Need You for Always (Heroes of St. Helena)(65)

“What do you mean, about me?”

“It’s a surprise.”

She dropped his hand. “I don’t like surprises.” She hated them, in fact. They ranked right up there with clown-themed kids’ parties and root canals. And days about her.

He looked at her defiant expression and laughed. “God, you are the most suspicious person I have ever met. And you aren’t going to go in there until I tell you what I have planned, are you?”

She crossed her arms.

“Even if I promise you that it’s not going to make things weird?”

“Nope.”

Dax looked at the sky and sighed. “Fine. I told you I’d call my buddy with the police department. I did and found out that the DEA confiscated a twenty-nine-foot gourmet food truck with all the Sub-Zero bells and twelve-thousand-watt whistles in a drug raid a few months back. Seems they were selling more than po’boys. It’s scheduled to be auctioned off next month.”

She let out an unsteady breath. “Dax.”

“Before you rip me a new one, I only came along because I wanted to check under the hood for you, make sure it is as cherry as he said it was, because Ray’s a stand-up guy but he’s also a SEAL, which means he tends to embellish. A lot. So when he said he could sell it to you for the minimum bid, I wanted to make sure it was a good deal.”

He threw out some number that was right under her budget and Emerson found speaking difficult. “Why?” she asked.

“I wanted to be here to check it out. If it isn’t what you’re looking for, then we bounce.”

“No. Why did you do this?”

He gave her an unfamiliar look that had an odd feeling filling her chest. “Because you needed it.”

And weren’t those the heaviest few words she’d ever heard. Not only had he come through for her, he wasn’t asking for anything in return. And he said it as if it were that easy. No conditions, no expectations attached to his intentions. She asked and he came through. He didn’t take over like most people would, tell her what she should think or do, just offered his help. For no other reason than to make her life easier.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. But the way he was looking at her, with a secret smile that had her insides turning, it didn’t seem so scary, and if it meant a little more time with him, feeling like this, then she’d give it a try.

“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted.

He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. “There is nothing to say.” Then with another kiss, this time to her lips, he tugged her toward their appointment.

They walked in silence, not suffocating uncomfortable silence, but the nice kind. Where no words were needed to fill the space. But plenty of information was being shared. It was just like being on the motorcycle.

A few feet from the hangar, she released a breath. Behind those doors was the start of everything, and she was almost afraid to look. Standing out here, thinking about the possibilities, gave her a sense of anticipation—that anything was possible. But once she opened that door it would be real, no turning back.

“Tell me one thing about yesterday,” she said, needing a distraction.

“The new guy shot me in the nuts,” he said, and mission accomplished. It was such an unexpected statement it explained the mortifying snort, followed by so much laughter her eyes watered.

She glanced at his package and dropped his hand. “Is that something you’ll have to disclose on first dates now?”

“I’m not really a dating guy,” he said, and if he meant for it to be a warning, then he blew it by taking her hand back and threading their fingers.

“You going to head up another exercise?” she asked, holding her breath for his answer.

“I’m heading up a weapons training in a few weeks,” he said. “It was the only way Jonah would agree to give the new guy a second shot.”

Emerson didn’t know what made her melt more. That he had committed to a time past his hometown-stay expiration date. Or that he’d stuck it out to mentor some new recruit. “I’ll buy you a steel cup,” she joked.

“Smart-ass,” he said with a smile.

“We’ve played that game before too,” she said and, whoa, look at that, their hands were swinging even higher. She felt like skipping.

All the way into her fresh start.





Usually when a woman showed up to Dax’s house with frosting and a blindfold, spending the night chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter wasn’t what he had in mind. Yet there he was, sporting a hard-on and bare feet while Emerson skirted around his kitchen, green things covering every inch of his counter.

Not that he could see the counter anymore, since she’d pulled out the blindfold a few minutes ago, but he could feel their presence. Just like he could feel Emerson walking toward him.

She was trying to be stealthy, probably holding some of those asparagus by their freaky tips, but he could hear her bare feet on the wood floor, smell the orange cupcake batter she had dropped on her apron earlier.

There wasn’t anything about her that he couldn’t sense—including the fact that she felt more for him than she let on. And Dax was terrified that the feelings situation was quickly becoming a two-way problem. She wasn’t just in awe over her new truck, with its top-of-the-line appliances, double-wide serving window, and industrial range—she had taken one look at her dream machine and, man, those green eyes had locked on his as if he was her own personal hero. And in that moment, as Emerson ran her hands over the stainless steel countertops, Dax had felt like her hero, even found himself wondering what it would take to be the kind of man who made her smile like that every day.