Deeper Than The Ocean by Julie Ann Walker

 

 

Chapter 17

 

11:08 AM…

 

Like his namesake, Wolf epitomized sleek, swift self-assurance.

He moved with stealth. His expressions remained impassive even when the shit hit the fan. He seemed to think in complete sentences, every word out of his mouth said with forethought and consideration—and with a cutting wit when he chose to wield it. Which was why it was so damned weird seeing the dude all jittery and flustered now.

Romeo frowned at the impatient fingers Wolf drummed atop the table. And when Wolf glanced up from checking his watch for the third time in the six seconds since he’d sat down, Romeo leveled his most considering stare on his business partner and friend.

“You want to go first or should I?” he asked.

“Nothin’ to report on my end.” Wolf shook his head. “Dixon doesn’t know any more than last night and—”

“I’m not talking about Dixon, pendejo.” Romeo leaned forward, making it impossible for Wolf to look anywhere but into his eyes. “I’m talking about you and Chrissy. What happened between you two last night that has you wound tighter than a two dollar watch this morning, eh?”

Wolf was silent. For a moment, Romeo thought it might take a whole pack of ninjas and one very large crowbar to get any sort of answer out of the man.

Then Wolf said, “I’ll tell you what happened with Chrissy if you tell me what happened with Mia. Why’s she offerin’ to bring you drinks while gazin’ at you like you hung the moon and all the stars in the sky?”

Fuck.

Romeo thought he’d imagined that look. He hoped he’d imagined it.

When he’d awoken that morning, it was to the feel of a warm woman snuggled next to him. Which, let’s face it, wasn’t unusual. What was unusual—unheard of, actually—was for him not to have had sex with that woman the night before.

He hadn’t made it through the first chapter of In Darkness and Dreams before the hellacious day caught up with him and he fell victim to forty winks. He imagined Mia, lovely lady that she was, hadn’t had the heart to wake him and so had decided to conk out next to him. Except, at some point during the night, she’d sought his body heat in her sleep.

By this morning? They’d been tangled in a full-on lovers’ knot. Her head had been pillowed on his chest. His arm had been around her waist. Her leg had been thrown over both of his.

It’d been the pressure of her thigh against his morning wood that’d caused him to stir. And in that twilight space between waking and sleep, he’d nearly rolled her onto her back so he could cover her mouth with a dreamy kiss. One that wouldn’t have stopped with her lips but would have traveled south to her neck, her delicate clavicle, those perky little breasts that reminded him of scoops of ice cream.

If not for the alarm on her phone jerking him fully awake, he might have done exactly that.

And then what would’ve happened?

He didn’t dare imagine it.

If he imagined it, he’d begin fantasizing about it.

If he began to fantasize about it, he’d want to do it.

If he did it, then—

Like they’d been doing all morning, his thoughts returned to waking up in bed beside her. She’d come out of sleep slowly, and with a cute yawn that ended in a long feline stretch.

He’d gone stone still, fearing the minute she realized she was lying atop him she’d jump out of her skin. Except, she hadn’t. In fact, instead of being scared to death of him, as per usual, she’d simply sat up, smiled at him, and whispered, “Morning, Spiro.Sleep well?”

Some women had bedroom eyes. Mia Ennis had a bedroom voice.It alone had been enough to turn his morning wood into a morning giant sequoia.

Proving himself a complete idiot, his response had been to leap out of bed like the mattress was on fire. Then he’d made some halting excuses about needing to shit, shower, and shave. Yes,he’d actually said that—’cause I’m all class, baby—before executing his escape.

By the time he’d made it back to her room to take her down to breakfast, he’d convinced himself sleeping with her had been no big deal. That he was making it a big deal. That nothing had changed.

Except, now Wolf had pointed out something had changed. That Mia had changed. She was no longer treating him like he might lean over and take a bite out of her. Quite the opposite, in fact, she was acting like they were…what? Friends?

That was hilarious. Not funny ha-ha, but funny fuuucckkk since he wanted to snack on her now more than ever.

Now he had firsthand experience with just how soft she was. With the way her lips looked swollen first thing in the morning. With how well she fitted against his side.

Or…and this was even more concerning, she was acting like they might be more than friends. He’d never been more than friends with a woman in his life. In fact, except for his teammates’ wives and girlfriends, the most he’d ever been was friends with benefits. Light on the friends and heavy on the benefits.

Leaning back in his chair, he closed his eyes and blurted, “I slept with her.” He opened his lids to see the corners of Wolf’s mouth turn down. “Not like that,” he was quick to add, filling Wolf in on the book, the reading, and waking up all hashtag bodies entwined.“And now I’m afraid she’s thinking I’m something I’m not.”

“Which is?” Wolf prompted.

“Boyfriend material.”

“Ah.” Wolf nodded solemnly.

“I mean, she’s smart and sophisticated and rich and cultured. Everything I’m not. And even though I’m definitely the man for the job when it comes to priming her pump—”

“Anyone ever tell you your relationship with humility is passin’ at best?” Wolf interrupted.

Romeo continued as if Wolf hadn’t spoken. “I’m definitely not the man for anything more.”

“Do you want somethin’ more?” Wolf arched his eyebrows.

“Wants got nothing to do with it.” Romeo refused to even consider the question. “I want to get ridden by a middle-aged woman in pigtails and a cheerleading outfit, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.”

Wolf’s expression flattened. “Just when I think you might be evolvin’, you go and say things like that and I’m reminded of how much of an asshole you truly are.”

“Oh, yeah? Well if I’m an asshole, then you’re the King of Asshole Mountain.”

Wolf’s chin jerked back. “How do you figure?”

“What happened that night at Schooner Wharf Bar?”

“Oh, hell on earth, no. We’re not goin’ there.”

“And why not?” Romeo lifted one eyebrow, which was the grown man equivalent of a juvenile shoulder poke.

“We’re talkin’ about you and Mia, not me and Chrissy.” Gone was Wolf’s agitation. He was back to being freakishly calm as he regarded Romeo through unreadable eyes.

“Fine.” Romeo sighed. “Go on and say it.”

Wolf’s tone was purposefully neutral. His words left no room for interpretation, however. “Mia isn’t the type of woman you fuck around with, figuratively or literally.”

“I know that.”

“Which means if you don’t have honorable intentions toward her, you need to nip this thing in the bud sooner rather than later.”

“I know that too,” Romeo grumbled miserably, finally admitting to himself what he’d only suspected all morning long.

Somehow, through no fault of his own, he’d stumbled his way into a goat fuck of a situation. Or maybe it was more correct to say he’d snoozed his way into a goat fuck of a situation.

Not that he was a stranger to goat fucks. They were pretty much standard operating procedure for Navy SEALs. However, in those instances, he’d always had a group of men ready and willing to back him up.

In this situation? He was all on his own.

And I have no clue how I’m going to get myself out of it without hurting or embarrassing or otherwise upsetting a perfectly lovely woman.

“Enough about me.” He swiped the air as if to shove aside the subject. But there it sat in the corner, like an 800-pound gorilla. So fine. The best I can do is ignore it. “Let’s talk about you and Chrissy. What happened last night?”

Wolf must’ve decided Romeo’s blurt-it-out approach worked well. He said without preamble, “I realized I’ve fallen in love with her.”

Romeo sat there blinking for a full five seconds. Then, “Damn, man. Way to bury the lede. Why didn’t we start with that? That’s huge news!” He slapped Wolf on the shoulder, and then reconsidered his words. “Well, not news, exactly. Anyone with working eyeballs in their head can see you’ve been falling for her for a while. But still. Now you’ve admitted it. Congratulations. When’s the wedding?”

Wolf’s mouth formed a straight line. “There’s a problem.”

“What’s that?”

“She doesn’t want to fall in love.”

Romeo blinked a couple more times, turning each word over in his mind to make certain he’d heard correctly. “She doesn’t want to fall in love with you or with anyone?”

“Anyone.”

More blinks. More confusion. “Like, she thinks she has control over that or something?”

Wolf launched into an invective-filled explanation about how Chrissy perceived a difference between falling in love and being in love.

After he was finished, Romeo asked cautiously, “What’s that mean for you?”

“Haven’t figured that out yet.” Wolf ran a hand over his face, looking bone-tired.

Romeo mulled things over and finally ventured, “Ever thought of simply manning up and telling her how you feel anyway?”

Wolf gave him a look that said he’d left half his brain behind on Wayfarer Island. “Since when has mannin’ up ever involved tellin’ folks how we feel? Think of Ryan Reynolds. The most you ever get out of him is a glimpse of melancholy before he diffuses the emotional gravity of the situation with a joke and a smirk. And he always gets the girl in the end.”

“Sure.” Romeo nodded. “And that manly cliché perpetuated by Hollywood is undoubtedly why there’s so much toxic masculinity and ingrained misogyny in the world.”

“Which brings up another point.” Wolf lifted a finger. “What’s the difference between a good guy and a nice guy?”

Romeo blinked.

“You got somethin’ in your eye or what? You’re doin’ an awful lot of blinkin’.”

“I’m just trying to keep up with everything that’s coming out of your mouth without getting conversational whiplash. Now, good guy versus nice guy, there’s a difference?”

Wolf shrugged. “Accordin’ to Chrissy.”

Romeo was beginning to suspect Chrissy was completely full of shit. “If there’s a difference, I have no idea what it is. So back to my point about you telling Chrissy how you feel. She can wax poetic all she wants about falling in love versus being in love, but my guess is, once she’s confronted with the actual, factual real deal, she’ll realize she can’t have one without the other.”

Wolf shook his head and said something under his breath that made it clear he wanted to drop the subject. Since Romeo was a good friend—and also because he knew exactly how it felt to want to ignore the potential emotional time bomb ticking in the corner—he obliged, snagging instead on what had brought him around to Chrissy’s house in the first place.

“Mia and I had to go to five different shops, but we were able to get our hands on thirteen metal detectors.”

“Right.” Wolf nodded. “We still have the mother lode to find. With everything that’s happened, I forgot what we came here for.”

“Well let me remind you.” Romeo’s tone was gloomy. It matched the sky to the west, which was beginning to boil with gray storm clouds. “We came here because this is our last chance to stay out of the poor house.”

If he and his former SEAL brothers had chosen any other profession, their long list of accomplishments would’ve meant they were set for life. But because they’d chosen the military, they’d barely had enough to get the salvage business up and running.

If they didn’t find the Santa Cristina’s bounty?

Not to put it too bluntly, but we’re all screwed.

They fell into silence, each lost in their own thoughts as they watched a colorful lizard skirt along the rail of the porch and then freeze in place when a fly alighted on a nearby bush.

Wolf’s voice was contemplative, as if he was talking to himself, when he finally spoke. “When you’ve spent years turnin’ yourself into the best of the best, there are times you begin to wonder if you should be doin’ anything other than what you were trained to do.”

Romeo rubbed a finger over the tattooed words on the inside of his forearm, feeling the shadow of Rusty’s loss fall over him. More than once since they’d failed to find the mother lode, he’d had that exact same thought. That maybe they shouldn’t have made that deathbed promise. That maybe they all should’ve stayed working for Uncle Sam.

But instead of voicing that aloud—the last thing either of them needed was to throw a pity party—he fell back on that old SEAL truism that said every situation was made better when you were giving your buddy shit. “Well, you’re in the clear, my friend. ’Cause you’re nowhere near the best of the best.”

“Fuck you, Romeo,” was Wolf’s reply, but one corner of his mouth curled up.

“In your dreams.” He winked as a welcome breeze from the approaching storm cut through the humidity of the day.

And lit a fire under his ass.

“I better get the Otter back out to Wayfarer before the weather comes in, or we’ll have to wait until it blows over,” he said. “That might be enough to send LT into convulsions.”

When Wolf lifted a questioning eyebrow, he explained. “I called the sat phone on the island this morning to fill LT in on what happened with Winston and Chrissy. He’s concerned, of course. But after he realized there’s nothing he can do to help, he asked about the metal detectors and what time I thought I’d be getting them to Wayfarer. He’s champing at the bit to get the island searched.”

“Yeah.” Wolf nodded. “Even though he’s no longer our commandin’ officer, he still feels responsible for all of us. And given he was the one to sell us on the idea of searchin’ for the galleon, I’m sure he feels doubly shitty about the missin’ treasure.”

“Finding the booty was never a given.” Romeo stood and waited for Wolf to do the same.

“I know that. You know that. But try convincin’ LT of that,” Wolf muttered.

Romeo didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. They both knew Wolf was right.

As they walked to the front door, Wolf added, “I’m goin’ to stay here with Chrissy until this mess with the warehouse shooters gets solved.”

“Figured as much.” Romeo nodded.

“You still keep that Glock in the Otter?”

“Of course.” Former fighting men hid guns and ammo like squirrels hide nuts.

“After I get everyone out of Chrissy’s house, I’ll meet you and Mia at the airport and grab it before y’all leave, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” Romeo repeated.

Not that he didn’t have faith in the uniformed police officer sent to protect Chrissy, except…he didn’t have faith in the uniformed police officer sent to protect Chrissy.

Becoming a Navy SEAL involved seven months of BUD/S training followed by years upon years of weapons training, medical training, demolitions training, cold weather training, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. In short, for SEALs the training never stopped. And not that Romeo didn’t respect cops. He did. No question. But when he compared Wolf’s qualifications against the policeman’s well…there was no comparison.

Wolf had his hand on the doorknob when Romeo stopped him. “Going back to this thing with you and Chrissy.”

Wolf groaned. “I knew I should’ve kept my damned mouth shut.”

“You and I both know life can go so quickly it’s possible to wake up one day and realize you let a lot of really great things pass you by because your pride or stubbornness made you unwilling to take a chance.”

Wolf studied him for a good long while. Then… “That’s sound advice, man. Maybe you should think about takin’ it yourself.”

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Romeo didn’t voice his question aloud. Mostly because he didn’t want to know the answer.