Free ''I Do''...Take Two! by Merline Lovelace Page A

erotic mental image took on a more vivid texture with her nerves still skittering from the feel of his mouth and body against hers. Just the sight of the claw-foot tub set in solitary splendor on a raised dais brought the heat rushing back. She sat on the tub’s edge, set the old-fashioned black plug and twirled the gilt-edged taps. Steam rose almost instantly from the gushing spout, as hot and vaporous as Kate’s memories.
    It was only after she’d added floral-scented bath salts and adjusted the temperature that all-too-familiar guilt edged out the memories. Guilt that her pride in her husband’s service to his country didn’t compensate for empty days and lonely nights. Guilt that she couldn’t adjust to the long rotations and short-notice deployments with the same seeming ease as other wives in his unit. Guilt that her gnawing loneliness only added to the stress Travis carried into every op.
    Now he was ready to leave the military. Walk away from a job he loved and the comrades in arms who understood the dangers and frustrations and challenges he faced every day. The men and women who spoke the same language and shared the same highs and lows.
    As Kate stripped down and slid into the frothy bubbles, her rational self reared up to do battle with the ever-present guilt. Theirs wasn’t the only marriage to crack under the pressure. The divorce rate in the air force was the highest in more than two decades. It ran even higher for special ops. Separations, stress and the high risk of the job all took their toll.
    And dammit, she shouldn’t feel so guilty at the prospect of Travis walking away from that close-knit special ops community. Judging by the interaction between him and Brian Ellis earlier this afternoon, her husband might well find the same satisfaction, the same camaraderie, outside the military as he did in it.
    Buoyed by the thought, she grabbed the puffy sponge supplied by the hotel and dunked it in the still-fragrant froth. A thorough scrubbing left her skin tingling and her thoughts free to dwell on something other than the guilt she’d carried for so long.
    Like the kiss Travis had laid on her a few moments ago. And the feel of his shoulders bunching under her palms. And her almost suffocating need to glide her palms over that smooth, hard muscle again. Tonight. After a candlelit dinner on the terrace, with the grand palazzi and glistening canals of Venice.
    Oh, hell! Who needs candlelight and canals?
    Travis was willing to risk all to save their marriage. Could she do any less?
    The decision came without conscious thought, so sudden and sure it brought her out of the tub draped in a slick sheen of bubbles. Plucking a towel from the rack, she wrapped it around her. With only a fleeting prayer of thanks that she’d continued on the pill, she left a trail of wet footprints all the way through the bedroom.
    Travis was in the sitting room, his shoes kicked off and ankles crossed on a hassock as he surfed channels on the sixty-inch flat-screen TV. Kate caught snippets of Italian, German and Japanese before she cleared her throat.
    The ostentatious “ahem” brought his head around. The sight of her towel-draped body froze his thumb on the remote. The channel stuck on an Asian newscaster with a mellifluous voice describing what looked like a typhoon forming in the South Pacific. The swirling turbulence on-screen matched the chaotic thump of Kate’s heart.
    â€œYou were right,” she said, her pulse pounding.
    The remote hovered midair. Caution threaded his voice. “About?”
    â€œThe sample was too small. We should run another test.”
    She almost laughed at his look of blank confusion. It took him a few seconds to make the connection to their kiss right before she’d retreated to the bathroom.
    Then his feet hit the floor, the remote hit the hassock and he was out of the chair in one fluid move.

Chapter Five
    T ravis had vowed to give Kate the