Page 16 of Healing Home
He laughed with her and she took a second to just watch him. He was such a good-looking guy. Normally, she felt like she could hold her own when it came to looks, but he was very pretty. She’d caught several people, both male and female, checking him out as they’d walked down the beach. Though he’d been watchful as they’d gone down the beach, she didn’t think he’d been noticing their attention.
Could he really be as humble as he appeared? If he was, he was an aberration. Seemed like every man she met wanted sex and ego-stroking. Link seemed to want to fly under the radar. He really did seem to be a good guy. She didn’t understand why he wasn’t attached.
“No former Mrs.?”
Link winced a little. “There was, but she was more concerned with showing me off than actually having a relationship. With me, at least. Her boyfriend at the time was apparently okay with the set-up.”
BB winced along with him. “Oh, damn. Sorry.”
“SEALs get it a lot, though my unit has a pretty good group of solid marriages. Which is not the norm when it comes to Navy SEALs.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It takes a couple of very strong people to keep a marriage together when one half is gone most of the year. I’ve seen my buddies struggle.”
“Hm,” she agreed.
It would definitely be hard being in a relationship like that. Hopefully the good times would outweigh the lonely times. “And the danger you’re subjected to has to take a toll on the women, too.”
Link smiled grimly. “Navy SEAL wives are warriors in their own right, and I’m more scared of some of the women in our group than their men. I know Black’s wife is going to kick my ass next time I see her.”
“Why?” She asked, laughing.
He scrubbed a hand over his short dark hair. “Because I was supposed to keep her husband out of trouble, and I didn’t do that. He retires in three weeks, and now he’s dealing with an injury.”
She waved a hand. “I’m sure you didn’t shove him into the path of a bullet, or whatever. Did you?”
“No.”
“And he’s probably old enough to take care of himself, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Link grinned at her and began gathering up their trash.
“That was dangerously good. Do you, like, walk down here every day when you’re home? The guy knew your name.”
It was hard to tell but she thought he looked a little guilty. “Of course not every day. That would be just ridiculous. Of course not. Hm, mm.”
But he wouldn’t look at her, and the way he said it it was obvious he was playing, like he was embarrassed. It made her think he actually did come down every day. She stared at him, but he’d turned away and started walking toward the beach. BB picked up her cup of ice water, refilled her water bottle and slipped it into her bag as she followed along, her heart aching for the solitary man.
* * *
Lincoln waitedfor BB to join him, holding out a hand to guide her through the deep sand. It was crazy how used to holding her hand he’d gotten. It had only taken a few hours. At first he hadn’t appreciated the touch. It was a little invasive, he thought, and not always smart tactically. If he had to reach for a weapon he was fucked. But he’d quickly grown used to it. Who would have thought?
BB was… something. He glanced at her as he led her down the beach. The white dress thing she was wearing was short enough to expose the long length of her thighs, and he couldn’t look at her too long. She was too beautiful and quite honestly, he was too hard up. It had been an embarrassingly long time since he’d been with a woman.
The wind gusted then, outlining the shape of her breasts. It looked like she wore a suit beneath her little white dress, and it cupped her breasts very nicely. He was glad he had sunglasses on because it gave him a little bit of freedom to look, but it would backfire. The shorts he wore were not very… restraining.
Maybe he needed to take a dip in the drink.
BB chatted about things easily. She was definitely more of a talker than he was, but she was interesting. She actually talked about things rather than herself or what she thought about the latest whatever trend. It was obvious that she was a well-read, intelligent woman and though he didn’t talk as much as she did, he enjoyed listening to her. And he realized that the things that she found interesting were very similar to his own. They had a sharp sense of humor, sometimes a little dark.
“Do you find yourself curbing your creativity to suit the papers?”
She glanced at him, giving him a lopsided smile. “Definitely. You have to walk the PC line and still be funny. Do I make people mad? I’m sure at some point I have. I’m not a political satirist, but I can appreciate the art. Not everyone does. And it’s hard to keep completely middle of the road. I’m sure if you looked at everything I’d created in the past two years you could see who I’d voted for and what was important to me as a citizen.” She shrugged lightly. “You’re never going to make everyone a hundred percent happy a hundred percent of the time.”
“True,” he agreed. “Want to sit for a while?”