Page 82 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

“I do not believe she was brokenhearted. In fact, I think she had someone lined up for once I shipped off.”

“So you were brokenhearted?”

“Hardly. I was eighteen and joining the navy. I did plenty of experiencing in the years before I was deployed. But being a SEAL doesn’t offer much stability to make a relationship work.”

“And that would be very important to you, wouldn’t it?”

“What? Stability?”

“The ability to give someone else that stability.”

“I guess so. I wouldn’t want to let anyone down. I wouldn’t want my choices to be hard on anyone. Or at least harder.”

She leaned over the bench between them and brushed her mouth across his cheek. Something sweet and light.

“What was that for?”

“I just think you’re a really great guy.”

Her gaze was a little too dreamy, and he fidgeted. “I am not without my faults.”

“Oh, I know that. Trust me, I could list them for you if you’d like.” She smiled at him when he slid her a look.

“I’ll pass.”

He drove them into and through Blue Valley, up to the ranch. Silence settled over them as darkness encroached. It was another beautiful spring night—cool and dark, with a clear, bright sky.

“I love spring,” Becca said on a sigh. “There’s so much to do and every time you get a chance to rest and relax it seems like there’s so much promise in the air.”

He glanced over at her as he brought the truck to a stop. Promise. Yes, there was definitely a lot of that in the air.

He didn’t like putting too much stock in that or allowing her the idea that he had much to give. But he also knew he was a hard worker, and as Jack had said the other morning, they’d gotten themselves out of a lot of sticky situations. This couldn’t be harder than dealing with crises in Afghanistan and surviving a car accident caused by a grenade explosion.

He could handle Becca Denton. He could handle seeing what they could do together. And if they couldn’t do anything together…well, they could probably both deal with that too. How hard would it be to make some rational choices?

“You want to drive up to the north pasture and look at the stars?” he offered.

She smiled at him and then looked at the bag still clasped in her hands. She frowned a little, but soon enough the smile was back. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

* * *

Alex drove them up and around the barn to the north pasture. Because it was on a hill, most of the house, barn, and stables were hidden behind a swell of land.

All that existed were stars and mountains and moon. It never failed to make Becca feel small and awed and so darn hopeful.

Alex pushed the truck into park and Becca looked down at her bag.

“There are some blankets in the back. Stay put with the heater till I get it set up.”

In another moment, she might have argued, but Alex fussing with blankets gave her time to pull the box of condoms out of the drugstore bag. He slid out of the truck and she scrambled to pull the box out of the bag and rip it open. She tried to detach one of the condoms from its row, but Alex knocked on her window and she jumped about a foot.

She shoved the whole box into her coat pocket. Luckily it was as dark in the cab of the truck as it was outside, so he likely couldn’t have seen her guilty reaction.

She slid out of the truck and into the inky black of night only punctuated by a steady beam of moonlight and the faded glow of a million stars.

It was cold, and Alex handed her a heavy work coat that must have been in the back of the truck. She pulled it on over her own jacket as they walked to the bed of the truck. She could barely make it out in the milky light of a clear night, but a handful of blankets had been laid out in the back of the truck, creating a nest of sorts.

Her heart fluttered in happy anticipation as she crawled up into the lump of blankets. She rearranged a little bit to roll one of the blankets into something like a pillow for both of them. She made sure to sit where the lumpy pocket full of condoms would be next to the truck side, not Alex.

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