3
3
PALO ALTO
E ven though the first day was off to a rocky start, the drive over to the store went smoothly. I half expected her to demand that I take her to the airport. Not sure she even realized all I had to do was drive over the bridge and drop her off at The Academy gate. She never did.
Instead, I followed her long, tan legs, encased in those ridiculous strappy sandals, around the produce aisle, trying and failing like every other dude in the vicinity not to stare at her ass. Since when does she dress like this? I knew the answer—since Ranger. I cut her a slight break because she was dressed for a tropical vacation. Unfortunately, her resort wear was impractical and over-the-top for Palo Alto. Not to mention she stuck out, something we needed to try not to do. A pretty girl with weepy eyes and bare legs was pretty noticeable.
And I just noticed she had chill bumps. She was cold. Everywhere. Great—now we were all going to be staring at her tits. I wished I would’ve thought to bring a jacket. Then I remembered I had a sweatshirt in the back of the jeep. But I was too nervous to leave her alone for a second to go get it.
So she meandered down the aisles, tossing in groceries with practiced ease while creating traffic jams and fender-benders with grocery carts. During this mundane task that was anything but, I jabbered on to fill the silence. She was scary quiet, and I was getting scared. I always talked too much when I was feeling nervy, a personal weakness nearly eradicated by my Academy training. But since I was no longer a cadet, I could indulge in it.
I let her do all the shopping, only adding staples like beer and pretzels to the burgeoning load of healthy fare she had going on. In the baking aisle, she reached for vanilla extract and dates, while I idly juggled bags of fat marshmallows. She finally cracked a smile.
“Show off,” she said.
My answering grin was huge. “Tryin’ to impress a girl,” I replied, tossing three bags in, one at a time. She raised her eyebrows at me. “What? You never know when you’ll be in the mood to impale these suckers with some wires and burn ‘em to a crisp over an open fire. It’s a new addiction of mine you’ll just have to deal with.”
She gave a silent huff that I took for a laugh. We were making progress and progress through the store, nearly finished with our shopping expedition. I saw her reaching for some two percent milk, organic of course. I had to protest this, removing it from her hand.
“Now Kate, pardon me saying so, but your Academy’s showing again.” I put it back and replaced it with some whole milk. She just smiled and allowed it, before moving on to the next section to add some butter and cage-free eggs, which I allowed because hey, I love animals too. Especially eating them.
At the checkout stand, she hesitated before adding some last-minute bubble gum. I laughed out loud, letting her know I took it for the good sign that it was—chewing gum, much less blowing bubbles with it, was strictly forbidden for cadets.
She just smiled sheepishly. “Cheap thrills,” she said with a shrug.
“Those are the best kind.” I added a cheesy tabloid magazine to our haul and forced a hug out of her.
After unloading the groceries into the back of the Jeep, I helped her in and handed over my sweatshirt. She accepted it gratefully with another sheepish smile.
“I notice you have a lot of this color,” she said, fingering the material before pulling it on.
“That’s because it helps me blend in.” I took a moment to check her out. “See—now you’re camouflaged too.” Something stirred in my chest: something like a long-held wish being fulfilled.
She looked down, puzzled at the tree stuck inside a red S stuck to her chest.
“Stanford,” I supplied.
“Oh.” Realization was slowly dawning, followed quickly by alarm. Her wide eyes met mine.
I gave her a reassuring smile. “Yup. We’re residents of Palo Alto. Just a couple more Cardinals hanging out in our sweatshirts, sipping coffee in between classes.”
“Pete!” She gaped at me. “I can’t believe it! Outta all the places! Have you been here the whole time?”
I gave her a sad smile. “Yup. Pretty much.”
She huffed out another chuckle and shook her head. I knew just what she was thinking: so close, yet so far away.
We drove home with her dark hair flapping out the window, smacking on Dubble-Bubble bubble-gum and trying to outdo each other’s air masterpiece at every stop sign.
Fun.
A wide smile spread my lips when I hit upon that word. I remembered her telling me once that she didn’t know what she liked to do for fun. I was going to change all that and make sure she knew, and had a long list.
Kate just blew a real beauty, and I just had to pop it. So I did, and a sticky, pink film coated half her face. She laughingly protested before picking at it. I laughed and leaned over to help peel it off her. She must’ve thought I was coming in for a kiss because there was an abrupt stop in hilarity. Our eyes met a heavy moment before she looked away and fluttered a hand up.
I cleared my throat. “How’s the neck?”
“A little sore,” she answered.
I wasn’t surprised—she was still suffering from whiplash.
Back home we unloaded the groceries lickety-split. Unfortunately, it only took two trips between the two of us. I was really enjoying watching her walk up those stairs. She had just the right amount of jiggle, yunno?
She got busy “creaming” sugar and butter together by hand because I had no mixer, and I sure-as-shit had no cookie sheets, so I dashed to the big house to borrow both. I was glad the missus was the only one home because Bobbo would’ve given me hell for borrowing anything that wasn’t a power tool. Ruthie would definitely inform her husband when he returned though, having no life outside her garden, grandchildren, and the grocery store. I was a hot topic over at the big house.
Five minutes later, I’m back in the garage apartment and Kate’s “beating” the eggs in with the sugar-butter and then she went: “Do you have a measurin’ cup?”
“Does a mouthwash cup count?”
Before today, I had no idea my kitchen was so lacking. I turned around to dart back down the stairs when she grabbed my arm—the first voluntary touch on her part. “That’s okay,” she said. “We’ll guestimate with a coffee cup.”
About fifteen fabulous minutes (and a flour-bomb war I just had to start) later, we finally got the damn cookies in the oven. Seemed like a lot of work to me when we could’ve just picked some up at the store, but hey, we had fun . And I could now scratch flour-bombing a hot babe off my bucket list. And I told her so too. She kept grudgingly huffing out her laughs, like she wasn’t used to laughing or oughtn’t be laughing at all. Then we cleaned the kitchen together while the cookies cooked. Although she informed me that cookies actually baked in an oven. Who knew?
We dunked our warm cookies in cold, full-fat milk and ate till we got sick of the sweet—not long for her. She had three to my five. And soon the yellow light of afternoon waned into dusk, so we went for a long drive through some palm-tree lined streets.
“What would you like to eat for dinner?” I asked her pert profile at a stoplight.
She turned to face me with a small smile. “Mexican sounds good, but I know there aren’t many of those kinds of restaurants in this area.” There was a wistful air that clouded her statement.
I smiled hugely. “It just so happens that I know a couple of decent Mexican places.”
“Really?” she said, her own smile growing.
I almost leaned over to kiss her right then. Guess it was a good thing the light turned green, because she hadn’t given me the green light yet. What did I expect? She was still a newlywed who was supposed to be on her honeymoon. I was trying to remember that patience was a virtue when I stomped on the gas.
We found a pretty bad version of a Tex-Mex restaurant and ate some mediocre chips and pasty guacamole and some really greasy quesadillas—cheese for her and beef for me. She ordered iced tea, so I did too, even though I wanted a celebratory beer. I raised my glass in a salute and realized that she was still clinging to her teens. My chest burned (and it wasn’t heartburn) at the thought of her white face in that white dress, and that red stain on those white sheets.
I decided to propose a toast: “To a successful rescue mission.”
She smiled and amended: “To the best abduction I’ve ever experienced.”
I laughed along with her joke, but a reality check hit my gut—she really saw it that way. We clunked plastic glasses, and I took a large swallow of bitter tea and moved to dump some sugar in.
“Well, since it’s an abduction ,” I emphasized, trying to be cute, “maybe I’ll have to tie you up tonight.” Pause to waggle my brows at her. “Make sure you don’t get away.” I laughed but I was the only one.
I looked up from my sugar pouring to see a shadow cross Kate’s face, and her smile kind of imploded. I put my hand on hers, half afraid she was going to bolt. “I’m sorry. I was only kidding about that, Katie-Kat.”
She actually winced a little at my apology, like I’d made it worse. Something was up that instantly brought the mood down. I knew better than to ask. So we spent the remainder of our dinner and the dark, cold ride home engaged in a one-sided conversation with her staring pensively out the window. Sigh.
She arrived home shivering, and I had neither heater nor tub in my bachelor pad to warm her, and didn’t have the right to throw my warm arms around her. So I offered her the only thing I could—a pair of sweats.
She took them and herself to the bathroom to get ready for bed. She emerged a few minutes later to find me making up the couch into a bed. Then came right over, like that’s where I expected her to sleep. As if. I shook my head at her.
“My patient is not sleeping on the couch,” I chided her. “Here.” I patted a cushion and moved a stupid throw pillow I bought on a whim. “Sit down, and I’ll dress your wound.”
She sat on my couch, swallowed in my snuggly sweats, with her sweet face and supple skin, smelling like toothpaste and my soap. It was all I could do not to jump on her and pull her in for a reconciliation kiss. My hands were dying to slide under my sweats and peel them off, so my eyes could check out the prize inside. Good thing I was sleeping on the couch.
Instead, I peeled back the tape on her neck and checked out the stitches—my first ones since medical training. Looked good to me, neat and even. I swiped some more antibiotic cream on and changed the bandage. It was going on ten now, and we were both tired for entirely different reasons.
“Do you wanna watch some TV before going to bed?” I hedged.
She looked at me a long moment and shook her head. “You go ahead though; it won’t bother me.”
I smiled, trying to read her face. “Nah. Think this couch is calling my name. Rescue missions are pretty exhausting,” I tried again, but again, it fell flat because she clearly didn’t want to be reminded.
“Okay then,” I said stupidly. “I’m gonna hit the hay. Let me know if you need anything.” I padded over to turn out the light. When I turned back, she was still standing there. She seemed unsure of something but nodded her head at me and headed over the six, seven steps to the bed. I watched her lift the denim cover and crawl in. After which, she stared at me, trying to get settled on my sofa bed. I tried to act like it was comfy as hell, but the plain truth was my feet stuck over the edge, and it was too narrow for me to bend my knees.
“You know . . . this is a pretty big bed,” she hedged before I could get my goodnight out.
A grin I couldn’t quite commandeer split my face. “The biggest I could shove through that door,” I replied.
Her eyes sparked up some. “Why don’t you—”
I sprang up, shooting a blanket and pillow in different directions, then dove for the bed, landing spread-eagled across it. She yelped in surprise. “Don’t have to ask me twice,” I said.
She laughed. “I don’t recall askin’ you once.”
My lips twitched. “I’m a pretty good mind reader.”
A funny expression brightened her face. “Is that so?”
I nodded. “Some might say it’s a gift.”
A chuckle escaped her. “Well then, what am I thinkin’ right now?” she challenged.
I leaned in closer, staring into her eyes, which just struck me as being more navy than anything else. I hoped it wasn’t a sign of some kind, because I’d all but eradicated that color from my life.
I gave her a wry smile. “Stay on your own side?”
She lifted a lip. “I’ll neither confirm nor deny that one,” she retorted, and I laughed. “But it’s probably a good idea.” She turned out the lamp and turned her back on me.
Despite our mutual exhaustion, it took some time to get to sleep. We rustled and sighed and fidgeted until finally falling asleep well after midnight. Sometime during the night, we found our way to each other again. Was it her? Was it me? I couldn’t recall, but alls I know was: I woke up with the scent of her honeyed hair in my nostrils and the feel of her soft mound of tush snugged into my hard part, which was getting harder by the second.
Oh Lord. I wanted to press into her sensual curves and breathe her in. So I did, rousing her from a deep sleep. She breathed in deeply and pulled my arm more tightly around her, making a little groaning noise before stretching against me, causing the good kind of friction. This did nothing to help my current situation. I couldn’t help but respond with a groan of my own, pulling her deeper into me. We both stiffened immediately, but for entirely different reasons.
She scooched away like I was some kind of perv or something, then turned to face me with her tousled hair and puffy eyes. Her sweet cheeks were already pinkening.
“I apologize for the . . .”—I arched an eyebrow—“rude awakening.”
Her face flamed at once. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“I would blame it on the physiological burden of being a guy, but the truth is,” I paused to give her my best smile, “I’ve had a hard-on for you ever since I saw you walk through those swinging doors in your pink diner get-up.”
She tried to act outraged, but was fighting a smile and losing. She picked up a denim pillow and whapped me with it, presumably to wipe the rascal off my face.
“Hey,” I laughed, “I’m just tellin’ you like it is.” She laughed, too, so I went for bust: “Then when I heard you sass back to dickhead, I knew I was in trouble.”
She made a strangled sound, but it wasn’t unpleasant—humor still clinging to the tone. But that didn’t stop her from picking up the pillow and whopping me with it again. I took it to the face and rolled over with it, growling out some frustration. That’s when a heavy knock at the door took care of my problem. I shot up, sending the pillow flying to the floor.
Our eyes met, mirroring the same thing—terror.