Love, Tussles, and Takedowns (Cactus Creek #3)(15)

WHEN THAT SMILE he was starting to get addicted to lit up Lia’s face once again, Hudson felt another tug in his chest. Legitimate question aside, he’d hated seeing her eyes dim as she’d toyed with the wedding bands dangling from the thin gold chain she wore around her neck.

From her marriage.

For once, his trademark patience was practically nonexistent. He wanted to learn all there was to know about her.

Well, as much as he could before he left.

Because he was leaving, he reminded himself for the third time this morning.

“Want to get that breakfast now?” he asked.

She lit up again and re-navigated them to a Cajun and Creole food booth.

Reminder number four ran through his brain then. With noticeably less conviction.

As they sat down on one of the many colored picnic blankets that were arranged under trees around the grassy courtyard—because picnic tables were so last century—Hudson asked again, “Okay, really. Why are there so many folks walking around town eating cereal from disposable bowls?”

The town was so weird.

He was starting to like it.

“We have a mix-your-own-cereal shop at the center of town. It’s kind of like an ice cream sundae bar, but with practically every variety of cereal out there. They have certain combinations they mix together with add-ins to make specific flavors like chocolate strawberry pie.”

“Out of cereal?”

“Yep. It’s a huge hit. And the parents love it because it’s cheap and a healthier alternative to ice cream and things like that for the kids.”

Lia handed him his plate and utensils while opening the take-out container of creamy creole-spiced grits with smoked Andouille and fried green tomatoes she’d ordered along with a heaping pile of Cajun pain perdu, which essentially looked like the thickest, fanciest stack of French toast he’d ever laid eyes on.

He settled his back against the tree and realized he’d never been on a picnic before. For that matter, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d sat under a tree just to sit under a tree either.

To try and get some much needed shade in the Afghan heat? All the time, yes.

As a base from which he’d taken point with a sniper rifle? Yep.

But never just for a meal with a pretty girl.

Less than twenty-four hours with Lia and he was getting hit with firsts from all sides.

This was starting to become a thing.

Lia made quick work dividing the food up in equal halves. “I have three brothers who have bottomless pits for stomachs,” she narrated as she scooped up half of her half into her paper plate. “I’ve found I can usually get a nice little bidding war of favors done for my extra food. Just laying that out there…just in case you find yourself still hungry later.”

At that, he chortled out loud. She was constantly surprising him. “Here I thought you were so quiet.” He took all of his half of food and dug right in. Good lord, that was good. Already, he found himself thinking up favors he could bid with to claim the rest of Lia’s half.

The idea of just buying more food from the booth on his way home, not even a blip on his radar.

“So are you going to tell me about you being a twenty-seven year old virgin widow now or should we start with some lighter breakfast conversation?”

“And leave you with all those gaping holes from the town debriefing of my marriage?” she teased after finishing her last forkful of pain perdu drenched in syrup. “It’s actually not all that interesting of a story. Leo was my first real friend at my new school. Since it had been so soon after my parents died, I didn’t talk much. But then came my sophomore year when Leo was determined to talk to me, determined to get me to talk to him. And I did. I liked him. We dated through junior and senior year, and then when he decided to join the Army, we kept up our relationship long distance.”

More fiddling with the rings.

“It wasn’t long after his One Station Unit Training out in Fort Benning that Leo got his deployment orders to relieve a unit in Afghanistan, just weeks after he got stationed at his first brigade.”

An infantry man. Hudson respected the hell out of that.

“But before he shipped out, he flew back here and asked me to marry him.” She smiled softly. “He said he just couldn’t go off to the war without being able to have and hold me as his wife—the one thing he knew for sure would bring his butt back home, and remind him exactly what it was he was fighting for out there if ever he began to doubt…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness with me.”

That was one heck of a proposal.

“So at the ripe old age of nineteen, we both hopped on a plane to Vegas and got married that day. We spent exactly two days as a married couple before he had to leave.”

She met Hudson’s gaze and as if she could read his mind, she answered, “Leo didn’t want to rush our first time together, or link it to his leaving somehow in my mind. And he really didn’t want me to think that he’d married me just so he could ‘close the deal’ with me before he went off to fight for our country. So we didn’t. We spent our first and only two nights as husband and wife just sitting and dreaming up plans for our future together.” A faint wash of tears appeared before she blinked it away. “We were na?ve, idealistic. We planned to have our perfect first time together the night he got home from the war, the night we could really start our future together.”