The Marine's Embrace

“No? What time was it?”

Well, she’d set herself up for that one. “A little before midnight. He missed me and didn’t want to wait until morning to see me.”

“He didn’t think to call you earlier? To let you know he was coming to town?”

She blinked rapidly. “He...he probably wanted to surprise me.”

“He wanted what he always wants,” Damien muttered.

“He wanted to see me,” she insisted, hugging her arms around herself.

She wouldn’t let Damien or anyone else tarnish what had happened between her and Shane last night. Wouldn’t let them take away her happiness. Not when she was already terrified of it slipping away.

“It’s the same thing, time after time. Shane just happens to be in town—a spur-of-the-moment trip—and calls in the middle of the night, telling you how much he misses you, how much he wants to see you. He shows up, a little or a lot drunk, says what you want to hear, gets you in bed then takes off before the sun comes up.”

“He wasn’t drunk.” Yes, maybe she’d tasted beer when Shane kissed her, but his movements had been steady, his gaze clear. And last night wasn’t like those other times. Last night was different.

It had to be.

Damien set the whisk down and rounded the island to take both her hands in his large ones. Squeezed gently. “You can’t keep sleeping with him. You’re going to get hurt.”

She tugged free of his hold. Told herself he was only trying to help her. That he didn’t mean to be cruel. But she was tired of giving everyone the benefit of the doubt when they were all so quick to doubt her intelligence, to judge her decisions.

“You don’t understand.” No one did. They couldn’t comprehend what the past three years had been like for her. How hard she’d had to pretend that she was fine without Shane in her life.

“I understand he’s a user and a liar and that he cheated on you—left you for a nineteen-year-old.”

“He made a mistake,” she said hoarsely. “One he regrets. I’ve forgiven him.”

She clutched the ring hanging from the chain around her neck. Her wedding ring. She had to wear it under her clothes like some secret, like a personal sin. But soon, soon she’d put it back on her finger for the world to see. Then they’d all know she wasn’t some fool, hoping and wishing for a fantasy to come true. They’d all see how wrong they were about Shane.

How wrong they were about her.

Damien shook his head sadly. “I know you think you need him, but you don’t. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you start to believe in yourself and put yourself first, the better off you’ll be.”

Fay’s bottom lip trembled. She bit down on it. Hard. There was nothing more to say and certainly nothing more she wanted to hear, so she swept past him and went up the stairs. As much as she’d like to believe she did so as calmly and as regally as a queen, by the time she reached her apartment she was sweating and out of breath, having raced up the two flights like a teenage girl in the throes of a major pity party.

In her bedroom, she shut the door and leaned back against it. Damien was wrong. They were all wrong. She did need Shane.

She didn’t know who she was without him.

CHAPTER TWO (#u5e8ac59a-3da4-5166-82e9-7ab0ed1bc905)

HE WAS LOST.

In Shady Grove, Pennsylvania.

How the hell was that even possible?

Not lost, Zach Castro amended. He knew where he was. At the corner of Main and Kennedy Streets, downtown Shady Grove, surrounded directly by squat buildings, most of which looked to be one hundred years old, the outer area nothing but rolling green hills. The sun warmed his head, but the cool breeze ruffling the empty right sleeve of his T-shirt reminded him that though it was late April, this small town was a world away from Houston in more ways than one.

Yeah, he knew exactly where he was. He just didn’t know where he was going.

Story of his freaking life.

The cab driver had dropped him off, insisting this exact spot was the address Zach had given him. Lying bastard.

He pulled out his phone, opened the maps app and typed in O’Riley’s. Two blocks away. He could do that.

He hoped.

He shifted his weight onto his left leg, but the ache in his right thigh remained and would no doubt grow in intensity. Pain was his new normal. There was nothing he could do about it except grit his teeth and bear it.

His right leg had stiffened up during the plane ride from Houston to Pittsburgh and had only gotten worse in the forty-minute cab ride that had brought him here. Moving would help. Eventually. But first, he knew, it was going to hurt like a son of a bitch.

New normal, he reminded himself. Bending at the waist, he grabbed his duffel from where the cabbie had dropped it at the curb and slung the strap over his left shoulder. Following the directions on his phone he turned—slowly and carefully—to the east and began walking.

Pain shot from just above his knee up to his hip. Sweat formed on his upper lip. He breathed through his mouth, fighting the nausea rising in his throat, and kept going, his stride awkward, his limp heavy, his gaze straight ahead. He felt people staring at him, scurrying out of his way, watching him as they passed. Wondering who he was. What he was doing there.

Their curiosity rolled off him, but their sympathy—and worse, their pity—grated. He didn’t want it. Didn’t need anyone feeling sorry for him, for what he’d lost. He was getting through it, wasn’t he? He’d already made progress, had gotten himself out of that wheelchair and on to a prosthetic leg. The surgeries, the grueling physical therapy, learning how to walk again had all been worth it. Each step he took, no matter how small, was a victory.

One that would be easier to celebrate if it didn’t hurt so goddamn much.

He passed a hardware store with a row of colorful, decorative flags waving in the breeze, then a bookstore’s bright and cheerful window display. At the corner he turned right. Halfway there, he told himself, squinting against the sun.

By the time he reached the next corner, his shirt was damp and sticking to him and his breaths were coming in gasps. He leaned against a street lamp and looked across the street at O’Riley’s.

It wasn’t what he’d expected at all.

Thank Christ.

Knowing the bar was owned by Kane Bartasavich, of the Houston Bartasaviches, Zach had pictured an upscale place, all sleek lines and plenty of glass. A place where the country-club set went to drink their lunch or stopped by after work for a fancy cocktail that cost as much as a decent meal.

He hadn’t pictured a two-story gray building that seemed to list to one side, a parking lot that needed repaving and neon beer signs in the windows.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been wrong. Wouldn’t be the last.

Unlike certain members of his family—namely his father and eldest brother—he didn’t get bent out of shape when things didn’t go his way. Didn’t carry the illusion that he had all the answers. He liked to think the arrogance that ran in his bloodline, the huge egos that had been handed down generation to generation, had somehow skipped him, but the truth was, he’d worked damned hard to be as different from them as possible.

He had spent his entire life pushing them away. Keeping them all at a distance.

Now, here he was—not quite broken, but a far cry from being whole—and who was the only person he could think to turn to?

A Bartasavich.

Fate was a coldhearted bitch with a twisted sense of humor.

Readjusting his duffel bag, he crossed the street, then made his way past a number of vehicles in the parking lot. Something else he hadn’t counted on or, to be honest, considered when he’d decided to come here—that there would be people inside a small-town bar in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon.