Page 15 of Save Me

And he dreamed.

LAINIE WAS LYING beneath him, her arms locked around his neck. There were tears in her eyes, and her lips were slightly parted, as if trying to catch her breath. They’d both been scared when they laid down. She’d never had sex. He’d never made love to a virgin. He was fully erect and protected, and she was willing, but this was a hell of a responsibility he didn’t want to flub.

“I love you, Lainie, but don’t know how to keep from hurting you,” he whispered.

“I know that, but I love you, too, and you’re worth it,” she said, and held her breath as he moved between her legs, and then slipped inside her, felt the barrier and pushed.

Quick tears came with a gasp, and then he began to move, and the pain was gone. She looked up into the face above her, and then wrapped her arms around his neck and closed her eyes. It felt good. It felt right. And it kept getting better. She didn’t know what a climax was until it hit, and then she lost her mind.

The blood rush was still rolling through when Hunt raised up and began searching her face, afraid of what she’d think. How she’d feel.

“Did it hurt you, darlin’?”

“Only for a second,” she said. “The rest was magic.”

His hands were in her hair as he leaned down and kissed her.

“I have dreamed of what this would be like, to make love to you. It was perfect. You’re perfect.”

Her gaze was locked upon his face. He had that raptor look in his eyes. Like he’d just caught the prey he’d been after, and claimed it. It was the side of him that turned him into a machine on the football field. That fight or die mindset. She loved it and she loved him.

“Hunter James Gray, you are my first love. My last love. My only love. It will always be you.”

“God, Lainie. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I love you so much I ache from it,” he whispered, then moved from her, and stretched out beside her instead.

Silence filled the moments as they nestled in each other’s arms, but it was Lainie who broke the silence, and her voice was shaking when she spoke.

“If I ever get lost from you, Hunt, don’t quit me. It will never be my choice.”

He knew where that was coming from. Their fathers’ war.

“If they cause trouble, I’ll find a way to save you. I promise,” he said.

“I promise... I promise... I promise.”

HUNT WOKE UP saying the words. “I promise. I promise.”

The moment he heard his voice, the old regret rolled through him, but today he was starting over. He threw back the covers and headed for the shower again. He had a thousand things to do today, and finding a place to live was first on the list.

WITHIN A WEEK, Hunt signed a lease on a 900 square foot, two-bedroom, one-bath house on the outskirts of Flagstaff. He just spent the last ten years of his life within an army, responding to orders shouted, the constant chatter of conversation, and when deployed, a multitude of snoring. He needed peace and privacy. He was lost, and looking for the man he would be without the boots and uniforms.

With a new address to his name, he then contacted the lawyer back in New Orleans to have his personal papers sent. He didn’t know if his parents still lived where they had, or if they were even still alive, and didn’t care. They were part of what broke him.

The job he’d taken with Randolph Tours and Charters was perfect. Nothing was asked of him but to ferry people from one place to another. Wherever he went, he was always home by evening. The churning waters of his life were beginning to calm. He was almost twenty-nine years old, and most days, he felt fifty, but life went on, taking him with it.

SIX HUNDRED SEVENTY-SEVEN miles north, Lainie Mayes was leaving home in a downpour on her way to work at Denver Health Center. She’d long ago switched her studies from nursing to X-ray and radiology, then on to becoming Certified in Radiologic Technology. She was coming up on her ninth year at the facility, and was as satisfied with her path in life as she knew how to be. There was a hole in her heart, and a tear in her soul, but she was still standing. She glanced back at the house as she was driving away.

It was her refuge. The place where she could unload frustrations and tears in the privacy of her own home, and she bought it the second year after she received her CRT certification.

THE THREE-BEDROOM BRICK, two bath house had been a fixer-upper when she took possession, and the first thing she did was hire a contractor to remodel and update it to her style.

The first thing she changed were the old red bricks. She had them painted a soft, eggshell white, then repainted the shutters sage green. The extra-wide door was stripped down to the wood, and refinished in a cherrywood stain to match the fireplace mantel in the living room.

And when the exterior was finished, the contractor began restructuring the interior, taking down walls, remodeling the entire kitchen, retiling the fireplace and the bathrooms, adding a stand-up shower in the en suite, and a soaker tub instead of the old Jacuzzi. She finished all the walls in white, and used furniture and decor to add color.

The fireplace had been converted to gas logs, which suited her, and she also kept the massive cherrywood mantel and retiled the surround. It was her favorite feature in the house. Not only was it striking, but useful in offsetting the harsh Denver winters.

One day not long after she moved, she picked up a child-size rocking chair at a tag sale. When she got home, she set it beside the hearth, then went into her bedroom to get her old teddy bear and carried it back to the fireplace.

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