Wish For You Read online

  WISH FOR YOU

  By

  Marquita Valentine

  Copyright © 2014 by Marquita Valentine

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover Art by Okay Designs

  Professionally Edited by Cynthia Shepp

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  To those that serve, and to those who suffer in silence.

  You are not alone.

  Prologue

  Wyatt

  You know what goes through your head when you’re in the middle of a war? Absolutely nothing.

  If you’re a Marine, that is. There is no time to reflect on life, no thoughts of could have, would have, or should have. Only two things should be happening in war, a mantra I could chant in my sleep.

  React. Recoil. React. Recoil.

  Know why? Thinking gets you killed, thinking makes you want to reconsider what you’re doing, what the enemy’s doing, and why you’re even there in the first place.

  That’s what happened to my buddy, Nathan. We’d been trading pictures of the girls waiting for us back home, and he’d taken his helmet off for only a minute, but it was about forty-five seconds too long. All because we wanted to think about the future, about dates and homecomings, and soft beds and beer. All because he thought he saw a glint of metal. All because he wanted to question first and shoot later.

  But at least those assholes are dead. And at least I carry the scar of that day on my left thigh as a reminder.

  I bend down, brushing my hand over the bottom ridge of his gravestone. It’s cold and sharp, yet smooth, like there’s nothing beneath it. Like my battle buddy isn’t laying six-feet deep.

  “Should have been me,” I say, righting the American Flag. My commanding officer should have let me bleed out, right there in the middle of a poppy field.

  Strange how beauty and violence had collided that day. Strange how I didn’t think of a single thing, until I was on the ground and staring up at the sky. Then all I could see was her. All I could hear was her voice.

  Only I’d turned to one side and found Nathan’s blue gaze, blank and lifeless. Blood had pooled around his head in some sort of grisly halo.

  “Should have been me,” I growl, slamming my fist on the ground.

  Glancing around as I stand, my jaw clenches. Three people are headed this way, and I know exactly who they are.

  My stomach twists. I can’t deal with Nathan’s family, not right now. Maybe not ever.

  They don’t blame me for his death.

  But I do.

  Chapter One

  Wyatt

  The best thing about my therapist is that he never utters the phrase: Tell me how this makes you feel.

  The worst thing—I tell him exactly how I feel.

  Dr. Lewis steeples his hands together. “Let me make sure I have this right. You’re upset with Lacey because she no longer wants to have a romantic relationship with you.”

  I grit my teeth, not wanting to rehash the entire conversation, but the Doc likes to summarize. A lot. “Yes. She gave me no warning, and we didn’t talk about it. All she said was it wasn’t a good idea, and we should go back to being friends.” See, I can summarize, too, about the girl I love ripping my heart from my chest and crushing it in her hand.

  “Hmmm,” he says. “Do you want to force Lacey change her mind, or will you respect her decision?”

  “A decision she made without me—concerning the two of us—that’s asking a lot.”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t be so upset if you’d—”

  “Not going there. Nathan’s—” I swallow, my gut churning, “death has nothing to do with Lacey arbitrarily changing the rules of our relationship—romantic or otherwise.”

  “At first glance it doesn’t, but Lacey and Nathan have something in common, and the events that transpired with both of them have affected you the same way.”

  “Some girl breaking up with me is trivial compared to a Marine’s death,” I snap, but she’s not just some girl. She’s The Girl. The One. I glance out the window, through the partially open blinds, and into a manicured flowerbed filled with mums and pansies.

  “So your relationship with Lacey is merely trivial?”

  “No. I mean, yes. No.” I slice my gaze back to his and lean forward in my chair, placing my elbows on my thighs. “You know what I mean, Doc.”

  “And you know what I mean. Both of them, whether by choice or not, took control of the situation from you—Nathan by dying, and Lacey by rejection.”

  I hate that he makes so much sense, yet I’m relieved to know that I’m not out of my mind. That what I feel is so normal that he can docsplain it to me. Still…

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I suggest you figure out what’s more important, having Lacey in your life, as only your friend, or not having her in your life at all.”

  “Not having Lacey in my life isn’t an option.”

  Dr. Lewis smiles. “There’s your answer.”

  “But neither is being just friends with her.” I shake my head, remembering the look in her pretty brown eyes when she told me. The way her lips trembled, and the heartbreakingly familiar way she wound her hair around two of her fingers. She’d looked miserable and upset, like when a crowd of unknown people suddenly showed, or when her parents had moved their entire family to a new house on a different side of town.

  “Then you’re back at square one.”

  I rub my jaw, thinking of a way to get out of this. My commanding officer had a saying: Where there’s a will, there’s a way around it. All I had to do was find a way around whatever Lacey had in her head, after I found out what was going on in her head. For the first time in either of our lives, we were keeping secrets from one another, and I hated it.

  But not enough to share with her mine.

  “Try being her friend again, if only for a little while. It might be easier than you think… if you put your mind to it.” Dr. Lewis crosses his legs at the ankles. “Consider engaging in friend activities.”

  Give me a break. “Like what?”

  “What did you do before?”

  “I’d go to her roller derby matches, meet her at the skate park, we’d go to dinner, and the movies… stuff like that.” All the things I hadn’t been able to do at all while I was at boot camp and deployed to the Sandbox i.e. Afghanistan. All the things I’d practically thrown myself, headfirst and eyes shut, into because it was so damn normal. No whizzing bullets, no MREs, no locals, no nothing, except my friends, my girl, and my hometown. Everything I could ever want. Everything I dreamed about while serving in that shithole.

  “Those are excellent activities.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes over his excitement, but I have to imagine he thought I was having a breakthrough. To be honest, his giddiness amuses me, so I take things one step further. “Maybe next week, I’ll take her to get her nails done and then shopping. Hell, I’ll find her a date to the New Year’s Eve party I’m going to, and I’ll ask some girl, too. Then we can all go together.”

  Dr. Lewis’s smile fell. “Wyatt.”

  “What?” I give him my most innocent look. It was one I’d perfected over the years, and was one that my parents trusted. “I’m trying to think of things best friends would do.”

  “You’re being sarcastic and bit vengeful.”

  “By wanting to set Lacey up on a date?” I shrug. “Pretty sure girls do that for each other all the time.”

  “Fine.”

  His flippant reply stops me cold. “Excuse me?”

  Dr. Lewis rubs the bridge of his nose. If he had been wearing glasses, this would be the perfect time for him to polish the lenses. “If you really want to prove how sincere you are to Lacey, then I suggest you do all of those things for her and with her.”

  Find Lacey a date? Find Lacey some jerk-off to take her to parties and watch her roller derby matches? Find some asshole to be the one to roar her name when she scored and wait for her by the locker room while she changed? Find some douche to listen to her while she goes on and on about the mating habits of worms?

  Nuh-huh. Not happening.

  “Time’s up,” I say, jumping to my feet, and not giving the Doc time to list even more things for me to do with Lacey. I haul ass out to his door. “See you next week. Same time, same place.”

  “I’ll be closing for the holidays, starting this Friday, until after the first of the year. However, if you need me, you have my card. Call, text, or email me.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say offhandedly. I’m still fuming at his suggestion, and I’m still fuming at Lacey. It’s been weeks since I’ve actually spoken to her. I didn’t even bother to go to her last game.

  Guilt floods my body as I push the door to the front office open and head outside.

  I should have been there for her. It was the championship game. Lacey’s team had come in second, and I’d heard she’d gotten hurt pretty bad in the last three minutes of the game. Some chick had tripped he
r, and sent Lacey flying into the rail. But my girl hadn’t let that stop her. According to Cole, Lacey had gotten up and taken the hit like a champ.

  “Not your girl,” I remind myself. Small puffs of white air appear in front of my face. It’s nut-freezing cold. I start up my truck with a click of a button, thanking God for heated seats as I slide inside.

  Instead of going home, I drive to Beau’s. He lives three doors down from me or, rather, from my parents. I park in his driveway, and I’m not surprised to see him jog outside to greet me as I get out of my truck. He has security cameras everywhere. Guess that’s the life of a NASCAR superstar.

  “Something wrong?” he asks, his eyes darting from side to side. His hair is sticking up everywhere, and he looks like he’s been on a three-day bender. Only he doesn’t smell like booze, women, or anything else I recognize.

  “Just wanted to talk.”

  “It’s really not a good time.”

  “Company?” Beau always has company—of the female kind. Normally, however, he doesn’t care who comes over while they’re there.

  “Yeah.” He shifts his weight from side to side, and I realize he’s barefoot.

  “Dude, where are your shoes?”

  “Shoes?” He stares at me blankly.

  “It’s thirty degrees.”

  “Oh.” That blank stare stays firmly in place, until he shrugs. “Demanding houseguest.”

  “Must be one hell of a woman.”

  “Something like that.” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I don’t want to bail on you, but unless this is an emergency…”

  Nodding, I take a step back. “Completely understand. Just had a little woman troubles and, with Cole out of commission right now, I thought you’d be the one to talk to.”

  Beau glances down at his wrist. He’s wearing a watch? Since when did he start wearing one of those? The guy has never been on time in his life. “I have a couple of minutes.”

  “She wants to be just friends, and that doesn’t work for me.”

  “Make her jealous,” he says with that trademark grin of his. “Women always want what they can’t have.”

  “Already tried that tactic,” I grumble.

  “And?”

  “Didn’t work.” Actually, it had only served to hurt her, and I was damn tired of hurting her. All those women did nothing for me, not even the few I’d had revenge sex with. Yeah, some man I am. Nathan would be disappointed. The dude was so devoted to his girl that, even when she’d sent him a Dear John letter, and one of the female soldiers from base started hitting on him, he had stayed true. Luckily, Nathan’s ex sent an apology package right after that, and when he’d gone home on leave, he’d come back engaged. Too bad I’d fucked up their chance of ever getting married.

  Beau makes a noise of surprise, pulling me out of my head. “Okay, so do the opposite of that.”

  Wrinkling my nose on one side, I give him a look. “Make her not jealous?”

  “No. You need to get her to realize that she made the wrong choice by deciding to put the brakes on you guys hooking up.” I don’t bother to correct Beau’s assumption. Lacey and I have never had sex, not even close to it. “Get Rae to set Lacey up on dates, really bad dates, and then, before long, she’ll come to her senses and be all, Wyatt, why did I ever say we should stop banging?” I punch him in the shoulder, and he grunts out an apology.

  “I guess I could do that.” I rub my chin. “But how could I make sure Rae doesn’t set Lacey up with really good dates?”

  “You can’t—unless you do it yourself.” He glances at his watch again. “Seriously good talking with you, but I have to go.”

  “Can’t keep them waiting, huh?”

  “Nope.” He jogs back to the house, and I make my way back to my truck. It’s a good thing I never cut the engine.

  Beau, despite his sort of weird behavior, might have the right idea. I can’t guarantee Rae would go along with bad dates, because she is Lacey’s best friend, and since I’d been the one to suggest that she and Cole take a break, I doubt she’d do me any favors—that is, if Cole had told her what I said.

  I can’t take that chance, and I don’t want to cause more problems for Cole. If she’s the one he wants, then who the hell am I to piss in his love cereal?

  Where there’s a will, there’s a way around it.

  The words echo in my mind. Tonight, I would strategize and come up with the best plan of attack.

  I was going to become the best friend Lacey Evans ever had, and then I was going to make that redheaded roller girl regret it.

  Chapter Two

  Lacey

  I never should have kissed Wyatt Tanaka. I never should have tried to straddle the line of friend and lover. What I should have known—Wyatt is too good for me. Too beautifully made to be with a freak like me.

  Everyone knows it. Everyone but him.

  Now that I’ve promised his mother, who is also my boss, to stay away from her son, things have gotten worse. The boy with the easy smile has once again become the man who’d endured a war. A man I didn’t recognize when he first came home. A man who I’d catch staring off into space, but not with a dreamy look in his eyes. Oh, no—torment and anguish resided in those dark brown depths.

  With most people, I have a really hard time noticing things like that. But Wyatt isn’t most people, and I’ve known him for so long that I make myself notice.

  Like now, while I’m sitting at a high table with the best female friend I’ve ever had, and Wyatt is glaring at me. He’s across the bar, playing darts with his buddy, Cole Morgan.

  The two of them have been friends longer than Wyatt and I have been. In the not-to-distant past, Wyatt was the one to calm Cole down. Wyatt was the one who was reasonable and thoughtful.

  But not anymore.

  Now he’s reckless, though he doesn’t think I notice. Only I do. I notice the females, every single one of them, the smell of alcohol on his breath, and the glassy eyes. My heart is breaking for him, for me, and there’s nothing I’d like more than to fix all of this, but I can’t.

  None of that stops me from coming to The Double Deuce tonight, though Rae Givens was the one to invite me, and not Wyatt.

  My heart turns over in my chest.

  It’s New Year’s Eve and we’re all hanging out in the bar, because the press won’t leave Rae and Cole alone. In the public eye, everyone knows her as Violet Lynn, famous country music superstar. But she doesn’t talk about her career, unless someone asks her point-blank, and even then, she’s pretty quiet on the subject.

  Fine with me. I’m not friends with her because she’s a celebrity. I’m friends with her because she takes the time to do things with me and listen to me. She’s a lot like Wyatt in that aspect.

  Gosh, I miss him so much it physically hurts.

  Another song comes over the speakers, and I feel like I should say something. “This is my favorite song.” Actually, I’ve never heard it before. My wrist starts to itch. I hate lying. It always makes me feel like I have to scratch at the skin, like I need to let the truth out.

  “Why don’t you dance, then?” Rae asks.

  I stare at the dance floor, watching the other couples move together. “Because Wyatt is playing darts with Cole, and I don’t want to interrupt his game.” He wouldn’t want me to interrupt his game. I let my gaze travel to Wyatt. His glare hasn’t faded.

  “I’m pretty sure he would be okay with it.” I can hear the smile in Rae’s voice as she says this, but she doesn’t know how to read Wyatt like I do. He doesn’t glower like Cole. His glares are imperceptible.

  I shake my head, sending my hair sliding over one shoulder. “Not anymore.”

  Rae’s grin falls. “Why is that?”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Tanaka said they’ll fire me if I keep seeing him.”

  They hadn’t come out and said those words, but I’m not so dumb that I couldn’t figure out what they meant when they said, What happens when the two of you don’t work out?

  When, not if. They didn’t want any problems at work. Personal problems were supposed to be private, not public.

  “But that’s not right.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat and fight back the tears. “For him it is. Wyatt deserves to be with a woman who wants to be a doctor or lawyer, not some small-town veterinarian’s assistant with no other ambition in life.”