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“No…what arewedoing? You’ve shown up at my place several times. You’ve been…great and supportive. Is this about getting information or something else?”
She pulled her hand back when he didn’t say anything, experiencing a twist of sudden nervousness. He reached out and squeezed her hand. The gesture did funny things to her heart.
His eyes were dark and steady, and the flutter of nerves climbed to her throat. This had been a bad idea. How did she think she could handle more on top of what she was already going through? But she couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was intertwined with a moment in time, seventeen years ago. That she had never been settled no matter how hard she’d tried to convince herself of that fact.
She didn’t know how to proceed from here, how to handle the awkward silence and her own uncertainty—or his stillness. She twisted her fingers together, trying to think of something to say. Finally, he straightened, his expression intent and unsmiling.
The instant he moved, her senses went crazy, and she closed her eyes and drew a shaky breath, trying to curb the feelings inside her.
Opening her eyes, she looked at him, almost afraid to move for fear of doing something to break the spell. His expression compressed into hard lines, he stared at her, his eyes giving nothing away.
He held out his hand, and Ophelia let out a tremulous sigh and took it, her grip urgent and tense, almost desperate. He held her gaze, looking dark and foreboding and unapproachable, but the look in his eyes made her heart pound and her knees go weak, and she swallowed hard. There was a flare of emotion in his eyes, and he tightened his grip on her hand and slowly, so slowly, stroked the palm with his thumb. It was too much. That one slow, sensual touch put her in such sensory overload that the brightness from the sun made her skin feel too tight.
Lacing his fingers through hers, Dean said, “It’s not about information, but definitely about something else. You and me. How about in all the time that we’ve been apart, I haven’t ever stopped thinking about you, O? The way things—”
She abruptly stood and walked to the trunk of the tree as his words cut off. Ophelia was trembling so hard that she wasn’t sure how she made her legs function. “I know. I was awful and I’m so sorry. But I can explain to you what happened if that’s something you want to know.”
Suddenly he was there, the warmth of him at her back. She turned to face him, and he pulled her into his arms. Locking her arms around his torso, she closed her eyes and sagged against him, the feel of him setting off a new fever of sensation.
“You’re shaking like hell again, O,” he whispered roughly. “I’m not a teenaged boy anymore. Maturity has a way of making you understand a lot more than you did when you were younger. I guess you had no choice in the matter.”
She squeezed her lids harder together at his words. Oh, damn, this was so hard.
“I had a choice, Dean. I chose to go. Do what my parents wanted. I’m sorry.”
When he let her go, she couldn’t blame him. She wanted to stop, to take back the words and what she’d done, but she couldn’t. It was the truth and she had to face him with it.
Her stomach dropped to the ground at the sight of the grim lines of his face as he stared at the horizon. As if sensing her watching him, he straightened his shoulders and gave her a sad, betrayed look.
“You made the decision to go without talking to me?”
Ophelia wanted to shield him from hurt, but that wasn’t going to be possible. She had to own up to what she had done and why. It was the only way she could feel good about moving forward or, depending on Dean’s response, losing him again. A strained silence lingered that stripped her bare.Say it, Ophelia. The answer isn’t going to miraculously change.
“Yes. I had to. It was their stipulations for my freedom.”
He clenched his jaw in a grimace of disgust. She took the two strides to him and cupped his face. Nearly sick with alarm, she tightened her fingers. “No. Please, Dean. Don’t think whatever you’re thinking.”
“Your freedom? How does giving in to your parents equate to freedom?”
“They were going to let me go, be what I wanted to be, stop the pressure, release me from that stupid debutante life, once I gave in to their demands. I took what they offered because I wanted that freedom.”
“But, O, I could have offered you your freedom. I wanted you to come with me to Coronado. Live with me.”
This was going to be the hard part and she already dreaded it. “No, I couldn’t, Dean. I would have exchanged one guardian for another. I know what I wanted, and you couldn’t give it to me. I had to go on that journey alone. Besides, BUD/S was all encompassing. How would you have had time for me and still given everything you had to becoming a SEAL? I couldn’t bear to ruin that for you and become some kind of a burden or…” Her voice got hoarse, “…resent you.”
Her heart hammered with dread and her insides were in knots. He walked back to the trunk of the tree. His face disappeared into shadow, but the way he was holding his body told her more than she wanted to know. She rubbed her thumb over her blister and hissed softly at the pain, then folded her arms, feeling alone and vulnerable. She didn’t know what to say to bridge the silence in the wake of that raw truth. Feeling as if her heart were stuck in her throat, she took a shaky breath and said, “I’ve missed you for seventeen years. Don’t think that decision was easy because it wasn’t and living with it never got any easier.”
Dean held her gaze for a split second, then stared at the ground. There was something about the set of his shoulders, about the tight lines around his mouth, that made her want to cry, and she looked up at the sky and swallowed hard.
The ache finally eased, and she looked at him. “Please, Dean,” she pleaded softly. “Talk to me.”
His face contorting in a fury of pent-up feelings, he hit the tree with the side of his fist, then abruptly turned away. He raised his hand for a second blow, but Ophelia crossed the space between them before he could act. Shaken by his uncharacteristic display of anger, she seized him by the wrist, then slid her free arm around his rigid shoulders. Grasping him by the back of the neck, she used all her strength to hold him against her.
“Don’t,” she whispered brokenly. “Please don’t.” He tried to pull away, but she refused to let him go. She tried to soothe him with the sound of her voice. “It’s all right,” she whispered softly. “It’s okay.”
He shuddered and turned his face against her neck, then dragged in a deep, ragged breath and caught her in a crushing embrace. Cradling the back of his head, Ophelia pressed her whole body tight against him, trying to physically give comfort, trying to wordlessly let him know that it was okay. His hand tangled in her hair as he shifted his hold, locking her flush against him. His chest expanded.
“The fucking truth hurts, O.”
