by Lori Wilde
Joel had a credit card, but worried about it being traced. He didn’t know exactly how pissed off Dobbs was at him.
And then he suddenly thought of his father’s condo on Mustang Island. He hadn’t been there in years, and he had no clue what kind of shape the place was in, but it was secluded. And he did remember the alarm code that would unlock the front door. Unless his father had changed it, the numbers were the same as his birthday. Plus, the condo would be empty. Gus never went there in the winter.
“Head for Mustang Island.” He gave her the address, not knowing if this was the best idea he’d ever had or the very worst. “I’ve got a friend who has a summer place there and he won’t mind if we borrow it.”
He hated lying to her but he was already walking a thin line, trying to keep his identity a secret. He didn’t want to say it was his father’s place and risk giving himself away somehow before he was ready to come clean.
Twenty minutes later, they were inside his father’s condo. It smelled moldy from being closed up, but other than that, Joel had forgotten how swank the place was. Gus had splurged on the condo with money he’d inherited from an oil-rich uncle, and he harbored plans of retiring there someday. But Joel doubted that his stepmother Amber, who was three years younger than he, would ever leave the city.
“Wow,” Marlie said after Joel flicked the light switch on. “Fancy-schmancy. Your friend must be pretty well off.”
Joel shrugged. The whiskey was making his head swim, and the throbbing in his side was sapping his strength. Lying down, and the sooner the better, was his only goal. His bloodstained shirt was sticking to his skin, and whenever he moved he felt a sharp poking sensation dig deep into his flesh.
Marlie stepped farther into the room. She lifted her head and stared at the vaulted ceilings and slowly spun in a circle. “Weird.”
“What is?”
“This place looks familiar to me.” She walked into the living area, flicking on more lights as she went.
Watching her sashay away, Joel clasped a hand to his heart. God, she did strange and wondrous things to him.
What’s your major malfunction, Numb Nuts? Get your mind back in the game. This ain’t playtime for J. J.
Right. He was letting a little sexual chemistry and way too much whiskey cloud his judgment.
In his defense, it had been a rather action-packed day. Not since the drama of Iraq had he felt so stimulated, and that wasn’t a good thing.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve definitely been in this condo before.”
“Huh?” Pay attention to what she’s saying. This is important.
“Yeah, when I was a kid. I don’t recall much about it, but I do remember this woodwork.” She ran a hand along the mahogany wainscoting. “It’s pretty unique. Rich. Expensive. I remember being small and looking up at it and thinking, ‘Wow, someday I want to own a place on the beach just like this one.’ Who’s your friend?”
Jesus. A forgotten recollection hit him like a lightning bolt. She had been here before.
They’d once played together on Mustang Island. Back when he’d gone by J. J. and his parents were still married. If Joel tried hard enough, he could see the two of them walking along the windswept shore, picking up sand dollars, cracking them open to find the white shell pieces inside that looked like flying birds.
She’d worn glasses even then, and the elastic of her red swimsuit had cut a groove into the top of her thigh. She hadn’t interested him of course. She’d been a little kid, four or five tops, while he would have been nine or ten. Probably nine. His parents had separated just before his tenth birthday.
Their eyes met.
He remembered her hair in pigtails and how she’d been missing a couple of front teeth. He thought of the time he’d taken up for her when a couple of bullies had pestered her and tried to steal her ice-cream cone. She’d bawled for him. He’d punched the guys. They’d run off.
And then little Marlie had stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him.
He remembered being caught off guard, unnerved by her adoring admiration, but he’d been pleased too that he’d made her so happy.
Joel had the strong, damaging impulse to tell her who he really was. To come clean and confess that he was J. J., the boy she’d once had a mad crush on. The unexpected urge toward honesty was so overwhelming, he had to bite down on his tongue to keep quiet.
How innocent she seemed. He didn’t think he would ever get over the paradox she presented. How could she possess such a suspicious mind and such a trusting face? He was toeing a tightrope between tipping his hand and proving to her that he was a good guy. A good guy who lied.
The essential question? Was she a good girl?
According to his bosses at NCIS, she was not. But the more he hung around her, the more certain he became that things were not what they seemed.
Just exactly why did NCIS have this woman under investigation? He’d been told it was to protect secrets of national security. But what secrets? And who was he protecting the secrets from? Marlie? Or the people who were after her?
“Who’s your friend?” she repeated. “Maybe we know the same people.”
Distract her. Quick, think of something.
He considered kissing her again. Wanted to kiss her again more than anything, but kissing her the first time had been a huge mistake. It had left him achy for something he shouldn’t have. Yet he was drawn to her like a dieter to double-fudge chocolate cake.
He was caught between wanting to tell her who he was and his fear that he could be wrong about her. That she could wind him up the way no one else ever had. Joel felt as if he’d crossed some invisible line and there was no going back.
In the end, his weary body settled things. It might have been from blood loss or it might have been from the four slugs of whiskey he’d had in the car. In reality, it was probably a combination of both. His head spun dizzily and his knees buckled. He grabbed for the wall, barely able to keep himself standing.
“Joel!” Marlie exclaimed and jumped to his side.
“I’m okay.” He held up his hand, resenting the sympathy in her eyes.
“Sit down, you’re about to pass out.”
“Navy SEALs don’t pass out.”
“Oh, save it,” she said. “Stop trying to play the bullheaded, tough, macho male.”
“Why?” He tried to give her a teasing smile, but it came off more like a grimacing wince. “So you can play the bullheaded, tender, caring nurse? Now that I think about it, you’d make one helluva sexy nurse.”
Marlie snorted and leveled her small shoulder under his armpit. “Knock off the sexual innuendo, Jolly Green, and lean on me.”
He would have laughed if it wouldn’t have hurt so much. The thought of this tiny woman bearing even a tenth of his weight was inconceivable. He was a good eighty pounds heavier than she.
But damn, his legs were as fluid as water, bobbing and weaving beneath him. His head wasn’t much better. Had some unseen force wrapped a rubber band tightly around his skull?
Her shoulder fit just perfectly under his arm. Her earnestness was so damn endearing.
“Lean on me,” she repeated.
Joel tried to shake her off, to prove he could stand on his own two feet, but his breath was ragged and he couldn’t seem to draw enough air into his lungs.
“Just do it,” she bullied.
Wow, she was dishing out a little tit for tat. He wanted to give her hell right back, but his body betrayed him. He leaned against her, putting as little weight on her soft shoulder as he could get away with and still satisfy her. He hated feeling this weak, this vulnerable. He was loath to admit it, even to himself, but the balance of power had shifted in her favor.
Gotta find a way to regain the upper hand. She can’t be the hero. You’re the hero.
“Where’s the nearest bedroom?” she asked.
“Bedroom? Woman, are you trying to take advantage of a wounded war veteran?”
“Ha-ha. You talk a good ga
me, big man, but if I had any worries that you could follow through with your sexual moves, I’d let you fall flat on your face.”
“Sexual moves? You think that’s what this is? If I were putting my sexual moves on you, Ladybug, you’d already be on your back beggin’ for more.”
She peered up at him from around the side of his chest, but she didn’t look the least bit intimidated by his bravado. “Go ahead, bluster away. You don’t fool me one little bit.”
“This isn’t bluster,” he growled, hating that she had seen right through him.
“Uh-huh, yeah, right.”
If his frickin’ knees would just stop buckling he’d show her he wasn’t blustering. He would yank her into his arms, curl his fingers into the soft globe of her sweet butt, and kiss her until she lost all control. At that thought his fingers tightened securely around her upper arm and his penis stiffened.
He didn’t feel the slightest pang of guilt for his inappropriate hard-on. The battlefield had taught him the preciousness of each and every moment. You had to seize the day and revel in being alive. Because your next breath might be your last.
Treeni had understood. She’d been the same way, and they’d mixed like oxygen and gasoline.
But Marlie was different. She had been hiding out from the world for so long that she had no clue how to embrace life when she was holding it in her hands. He had the strongest need to teach her, to show her everything that she’d been missing by hiding behind her comic books and her fears.
“Bedroom,” she said again.
“Through there.” He pointed.
Marlie guided, he hobbled. It was a relief to collapse onto the bed.
She stepped back. Joel looked at her, noticed her gaze had dropped to the very obvious bulge in his pants. She made a soft feminine sound, her eyes transfixed. Her pupils widened and she nervously nibbled her bottom lip.
Well, at least he’d gotten her mind off trying to remember who’d lived in the condo when she’d visited it as a child. He felt a certain smug, masculine satisfaction. He smiled wolfishly, his gaze on her face.
She licked her lips.
There was no denying the spark of longing in her eyes. She might be scared, but the look was undeniable. Marlie Montague wanted to jump his bones as much as he wanted to jump hers.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was almost midnight when Gus called Abel Johnson from a pay phone outside a twenty-four-hour adult video and bookstore. The triple-X-rated establishment was the only place he’d been able to find a functioning pay phone, and conveniently enough it was located next to a bar where Gus had just downed a few shots of scotch.
The news of the arson, Penelope’s disappearance, and the mention that her daughter was a person of interest in the crime was all over the news. Not only that, but the reporters kept dragging up old history, calling Daniel Montague a traitor and resurrecting every sharp edge of Gus’s terrible guilt.
He knew he had to do something irrevocable, before he lost his nerve and backed out.
“Hello,” his assistant answered. Abel sounded alert, wide awake, as if he’d just been waiting for Gus’s call.
“I need for you to do sumptin’ very important for me,” Gus slurred.
“Admiral?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Daz none of your business.”
“I’ve never seen you drink, sir.”
Gus winced. He’d given up the hooch years ago when he’d been trying to hang on to Deirdre, but now and again when he needed an antidote for his weakness, he would take up the bottle. He curled his fingers around the edge of the phone booth to keep from weaving. “Just lissen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
Gus forced himself to concentrate on speaking clearly. This was a matter of utmost importance. “I have documents in the safe at my house. Very important documents.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you don’t hear from me within the next forty-eight hours, here’s what I want you to do. Get a pen.”
“Hang on.” Abel let out a long-suffering sigh that Gus chose to ignore.
He heard the sound of his assistant setting down the receiver. He didn’t like asking the kid to do this, but it was the only insurance he had. The only thing that could save Joel and Marlie. The only thing that could redeem Daniel’s name if Gus was no longer around to do it.
A few seconds later Abel was back. “Okay. I’ve got a pen.”
“Go over to my house. Amber’s out of town visiting her mother. You’ll need a code to get in.” Gus told Abel how to deactivate the alarm. “Then open the wall safe in my bedroom. The combination is my son’s birthday.”
“Got it.”
“Inside there’s a top secret file marked ‘Iraq, 1990.’”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take it to the media.”
“You want me to release top secret documents to the media? Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. It should have been done years ago.”
Abel sucked in his breath.
“What is it?” Gus asked.
“Nothing, sir.”
“Speak your mind.”
“It’s just . . . I have a feeling this could end your career.”
“If you don’t hear from me in the next forty-eight hours, it’ll be because I no longer have any use for a career.”
“Sir, are you absolutely sure it’s not the alcohol talking? Why don’t you sleep it off and call me back in the morning?”
“No one appointed you my babysitter, you little snot-nose,” Gus yelled, but then belatedly realized hurting Abel’s feelings was probably not the best way to get his own needs met. He wasn’t about to back down. He was an admiral, dammit, no matter how undeserved the title might be. “Just do what I say and that’s an order.”
“You take it easy. I’ll go get your first-aid kit out of the Durango,” Marlie said.
For once, Joel didn’t argue with her and for that she was grateful. She left him lying on the bed with his jaw clenched and his eyes closed. He was hurting a lot more than he was letting on.
She went back outside, into the darkness. The cool winter night breeze soothed her heated skin. The sound of the ocean lulled her ears. The carpet of stars in the jet-black sky appeased her weary eyes.
But nothing could quiet her troubled thoughts. They crashed in on her, a house of cards. Her mother was missing. The police wanted to question her. And a man in a black Camaro wanted to kill her.
And Joel was married.
Or had been.
He’d never clarified whether he was divorced or not, and she hadn’t asked because she’d been too afraid of his answer. She didn’t know why it mattered. Didn’t know why she cared. It wasn’t like she was going to hook up with him. No matter how hot and achy he made her feel.
Marlie wondered what he thought about her and then wondered why she cared. Forget about him.
But how could she forget about him when she was going to have to go back in there and dress his wound with his naked torso exposed.
I’ll do it, Angelina said. You just sit back and relax.
That’s what Marlie was most afraid of. That her alter ego would take over and get her into deep trouble she couldn’t get herself out of.
“I’ll handle it,” Marlie muttered. “Stay away.”
She found the first-aid kit in the back of Joel’s SUV, then hurriedly returned to the house. She wondered what had happened to the man in the black Camaro and prayed he hadn’t somehow tracked them to Mustang Island. Returning to the bedroom, she found Joel lying stretched out across the mattress, with an arm flung over his eyes, blocking out the overhead light. She stood in the doorway watching him. In repose, he didn’t look nearly so big and tough. In fact, he looked weary and wiped out.
She went to the dresser and flicked on a table lamp before turning off the overhead. He didn’t move in response, and his chest rose and fell in a sof
t, regular rhythm.
He was asleep.
In such a defenseless posture, he looked far younger than the formidable Navy SEAL who no doubt knew exactly how to kill someone with a single blow from his big, dangerous hands and would do what he had to do without a moment’s hesitation or regret.
She’d seen him in action today. Saving her from sure death in the fire, giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, chasing after the assassin without a single thought for his own safety.
She owed him so much. Her heartstrings tugged, and Marlie felt the first stirrings of loyalty. Loyalty and honest-to-goodness trust.
She was on dangerous ground. Emotional quicksand of the most deadly kind. She had to stop thinking about this, had to concentrate on what needed doing and just do it.
The curtains were open and as the clouds moved, a blade of moonlight cast his hair in a silvery glow.
Marlie crept closer. She could see that the blood on his shirt was dried and dark except for a bright red dampness in the very center where the wound was still oozing. She had to wake him up and take care of it, even though the thought of tending to him left her weak-kneed and woozy.
No time to be a wuss. Step up to the plate. Unless you want me to take over, Angelina said.
“Buzz off,” Marlie mumbled.
She directed the beam from the dresser lamp to shine directly on his torso and then laid the first-aid kit on the bed beside him.
“Joel.”
He moved his arm from over his face, and his stormy-sea eyes met hers. For a long, stuttering moment, Marlie lost her ability to breathe. He looked so familiar, like she’d known him forever.
It’s those eyes, she thought, haunting and strangely familiar.
And he didn’t just look at her, he stared into her, and she boldly stared back, seeing something far more beyond that gruff masculine exterior he wore like a badge of honor.
His eyes told her the things that his pride and his fear of looking weak would not let him say out loud.
Thank you, his eyes whispered. Thank you for helping me. Thank you for sticking by me.
As if she had an alternative.
