by Cathie Linz
Not that a man like Striker would understand that. He didn’t avoid trouble; he embraced it wholeheartedly.
Yet they both shared a similar guarded approach to certain situations. Kate didn’t trust easily, either.
Having something in common with Striker did not make her feel better about things. Quite the opposite.
“What, you don’t approve?” Striker asked her.
Kate blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You were giving me one of your looks,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“One of your bug-under-a-microscope looks.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That sounds real appealing.”
“I wasn’t trying to sweet-talk you.”
“Good, because I wasn’t looking to be sweet-talked,” Kate retorted.
“If I were trying to sweet-talk you, you’d know it,” Striker continued. “I’d say something about your incredible eyes…maybe that looking into them is like falling into the sky.”
His voice had turned husky, seducing her with his intimate inflection. She’d never heard him speak this way before. Barking orders, expressing disapproval, these were things she was used to. Not seduction.
She almost leaned closer, before catching herself.
“That’s what I’d say if I were trying to sweet-talk you,” Striker said in his normal voice. “Probably something even better, but I’m kind of distracted this afternoon.”
“Why’s that?” Had he been distracted by the memory of their kiss the way she had?
“It’s those idiot executives. And now I hear that even more idiot executives are organizing a barbecue for me this coming Saturday.”
“What are you talking about? What idiots?”
“The Oilman’s Club. They’re organizing a barbecue to welcome me to San Antonio. I told Tex to tell them I wasn’t coming.”
“What did she say?”
“Something to do with a rooster, but the bottom line was that she disobeyed my order.”
“How dare she,” Kate noted dryly. “Disobey an order from you? Of all the nerve! What are you going to do? Are you going to have her court-martialed?”
Kate was actually teasing him. Striker found he liked it. And he liked the way Kate looked all classy and untouchable when he knew that she could be tousled with passion, her lips swollen from his kisses, her sky-blue eyes hazy with desire.
What had they been talking about? Oh, yeah. Tex. “I’ll overlook her insubordination this time.”
“I’m relieved to hear that.”
“So back to this barbecue thing.” He studied Kate closely. She looked so darn perfect, not a hair out of place. Which just made him want to reach out and be the one to mess her up, give her that sexy just-kissed look she had before. “Are you going to be there?”
She nodded.
“Good. I’ll pick you up at six.”
“Hold on a minute. I never said I’d go with you.”
“Consider it part of your duties.”
“Holding your hand while attending a barbecue is not in the job description.”
“You have something against holding my hand?” Striker held it out for her to observe. “What’s wrong? Too many calluses on it for a dainty, rich girl like you?”
“Listen, it’s not my fault some rich girl dumped you at some point in your life. Get over it!”
“No rich girl dumped me.” He was highly offended that she’d hit the nail on the head.
“No? Then where did this attitude of yours come from?”
“I’ve seen your type before.”
“And what type would that be?”
“The rich, spoiled type.”
“I am not spoiled. Far from it.”
“Did you know that the executives here got a huge bonus last year paid for by laying off hundreds of workers?”
His seeming non sequitur appeared to throw her. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“Well, they did.”
“And you somehow hold me responsible for that?”
Striker knew he was being unreasonable and that irked him. He normally prided himself on his logical approach to problems. Sure, there were times when his hotshot ways had gotten him into trouble, but more times than not they’d saved a mission.
Dealing with Kate wasn’t like dealing with a mission, however. He couldn’t figure her out. Was she still mourning the death of a fiancé who had died a decade ago? Had she loved the guy that much? Striker wanted to ask her these questions, but he didn’t know how.
So he got mad. Not smart. Not productive. But there you had it. He wasn’t working on home territory here.
Striker could cope with jungles or desert terrain. He could scale a rock face, could survive for days in the harshest jungles with nothing more than a KA-BAR knife in his kit. But he couldn’t figure out this woman. What made her tick. What made her special. What made her smile.
Maybe if he spent more time with her, he’d figure the puzzle out and be able to move on. Yes, that sounded logical.
Striker felt better having a plan, and that one sounded as good as any.
Spending more time with her meant convincing her to come to this stupid welcome party thing with him. Being a bottom-line kind of guy, he used that approach. “If you don’t go with me, I’ll blow off this barbecue.”
“You can’t do that. It’s being held in your honor. The members of the Oilman’s Club would be horribly offended.”
“Do I look like I care?” he countered.
“What do you care about?” she surprised him by asking.
“The Marine Corps and my family.”
“In that order?”
He didn’t answer.
“So your career comes before your family? Well, that’s something you should have in common with those executives.”
“I’m nothing like them!” His anger was clear.
“Prove it,” she challenged him.
“I don’t have to prove it. I don’t have to prove anything.”
“Neither do I,” Kate retorted. “I don’t have to prove I’m not a spoiled rich girl. You should be judging me by my actions and not your preconceived prejudices.”
Her vehement words caught him by surprise. She had him there. He had been judging her based on his prior experiences with ritzy females, not by her own actions. Sure, she’d been a bit bossy. And yes she’d had an Ice Queen demeanor at times. But now he knew why. Nothing she’d done was all that bad. “You’re right,” he said slowly.
“Wh-what?” she stuttered.
“I said you’re right. You don’t have to look so shocked. I am willing to admit when I’m wrong. It doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen on rare occasions. When it does, I’m man enough to own up to it.”
Oh, Striker was man enough, all right. All six-foot-whatever of him. With his dark hair and green eyes. She’d never been that fond of green eyes before. But his were special. They held secrets, they revealed flashes of the man beneath.
These were dangerous waters, here. She needed to keep her distance, not become even more intrigued by him.
“It’s just a Texas barbecue,” she said. “You don’t need me.”
“What if I said I do need you?”
His voice had gone all husky again, making her heart do somersaults.
What would it be like to be needed by a man like him? Would it make him as vulnerable as she was? She had a hard time imagining him as anything other than in charge. She could see him wanting her, knew he’d wanted her when he’d kissed her the other day. But need? That was something else. A different level.
And then there was love. Yet another level.
What would it be like to be loved by a man like Striker? To be both needed and desired, to be cherished and seduced, to both have power and be powerless?
If things were different…if she were different, if he weren’t a man addicted to danger…
Ah, but it was tempting to wonder what if…
Temp
ting but pointless. Yet there was no denying the powerful hold he had on her. Maybe hold was too strong a word. Maybe not.
Kate only knew that the teenage fantasy crush she’d harbored for Striker was rapidly growing into something else and she didn’t seem to be able to do anything about it.
“What would I do if you said you needed me?” she belatedly repeated his question. “Men like you don’t need anyone else.”
“If I say I won’t use the phrase women like you, will you agree not to use the phrase men like you? Let’s try working with a new concept here. That we are not like anyone we’ve ever met before. Start with a fresh slate. What do you say?” Striker held out his hand. “Deal?”
The prospect of starting anew was incredibly tantalizing. Her usual cautious self warned her not to let down her guard, but in the end she couldn’t resist his offer. “Deal.”
Kate shook his hand, trying desperately to pretend he was just another client. That didn’t stop the inner shivers from racing through her body, making her nerve endings hum with awareness of the texture of his skin, the strength of his lean fingers, the brush of his thumb against the back of her hand.
“And you’ll come with me to this stupid barbecue?” he asked.
What was that saying—in for a penny, in for a pound? “All right. I’ll come with you. But all you have to do is show up and be charming,” she said. “Nothing can go wrong.”
“Don’t say that,” Striker warned her. “Being convinced that nothing can go wrong is an invitation for everything to go wrong.”
“How do I look?” Striker asked Tony before muttering, “I can’t believe I’m asking this of a guy who wears big fat bunny slippers.”
Striker had never cared how he looked before. Not that he didn’t take pride in his appearance. A Marine was taught to do so the moment he entered boot camp. Taking care of his uniform was a part of his military training.
On those rare occasions when Striker was off duty, he preferred hanging out at his beach house on a tiny coastal island off of North Carolina wearing only khaki shorts and one of his colorful Hawaiian shirts.
Texas, however, was not Hawaiian-shirt territory. This here was denim territory.
So Striker was wearing jeans and a freshly pressed denim cowboy shirt complete with white pearlized snaps down the front and on the pockets. The worn brown leather belt with a silver buckle and brown leather cowboy boots lacked the glitz of an urban cowboy, and instead reflected the fact that he’d owned them for some time.
The black Stetson was a new addition. There was nothing fancy about it, but it felt a little strange wearing it instead of his Marine Corps cover. He prayed he didn’t look like a total idiot.
“You look nervous, Striker.” Tony’s wide smile was clearly mocking. “Why is that?”
“I do not look nervous. You just can’t see very well,” he retorted. “Consuela told me that you need glasses but won’t wear them.”
“She should not be gossiping,” Tony grumbled.
“Hey, you’re the one who started it by telling her about Kate sleeping here.”
“I told you, Consuela saw the unmade bed.”
Striker waved the older man’s words away. “You could have made up a story.” Luckily Consuela had the day off and couldn’t hear them.
“I am not as good at espionage as you.”
“I’m a Force Recon Marine, not James Bond.” Although when he added the aviator sunglasses he often wore, Striker decided he did look like a new kind of cowboy/Marine hybrid.
“Kate is pulling up now,” Tony noted with a nod at the window in the large living room that looked out on the front of the house.
Striker checked his watch. She was right on time. Good. He liked that in a woman. In his experience they often lacked any concept of time. To them five minutes meant half an hour or more. But not to Kate.
He opened the door to find her standing there, looking more casual today than he’d ever seen her. A brown skirt swirled around her ankles, displaying her fancy hand-tooled boots.
He’d have preferred seeing her in something short, like cut-offs and a halter top.
Hey, a guy could dream, couldn’t he?
The problem was that he was still dreaming about Kate at night. He couldn’t get the memory of their kiss out of his mind.
She was wearing a white shirt with some kind of horse print on it in brown and black outlines. The shirt was unbuttoned, displaying the matching top beneath it. The scooped neckline showed him just a hint of her cleavage, leaving him wanting more.
Yeah, Kate was real good at that. Leaving him wanting more.
She had her hair down loose, falling around her shoulders. This way he could appreciate its golden color even more. Certain strands were lighter than others, making him want to reach out and touch them.
“You look great,” he murmured, removing his sunglasses to get a better look at her.
“Thanks. So do you.”
“So I pass inspection?”
Kate nodded. Striker more than just passed, he took her breath away. He didn’t possess the kind of sex appeal that knocked you over the head, it kind of snuck up on you. He had an easy way of moving, powerful and confident but not in your face.
And then there were his eyes. Mirrors to the soul. But Striker wasn’t a man to bare his soul to anyone. But just because he disguised his emotions didn’t mean that he didn’t possess them. She’d met plenty of men who were so self-involved that they had no depth. That wasn’t the case with Striker. He ran very deep, like a vein of gold deep in the earth.
“I should have picked you up,” Striker was saying.
“I live in the middle of the city. Nowhere near where we’re going.”
“So what? You don’t trust my driving?”
She didn’t trust herself. She could already feel her backbone melting and she’d just arrived. The idea of him coming into her home, her one final sanctuary, was just too much. So she made excuses, valid ones. “I was out this way visiting my parents anyway.”
“And you didn’t want me picking you up over there because…?”
“I wanted to save you from the interrogation my mother gives everyone who goes out with me. Not that you’re really going out with me,” she quickly clarified. “This is a business thing. My father understands that.”
“Won’t your parents be there today?” he asked.
“They had to decline because of a previous engagement.”
“Wish I’d done that,” Striker muttered.
“He’s nervous,” Tony told Kate, entering the conversation.
“Not true,” Striker denied.
“Striker nervous? I find that hard to believe, Tony,” Kate said.
“I am telling you it is so,” Tony said.
“The man wears bunny slippers. You can’t trust a word he says,” Striker retorted. “Come on.” He reached out to cup her elbow in his hand. “Let’s go.”
“Just wait until you have grandchildren,” Tony called after him. “Then we will see who laughs last.”
“His grandkids got him the slippers,” Striker explained at Kate’s frown of confusion.
“Can you see yourself having kids?” Kate heard herself asking Striker before she could stop herself.
He shrugged. “Maybe. Someday. How about you?”
“Maybe. Someday.” She repeated his words. “Yes, I could definitely see myself having kids. You know, when I was in law school I wanted to go into public law, maybe working in Children’s Services as an advocate for kids and families in need.”
“So what stopped you?”
Duty. Duty stopped her. And fear. Not that she’d tell him that. “I followed in my father’s footsteps like you did. Your father was a Marine right?”
“Right. He’s retired now.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you if you’ve been in touch with your mother? Please feel free to give her my name and phone number if she has any questions or anything.”
Right. Like that was
going to happen. His mom talking to Kate was the last thing Striker needed right now.
His mom had a way of ferreting out his secrets and the possibility that she might cotton on to the notion that Striker was attracted to Kate would not be a good thing.
No, his mother and Kate speaking to one another was definitely something to be avoided.
“Yes, I’ve talked to my mother since I got here. There’s no need for you to speak to her.”
“How is she taking Hank’s death?” Kate’s voice reflected her concern.
“My mom’s a strong woman. She copes.”
Kate couldn’t help wondering if Striker’s mom really coped or was just good at conning others the way that Kate was. Kate had never met her but had heard stories about her—disapproving tales from Hank and fond ones from Kate’s father who had grown up with Angela King before she became Angela Kozlowski.
“My dad knew your mom before she married your father, you know,” Kate said. “I guess they sort of grew up together, with her being the girl-next-door and all.”
This came as news to Striker. His mom rarely talked about her growing-up years. When she did, it was usually some funny story about shaking scorpions out of her boots or something. Apparently the venomous devils had no respect for wealth or power. They crawled wherever they wanted.
But she didn’t talk about her father, other than to say the obvious. That he was a headstrong stubborn man used to having his own way.
Death had a way of making you realize that life isn’t open-ended. It wasn’t a realization Striker relished. He didn’t want to think about death, he wanted to focus on living.
Sure he got a rush out of flirting with danger, and yes that made him feel more alive. But he never really considered the possibility that he wouldn’t make it back from a mission. What was the point in doing that?
No, he’d much rather spend his time living in the moment. Which was why he bent closer to inhale Kate’s tempting perfume.
“You smell good,” he murmured.
There it was again, that seducing voice he’d used the other day when he’d pretended to be sweet-talking her. He had only to speak a few words and she was ready to melt.
If only he were different. If only she were different, able to handle his need for speed, his love for his work as a Force Recon Marine, living on the edge.
