by Elle James
A small child approached her and took her hand, tears streaming down her face.
Sunny sat on the ground beside her, pulling the child into her arms. Speaking softly, she tried to sooth the little one’s sorrow. When the little girl’s tears continued, Sunny started to sing a sweet lullaby, rocking the child in her arms.
As she sang, the voices in the tent hushed as everyone listened to the angelic sound.
Sunny’s song tugged at Dash’s heart. He knew her music from the radio, but hearing it in person, in such a sweet acapella, made it that much more personal and poignant.
Dash finally understood the magic of Sunny Daye. He could hear the love and longing in the sweet notes. Her tone was clear and pure, and she sang as if it came straight from her heart.
The child snuggled against her and soon fell asleep.
After repeating the song several times, Sunny glanced up. “I hate to leave her.”
One of the women reached out, took the child from Sunny’s arms and wrapped her in a blanket as if she were her own.
Dash helped Sunny to her feet. “Come on. We need to let them sleep. You need to get some sleep, too.”
She nodded. “You need your sleep, as well. You must be exhausted.”
He gave her a crooked grin as they walked out of the tent into the starlit night. “I’m not the one who put on a show tonight, and then got kidnapped.”
He cupped her elbow and led her across the compound back to the line of trucks, vans and motorhomes.
Her bodyguards fell into step behind them.
When they arrived at her motorhome, she started to reach for the door handle.
Dash touched her arm. “Let me go first.”
While Sunny waited at the foot of the steps, Dash entered the motorhome. He checked all the rooms, the closets and storage areas, searching for intruders. His check only took moments, and he was back at the door, holding it open. “All clear. You can come in.”
She entered, stifling a yawn.
When he started for the door, she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Wait. Where are you going?”
“While you sleep, I’ll be outside, guarding your place.”
“That won’t be necessary,” she said.
His lips pressed into a thin line. “It will be necessary.”
She shook her head. “My bodyguards take turns. Two stay awake while the other two sleep. Then they swap with the other two. That way, everyone gets some sleep.” She looked around the interior of the unit. “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer you stay inside. Don’t worry. The bodyguards stand on each end of the trailer at opposite corners.”
“Where do your bodyguards sleep?” Dash asked.
“They have their own small trailer where they take turns sleeping in the bunks.”
“I really don’t mind standing guard outside.”
Sunny’s lips pressed together. “Mr. Hayes, are you afraid of me?”
Dash’s eyes widened. “Of course not.” If he was truthful, he was afraid of himself. Or more to the point, he was afraid of being alone with Sunny.
“I’d feel more comfortable if you were someplace, that if I called out, you would hear me.” Her glance shot to one of the windows that was covered with blinds. “I don’t think you would hear me if you were outside.”
“Fair enough,” Dash said.
“With the bodyguards standing guard outside, you can get some sleep as well.” Sunny tipped her chin toward the sofa. “The couch opens out into a queen-sized bed.”
Dash shook his head. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll sleep on the couch, without extending the bed.”
“Suit yourself.” As she walked toward the back of the unit, she kicked off her shoes and padded away barefooted. She let the cape she’d worn to the tent fall to the ground. “Don’t judge me,” she said, casting a glance over her shoulder. “I’ll pick these up in the morning.”
Oh, he was judging all right. The woman had legs from her toes all the way up to her chin, and they were gorgeous. The miniskirt did nothing but emphasize how long and slender her legs were.
When she reached the door to her room, she turned back. “There’s food in the refrigerator. Help yourself. I’m leaving this door open so I can hear you and you can hear me.” Then she disappeared for a few minutes. The sound of a shower made Dash tense.
He could imagine Sunny naked, standing beneath the spray. The water didn’t stay on long. A few minutes later, the woman occupying his carnal thoughts appeared in baby doll pajama shorts and a tank top.
Sunny had pulled her hair up into a messy bun on top of her head using an elastic band. Loose blond strands hung down around her neck, making Dash want to brush them back from her face and tuck them behind her ears. Or better yet, pull the elastic band from her hair and let her hair fall down around her shoulders again. He longed to run his hands through it.
He paced the living room, unable to sit due to the tightness of his trousers. Shrugging out of his bulletproof vest, he set it down beside the door, next to his rifle. He pulled the handgun out of the holster on his hip and laid it on the countertop.
Dash tried to focus on anything but the woman in the next room. A woman whose legs he could imagine wrapped around his waist as he drove deep inside of her.
Holy shit. What was he thinking?
They’d only just met.
She was a celebrity.
He was just a grunt.
They occupied two completely different worlds. It wasn’t like they’d ever come together as a couple. The only thing that could possibly happen between them was a short fling. And by short, it would be the amount of time until she finished her tour and left Afghanistan. Then Sunny would go her way, while Dash stayed in Afghanistan, fighting a foe he couldn’t always see. Even if he redeployed back to Fort Hood, Texas, he wouldn’t see her. She’d be on tour, gone twelve months out of the year.
Despite all the cons, she’d sparked a huge amount of desire in Dash’s loins in the few short hours he’d known her.
Not only was she beautiful, she really cared enough about strangers to donate blankets and pillows to women and children in need. And she sang like an angel and had a body that could tempt the devil out of any man.
Dash was mesmerized by her. For the next fifteen minutes he paced, his adrenaline racing through his veins. From saving Sunny to watching her strut past the open door in her baby doll pajamas, he couldn’t slow his wildly beating heart. Blood pumped hard and fast through his veins. Hard and fast like he’d like to take her, sliding deep inside her warm wetness.
Damn. What was he thinking? They were in a war zone. Fraternizing with anyone in a war zone would get you sent back to the states ASAP, if it didn’t get him court-martialed first. Anything he might want to do with or to Miss Daye would be completely against the rules.
A slow smile slid across his face. Dash ignored rules when they didn’t make sense, or he didn’t care for them. He’d found it better to act first and beg forgiveness later. As long as the woman was willing.
Chapter 4
Dash turned away from the bedroom and walked toward the front of the motorhome, struggling to get a grip on his desires. When he turned back to the bedroom, he spotted Sunny. She stood in the hallway at the end of the living room, wearing nothing but those darned baby doll pajamas in a pale powder blue. They were nearly sheer.
Dash could see the rosy tips of her nipples through the filmy fabric.
She frowned. “Can’t sleep either?”
He shook his head. Oh, hell no. Not with her lying in the bed in the other room wearing that…that tempting cotton candy nightwear.
Of course, he didn’t say that out loud, but his body screamed it.
“Me either,” she said. “Every time I close my eyes, I feel like I’m in the pitch-black of that body bag. I can only imagine what might have happened if you hadn’t come along and saved me.”
“You’re a smart woman,” he said. “You’d have figured out a way to escape
.”
“Do you mind if I keep you company?” she asked.
His lips quirked upward. “It’s your place.”
She nodded and crossed to the couch, sat and folded her legs beneath her and pulled a pillow across her chest.
She patted the cushion beside her. “Come sit with me.”
When he didn’t move, she added, “Please.”
He sat at the far end of the couch, which wasn’t very far, since the seating was only half the size of a normal sofa. All he had to do was move his leg a little and it would touch her thigh.
“Tell me about yourself,” Sunny said. “Talk to me, and maybe I’ll get sleepy.”
“I don’t have much to tell,” he hedged, not really wanting to talk about himself when it was her he’d rather know more about.
“I’m sure you’re a very interesting person.”
“Not really,” he said.
Her lips twisted. “I see I’m going to have to pull it out of you.”
“Seriously,” he said. “There’s not much to tell.”
She tightened her hold on the pillow. “We can start with what I do know. You’re Delta Force, deployed to Afghanistan. The training must have been pretty hard to achieve Delta Force status.”
He shrugged. “It was okay.”
She snorted. “And you’re a smartass as well as a badass. What made you try out for Delta Force?”
“I like the challenge,” he said.
“What made you join the Army?” she asked.
He looked away. “I didn’t have anything better to do.”
“Are you married?” she asked.
“Ha,” he said. “Not hardly.” What woman wanted a part-time husband? Some thought they did, until they tried it. Those marriages didn’t last long.
“Do you have any family back home?” she continued.
“A sister. Briana.” He loved his sister.
“Are you close?”
Dash nodded. “We are. She’s the only family I have left.”
Sunny reached out to touch his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We look out for each other,” he said. “That’s what counts.”
“Yes, it does. And at least you do have each other.” She gave him a wistful smile. “Does she look like you?”
“No, thank God. She’s much better looking.”
“Where did you two grow up?”
“Outside of Chicago.”
“What was it like to be a younger version of Ryan Hayes, before you became Dash?”
He shrugged. “Busy. Always camping, hiking, and fishing with my Dad. He instilled in me a love of the outdoors.”
“And here we are in the great outdoors of Afghanistan. When you were a teen, did you picture yourself here?”
He nodded. “I always knew I’d go into the military.” His eyes narrowed. “Enough about me. What about you?”
Her lips twisted into a wry grin. “What about me?”
“How old were you when you started singing professionally?” he asked.
She glanced away. “Thirteen. I auditioned for one of those talent programs on television. I was selected and made it all the way to the finale.”
“And you won,” he said. “Thirteen. Wow. That’s awful young to be subjected to the cutthroat performance industry. How long ago was that?”
She glanced down at her hands. “Fourteen years.”
Dash did the math. That would put Sunny at twenty-seven years old. “How old were you when you earned your first double platinum record?”
She sighed. “I was eighteen, had the world in front of me, and was well on the way to having all my dreams come true.”
He tilted his head as he studied her profile. “You say that as if you realize it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.”
She shrugged. “I guess it wasn’t all I thought it would be. It was a little more difficult.”
“Was that when you met your partner?”
Sunny nodded. “Just past my eighteenth birthday, my agent teamed me with Justin Snow for a duet. That song sold so many copies, my agent decided Justin and I made a good team. We recorded an entire album together.”
“You were together for twelve years…?” Dash asked.
“Eleven,” she said.
“I take it you two were really close,” Dash said. “Did you ever consider marrying?”
She shook her head. “I kept waiting for him to ask.” Her mouth turned up on one corner. “He never did. I reached the point where I was ready to give him an ultimatum. Either we marry, or we end the partnership. I needed to move on.”
Dash’s brows rose.
Sunny snorted softly. “What? The tabloids didn’t get hold of that news?”
He lifted a shoulder. “If they did, I wouldn’t have known. I don’t read the tabloids.”
“Well, it didn’t matter anyway,” she said staring at the wall in front of her.
“Why’s that?” he asked softly.
“We were on the road between stops on our tour when we got into a heated argument. I had them stop the bus, got off and climbed into one of the equipment vans. We were in the vehicle behind the motorhome Justin was in, when a vehicle crossed the median and hit the motorhome head-on. We watched as it ran off the road and rolled several times before it came to a stop upside down in a small lake. Nobody but the driver was wearing a seatbelt inside the motorhome. By the time we got to the vehicle, it had sunk below the surface and was completely submerged.”
“That had to be a pretty traumatic event for you.”
She nodded. “It was winter. The water was icy cold. We all dove in, at least once, but we couldn’t get to the door to let anyone out. The only one who made it out was the driver. He’d been the only one wearing a seatbelt and wasn’t thrown all over the place. Justin and three members of the band were left in that motorhome, and all of them died.”
“Let me guess,” Dash said. “You’ve been living with survivor’s guilt ever since.”
Sunny drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I was supposed to be in that motorhome. If I had been, I would have been dead, along with Justin and the band. Instead, I watched it all happen right there in front of me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get into that RV to save them.”
“Why did you join the USO?” Dash asked.
She stared down at her hands. “After nine years of singing as a couple, I didn’t know how to sing alone.” Her gaze met his. “The USO came to me and asked if I’d be interested in entertaining the troops for a couple of months. I saw it as a way to escape.” She lifted her shoulders. “So, here I am.”
Dash shook his head. “Escape? Here? Are you sure you weren’t punishing yourself for surviving?”
Sunny’s head shot up, and she stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“You joined the USO, came to a war-torn country where you put yourself at risk. Sounds to me like you were punishing yourself for living when the others had died.”
For a long moment, she stared at him.
He met her gaze without flinching. He supposed he’d hit a nerve.
Finally, she glanced away. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am punishing myself for living when Justin hadn’t.”
“Had he lived, you were about to tell him you were breaking up the team anyway,” he pointed out.
“Yes, I would’ve ended the duo, but I didn’t wish him dead because he didn’t want to marry me.”
“The man must’ve been blind.”
Her gaze shot to his. “Why do you say that?”
“I mean, look at you.” He waved a hand, encompassing all of her. “You’re beautiful.”
“So are a million other women,” she shot back at him. “I guess I’d assumed that he would eventually marry me. After nine years, I gave up hope. We really wanted different things. I wanted a home and family. He wanted to be on the road, touring. He lived for the audience and soaked up the attention of all the gorgeous women who fawned over him at every stop. I was
ready to find normalcy in an abnormal environment.”
“Like I said,” Dash said. “The man must’ve been blind.”
“What about you and marriage?” she asked. “You said you aren’t married. But have you ever been? Did you get divorced?”
“Never married. Never divorced.”
“Were you like Justin and never wanted to get married?”
He shook his head. “I had a happy childhood with loving parents. They stayed home and participated in all of our sporting events, school plays and everything else that made up childhood.”
Her brow wrinkled. “You’d think that would make you want to marry and have a family.”
“I didn’t want to have a family, unless I could do it right. With Delta Force, being away from home is more the norm than being at home. I’d miss all the firsts with my kids. First birthday, first steps, first time she rides a bike, first time he throws a football. I couldn’t do it.”
“You talk about kids… What about a relationship without children? Didn’t you ever want to find someone to love?”
He nodded, and then shook his head. “What kind of life would that be for a woman? She’d be alone for most of the year, wondering when I’d come home, and if it would be in a body bag. There aren’t many women who can tolerate the long absences.”
“You’d think they’d understand that when they signed on to marry a Delta Force soldier,” Sunny said.
“It’s all love and happiness for the first few months until the Delta is deployed with an indefinite return date. We can be gone for a few weeks up to a year, or more, at a time. That leaves the woman alone for all that time. Not everyone is good at being alone. Especially when small children are involved. It really takes two to parent.”
Sunny frowned. “No, it takes a strong woman to hold down the fort while her husband is deployed, fighting for his life, or for the lives of his teammates.”
“Exactly,” Dash said.
“Tell me about your sister.” Sunny smiled. “Is she in the military, too?”
He laughed. “Oh, hell no. But get this…she’s in love with a buddy of mine from one of the other Delta Force teams.”
“Is she strong enough to handle being without her man for extended periods?” Sunny asked.
