Accidental Shield: A Marriage Mistake Romance

by Nicole Snow

  He stops mid-stride, whipping his eyes back to me, the same recognition smoothing his face. “Oh. Yeah. No. I mean...shit.”

  “Huh? What’s wrong?” I ask.

  Flint looks down at the floor, scratching at the stubble on his jaw. “We’ve got ourselves a dilemma. I’ve got two spare rooms, but seeing how we just moved in here a couple months ago, I haven’t had time to get ’em furnished yet.”

  “Oh. No prob, I can sleep on the floor.”

  “That’s a big hell no. I’ll take Bryce’s room. He’s still got a set of old bunk beds he uses for sleepovers, even though I think he spends too many nights on his futon now.”

  I give him a solid once-over, shaking my head. “You? Scrunched up in a bunk bed?”

  “I’ve done it before,” he says with a laugh. “Took a nap in an empty fucking fuel tank once on a mission, curled up like a cat. Thank God there was enough ventilation.”

  I can’t imagine.

  “Look, I’ll just sleep out here on the couch. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “No. You need your beauty sleep, Val. Solid rest. The only place you’re gonna sleep is in that bed.” He storms over and lays his palm against the small of my back, spinning me around so quickly and so gently I barely realize it’s happened. “Now, go. Sleep. I’ll see you for breakfast.”

  “Flint. Be real. I can’t put you out of your own bed,” I say, anchoring my feet to the ground. “You’re already going above and beyond. This is nuts. It’s huge. We could even...”

  Share sticks on the tip of my tongue, but I just can’t get it out.

  I feel like I’ve been hit in the face with an awkward stick.

  Here we are, standing chest to chest, chin to nose, and my insides are melting down almost as quickly as they had earlier.

  He steps aside, an impressive mask on his face. “You aren’t putting me out of my bed. I am. Big difference, babe. It’s my choice, my digs, so I make the rules. Now scat, lady. No more lip.”

  “But I just—”

  “Val.”

  Oh, God. There’s just something about the way he says my name in this stormy, bossy way that saps the fight right out of me. I’d call him an ogre, but no make-believe grump ever looked this good or cared this much about some random girl missing her marbles.

  I take a step forward but say it anyway. “I feel pretty guilty.”

  “Don’t.”

  I want to tell him it’s a big bed, like I had the very first night, but my reasons would be different tonight. Maybe my memory hasn’t returned, but I know myself, and I know what I’d want to do once he was in that bed next to me.

  “Okay. Fine. Good night,” I say, heading off to the bedroom before I reveal anything else about myself that I’m not totally prepared to deal with right now.

  In the bedroom, I find my pj’s and then take a shower.

  Walking out of the bathroom, I stare at the bed.

  It’s freaking huge. King-sized. Six full-grown adults could sleep in it without so much as touching.

  “Stop it,” I hiss to myself, tossing back the covers so I can climb in.

  I click off the bedside lamp and stare at the ceiling, marveling at how the moonlight shining off the ocean reflects through the glass. The shadows it casts through the French doors dance across the ceiling like fairies fluttering around.

  An odd thing to think of. Fairies.

  Yet, I do, and that makes me feel lonely.

  This whole thing feels like some screwed up fairy tale, honestly.

  That’s why I’d asked Flint to sleep in the same bed with me before. I didn’t want to be lonely.

  It seems like a feeling I know too well.

  Folding my hands together, I fidget with that halo I keep obsessing over. Flint’s ring, still on my hand, all shiny black pearl and promises never meant to be.

  It’s pathetic, isn’t it?

  I haven’t taken it off since the swim earlier, when I’d left it on the lanai table and promptly put it back on after he carried me to safety. Still haven’t asked him for the box, either, so I can put it back where it belongs and then have him bury it in his safe.

  He said the ring was mine, but it’s not, it’s his.

  Yet, lying here, twisting it around my finger, my sense of loneliness fades.

  It’s a stunning ring. The most beautiful I’ve ever seen. A rare pearl, too much like the hulking, brave SEAL who’s already saved me several times over.

  Go ahead and tell me how sappy that is. I don’t care.

  A sigh leaves my chest as I remember our bodies being pressed together. Whatever hell I’m in, that was a slip of heaven.

  No amnesia in the world could ever make me forget it.

  10

  Change of Scenery (Flint)

  I have to start taking my own advice.

  Hitting the shower the second I’m alone is a step in the right direction. Not because I’m worried about sea water, I’d rinsed that off while the chicken was wrapping up.

  This time, it’s because I have a fucking hard-on that might drill a hole through the wall if I don’t get some ice on it like yesterday. It’s so many shades of wrong.

  I haven’t been so hot and bothered by a chick in eons.

  All of this shit would be a lot easier if she was homely and dull and, hell, I don’t know, a screaming bitch on wheels?

  But Valerie’s none of those things.

  She just has to be lethally gorgeous, bubbly, kind, intelligent, and scared.

  Yeah. Time to start writing my dick’s last words.

  The only thing that reins me from the urge to show her what this Flint can kindle is the last thing on that list. She’s scared out of her wits.

  All thanks to her brother, the stinging fuck-Ray.

  My rage nearly boiled over seeing him at the shop in Aiea.

  Everything I’ve uncovered, everything my guys are working on, points to him being guilty as hell.

  Val has nothing to do with the darker side of the family business. I couldn’t be more certain.

  Whatever she found out that got her into this mess can’t be her doing.

  Once I know she’s snoozing away, I sneak back to my room and collect a set of clothes out of the closet, then grab a pillow and blanket from the linen closet in the laundry room before finding a good place to flop down.

  I glance into Bryce’s room as I’m walking past. Val’s right. There’s no way in hell I could sleep on the top bunk without wanting to saw my own legs off. They’d be hanging over the footrail from the knees down.

  The couch will be fine. It’s just for a little while.

  Now that this fake marriage shit is done, I don’t have to worry about slipping up. With her feeling better, I can get down to brass tacks, solving this case so everybody has a shot at a normal life again.

  Still, there’s something pulling at my mind, keeping me wide awake long after I crash.

  I think it’s knowing she’s just on the other side of this wall. In my bed.

  Fuck.

  I should’ve asked if she needed a pain pill or something before going to bed. Or maybe I should’ve popped a few myself to dull the ache below my beltline. It’s hotter than a grill on this sofa, even with just a sheet draped over my legs.

  Turning, struggling to get comfortable, I shift my focus back to the case, going over what I still need to fill in the blanks.

  Five Years Ago

  I fight the churning waves, dragging Cash through the water, back toward shore.

  It’s dark, the rough undertow of the current threatens to pull us both out to sea. I counter it, swimming harder, searching the black waters for other survivors.

  Don and Miguel. I can’t see them. Can’t hear them. Jax stopped screaming less than a minute after our boat took a direct hit and blew our world apart.

  Not a fucking good sign.

  My feet touch the bottom after what seems like forever. Grunting, my teeth finally touch solid ground and I tug Cash to shore, his expr
ession still dazed.

  It’s rocky. Volcanic boulders or something. I pull him over several feet, find a spot where he’ll stay hidden, where I hope to fuck he’ll claw his way out of his stupor. “Sit tight. I’ll be back. I have to find Don and Miguel.”

  “Go,” Cash whispers hoarsely, shaking his head. “Go.”

  Goddamn, I can’t believe this.

  How’d we miss an ambush?

  This should’ve been an easy job for Damysus Security. Find the woman and her daughter, kick the asses of the men holding her hostage, and bring them home. I can still see her in my head, old photos with her face drilled into us by rote memory.

  Now? Now, we’ve got ourselves a total clusterfuck.

  I hurry back over to the rock, slide into the water, searching for my team.

  The pain is excruciating. But I can’t black out again.

  I have to know where I am, where they’ve brought me.

  But I press on, re-emerge on dry ground, and keep going. I don’t see the open wound on the back of my leg bleeding a neat trail across the sand until it’s too damn late.

  I’m just surrounded.

  Dark shadows, smiling men with rifles, leering at me with no gap to make a clean break and no hope of drawing my sidearm.

  They haven’t even done it yet, but my back starts to burn.

  “Fuck!” I roar, bolting up.

  My heart races, my back blazes, and I’m shaking like a rabid dog. It takes a second to recognize my surroundings.

  Home. Safe. For now.

  I lie there, giving myself time to regain control, knowing it was just a dream. A nightmare I haven’t had for years.

  Composure comes slowly, but it comes. I glance around, making sure I haven’t woken anyone else up with my outburst. No, the house seems silent.

  Then I reach for my phone and pull up the home security app. All the signal lights are still on, no unusual motion from the cameras. There’s no breech.

  It’s a quiet night, just like it should be.

  I sit up taller, wiping the sweat off my forehead and the back of my neck. The woman’s photo in my dream, the mark we were supposed to extract, it hasn’t hit me this bad in years.

  Closing my eyes, I try remembering what she really looked like, before she’d been snatched from Honolulu along with her young daughter. They’d been taken hostage, held for ransom at this secret compound just outside Bali, which is where my Damysus team found them.

  The woman was wealthy. Married the wrong man with dirty connections. And that made her a target.

  Fuck, she could’ve resembled Val. Young, with long flowing hair, but the face in the photo in my dream wasn’t hers.

  It was all Val.

  Fuck the mind’s trickery.

  I get up. Phantom pain still scorches the scar tissue on my back.

  The scars haven’t hurt like this in years, but tonight, they feel fresh, new. Knowing I need to stretch my muscles, I walk through the house to the back and go outside, onto the lanai.

  The night breeze always feels refreshing. I cross the tile, the sand, then walk to the ocean, slipping through the coolness until the gentle waves slosh up past my waist.

  Let it wash away the dream. Let it take away the pain. Let it renew my fucked up soul.

  Baptism by water and salty air.

  If only it could do the same for the past.

  I swim past the spot off the shore where Val went under. That scared the living shit out of me.

  I’d cursed myself for swimming so far away from her the entire time I was bringing her back, thinking how easily she could just disappear. And before that, when she’d jumped me, her slick, wet skin gliding across mine, I’d nearly lost it for a whole different reason.

  What the hell is this woman doing to me?

  She’s a cock tease, a sweetheart, and an enigma wrapped up in one fragile, annoyingly delectable package. She’s practically a stranger, someone I’ve only known for a few days because she was dropped into my lap, and yet...yet I feel how my lip curls every time I think about her situation.

  I know how hard I have to choke back the growl rising in my throat.

  I remember exactly how she tasted, those cherry wine lips sweeter and so much more decadent than her frigging cheesecake on a stick.

  Yeah, fuck me.

  I’m starting to realize just how tangled up I am in Little Miss Forgetful, two tragic lives locked like horns, a thousand things that could only go more wrong if I’m reckless enough to let us share a bed again.

  You know what you promised, I tell myself, cutting brisk, angry laps along the shore.

  She needs to stay safe. Build up her strength. And if anything happens to her, it’ll be my fault, especially if said anything means me.

  Hell no. She’ll come through this unharmed. No worse for wear than she is right now.

  She’s handling this amnesia fugue well, all things considered. I’d be like living with a chimpanzee with a gas lighter if I ever had my memories wiped.

  Some of them, anyway.

  Some, I could happily lose.

  My back burns again, but it’s more of a dull, itchy sensation now.

  I stop swimming, flip over and relax, float on my back, waiting for my breathing to normalize. Then I right myself and swim back to shore, following the faint, glowing lights from the house.

  It’s a peaceful night. Barely even any odd, distant ships on the horizon, their lights winking duller than the stars.

  Everyone mentions how breathtakingly beautiful a Hawaiian day can be, ending in a sunset crafted for the gods, but few people who aren’t locals talk about the nights.

  Out here, you’re one with the stars. The entire island goes quiet and the ships fade to these distant, twinkling lights on the horizon, a sharp reminder how insanely far the closest continent is from these islands.

  Then there’s the sky, a void torn open, spilling stars.

  Calling it fucking magnificent would be a hilarious understatement.

  It’s the kind of yawning chasm full of silver you just want to cast your deepest wishes into.

  So I do, picking up a good-sized rock once I’m on the shore. I stand there alone on the beach for a few seconds, looking up, and let it come.

  I think of Val. I toss my rock. I say a few words to the naked heavens up above.

  Not about me. I tell them to take care of her.

  Let her dream, dammit.

  Let her make it through this.

  Let her find a man worthy of her body and her sad little heart, some lucky SOB who knows how to crush her worries and her fears up into a tight, scrappy ball and set her free.

  Then I turn my back, just as an angry wave swallows up the last ripples left by my stone, a secret message with no bottle meant for a man, the sky, and the endless ocean.

  By the time I head back to the lanai, I’m convinced the couch is the reason for my nightmare.

  The leather’s heat on my back was too much.

  The scars get weirdly sensitive to temperature sometimes. So I put down the back of a lounge chair and stretch out on it, still staring up at that starry sky, basking in...whatever the hell tonight’s supposed to be.

  Turning over, lying on my stomach, I close my eyes and drift away.

  Dreams don’t wake me this time. It’s the rising sun and the eerie sense there’s someone watching me. I open one eye to see a bashful figure next to me in her seashell pj’s.

  “Did you sleep here all night?” she asks.

  “Nah, just for a few hours.” I let out a sigh of satisfaction. I’d slept well out here. No dreams at all. “What are you doing up so early? Breakfast time?” I ask her.

  She laughs. “No, and I think I’m kind of worried if breakfast always means stuffing me with malasadas and coffee. A girl shouldn’t get too used to eating like that every day. I was awake, though, so I got up and saw you out here when I walked through the house.”

  I roll over, stretching my arms over my head, and sit up. Flipping my
legs over the side of the lounger, I ask, “How’d you sleep?”

  “Better than you, I’m sure,” she says.

  I snort. She looks frigging adorable, her black hair rumpled up and a sleepy sheen shimmering in her gold-speckled eyes.

  “Then you must’ve slept like Rip Van Winkle, babe. I slept like a baby out here,” I say.

  There’s a grin on her lips but doubt on her face. “Babies don’t sleep that well. You should know.”

  I shrug. “So you’re a child shrink after all, huh?”

  “No, I’ve just heard what it’s like for new parents...not getting any sleep because the baby keeps them up.” She blinks at me a couple times. “I mean, it’s true, isn’t it?”

  “You get used to it fast. When Bryce was born, I had a lot more to worry about than him waking me every two hours. I needed to keep him the fuck away from Mama. But yeah, I’ve heard that old yarn, too.” Standing up, I walk toward the house. “Coffee? Got a new batch in the mail yesterday, shipped in fresh straight from the Kona plantation.”

  “I guess that sounds nice.” She follows. “Let me sleep on the couch tonight.”

  “Not the hell again. Val, listen, you’ll sleep right where you’ve been sleeping; you won’t bite back about it, and you’ll be glad I’m a bad enough dude to happily park my ass outside under the stars for some shut-eye. You dig?”

  That gets a new round of laughs from her. “Oh my God, are you for real?”

  “Dunno. You standing here, or are you still in your bed, having sweet dreams? Better pinch me if you’re not sure.” I hold out my arm.

  She slaps it away with a giggle.

  I stomp off with a mock wounded look, then click on my computer before walking to the cabinet above the stove to pull out the coffee gear. I’ve got my gooseneck kettle, grinder, Chemex, and the finest whole beans money can buy straight from Kona. It’s all painstakingly assessed and sourced there, not like that hybrid crap they sell on the mainland that might be twenty percent Kona beans tops.

  “Just promise me you won’t sleep on the lounge chair again,” she says. “You’re going to throw out your back on that thing. It’s good for naps, but all night? Yikes.”