Chapter 6
“Take her to the diner,” Ari said out of the blue. “Stop orbiting and do something positive.”
“I’m not orbiting,” Pax objected, though he was giving his brother’s suggestion some thought.
Ari just looked at him with one raised eyebrow, as if saying he wouldn’t dignify that with an actual response. Pax grumbled a bit but decided his twin was on to something. He should take Bree to the diner for lunch.
He dialed her number and she answered on the second ring.
“If you’re calling to tell me something else is crooked in the back room,” she joked, “I’m not sure I can take it.” He’d spent a lot of time fixing every little thing in the store as an excuse to be near her. Maybe he’d gone a little overboard.
“Lunch,” he spat out, wishing he could have been a bit smoother, but oh, well. At least he’d put the idea out there and hadn’t chickened out again. “The diner. Today, if you can.”
She paused, then asked simply, “What time?”
The diner had been on Main Street since before Pax was born. The vinyl booths were old and there was a lunch counter with spinning stools. It smelled like hot oil from the fryer. Pax remembered that smell and reveled in it. That scent brought back so many good memories from his youth.
He was still feeling the relief that had rushed through his body when Bree had agreed to have lunch with him.
Why had it taken him so long to ask her?
He refused to publicly give his twin the credit for pushing him into doing what he wanted to do anyway, though in his heart he thanked Ari for the nudge.
Pax led Bree to a booth in the back of the diner, away from the window.
Old habit on his part to stay out of sight as much as possible.
He sat facing the door, which was also an old habit, and Bree slid in across from him, probably not realizing the precaution that was baked into his every action these days.
She picked up the laminated menu and flipped through it, though Pax knew she almost always ordered the same thing.
“I always get the green chile cheeseburger,” she said as she perused the selections.
“I know. You got it every time your dad sent you over from the store for lunch back in high school.”
She regarded him over the top of the menu. “You remember that?”
“I remember a lot of things from our misspent youth.” He set his own menu down.
The truth was he remembered more about Briana Leeland than was probably healthy.
He had fond memories of how she would show up in the stockroom after closing with sandwiches for him and Ari without ever making a thing of it.
He remembered the small laugh she gave when something genuinely surprised her, or the expression she’d worn the times he and Ari had shown her their shifted forms. There’d been one night when the stars were out and the desert was calm, and she’d sat between two jaguars with her hands folded in her lap.
She’d looked at them like she was the luckiest person in the world.
“I also remember you put hot sauce on everything,” he said. “Including things hot sauce has no business being on.”
“Hot sauce has business on all things,” she replied primly.
“You put it on oatmeal once.”
“That was an experiment.”
“That experiment had no survivors, as I recall.”
She laughed, full and easy, and he felt it in his chest. She was like the morning light through the kitchen window, or the desert air on his first run after his injury. Beautiful.
They ordered and talked about the store until the food came. He got the big plate of fried chicken that he’d been getting since he was seventeen because some things just didn’t need improving, and of course she got her burger.
They talked, catching each other up on the years since the last time they’d eaten together in this diner. He hadn’t had a conversation like this in years. Maybe not ever. It was the kind where the other person was fully present, fully interested in him and what he’d been doing.
He told her about BUD/S, which was the SEAL training he’d never discussed in detail with anyone who hadn’t been through it. He told her about the cold water drills at three in the morning when his body had been going for forty hours and his mind was the only thing left to keep him going.
She asked about his boss, Seth, which surprised him. He’d mentioned the jackal in passing once, when he’d first arrived home.
“You remember that?” he asked.
“You said your old boss, Seth, was settling down in Germany and that you and Ari were figuring out what was next, if you didn’t go back there.
That seemed significant.” She bit into her burger, not looking directly at him.
She chewed, swallowed, then went on. “Was it hard to leave? It sounded like you respected the man.”
He thought about it before answering, then sighed.
“Seth is one of the best men I’ve ever known, or worked for, and the work we did was important.
Me and Ari were good at it, too. But Seth is mated now, and his life is different.
The shape of his outfit is changing around that.
” He turned his water glass in his hands.
“You can feel when something is ending. When you’re staying because it’s familiar rather than because it’s the right thing to do.
I don’t think our future is in Germany with Seth and his lady.
Ari and I both agreed it was time to come home, at least for a while.
We have things we have to do here that we’ve been putting off. ”
She seemed to be studying his words. He wanted her to know the truth of his confusion and the state of his mind right now. He wanted her to be aware of the decisions he was facing and the questions in his mind about the shape of his own future. So, he went on.
“Long term, Ari doesn’t know what he wants yet,” Pax went on.
“He won’t say it, but I can tell. We’ve been on the move for so long that stopping feels strange.
The group in Wyoming that gave us our last mission was one possibility.
” He paused. “What happened in Salt Lake City changed that. At least for me.”
“Because you almost got killed,” she whispered, her eyes meeting his with trepidation. Man, he hadn’t meant to cause her distress, but the truth was the truth, and he wanted her to know it.
“Because I was lying in a drainage culvert outside Salt Lake City for days, and I was thinking about—” He stopped. Started again. “I was thinking about what I really wanted in my future. And the answer was clearer than it had been in a while.”
She held his gaze across the table. “What was the answer?”
“Home,” he said, letting the single word sit between them for a few seconds before he went on.
“My family. The Clan. People I’d let get too far away.
I want a bit of what Seth has found. A place to call home and family all around.
Maybe a mate if I can convince the woman meant to be mine that we’re destined to be together. ”
He watched her understand him. It moved across her face in a quick breath. Then she looked down at her plate.
“Pax,” she whispered, her tone full of confusion…and maybe a little hope.
“I’m not trying to pressure you,” he said. “I just want you to know what I’m thinking. I’ve been holding back some things I’ve been wanting to say for a few weeks, and I think it’s time we talked about the important stuff.”
She looked up again, and her expression was a bit stunned. Stunned was good, he figured. At least she wasn’t appalled or insulted…or pissed off at him.
“I’ve been holding back some things too,” she said on a small breath of air.
“I know.” That made her eyes shoot up to his, and his breath caught at the wide fascination in her gaze.
“It’s a habit,” she said, surprising him.
“When I was—” She paused, choosing her words carefully and maybe seeking the courage to speak her heart.
“When I was fifteen and I figured out what I felt for you, I talked myself out of it. You were eighteen. You were leaving, and you’d never looked at me that way.
” She picked up her soft drink. “And then you were gone, and I got on with my life. Such as it is.”
“You’ve made a good life,” he insisted. “You’re a good daughter. You take good care of your dad. You run the shop like clockwork. I’m just wondering if maybe there’s room in your busy life…for me?” he said hopefully.
She met his gaze over the rim of her glass, and smiled.
“There might be,” she said, her eyes sparkling with joy. He took that as a really good sign.
They didn’t rush out after that. They had apple pie and talked about simpler things.
She told him about her father’s plans to expand the workshop series.
Pax confided more about Ari’s restlessness and the fact that his twin had always wanted to earn his pilot’s license.
Then he mused over the beauty of the desert, which he admitted to missing while he was away for so long.
She told him about a summer in her early twenties when she’d driven to New Mexico alone with no plan, stayed two weeks, and come back with more certainty about what she wanted from her life than she’d had when she left.
He told her about a morning in the Kalahari where he and Ari had shifted and run at dawn because there was that much open space and no one to see, and how that taste of freedom had stayed with him.
He noticed, somewhere in the middle of the pie they’d ordered for dessert, that he’d been talking more than he usually did about topics he didn’t normally go into with anyone besides his twin.
It didn’t alarm him. Bree had always been easy to talk to and she’d never judged him or his thoughts poorly.
She got a refill when the waitress came by and regarded him across the table. Then she said gently, “I’m glad you came back.”
Simple. Direct. Briana Leeland to the core. His Breelee.
“Me too,” he replied softly, just for her ears.
He paid the check and they walked out into the afternoon. The sun was lower now, starting its long western lean, throwing everything into gold and shadow. Afternoons in this town were peaceful, with few cars, a few people, and the unhurried pace of a very small town.
They walked side by side toward the hardware store. Not in a rush. There was no reason to hurry.
He was aware of her beside him. The silence between them had always been comfortable rather than empty. Their hands brushed. He didn’t think about it. He just caught her fingers.
She didn’t pull back when he took her hand in his. She only adjusted her grip slightly, so their hands fit together properly, and they walked the last half block like that. He was aware of her warmth and the way she’d leaned, almost imperceptibly, half an inch closer to him.
At the back door of the store, she stopped and reached into her pocket for her keys with her free hand. With just her dad in the store, it was best to keep the back door locked unless they were getting a delivery. Pax still held her other hand. He wasn’t ready to let her go.
She got the keys out and turned toward the door, then seemed to think better of it, and turned back to look at him instead. The afternoon light caught the gold in her dark hair and the faint color in her cheeks. At that moment, Pax decided he was done waiting.
He brought his free hand up to her face. She went still, waiting for his next move. His thumb moved along her cheekbone, and she let out a careful breath. Her gaze locked with his.
“Bree,” he whispered.
“Yeah,” she replied just as softly.
Then, he leaned down and kissed her.
He’d thought about this so many times. He’d thought it would be tentative. The careful first move of two people who’d been friends and were thinking maybe they could be something else. Something more.
He’d been wrong. Oh, so deliciously wrong.
Her mouth was warm, and she kissed him back like she’d wanted this as long as he had.
Whatever careful moves he might have planned disintegrated in the first three seconds of his lips on hers.
He slid his hand from her face into her hair and kissed her the way he’d dreamed, exploring her thoroughly and without hurry.
She made a hungry sound against his mouth that he was going to be thinking about for days. He just knew it. She moved closer, and his free hand found her waist as the afternoon sun warmed his back. The dry air around them smelled like sage and iron and the clean heat of a day winding down.
When the kiss finally ended, they were both unsteady and out of breath. He rested his forehead against hers. Her eyes were closed.
“I should have done that years ago,” he said.
She opened her eyes. They were very blue and very close, and full of wonder.
“Yeah. You should have,” she said, grinning breathlessly up at him.
He might have kissed her again. He intended to. But a pickup truck rattled past on the cross street and the ordinary world reasserted itself. She laughed a little and pressed her lips together.
“Dad will wonder where I got to,” she said, leaning back to look up at him.
“I know.” He didn’t step back. His hand was still at her waist.
She made no move to step back either. “This is…” she started, stopped, and tried again. “We should probably—”
“We don’t have to decide anything right away,” he said.
She absorbed that. The tension in her shoulders eased, just slightly. “Okay,” she said. “Yeah. Um. Okay.”
He stepped back. Let his hands drop. She turned and unlocked the door, then paused with it half open, not looking at him.
“Come in tomorrow,” she said. “The front window display needs redoing and you’re tall.”
“Is that the only reason I’m useful to you? My height?” he quipped.
“You also fixed the circuit breaker,” she teased back, then looked at him over her shoulder. “And you have very good taste in pie.”
“High praise.”
“The highest.” She went in and he turned, heading back home, satisfaction in his steps. He’d finally done it. He’d finally kissed his Breelee. And nothing would ever be the same again.