Keeping Guard

by Sandra Owens

  He was a few steps from walking out when he stopped. “Where’s your phone?”

  “There in my purse.” She pointed to the suitcase near the door with her purse on top. The suitcase was packed for a honeymoon trip to Napa Valley to tour wineries, what Dalton had wanted to do. She’d wanted to go to Germany and taste beers.

  “Get it.” When she retrieved it from her purse, he said, “Unlock it.” Once that was done, he took it from her.

  The way he was barking out orders, she almost saluted him, but then she got distracted when she realized he wasn’t paying attention to her as he punched the keys on her phone. It was the perfect opportunity to do a little unnoticed drooling.

  The man wore a plain white T-shirt and well-worn jeans like a boss. What she wouldn’t give to explore all those muscles, to trail her fingers down his chest and explore those abs, the likes of which she’d never seen before and couldn’t stop thinking about.

  “My number’s in your phone.” He handed it back to her. “Don’t call me, though, unless you’re desperate.”

  Okay, then. “Exactly what falls under desperate? Just so I don’t call you when I shouldn’t. Not that I’m going to call you at all. But you never know what I might consider desperate that you don’t. So, give me a list of—”

  Oh God, he was kissing her!

  “You kissed me,” she said, stating the obvious when he stepped back, but that kiss, his setting all her nerve endings on fire, had her wanting more, more, more. He’d just updated her life goals, moving “get a whole lot of kisses from this man” to the top spot.

  “It seemed the easiest way to make you stop talking. But I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “You can kiss me again if you want.” Like a hot kiss with tongue would work. That she had a thought like that with a man she’d just met...well, she hardly knew herself. But this was the new her, the woman who was going to go after what she wanted. And she wanted to feel tingly. Noah was just the man to make that happen.

  “No more kisses.” He backed toward the door. “Take care of yourself, Peyton.”

  “You’re no fun.” If she hadn’t been looking at his mouth, she would have missed the slight twitch of an almost smile.

  “Yep, that’s me.”

  “Oh, wait,” she called to him as he headed for the elevator. “I need to give back your clothes.”

  “Keep them.”

  And with that, he was gone. She sighed. Such a shame she’d never get to experience another Noah kiss. Even though it had only been lips to lips, she’d definitely tingled. That was a good sign, though. At least she now knew that she could tingle. It just had to be with the right man, and that definitely wasn’t Dalton.

  She closed then locked the door, which reminded her. Dalton had keys to her loft, and she needed to get the locks changed. The sooner the better. She didn’t trust her father or Dalton not to pull a stupid stunt. Her plan had been to ask Noah to move into her guest bedroom for a week or so, until she was sure that her father and Dalton accepted that there wasn’t going to be a wedding.

  That was one reason she’d wanted to show him her loft, so he could see that it would beat living in that tiny apartment of his. She’d gotten up early and made him breakfast, hoping to sweeten him up, but he’d been a grumpy bear, and she’d known she’d get a hard no.

  If the man slept, he might not start his mornings mad at the world. She’d woken up several times and could hear him moving around the apartment. When she’d come out to make him breakfast, he was standing at the living room window, staring out. Her good morning greeting had been met with silence.

  The man had demons, and, more curious than she should be, she wanted to know what they were. She’d resisted the urge to wrap her arms around him and soothe his troubled soul, but oh, she’d wanted to.

  When he’d refused a beer or coffee, she’d realized he would also refuse to temporarily move into her guest room, so it was on to plan B...whatever that was. If nothing else came from meeting Noah, she’d gotten a kiss, a taste of what was possible. Surely there was another man out there besides him who could make her tingly. She just had to find him.

  * * *

  Why the hell had he kissed her? It was a stupid move. Now he wanted more. But whatever. In a few days, he’d forget about her.

  You sure about that, Alba?

  He ignored the voice in his head.

  As he pulled up to his apartment to pick up the dog, he realized he was singing Keith Urban’s “Kiss a Girl.” That he was singing was a surprise, and not a good one. He’d stopped singing after getting the team’s dog and Asim, their translator—a young man they all liked—killed. Although he’d never had aspirations to pursue a career in music, he had a good voice and loved to sing. But he didn’t deserve to do something he enjoyed.

  His guitar was packed away in its case for good. He’d intended to leave it back in his Virginia Beach apartment, but at the last minute, he’d grabbed it, along with his duffel bag. As soon as he walked into the temporary apartment, he put it in a corner of the closet where he couldn’t see it.

  The last time he’d had it out was the day he was giving Asim a lesson. Even after a dozen or so sessions, Asim’s fingers were still clumsy on the instrument, but Noah had never seen anyone more determined to learn to play.

  The next day, Asim and Snoop, the team’s dog, were blown to bits by a bomb because of him. Because he hadn’t done his job.

  Noah buried his face in his hands, willing the movie constantly playing in his head to go away, but it was there. Every fucking minute of the day and night. Sleep was a thing to be dreaded. The nightmares were too real. He was drowning in guilt and sorrow, and there was no life ring to save him.

  Operating on reliable intel, their mission had been to locate a bomb maker hiding out in a village. The hut where the target was supposed to be was empty, so the team spread out to search the other buildings. Noah entered a dusty room to clear it, only finding an old man too frail to get out of bed.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to do this,” he said, even though he knew the elder didn’t understand him. The man looked back at him with humiliation and hate in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said again as he pulled the cover down so he could search the elder for weapons or a bomb.

  After completing his search of the man and the room, he called for Asim to interrogate the man. “See if you can get him to tell you if our target is actually still in the village and where he could be hiding,” he told Asim. “I’m going to see if anyone else has found anything.”

  He went outside, his gaze scanning the area for his teammates. Snoop—his nose to the ground—was heading toward the mud house he’d just left. Snoop disappeared inside. Noah frowned, his stomach twisting. Had he missed something? When Snoop didn’t come right back out, Noah ran toward the hut. Before he reached the door, an explosion knocked him to the ground. He rolled over, and when he looked back at the house, all he saw was devastation.

  “Sweet Jesus,” he gasped. He pounded the ground with his fist. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” This was his fault. How the hell had he missed a bomb?

  Dallas Manning, his teammate and best friend, ran up to him. “You okay, Double D? The hell happened?”

  “My fault.” He leaned over and retched as those two words raced through his mind over and over. My fault. My fault. My fault.

  After clearing the debris, the team found a third body that turned out to be the bomb maker. They also found a hole under the old man’s bed where the bomb maker had been hiding.

  “How the fuck you miss that, Alba?” his commander said at the briefing. “Did you even look under the bed?”

  “Yes, sir.” He had looked and had swept his hand across the floor as far as he could reach. What he hadn’t done was call one of his teammates in to help him move the bed so a thorough search could be made. The majority of beds in these poor villages were pa
llets on the floor, and that the elder was on a heavy wooden bed should have raised his suspicions. Instead, he hadn’t wanted to disturb an elderly sick man more than he had to. Now that man was dead, along with Asim and Snoop. The bomb maker he couldn’t care less about, but the others would be on his conscience until the day he died.

  “Why didn’t he blow me up?” Noah asked.

  “We’ll never know, but my guess is that he hoped he wouldn’t be discovered,” his commander said. “Then when Snoop came in and alerted to the bomb, the motherfucker set it off.”

  My fault. My fault. My fault.

  Back at their base camp, Noah had closed the case holding his guitar and hadn’t played it since. His last memory of the guitar was laughing as Asim butchered “You Are My Sunshine.” The instrument was a reminder of his failure, and he couldn’t bear to take it out of the case and touch it again. He hadn’t been able to leave it behind, though, and he figured a head doc would have a field day with that.

  The ringtone from his phone penetrated the soul-stealing memories drowning him. He blinked several times, the fierce heat and choking sands of the desert fading away. Sweat poured down his face, and his breaths were ragged. How long had he been parked in front of the apartment, the car engine running while he relived the second worst day of his life?

  He picked his phone up from the cup holder, seeing Jack’s name on the screen. He didn’t want to talk to Jack or anyone else right now, but if he didn’t answer, Jack would come looking for him.

  “Yeah?”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the apartment.” He glanced at his watch. Damn, he was supposed to have been at Operation K-9 Brothers half an hour ago.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, man. Just getting a late start. Sorry.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Noah. I can hear in your voice it’s not nothing.”

  He sighed. It was hell having a brother—because that was what the team was to each other—who knew when to call bull.

  “Fine. I had a flashback. But I’m okay. See you shortly.” He disconnected before Jack could answer, because Jack would say, “You’re not okay.” Then he’d tell Noah to take the day off. The last thing he needed was to sit around his box of an apartment and stare at the walls as they closed in on him.

  He went inside, showered, dressed, collected Lucky, and headed for Operation K-9 Brothers.

  * * *

  “The dog—”

  “Lucky.”

  Jack grinned. “You named him. Good.”

  “If you say so.” He wasn’t about to tell Jack that Peyton had been the one to name him. That would mean having to explain how he’d absconded with a runaway bride, a woman he’d never see again. That thought sent a pang of regret through him, but feelings like that were to be ignored.

  His friend laughed. “Stop looking like you’re sucking on lemons.” He glanced at the dog pressed up against Noah’s legs. “Lucky is yours to train, and it’s obvious he likes you, so you both are off to a good start.”

  “I don’t know about this. I don’t even know why I’m here.”

  “Let’s go sit for a minute.” Jack headed for a bench under the shade of a tree.

  Noah blew out a breath as he followed, Lucky trotting alongside him. Appeared it was time for a lecture on getting his act together. Whatever Jack thought being here and working with dogs would do, it wasn’t going to work. Not only was he having nightmares and daymares about what happened, but the ones he’d had as a boy who’d watched his father kill his mother were coming back. It had taken him years to put those behind him, and he didn’t know if he could do it again.

  Refusing to make it easy on Jack, he kept silent after sitting on the opposite end of the bench. He loved Jack as much as he would love a blood brother, but he resented being forced to be here, to be within a mile of dogs, expected to face his demons, which was what this was all about. No one could help him. Not a dog, not Jack, not sharing his feelings.

  “Here’s the deal,” Jack said. “I had nothing to do with your being ordered to be here, but I can help you.” His gaze fell to Lucky, who had one paw resting on Noah’s knee. “Lucky can help you. At some point, you’re going to have to talk about what happened, but I’m not going to force that on you. You’ll talk when you’re ready.”

  “Or not at all.”

  “If you want to live the rest of your life miserable, then yeah, not at all. But I don’t think you do, even if you won’t admit that to yourself.”

  An image of a black-haired, blue-eyed girl shimmered in his mind. Maybe if he could kill off his demons, he could see if something was there. But he deserved to be miserable, so miserable he would stay.

  “I made an appointment for you to talk to a therapist.”

  Noah scowled at his friend. “Not happening.”

  “Yeah, it is, and that’s an order from your commander.”

  “To hell with this.” He tossed the end of Lucky’s leash at Jack. “I’m outta here.”

  So he’d be AWOL. The hell if he cared.

  Chapter Seven

  After Noah left, Peyton unpacked her suitcases, then she got to work making a life plan. She had enough money in her savings to last seven or eight months, so that gave her breathing room to find a job. It had to be something to do with beer, preferably brewing it. Asheville was known for its microbreweries, so unless her father decided to blackball her with all of his colleagues, that should be doable.

  Second on her list was to find a man who made her tingle. Sadly, that didn’t sound all that doable. Every time she tried to imagine who that man might be, she saw Noah. That left her with mixed feelings about him. He’d shown her that it was possible for her to tingle, but then he’d walked out the door, taking her newfound tingles with him. If she couldn’t find another tingle-making man, she was going to regret ever meeting Noah...what was his last name, anyway?

  Other than learning that he rescued runaway brides, was a SEAL, had a dog he hadn’t named and wouldn’t explain why he lived in a temporary apartment, she knew nothing about him.

  That wasn’t exactly true. She knew he was a champion of damsels in distress. She also knew he had demons, ones that had him pacing the floor all hours of the night. He would do so much better if he was staying in her guestroom. Her loft had a good two thousand more square feet to roam. And if that wasn’t enough, he could walk the streets of downtown. She would never do that in the middle of the night, but any bad person deciding Noah was easy pickings would be in for a surprise, and not a good one.

  She also knew that as much as he tried to deny he wanted anything to do with Lucky, that wasn’t true, even if he didn’t realize it. She’d seen him several times rest his hand on Lucky’s head, and she thought he felt some kind of calmness from the touch. It gave her a warm marshmallowly feeling that he let her name his dog.

  Gah! Why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? It was aggravating. But those abs! How was she supposed to forget what Noah—whatever his last name was—looked like without a shirt? And that kiss? She touched her bottom lip. Would needing another one fall under desperate enough to call him?

  “Get your mind back on the important thing,” she told herself. Like finding a job. She’d never had to job hunt and wasn’t sure how to go about it. Should she just pop in at the various breweries, ask if they needed a beer brewer? Or maybe she should write up a résumé.

  If they asked for references, what should she do? Her father sure wasn’t going to give her one. Eddie would, but that would make her father furious, so she’d never ask that from him.

  Her phone rang, her father’s name coming up on the screen. She was going to talk to him at some point, but she wasn’t ready yet. Half a minute later, her phone beeped, signaling that she had a message.

  She wished she could delete it without listening, but what if he was calling because he
realized she wouldn’t be happy married to Dalton? “Fat chance of that,” she muttered, but she brought up voice mail to hear what he had to say.

  “Call me, Peyton. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but Dalton’s heartbroken.” She snorted. “Whatever made you do what you did can be fixed.”

  “Can not!” she yelled at the phone, disconnecting without listening to the rest of his message. Now she was mad. Did her father even care about her, about what made her happy? Had he ever? The answer was no, and she’d never understood why she couldn’t please him, but she was over trying. In fact, she was so furious that she had things to say to him right now.

  * * *

  As Peyton walked through the lobby toward her father’s office, and as her black heels tapped over the wooden floor, she rubbed her hands down the black pencil skirt, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles. She’d dressed in what she considered her power suit, a skirt, white blouse, and a black jacket.

  Do not let him intimidate you into doing what he wants, she admonished herself as she approached her father’s office.

  Lydia, his assistant, smiled at seeing her. “There you are. He’s expecting you.”

  “I don’t know why. I didn’t tell him I was coming in.”

  “He said to expect you.”

  “Really, he said that?”

  At Lydia’s nod, her steps faltered. Was she doing exactly what he expected? She almost turned around and walked out, but no. Just no. If she did that, she’d never have the courage to face him again. It was now or never.

  She lifted her hand and knocked on her father’s office door. She had to be strong, and that was just what she was going to be.

  “Enter,” he said.

  After taking a deep breath, she opened the door. Her father studied her as she walked in. Because she spent a good portion of her days in the brewery, she normally wore jeans and a blouse unless she had a client meeting. Gerald Sutton was an observant man, and she knew he noticed her clothes and understood the reason for her power suit.