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He felt protective.
In fact, he was going out of his way to do stupid stuff just to make her smile – and having a hard time accomplishing the task with someone always hanging around.
“C’mon man,” Gideon banged on the bathroom door. “Did you die in there or something? I would ask what you are doing – but I really don’t want your smart mouth to answer that.”
“Hey,” Jake grinned. “Sometimes it just takes a while when you don’t have a magazine to look at.”
“You’re pathetic,” Gideon laughed and walked off – as Jake went back to scrolling on Amazon on his cell phone, trying to surprise Lena.
There were all sorts of dumb girly things with little glittery edges, big puffy hearts, and sentimental garbage, but he didn’t want to give her the wrong idea either. Instead, he wanted something special that would ‘hit home’ in a way she would never suspect. He wanted to see those big brown eyes widen in delight and her lovely smile as she looked at him.
“I’m such an idiot…” he muttered and clicked on the next page before laughing aloud in sheer delight.
“OH MY GOSH SERIOUSLY, ORTEGA?” Gideon hollered, sounding completely uneasy and dismayed. “You…giggle?”
“Hey… it’s your mother. I can’t help it,” Jake yelled – and clicked ‘purchase’ before flushing the commode that hadn’t been used except for a convenient place to hide.
Now, it was just time to wait.
* * *
Thursday rolled around, and they were getting ready to sit down for dinner when Jill hollered from the kitchen.
“Babe, can you get the delivery off the porch? My hands are full.”
“Yup,” Houghton said, and Jake almost volunteered to get it, but then it wouldn’t be a secret. He’d selected for it to be a gift and didn’t leave a signature on the gift card, curious to see how she would react or if she would guess who it was from.
Lena appeared briefly in the doorway as he was helping Gideon set the table tonight. He glanced up at her, met her eyes, and then went back to what he was doing as she set the bowl of mashed potatoes down without a word and went back into the kitchen. Chris and Daphne filed in next with platters and a basket of rolls as Houghton reappeared.
“Is Lena in the kitchen? She got a package,” he said simply and disappeared into the kitchen.
This was not what he wanted. He wanted to see her face and…
Lena came tearing around the corner, staring at him with tears in her eyes.
“Do you thinkthisis funny?”
“Not really,” he said flatly, but his stomach was taking a distinct turn downward. That was not the reaction he hoped for. “What’s the problem?”
“Did you do this?” she asked, shaking the colorful pill bottle at him… and then hesitated. “Wait…”
He crossed his arms, stared at her with a very bland expression on his face and swallowed. Man, maybe he needed to see a doctor about his upset stomach lately. Between the stress, the lack of sleep, the constant awareness of her being near him, and imagining ninety-thousand ways this could go wrong? It was taking a toll on him, and he was going to end up with an ulcer at this rate.
“These aren’t… pills?” she whispered in confusion.
“They look like pills to me,” he retorted and glanced at Houghton – who was already waving everyone into the kitchen away from them. He gave the other man a slow nod of appreciation, realizing the other soldier did indeed have his back and his suspicions of this being a set-up were true. Theywerebeing set up, just like the troops that got pen pals in Afghanistan.
He’d been tapped, and Lena was his person.
Thank God, too.
He couldn’t imagine being stuck with Chris, who wouldn’t hush about all the cow facts she wanted to share with everyone, or Daphne who seemed to be almost flighty to him. Lena was real, true salt-of-the-earth, and completely relatable to him.
She opened the bottle and took out one of the glass pills, staring at him before twisting it open. Her eyes dropped as a tiny slip of paper fell onto the table between them before she looked at him once more – then at the bottle. The silence was palpable between them as she sniffed, her hand obviously trembling as she picked up the piece of paper.
“Jake…” she whispered hoarsely, meeting his eyes.
“Now, while I am absolutely amazing and incredibly sexy,” he began evenly, hiding his nervousness at her reaction. “I can honestly say that it was meant with the best intentions, not to make you mad. Kinda like a peace offering in a twisted and sick way that I specialize in.”
