was supposed to be a welcome-home celebration. Escaping for a weekend frolic with her…um…husband.
Damn. Even thinking the word pinched at her conscience.
Oh, yeah. This reunion was going really well.
Zachariah gave her a quick bear hug before pulling away completely, beyond arm’s reach, distancing himself from her questions as well as her touch. “I suppose if we’d had time to go through the newlywed training, we’d have done a better job of keeping in touch.”
Becky arched one eyebrow. Did she know anything about Zachariah’s life? “There’s newlywed training?”
“Yeah. So the new spouse knows what to expect when the husband or wife is deployed. Where to find support groups. How to contact us if there’s an emergency. Familiarizing each of us with what can be said in a message and what can’t. Stuff like that.” He lifted his cap, scratched his fingers over his ultra-short, fawn-colored hair and wedged the cap back on. “Sorry. I guess I cheated you out of all that by gettin’ hitched so quick. I kind of ran off and left you in the dark.” He turned his left hand back and forth, studying his splayed fingers as if seeing them in front of his face reminded him of something he didn’t like. “Hell. I never even took the time to buy us rings.”
Two small boys, darting around the fringe of a family welcoming home the father, accidentally bumped into the back of Zachariah’s legs. He tensed instantly. His hand fisted and his shoulders seemed to expand in a way that made Becky think he was about to turn and attack. Only the Zachariah she knew didn’t have a temper.
The boys must have sensed the brewing volcano, too.
“Sorry, mister,” the little one chirped.
“He’s a captain, dork-butt. Look at his collar.”
“Sorry, Captain.”
“Thanks for all you do for our country,” the older one said, in a well-rehearsed voice.
“Yeah, thanks.” The younger of the two boys stepped between Zachariah and Becky and craned his neck, squinching his mouth into a thoughtful frown as though he was perplexed by how far he had to look up to see Zachariah’s face. “Do you know my dad?”
Zachariah blinked away whatever had seized him and looked over at the family gathering before lowering his chin and mustering half an apologetic grin for the boy. “Yeah. Sort of. He’s in our support unit. We couldn’t do our jobs without—”
“C’mon, Eric.” The older boy put a hand on the young one’s shoulder and pulled him away, apparently not trusting Zachariah’s size or mood. “Dad’s waiting for us. We get to carry his duffel bag.”
As quickly as the boy’s curiosity had surfaced, it disappeared. He chased his brother back to their family. “I get to carry it first!”
“Uh-uh!”
Zachariah scrubbed his palm down over his face and muttered a curse as he watched them disappear back into the crowd. “So how bad do you think I scared those kids?”
“Not half as much as you’re scaring me.” Becky propped her hands at the waist of her denim skirt. “You’re acting like Zachariah Clark’s evil twin. Are you going to tell me what’s bugging you or not?”
His green eyes were the only thing that moved as his gaze bored into hers. “Like I said, I’m beat.” Leave it alone. She understood the message clearly enough—didn’t like it, but understood. An echo of silence passed before he shook loose his shoulders and twisted his neck from side to side, forcibly relaxing his posture if not convincing Becky he had truly relaxed.
“Then maybe we’d better get going,” she suggested, not knowing what more she could do, even if he were willing to share. She pointed toward the fence. “I’m parked in the visitors’ lot. I can drive until we can get your truck out of storage.”
With a nod, he heaved his duffel bag up onto his shoulder. After holding back for a moment, he lengthened his stride to fall into step beside her and settled his hand at the back of her waist. “Sorry. All the way home I was thinking about falling into bed. With you. I guess it was stupid to think nothing about us would change after eighteen months apart. This marriage thing takes a little getting used to.”
“I know what you mean.” It shamed her to think of how she’d kept the news of her “gettin’hitched” tucked away like a secret weapon in her back pocket—waiting until the moment was right to tell her parents, until now the secret weighed like an anchor around her neck. It was becoming more and more clear that there was more to making a marriage than a legal document. “It’s as though we have to get reacquainted all over again.”
And there was only one way they’d really known and understood each other, even back in D.C.
“I thought I was doing the right thing—making you my wife—in case something happened to me, or I got you pregnant. I just wanted you to know that what we had meant something to me.”
Becky halted in her tracks. “I’m a big girl, Zachariah.” She snagged his hand as he walked past. At that slightest of tugs, he stopped and looked down over his shoulder at her. “That week meant something to me, too. But you don’t have to take care of me. You just have to…be with me. While you’re here. While we’re together.” Her own plans, which she’d stewed over for months, were changing even as she spoke. “We’ll figure out whatever we’ve missed in each other’s lives later. For now, let’s just try to stay in the moment, shall we?”
He considered the bargain, then altered his grip to lace his fingers together with hers and pull her to his side. “In the moment. Sure. I can do that. Now take me to your car.”
She pointed toward the gate. “Over there.”
He shifted direction and guided them through the fringes of the lingering crowd. He dipped his head to her ear so she could hear him as they hurried past the band, which was playing a Sousa march. “In your last e-mail, you mentioned something about that honeymoon we missed?”
His lips stayed close and nuzzled the sensitive skin beneath her earlobe.
Honeymoon. She liked the sound of that. Becky wound her other hand around Zachariah’s and hugged herself against his arm. The brush of his lips and heat off his skin sparked something prickly and needy inside her. Maybe this awkward tension between them was nothing more than frustrated physical energy. Maybe once they got the lust—which had been simmering for eighteen months—out of their systems, everything else would fall into place. They could talk. He could lighten up. She could walk away.
Becky stumbled over the momentary hesitation of her feet. Don’t go there.
But, linked to the brace of Zachariah’s arm, she couldn’t fall. And because it had to be brief, she didn’t want to retreat from the time they could be spending together. Not wanting to shout, she waited until the band was behind them before she answered, “I might have an idea or two in mind about that honeymoon.”
“Spread those ideas out. Other than a quick visit to my folks out in Nebraska, you’ve got me for six whole weeks.”
Six weeks? Um, yeah. About that…
“Unless you want to come with me?” he offered. “The ranch should be green and pretty in the middle of summer—the lake water nice and cool.”
Nebraska? Ranch? Lake water? “Do you go sailing?”
“It’s not that big a lake. Fishing, mostly.” He released her hand and slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her flush to his side and hurrying their pace. “But I was thinking more along the lines of skinny-dipping after midnight.”
In lake water? “Is that sanitary?”
“Sanitary? Man, you sure know how to sweet-talk a guy. Here I am, imagining the moonlight on your bare skin, and you’re worried about the greeblies in the water.”