Run To You

what he was “tasked with.” She looked across the table at him; at the faint candlelight flickering across the contours of his handsome face and shining in his blond hair like a saint’s halo. Saint. Superhero. Marine sniper. Security specialist. “How long were you in the Marines?”
    “Seventeen years. I entered the corps at eighteen. Right out of high school.”
    The more she knew of Beau, the more she realized she didn’t know him at all. “When I was young I wanted to be a ballerina one year and a nurse the next.” After high school, she’d still not had a clear idea of what she wanted to do when she grew up. Still didn’t. Two couples dressed for dinner were shown into the next booth. Stella waited for them to pass before she asked, “Did you always want to be a Marine?”
    “No. I always thought I would be a Navy SEAL like my father.” He took a drink, and a drop of water fell from the bottom of the glass onto his black shirt. He set the glass down and said, “I joined the corps to piss him off.”
    “Did it work?”
    “Oh yeah. He wanted his sons to be SEALs like him. He hates the Marines and is still pissed at me about it.”
    “Do you talk to him?”
    “When I have to.” He shook his head and sliced his meat. “We never did get along.”
    She looked at his big shoulders and thick neck and square jaw while they ate. There was a scar on the back of one big hand. “Maybe you should have been an accountant.”
    He actually laughed at her little joke. Okay, not a real laugh. More like an amused ha! “By the time Blake and I were fourteen, we were already expert marksmen and first-class swimmers. It just made sense that I join Marine RECON and apply to scout sniper school.”
    Of course it did. “So is Batman a SEAL?”
    “Blake?” He nodded and took a bite from a big roll. “He was a SEAL sniper. Served his full twenty.”
    Two snipers? Which begged the question, “Who’s the better shot?”
    Beau pointed the roll at his chest. “I’m the HOG.”
    His mother had called him that the night before, and while he ate like each meal was his last, she wouldn’t go that far. “You’re a healthy eater.” She looked up at the booth wall just above his head and thought a moment. If he was worried about it, a gentle critique might help. She returned her gaze to his and said as diplomatically as possible, “You do eat kind of fast, and I’d hate to get in your way if you’re truly starving, but I wouldn’t call you a hog. I mean, you’re not messy and you don’t chew with your mouth open or anything disgusting like that.”
    He stared at her as he chewed. “H-O-G,” he spelled out slowly. “Hunter of Gunmen.”
    “Oh.”
    He reached his free hand inside the collar of his shirt. “My HOG’s tooth.”
    He pulled out a bullet on the black cord she’d noticed last night. “It looks like a copper bullet.”
    “Copper with a steel core. A seven-six-two boat tail.”
    Which meant nothing to her, and she asked what she thought was the obvious question, “Why is a HOG’s tooth a bullet and not a tooth?”
    He finished the roll and chewed, again watched her as if he was weighing his words. “I got it when I graduated scout sniper school,” he said after he swallowed. “It represents the one bullet that is meant for me, and as long as I have it, no enemy sniper has a bullet with my name on it.”
    “Like you’re invincible?”
    “Not invincible. No.” He cut off a piece of steak. “But I’m here. Sitting in this fine restaurant with you instead of laid out in Arlington.”
    The thought of him in Arlington disturbed her. A lot. And that confused her. More than it should. “Your luck must have rubbed off on me tonight,” she said, purposely changing the subject. She still couldn’t believe she’d won seventeen thousand dollars.
    “You feeling lucky, Boots?”
    She smiled. “And it’s about time I got lucky, too.”
    He raised a brow, and one corner of his mouth curved up as he chewed.
    “Not that kind of lucky.” She laughed and pushed her hair behind her ears. “Which reminds me. I thought you weren’t ever going to kiss me again.”
    His chewing slowed and he swallowed. “Are you talking about what happened in the casino?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That wasn’t really a kiss.”
    It had felt like a kiss to her. Not like the other night, but for one brief second, the sound and excitement of the casino ceased to exist. She’d seen him. Only him and his gray eyes looking