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“Ohh is that the one where it looks like it’s out of the seventies? Some kind of coastal village thing?”

He felt his brow furrow, but he also smiled. “I guess?”

She didn’t look at him, but she took her right hand off of the wheel and waved it at him. “You just tell me where to turn and I’ll do it.”

Okay. He smiled and lifted the bag from his lap to put his nose closer to it.

Yeah. Whatever was in the bag smelled good.

Maybe too damn good.

Then again, he had a feeling if he got close enough to her, she’d smell even better.

The hunger he felt inside of him had shifted.

Oh, he was hungry for food. He knew the promise of the scent from the takeout bag, but as they drove, he looked over and saw the light slacks that she wore.

He could see the shape of her legs. He’d already seen the curves of her body.

He hoped that he’d get a chance to touch her, taste her.

Buck heard a snarl behind him and chanced a glance back over his shoulder.

He could see Ebi watching him through the bars of the carrier.

The first day they’d met, the cat had curled up on his lap, bared her belly, and basically begged for attention.

Now, he was beginning to wonder if the cat was going to crap on his bed at the house.

They reached the part of the road where it curved around one end of the lake and Mari turned to him with a quick flick of her head.

“This next turn?” She gestured out to the right, the passenger side of the car.

Buck smiled at her. “Yep. You’re right.”

As she slowed to make the turn, he sat up a little, lifting the takeout bag off of his lap by an inch or two,

It was warm down there and only partially because of the plates. He liked her.

Not just because she was gorgeous.

He liked her because when they were together, the doom and gloom that was always crowding him lifted a little and gave him some room to breathe.

It was like…

Living again.

FIVE

MARI

She didn’t know what she’d expected when she’d offered to take Heath home. Initially, she’d expected more of an apartment on base.

Or near to it.

As a kid, she’d gone with her parents to visit her mother’s extended family in Wahiawa just a block off of California Avenue.

Even back then, the Army military base, Schofield Barracks, loomed large in that area.