Page 15 of Light on Love
She turns back to the stove. “It’s a pasta dish, and it’s almost done.”
“You know you’re an amazing cook, right?”
“Before being here, I only cooked for myself. I always like what I make, but I might be biased.” She glances over her shoulder at him, “this has been more fun, cooking for you too.”
She brings the food over to the island and they sit and eat in silence initially, other than Brett’s compliments about the meal. She still feels surprised at the ease of being with him, content just sharing a space and a moment. The longer she’s around Brett, the more she’s confused by the way people describe him.
After finishing eating, they take two beers out to the porch swing. Laurel brings her legs up, tucking her heels under herself and leans towards him. Brett extends his hand without thedrink across the back of the swing behind her and they sway rhythmically, relaxed together, in the cool evening air.
Laurel steals a glance up at Brett’s profile, mesmerized by him. He was a living, breathing representation of a bad idea. She knew from the way she was already so affected by him that he would be able to completely shatter her heart. And the people who know him describe him as ruthless. Yet, she can’t help but think about how when he looks at her, his eyes soften. She thinks of his subtle gestures since she’s gotten here, and his gentle touches. Could they be wrong?
“Are you like this with everybody?” she blurts out.If the question catches Brett by surprise, he doesn’t react that way.
“No, I’m not,” he replies simply.
A surge of flutters fills her stomach, as she bites back her smile at his answer. She wants to know him more; reconcile the Brett she sees with the one the others see.
“When you were serving, did you miss being a cowboy? Now that you are back, do you miss being a frogman? Floyd mentioned that you left the SEALs for him and Mary. That had to have been so hard for you.”
He moves his hand around to gently tug on a strand of her hair. “You and those questions,” he says softly, a moment passing in silence before he begins.“I honestly thought it would be hard, but when the time came it was so clear to me that coming back was what I needed to do. My mom died when I was young, car accident when I was in elementary school. My dad was always a better rancher than a parent, he didn’t know what to do with me. And that was okay, because I was able to learn so much from him about ranching. Floyd and Mary cared for me like I was their own, though. I always belonged here and knew I’d be back. This ranch is who I am at my core, so it was easy to do it at that time for them.”
He pauses to take a gulp of beer.“As for my time in the Navy? It started as an idea when I was a little kid. I was surrounded by tough men everyday here, I wanted to go do something that proved I was tougher. To be a hero in my own right. After BUD/S and SQT, we go into the pre-deployment training cycles, although I’m sure you know all of this. Well, during my unit level training, special warfare experienced an unspeakable level of loss. A whole platoon was wiped out, men lost or forced into medical discharge. So instead of breaking apart other platoons, they decided to form a new one with green frogmen.”
He lets out a bark, sounding like his laugh is caught in his throat.“One morning we are waking up for training, the next I’m being handed the title of Delta One and being told all the men I was training alongside, now answer to me. Their lives in my hands before I ever saw my first operation.”
Laurel has gone still beside him, her mouth gaping open in shock. They had set him up for so much pain and suffering, then described him as the ruthless one. She feels herself growing hot with anger on Brett’s behalf.
“That’s not even fair to you! How was that okay?”
Brett shrugs, “around there, if you’re good at something then they test you with something even harder. I kept passing tests until I became exactly what I had to be to keep my men safe. I never took a day operating lightly, the decisions I made, the lives I took... Despite what people saw when they looked at me.”
“It seems to me that you’ve spent your life letting people see what they want to see about you. But I’m happy just seeing you, all the parts of you.” She whispers it like it’s a precious secret, laying her head on his shoulder.
Brett is silent for a moment, his hand absently playing with her hair. “What about you, are you happy there? Did you always want to be a profiler?” he asks eventually.
“I always felt like I had certain parameters I had to work in when building my life. Maybe I only imagined them, maybe I built them myself. It’s easy to point to the fact that my family members all lead extremely similar lives and say I didn’t have much inspiration. Or I just didn’t want to venture too far from what was familiar. Either way, while I do love profiling, it’s definitely easier to examine other people rather than myself.”
“And what about being here?”
She smiles against his shoulder. “This place doesn’t fit into the parameters. And yet, I love it.”
He tightens his arm around her, and they sit like that for some time, swaying in the breeze. Laurel feels her eyes growing heavy and moves to rub them, Brett watching her.
“Let’s get you to bed,” he suggests as he stands, extending a hand and guiding her inside. They stop outside her bedroom door, and she blinks sleepily at him. Despite the wave of fatigue crashing on her, Laurel isn’t ready to open the door and be apart from him.
Brett wraps her in his arms, tucking her under his chin. A blissful feeling settles over Laurel, but he only holds her there for a moment. Pulling back, Brett kisses her forehead lightly.“Thanks for seeing me,” he whispers, his lips lingering against her skin. Before Laurel’s brain can form a response, he turns and walks into the room across the hall.
9
Brett’s room is just across the hall, she thinks as she lays in bed. He’s been so close this whole time, yet just out of reach. Laurel ruminates on last night when his lips lingered at her forehead. She should have kept him there and tilted his face down to meet her lips instead. She wanted him, there was no denying it anymore. She wanted all of him.
Laurel rolls onto her back, pulls the covers up to her eyes, and sighs at the thought.After a sleepless night, she is at least comforted to wake to a definite chill in the air. Fall is here. She smiles as she sits up and opens the window behind her bed, taking a deep breath of the crisp breeze that enters her room.
What’s that saying about fresh mountain air, she muses. In the distance, the forest line has been starting to show a distinct color shift, patches of trees across the ranch beginning to yellow. She again finds herself wishing she could expand her confines to explore more.It wouldn’t hurt to ask.
Rising, she dresses in her favorite brown, buttery soft leggings and matching athletic tank, grabbing a flannel as well as a denim jacket to layer for the walk to the barn. She loves the route she takes, often passing through the stables to see Maverick, Dune, and any other horses present at the time.
“Hello handsome,” she croons at Maverick as she approaches him. Brett steps from the shadows within Maverick’s stall, a wicked grin on his face.