Navy Seal's Match

“...so Uncle Gavin carried them for me,” Bea concluded.

“What?” Mavis said, slack-jawed, while a surprised Briar said, “Gavin? He came?”

“Uh-huh,” Bea replied. “He might not see so good anymore, but he sure can carry a watermelon!”

The happy report of barking brought Mavis’s head up. Prometheus, who’d been gleefully chasing squirrels since arriving in the back of her Subaru, trampled a shrub of Indian hawthorn as he made a break for the raised deck.

Gavin was ready for him this time, folding to one knee and hooking one muscled arm over Prometheus’s collar. He rocked back from the torrent of kisses Prometheus rained over the surface of his face. “Back,” Gavin said, gentle. “Back.” Prometheus’s wriggling body went still as Gavin found the place behind his ear that made the canine groan. “Good boy,” Mavis heard him murmur. He ran a hand along Prometheus’s spine before glancing up.

The frown was never far from his face. It returned in force. Replacing the Oakley sunglasses he had wisely removed before receiving Prometheus’s attentions, he straightened, his feet braced apart on the decking. He didn’t say a word when Prometheus began to wind circles around them, bumping his head and body against the man’s knees in a motion that would’ve looked feline had it not been for the speedy whip motion of the dog’s tail.

Briar didn’t hesitate to approach Gavin. “You made it,” she greeted, taking his rigid form into her arms.

“I’m sweating.” Gavin’s hands lifted, lowered, then rose the rest of the way to hug Briar back. After a second, his head dipped so that his cheek touched her temple. He let her go, but not without a small rub over the slender line of her back. “I heard rumors about your potato salad and Gerald’s rum ribs.”

Briar patted his flat tummy. “You could use some of both, I think.”

“Thanks,” he said without seeming to take offense. He reached down and ran his fingers down Bea’s upturned face, pinching her nose lightly between his knuckles. “This one charmed me out of wrestling Harmony for shotgun.”

“He taught me how to make a spitball,” Bea revealed.

“Lord help us, Gavin,” Briar said, and sighed.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry about that.” His gaze relocated—to Mavis. “How’s it hangin’, Frexy?”

Mavis narrowed her eyes. “Frexy?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Since you hate Freckles so much. Thought I’d change it up.”

“Frexy?” she said again.

When he said nothing further, Briar pointed out, “We were just talking, Mavis and I, about Miss Zelda.”

Lines barred the sides of his mouth, his attention all over Mavis again and displeased. “And me.”

Rigid as he was, he still emitted a waver of suspicion around his full lips. “Well, yeah,” Mavis answered. She crossed her arms. “Your stepmother wanted to know if you can do a Fallen Angel yet.”

He hesitated, measuring her. “What’d you tell her?”

“That I can’t wait to see you try.”

His features didn’t ease much. Mavis knew him well enough, however, to see them smooth, even if the frown persisted. He shifted his feet beneath him. “Can you?”

“What?” she asked. Jesus. It’d been nearly a week. She’d forgotten how little effort it took for the center line of his focus to knock her off-kilter.

“Do a Fallen Angel,” he said.

She spread her hands. “Come to class and find out.”

A hint of a grin flirted with the edges of his mouth.

Her heart reeled. Son of a bitch, she thought. Uncomfortable, she snapped her spine straight. There was a crepe myrtle encroaching on the deck. The white blossom heads were heavy enough to bow to the ensuing heat. One tickled her elbow. Irritably, she pinched the crown of blossoms until she rent flowers loose between her fingers. She stared at them for a moment before handing them absently to Bea.

She and Briar made a motion to escape into the air-conditioned house. Mavis’s feet shuffled in an awkward ball change to follow. “I taught a beginner class a few months ago. I could teach you a few poses or help you build your own flow to manage tension, stress...even head and neck aches.”

“I don’t think stretching’s going to solve all my problems,” he said.

“Probably not,” she agreed. She let the door close after Bea and Briar, lingering with her hand on the knob. He pivoted slowly to face her, giving her a second to measure the solid slope of his shoulders and his T-shirt-clad back. Briar was right. He had lost weight. “But if you can’t punch your way through the bigger problems, you might as well start chiseling away at the small stuff. Otherwise, you’re just...standing still.”

He stared. It wasn’t like being bathed in sunlight. More, moonlight. Lots and lots of super moon–light. It was mystical in its intensity—as was Gavin’s effect on her.

When she realized neither of them had spoken in nearly two minutes, she opened the door. The sounds of family conversation lured her in. The door was solid paneling, heavy. She hid a grunt behind her teeth.

A large fist clamped over the top of hers, spreading the door wider from the jamb. He was there, close.

They’d been close before, but she couldn’t remember ever being this aware of him, his large, roughened hands, or his arms roped with muscle and dark hair. Under his white T-shirt she could see the outline of black tattoo work. Body ink was her weakness—the darker, more pronounced and exquisite, the better.

Dark, pronounced, exquisite—like him.

What are you doing? she wondered. She stopped from shaking her head. He didn’t move the frigging earth; he opened a door.

She wasn’t into chivalry. She quelled the urge to trace what she could see of the tattoo’s design through the thin cotton. When her fingertips—and other areas—grew hot at the idea of tugging down the collar of his shirt altogether, she moved over the threshold out of his way.

Harmony seized the moment by shouting across the room, “You two! We’ve got frozen lemonade over here. Stop letting the heat in!”

Mavis rolled her eyes at her friend for calling them out. “I’m surprised you came,” she muttered at Gavin.

“I haven’t had Gerald’s cooking in years,” he pointed out. “When he and Briar get going in the kitchen...it’s like religion. Also, I heard there’d be a show.”

“Oh.” He meant her and Zelda. Olivia and Gerald had called them to their orchard in hopes that their EMF meters might be able to help find a lost time capsule of Olivia’s grandparents. Decades ago, the orchard had belonged to them—Ward and the first Olivia. Rumors of activity at the grove had been rife among their circle for decades. Olivia claimed she could still hear her grandmother’s laughter tinkling on the wind in autumn months. Gerald told intriguing anecdotes about the scent of pipe smoke heavy in the evenings near Olivia’s grandfather’s old woodshop. Their second son, Finnian, could jaw for hours about supposed conversations he’d had with Ward. His brother, William, was more close-mouthed, falling quieter whenever the topic was broached.

Today Mavis and Zelda weren’t here to debunk the Leightons’ claims. They were on hand to aid in what was sure to be an exhaustive search. Mavis had come dressed for dirty work in a gray cropped T-shirt and a thin plaid work shirt unbuttoned over fitted workout capris and black-and-white high-tops. She came prepared with EMF readers and a shovel of her own. Olivia had called on Briar, her first cousin, and Cole. It was Gerald’s idea to prepare the family-style fiesta.

“I thought you weren’t interested in what Zelda and I do,” Mavis said as they joined the queue for plates.

“I’m not interested in joining the revelry,” Gavin claimed. “But I bet from a distance it’s fair entertainment.”

“That proves you’ve never seen EMFs operate,” she said. “Ever worked with a metal detector?”

“At least they find treasure,” he said, handing her a plate off the stack and motioning her ahead in line. “Or tinfoil.”

“Depending on the contents of Olivia and Ward’s time capsule,” Mavis replied, “we might be finding more than that today.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it, Frexy.”

* * *

THE BLADE CUT deep into the dirt. The smells of earth, clay and rain enriched the air as Gavin worked under the baking sun.