Navy Seal's Match. Amber Williams Leigh

up into his. He wasn’t overly tall like her six-foot-four brother, but she was small even in combat boots. He remained rigid as her front buffered his, as she touched him, his face. More pressure points, he assumed. A snide remark formed on his lips when her thumbs came to the base of his cheekbones. It fell flat when she began to massage again.

      “This is yingxiang,” she said in a low voice he found strangely hypnotic. “It targets the pressure points in the wrinkles of the nose. It works for stress headaches, but it can open up the sinuses and relieve hypertension, too.”

      “Mm,” he said, trying not to drag the syllable out like he wanted to.

      She massaged his cheeks for a minute or two more before her thumbs lifted. His face felt loose. Most of his tension he held in his neck and jaw. It had lessened to the point that he could feel the soreness around the joints and the relief that sang behind it.

      Under his stare, she seemed to hesitate. This close, he could definitely count those freckles. He could also trace the shape of her big screech-owl eyes. Dark and uncharted. Like the far side of the moon.

      Her lips parted and her tongue passed briefly between them before she moved her hands slowly to the place where his neck met his shoulders. “Or...if that doesn’t do it for you...”

      The tendons beneath her kneading fingertips all but cried out at the attention. He gave up deciding whether it was from pleasure or pain. The muscles moaned under the ministrations. It was the exact spot the stress of the last six months had taken up residence. The stress of the last decade, now that he thought about it. He hoped she didn’t notice his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

       No. Yes. Yes, no.

       For the love of God, touch me. Touch me tender. Touch me hard. Freckles, just...

       ...touch me...

      Gavin expelled a breath. It gave him away, he feared. It gave him away hard.

      “You’re brick.”

      “Hmph?” he responded, at a loss for better.

      “Your muscles,” she muttered, exerting more pressure. “They’re like mortar.”

      No, her hands were mortar. Crashing into his brick walls. Exploding them into dust.

      “You’d really benefit from yoga.”

      His snort was a half sound. “Who does that new age shit?”

      “Friend of mine owns a school. Yoga helps you stretch the right way, loosen joints... It helps you learn to breathe...”

      “Breathing’s involuntary,” Gavin said. “You’re either breathin’ or you’re...”

      Dead.

      Her low voice smoothed through the juncture. “Most people never give themselves over to all the multifaceted ways breathing can act as a tool for everyday life. Or they’re never taught to begin with.”

      “Stick with the massage.”

      She did, utilizing her fingertips until he’d lost his breath completely. “Only if it’s working for you.”

      “Hmm,” he replied, at a loss again.

      “These are simple techniques you can practice on yourself,” she murmured, quieter, “anytime you need them.”

      He couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes so he raised a brow. “Is this what they teach you in ghost-hunting school, Buffy?”

      “Buffy hunted vampires,” she told him levelly. “Not ghosts.”

      “I think it’s all relative,” he drawled.

      “Oh, you do?”

      He opened his eyes to search for her. Up close, the familiarity struck him. High, leopard-spotted cheeks. Pert nose. Insouciant mouth. Eyes like the frigging Mariana Trench. There was something silver shining from each of her ears, a very small diamond in the crease of her nose. Her dark makeup was pronounced.

      He was shocked when the ghost of a smile touched the corners of his mouth. “You are a little spooky still.”

      She loosened her grip, falling back. “Well. At least you’re not still tense.”

      He wasn’t. Wooow. When her hands lowered from him, he very nearly grabbed hold to bring them back.

      Placing a palm to his sternum, she backed herself off so the length of her arm stretched in the marked space between them. “You’ll get better,” she told him. “It’ll get better.”

      The certainty caught him. Not only because it went up against his own, but also because she believed it. “How do you know?” he found himself asking.

      “You’re a survivor.”

      “I used to be,” he replied. He no longer felt like one. More like something tattered and unrecognizable that washed ashore after being picked over by birds and fish.

      “It’s not just the SEAL in you. It’s who you were before all that, too. A survivor.” When he said nothing to that, she went on. “Despite all you’ve been through...your heart’s still beating.”

      If only she knew. Sometimes, he wondered if this was it—that, after everything, he’d be defeated by the mind-fuck he couldn’t seem to get a handle on. Mavis’s hand was still on his sternum, and he tuned his awareness to it. “It doesn’t beat evenly,” he admitted. He wet his throat. “What about the dog?”

      She looked around at the reminder. Her hand moved off so that she could shield her eyes from the glare off the distant bay. “He’s somewhere around.”

      “Will he come back on his own?” he asked, falling into step with her as her slow gait brought them back into the sunshine.

      “Yes, always,” she said. “Growing boys never miss a meal. Not to mention, not all who wander...”

      Are lost, he finished silently. Not all, Gavin agreed.

      Maybe just him.

      He let her walk ahead and her pace quickened. He wrapped the fingers of one hand around the other fist, coming to a halt. “You wear black, but you like red.”

      She stopped. Doubling back, she faced him fully.

      He went on. “You have a tattoo...somewhere. I don’t remember. But you got in trouble for it when your mom found out. You rode a horse named Neptune. You liked to ride English because, even though you were weird, you were a cut and a half above the rest of us.”

      Still, she was silent. She was too far away for him to read. He was beginning to sweat nonetheless. “And when your family would have their Saturday music round, you wouldn’t play. You’d sing. You could turn an acoustic version of ‘Come Together’ or ‘Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’’ into something classy and unexpected.”

      “Oh, God...” she said.

      “Don’t laugh, Freckles. You killed the Loretta.”

      She did laugh. It was a low noise, like the drone of a hummingbird’s wings. It didn’t last long enough. “I hated when you called me that.”

      “I knew it,” he returned. “Anyway, you were...different. I thought it was kind of badass that you didn’t care.”

      “Just like you didn’t?”

      Gavin lifted a shoulder in answer. Yes—they had more in common than it seemed either of them had anticipated.

      Quiet fell. The gulls droned from the shore. Tires moved over gravel in the parking lot beyond Briar’s garden. The world moved, lively and fierce. But there was a measure of quiet in Gavin’s head. He’d forgotten what quiet, in its purest form, was. Damned if he wasn’t grateful—and a little spellbound.

      Mavis spoke again in a sober