Sweetest Goodbye (Navy Book 3)

Chapter 4

Kate had gone home and gone to bed, letting sleep wash over her just as she had after Colt's death. Sleep had been her drug of choice four years ago and it was something she didn't want to fall back into doing; it had been so easy to not deal with life.

So Kate forced herself to get a shower and was now making something to eat even though she wasn't hungry. She kept thinking of Lee and if he was really Lily's father. Her gut told her no, but her gut had told her she could trust David all those years ago, and look how that had turned out.

David had been a college intern at her father's business and he had been charming and handsome.  Kate had been overprotected and ignored at home, and that had made her an easy conquest.  She had fallen for his pretty face and his smooth talk, and when she had found out she was pregnant she was sure that he would standby her and do the right thing, but he hadn't.  He had returned to college in the fall and she had never seen or heard from him again.

Her parents were completely outraged and hadn't been willing to accept her or the baby. It might be alright for other families to have an unwed teenage mother in their ranks, but not the Owens family. She had been told that she was on her own, then ordered to leave their house, so she had.

She had had no one. When she should have been starting her senior year of high school she was working two jobs trying to save up enough money to make ends meet, something she was still trying to do. She was comfortable now, thanks to friends in Savannah, but she had a long way to go until she was debt free.

As she looked around the small kitchen she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye in the backyard. She thought it was Lee as she looked in his driveway and noted his truck, but when the figure started to climb her tree she knew that there was no way it could be Lee. The figure was to slight.

Calmly walking away from the window she walked over to her phone on the counter and dialed the number that Lee had given her when he had moved into the apartment. If his truck was there he was there.

"Kate?" his voice asked after the first ring.

"Lee, there's someone in the tree."

She watched the light in his apartment turn off as he didn't respond.

"Are your doors locked?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, after looking over at the one in the kitchen.

"Good," he said before hanging up.

Kate didn't know what to do so she moved to the darkened living room and peeked out of the curtain.  The yard was pitch black, the only light was coming from the window in the kitchen, and there were plenty of shadows.  What if Lee got hurt?  She should have called the police not Lee, it wasn't his job to take care of her. She had no clue why she had called him and not the police. It had been her first thought. Perhaps it was because she had already been thinking of him. Something that she had been doing entirely too much of lately if she was honest with herself.

She suddenly saw Lee's shadow as he moved across the yard behind the large tree. It was too dark to make out anything but his shape. He stopped at the tree looking up she couldn't hear or see so she was at a loss as to why he was just standing there.

A moment later she saw another figure hit the ground and Lee put his hand on his arm and led shadow towards Kate's backdoor. She flew to the kitchen, turned on the porch light, and opened the door, stepping outside before they could enter.

Lee had Henry Walker standing next to him, and Henry was hanging his head.

"Henry! What are you doing hanging out in my tree?" Kate questioned. Henry was known as a troubled child. His mother was an alcoholic and the state had taken him away from her and given him to his aunt to raise, and everyone in the town knew his aunt wasn't much better.

"I dunno?" He kicked the dirt under his toe as any twelve year old would do when they were avoiding looking at someone.

"Henry?" She knelt down and looked up at him. "Why are you in my yard?"

"I..."

Kate looked up at Lee for help and she stopped short, forgetting all about the young boy in front of her. Lee was standing before her wearing a pair of running shorts and nothing else, even his feet were bare. She swallowed hard at the sight of him. 

His baggy sweatshirts and jeans were very misleading. He wasn't tall and lanky, he was solid muscle. His arms bulged, his defined abs quivered as he breathed, and his thighs were like solid rocks.

She cleared her throat and looked back at Henry, but not before noting that he had a tattoo around his bicep that made him look very dangerous.

"You what?" She cleared her throat once again, suddenly feeling very odd.

He looked over his shoulder at Lee and then back at Kate.

"Henry Walker, this is my friend Lee Mercer, he lives in the apartment over my garage, Lee this is Henry."

"Henry," Lee said, his voice deep and steady, not giving anything away.

"You're lucky I called Lee and not the police. The police might not have taken you back to your aunt this time."

"Good!" he shouted. "I don't want to go back to her, maybe they would have let me stay here with you," he said looking over at Lee again.

"No sweetie, it doesn't work like that."

"Why not?" he sounded petulant.

"Why were you in my tree?" Kate asked, using her mom voice, something he hadn't done in four years.

"I like to come here and watch you and pretend that you're my mom." He wrenched his arm free from Lee and ran as fast as he could.

Lee looked at her. "Do you want me to get him?"

"Could you catch him?" She smiled weakly at the thought even though her heart was breaking into even more pieces.

"Yes," he said simply.

Kate studied him for a moment looking over his well-toned build and didn't doubt that he could. "No, don't worry about it." She shook her head and turned to go inside.

She couldn't help but think that the world could be a cruel place, she was a mom without a child and Henry was a child without a mom. She felt the tears threatening again.

"What are you doing up so late?" Lee asked, stopping her from entering her kitchen and closing the door behind her.

"I took a long nap today."

He nodded."But you're up late most nights."

Kate's eyes widened. "You are a crazed stalker," she said aloud without even knowing she had said it.

He laughed and she saw the dimple flash, but the dimple wasn't what kept drawing her attention, it was his massive chest.

"No, I don't sleep much either and I've noticed your light."

She nodded still not sure that he wasn't a crazy stalker. "Thanks for your help," she said before entering her house and closing her door firmly on the awesome sight that was a half-naked Lee Mercer.

She wondered again what his story was as she turned off her kitchen light, forgetting all about the food she had been preparing. Her thoughts turned from Lee to Henry as she crawled back into bed. She wondered if there was anything that she could do to help him.

Picking up the picture of Colten she rubbed her finger over his image. Henry and Colten would have been friends, but then Colten had been friends with everyone he had met.

For the first time in a long time her dreams that night were not of Colten, they were of a half-naked Lee and she woke up blushing the next morning.