Chapter 12
The back of Ace’s knuckles absently tapped against the small window beside him as the memory of feeling silky soft skin brushing against him as he slipped off Stephanie’s sweats flashed in his mind. He watched the world passing by below and his chest tightened as he flew farther and farther away from the one place he wanted to be: in bed with Stephanie in his arms. Leaving her, sound asleep, wrapped in his sheets was hands down the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.
To make matters worse, everything around him reminded him of the night before. Not that he’d needed reminding, it was all he could think about. When he’d arrived at the airport he’d spoken to a couple that were on their way to Amsterdam, in North Holland, and Holland was Stephanie’s last name. When he’d gone through the security checkpoint the woman in front of him had been wearing the same Cubs shirt that Stephanie had stripped out of in his living room. While waiting to board, “Crossing Hearts” was playing in the waiting area, the same Virginia Valentine song they’d slow danced to last night.
Until last night he hadn’t known what he’d been missing in his thirty years on this planet, but now he did. In the twelve years he’d served he’d grown used to leaving people and places. It hadn’t been a hardship for him. Up until now, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he was in the moment and the moment had his full attention. His mind rarely wandered. It was part of what had made him good at his job. When he’d seen other Marines suffer from being homesick or missing loved ones he’d never fully understood what they’d gone through. Now, he had just a small taste and he didn’t like it.
He missed Stephanie so much it was starting to make him crazy and it had only been a few hours. This morning he’d even sent her a lame text before he’d gotten on the flight at O’Hare. Never before had he been one of those people that wrote a text, obsessed over every word only to rewrite it. But this morning that’s exactly what he’d done. There had been about a dozen drafts before he’d finally pressed send and as soon as he did he’d wished that he could take it back to edit it again.
Apparently Stephanie turned him into a high school girl.
Point of fact, when the flight attendant made the announcement that they’d arrived in Washington, D.C. the first thing he’d done—even before he’d unbuckled his seatbelt—was check to see if she’d messaged him back. She hadn’t.
There had been two voicemails waiting for him. One from his father and one from his mother, both asking him to call them back. This time, instead of ignoring the calls, he’d messaged them back. He’d explained that he’d be out of the country for a while but he would get in contact with them when he returned.
Hearing everything Stephanie had been through had put things in perspective for him. His family wasn’t perfect. He’d never felt like he fit in. His brother’s recent betrayal and the way they’d handled it had only complicated matters. But they were trying. He knew they loved him, in their own way. That was more than a lot of people had. More than Stephanie had.
As much as he tried to put her out of his mind, he couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on the task at hand, it was impossible. His thoughts drifted to her gorgeous smile, her large, doe eyes, the strawberry and mint smell of her hair and the way she gasped silently when he’d driven himself into her.
Thankfully, during the briefing and risk assessment meeting he’d managed to focus. But now, as he flew to an undisclosed location to extract an asset who’d gone dark, getting back to her was all he could think about. He was counting the seconds.
This mission could take one week or ten. There was no way to predict until they got on the ground. No communication had been received from the asset in over seventy-two hours. All that his team had were the asset’s last known coordinates. He read through the theories and best guesses of where he might be being held and what the team might face in opposition. But those were all hypotheses. Real time intel was the only thing that mattered.
Real time. That’s what he’d wasted these past five weeks. He wanted to kick his own ass for living next door to Stephanie for all that time and not doing anything about it until yesterday. The entire time he’d been trying to talk himself out of the interest that he’d felt the day he moved in.
He’d never forget the first time he saw her. The image was branded into his memory. He’d been unpacking his dishes in the kitchen when he’d seen her get out of her car through the atrium window that sat above the sink. The first thing that caught his attention was her hair. The mid-day sun highlighted the shimmering, golden-red strands. Then, as she’d made her way up the walkway, he’d noticed she was wearing Looney Tunes scrubs and it made him smile. But the showstopper had been when she’d stepped up onto their shared porch. She’d taken off her sunglasses and revealed the face of an angel. Her large brown eyes and full pink lips reminded him of the porcelain dolls that his Grandma Lulu had collected. Like them she looked perfect and fragile. He was mesmerized by her.
He’d wanted to go next door. Introduce himself. Ask her out. But he’d ignored and even suppressed those feelings. He’d convinced himself that he didn’t want any entanglements. He’d been a fool.
Ace wasn’t a passive or indecisive man. When he wanted something he didn’t apologize for it or sit back and wait for it to be handed to him. He took action. Deep down he’d known he wanted Stephanie but he’d acted counterintuitively. He’d talked himself out of the fact that what he’d felt was real, and he’d kept his distance.
Frustration coiled inside of him as he sped down ‘If Highway.’ If he’d gotten to know her sooner he wouldn’t be leaving with things being as up in the air as this plane was. If he’d sacked up five weeks ago they wouldn’t have only shared the equivalent of a one-night stand. If he’d trusted his own instincts the first day he saw her they would be together, officially, and he would have the security of her knowing how he felt about her.
Dwelling on ifs isn’t going to get you home to her any sooner,his inner voice reasoned.
In an effort to shake off his anger and regret, he pulled up the risk assessment report on his iPad and re-read it. He would try anything he could to stop obsessing about Stephanie.
“Hey, you want to play?” Tyson Cruise, aka “Tank” asked as he pulled out a deck of cards.
He’d served with Tank for years before he’d left the Corps and gone into the private sector. They’d always gotten along and he trusted the man beside him with his life. When he’d arrived this morning he’d been happy to see a familiar face on the team.
Ace figured he’d have a better chance of distracting himself playing cards with his friend than going over the same information he’d been staring at for hours. He stowed the device away. “Sure.”
As Tank dealt the cards, Ace noticed that his friend had gotten new ink in the form of a band tattoo on his ring finger.
“When did you get that?”
“A year ago.” Tank beamed. “I got married in Vegas.”
Ace would’ve been less shocked if Tank had told him he was an alien from Mars and that tattoo was how he communicated with his home planet. Tank wasn’t the beaming or the marrying-in-Vegas type. He enjoyed women. He liked variety. In the years that Ace had known him, he’d never seen him go out with the same woman twice.
Ace didn’t even try to disguise the shock in his voice as he asked, “You got married?”
Tank’s face lit up brighter. “Yeah, bro. Best decision I ever made.”
“Do I know her?”
“No. We didn’t date that long. Her name is Colleen.” Tank pulled out his phone and showed him pictures of himself and his wife with the same pride Ace had only seen new parents display when they showed off baby pictures.