Chapter 17

The devil’s bargain Aria had talked Isaiah into could not end well. But he’d gotten so tired of being alone. Aria hadn’t been listening to him anyway. What he should have done was sneak away in the middle of the night without telling her. But that had felt cowardly.

Instead, he’d blubbered his feelings all over her—which had been totally unfair, somewhat of a running theme with him lately—only to have her refuse to accept the out he’d been trying to give her.

What was he supposed to do with that?

Heal. Immediately. Yesterday would have been better. Of course, if it was that simple, he’d have just done that already. Fixed himself and gone on his merry way.

Now he had the best reason of all to figure it out. Aria. The problem was if he left, he couldn’t do what he’d promised her he would. And sticking around meant he couldn’t easily avoid helping Caleb with his PR job. The thought put him in such a panic that he had to lie on his bed just to get enough air circulating through his brain to avoid blacking out.

Obviously falling in love was not the magic solution to his problems. Not that he’d ever held out hope in that respect. But still. It would have been a nice gesture on the part of the universe to get the prediction at least partially right.

So instead, it looked like he’d be doing hard work of the emotional variety in order to get to a place where he didn’t feel like he was ruining Aria’s life no matter what decisions he made.

She seemed pretty determined to love him regardless, which felt miraculous. This morning, he’d woken up like always, but in that split second of coming to full consciousness, he heard her voice in his head saying I love you. One day, he might get lucky enough to hear it every morning in person. But he had a lot to do before that was even a remote possibility.

All of the above was a huge motivating factor for why he’d taken over the corner booth at Ruby’s as his Welcome to Superstition Springs party command center. The morning breakfast crowd had eyed him curiously as he sat there furiously scribbling out ideas on a sheet of paper and looking up things on his phone. The screen was too small to flip back and forth between Pinterest, party planning sites and the calculator, which added to his mounting frustration.

By ten o’clock, he’d come to the realization that he needed a laptop, which had been nowhere on his radar when he’d left California. After reading a few reviews on an electronics website, he ordered one. That turned out to be the easy part.

“Hey, Ruby,” he called to her as she stood behind the counter pouring coffee for Lennie Ford. They both turned. “What’s the mailing address at the hotel?”

Ruby hooted and exchanged an amused glance with Lennie, then finally let Isaiah in on the joke. “We don’t have a postal code out here. Folks have their mail held at the post office in La Grange. We’re off the grid for the most part and like it that way.”

Lennie, a gentle old soul who ran an antiques shop that shared a wall with Voodoo Grocery, shifted in his seat to contemplate him. “What’re you having mailed?”

One factor of living in a place like Superstition Springs—privacy was not a thing. Of course, Isaiah had set up shop in the middle of Ruby’s where the entire town came through on a daily basis, strictly because he hoped to get some eyes on this project. He couldn’t do it without everyone’s help, so he welcomed curiosity. “A laptop. I’m planning something for the mayor. A party.”

That piqued Lennie’s interest. He shoved off his seat and lumbered over, full coffee cup in hand. “What kind of party?”

Isaiah jerked his head at the bench seat that normally held the other four SEALs but might accommodate one very large antiques dealer. “Take a load off and let me talk to you about it.”

Without hesitating, Lennie plopped down, resting his heavily tattooed arms on the table as he leaned forward as well as his enormous girth would allow, given that he’d barely cleared the opening. “Haven’t been to a good party in a decade. Not sure you’ll change that.”

Well, neither was he. But it was enough of a challenge to have him gearing up to prove differently.

Ruby lifted the coffee carafe in his direction in a silent question as to whether he wanted a refill. He didn’t, but he nodded all the same. She bustled over to pour, her eavesdropping ears wide open, which was exactly the reason he’d asked for more coffee. The more, the merrier.

“What makes a good party?” he asked them both.

“Lots of food,” Lennie answered decisively. “Barbecue. Smoked chicken. Mudbugs.”

Isaiah looked up from his paper where he’d been noting the points. “Mudbugs?”

“Crawfish, honey,” Ruby answered and leaned one hip on the table. “Word to the wise, when Texans talk about barbecue, its beef, not pork. Though we like both.”

This stuff was gold. “I thought crawfish was a Louisiana thing. No?”

And that was enough to get both of the residents off and running. Ruby and Lennie set him straight: sweet tea was a must, Blue Bell ice cream non-negotiable, Tabasco sauce could be traded out for Texas Pete’s but it was safer to have both. Isaiah’s hand hurt from taking notes by the time the lunch crowd started shuffling in, forcing Ruby to abandon ship since she had to go cook.

“Thanks, Lennie,” he said to the man once Ruby had sailed off. “I appreciate a local perspective.”

Lennie shrugged, a grin splitting his grizzled beard. “Don’t you mention it. You’re good people, and that Caleb is doing fine by us as our first mayor. You boys are all a welcome addition to the fold.”

The fold. It had a nice ring to it without adding a lot of expectation, as if all Isaiah had to do was let himself be wrapped in the town’s embrace in order to be a part of things here. “Caleb and Havana have a vision. I think this party will help give people a reason to visit. But more importantly, residents can meet some new people in a fun setting who might become paying customers of businesses in town.”

“I never thought about that.” Lennie’s expression grew thoughtful as he mused it over. “I was more on the track of having a good time. But I see the point. You set up a snow cone booth in front of my store and maybe some kids come inside to see what kind of old toys I got.”

“Exactly.”

“I haven’t had any new kids to bake cookies for since Ember brung her Judd to town.” The prospect of making cookies seemed to seal the deal with Lennie, judging by the pleased glint in his eye. “I got a couple of old friends in Austin who do some catering on the side. Lemme make a call, see what I can do on getting you a good price. Least I can do to help since you got me thinking differently.”

Wow. Okay. That was shades of his old self at work there. He’d forgotten how good it felt to leave someone more positive about the outcome of something than they’d been a few minutes ago. “That would be great.”

“They’re good guys who’ll do quality work for you. Served with ’em in the Persian Gulf during the ’80s.”

Dumbstruck, Isaiah stared at the man as he rifled through the data in his head about US military operations during the time and could only come up with one conclusion. “You were in the Navy?”

The Persian Gulf had been the site of one of the largest naval offensives post World War II and had given rise to the conflict that had extended into Operation Desert Storm. Isaiah had long understood that the sacrifices of great men like this one had allowed him to carry on the fight against terrorism two decades later in the Middle East. Until he couldn’t anymore.

“Sure, for a few years,” Lennie said. “Saw some bad stuff. Got out before I lost my way.”

For some inexplicable reason, that pricked at the back of his eyelids. He blinked away the very non-masculine moisture and swallowed. “Yeah, I could see the wisdom in that.”

“Guessing that things didn’t get much better.”

Isaiah glanced up to meet Lennie’s shrewd gaze. Obviously the man’s comments hadn’t been random. How much did he actually know about the reasons the five of them had rolled into town? “Same evil, different country. Let’s just say our separation from the Navy wasn’t entirely voluntary.”

“Figured something wasn’t right. All of you had that shell-shocked look about you when you first came to town, as if you weren’t quite done with the job and weren’t quite sure how you ended up in Texas.”

“You read a guy pretty well,” Isaiah acknowledged with a bemused nod. Of all people to play unlikely therapist… “We still have some fight in us.”

Lennie unlaced his beefy forearms and tapped the table twice for emphasis. “Good. We need that kind of fierce. Saw dedication in Caleb a mile away or we wouldn’t have voted him into a position where he could do damage to what we’ve built here.”

“What have you built here?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

It was the first time he’d thought to ask the question. The first time he’d thought about the town as a whole entity already. Caleb had drummed into everyone’s heads about how critical it was to get the town profitable as a tourist draw, but Superstition Springs had existed for a long time before the SEALs had plunked down in the middle of Serenity’s resort crisis.

“A community.” Lennie let him absorb that for a minute and then heaved from the bench seat, nearly toppling Isaiah in the process. “You come on by my shop later and you can have my laptop for as long as you need. That infernal thing makes me nuts with all the updates and whatnots. Can’t never get a good signal even though I pay for fancy satellite internet service.”

Isaiah hid a grin. Given what he’d just learned, Lennie couldn’t be more than about sixty but he acted like he was ninety. “Appreciate it. And the call to your catering friends. I’d be proud to do business with any vets you send my way.”

Vets. Veterans. Vets were former military. Just like me. Isaiah forced himself to run those concepts through his head despite the pain, because pretending he was still a SEAL didn’t change anything. This was just the first time he’d allowed himself to grieve while thinking about the future in the same breath. Yeah. He was still breathing.

He’d jumped into the SUV with Hardy to come to Texas because what else did he have to do? Nothing. And he’d spent weeks in Superstition Springs waiting around for the signal to leave. Perhaps that signal hadn’t come because he was already more a part of this community than he’d credited. This is where I’m supposed to be. Where he’d met Aria. Where his life had begun to make sense when he wasn’t looking.

Here he was in the fold. If he left, he’d only be doing it to keep moving, which accomplished nothing. To heal, he had to stay. That was how he’d stick his pieces back together, once and for all. He saw that now. Aria was worth it, sure. But so was he.

He still had some fight left in him.

“What’cha working on?”

Aria’s voice slid over him, soothing the ragged places in his soul that the conversation with Lennie had roughed up. He hadn’t seen her since yesterday and it had been far too long. Greedily, he drank in her pretty face, which was highlighted by the fact that her hair had been pulled back in a long braid. He held out his hand and when she grasped it, he pulled her into the seat recently vacated by Lennie and kissed her soundly.

“Hey, you,” he murmured when the kiss finally broke after he remembered they were in public.

“Guess we’re going full bore on the PDA then,” she commented wryly, her eyes sparkling enough that he guessed she didn’t see that as a problem. “I’m sure the crowd enjoyed the show.”

“Forget them.” He waved away the onlookers. “They can find their own if they’re jealous. I’m working on plans for the party. You know, the one Caleb asked me to work on?”

After having such a productive conversation with Ruby and Lennie, he couldn’t wait to see what Aria might have to offer on the subject. Plus, he’d been hoping to make a rooftop trip out of it. That thought got him good and primed for something a lot more private than this corner booth in the middle of a diner.

“Oh.” Her face registered mild surprise. “I wasn’t thinking you’d sign on for that after…well, you know. What we talked about.”

He raised a brow. After they’d talked about how he needed to get his crap together? What, was she thinking he couldn’t handle it or something? Because she might be right. But he had to try. The more he thought about settling in here, the easier his heart beat. That had to count for something. “We talked about taking it slow. About how I’m not going to push you away any longer but I need time to figure it out. If I’m taking that time, why not dig into something that will help the town?”

“Because we weren’t talking about digging in, Isaiah.” Little frown lines appeared around her mouth and he got the first clue that this conversation was distressing her in some way. “We were talking about leaving. Together. I guess—well, I envisioned taking that time on the road. As an adventure.”

Shades of their last conversation replayed in his head and he definitely didn’t recall agreeing to anything of the sort. And after what had just slowly dawned on him, he definitely wasn’t planning an escape routine. Not now. “I told you I didn’t want to tear you away from here. I meant that. I’m working on ways to stay. Because I want to do that for you.”

But instead of taking a minute to consider what a big concession he was making, she shook her head. “You said welcome aboard. That’s a metaphor for sailing. As in sailing away from here. That’s what I want to do. I’ve spent the morning working out a plan, where to go. Putting up pictures of beaches and mountains on my dream board. Figuring out how to pay for it. Funny thing, I actually thought for a moment that’s what you were doing too.”

“Well it’s not.” Nor would it be. He had a lot of healing to do, none of which would happen under the circumstances she was describing. Instead, it sounded a lot like running away, which he frankly excelled at. It was past time to stop. “Besides, you said you’d follow me if I left. I took that seriously. So no leaving.”

That was the opposite of love in his mind—letting a woman pin her hopes on a broken man who’d lured her away from everything that made sense in her world on the premise that some mystical prediction would keep them together. How about no.

She fiddled with the salt shaker in the center of the table, one she’d probably refilled a thousand times if he didn’t miss his guess, so her fascination with the thing seemed off. “That wasn’t supposed to make you change your mind. It was supposed to show you that I wasn’t afraid of going.”

“I’m afraid of leaving,” he admitted, a little shocked at how easily it had come after so many weeks of torturing himself, and he wasn’t all that proud of how long it had taken him to get to this point in the first place. “No, not afraid of leaving itself, but what it represents. I have some things I’m trying to work through.”

“I know!” She glanced around and lowered her voice. “But those are things that being together someplace else can only help. I get that you’re conflicted about taking things deeper. We can figure that out together, away from here, where there’s so much pressure.”

“Aria.” He bit back his frustration. How could they still not be communicating after all the conversations they’d had? “I’m not talking about working through us. I have…scars from Syria that aren’t healed yet. That’s why I can’t take things to the next level. Not yet.”

But he wanted to. Badly. He wanted a lot of things, some he didn’t dare hope for but couldn’t help picturing perfectly, like his ring on her third finger.

“What are you talking about? You mean your time in the military is the reason everything is backward all at once?” Confusion wormed into her expression. “Is that what you meant when you said there was more to you than meets the eye?”

“Yeah. Basically.” He blew out a breath and went for broke. “So, I’m here. Digging in. Working through it. I want to do that with you by my side—in Superstition Springs. Don’t you see what I’m telling you? I don’t want to leave. For the first time. I’ve finally figured out what I need to do and it’s stay.”

Surely, she could see how huge of a thing this was for him. Surely, she could support that, especially if she loved him like she claimed to. They needed to have a really long talk about what was going on with him. The panic attacks that he pretended were something else. His inability to make a decision. To accept responsibility for anything. None of this was her fault, but finally, he could see a light at the end. Aria held that light.

If he reached for it, he could find his glue.

“That’s not true,” she whispered, obviously stricken. “That can’t be true. I’m finally figuring out some things too. And the way that I need to heal from the scars that I carry around is to leave. With you. That’s what this is all about.”

“That’s not what this is about. I have to stay.”

“I have to leave.”

They stared at each other, neither flinching. Until they both did. He shook his head, his own confusion marring the moment. “What scars? Where is this coming from?”

“From feeling like I’ve been left behind for the last eight years. Isaiah.” Her warm hand covered his and he clung to it desperately, lacing their fingers together tight. It didn’t fix the sensation that everything was sliding away, nor did it halt the momentum. “I need to stop feeling like I don’t have any control over my own fate. Like I’m just waiting around for the next person to leave. I can’t do it anymore. I have to be the one to leave. I thought—well, obviously I thought wrong. But it doesn’t change that you loving me gives me the courage to do what I should have done a long time ago.”

The sincerity and genuine pain radiating from her gaze sliced through him as he finally internalized what she was telling him. She was leaving. And he couldn’t follow her.

Oh, sure, he could. He could do lots of things. Except tear himself away from this community that he’d somehow become a part of, one where he had people—more than one—who understood what it felt like to fight for freedom in a world that didn’t want you to succeed. Who knew what it felt like to come home not quite whole.

That’s why he’d resisted leaving for so long. Why he couldn’t lay it on the line with Hardy and tell him he was on his way out the door.

He had a new purpose in Superstition Springs, a place to heal, a place to thrive. Be productive as he fought for something different but no less important—himself. The springs had worked their magic after all. And he didn’t think he’d find that anywhere else. Not right now. Maybe later, after he’d sorted through everything enough that breathing became natural and easy again.

“So somehow we’ve gotten to the point where we can be in love but to become better people, we have to do it apart. How does that make any sense?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” Misery flooded her expression. “But I don’t see a way around it.”

It was a paradox of the worst kind. The gift of the Magi gone horribly wrong. “Can I ask you to stay? Would that make a difference?”

Her lips lifted in a brief, completely unamused smile. “You don’t want to be the one who holds me here when the reasons I have to go are the same reasons you have to stay. Right?”

“Someone really stupid must have said that,” he muttered. Trust her to use his own words against him. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“I don’t know that you are.” Her thumb caressed his knuckle and her warmth breeched his skin to spread. “I’m not going to stop being in love with you.”

Fat lot of good that did him. “Yeah, but I want you here. Where I can…do things.”

So many things. The sheer number of things he hadn’t done yet with her and wanted to paraded through his head. Only a few of them involved closed doors. That hurt maybe the most, not being able to treat her to the romantic encounter she deserved for her first time.

He had the sudden, compelling urge to tell her that. To spill out all the things in his heart in an effort to sway her. They were all right there on the tip of his tongue. Stuff he should have said already, arguments to the contrary. Bargains. Maybe he could go with her for just a week and then come back.

But he didn’t say any of that. For the first time, despite knowing influence and motivation were his best skills, he bit it back. He couldn’t use words to convince her to stay. That wouldn’t be fair. To either of them. She’d made up her mind to go, same as he’d put his own stake in the ground.

He let go. “I’ll be here.”

And then he watched her walk away for what he expected would be the last time.