“With thoughts of how much I’d like to hit you over the head.”
He laughed.
“That wasn’t supposed to be funny,” she warned, but when her gaze met his, a smile twisted her lips.
Cole’s body lit like a Fourth of July celebration. And just as quickly fizzled out when Amelia’s expression tightened and she desperately began setting up boundaries again, terms to their peace treaty.
“Look, you were right about us having to set aside the past while working together. I’ve already admitted that. But that doesn’t mean I want to be your friend or to recapture whatever was between us.” She stared him straight in the eyes. “I don’t. What happened in the past just needs to stay in the past.”
Disappointment and frustration hit him. When he opened his mouth to say more, she shook her head at him.
“Whatever it is you want from me, Cole, it isn’t going to happen.”
“How do you know?” he pushed, obviously shocking her Stockton good sense. “How can you be so sure that what I want isn’t going to happen?”
He wasn’t sure about anything where she was concerned. Then again, he’d never had to work to gain a woman’s good favor before. Women had always come to him, never mattered one way or the other.
Except Amelia.
“I just know,” she stubbornly replied, dropping her free weight back onto the rack and glaring at him.
“Because you aren’t willing to give me a chance?”
Looking totally exasperated, she faced him with her hands on her hips and her eyes full of fire. “A chance at what? What is it you want?”
“You.”
She shook her head. “What kind of game are you playing?”
Is that what she thought? That he was playing with her? He wanted her, was honest enough to admit to that want, and she thought he was playing games? But what about her? Because for all her bluster, for all the hatred that blazed in her eyes, desire blazed just as strongly. She could deny it all she wanted, but Amelia wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her.
Glancing around the workout room, he noticed they’d started to attract some attention.
“Let’s go somewhere we can talk in private, Amelia.”
Looking as if she planned to run and never look back, she shook her head. “I agreed to a truce for professional reasons, Cole. Nothing more. If you have some sister fantasy or are just trying to use me to get to Clara, get over it. You are the last man I’d ever willingly become involved with. Understand?”
With that, she spun, swishing her ponytail at him, and walked away, leaving him to wonder why he couldn’t have left well enough alone, biding his time and accepting the progress they’d made today instead of pushing for more.
But he knew.
The more time he spent with Amelia, the more he wanted her, the harder not pushing became.
He’d only been on board a few weeks. He had over five months to go. Five months of being with Amelia, of convincing her to give him a chance so he could work out the crazy hold she held over him.
Five months.
It seemed like no time at all.
It seemed like forever.
Why did Amelia think him being here had anything to do with Clara? All he wanted was for her to forget he and Clara had ever been engaged so Amelia could see the potential of him and her.
Sister fantasy indeed.
There wasn’t room in his fantasies for anyone other than Amelia and hadn’t been for years.
Six weeks into his deployment, Cole shined the light into a soldier’s eyes, watching the reflexive size change in response. Perfect. He looked in ears, making note of bulging red tympanic membranes, checked nostrils that revealed swollen mucosa and purulent drainage. He checked a throat that was beefy red, raw.