Lucky's Choice
Page 49

 Her nails dug into the flesh of his shoulder. “I can’t—”
 “Sh … Siren, trust me.” His lips took hers gently, letting her set the pace of the first kiss they’d shared since the night of her bachelorette party.
 The peace of the lake made her feel as if they were the only two people in existence as she parted her lips, letting him explore her mouth with the glide of his tongue. Her own traced his bottom lip, nipping it softly, and a groan sounded from deep within his chest.
 “Did I hurt you?”
 “Siren, the only thing that hurts is how badly I want you.”
 “Why do you call me siren?”
 “Because your soul calls to mine.”
 “What does it say?” Willa teased.
 “It says, I love you.” Revealing that he was more then aware that she was in love with him.
 As her face turned serious, she started to turn away from his intent gaze.
 “My soul calls to yours, too,” he continued.
 “It does?”
 Lucky nodded his head.
 “What does it say?” Willa whispered, her breath catching in her throat.
 “It says, I love you, too.”
 “Lucky…” She didn’t know how to respond to his admission, too afraid to believe he really loved her. Doubt began to rear its head, making her believe he couldn’t love her … a woman so different from the other women he had been with.
 “Don’t, siren. I know exactly what my soul is telling me. My stomach, too.”
 “What’s your stomach saying?”
 “Feed me.”
 “That one, I believe.” Willa laughed as Lucky waded out of the water.
 She stopped in her tracks, seeing the tats covering his back all the way down to his feet. She swallowed hard as he bent down to pick up his T-shirt, sliding it over his head.
 “Dammit.” She had missed another opportunity to get a good look at the tats on his chest.
 Lucky pulled his cross necklace out from under his T-shirt. “What did you say?”
 “I’m hungry, too.” Willa consoled herself with the fact that it wasn’t technically a lie as she came out of the water, only then remembering her clothes were gone.
 She picked up one of the towels she had brought, drying off. When she would have wrapped it around herself, Lucky stopped her.
 “Let the air dry you. Come and help me move the table to the shade.”
 Willa placed the towel on the bench before picking up one end of the table as Lucky picked up the other side. When they set it down, she noticed it fit down into four perfect grooves of dried earth.
 “Does it usually sit over here?”
 He sat down on the bench, pulling a sandwich out of the basket. “Yep.”
 “Then how did it get by the water?”
 “I have no idea,” he said, taking a large bite of sandwich.
 “Are your fingers crossed?” Willa asked suspiciously, staring at his fingers.
 “Nope,” he said, unwinding them.
 Willa sat down on the bench across from him, taking a sandwich for herself. She took a bite, chewing thoughtfully while Lucky demolished his then another.
 “What are you thinking about so hard?”
 “I was wondering if God counts it as a lie if you cross your fingers. I’m going to add it to my list.”
 Lucky stopped chewing. “What list?”
 “I have a list of questions I’m going to ask Him someday. Like, do more women or men go to Heaven? Does He really love all the creatures He created? I don’t think I could love a bat. Could you?”
 “No, I don’t think I could,” Lucky admitted, his lips twitching. “What else are you going to ask?”
 “Who’s the worst sinner in history? Who’s the worst sinner in our church?”
 “I can answer those two.”
 “Okay, who?”
 “Shade is the worst sinner in history. I’m the worst in our church.” Lucky tried to make a joke out of his answer, but his hazel eyes held a pain that Willa wondered at as she stared at the cross necklace around his darkly tanned skin.
 “I don’t believe that.”
 “Believe it.” Lucky laid his hands down on the picnic table. “Since I was a child, I’ve always wanted to be a pastor. I would watch my father behind the pulpit and knew that was where I belonged. I became a youth minister then became a pastor over my father’s church by the time I was nineteen. I believed I would spend the rest of my life there in that small town. I even had a high school sweetheart I intended to propose to when the time was right.”
 Willa didn’t interrupt, imagining him as a young man with all his dreams coming true.
 “One night after service, I was putting up the Bibles that had been left on the pews. At first, I thought the voice I heard was a parishioner who had come back. It wasn’t. I heard His voice as clearly as if He was standing next to me.”
 “What did He say?”
 “He said, ‘There is more.’” Lucky stared down at his hands. “I was being called. A month later, I joined the service. Then I finished my degree before I was shipped out.
 “It took one week before I realized I didn’t know shit about life. I ran around, trying to save as many souls as I could before the enemies took them, but I lost more than I saved, mine included. I told them we could get out of there, go home. They placed their faith in me, and I let them down.”
 “No.”
 “I did, Willa. I rode back on the plane with their bodies and informed the families, watched their hearts break, and knew they would never be the same again.
 “I married Knox and Sunshine. I still see them together that day. Knox was so happy, and Sunshine looked beautiful. A week later, I was telling Knox that she was gone.” A tear slid down his cheek. “I’ll never forget his face. Knox is as big as a mountain, and he fell to his knees, crying. After that, I couldn’t do it anymore.
 “I took the Seal training, left being a pastor behind. I didn’t lose my faith in Him, though; I lost faith in myself. I had to learn differently—to take a life instead of saving them. I began to enjoy the adrenaline rush when we were in combat. This way, I was making a difference. I was saving the brothers I served with, giving them a chance to make it another day.
 “I became tight with Bridge. We had gone through training together, spent vacations together. I got to know his family. Mine were all gone, but his took me in and made me one of their own. When his younger brother joined, Bridge called and asked me to watch out for him, and I swore I would. I made another promise I couldn’t keep. I promised he would make it home, but he died his second week there.”
 “You can’t blame yourself.”
 “Yes, I can. I left him behind.”
 “You had to have a reason.”
 “The reason doesn’t matter. He’s dead, and Bridge wants payback.”
 “Payback?”