
She nodded at him. “I totally got that wrong. I’ve only seen you in black.”
“Orange or red is the color of a flag to air lift us, or so the bombers know where we are and don’t drop lead on our asses. I swear my favorite color on those days is orange so dark it’s almost red.”
She nodded as if he’d dished out the most important information on the planet. “Noted.” After a heartbeat she continued, “And not on those days, is your favorite color different?”
“Yup.”
He barked out a laugh when she poked him in the ribs.
“Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“Sea-green.” He gently brushed his fingertips over her eyes. “Like the ocean on a stormy day.”
“Fish.”
“FROG.”
“Huh? What did you just call me?”
He laughed so hard he spluttered. “Not you. Me… I’m the frog.”
“I don’t understand?”
“I was a SEAL. We’re the frogmen.”
“For a second there I thought you were telling me you were the frog because you were hoping I’d kiss you.” She winked cheekily at him. “Or maybe that’s why you told me you are a SEAL.”
“I’ve mostly retired,” he reminded her.
“Sure, you have,” she started to say, then shook her head. “That’s a tomorrow conversation. I think you are just trying to distract me from asking what your favorite item of clothing is.”
He was relieved their evening didn’t change from one of getting to know each other to one of war or what he’d done in the past. “Oh, you do, do you?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not sure what my favorite item is,” he admitted. “It depends on what I’m doing. My clothes aren’t fashion statements, but something I wear to do a job.”
“That’s kinda sad. If you were just chilling for a day, what do you wear?”
“Depends on what I’m doing.” He wasn’t quite sure he understood the question. “If I’m surfing, I wear shorts. If I’m going to the range, then whatever. Clothes serve a purpose.”
“That’s just weird to me.”
He totally understood why it would be. “I know.”
She plucked a flower which grew on the edge of the blanket and twirled it between her forefingers. “But if we all had the same opinions, life would be boring.”
“Truth.”
Back and forth they went, learning all the little things about each other.
Her favorite taste—salty Finnish licorice.
His—Lemon cheesecake, as saying her would be corny and they weren’t at that point yet.
Her favorite smell—puppy breath.
The memory of her body wash engulfing him in the shower swamped him—“Apple pie.”
“We’re running out of our favorite things.” The center of her forehead furrowed as she thought. “What car were you driving when you got your license?”
“An old blue Ford pickup truck.” He’d worked his ass off to earn cash to buy that truck. Selling it had gutted him. Even though it had been years, he could still remember every second of that day. “I sold it to your mom.”
“You’re shitting me?”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “I knew I recognized your mom’s voice when you were talking to her on the phone.
It drove me nuts trying to figure out where I knew her from.
It was more than we just lived in the same town.
I had Remi look her up for me. I remember you too.
You came with her the day she bought my truck. ”
“You do?”
He wasn’t sure if he was confusing her or scaring her. “Yeah. You had cute pigtails.” He caught a lock of her hair in his fingers and gave it a gentle tug, much like he had that day so long ago.
“Wait.” The tug on her hair clearly rattled the memory loose in Jorja’s mind. “You bought all my Girl Scout cookies?”
“I did.” He hadn’t meant to, but the other Girl Scouts who’d been selling their cookies in the same parking lot where he and her mom had done the deal for his truck had been teasing her for not having sold any cookies yet.
He’d seen the tears welling up in her eyes, and as kicking Girl Scouts in the rear end would have earn him a jail sentence, he’d done the only other option which had popped into his head and bought every single cookie she had at her table.
“Wow. Um— than—”
He put one finger to her lips. “Don’t. You don’t have to thank me. Especially as it kinda makes me feel like a dirty old man now, for thinking how cute you were.” He hadn’t meant to say that bit out loud.
“Stop it.” She poked him in the side. “You are only, what, five or six years older than me?”
“Hah, try more like ten.”
“It just tells me even as a kid, you had a good heart.”
Hell, no, he didn’t. If she knew the things he’d done over the years, she wouldn’t wait for him to drive her back to town. She’d take off running as fast as she could and wouldn’t look back.
He shifted on the blanket, bringing her closer to him, and he wrapped an arm around her, tugging her closer.
Gunnar tried to think of something else to ask. “Tell me your favorite moment in time.”
“It’s not pretty.”
“Tell me anyway.” If he had to go kick someone’s ass, then he’d just have to pretend he was going on a job and she’d never need to know about it.
“Okay.” She turned away from him. “When I was a kid, my mom left my dad. I remember I had one pink pillowcase to put my toys in. My mom put my clothes in a white one.” He could hear the catch in her voice. “Mom didn’t bring anything for her. She just took me, and made sure I had my stuff, ya know?”
“Moms are supposed to put their kids first. Yours sounds like that’s exactly what she did.”
“I know.” She nodded, her hair brushing off his chin. “I knew then my momma would always be in my corner. That no matter what else happened, I knew I was loved beyond a doubt by at least one person on the planet.”
He was about to ask her why her mom just walked out with nothing but the clothes on her back, her kid, and only toys and her child’s clothes.
But he figured two things out before he put his foot in it.
One, it might upset her, and two, it would piss him off.
Both of which would ruin what was left of their night.
“Your mom does love you,” he told her seriously.
“Anyone who will call my mom and threaten to sic the cops on her if I didn’t produce her daughter by midnight is pretty damn fierce. ”
“Your mom wouldn’t do the same?”
“She’d have the butler do it.”
“Seriously?”
“Our butler, Harry, is much scarier than Mom, and she knows it.” Gunnar snorted. “Even Mom does what Harry tells her to do. She loves us, don’t doubt that. She just knows Harry gets shit done faster and better than she can, especially when it comes to wayward sons.”
“Mental note to self: be sure to hire a butler named Harry to chase after my kids if I ever have any.”
Both of them laughed together. Gunnar didn’t remember ever having this much fun answering questions. In his world, answering questions was never a fun experience—until now.
“Tell me yours?”
“Sure, lemme think.”
“Because you have soooo many,” she teased.
He laughed with her. “Nah, I’m just not so used to putting my memories out there for anyone to see.
” He cleared his throat. “So anyway, we were at this refugee camp. I can’t tell you what country.
But I was bored one day and stole some dish soap from the camp kitchen.
” He shrugged. “I wanted to goof off a bit. So anyway, I mixed it with water and used a tab from a beer can to blow some bubbles. Before I knew it, I had half a dozen kids around me, and they were all blowing bubbles. Not gonna lie, but seeing those sad babies’ eyes light up when I taught them how to blow bubbles made from dish soap and water, even my cold dead heart felt a couple of emotions. ”
“Kids are amazing at finding joy in the smallest things, aren’t they?”
“They sure are.” There were so many more things he could say, but it was uncomfortable for him to remember all those babies he hadn’t been able to save. “What’s your best piece of advice?”
She thought about it for a couple of seconds. “My momma taught me to have a line in the sand that’s your bottom line. Don’t cross it for anyone you wouldn’t die for.”
He’d been expecting something to do with computers, like Remi would have dished out. “That’s a good one.”
“What’s yours?”
After the heavy stuff of the last couple of questions, he figured it would be a good idea to lighten the mood a little.
“Don’t wear headphones while vacuuming the house.
” Just as he hoped, she laughed with him.
“Hey, don’t knock it. I once finished the whole house before realizing the vacuum wasn’t plugged in. ”
“I’d have been so mad.”
“I was. I almost gave in and allowed the guys to hire a cleaner for our houses and not just the main living spaces,” he said seriously. “Never tell them that, or they’ll bug the crap out of me until they wear me down.”
She drew her fingers across her lips and tossed away the key. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that.” Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. “I think it’s time to leave so they can close up.”
She sighed. “I wish we didn’t have to.”
He agreed. Having this time with her was a gift he’d cherish. “Thank you for coming here with me.”
“Has anyone ever told you, Gunnar, that you are awesome at picking out what to do on dates?” She took his hand, and when he tugged her to her feet, she pressed a kiss to his cheek. “If they haven’t, then they are idiots.”
Pleasure at her praise swept through him, warming him from the inside out as he paid the bill and walked her back to the truck. Thankfully the smart cars had already left, and he didn’t have to move one out of the way to get out of the tight spot.
As he turned off the restaurant’s private road, he smiled at her when she folded her fingers into his free hand.
Holding hands as they drove back down the mountain to the compound, he congratulated himself on how happy and relaxed she was.
He’d give anything to be able to bottle this moment in time.
To have it as a living memory which he could pull out anytime the world got rough and war chased him through his nightmares.
Because this feeling, he knew was the cure to his demons.