Fiancé by Friday (The Weekday Brides #3)(45)
Author: Catherine Bybee

“I’ve never camped,” Gwen said from several yards away. “Not once. The closest I came was when I was twelve. I had a friend spend the night and we ended up sleeping on the lounge chairs on the patio outside my room at Albany.”

He smirked. “Doesn’t count.”

“I suppose that’s true.” She dumped a few larger logs into her pile and moved away to gather more branches. “There are a few cabins on the property back home. I used to escape to them when I needed time to myself. My mother always wanted people around. There were guests at Albany continually when my father was alive and I often sought refuge in the cabins.”

“Did you get along with your father?” He knew Blake didn’t.

“He discounted me because of my gender. I was someone my mother needed to deal with. Not him. When Blake decided to find his own path, I mistakenly thought my father would notice that I was more than an ornament to be introduced to his friends and then set aside. Naive of me. He was an awful husband and father. If he were born a hundred and fifty years ago, he could have fit in quite well.”

“Sounds like a hard man to live with.”

She placed more wood on her pile and sat on a fallen log. “He was. I probably shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

Leave it to Gwen to worry about a spirit’s feelings. “I won’t tell.” He took a log and carved into the soft earth to make a small pit for their fire.

“What about your parents? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about them.”

Neil hadn’t thought about his parents in a long time and it had been even longer since he spoke of them. “Mom ran off when I was a kid. My dad raised me. He was a marine. Served for twenty plus years before he died.”

“When did he pass?”

“Seven years now. Lung cancer. He chain smoked himself to death.”

“How awful.”

Neil shrugged. “It could have been worse. Once he was diagnosed, he went quick. Count your blessings and all that.”

Gwen smiled and leaned her chin on her folded hands. “What was he like?”

“He was one of the good guys. Dad didn’t have a lot to say most of the time. I knew he cared for me. He had a good group of friends whose wives helped out with me when I was younger. We moved around a lot in the beginning. Settled here in Colorado when he was close to retiring.” Poor bastard didn’t even have a chance to enjoy his retirement. Neil gathered the smaller pieces of wood, discarding the branches he knew would cause an excessive amount of smoke, and piled them to start the fire.

“He must be the reason you joined the military.”

“It’s the only life I knew. Worked for him. I never thought of being something other than a marine.”

“I’ll bet he was proud of you.”

Neil remembered the photo of him in full uniform. It sat on his dad’s fireplace mantel. “Yeah. He was.” He sparked a match over dry moss and urged the brush to ignite.

Gwen sighed. “He never remarried?”

“Dated a little. But none stuck.” Little by little, the branches caught and Neil piled more on.

By the time the sun was low on the horizon, the fire was large enough to warm them and the food they planned on eating.

They’d pulled on their sweatshirts and sat next to the fire roasting marshmallows after they shared a meal. Gwen did the roasting and leaned against him. She asked questions about life in the military and skimmed over his MIA mother. Now there was a person Neil didn’t bother thinking about. He never knew her outside what his father had told him growing up. According to his dad, they were too young to marry and she wasn’t ready for kids and a life of moving around. Neil was sure there was more to it, but his father didn’t go on about her, therefore Neil didn’t ask.

“I never would have thought I’d be here, like this, with you,” Gwen said as she swirled the stick over the fire.

“It wasn’t planned.”

“I can’t say I’m happy about how we got here, but it’s not possible for me to hate it.”

She leaned her back against his chest and he traced her arm with the tips of his fingers.

He hoped she felt that way later…when the new Raven was gone.

Gwen peeled off another marshmallow, twisted toward him, and fed it to him. He opened his mouth and accepted the treat. Her seductive smile grew bigger when he licked her fingers.

“I’m beginning to believe that you’re like these roasted bits of sugar. A little hard and burned on the outside and all soft and gooey on the inside.”

He finished chewing and grinned. He wasn’t sure he had a gooey inside. But it if made Gwen look at him with such trust, he’d let her believe it.

“You’re the one made of pure sugar, Gwen.”

She relaxed against him once again, this time dropping the stick. “Would you like to know a secret?” When she dropped her head against his chest, he indulged in a sniff of her hair.

“What secret?”

She laced her fingers with his as she spoke. “I always wanted to be a bad girl. You know, the kind who wears leather and drinks whiskey straight from the bottle.”

He couldn’t picture it. “Back of a motorcycle with a tattoo of some guy’s name on your arm?”

“Not sure about the name, but perhaps something. Maybe a belly button piercing.”

Now that he could picture, and the image made him hard. “We can have you pierced in Colorado Springs.”

She giggled. He loved her laugh. “I’d chicken out.”

“I can get you drunk and you’d wake up with it.”

She laughed harder. “Count on you to find the idea appealing.”

“You started it. Belly button piercings are hot.” And when was the last time he’d told a woman anything like this? Never.

“What of you, Neil? Any secrets?”

“You’ve seen my ink.”

“Yes, I have. And I’ll say it is very hot, indeed.” Her accent made it all so clean and proper. “Anything else you didn’t have the nerve to do?”

He squeezed her hand in his and waited for her to look up at him. When she did he leaned down and placed his lips on hers. He twisted her across his lap and continued their kiss. Her taste exploded on his tongue and heated him thoroughly. When he pulled away, her hooded gaze found his.

“I’ve always wanted you,” he confessed.

“You had to know I wanted the same. What stopped you?”