He ordered wine and then did that sniff and taste thing I always saw done on TV. Then he okayed the wine and the waiter poured it.
“Do they teach about wine in Special Ops?” I asked him.
He laughed and leaned forward. “I have no clue what I’m doing. But it tastes good.”
It made me feel better that he wasn’t completely in his element either. I sipped the wine and had to agree that it was good.
Over dinner we settled into a comfortable conversation.
“I bet you’ve seen so much of the world,” I said as I dug into the scallops I ordered.
“I’ve traveled, but much of it isn’t on any tourist map. There’s a lot in the world that isn’t that interesting. Most places I went to were downright dangerous.”
I wanted to ask him about the scars on his chest, but worried it would bring up unpleasant memories for him.
“So, no Louvre or Eiffel Tower?” I asked.
“Not Paris. I’ve been to London. And Amsterdam.”
“Is it true they have pot in everything?” I asked, intrigued.
“You can buy it pretty easily.”
I leaned forward. “Did you?”
He laughed. “No. Booze is my one vice. Everything else I avoid.”
I remembered him saying that his father was an alcoholic. I noticed that Wyatt drank, but he seemed to control it. A couple of drinks was his limit. I wondered if that was to avoid being like his father.
“Sometimes I think it would be nice to travel. At the same time, I really like Salvation. It’s home. Is that dumb?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t appreciate just how much Salvation was a part of me until I returned home. Stark and your boss notwithstanding, it’s filled with good, hard-working people. You don’t find that everywhere.”
I smiled, glad he didn’t see Salvation as being small and insignificant after his travels.
“I am sorry about Mo. He’s just… Well…”
“I can’t blame him. He has good taste in women.” Wyatt poured me more wine. I’d only had one glass, but already I could feel it going to my head. Or maybe it was the man that was intoxicating.
“Did the military teach you to be romantic too? I don’t remember this part of you.”
He gave me a sheepish grin. “I was eighteen and horny. That was romance to me then.”
I snickered. “True. I just remember wanting you to be my first.”
His cheeks flushed. “I hope it was worth it.”
I liked that I could embarrass him. “Don’t pretend that you don’t know you’re God’s gift to women.”
“I don’t care about women, Sinclair. Just you.”
I smiled, but I felt a little uneasy. Comments like that made me think he saw this marriage as more than the arrangement than it was.
After dinner, we returned to the suite where Wyatt poured more champagne from a new bottle and led me to the little balcony. The lights of the suite were off, so we had only the moon to light the night. It reminded me of all the times by the oak tree sitting in the moonlight, talking, having passionate sex and basking in our love.
“You probably think I never thought about you, considering the way I left,” he said, turning his head up toward the moon. “But no matter where I was…the jungle or the desert, wading through a river or through mud, I’d look up at the moon and think about you. All those nights we’d sit in the moonlight under the oak tree. I was a world away, but we were looking up at the same moon.”
His words reached into my heart and grabbed hold. I was losing the battle to keep from falling for him again, as proved by how I leaned into him, and pressed my lips to his.