“If something happens to me, I’ll contact you. Okay?”
A cold splash of fear hit her right in the heart. “Don’t say that. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Savannah captured his hand in hers, as if she were trying to pull him back from the precipice.
Patrick couldn’t help but enjoy her holding on to him. The sight of their joined hands did something to his breathing. Damn! When her thumb began moving caressingly over his palm, he felt chills run over his body. God, the little doll sitting beside him was making him feel things he hadn’t felt in a helluva long time, if ever. “Neither do I, but what I do is always a risk.” Swallowing hard, he made his play. “I came home on special leave. So, when I ship out tomorrow, I won’t be back for about a month. Will you wait for me?”
A surge of happiness filled her heart. She felt like she was starring in an old-time romantic movie. “Wait for you?” She held her breath. Was he asking what she thought he was?
“I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you not date anyone or get married before I get back.” Patrick wasn’t teasing. He knew it was too soon to say more, but he wanted to make her understand he intended to come back and pick up where he left off.
Savannah let out a tiny exasperated giggle. “I’m not going anywhere, Patrick. Men aren’t exactly beating down my door for a date anyway.”
“They’re fools.” Patrick announced solemnly.
You could have knocked Savannah over with a feather. How many times had she fantasized about meeting someone like Patrick O’Rourke? How many times had she sat down with a lit candle and wrote love poems and love letters to her longed-for lover? Too many to count. Looking at him, it was almost as if she had conjured him from thin air. “I can’t lie. I wish things were different, but there are obstacles to our being together that I don’t think we could ever overcome.”
With one big hand, he cupped her chin, holding her face immobile. “Give me a chance, that’s all I ask.”
There are times in one’s life when a moment crystallizes and you realize that someday you’ll look back and know that this was it – your one big chance. There were no guarantees . . . . God, she was such a coward. “I would love to be your friend.” She watched his face fall. Did she have power over this magnificent man?
“I’m not giving up, Savannah.”
She had to ask. “Patrick, I’ve got to know, because I just don’t understand. How can you be interested in me? We’ve just met, and you’re so handsome and . . . . I’m so ordinary.”
“Ordinary?” Patrick leaned over and put his face against hers, foreheads touching and he nuzzled his mouth against hers, stealing a small kiss. This time, he didn’t really give a damn who was watching. “You’re far from ordinary, Savannah. In the little time we’ve had together, you’ve touched my heart like no one else ever has. We’re connected. Don’t you feel it? If you can say ‘no’, I’ll let you off the hook. We’ll go back to the Memorial and call it a day. You’ll never hear from me again.”
“No!” a look of panic crossed her face. “I do feel it, but I don’t understand it. How can that be?”
Patrick kissed the end of her nose. “Well, it’s sort of a secret. But I’ll make a deal with you. When you tell me your secret, the one that’s stopping you from taking a chance with me – I’ll tell you mine.”
“Oh, ratz.”
He chuckled, “Oh, ratz! I could just eat you up, did you know that?”
She grabbed her lemonade, ’s hot as the dickens in here.” He leaned back to let her have some air.
“I’ve got you all hot and bothered, don’t I?”
“Yea, a little bit,” she admitted. Clearing her throat, she sat up straight and tried to regain control of the conversation. “Tell me what you can about your job in Special Ops,” she urged him. He wasn’t the only one who wanted information.
“I’m on a sniper team.”
“No, please no,” she whispered under her breath. Savannah knew what that was and the reality of the danger he put himself through sent cold chills up and down her spine. “I’m sure you’re good at what you do, but that makes my heart hurt.”
“It’s not all covert missions. We do a lot of training of foreign troops and nation building, but sometimes we are called to do hard things,” he didn’t elaborate and Savannah knew better than to ask. “It’s not all war. Funny thing is, after we occupy a territory and the fighting tears it up, we spend twice as long putting it back together.” They both had stopped sipping their lemonade. Instead they just sat close and enjoyed their last few minutes together. “The hardest reality of my job is that my future is uncertain. And knowing I have no family except Grandad, it just makes me realize that if I died, it would be like I never existed. I have buddies in the unit, but they have their own lives and their own families. I have no one.” Repeating what his grandfather had said, he told Savannah his greatest fear. “I think the worst thing that can happen to someone is to be forgotten.”
“I know you now, Patrick. I wouldn’t ever forget you.” Her simple words hit him like a freight train. And when she leaned down and kissed his hand, he almost came in his shorts.
“When I get to Afghanistan, I’ll contact you as soon as I can. And you’ll respond – right?”
This big gorgeous man seemed to need reassurance that only she could give. Savannah wasn’t going to argue with him anymore. She wanted whatever of
