Page 188 of Cowboys & Navy SEALs

“What?” She touched her hair. “I look awful, don’t I?”

“You look fine.” He hoped lightning wouldn’t strike him down for telling a lie. No wonder Felicity didn’t want to get wet. She looked like a drowned poodle that had black zigzags running down her face. Addie’s face flashed before him and with it came a longing that ached through his entire body. He’d brought Addie kayaking. Like him, she was in her element and couldn’t get enough of the stories about the folklore and legends surrounding each cave. Addie had whooped and laughed when the waves rushed over them. She’d looked stunningly beautiful with her flawless olive skin, water droplets nestling in her corkscrew curls and shimmering like diamonds in the sun.

He’d not been back to Birchwood Springs since that fateful evening when he saw Addie with another man. Despite everything, he still found himself hoping that Addie would reach out to him. Several times, he’d been tempted to call or text her to see how she was doing. Then he reminded himself that she’d dumped him—said she couldn’t handle being with a guy who ate danger for breakfast. “Every time you get deployed, I live in constant fear that you won’t come back,” she said.

Maddox almost didn’t come back. The mission to Syria where he and his fellow SEAL members were captured and tortured by ISIS operatives nearly turned out to be his undoing. The horrors of the ensuing torture at the hands of his captors still haunted Maddox. He’d gone through several rounds of therapy, including eye movement desensitization and reprocessing psychotherapy or EMDR. Surprisingly, EMDR had been the most helpful of all his treatments. While focusing on a repetitive motion or sound,he revisited the upsetting memory. This technique was repeated until Maddox could process the trauma so that it wasn’t as distressing.

He’d first heard about EMDR from Creed, a fellow SEAL member who’d been in Syria with him. It seemed like a crock of crap to Maddox, but Creed kept raving about it, so he finally tried it. He was grateful to find something that helped ease his PTSD. Too bad he couldn’t find a treatment that would stop him from comparing every girl he went out with to Addie. Talking to Addie’s grandfather, Wallace, yesterday brought everything back. It made him miss Addie so much he could hardly stand it. Wallace hinted that Addie missed him and suggested that he reach out to her. He scowled. As much as he wanted Addie back, a relationship required the cooperation of two people, hence the old saying,It takes two to tango. Addie had made it crystal clear that she wanted nothing to do with him.

“What is that in the water?” Felicity asked, her voice crackling with tension. “Please tell me it’s not a shark.”

He looked to where she was pointing and saw a fin. It dipped under the water and back up. He spotted another fin about two feet behind the first. “Those are dolphins.”

Her voice grew shrill. “No, they’re sharks! Oh, no. What’re we going to do?”

Maddox laughed. “Nothing. Just enjoy them. It’s not every day you get an up-close look at dolphins.”

She shuddered, hugging her arms. “I knew we should’ve just gone to the movies like normal people. I can’t believe I let you drag me out here. It’s freezing.” She groaned. “And raining!”

Maddox glanced up. It was raining, or rather sprinkling. He’d gotten so caught up in thinking about Addie that he hadn’t noticed. “Oh, yeah,” he said absently. “Sorry.” He chuckled inwardly. What had he been reduced to? Apologizing for the weather?Sheesh.

His gaze went up to the mansions perched on the edge of the seventy-foot, craggy cliff running parallel with them as they made their way to the sea caves. He pointed. “See the mansion at twelve o’clock?” Whenever Maddox needed to take the edge off a conversation he went into trivia mode. Before becoming a SEAL, Maddox had worked as a freelance travel writer and photographer, storing up a trove of seemingly insignificant details about people and places. Although, the facts had served him well in Syria when dealing with the guards that held him prisoner. Maddox’s motto was,If you want to get to know the person, get to know his culture.

“Which one?” Felicity asked dubiously.

Maddox rolled his eyes. Felicity probably had no idea what twelve o’clock meant. She was a total airhead. “The sand-colored mansion directly in front of us.” He had to fight to keep the condescension out of his voice. He didn’t want to come across as aknow-it-all.

“Yeah? What about it?” she said in a bored tone.

Why was he even bothering to carry on a conversation with Felicity? She lived in his same condominium complex. When they first met, she seemed fun and upbeat, a nice diversion from his heartache and frustration over Addie. The more time he spent with Felicity, however, the more he realized this was a dead end. They had nothing in common, and her diva attitude was getting old.

“It used to have a guest house below it. Last year, it crashed to the beach.”

“You’re making this up.”

“No, I’m one hundred percent serious. The land is constantly eroding. Where people used to have twenty or more feet of land beyond their decks and pools, the structures are now teetering on the edge. In another fifty years, there’s a good chance that all the mansions you see right now will be gone. If investors weresmart, they’d buy up the homes one row behind the ones on the edge. Then as soon as their neighbors’ homes crash to the beach below, they’ll have an unencumbered view of the ocean.” He’d hoped for at least a courtesy laugh for his joke, but she remained quiet, an awkward silence descending over them.

He pointed. “See that mansion three houses to the right of the sandstone one?”

“Yep.”

“The children’s author Dr. Seuss was friends with the owner. Legend has it that Dr. Seuss loved to attend parties there. He’d stay late into the evening. And his?—”

She let out a loud sigh. “Is there a point to this story?”

Maddox flinched like he’d been slapped. Had she really just said that to him? “I was getting to the point, before you so rudely interrupted me.”

She grunted. “Fine. Continue.”

For a second, Maddox almost didn’t tell her the rest, but then he decided to be the bigger person. “His wife didn’t like going to the parties. She’d stay home and get irritated that her husband was gone so long. She’d call and nag him to come home. The experience gave him material to writeThe Grinch that Stole Christmas.”

“Huh. Interesting,” she said in a flat tone.

Maddox made a split-second decision. “All right. Date’s over. I’m taking you home.” AndI won’t be asking you out again, he added mentally.

“Finally!” she exclaimed. “I’m ready to get out of this horrid wet suit. I hate to even think of the germs lurking inside it.”

When they were back at the rental company changing into their regular clothes, Maddox got a call from Corbin. He answered on the first ring. “Hey, man.”

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