Navy Seal's Match

Kyle. Like Harmony, Gavin had found a Bracken bosom buddy in the early years in Fairhope. Kyle had joined him at BUD/S after a year of college. They’d earned their Tridents together.

Kyle could boast just as many battle scars as Gavin. Most of his had come from walking into a frag grenade during his second deployment.

Seeing Mavis’s big brother hung up in traction five years ago hadn’t settled well. Gavin hadn’t stayed long at his buddy’s bedside as a result. No, he’d pushed himself back into the fight with grim determination that smacked of vengeance.

He should’ve slowed down, taken some time to decompress before going on the op months later that had ended abruptly with him carrying Zaccoe’s limp body from conflict.

Benji’s blood. Gavin would never forget how it seeped warm through the back of his digi-camo. He’d never stop cursing how his hands had shaken in the armored vehicle on the way back to base, making his job as medic impossible.

He’d lost that battle. He’d lost it hard, and, with it, a friend. Benji was gone, and he’d left Gavin’s sister a widow.

Everything started to blur once more. The ringing in Gavin’s ears warned him of return flashbacks. He tried blinking to snap himself back to present, then remembered. You’re blind, asshole.

He took a detour, hoping to lose Mavis so he could orient himself.

“Where are you going?” she asked. The question floated to him. It got chopped by the blender in his brain. When he veered into the floral undercroft of a lengthy bougainvillea-wrapped awning, she tailed him. “Gavin?”

He held up a hand. In the shade, things were cooler. The humidity clung to his skin, a wet blanket he couldn’t dislodge any more than the fresh scent of blood in his nostrils or the feeling that brought the tremor to his fingers. His heart beat heavy, the ache behind it keen. His lungs pushed the air in and out, rapid-fire. The overdose of oxygen made him dizzier. Groping, he found one of the awning supports beneath the vines and tried not to stumble into it. Pressing his brow into his forearm, he worked to bring himself out of it.

“You’re having a panic attack.”

No shit. It was what he wanted to say. Along with a whole lot of, You’re still here? What came was more along the lines of, “Mmmph.” And even that caught in his throat.

Mavis’s expressionless words came to him, closer. “Is it okay if I touch you?”

She still sounded muddled. Everything did when the anxiety peaked. Still, he frowned when he grouped the words together. Is it okay...if I touch you?

Had Mavis ever touched him?

He wasn’t coming down—his pulse, the Tilt-A-Whirl in his head, his breathing. He was being swept up by the sights, sounds, smells from another time and place. The sights, sounds and smells of death. He’d lost track of the self-assertions and tactics that sometimes simulated a sense of control.

Mavis didn’t take his hand. Her cool fingers wrapped loosely around his wrist. Her thumb found the flexed tendon in the center and applied pressure.

The fighter in him punched through. His muscles twitched. Damn it, he was jumpy enough to take her above the elbow and apply pressure of his own. The urge was knee-jerk and wrong. A remnant of his training.

“Do you feel that?”

The question bobbed to the surface. Mavis, he told himself. The brief image of her racing a horse against his at breakneck speed through a crowded wood stopped the training from taking effect. It stopped the urge altogether. He still didn’t know what the hell she was doing, but he nodded in answer.

The pressure of her thumb increased, enough for the blood flow inside the pulse point to slow.

She didn’t hurt him. If anything, the slight discomfort and the odd awareness of her skin against his tuned him in to her further.

While his pulse careered and the battle raged inside his head, she held him. Then, over the same spot, she began to knead.

It was several minutes before he realized that his focus had shifted. The pressure lifted off his chest enough to breathe. The words he usually told himself came to him. He chained them to the flight rhythm of his heart, slowing them by minor increments until the chant became a mantra and his heart rate leveled.

It wasn’t until he opened his eyes that he realized he’d relaxed enough for her to grasp his other arm. She kneaded his opposite wrist.

When he was able to bring his voice to the surface, he swallowed, fighting against a dry throat. “What’re you doing?”

“Acupressure,” she said. After more kneading, she added, “How does it feel?”

He raised his brows in answer. He lifted his lids again. Her dark head was beneath his. She was looking down between them. She smelled nothing like brimstone. He caught a surprising waft of fresh, cool mango. Her jet hair looked soft, so much so that he considered resting his cheek against it.

But that would’ve been weird.

Gavin bit off a curse. “Don’t you know better than to approach somebody like me with his guard down?”

She shrugged, letting her touch slide across his palms, down his fingertips and away. “You held yourself together.”

“I wanted to snap your arm.” He grated the words through his teeth. “Like a ruler.”

“You didn’t.”

He tilted his head at her. Who was this creature? With him so determined to stay away from life stateside, he and Mavis had rarely crossed paths after adulthood. As a boy, he’d been too distracted to take more than a second or two to fan the mystery of her. As a man, he’d been too busy elbowing his way back into the fight to really notice her. Cut to his return to Fairhope three weeks ago; she’d been the one who’d seemed busy, rushing in and out of the inn to drop off Harmony and Benji’s daughter, Bea, or grabbing a quick bite from Briar’s kitchen on her lunch break.

She had no reason to trust him—who he was then, who he was now. What the hell had he ever done for Mavis Bracken? “Your brother’s a SEAL,” he reminded her. “You know what goes through an operative’s mind.”

“What’s your point?”

“Keep your distance from me, Mavis. I’m a house on fire.”

“When a house is on fire, you throw water on it,” she told him. “You don’t stand back and let it burn.”

“You do if it’s too far gone.”

“Not everybody does.”

This wasn’t working. “Would you approach a wounded predator in the wild?”

Mavis took a step back, perhaps out of respect. “That depends. How well do I know this predator?”

“Huh?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“If this were any normal predator in the wild, I’d walk away. But if I knew, for example, that he liked blondes not brunettes, mustard not ketchup, and salty foods in lieu of sweets...more than likely, I’d use that to my advantage.”

He stared through the damaged veil of his eyes. “You remember all that about me.”

“Gavin, you hung out at my house with my brother every day you were in town as a kid. That’s ten years you and I ate at the same table. I can’t tell you how many times I saw the two of you turn out your billfolds for the customary condom count when Mom wasn’t looking.”

Gavin gave a startled laugh.

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re still proud of that, are you?”

He coughed slightly, bringing his fist to his mouth. “Uh, no. Of course not, no. You remember?” He wasn’t able to get over it.

“Don’t you remember anything about me?”