Page 2 of Waiting for Him
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Zimmerman. I . . .” Boomer walked over, peered down at the woman’s face, and froze. Confusion in his eyes turned to pure shock, and Ian watched as the blood drained from his teammate’s face. His ordinarily strong voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “Katerina?”
And with that, Benjamin Thomas “Boomer” Michaelson did something he’d never done before in his life. He fainted.
* * *
Yes, Benny, I will. I promise I’ll wait for you forever . . . forever . . . forever.
“Boomer. Boomer! Wake up, frog, that’s an order!”
The words and a knuckle digging painfully into his chest finally penetrated Boomer’s fog-filled mind, and his eyes blinked. Ian knelt beside him with a look of concern on his face, while on his other side, Beau regarded him with a curious tilt of his furry head. And since Ian was on his knees and Boomer was flat on his back, it meant he was on the floor for some stupid reason. Rubbing his sore sternum, he asked, “W-what happened?”
“You okay? You fainted.”
Snorting, the younger man stared at his boss like he had two heads. “Yeah, right. I’ve never fainted in my life. Not even when I saw the bone sticking out of my leg after the RPG attack.”
It’d been a little over two years since the incident in Afghanistan, and the injuries had almost cost him his leg. After several surgeries, he’d needed a knee replacement to repair the other damage to his shinbone. After he’d recovered, his tour was just about up, so he opted out of the Navy and rejoined his former teammates here at Trident.
Ian shifted back a little as his friend sat up. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Boomer’s eyes narrowed as his head finally stopped spinning. “I was dreaming . . .” The blood drained from his face, and he dragged a hand through his hair. “Ah, fuck. It wasn’t a dream, was it?”
Standing, Ian offered a hand to help him up. “No. It wasn’t.”
“Where is she?” He glanced around the room as if Katerina would suddenly reappear.
“Sitting out by Colleen’s desk. I asked her to step outside so I could wake your ass up and find out what the fuck is going on. Now start talking, Ben. Who is she?”
Boomer knew his boss was not only worried but pissed because the man never used his given name unless he was in trouble, but at the moment, he didn’t give a shit.
“In a minute.” Striding out the door of the conference room, he went in search of a ghost.
Chapter Two
Twelve Years Earlier . . .
Ben waved goodbye to the last of his friends, who were heading to their cars parked a short distance from the James River beach where they all gathered. An almost full moon was high in the sky on the warm summer night, and his going-away party had dwindled a little after one morning. It was the Friday night, actually Saturday morning, before he left for basic training the following weekend. He was joining the Navy and would hopefully make his way into the elite SEALs like his father before him.
Much to his wife’s relief, Rick Michaelson had done his twenty years with only a few non-life-threatening injuries before getting out for good. He was now working for a friend who ran a private investigation company while teaching history classes at the local community college. But since their only child had graduated high school and was leaving the nest, Ben’s folks were talking about selling their home in Norfolk, Virginia, and moving to somewhere in Florida—maybe near his aunt in Sarasota.
He glanced around and saw Katerina sitting on a large rock near the shoreline. He’d told his best friend, Alex Maier, he’d make sure his sister got home safely. That way, Alex could hook up with Daniella Silverman, who’d been flirting with him all evening. Ben didn’t mind driving Kat home since all three of them had grown up together these past seven years. Alex was six months older than Ben, who was six months older than Kat. But despite their closeness, she was a year younger than them in school because of her early December birthday.
Grabbing two colas from his cooler, he climbed up on the rock and sat beside her before handing her one of the cans. This close to his goal of a military career, he wasn’t taking any chances with drinking and driving and had stopped the beer after nursing three of them in four hours. Katerina smiled at him, and he tried to ignore the twitch in his crotch, which had been happening often around her for the past few weeks, ever since she’d been his date for the prom.
He couldn’t fathom why, out of the blue, he saw her as less of a buddy and more as the beautiful woman she was becoming. But there was no way he was putting the moves on his best friend’s sister, no matter how attracted he was to her. The attraction would pass after he started meeting all the uniform bunnies who wanted to hook up with any man in the military. He just had to keep reminding himself of that.
“Thanks, Benny.”
He rolled his eyes at her, and she giggled. She was the only person who still called him by the juvenile nickname. Everyone else had been calling him Ben, at his request, since the start of high school. “So, what’re you going to do without Alex and me around all the time to bug you and chase your boyfriends away?”
She shrugged and let out a tiny snort. “I’ll be fine. It’s only one more year until I get to go away to college, too. And I still have Alex for most of the summer until he leaves for Villanova.” Her smile faded, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m going to miss you.”
Throwing his arm over her shoulder, he pulled her in for a sideways hug. “I’m going to miss you too, Kitten. But maybe I can get an assignment out of Little Creek, and then we’ll be able to see each other all the time again.”
They sat that way for a while, looking out over the water, with her head resting on his collarbone. When she placed her hand on his bent knee, and her thumb began to rub the bare skin his shorts didn’t cover, his dick decided to betray him, noticing how good her touch felt. He tried to subtly adjust himself by shifting his hips.
Without pulling her head away, she tilted it up to look at him with those soft chestnut eyes of hers. “Are you uncomfortable? I can move.”
“No, you’re fine.” And boy, was she. The sudden intimacy between them was making him forget all the reasons why he shouldn’t be thinking of kissing her. The urge to claim her worsened when her eyelids lowered, and she stared at his mouth. He felt the soft puffs of her breath on his neck and smelled the mint gum she’d been chewing earlier, in addition to the shampoo she’d used to wash her hair. He was now painfully aware of her lush right breast crushed against his ribcage, and he thought he could feel her hardened nipple through the cotton tank she wore over her bikini top.
