The SEAL's Secret Daughter Page 11

  Monica shrugged, relieved they were talking about anything other than the way her body always responded to him. “It just depends on how bad the episode was. It’s like her brain is working so hard to make sense of the world around her, that her body stops working in order to send all of the energy up there. Spanish is her first language, so when she reverts to it like she did earlier at the store, I know it’s just a matter of time before she shuts down. I really appreciate the fact that you were there to drive us home.”

  “Pretty soon we’re gonna need a scorecard to keep track of how many favors we owe each other.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be keeping count of who owes who what.” Or of how much time they were spending together. It was a slippery slope to be indebted to someone she was finding it harder and harder to resist. She squared her shoulders against the seat. “We’re friends. That’s what friends do. Help each other out.”

  “So that’s all we are, huh?” he asked as he parked in front of the Cowgirl Up Café. “Friends?”

  “Yep.” She opened the door and jumped down from the cab before her eyes proved her mouth wrong. “I’m just your friend, Ethan.”

  “Well, that’s more than we were a few weeks ago, so I guess we’re making a little progress.” His upper teeth did that thing where they scraped against his lower lip and she commanded her feet to move. But they ignored her and chose to obey him when he called out, “Hold on!”

  Ethan opened his own door and, as he made his way around the truck, Monica gulped in enough cold air to fight the rising temperature inside her.

  “You forgot this,” he said, holding up the half apron she’d taken off on the way to Trina’s school earlier. Before she could snatch it from him, he had already looped the strings around her back and was tying it just above her belly button. This time, though, when his fingers grazed against her torso she was positive that it was no accident. “And just for the record, my meeting tonight is not a date.”

  “And just for the record, it wouldn’t be any of my business if it was a date.” There, that sounded strong enough and almost believable. In fact, as she walked away, her knees grew steadier with each step until she almost believed it herself.

  Chapter Eight

  Ethan didn’t realize how badly he’d needed to attend an AA meeting until he sat in that room at the community rec center on Monday night. Alcoholism could be a disease of loneliness and isolation—no matter how busy or social he was. Being with others who battled the same disease made Ethan feel a little less alone.

  He and Commodore Russell were standing by the coffee machine in back when the older man removed the toothpick from his mouth and said, “You know what the Big Book says about shouldering the burdens and troubles of others?”

  Ethan inhaled deeply and replied, “We find that we’re soon overcome by them. But aren’t Trina’s burdens also my burdens?”

  “Yep. But you don’t want your burdens to become hers.”

  The old guy had a point. Ethan’s sobriety was more important to him now than ever before. If that meant fortifying himself with more meetings, then that’s what he’d do. Trina deserved to have him be the best father he could be.

  However, he didn’t want to overuse his goodwill with Monica—such as it might be—to ask her to keep babysitting Trina in the evenings. So before he left, he made a mental note to look into the AA sessions held during the day at Shadowview, the military hospital thirty minutes away.

  Both Trina and Gran were yawning when he arrived at the Alvarez house to pick up his daughter and the gassy kitten. But neither one looked as exhausted as Monica. The circles under her eyes were faint, and her usually proud shoulders seemed to sag.

  “How’d it go?” he asked her when she came out of the kitchen and met him in the entryway.

  “Great. Gran taught Trina how to make flour tortillas and how to do Elvis’s signature hip shake. Trina read some of her book to Gran and kept her from feeding Tootie too many black beans while I made a few phone calls. That reminds me, I lined up a math tutor to come to the library tomorrow. He’s a graduate student down at Boise State, so he can only come on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.”

  “You are incredible,” he said, reaching out both of his arms in praise. Actually, his instinct had been to lift her up in a celebratory hug, but Ethan had stopped himself just in time. A pink flush crept up Monica’s cheeks, perhaps from his compliment or perhaps because she knew that he’d been about to touch her again before he caught himself.

  He hoped it was because she was also thinking about the last time he’d touched her and how both of their faces had filled with heat. Testing the waters, he softly placed a hand on her shoulder. “Seriously, Monica. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me these past few days.”

  Her indrawn gasp was as abrupt as her glance at his fingers. Yep. She was thinking about their physical attraction, too.

  “Well, technically, I was doing it to help Trina,” she said before dramatically lifting her own arms in a stretch as she yawned loudly. The move was probably intended to dislodge his hand, and it worked. Although, she probably didn’t realize that it also caused a few of the buttons on her white blouse to gap, giving him a glimpse of a light pink lacy bra underneath. After a second yawn, she added, “But I’m also extremely grateful to you for helping me out at the market this morning.”

  Ethan lifted the corner of his mouth in a sly smile before repeating her own words. “Well, technically, I was doing it to help Gran. Although, I wouldn’t be opposed to us helping each other—”

  Monica’s third and suspiciously fake yawn cut him off. “Whew. Sorry about that. It sure has been a long and interesting day.”

  “Then I don’t want to keep you away from your bed.” What Ethan really meant was that he wouldn’t mind carrying her to bed himself. After briefly going upstairs earlier this morning, he’d found himself wondering about Monica’s bedroom all afternoon. But with her grandmother and his daughter putting away Elvis records in the living room a few feet away, it wasn’t as though he could just sweep the sleepy, sexy woman up into his arms. Instead, he cleared his throat and looked over his shoulder. “Come on, Tri, let’s head home.”

  His daughter patted Mrs. Alvarez’s hand, which was the biggest display of affection he’d witnessed from the child—at least to another human. She had plenty of affection for the bean-eating kitten.

  “Come back again, soon,” Mrs. Alvarez offered, and Monica didn’t correct the older woman or otherwise appear to be put out.

  Well, if Ethan had a clear shot, he was certainly going to take it. “Perhaps next Monday?” he suggested.

  “Perfect,” Mrs. Alvarez said while Monica just yawned. Probably too exhausted to protest.

  * * *

  The following morning, since Trina seemed to do best with a routine, Ethan took her to the Cowgirl Up Café again for breakfast, despite the fact that Monica was usually off on Tuesdays. On the way to school, they discussed the tutor and then confirmed their afternoon schedule at least three more times.

  The same discussion took place every day that week and by Friday, he decided to drive down to Boise again to get Trina her own cell phone so she wouldn’t have to stress about being forgotten at school.

  “Text me or call me whenever you need to,” he’d told her. And she did. Every day during her lunch break. At first, it was a passive reminder, such as “See u at 3.” Then he began responding with memes of inspirational cat posters, such as the kitten with its paws attached to a window curtain and the slogan “Hang in there.”

  After a few days, she would write back “lol” or use a smiley face emoji, which was an improvement considering she still didn’t smile that often in person.

  By the second week of March, he honestly couldn’t say that he’d gotten any more comfortable with his new role as Trina’s primary caregive
r, but they definitely had bonded over cat memes and had an established daily pattern that he could anticipate.

  The mornings were still the easiest part of his day, even though they were a bit rushed and consisted of cereal more often than made-to-order eggs at the Cowgirl Up Café. Swinging a hammer and climbing ladders on his various job sites gave him something physical he could focus on, although he was in serious need of anything a little more athletic.

  He was always outside of the school at exactly three o’clock to pick up Trina, which would’ve been the highlight of his day if she didn’t always look so miserable and defeated every time she came out the doors. Or if he could’ve avoided the other parents who were constantly trying to get him to bring two dozen treats for the bake sale or help organize the popcorn fund-raiser or chaperone the band field trip.

  His daughter wasn’t even in band.

  Even the evenings weren’t as difficult as he’d expected them to be, since he was usually busy not-burning (or sometimes phoning in) dinner while looking over Trina’s homework or scratching his head at some of the characters on the YouTube videos she liked to watch. By the time he dropped in his rack at night to get some shut-eye, he was so mentally exhausted, sleep came easier than it ever had.

  No, the biggest struggle for Ethan came in the late afternoons. “Happy hour time,” he used to call it, back before any time of the day had become happy hour to him. He grew restless and antsy and even bored during that two-hour window when he transitioned from being a full-time working adult to being a full-time responsible parent. The worst was when Trina was at the library for tutoring on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

  Ethan was left with absolutely nothing to do but sit in his truck and try not to think about drinking, or sit at a distant table in the library and try not to think about what Monica would look like underneath her boxy cardigan sweaters and her stiff, button-up blouses.

  That second Thursday afternoon in March, he’d finally decided to change into some workout clothes and go for a long-distance run while he waited for Trina. But he’d only made it a couple of miles when the rain began to pour down and—even though he’d run in much worse conditions than these—he turned back. He was soaking wet by the time he got to the library and thought about going home to change, but then he would’ve been late to pick up his daughter.

  Walking in the library, Ethan’s shoes squished and leaked water onto the old parquet floors. A mom whipped her head around, giving him the stink eye and putting her finger to her lips in the universal sign to be quiet. The old building was built in the late nineteenth century and, while it was both historical and unique, the architect apparently hadn’t taken into account that the hexagon shape and open second-story floor plan only added to the acoustics and amplified every little peep.

  His daughter was usually in one of the study rooms upstairs and there was no way to get there in these shoes without announcing his every step. Maybe he’d just find Monica instead and tell her to let Trina know he’d be a few minutes late.

  “Hey,” he said when he finally spotted the librarian in the hidden recesses of the nonfiction section, kneeling down near the lower shelf and passing a kid an oversize volume on frogs.

  She dropped the book before the kid could take it, but the young boy didn’t even notice because both pairs of eyes were on him.

  “You’re all wet, man,” the boy stated the obvious, picking up his frog book and giving Ethan a gap-toothed grin before walking away.

  Monica remained on her knees, though her lips parted and her glasses slipped down her nose as she aimed her gaze directly at his torso.

  Extending his hand, he asked, “Do you need help getting up?”

  “You’re all wet,” she said, not making any move to accept his offer or to otherwise rise to her feet. In fact, she continued to study him, making his skin heat under the cold, clinging fabric of his soaked shirt.

  “So I’ve been told,” he replied, his chest jutting out as though he was silently inviting her to look her fill.

  “Your clothes are practically plastered to every muscle on your—”

  The water trailing down his outstretched hand dripped onto her gray skirt, unfortunately drawing her attention from whatever it was she’d been about to say. But judging by the way her cheeks had gone crimson and her pupils had dilated, she didn’t have to say anything. Monica was more than attracted to him, he realized with a satisfied smile. She was aroused.

  She gave her head a little shake before putting her own palm in his. When he yanked her to her feet, he didn’t release her. Rather, he used the momentum to pull her toward him. Monica put a hand on his chest, probably just to brace herself from getting any closer, and his heart hammered underneath her slender, delicate fingers.

  * * *

  “You’re all wet.” Monica knew she was repeating herself, but her dazed mind couldn’t form any other thought as her pulse pounded in her ears.

  “And you’re all flushed,” Ethan said with a smirk before leaning his wet face closer to hers. He stopped just short of kissing her, though, and her eyes darted down just in time to see his lips part ever so slightly in invitation.

  Monica knew it was a mistake before she’d even risen up on her tiptoes. One minute she was looking for a book about the habitats of tree frogs and the next she had her lips planted all over a dripping wet Ethan Renault. She could taste the rain on his lips as her mouth slanted over his.

  Her tongue was as eager as her hands that were gripping the damp fabric on his shoulders for leverage, pressing him up against the life science and zoology shelves. Or were those the foreign language shelves behind him? She didn’t know and she no longer cared. All that mattered was that she’d finally let go of this attraction she’d been struggling to hold back for so long, and now she was making up for lost time.

  His hands splayed around her lower back, just below her waist, as his tongue lazily stroked against hers. She was rushed and frenzied while he was slow and methodical, easing their kiss into a rhythm.

  Reminding herself to breathe through her nose, she inhaled the salty, tangy scent of his skin and the familiar, musty smell of lignin from the books surrounding them. Kissing Ethan was like reading a fast-paced thriller set in a faraway land while being in the comfort of her own home. His mouth was a wild adventure, as exciting and thrilling as being on a roller coaster, while his steady arms were solid and reassuring, the safety bar keeping her in place as she enjoyed the ride.

  Monica let her hands travel down his chest, exploring the hard peaks and ridged valleys of his muscles. His mouth trailed kisses across her jaw and she threw back her head, drawing in another ragged breath.

  She was just slipping her fingers under the hem of his wet T-shirt when Ethan jumped away so quickly, his head thunked against the oak shelf behind him. Monica’s initial instinct was to moan in disappointment. Yet, when she caught the panicked look in his eye, she nearly groaned in embarrassment for shocking him with her forwardness.

  But the groan didn’t come from Monica. It came from the eleven-year-old girl at the end of the aisle who’d just seen them.

  * * *

  Ethan didn’t bother to say so much as a goodbye, let alone give Monica a proper thank-you. After all, what was there to say following a kiss like that?

  He’d had to chase after Trina, who’d shot him a withering look before stomping toward the exit, her yellow backpack bouncing with each purposeful step as she broke out into a run in the parking lot. Luckily, the onslaught of rain must have discouraged her from taking off down the street, and she headed directly for his truck instead.

  She was struggling with the door handle when he pulled up beside her to unlock the truck with his remote. He opened it for her, but couldn’t even find the words to ask her what had her so upset. Not that his daughter was really one for coming out and discussing any uncomfortable feelings—a trait she’d probably inherited fro
m him. Besides, Ethan had a feeling he already knew what was wrong. The problem was he didn’t know how to fix the situation without making things worse.

  While he’d never let uncertainty or poor planning prevent him from completing a mission before, fatherhood was proving to be the one assignment that left him in a constant state of doubt. At least when he’d been on deployments, he’d had the backing of his team and his squad leaders. Had his own dad ever felt this alone and confused? Feelings of ineptness filled Ethan as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

  He sighed as he put the key in the ignition, but before he could turn over the engine, Trina surprised him by saying, “Things were just starting to get normal. Why did you have to mess it all up by kissing her?”

  In Ethan’s defense, Monica had kissed him first. But since his daughter was showing some anger instead of the casual indifference she usually exhibited toward him, he wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to find out what she was really thinking. Unfortunately, Trina’s blue eyes had gone dark and stormy and glared at him with such accusation, he nearly winced.

  Perhaps their standard operating procedure of mostly ignoring each other would’ve been preferable—just like remaining strapped into a perfectly good airplane would’ve been preferable to someone who was afraid of heights. But he was already at the free fall altitude and his parachute was packed with the rip cord in his hand. He had to make the jump.

  Wiping the raindrops from his confused brow, he replied, “I thought you liked Monica.”

  Okay. Even he knew that sounded lame.

  “I do.” Trina crossed her arms and looked out the window.

  “Well, I like Monica, too.” He put his arm along the top of the bench seat as he turned to face her. It was also his way of letting her know that he wasn’t going anywhere until they talked about why she was so upset.