He couldn’t argue with her words. “I’m sorry, Jess.”
She huffed out a breath. “Well, at least you’re honest.”
“I’ve always been honest with you.”
“And yet, sometimes I still don’t feel like I know you at all.”
“I’m sorry for that too.” Sometimes he wasn’t sure he even knew himself.
“What is it, Mark? What makes you tick?” She crawled closer so that her knees bumped his.
You.He knew it as sure as he knew his own name, but he couldn’t tell her that, not after he’d just pushed her away with his words. Maybe he’d already hurt her too badly to deserve a second chance. The truth was that he might be too damaged for a relationship, a real relationship like Jess deserved. He might be better off on his own, the way he’d always been. And since he had no fucking clue how to tell her any of this, he kissed her instead.
She slid into his lap and kissed him back. “That’s not an answer,” she whispered against his lips.
“I know.” He tangled his fingers in her hair, pressing his forehead to hers. “But it’s all I’ve got.”
“Do you realize how infuriating that is?”
“Yeah.” He kissed her again.
She poured her frustration into her kiss, nipping at his lip, lashing her tongue against his until he was totally drunk with lust. “I’d hate you if I didn’t want you so damn much,” she murmured.
He knew it was true too.
She climbed out of his lap and reached into her backpack, coming up with a bottle of red wine. She handed it to him with a corkscrew while she went over to the cooler.
He jammed the corkscrew into the cork and twisted it out. She took it from him, poured wine into two plastic cups, and handed one to him, setting a plate of cookies down on the blanket beside them.
“Hell of a picnic,” he said.
“My favorite kind of picnic.” She snagged a cookie from the plate and spread a blanket over their legs. Then she leaned back against his chest, looking up at the stars.
He grabbed a cookie for himself and bit in, washing it down with wine. He wasn’t much of a wine drinker but this, tonight, was good. The wine was bold and spicy and put a warmth in his belly that chased away the chill of the night around them. Of course, all he really needed to keep warm was the woman in his arms. His blood turned to steam every time he touched her.
“Oh!” Jess exclaimed, lurching upright and elbowing him in the chest in the process. “I just saw one.”
“Yeah?” He looked up into the night sky. The heavens twinkled above them, sparkling with what looked like millions of stars. “It’s the one thing that’s the same everywhere.”
“What?” She craned her head to look at him, her brow wrinkled in confusion.
“The sky. Whether you’re here, California, Iraq, Germany…it always looks the same when you look up.”
“I never thought of that.” She leaned back against him again.
“Sometimes you just want to see something that reminds you of home. The stars always did it for me.”
“I thought about you a lot those first few years,” she said quietly. “I’d wonder what you were doing, where you were…if you were safe.”
“Thought about you too.” He wrapped his free arm around her and pulled her in closer.
“Did you miss me?” she asked, her voice nothing but a whisper.
“Yeah.” Like he’d left a piece of himself behind here in Haven. He’d mourned the loss of Jess until…well, pretty much until he’d gotten her back.
“You could have written to me. I’d have written you back.”
“No.” He couldn’t have kept in touch with her. He was a part of her past, and he’d wanted her to have a future free of the uncertainty that came with military life, waiting to see if he’d survive, if he’d come home, and what kind of man he’d be if he did make it back.
