“I hope so.” She adjusted the air conditioner, not that he could feel it as his bag blocked the vent. Too bad, he could use cooling down. “You’re headed back to Georgia?”
“Yes, ma’am. Kenna,” he corrected himself. “Peach farming.”
“Huh-what?”
He smiled at her confused expression, relieved she’d given him something to think about besides his wayward anatomy. “My family has been in the peach farming business for six generations. I’ll be taking over operations from my grandfather. Soon as I make my way down south.”
“Peaches,” she murmured. “Peaches, a dog, mama and popcorn. If you tell me you don’t have a girl waiting for you back in Georgia, Major, I won’t believe you.”
His neck grew hot, an uncomfortable pit yawning wide in his stomach. “There’s no girl.” That wasn’t entirely true. There had been a girl at one time, but there wasn’t any longer. And while he didn’t feel the same regret he once had over it—heck, remembering her face got harder over time—discussing it in front of Kenna would only lead to pity. Embarrassment. Two things he didn’t want to feel from anyone, let alone this gorgeous, confident girl who’d probably never faced a single challenge in the romance department.
Beck could see her need to press battling with her nonchalance. “You sure about that?”
He started to say yes, he was sure, but he stopped himself. Since that day a year ago when he’d received the Dear John letter from back home, he’d unburdened himself to no one. Today marked a fresh start, away from the pressures he’d faced overseas and the tragedy he’d been living with on his conscience. Life after his service. While he might have mentally moved on in most aspects, the failure still sat heavily on his shoulders and he wanted to be free of it. Once Kenna dropped him off, she’d probably speed away, his name flying out the window of her muscle car along with his sob story. He eyed her. What was the worst that could happen? She pretended to be sympathetic and race back to her boyfriend?
Sweet Jesus, he didn’t like the idea of her crawling back into those sheets with a boyfriend.
The unexpected flare of jealousy propelled the truth out of him. “Mary was my high school girlfriend. We’d been going together since freshman year, followed each other to the University of North Georgia. Everything was fine, until I took the ASVAB test.” He still recalled being summoned out of class to discuss his unusually high results on the military aptitude test with a recruiter. “After that, everything happened so fast. I was shipped out before the ink dried.”
“I know the test.” She measured him with a look. “That explains how you’ve been promoted to major so young.”
“All due respect, Kenna, twenty-six isn’t young when you’ve been where I have.” He barely managed to keep his gaze from dropping to her parted thighs on the seat. “Speaking of, how old are you?”
Her grin was pure mischief. “Twenty-two.” Oh no. This girl was too young to be lusting after, wasn’t she? As if she could sense the direction of his thoughts, she hauled him back to the present. “Tell me about Mary.”
He swallowed, unable to believe he was sharing the story out loud. “Mary was the pastor’s daughter in our town. We were…she was…waiting. For me.” He waved a hand. “And then she didn’t.”
Kenna pursed her lips. “Like, waiting until you came home to get married?”
Had he turned green? He felt green. “Yes, for marriage and…waiting in general. For other things. We both were.”
He saw the moment everything clicked into place. Her eyes widened. Yup. She was transporting a virgin. A cuckolded one at that. “Oh. Oh, wow.” She was silent a full minute. “So Mary—oh God, the Virgin Mary—was waiting for you to come home, so she could give you her…flower…but someone else plucked it. Do I follow?”
“That’s about right.” He could see the barracks in the distance, telling him the ride was almost over. Half of him was relieved, the other half oddly nervous about her leaving.
“When did you find out Mary had done that to you?”
“She sent the letter about a year ago, although it might have been going on longer. I don’t know.”
Kenna pursed her lips. “Most men wouldn’t have wasted any time finding out what they’d been missing.” She slid him a glance. “Why not you?”
“I’d already waited nearly a decade, I figured one more year wouldn’t kill me. Especially when there were men and women fighting for their lives and losing every single day.” Men like his childhood friend, Xander, who Beck had sent on his final mission. “What did I have to complain about, you know? There might have been opportunities if I’d looked for them, but I didn’t want to. It felt wrong.”
Beck was surprised to see they’d pulled up in front of the barracks. Kenna looked a little shocked herself as she shifted the car into park. “I’m sorry. Finding out in a letter…that really shouldn’t have happened to someone like you.”