Chapter 20
Harlan sat opposite Storm at the Crab Shack and Shake. Their table was on the porch that stuck out over the water. Waves splashed against the rocks and sand below them, pushing and pulling its foam like a constant pendulum. Salt scented the air and wreaked havoc on the wooden boards and railings all around. He could get used to living in a space like this with warm weather and plenty of water activities. New Jersey winters were slushed with gray and cold that made his joints ache.
Storm had barely said a word once they got in the car to come here. She stared out the side window and gave him one-word answers to all his questions. He couldn’t make her talk and that had him worried. Something happened while he had been out earlier, talking with Randal. His best guess would be Robin was behind it. She had scared Storm with information or her anger or worse. Harlan doubted Storm knew that he’d spoken with her ex-husband and didn’t believe she would shut him out over that. Storm wanted to know who tried to hurt her. Or did she?
He still needed to get a hold of Kenneth and ask him some questions too. Kenneth might know more about Storm’s relationship with Robin. Harlan wasn’t sure he could trust what Kenneth said, but it was a start, a baseline.
“You’re not eating.” He cracked a crab leg.
“I’m not as hungry as I thought I was. I’m sorry.” She pushed her plate away.
He gripped her wrist. “What’s wrong?” The worst possible question. He knew better. This woman spun his brain like water circling a drain and had him saying things he would never. He didn’t understand his undoing. She would answer with nothing, like most people did, and try and change the subject.
She pulled her hand back and placed it in her lap, out of his reach. “I think I should go back to California and put in my resignation to the board.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t stay in Hawaii indefinitely, and neither can you. You’re here helping me when you have an entire life somewhere else. A life I don’t know anything about. Where do you even live? You said you were retired from the Navy, but what do you do every day? Do you have a job waiting for you somewhere? Children?”
“Slow down.” He wanted to touch her and placed his palm up for her to slide her hand into.
She gave him her hand, and he breathed a little easier. “If we solve who is after you, would you still want to remain in your position as president?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about that until Robin came and told me she didn’t like working with me. Other people feel this way. I might be good at what I do, but I can’t be a good person if someone is trying to kill me.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. People at the table next to them turned at the increase in her volume.
“Hey, let’s get out of here. Go for a walk along the sand. We will have some privacy that way.” The beach was basically empty except for a few stragglers taking in the last of the daylight. He would prefer to talk out of earshot of nosy people.
“Okay.”
He paid the bill and escorted her back through the restaurant and down onto the sand. She removed her sandals. The wind picked up and played with her hair. He wanted to kiss her right then, but he held back, trying to give her some space.
“You should take off your shoes, and we can walk at the water’s edge,” she said.
“I don’t like the ocean.”
“What?”
“I’m joking. I just wanted you to smile for me.” He pulled off his shoes and socks and rolled up his pant legs. He took her hand. The surf washed up over their ankles as they moved along the sand.
“You are a good person, Storm.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m good at reading people.” He had been to a party once where an old colleague had said how happy he was that his son had a good job, but the man’s smile was small and his jaw was tight. His words hadn’t matched his facial expression. Later that night, the man’s wife told Harlan that her husband was unhappy with their son’s employment opportunity.
He had nine years’ experience as a SEAL where counterparts said one thing, but their body language spoke the opposite.
“Then why does someone want me dead?”
“Because that person is unhealthy. It does not have anything to do with you. You’re just their target, unfortunately.”
“Tell me about you. I don’t want to talk about my problems right now.”
“What do you want to know?” He would have to cherry-pick information about his past, sharing only parts that weren’t classified. That left a lot of blank spots. She deserved someone who could fully open up.
“What do you do for a living now that you’re retired?”
“I’m between jobs at the moment. I’ve been traveling for the last six months with my best friends who served with me. We all retired at the same time.” The cool ocean water lapped around their ankles as they walked farther away from the restaurant. The night was dark. The ocean made enough noise, so he wouldn’t hear someone approach from behind. He turned them around and headed back to the Crab Shack and Shake.
“How long can you stay here?”
“Honestly, I had planned to leave the night the volcano erupted. But I can stay until we take care of your problem.” He needed to start thinking about settling down. How much longer could he continue to travel on cruise ships, go skydiving, and hiking through the Grand Canyon with his buddies? He wanted a family to come home to every night. A good woman who smiled up at him every morning, who shared her love with him.
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering. I don’t know how to sit on the sidelines and watch when trouble is happening. That’s not me.” And that would have to factor in to his next job. Kian, his teammate and good friend, was an EMT. Maybe he could do what Kian does. Or maybe he could become a motivational speaker like other SEALs had done after retirement.
Harlan almost laughed out loud. Standing on stage in front of thousands of people giving a pep talk didn’t seem like him.
She stopped and looked up at him. “Do you have children?”
“Not yet. Someday I hope to. How about you?”
He turned to her one more time. He held her close with one arm. She wrapped her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder as they faced the water. Her warmth seeped into his skin. He could hold her all night if she would allow it.
Lightning scattered from the sky with its long tentacles and hovered above the ocean’s surface.
“St. Elmo’s Fire,” he said.
She looked up at him. “What is? The lightning?”
“Sailors believe that when they see a spark of lightning at sea, as if it materialized out of nowhere, it’s a good omen.”
“Do you believe in omens?” she asked.
Even in the shadows of the surf, only lit by the lights on the boardwalk streaming toward them, her eyes sparkled like a sky of stars.
“It can’t hurt sometimes. I do prefer the good ones.” He cupped her face. He was falling for this woman in ways he hadn’t thought possible only two days before. “I believe in what I’m feeling right now.”
“You’re too good to be true.” She brushed her fingers across his jaw. Her soft touch burned his skin.
“What are you worried about?” He would do whatever it took to erase those worries.
“Besides someone wanting to kill me?” Her tone teased and accused, but she stayed pressed against him.
“What are you worried about with me?”
“That you aren’t real. That men don’t behave the way you do.”
“We don’t have to rush into anything.” They weren’t talking a lifetime commitment. He didn’t even know where he would be landing. But he wanted to try with Storm.
“We already slept together.”
And he wanted more. He wanted her tangled beneath him with her hair a mess and her lips swollen from his mouth claiming her. He wanted her to look up at him with desire for him in her eyes. Desire he put there.
“Okay, things did move a little quickly there, but I don’t regret that. Do you?” He held his breath, waiting for her answer.
She hesitated and looked toward the ocean. “No.”
He tilted her chin toward him. He had to see her face, to read it for signs that she was telling the truth. “Look at me when you say you have no regrets. Because if you have any at all, I will walk you back to the hotel room and sleep in the hall.”
She gripped his arm with her cold hands. “I have no regrets about what we did. None. I’ve…”
He waited for her to say more. She only looked at him.
“Say the rest of it, Storm.”
She trembled in his arms. “I’ve never been that way with a man. I want to do it again.”