of that helicopter popped into my mind, sitting their on the ground with my dying comrade, looking up into those whirling blades.
“Yeah. Some.”
There was silence around the campfire for a moment. She dryly chewed at a cracker and looked for the sea, into the fire. It seemed to me that she was doing everything she could to not look at me.
This woman is complicated, I thought. And then, on the heels of that: Aren’t they all?
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, finally looking up at me.
We held eye contact for at least five seconds. I have no idea where the urge came from, but I found myself wanting to kiss her. Again, this was an instinct I had been able to get away with over the last few years. But now, with this goatee and the fact that Mac knew nothing about who I really was, I was second-guessing myself.
It was something of a relief when she broke the eye contact and stood up. “I think I’m going to turn in,” she said.
Then, as she started walking away, something in my head clicked. The conversation we’d just had… her reaction to it and the conversation back at her Grandfather's…. it all meant one thing and my heart nearly stopped when it came to me.
“Who was it?” I asked. “Who did you know and lose that was in the Army?”
She stopped, not bothering to look back at me. I didn’t think she was going to answer me but she said two simple words that made me ache for her.
“My brother.”
She started walking away then and I nearly got up to follow her. I had been told by family members that had lost loved ones overseas that talking about their grief really was the best thing for the pain. And it was clear to me in that moment that Mac had not yet spoken to anyone at length about it.
I opened my mouth to call out for her but decided not to. If she wanted to talk about her brother, she would. I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to open that door to a stranger—especially one that she had just now learned not to hate.
I watched her walk carefully out to the plane, ready to rush out to help her if she needed it. She had no problem getting into the plane and I couldn’t help but smile when she gently closed the door behind her.
I started eating the rest of the pork and beans, wondering what Mac was thinking. Instead of denying that I was developing some sort of feelings for her, I honed in on it and tried to figure out what it was.
The past five years had been spent around voluptuous women that were damned close to flawless. I thought of Aubrey and the way she looked in those tight little black dresses with the plunging neckline. She was beautiful, there was no doubt about that—and source such as People, Maxim, and countless blogs agreed.
But Mac was, to me, beautiful too. There was a natural beauty there, a casual flair that made her more natural than any starlet in Hollywood could ever be.
I smirked at myself as I finished off the beans. I stared out to the ocean, giving Mac enough time to fall asleep. I then stamped out the small campfire and made my way to the plane. I climbed aboard quietly, as not to wake her. Once inside, I peered into the back and saw that she was sleeping on one of the packing blankets that had been left over from the shipment.
Grinning, I plopped myself down in the pilot’s seat and tried my best to get comfortable. I looked out to our naked little stretch of beach and thought about how great it would have been to have happened upon this place with someone I loved. The idea that it seemed like the stuff of the romantic movies I had starred in did not escape me.
With that notion in my head, I lay back as much as I could in the seat and tried to let the gently cresting waves rock me to sleep. It almost worked, but then a sudden thought occurred to me. It hit me like a wrecking ball to the chest and made me sit upright as if I had been electrocuted. I looked into the back of the plane and looked at Mac’s sleeping body…at Mac Blackwell’s sleeping body.