Under Fire (Elite Force #3)(27)
Author: Catherine Mann

“My first wife—Whitney—and I met in high school.” The words came easier than he’d expected. “We mistook puppy love for the real thing. When I enlisted, we didn’t want to be apart, so we eloped. Of course then I went to basic and ranger training and deployed, so we spent no time together anyway.”

He reached for Disco again before he registered the thought, and sure enough the dog rested his chin on Liam’s knee. “Once I got home, I was a mess from combat and she’d been left alone in a strange city with no support system. Even with counseling from our pastor… we’d grown in different directions.”

“I’m sorry, Liam.” She rubbed his hand in much the same way as he’d stroked Disco’s head in comforting circles. “First love is special.”

“At least Whitney’s second marriage has gone a helluva lot better than mine. She married a cop.” And he was happy for her. She deserved better than she’d gotten first go-round. “Whitney was already well versed in the stress after being married to me, but she says at least her new husband’s home at night to have supper with her and their three kids.”

“You keep in touch with each other?” She blinked in surprise.

“Christmas and birthdays, she sends cards and photos. That therapy at least helped us part amicably.”

“And her husband’s cool with that?”

“I’m no threat to what they’ve got.”

“Oh.” Her eyes went even wider. “Okay, then. You don’t love your first wife anymore. And what about the next one… the bitch… um, I mean the cheater.”

Her scowl made him grin.

“My second wife—Priscilla—I married on the rebound.” He stretched an arm along the back of the sofa, just to prove to himself he could be close to her now, almost touch her, and still restrain himself. “Huge mistake, by the way.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“We met in a bar. She came home with me that night and stayed.” Not his finest or smartest move, and he wouldn’t make excuses. “We ended up in front of a justice of the peace a month later, and partied our asses off when I was in town. Problem was, for her, the party kept right on going when I left. And it wasn’t like she fell for someone else. Any guy would do. She told me the affairs were just about sex, scratching an itch, that her heart belonged to me.” Priscilla still left him drunken messages to this day, no matter how many times his phone number changed with moves.

“That had to hurt,” she whispered.

“It pissed me off,” he hissed back automatically. “Talk about a double standard. Can you imagine if a guy said that? Tried to write off multiple affairs as scratching an itch?” He shook his head. “Bullshit.”

“So you really never cheated? Not on any of your wives?”

“Never.” He chuckled lowly. “I just married all my women.”

Shifting, she cupped his face in her hands. “Hello? I’m not laughing.”

Her cool, soft skin felt so damn good against him, too good. He wrapped his fingers around her wrists and eased her arms down slowly. Restraint. He could—he would—hold back tonight even though the more he talked about his past screwups, the more he wanted to forget.

“So, on to wife number three. I was determined to get it right that time.” But he wasn’t known for his relationship savvy. Like now, when he still held on to Rachel’s hands, thumbing the speeding pulse along her wrists. “I mean, hell, two divorces behind me? I had to accept my share of the blame.”

“How did you meet…?”

“Dawn? Her name’s Dawn.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, right over the building headache. “I figured since I’d met my last wife in a bar and it hadn’t gone well at all, I should try something completely different.”

“And that would be?”

“We met in church.”

She laughed. Clapped a hand over her mouth and leaned into him. Then laughed again between her fingers, an all-out sexy and uninhibited sound that filled the room with musicality. “You went to church to pick up chicks?”

The way she said it made him sound calculating, but he couldn’t argue with her point. So he shrugged it off the way he always did with things that made him uncomfortable. Jokes. Sarcasm. Anything to avoid something that dug too deep. “Hey, I’m baring my soul here and you’re making fun of me. That’s harsh.”

She swatted his chest. “But seriously, you went to church to get laid.”

“To find a wife. In those days—”

“In those days?” She crinkled her nose. “You make yourself sound ancient, when I know full well you’re not. You’re all of what…?”

“Thirty-eight.”

“To my thirty-two, and I prefer to think of myself as young, thank you very much.”

He hated talking about his age. Age was different in the military, when a man’s useful years evaporated as fast as a pro athlete’s—and the stakes were life and death rather than a touchdown.

“Fine. My point is, for me, it was always about getting married then.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Why is that so surprising? There are men out there who want to get married and have kids.”

“Do you have children?”

“Nope. Never worked out for me.” His biggest regret after each divorce, because he’d wanted kids. And his biggest relief, because he wouldn’t be upsetting tiny lives through his own failures. “The first two times, we weren’t married all that long. The third, it seemed like I was always deployed or out on maneuver right during her, uh, peak fertility time.” His ex had even busted the bank on Victoria’s Secret lingerie and froufrou heels… although best to leave that part out of the discussion. “We were even talking about going the artificial-insemination route—using some of my frozen swimmers. But the marriage fell apart before we got around to thawing them.”

“And what happened to break the two of you up—if you don’t mind my asking something so personal?”

That she would ask meant a lot to him, that she didn’t just assume he was a screwup. By the third divorce, he’d decided it had to be him. Pretty much the consensus. That third hit him the hardest because he’d realized that was it—he wasn’t going to have the gold ring, picket fence, and two-point-two-kids future. “Nothing hugely earth-shattering. She was a nice person. I like to think I’m a decent guy. We just had nothing in common. Zip. Other than both wanting to settle down and have children. I went in with my eyes open. I knew it was a long shot…”