"Honey, I’d just spent a good portion of that tour four hundred feet below sea level. We’re trained to speak in subdued, monotone voices. If my voice inflections bothered you, why didn’t you say something?"
She dropped her gaze and shrugged. "I was so pleased to have you back that I didn’t want to say or do anything to cause an argument. It was such a small thing, and I would have felt like a fool for mentioning it."
Steve took a deep breath. "I know what you mean – I couldn’t very well comment on how glad you were to see me leave without sounding like an insecure jerk – which I was. But that’s neither here nor there."
"I wish I’d said something now, but I was trying so hard to be the kind of wife you wanted. Please know that I was always desperately lonely without you."
Steve took a couple more bites, but his interest in the food had obviously waned. "I can understand why you felt the need for… companionship."
Carol froze and a thread of righteous anger weaved it’s way down her spine. "I’m going to forget you said that," she murmured, having difficulty controlling her trembling voice.
Steve looked genuinely surprised. "Said what?"
Carol simply shook her head. They would only argue if she pressed the subject, and she didn’t have the strength for it. "Never mind."
Her appetite gone, she pushed her plate aside. "You used to sit and stare at the wall."
"I beg your pardon?" Steve was finished with his meal, too, and scooted his plate aside.
"When you came home from a tour," she explained. "For days afterward, you hardly did a thing. You were so detached."
"I was?" Steve mulled over that bit of insight. "Yes, I guess you’re right. It always takes me a few days to separate myself from the my duties aboard the Atlantis. It’s different aboard the sub, Carol. I’m different. When I’m home, especially after being at sea several weeks, it takes time to make the adjustment."
"You’re so unfeeling…1 don’t know how to explain it. Nothing I’d say or do would get much reaction from you. If I proudly showed off some project I’d completed in your absence, you’d smile and nod your head or say something like ‘That’s nice, dear.’"
Steve grinned, but the action revealed little amusement. "Reaction is something stringently avoided aboard the sub, too. I’m an officer. If I panic, everyone panics. We’re trained from the time we’re cadets to perform our duties no matter what else is happening. There’s no room for emotion."
Carol chewed on the corner of her lower lip.
"Can you understand that?"
She nodded. "I wish I’d asked you about all this years ago."
"I didn’t realize I behaved any differently. It was always so good to get home to you that I didn’t stop to analyze my behavior."
The waitress came and took away their plates.
"We should have been honest with each other instead of trying to be what we thought the other person wanted," Carol commented, feeling chagrined that they’d been married five years and had never really understood each other.
"Yes, we should have," he agreed. "I’m hoping it isn’t too late for us to learn. We could start over right now, determined to be open and honest with each other."
"I think we should," Carol agreed, and smiled.
Steve’s hand reached across the table for hers. "I’d like us to start over in other ways, too – get to know each other. We could start dating again the way we did in the beginning."
"I think that’s a good idea."
"How about walking down to the waterfront for an ice-cream cone?" he suggested after he’d paid the tab.
Carol was stuffed from their dinner, but did not want their evening to end. Their love had been given a second chance, and she was grabbing hold of it with both hands. They were wiser this time, more mature and prepared to proceed cautiously.
"Are you insinuating that I need fattening up?" she teased, lacing her fingers with his.
"Yes," he admitted honestly.
"How can you say that?" she asked with a soft laugh. She may have lost weight with the surgery, but the baby was filling out her tummy nicely, and it was obvious that she was pregnant. "I eat all the time now. I didn’t realize how sick I’d been and now everything tastes so good."
"Cherry vanilla?"
"Ooo, that sounds wonderful. Double-decker?"
"Triple," Steve answered and squeezed her hand.
Lacing their fingers like high-school sweethearts, they strolled down to the steep hill toward the waterfront like young lovers eager to explore the world.
As he promised, Steve bought them each huge icecream cones. They sat on one of the benches that lined the pier and watched the gulls circle overhead.
Carol took a long, slow lick of the cool dessert and smiled when she noted Steve watching her. "I told you I’ve really come to appreciate my food lately."
His gaze fell to the rounded swell of her stomach. "What did Dr. Stewart have to say about the baby?"
Carol flattened her hand over her abdomen and glowed with an inner happiness that came to her whenever she thought about her child. "This kid is going to be just fine."
He darted his gaze away as though he was uncomfortable even discussing the pregnancy. "I’m pleased for you both. You’ll be a good mother, Carol."
Once more frustration settled on her shoulders like a dark shroud. Steve still didn’t believe the baby was his. She wasn’t going to argue with him. He was smart enough to figure it out.
"Do you need anything?" he surprised her by asking next. "I’d be happy to do what I can to help. I’m sure the medical expenses wreaked havoc with your budget, and you’re probably counting on that income to buy things for the baby. I’d like to pitch in, if you’d let me."
His offer touched her heart and she took a minute to swallow the tears that burned the back of her eyes at his generosity.
"Thank you, Steve, that means a lot to me, but I’m all right financially. It’ll be tight for a couple of months, but nothing I can’t handle. I’ve managed to save quite a bit over the past year."
He stood, buried his hands in his pockets and walked along the edge of the pier. Carol joined him, licking the last of the ice cream off her fingertips.
Steve looked down and smiled into her eyes. "Here," he said and used his index finger to wipe away a smudge near the corner of her mouth.
He paused and his gaze seemed to consume her face. His eyes, so dark and compelling, studied her as if she were some angelic being and he was forbidden to do anything more than gaze upon her. His brow compressed and his eyes shifted to her mouth. As if against his will, he ran his thumb along the seam of her lower lip and gasped softly when her tongue traced his handiwork. He tested the slickness with the tip of his finger, slowly sliding it back and forth, creating a delicate kind of friction.
Carol was filled with breathless anticipation. Everything around them, the sights, the sounds, the smells of the waterfront, seemed to dissolve with the feeling. He wanted to kiss her, she could feel it with every beat of her heart. But he held back.
Then, in a voice that was so low, so quiet, it could hardly be counted as sound, he said. "Can I?"
In response, Carol turned and slipped her arm around his neck. His eyes watched her, and a fire seemed to leap from them, a feral glow that excited her all the more.
She could feel the tension in him, his whole body seemed to vibrate with it.
His mouth came down on hers, open and eager. Carol groaned and instinctively swayed closer to him. His tongue plunged quickly and deeply into her mouth and she met it greedily. He tasted and teased and withdrew, then repeated the game until the savage hunger in them both had been pitched to a fevered level. Still his lips played over hers, and once the urgent need had been appeased, the kiss took on a new quality. His mouth played a slow, seductive rhythm over hers – a tune with which they were both achingly familiar.
He couldn’t seem to get enough of her and even after the kiss had ended, he continued to take short, sweet samples of her lips, reluctant to part for even a minute. Finally he buried his head in the curve of her neck and took in short raspy breaths.
Carol surfaced in slow, reluctant degrees, her head buzzing. She clung to him as tightly as he held on to her.
"We have an audience," Steve whispered with no element of alarm apparent in his tone or action.
Carol opened her eyes to find a little girl about five years old staring up at them.
"My mom and dad do that sometimes," she said, her face wrinkled with displeasure, "but not where lots of people can see them."
"I think you have a smart mom and dad," Steve answered, his voice filled with chagrin. Gently he pulled away from Carol and wrapped his arm around her waist, keeping her close to his side. ‘"Bye," he told the preschooler.
‘"Bye," she said with a friendly wave, and then ran back to a boy who appeared to be an older brother who was shouting to gain her attention.
The sun was setting, casting a rose-red hue over the green water.
They walked back to where Steve had parked his car and he opened her door for her. "Can I see you again?" he asked, with an endearing shyness.
"Yes."
He looked almost surprised. "How about tomorrow night? We could go to a movie."
"I’d like that. Are you going to buy me popcorn?"
He smiled, and from the look in his eyes he would be willing to buy her the whole theater if he could.
Chapter Sixteen
Steve found himself whistling as he strolled up the walkway to Carol’s house. He felt as carefree as a college senior about to graduate. Grand adventures awaited him. He had every detail of their evening planned. He would escort Carol to the movies, as they’d agreed, then afterward he would take her out for something to eat. She needed to gain a few pounds and it made him feel good to spend money on her.
When they arrived back at the house, she would invite him in for coffee and naturally he would agree. Once inside it would take him ten… fifteen minutes at the most to steer her into the bedroom. He was starved for her love, famished by his need for her.
The kiss they’d shared the night before had convinced him this was necessary. He was so crazy in love with this woman that he couldn’t wait another night to take her to bed. She was right about them starting over – he was willing to do that. It was the going-nice-and-slow part he objected to. He understood exactly what she intended when she decided they could start over. It was waiting for the lovemaking that confused him. Good Lord, they’d been married five years. It wasn’t as if they were virgins anticipating their wedding night.
"Hi," Carol said and smiled, opening the door for him.
"Hi." Steve couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was wearing the blue maternity dress he’d bought for her the day he’d followed her around like the KGB. "You look beautiful," he said in what had to be the understatement of the year. He’d heard about women having a special glow about them when they were pregnant – Carol had never been more lovely than she was at that moment.