[When SEALs Come Home 04] - Heated

by Anne Marsh

  “There’s nothing sweet about it. I owe him.”

  “It’s not your fault he died.”

  “You’ve said that.”

  “And you still don’t believe me.”

  He shrugged. She couldn’t change the truth.

  She brushed her thumb over his wrist. “You’ve got a tattoo. Is it a quote?”

  A name. The name of the kid his tank had run over, inked into his skin in curling Arabic script. He couldn’t read a word of it, but he didn’t have to. He’d put it where he’d see it all day long.

  “Did you get this when you were overseas?” she asked when he didn’t answer.

  The kid’s funeral had been one more funeral he hadn’t gone to. He’d already been out on another mission, and he wouldn’t have been welcome anyhow. He’d heard through the grapevine that Uncle Sam had made a financial payment to the boy’s mother. Blood money. He didn’t think dollars could replace what she’d lost, but maybe the gesture made her feel better. He didn’t understand why it had happened, and he damned sure didn’t know how to fix it. Maybe the money could help where he couldn’t. Or not.

  “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “But trust me, you don’t want to hear about it.”

  He was a chicken because he didn’t want to tell her and watch the admiration fade from her eyes. He wasn’t making excuses for the war, not for what happened there or for why his country had chosen to get involved in the first place. Circumstances there hadn’t been perfect, but he’d made do with what he’d been handed and fought the best he could. Every fight had its reasons, but he’d wondered more than once what he was fighting for. Coming home had made those reasons perfectly clear. He’d been fighting for Strong. For Mercedes. For these special places and people—for home—to continue on as they were, happily unaware of firestorms and kids in the road who could have been decoys trying to slow a convoy down so insurgents could blow an IED or open fire.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Our next date,” he lied. “How does tomorrow sound?”

  “Our first date,” she corrected. “Today doesn’t count. I told you that.”

  “But we both know I’m not good at listening.” He pulled her a little closer. “So why don’t you tell me when to pick you up?”

  She hesitated. “Tomorrow’s busy.”

  That wasn’t a no. He wanted to fist pump. To drop a kiss on her smiling mouth and swing her around in a circle. She was going to say yes. He could feel it.

  “Do you already have a hot date tomorrow? Should I be jealous?”

  “I have knitting club.” She bit her lip. “God. That sounds so unexciting.”

  “I’ll pick you up after your club meeting and take you out to dinner.”

  Another pause. Shit. Right. She didn’t want to be seen with him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but it was a problem for another day. “Or we could go to my place,” he suggested. “I’ll cook for you.”

  “You cook?”

  “I barbecue. And I know how to order takeout.” Say yes.

  “Okay,” she said.

  He brushed his mouth against her ear. “Say the words,” he whispered.

  “Yes, it’s date.” Her mouth curved up.

  6

  Joey got to the art gallery twenty minutes before the knitting extravaganza was scheduled to end. Knitting wasn’t how he’d choose to spend his Sunday afternoon, but he wasn’t a girl. Maybe the gossip and the snacks made up for it. Maybe he needed a Y chromosome to find his happy place knitting. Or maybe Mercy hated it every bit as much as he suspected he would, and he was merely her get-out-of-jail-free card.

  It didn’t matter much to him.

  What mattered was that she’d finally agreed to go out with him on a date. He’d dated lots of women over the years, which made him sound like more of a player than he was, but surely it also meant he shouldn’t be feeling nervous? He knew the unspoken rules, how to make a night special, and when to admit that the chemistry just wasn’t there and wind things down. He and Mercy had plenty of chemistry. He had plenty of practice, which had to translate into success tonight. He hoped.

  He eyeballed the big glass doors impatiently, waiting for them to swing open. He could just make out a cluster of women sprawled over the art gallery’s swank leather seats. They all looked busy, and the place looked like a yarn factory had exploded. A casual question to Rio had revealed that the ladies met there every other Sunday for knitting and brownies. Rio claimed it was a charity thing, with the output going to a women’s shelter up Sacramento way. It was certainly a beehive of activity in there.

  Mercy was the first one out the door, thank God, like she was in one hell of a hurry. He didn’t know whether she just wanted to see him that badly or, more likely, she wanted to get out of there before the other women caught on to who was picking her up. He felt like he was back in high school, sneaking around. Hell, he’d been half-worried she’d stand him up or tell him she’d changed her mind.

  “Hi,” she said shyly.

  “Hi yourself.” He pushed off the truck and popped the passenger-side door open for her.

  “You found me.” She clutched an enormous tote bag on her lap like it was a lifeline.

  He shut her door, went around, and got in the driver’s seat. His place wasn’t too far out of town. “I’m not blowing my chance at you. You’re a hard woman to date.”

  She made a face. “Maybe this is a pity date, just to keep you out of trouble.”

  Keeping him out of trouble was mission impossible. She’d figure that out soon enough. He flicked the magazines sticking out of her ginormous bag. “Were you worried I’d bore you?”

  She shrugged. “I like magazines. They’ve got a lot of information I can use.”

  “Which part is your favorite?”

  He knew he’d surprised her when she blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Do you read the whole thing, cover to cover, or do you have a favorite part?” Reaching into her bag, he snagged a magazine. It was one of those glossy ones, the kind parked by the cash register at the grocery store. He gave the cover a quick once-over. Sexy hair, the perfect little black dress, how to tell if he’s cheating. The first two he could see himself reading; number three was off-limits. He had no respect for guys who cheated.

  “101 sex tips for office quickies. Fantasy vacations. Is the whole thing about sex? If so, I definitely approve.”

  She snatched the magazine out of his hand and tucked it back into her bag.

  “You’re driving.”

  Well, yeah. Fortunately for her, he was an excellent multitasker. Plus despite the disapproval coloring her voice, that pretty pink flush was back, painting her cheeks in a way that had him wondering what else would make her blush and how hard. He put that on his to-do list for the night as well.

  “Keep your eyes on the road.”

  He winked at her just to rile her up more. “If it makes you feel better, you can give me a ticket when we get to my place.”

  In fact, he’d let her do whatever she wanted. He’d bet she had a pair of handcuffs, and while he’d always been the one to do the tying up, for her he could make an exception.

  “Just slow down some, okay?”

  He eased up on the gas a little, the truck settling into a steady fifty miles per hour.

  “Better?” Or had her question been more metaphorical, a comment on what was happening between them? Because he could slow down there too, although it might kill him.

  “You need to try smelling the roses,” she said, not answering his question, spoken or unspoken.

  “Give me a good reason.” He turned onto the road leading his house. Five minutes max until he had her all alone. How long could he stretch their date out? Did she turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight, and did he have to give her back at all? Because it was just six o’clock now, and he could easily fill all of the hours between now and sunrise.

  And probably between now and forever.

  Huh.


  He blinked hard at the windshield. This was a date, not an elopement. They were going back to his place. He’d feed her, pop in a movie, get to know her better. If he was really lucky, she’d let him kiss her and, just possibly, take her to bed. If she wasn’t ready to take that step in their relationship, that was okay too. He had plenty of time.

  “Because people die on the road driving too fast. Running too hard. Whatever demons are riding your back, they’re your business and I won’t push. But I knew someone like you once,” she said, smoothing her fingers over the cover of the magazine.

  He kept his eyes on the road and the path the headlights carved out of the gathering darkness. He hated the way winter made the nights longer and longer. All that dark made it hard to see, although it also shut out plenty.

  “I’m one of a kind.” Laugh and she wouldn’t see how close to home she’d hit.

  She laughed softly. “Maybe, but he had a need for speed as well. And he liked thumbing his nose at authority. He had this souped-up beater car with an engine that could go zero to ninety in less time than it took me to get the seat belt fastened.”

  Great. Now he had a mental image of a younger, more carefree Mercy flying down a goddamned road without a seat belt.

  “He sounds like a real winner,” he said, keeping the new fear to himself.

  She shrugged. “He lived his whole life on fast forward, like he couldn’t wait to get to the good parts. He was always on the move, always running toward something.”

  He sat there like an idiot, gripping the wheel as he bumped them down the dirt road to his place. He was supposed to say something insightful or thoughtful here, because even he could figure out that the guy in this story had been so busy running toward his future that he either hadn’t realized or hadn’t cared that he was running away from Mercy.

  “Boyfriend? High school sweetheart?” Jealous. That’s how he felt. It was new territory for him. Jealous was something he didn’t do in his relationships. Of course, since he also didn’t do relationships... yeah. Completely uncharted territory here. If she said the guy in question was last week’s guy, he didn’t know what he’d do.

  “We talked about getting married after we graduated from high school. I was applying to UCLA. He was going to get work as a stunt double, driving cars and standing in for the stars.”

  He heard a really big but coming.

  “He got shot in a drive-by shooting. It opened my eyes to a few things, like how he was out all hours of the night and always had cash for whatever we wanted to do. He started drag racing, and then he started running from the cops, taking sides in a turf war.”

  “He was a gang member.” That practically made him respectable in comparison.

  “Yes. Eventually, he got arrested and sent away, but I’d lost him long before that. I just hadn’t accepted it. And he wasn’t the only one. I had a cousin who was gunned down, just standing outside her house. She wanted a little fresh air because the air con was out, and they shot her by mistake. They were driving by, in a rush, guns out, and she must have looked like their target, and they couldn’t be bothered to slow down and check.”

  He resisted the urge to tell her that he knew about grief too, knew that shouting fuck you to the world didn’t fix things. It just broke them worse. She understood that about him, or she wouldn’t have shared her story with him.

  “Sometimes slowing down isn’t a bad thing,” she added.

  “You want me to smell the roses.” The look she gave him said his personal doubts about flowers came through loud and clear.

  “You can smell whatever you want.” Her lips curved up in a grin. “But I am suggesting you slow down and give it a chance.”

  “Is that what made you become a cop?” He eased the truck into his driveway.

  “I tried the correctional facilities. I hated it.”

  He tried and failed to imagine her patrolling a jail, making sure the inmates toed the line and were locked up at night.

  “I like Strong,” she continued, and he wondered if she heard the same note of wonder in her voice that he did. “I grew up in Los Angeles, and I’m a city girl. An Angeleno through and through, but I like the way the mountains feel. There’s plenty of road and enough space. I’m not making sense, am I?”

  She made a face, like she knew there had to be some way to explain how she fit in Strong or Strong fit with her, but she hadn’t figured it out yet. Some things just worked, no explanations needed. While he thought that over, she opened the door and hopped down. Still at a loss for words, he followed.

  He liked his place. The old farmhouse was undoubtedly too big for him—he certainly didn’t need three bedrooms, for instance, when one was more than enough—but the price had been right, and he’d discovered he liked the fix-it-up part of owning a fixer-upper. It wasn’t pretty, and his stuff didn’t match, but it was his. He doubted, however, that the stacks of bike parts and work boots in the mudroom made the right impression. He should hire a housekeeping service—or get off his butt and take care of it. While his house wasn’t dirty, it sure wasn’t one of those magazine places either.

  His loaner cat met them at the door. It was smart like that, and Joey was going to miss the little guy when Bree came home and reclaimed him.

  “Meet WT, short for Whiskey Tango.”

  She frowned at him. “You named your cat after a screw up?”

  “My sister did. You’ve met Bree.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I would have pegged her for a Smokey, or a baby name.”

  He shrugged. “I may have made a suggestion or two. I found the little guy after a hell of a barn fire. He rode out a bad hand in a pile of scrap wood, and if we’d gotten there any later, the situation would have been all Whiskey Tango Foxtrot for him.”

  Making a face, she picked the kitten up, cuddling it. The beastie wasn’t so little anymore—it was getting to that leggy stage—but still baby enough to butt its head against her and purr like a madman. If there was one thing he was sure of, however, it was that when he walked through the door, WT believed it was dinnertime. The cat jumped down to eat out of Mercy’s arms like it was his last meal on earth.

  She reached down to scratch the kitten behind the ears. “Why do you always drive so fast? I know you’ve got a reason.”

  Her confidence irritated him, because she was right, but he wasn’t in the sharing mood. “And you’ve got a degree in psychology?”

  Shit. Something flashed in her eyes, and he had a pretty good idea of what it was. He’d hurt her. Letting people in wasn’t something he did well, any more than apologizing was. Looked like he got to do both tonight. “I fucked up. That was the wrong question to ask.”

  It was always best to own his mistakes.

  Her lashes flickered, then her lips curved up in a rueful smile. “Am I that obvious?”

  He shrugged. “Only to me.”

  And only because he loved watching her. She had such an expressive face when she wasn’t wearing her professional poker face, filled with here-and-then-gone sparks of emotion. “Tell me what I said wrong, because I didn’t mean it.”

  “It’s stupid.” Not to me, he thought. “I’d planned on going to college and majoring in psychology. It didn’t work out though.”

  “I hit a sore spot.”

  “I’ll get over it.”

  He wanted to fix this for her too, but he had no idea how. He was missing more than one piece of the Mercy puzzle, and he didn’t think this was as simple as bringing her a college application or pointing out that there was such a thing as distance learning and she could earn a degree online. She knew those things, so it was that particular moment in time that she regretted. She’d wanted the experience then, but the moment had passed her by, and now all she had were the regrets. He was an expert in regrets.

  “You promised me dinner,” she said lightly, ready to change the subject.

  “I mean to deliver.” He’d picked up Chinese before he’d picked up her. Five minutes later, he was c
oming back through the door with two enormous plastic bags in his hand.

  “Wow,” she said. “Did you leave any food for the rest of Strong?”

  “I didn’t know what you liked.”

  “Uh-huh. It looks like I have the entire menu to choose from.”

  While they ate, they traded stories about their day. He told her about close calls on the fire line and jumps gone awry into Ponderosa pines; she shared some of the funnier calls she’d received. Afterward, she helped him pack up the leftovers and meticulously labeled each box with a Sharpie while he fought back a grin.

  “You own a label maker, don’t you?”

  She tucked the waxy flaps in one by one and then stacked the boxes from largest to smallest on the top shelf of his fridge. “Is that a crime?”

  “It’s unexpected.” She made him smile, although he doubted she appreciated it. In his experience, women wanted to be sexy or mind-blowing or any of a dozen other things.

  “Sit.” She pointed to his couch. “I owe you.”

  “For dinner? We’re good.” He sat though. His deputy sheriff had a glint in her eye that intrigued him. “I’m happy to feed you anytime.” He meant it too. He’d take this woman however, whenever she’d let him.

  “You remember my magazines?” When he nodded, she continued. “I want to try something I read about.”

  “Your magazines are going to be the death of me.” He pressed a finger against her mouth. “I’m going to die a happy man, honey.”

  And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Holding Mercy, touching her... the sexy stuff was also fun and sweet. They laughed together, and her laughter was the sexiest, most erotic goddamned thing he’d ever shared in his life. He didn’t have to get his dick inside her, ride her like a cowboy, to feel like she’d let him in in a way he appreciated. There was no timetable for their relationship, for getting to the bedroom part of things. Just the two of them enjoying themselves and that worked for him.

  “How do you like to touch yourself? Show me so I can learn.”

  Jesus. His brain immediately reminded him he hadn’t had sex in months and certainly not with someone he cared about. An erotic image flashed through his head of Mercy on her knees before him, between his legs, taking him in her mouth. Parting her pretty pink lips with his dick and taking her mouth like he wanted to take her body. He’d drive in and out, fucking her lips, because she was willing to give him the fantasy. So yeah, he’d be happy to show her what he liked. And maybe, afterward, it could be his turn to learn what turned her on.