Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“So, he woke up with two front teeth missing and his pants around his ankles, but—”
“But he had the gold,” Chris guessed the ending to Rory’s story, his stomach muscles tight and almost sore from laughing so much.
Rory’s eyes narrowed and locked on to the neck of his beer as he brought the rim to his mouth. “But yeah, he had the gold,” she repeated. Her laugh was husky yet feminine. Sexy as hell, and it had his body heating.
Liquid at the edges of her eyes from laughing so hard for the last twenty minutes appeared while they’d swapped stories. The last one about the drunken treasure hunter and wannabe pirate had taken the cake.
“And after that, he changed his name to Jack Sparrow,” she added while reaching for her ice water. “I kid you not.”
“And you hung out with this character?” He set his bottle down without having taken a sip, too mesmerized by her eyes, by the way her lips always curled up a tiny bit on the left side whenever she was on the verge of laughing hard.
They’d finished the dinner he’d thrown together, a not-so-gourmet meal of spaghetti and meatballs, and then moved out to her back deck, which overlooked lush green grass that would take a hell of a mower to cut. Probably two acres between where they sat and the bank of trees lining the property.
The outdoor living space was roomy and comfortable.
A few farmhouse-style lanterns hung from the wood beams of the overhang, and Rory had lit the votives inside the glass even though the sun hadn’t quite set.
A soft glow filled the area, which was kind of romantic.
Not that he was a romantic guy, but it was nice.
They’d both wordlessly ignored the wicker two-seater couch, choosing to sit at a small four-person square table at the center of the deck.
As much as he would have liked to be next to her, he enjoyed being able to look into her eyes.
Rory had changed into jeans and a white scoop-neck tank top while he’d made a mess in the kitchen cooking, but since the temperature had dipped to sixty-five, she’d grabbed a soft blue, open-front sweater for outside.
Her hair was back up and in a messy but sexy bun at the top of her head.
She was stunning. Absolutely freaking beautiful.
He’d swapped his shirt earlier for a clean one after the sink disaster, pairing a long-sleeved black one with his dark jeans.
“Twilight. My favorite time of day.” Rory’s eyes faced the denim-blue sky streaked with light pink. “It’s usually when I climb.”
“You climb? Like mountains?” He wasn’t sure why this surprised him so much, given she had clearly led an adventurous life.
“Climbing helped me get over my fear of heights. Getting bitten by a snake, however, did nothing to dispel my fear of snakes.” She faced him, her words so casual it took him a moment to decide whether or not she was kidding.
Images of the snake-infested room from his last op came to mind, and he tried hard not to cringe. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that part about the snake because then I’ll really worry about what you’ve been up to. But I have to ask, isn’t climbing so close to nightfall dangerous?”
“I lead a dangerous life,” she said with a shrug, her eyes twinkling, “what can I say?”
He squinted, purposefully appearing as though he was trying to get a read on her. “Correction. You did lead a dangerous life. You’re not anymore, right?”
Rory lifted her fingers and massaged her forehead. “Right.” She lowered her hand to her lap and placed her other hand on the table.
He wanted to reach out. Gently lay his palm on top of her hand. But they were still in that “barely know each other” phase. Although, didn’t carrying her to bed after she vomited mean they’d skipped over at least one of those awkward getting-to-know-you phases?
“Why treasure hunting? It seems like such a leap from the canine training you’d planned to do after graduating college.”
She’d provided him a rundown of her life over dinner, one he assumed he could pull up on a LinkedIn profile.
Bullet points of accomplishments and skills but lacking intimate details.
Basically, she was like him and the guys when it came to sharing their life with anyone outside their inner circle.
But he found himself wanting to be in her circle, and for her to be in his.
“Why the Navy?” She turned the tables on him instead of answering.
And yup, that would have been a standard avoidance tactic he would have used.
“And why’d you leave the Navy?” Her follow-up question came fast on the heels of her first, probably intended to surprise him, hoping he’d answer without hesitation—also, more proof of how clever she was.
Rory was a fascinating woman. But damn, even though he wanted to let her in—the first woman in his entire life he’d felt the compelling need to do that with—he couldn’t tell her the truth, and that had his stomach turning.
An internal tug-of-war, and now he knew how the married guys on the teams must have felt when they’d struggled with how to be honest with the women they loved while trying to maintain their oath and duty to the country.
“You’re playing hardball, huh?” He gripped the chair arms and pinned his back to the seat, carefully assessing her.
“I bet you’ve tried to get info out of A.J.
, so you already know I can’t answer your second question.
” Chris took the only possible route. He didn’t want to lie, so the next best thing was to fess up that the truth wasn’t something he’d be able to deliver.
He angled his head, continuing to study the soft sweep of her cheekbones, which were more evident with her hair up. And the set of her luscious lips in a straight line that he wanted to part with his tongue.
She plucked a stray hair away from her face and wet her lips, answering his comment by silently studying him.
“There was a someone, wasn’t there?” he found himself asking when she’d yet to talk.
It wasn’t fair that he was asking her to peel back layers when he wasn’t doing it himself, but the curious kid still lived inside of him, and that part of him would always want answers.
He wanted to discover the truth that made Rosemary McAdams who she was today.
“There’s always a someone,” he added, his stomach growing tight when the pain he thought he’d put behind him years ago clamored to emerge.
That gut-wrenching, gnawing feeling he always tried to convince himself was just hunger pains.
But he was full right now, and he couldn’t write it off as anything other than his past reaching for him.
“Was there a someone for you? A someone who made you want to join the Navy? Or maybe influenced why you left?” She scooted closer to the small square table, and her knees bumped into his.
Rather than flinch or shy away from the accidental touch, she stayed in place and met his gaze with equal intensity.
Her eyes held his and remained focused under his rapt attention.
He quietly nodded, unable to divulge much more about his “departure” from the Navy since he was technically still operating off-the-books.
Rory peered down at the distressed wood of the tabletop and lifted her right hand to her ear, using her thumb and forefinger to smooth over the small, pink pearl earring, as if checking that it was still in place.
“I guess you could say there was a someone for me.” Her words sounded more like deference for a past friend than a loved one, but . . .
“A someone you loved?” Why’d I ask that? It’s not my business.
She lifted her eyes to his. “Andrew could only ever love his job.”
“Andrew.” He allowed the name to sit in his mind, processing.
“I met him in Cosenza. My archaeology professor approached me with a request two years after I graduated and had just finished all my coursework for canine training. He asked if I was available to go on a dig with him in Italy.”
“The gold supposedly buried along with King Alaric, the guy who sacked Rome?”
Her eyes widened at his words. “How’d you—”
“I’m a Roman history buff. Not sure why, but it was one of the only subjects that interested me in history class back in high school. I saw something on the news a few years back that the Italians think they have a location for the treasure. Like a billion or more in value.”
“Yeah, but before then, my professor thought he knew where it was and had funding from a big firm to go and excavate. He quit his job, and he approached me, asking if I’d go to Italy for six months with him before I officially began training dogs.”
“Why you?” Did the professor have a thing for her? Was the professor Andrew? If so, he didn’t like the guy already.
“I loved archeology, but the expense of grad school and then the reality of trying to make a career out of it was . . . daunting. But I was his best student and always fascinated with his stories about the hidden treasure. We met a couple of times a week at a coffee shop. I bought him a caramel macchiato in exchange for tales of treasure. So, I thought, what the hell, why not have an adventure for six months.”
“But you never came back,” Chris said, noting the touch of sadness filling her eyes.
“My professor never did find the treasure, but I met Andrew on that trip. He convinced me to take a job with him, to put all my research skills I’d learned as a history major to good use.” She rose from the table, walked to the three steps leading to the grass, and sat on the top one.
Chris followed her, leaving his beer on the table. He’d stopped at one since Rory had looked at it with a grimace. She was still recovering from the brownies, but she’d said his dinner had helped ease the dull ache in her stomach, so that was good.