by Sandra Owens
ALSO BY SANDRA OWENS
The Duke’s Obsession
The Training of a Marquess
The Letter
K2 Team Series
Crazy for Her
Someone Like Her
Falling for Her
Lost in Her
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 Sandra Owens
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503937550
ISBN-10: 1503937550
Cover design by Eileen Carey
This is the last book in the K2 Team series, and it seems only right to dedicate it to the men and women of the military, the heroes who keep us safe. Thank you for the sacrifices you make to keep our country free.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgments
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
Following his nightly routine, Cody Roberts fed the dogs before pouring a healthy drink, scotch neat. Soon after he’d returned from Afghanistan, the nightmares had started. After a solid month of waking up drenched in sweat, he’d come to the conclusion they weren’t going away. After a good degree of experimentation, he’d learned that scotch worked better than vodka, rum, gin, etc. etc. at keeping the dreams away.
Taking into account that it was his first night in his new home in Pensacola, Florida, and in the morning he would report for his first day at K2 Special Services, he cut his normal consumption from six, seven, sometimes eight glasses to no more than two. If nothing else had been left to him, he still had control of his actions—one reason he hadn’t stuck the barrel of his gun into his mouth. Plus, his dogs needed him, and that fact alone got him out of bed each morning.
Once Pretty Girl and Sally finished chowing down, he took his drink, picked up his guitar from a chair in the living room, and went out on the front porch, the dogs trotting along behind him. He set the glass on a table and the instrument on the rocking chair. The boxes still to be unpacked could wait. His dogs needed to learn their boundaries.
“Heel.” Pretty Girl and Sally took up positions on each side of him and he walked them around the perimeter of the yard, showing them how far they could range. He had them sit at the edge of the sidewalk, told them to stay, then walked into the road, turned to them, and said, “No.” Both dogs wanted to come to him, but knew better. Satisfied they understood the street was off-limits, he returned to the porch, followed by his furred friends.
He’d always had a way with dogs, but it had been in Afghanistan that he’d honed his understanding of them. His teammates had called him a dog whisperer. Maybe he was. All he knew was that he preferred their company to most humans since returning home. They never judged him and found him lacking, nor did he have to worry about disappointing them.
From a cloth bag he’d put on the porch earlier, he pulled out two balls and tossed them into the yard. The dogs quivered with excitement—balls being their favorite thing in the whole wide world—but waited for him to give the command.
“Go play.” They took off as if shot from a cannon. Cody settled in the rocking chair with his guitar on his lap. Sipping his scotch, he watched them for a few minutes to make sure they were staying on the grass. Normally he would be on his second or third glass by now, but since he’d limited himself to two, he wanted this one to last awhile. It was going to be a long fucking night.
Pretty Girl and Sally tossed the balls up in the air, then caught each other’s, a game he had taught them so they weren’t dropping the slobbery things at his feet every thirty seconds. He grinned at their antics, one of the few things he smiled about these days. After setting the glass on the table, he began to strum the guitar.
In tribute to Layla—the dog left behind—he always played Eric Clapton’s “Layla” first. The e-mail he’d gotten the day before from Wizard, a friend still in Afghanistan, had been discouraging. The possible sighting of Layla hadn’t panned out, and as he sat alone in the twilight of a setting sun, he let his despair of ever finding her sink into the music. She had saved his life, had kept him from stepping on an IED, and he owed it to her to find her and bring her home.
To keep from agonizing over Layla’s condition and saying to hell with his two-glass limit, he closed his eyes and let the music consume him. The dogs played until they tired themselves out, then brought the balls to him, dropping them at his feet. Both flopped down, panting and tongues hanging out. Not ready to go in, Cody sipped his scotch between playing Eric Clapton songs.
After a while, the scotch was gone. He was contemplating how long to wait for his second and last drink when a car turned into the driveway across the street. “Quiet,” he said to the dogs.
The car pulled into the carport, and the engine shut down. Because he sat in the dark, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, he was confident he wouldn’t be seen. A woman got out and headed for the front door.
Her hair was swept up in a ponytail, the tip of which reached halfway down her back. Her height he estimated at a little above average for a female. She was slim and wore a pair of jeans and a blue T-shirt. Something about the slump of her shoulders made him think she was sad.
Not his problem, though. Continuing his impersonation of a statue, he remained still, waiting for her to disappear into her house. She slipped her key into the lock, then turned and stared straight at him.
Cody sucked in his breath. He’d spent countless hours hunkered down in dusty rooms or on rooftops, his sight centered down the barrel of a sniper’s rifle, and he knew how to become invisible. He moved not one muscle as she squinted into the dark. There was no way she could see him, but it was as if she sensed him.
Impossible.
He’d served six tours and never once been spotted from whatever hidey-hole he was using. Shaking off the ridiculous notion that she knew he was there, he remained still. The dogs were alert, watching her, and he gave them a hand single to stay quiet. She shook her head, as if she must be imagining things. Cody let out the breath he’d been holding after she entered her house.
Long after she’d disappeared, he remained on the porch, his gaze focused on her windows as she moved around, his yearning for a drink forgotten. Although her blinds were closed, he could track her movements by the lights being turned on or off as she moved from one room to another. He hadn’t gotten a clear view of her face, only knew she had long brown hair and that she was sad. The dogs settled down ag
ain, and he picked up his guitar, softly strumming “Lonely Stranger.”
Was someone watching her? As she slid the key into the lock, Riley Austin glanced over her shoulder. The only unusual thing she noticed was a light on in the kitchen of the house across the street. Ah, so someone had rented the place. That hadn’t taken long, but she wasn’t surprised. It was a charming bungalow, with its two dormer windows, royal-blue shutters, and—her favorite feature—the wide front porch. Having nothing more than an overhang above her door, she coveted that porch.
The lock clicked open, and blaming her unease on the strange events of the past few days, she hurried inside before the cats reached her. Arthur, as usual, was the first to greet her, soon followed by Merlin and King Pellinore.
The kitten tried to climb her leg, his claws digging through the denim into her skin. “Ouch, Pelli.” Her latest acquisition, he’d been left at the no-kill shelter where she spent a few hours each week as a volunteer. Pelli’s original owner had shrugged when she’d dropped him off, saying, “I don’t want a cross-eyed cat. Creeps me out.”
Unable to resist the silly faced, talkative Siamese, Riley had adopted him. Arthur had immediately taken to the kitten, but Merlin, as he did most things new, had turned up his nose, refusing to acknowledge Pelli’s existence.
Holding the kitten, she dropped her purse on the foyer table, then shuffled her way to the kitchen, managing not to trip over the two adult cats winding themselves around her legs. At the sound of the can opener, Arthur and Pelli joined in a duet of cat begging. Merlin sat off to the side, his back to the other two as he washed his paws to prepare for dinner.
“I think you’re clean enough,” she told him, setting down his bowl last.
While the cats ate, she squeezed a slice of lime into a bottle of beer, and then put it in the freezer. In her bedroom, she unhooked her bra and slipped it out from under her T-shirt.
“Ahhh,” she moaned, once freed from the evil contraption. Tomorrow was garbage day, so she emptied her bathroom wastebasket and bagged it up with the kitchen trash. The cats were still eating, and she was able to slip out the kitchen door without Pelli trying to follow her. The other two had given up attempting to escape long ago.
After dropping the bag into the can, she paused and inclined her head as the sound of a beautifully played guitar reached her. She recognized the Eric Clapton song, “Bell Bottom Blues.” The music seemed to be coming from across the street, and she wondered if it was her new neighbor. The porch was still dark, and she couldn’t see anyone. The moment she began to roll the can down her driveway, the music stopped. A dog barked once from the direction of the bungalow, then all went quiet.
It was eerie knowing someone was there, watching her. Had that been what she felt on arriving home? “Hello?” she called. Nothing. So they—a him or a her?—weren’t the friendly type. Okay, no problem.
She headed back up the driveway, but paused at the edge of her carport. “You play beautifully. Welcome to the neighborhood.” Again nothing.
With a shrug, she went into her house. After retrieving her bottle of beer from the freezer, now slushy and just the way she liked it, she went into her bedroom, flipping the light switch down. The mystery person across the street had caught her interest. Better to wonder about her new neighbor than to dwell on losing another patient.
She pulled over a chair, eased up the window, sat in the dark, and waited. Five minutes passed before he started playing again. When had she begun to think of the person as a he? Maybe it was the way his music spoke to her, as if he were playing just for her. It was as if he stroked her with each pluck of a string. She wouldn’t feel that way if it were a woman, would she?
As she sipped her beer, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine his face, but all she saw was the poisoned cat dying on her, and she blinked her eyes open. Her mystery man played into the night so softly that she had to strain to hear him. She wished he would play louder, but then their neighbors likely wouldn’t appreciate it as much as she.
When the music stopped, she glanced at the clock, surprised and chagrinned to see it was after midnight. Strangely, she’d forgotten to eat dinner, take a shower, or change into her comfy sweats. Also weird, her cats had curled themselves up under the window and hadn’t made a sound.
“You have black magic in those fingertips,” she whispered to her mystery man.
The next morning, she sat at her breakfast table, her gaze glued on the house across the street, curious to see him. And he had to be a him, or else she was going to be sorely disappointed in her reasoning.
The top half of a body appeared in the bungalow’s kitchen window, and she froze with her coffee cup halfway to her mouth. He was a he! With a grin, she gave a fist pump. Although she couldn’t see his features, the top half of him was built like a freakin’ warrior.
“No drooling, Riley,” she muttered. With a cup in his hand, he stepped onto his porch, wearing a pair of sweat bottoms and nothing else. She drooled.
Then two dogs followed him out, and she sighed. “My cats are going to hate your dogs, so that means we can’t have a hot affair, mystery man.”
The dogs, one of them the ugliest thing she’d ever seen, the other a mixed breed that looked to have some German shepherd genes, stayed at either side of him. Because she was a veterinarian and trained to notice animal behavior, she caught the miniscule hand signal he gave them. Ugly dog and mixed-breed dog bounded down the steps and raced around the yard.
Stupid man. Didn’t he realize they might run into the road and get hit by a car? She had lost more than her fair share of pets recently and didn’t want to see another one die. Damn if she was going to let that happen again.
“Are you crazy?” she yelled at him after going out onto her front lawn. The man gave her body a slow perusal that sent shivers right down to her toes.
“Probably,” he said.
What? Was he admitting he was crazy? She backed up a few steps. He took a leisurely sip of what she assumed was coffee, but who knew, maybe he was drinking booze already. She took another few steps back. Why couldn’t she learn to mind her own business?
“Excuse my curiosity, but was that just a general observation, or was there a reason for your question?”
The humor—was he laughing at her?—in his voice annoyed her. She marched forward. “Has it not occurred to you that your dogs might run into the road and get hit?”
“Yep,” he said.
She waited for more, then continued to wait. Why did the man have to be so freaking hot? Those broad shoulders and his six-pack abs made her want to press her fingers against his chest to see if he was as muscle hard as he looked. Dark brown hair, caramel-colored eyes, a killer body, and a day-old beard made for one potent man. It was the scruff that gave him a bad boy appearance, the kind of bad boy who’d always appealed to her, unfortunately. There wasn’t a soft thing about him, not even in his eyes. They were hard and cold.
“Bah,” she muttered when he remained silent. Waving a dismissive hand, she turned to go back into her house.
“Call them,” he said.
Don’t turn around, Riley. She turned. “What?”
“Call them. The ugly one is Pretty Girl and the black and tan one is Sally. Call them by name.”
Riley glanced up and down the street to make sure there were no oncoming cars. Okay, she’d show him what an idiot he was by playing his stupid game. “Pretty Girl, Sally, come here.” She clapped and crooned to them. They both ran to the edge of the sidewalk, sat their butts on the ground, and swept their tails across the grass. No matter how much she cajoled, they came no farther. Well, that was embarrassing, and the amusement in the man’s eyes grated.
“My bad,” she said as she slinked back to her house. At hearing his low chuckle, she lifted her hand and gave him her middle finger.
CHAPTER TWO
Cody cracked a rare smile as he watched the woman until she disappeared inside her house. “Did you just give me the finger, darlin�
�?”
Her hair—hanging straight down her back now—reminded him of a German shepherd’s coat with the different shades of dark browns, lighter browns, and the gold streaks. Nice bod, too. Very nice. And he liked the way her eyes had flashed with fire when she’d gotten annoyed with him. He wondered what her name was.
Didn’t matter, though. He was better off not knowing. The last thing he needed was the complication of a woman when his life was royally screwed up. He called the dogs in so he could dress for work.
As he headed for his car, his phone buzzed a text message.
Have a great first day on your new job, Sonny Boy. Hope it’s what you need to turn your life around.
Cody crammed the cell phone back into his pocket. He got the sub-message. We hope you’re not still drinking. If he answered his father before he managed to cool off, he’d say something he’d regret. He’d come late to his college professor parents, and they had never quite known what to do with him. Academia was their life, and for that reason, along with not wishing to add to the world’s population, they’d elected not to have children. He could just imagine their surprise when at forty-two, his mother had found out she was pregnant.
Someday, he’d tell his father that he hated the nickname Sonny Boy. And someday, he would make them proud of him. That happening had been set back at least ten years when the professors had shown up unannounced a few months before and found him drunk out of his stinking mind. They were one-glass-a-day wine drinkers, anti-war, anti-killing anyone for any reason. That his country considered him a hero for his high kill count embarrassed them.
After witnessing his slurring, they had tried to convince him to return home where they could get him help. The dogs, they’d said, could be taken to a no-kill shelter since his mother couldn’t tolerate animal hair. To keep from lashing out at the two people in the world he loved but didn’t understand, he’d called on the training and discipline he’d learned as a SEAL sniper and had calmly asked them to leave him alone. What they hadn’t understood and still didn’t was that the dogs gave him a reason to face another day and another day after that.
