He didn’t know whether she found it, but he gave her an encouraging nod, acting more confident than he felt. “Go ahead. Open it.”
He resisted the urge to stand, knowing that he had to appear as relaxed and unthreatening as he could.
As soon as the door opened, Scott knew his instincts had been dead-on. The sheriff had seen him. Beneath the wide brim of his felt hat, the lawman’s sharp-eyed gaze shot directly to Scott, taking in every detail of his scruffy, hard-edged, living-off-the-grid appearance. Scott knew he looked more like a hired hit man than a highly decorated SEAL officer. He’d taken “low vis,” as they called it on the Teams, to heart the past couple of months.
Natalie stepped in front of the door, trying to block the sheriff’s view, and asked, “Is there something I can help you with, Sheriff Brouchard?”
She was trying to appear casual and friendly, but her acting skills had apparently gone the way of his operational awareness skills, and her voice was shaking. Of course, if it had been intentional and she was trying to alert the sheriff, Scott was in trouble. From the way the sheriff’s gaze narrowed, he definitely hadn’t missed her nervousness, either.
“I was in the area so I thought I’d check up on you to see how you were doing. I saw your car was still in town, and I was worried about you being stranded out here.” Scott didn’t like the way the sheriff was looking at her—it wasn’t just neighborly concern in his gaze—and something hot and possessive surged through his veins. His muscles tensed and his posture probably wasn’t quite so relaxed and nonthreatening anymore. The sheriff hadn’t missed the movement, and his gaze shifted to Scott on the couch. “But I see that you have company.”
There was an unspoken challenge in his gaze that Scott wasn’t going to ignore—even if he should. “She does,” he said. “And she’s being well taken care of.”
In other words, fuck you and the horse you rode in on, buddy.
“Who are you?”
Scott smiled; he knew the law. He didn’t have to answer that. “Not sure that’s any of your business unless you got some kind of warrant there that I can’t see?”
The friendly tone didn’t mask the underlying words. Another fuck-you.
Not surprisingly, the sheriff’s suspicion turned to anger. The last thing Scott should be doing was provoking him, but this guy set him on edge. He was sure it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that the sheriff was his size—maybe even a little bigger—looked like a TV star, and was clearly interested in Natalie.
Natalie hadn’t missed the dangerous undercurrent between the two men and tried to turn the sheriff’s attention back to her. “Thank you so much, Sheriff. I really appreciate your stopping by. I’ll make sure to pick up my car in the morning.”
The overbrightness of her reply made her anxiousness all the more obvious. If she wasn’t trying to make the sheriff suspicious, she really needed to reconsider the whole spy thing. She might as well be wearing a flashing red sign that read SOMETHING WRONG HERE.
The sheriff looked intently back and forth between them. “You sure everything is all right?” he asked her.
Scott hadn’t missed that the other man’s hand had moved toward his holster, as if he was just waiting for her to say the word.
But would she?
Her gaze flicked to Scott’s for just the barest of an instant. He could see her temptation. All she had to do was say “yes” and Magnum would jump at the chance to take him in. Scott—or Rob Preston, as his ID stated—would be out in a few hours, but that would be more than enough time for her to get away. And despite what he’d told her about finding her, he suspected she wouldn’t be as easy to track down the next time.
Natalie could make it even harder on him if she told the sheriff who he really was: an AWOL Navy SEAL who everyone thought was dead. It wouldn’t tie him up for just a few hours.
Hell, Scott couldn’t even say he’d blame her if she did it. Were he in her position, he just might do it.
She turned back to the sheriff.
Scott waited, feeling as if a hammer were pounding in his chest, for what seemed like the longest pause ever for her to answer.
“I’m fine. He’s my ex, that’s all.” She hurried to add, so there wasn’t any mistake, “Ex-boyfriend—not husband.”
Scott felt the tension dissipate into relief. He relaxed his posture—and the flare of muscle. He even decided to be a little more magnanimous and throw the dog a bone. “Rob,” he filled in his name for the sheriff. “And I’m working on the ex part.”
All right, so maybe not so magnanimous.
Clearly the sheriff didn’t like that part of the answer. He also knew that something was off, but as there wasn’t anything else he could do, he tipped his hat to Natalie. “I’ll be going then, ma’am. But you have my number if you need anything.”
Natalie nodded, thanked him, and closed the door. A few minutes later—after looking back a few times at the house—the sheriff got in his car and drove off.
* * *
• • •
Natalie watched out of the window, not breathing, until the sheriff’s car disappeared. Only then did she turn on Scott, who was sitting calmly on the couch apparently enraptured by the baseball game on TV. She marched over and stood in front of it.
“You’re blocking the screen.”
She ignored him, demanding angrily, “What was that all about?”
“All what?”
Apparently she’d found the one thing that Mr. Lieutenant Commander of America’s Top SEAL Team didn’t do well: play dumb.
But she knew male posturing when she saw it. “I’m surprised you didn’t break out rulers.”
His gaze went to hers, piercing her with its intensity—and something else. “I didn’t need one.”
Natalie felt her cheeks and other parts of her body flush, not with embarrassment but with the heat of awareness and memories. He was right. He didn’t. Nor should she be thinking about how much she’d enjoyed that fact.
God, she almost let out a groan. Dick size didn’t matter. Yeah, right. She’d thought that until she met Scott.
If he’d meant to fluster her, he had. “You know what I mean.”
He shrugged, returning his interest to his beer and to the parts of the screen he could still see. “I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”
She wanted to stomp with frustration and get him to pay attention to her. “You are seeing things then because he was looking at me like a concerned neighbor.”
“A concerned neighbor who wants to get in your pants,” he said, muffling the last with a sip of his beer.
But she’d heard it. “Why do men always assume other men are thinking about sex?”
“Uh, because they are,” he stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Natalie rolled her eyes, refusing to be baited about something so ridiculous. “Even if you are right, why do you care?”
Something angry flashed in his eyes, but she wasn’t sure whether it was directed at her or himself. He put his beer down with a hard slam. Now she had his attention. “I don’t. I just don’t want him sniffing around while I’m here.”
“Well, if that was your goal you picked an odd way of going about it. The friendly route might have made him less suspicious.”
“He was already suspicious. You weren’t exactly making your nervousness unclear. What happened to the cool, confident woman who deceived everyone around her, including me, for the past few years?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I just got tired of being that person.” She didn’t even know who she was anymore. Not the young idealist who’d gone to Washington thinking she could save the world, but not the Stepford Washington insider, either. Natalie’s shoulders sagged. “Maybe I’m just tired.”
And she was. It was as if the weight of the past few years had finally cau
ght up with her, and she just couldn’t pretend anymore. Why should she? The cat was out of the proverbial bag. She was amazed that she’d gotten away with it for so long—especially given who Scott was. He was trained to see deception everywhere. But maybe she was so bad, she’d actually been good. She hadn’t deceived him because her feelings had been authentic. She’d truly loved him.
She still did.
She moved out of his view and headed for the stairs. But he stopped her, standing from the couch to block her path. There were a couple of feet between them, but that didn’t stop her body from reacting. From feeling as if his shadow had somehow enveloped her in heat. From smelling the warm spiciness of his soap and shampoo. He always smelled incredible. He might look scruffy and disheveled, but his aroma hadn’t changed.
“Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you try to run?”
Natalie wasn’t sure. She’d thought about it. She gazed up at the man she’d thought she’d never see again. To the man she’d wronged so terribly. She knew every detail of that handsome face, but she couldn’t stop her eyes from roaming over it freely—gluttonously—as if still unable to believe that he was alive.
The strong jaw, the navy blue eyes framed by thick golden brown lashes, the straight, patrician nose, the small scar on his left cheek, and the tiny crow’s-feet lines etched in his skin from the months—years—spent in the harsh Middle Eastern sun. Only the darkened hair, stubbly beard, and fierce expression reminded her that she couldn’t reach out and touch him. He wasn’t hers anymore.
“I didn’t want to put you in danger,” she said.
“It’s a little late for that.”
“Any more danger,” she qualified. “I figured you are in hiding for a reason.”
She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t take her up on the chance to enlighten her.
She took a deep breath. “And maybe I thought I should try to give you the trust that I didn’t give you before. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder the rest of my life, and I don’t want that for the baby, either. Even if you don’t want to protect me, I know you will protect our child.”
His eyes blazed and his expression grew even more fierce. “Assuming it is ‘ours.’”
“Right,” she said, a spark of anger firing her own gaze. “Assuming I didn’t plan all this by finding some random guy to sleep with so I could pass his baby off as yours in case you came back from the dead. That makes a lot of sense as opposed to me getting pregnant on the night we didn’t use a condom.” She brushed up against him seductively, using a soft, sultry voice that belonged in the bedroom. “Or maybe you want me to remind you what happened that night.”
She was so close now, her breasts were grazing his chest. It wasn’t enough. She leaned in closer, sliding her body up his with a movement that wasn’t at all suggestive. It was explicit. Obvious. It told him exactly what she wanted him to remember.
Them. Together. In bed. Their bodies sliding together as he thrust inside of her.
He’d been out of control that night. He’d taken her roughly. Desperately. As if he needed something from her. It was a wild, uncivilized, stripped-to-the-core version of her always-in-control, buttoned-up-tight SEAL commander that she’d never seen before. Later, she found out that something had gone wrong on a mission, and he’d lost one of his guys. But after that night, something had changed between them. He’d showed her a side of him that she suspected few if any people had ever seen. It had brought them closer, fusing their connection even tighter. She’d almost convinced herself that he might love her.
Except that hadn’t been her. If he’d cared about her then, it was the version of her that Mick had created. She wasn’t fancy or sophisticated. Far from it.
She could see from the way his eyes blazed that he got the less-than-subtle message. But she didn’t know whether the heat was anger or arousal. Maybe it was both.
“It wasn’t my idea, Scott,” she taunted him. “You were the one who forgot to put on the condom. I even reminded you. But do you remember what you said?”
She gave him a hint, nudging her hips provocatively against the part of him that answered her question about arousal. He was hard as a rock. She felt a rush of heat and pleasure that spread over her in a warm glow. He wasn’t immune to her. Not completely. He might hate her, but he still wanted her. It was something she could hold on to. One connection that wasn’t fake and hadn’t been severed.
“I remember,” he bit out angrily.
But she ignored him, heady with the rush of feminine power. “You said that you didn’t care. You said that you didn’t want anything between us.”
Scott grabbed her shoulders and for one heart-leaping, stomach-dropping moment she thought he was going to kiss her. The air between them seemed to crackle with fire.
His fingers dug into her arms, and he lifted her ever so slightly closer. Every muscle in his body was taut and he seemed pulled as tight as a bow, radiating a raw primal energy that made her knees weak and turned her insides to liquid. His angry, lust-filled eyes dropped to her mouth.
Natalie’s heart pounded, and her lips parted with a soft gasp of anticipation.
The sound seemed to startle him. Remind him. He let out a sharp curse, and instead of taking her in his arms, he set her harshly away from him.
She could practically see the blood pounding through his body. He was furious. The taut clench of his jaw made all the more ominous by the ticcing muscle below.
“Pretty damned ironic, don’t you think, with all the lies that were between us?”
He was right, and just like that Natalie felt the anger that had been lit by his suggestion that the baby wasn’t his die as quickly as it had caught fire.
She was left feeling embarrassed—maybe even ashamed—for taunting him. But he’d provoked her, damn it.
Still, the femme fatale thing wasn’t her, and she’d never played the seductress before with anyone. All she’d probably succeeded in doing was reinforcing every horrible thought he had about her.
“You’re right,” she said. “And maybe I deserve that. You have a right to be angry. But I’m not going to let you beat me up forever. I hate what I did to you, but whether you agree or not, I didn’t think I had any choice. You don’t have any idea what it is like to have someone controlling every facet of your life—how could you? Look at you! Well, I’m not six feet three of solid muscle with good looks, wealth, and connections, nor am I a highly trained SEAL officer with the weight of the US military behind me. I didn’t think I had anyone I could turn to and protect my family at the same time. I did the best I could with the horrible choices I had. I did everything in my power not to hurt you or put you at risk. I loved you, Scott, whether you want to believe it or not.”
They stared at each other for a long moment. He didn’t say anything. Whether her words had penetrated, she didn’t know. As always his expression revealed none of his thoughts.
But enough had been said for tonight. Without another word, Natalie moved around him and headed upstairs to bed.
Eleven
Scott woke to the sound of a shattering crash above him. He jumped from the couch, grabbed the Glock 19 that he’d stashed under the cushion, and raced up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time.
Had someone broken in? Had she fallen? All kinds of horrible scenarios raced through his mind in the space of a few seconds. His adrenaline had shot from zero to a hundred. But it was the pounding in his heart that he didn’t want to think about.
“Jesus, Nat, are you o—”
He stopped midsentence and lowered the gun. The panic—for that was what he had to acknowledge it was—came crashing down. She was fine. She was bent over in the hallway picking up the small metal stepladder that he’d noticed the other night.
She glanced over at him with an apologetic wince that included a gnawing of her lower lip. A very lush, very red
lower lip that was sexy as hell and made him think of all kinds of really inappropriate things. Things that wouldn’t have been inappropriate a few short months ago. Things that she’d been really good at.
Shit, blood rush.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was trying not to wake you. But I put the ladder down to lean it against the wall while I opened the window and it fell.”
Scott nodded and started to tuck the pistol into the back waistband of his shorts but realized at the same time she did—if the widening of her eyes and pink flush on her cheeks meant anything—that he wasn’t wearing his shorts. Or a shirt for that matter. Only his boxer briefs, which were tight and had space for just one gun.
A gun that was going to be primed and ready to shoot if she didn’t stop looking at him like that.
The way she’d looked at his body had always turned him on. She’d never hidden the appreciation she had for the results—in this case benefits—of his constant physical training, especially when it came to his arms and abs. She used to lie in bed curled against his chest and trace the bands of stomach muscle with her fingers, counting. Not all guys could get an eight-pack, but she’d been fascinated by his.
Fortunately, his body didn’t have time to betray him. The look in her eyes changed. She gasped and stood upright, her eyes pinned to his shoulder. “What happened?”
He glanced down, seeing the bandage stained with the now-dried blood from where the wound had opened yesterday. He’d forgotten about it and hadn’t cleaned it up.
“Nothing.”
She glanced up, mouth flat and eyes narrowed. “That isn’t nothing.” She marched over to him, closing the distance in a handful of steps. “Tell me what happened.”
“I took a bullet—”
“My God, you were shot!” Her eyes widened again and worse, she put her hands on him. One on his bare chest and the other on his arm near the bandage—which was two hands too many. His reaction was instantaneous. Every nerve ending flared and blood rushed to all corners of his body—including key extremities. “Why didn’t you say anything?” The obvious distress in her voice made his chest feel too tight. “Let me see it. . . .”
Out of Time Page 14
