by Hill, Teresa
It was getting late. Only about a dozen customers were left when Mace heard shouting coming from the kitchen.
“Ahh, shit!” the bartender said as he glared at the kitchen door.
“Need help?” Mace asked.
“What I need are employees who don’t hook up with each other, and a week later, decide they hate each other. Do me a favor? If anybody wants a drink, tell ’em I’ll be right back.”
“Sure,” Mace said.
But then Dani and the two guys headed for the door. The bartender stopped just outside the kitchen door and shook his head like he didn’t know what to do.
“I’ll take care of it,” Mace said.
“She’s a nice girl in a lousy situation.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
From the kitchen came the sound of glass breaking. “I can’t believe this night. I need to get back there, but I’m still not sure those guys should be driving.”
“No problem. I got it.”
* * *
Chapter Three
Mace
He caught up with the three of them in the parking lot. Dani looked half-asleep as she leaned against a blue pick-up. One of the guys nuzzled her neck while the other pulled his keys out of his pants pocket.
Mace stepped between the two guys and grabbed the keys first, then backed up the would-be driver against the truck, with his body between the guy and Dani. Mace smiled, but summoned his most intimidating look. He didn’t want to come at them with physical force, although he’d do that if necessary.
The guys objected to Mace interfering. Hands came at him, but not fists. The guys in their clumsy way were mostly trying to push him away. Dani had opened her eyes and noticed they had company. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure nobody gets hurt.” He turned to the two guys. “Good time’s over if you get in that truck and try to drive. We can call you a cab or call the cops. Your choice.”
They were laughing one minute, but the next, the would-be driver threw a punch. Mace dodged it easily and let the guy’s own momentum propel him into the car parked behind Mace. Seconds later, he had the guy pinned over the trunk, one elbow dug into the guy’s back. Every time the guy tried to get loose, Mace dug that elbow in harder, and the guy howled.
“Wanna take your shot?” Mace asked the other guy.
“Who the fuck are you?”
The guy said it with a pout on his face worthy of a two-year-old. God, baby sailors were getting younger every year. Mace felt ancient at all of thirty-six. Tired of this, he used his free hand to pull up the sleeve of his T-shirt to reveal the trident tattooed on his right bicep.
The guy still standing squinted through the darkness, then said, “No shit?”
“No shit,” Mace said evenly.
“Fuck.” The guy’s eyes just about bugged out of his head. “Tommy, the guy’s a frogman, and I don’t feel like gettin’ my ass kicked tonight.”
“Good choice.” Mace let go of the man pinned to the truck. “Go inside. The bartender will call you a cab.”
“C’mon, sweetie,” the guy said to Dani as he turned to go.
“Go ahead. She’ll be there in a minute.”
The two guys glared at him. Dani gave him a thorough once-over, then tripped as she tried to take a step toward him.
“Easy, there, sweetheart.” He caught her and helped her lean against the truck again.
He thought he had her settled, and that she knew better than to try to move again. But she must not have, because the next thing he knew, she giggled and took another stumbling step toward him.
“You wanna take me home with you?” she asked.
“How about I just give you a ride back to your place?” he said.
“Don’ wanna go there.” She said it with flirtatious determination and a smile as she trailed a finger down his chest toward the waistband of his cargo shorts.
“Whoa.” He pulling her hand away. “Not gonna happen, sweetheart.”
“Then I’ll go with them.” She looked at the two guys heading back into the bar. “Tommy and … And … Wait, I know this. Jake? Tommy and Jake?”
“They’re both drunk. You’re not going with them. You’ll be safe with me, okay? All I want to do is make sure you get home in one piece.”
“Nope. Not goin’. Too quiet in my room. I’ll cry.” She looked so sad it made Mace’s heart hurt.
“Sweetheart, I bet it’s better than how you’d feel if you woke up between the two of them. Lonelier, but better.”
“Well, I don’t care what you think. I’ve had a few drinks, and I’m happy. I want to stay that way.”
“Drinking is not a long-term solution. You know that. Right?”
“There is no long-term solution, and besides, you don’t get to tell me what to do!” She crossed her arms in front of her.
That, unfortunately for Mace, pushed her pretty breasts together and up, making them spill out of her little top even more.
When she caught him looking, she snickered, unfolded her arms and cupped her hands around her breasts to push them closer together and even higher. She added a little shimmy that set all her curves to swaying back and forth. If she’d been any taller, she would have been waving her breasts in his face.
Mace liked legs. They could be so nice. And the curve of a woman’s ass held the possibility of being a true work of art. Lips could be plush. Eyes could be sparkling. Hair? He liked enough that he could grab onto it and hold a woman in place.
He appreciated all those things. But breasts … Breasts were his downfall. Hers were plump with ivory skin. A man couldn’t help but notice, when she was showing them off the way she was.
She pressed right up against him, assaulting him with those beautiful ivory curves of hers.
He wrapped his hands around her arms, ready to push her away again, but when he glanced down at her, he’d swear he saw freckles in that sweet hollow created by the inside curves of her breasts. He’d spent some time in his younger days with one of the prettiest girls in the whole state of Texas. She’d had freckles. All over her body. That summer, his favorite past time had been finding all those freckles and showing them special attention.
“Shit,” he whispered.
This girl was turning into a real problem. He was not going to gawk at a fellow sailor’s drunken widow. She had to be his widow. He set her firmly away from him and hoped she stayed there.
He wished so many things. That she hadn’t had so much to drink, that it wasn’t so late, that she would be reasonable and give him a minute so he could explain. But mostly, that Lieutenant Carson hadn’t died, and that this girl didn’t have a broken heart.
Letting her go wasn’t an option. It was too easy to imagine her coming to her senses later and wanting to go home, and those two guys maybe not letting her.
If he could get her back inside to Nico, she could be his problem. Mace could call the lawyer tomorrow and tell him where Dani worked, and Frederick Bach could deal with her.
But that wasn’t the deal he and Harold Hopewell made. It wasn’t what Mace would do if Dani were any other wife, fiancé or girlfriend of a soldier or sailor who’d died.
“Hey, do I know you?” She shot him a skeptical look.
He shook his head. “I was hoping we could talk. Not tonight, but maybe tomorrow. I’ll meet you anywhere you say.”
“Talk? About what?”
“I’m in the Navy.” He waited, not wanting to blurt out everything.
“Most of the guys who come here are in the Navy.”
“Yeah. I don’t think this is exactly the right time to get into it. It’s late. We’ve both had a few drinks.” He didn’t want to just come out and say she was too drunk to have a serious talk about anything. “How about we meet for lunch tomorrow?”
“Because?”
“Some … unfinished business.”
“We couldn’t have unfinished business, because I don’t know you.”
“Right. We have a mutual friend.�
�
She cocked her head and squinted up at him. “Gotta say, I have very few friends these days. A couple of people at the bar, one of my roommates, a few people from the school where … Wait, you came here to find me?”
“Yes.”
“But … how did you know to come here?”
“I went to the school where you taught last fall — ”
“You’re the one who had Rose call me and ask me to get in touch with you?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“And you somehow tracked me down to this place?”
“Yes.” He grimaced, although he’d done nothing sinister.
Her pupils grew huge, and she backed away from him, but she had no place to go with the car at her back.
“Dani, it’s not what you think … ”
“I think you’re some creep who’s following me.” She eased sideways along the car.
If she got to the end of it, she’d likely take off running for the bar. He should let her go, trust Nico the bartender to take care of her. Anything else he did tonight was going to scare her even more.
She made it to the back of the car, and Mace stayed where he was, making no move toward her. “I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t hurt women.”
“Sure, no creepy guy ever said that before dragging a woman off by her hair, doing whatever he wanted with her, and dumping her body in the woods. No, thank you. Stay where you are.”
Mace would have done that, but her two drunken friends came back outside. Their faces lit up when they saw her. They yelled her name, and she turned to the side so she could see them.
Damned if she didn’t smile and look relieved. To see two sloppy drunks!
“Whatsa matter, baby?” The taller one slid against her back and put an arm around her waist, drawing her closer. “He bothering you?”
“This guy’s been following me!”
“We’re not gonna let you do that.” The second guy looked like he wanted to take another swing at Mace.
The first guy started pulling her away, but she stumbled. They both did and laughed like it was hilarious, nearly falling down in a parking lot.
Mace had had enough. He put a firm hand on the forearm of the guy who was about to fall down with Dani. “Take your hands off of her now, before you hurt her.”
“You stay away from her.”
Mace gave the guy a quick, hard pinch on a pressure point just above the elbow.
The guy’s arm dropped instantly, and he howled.
“How did you do that?” Dani’s eyes were enormous. “Who are you?”
The first guy’s friend came at Mace again. Dani was too close. He didn’t want her hurt in the middle of this stupid scuffle. He had to get between the two of them and her. It would help if they weren’t trying to hang onto her, and she weren’t so suspicious of Mace.
They ended up in a three-way scuffle with Dani on the outside trying to work her way into it. He had no idea why. The girl seemed to have no self-preservation instincts. Hands were flying. Someone tried to head-butt him. An elbow came slamming toward him. It was time to stop trying to not hurt these guys too badly.
He had to sort out the tangle of arms and bodies, shielding her while he did it.
“Dani, just back the hell up and let me handle this. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here because I knew Aaron — ”
He hadn’t been paying any attention to that big purse of hers. He’d just been trying to get her to calm down and listen to him. He never saw it coming.
She pulled something out of her purse and sprayed — Maced him. Got him right in the eyes. It went up his nose. Into his mouth.
He was an idiot, never knew when to let things be, but …
Oh, fuck, that hurt.
It burned hideously. Eyes were the worst, the most tender tissue. He tried not to breathe and it took everything he had not to rub his eyes. Doing that never worked. It only spread the stuff around to more of his face. He’d learned the hard way.
He bent over at the waist, wanting to cry out from the pain. But he was a fucking Navy SEAL. He’d been shot before. This wasn’t going to bring him to his knees.
Vaguely, he heard scrambling feet and cursing. He wondered how in the hell he was going to fight off two drunken sailors when he could barely see.
Then, he heard a vehicle start nearby.
He must have lost the guy’s truck keys at some point.
Dani yelled. She gripped his arm, small hands tugging him to the right. “Watch out. They’re backing out.”
Tires screeched, way too close. He stumbled a few steps in the direction she wanted him to go. The truck’s engine, which sounded like it was right on top of them, revved even higher. Then the sound receded into the night.
His eyes had teared up, his mouth was watering, his nose was running. He coughed, and he knew it would be a while before he could stop. His body was doing what it could to flush out the toxin.
“They’re gone?” He barely got the words out.
“Yeah,” she said.
His eyes were slits, and he could barely see. But he was so grateful she was still here, that she hadn’t gotten into the truck with those two guys or they hadn’t grabbed her and taken her with them.
“Did you … Did you say that you knew Aaron?”
“Yes,” he said between coughs.
“Oh.” Her head tilted sideways as she bent over, looked at him and grimaced. “Sorry.”
He growled, then went back to trying to barf up a lung.
“I’ve never used that stuff before. I didn’t even know if it would work. What can I do?”
“Water.”
“Yes. I have water. I think.” She dug in her purse. “Here!”
He held out his hand blindly, and she put a thin plastic bottle in it. “Okay. Move back. You don’t want this stuff on you.”
She scrambled clumsily out of the way. He tilted his head to the side and tried to pour water slowly from the side of his nose across his right eye.
“What else can I do?”
“Get more water. And wet towels.”
Okay. I’ll be right back.”
Mace sank down onto his heels and leaned back against the car. It was nothing but stupid, stubborn point of pride that made him stay on his feet. He knew that. Just like he knew he already looked like an idiot. What did he care what a drunk soldier’s widow, bumping and grinding on two guys and considering going home with them, thought of him?
He still forced himself to stand when he saw her hurrying back to him.
“Which one?” she asked, holding bottled water in one hand and a towel in the other.
“Towel.”
He stuck out his hand again. When he pressed the wet, cool towel to his face, he groaned with relief. He’d have paid a fortune for this wet towel.
* * *
Chapter Four
Dani
She was sobering up fast, which was a shame. While she hadn’t exactly been in a good place — throwing back shots and flirting with two strangers — she had enjoyed the alcoholic haze. Drinking was one option she hadn’t tried in the last ten months since her life fell apart.
Would she have actually gone home with those guys?
Who knew?
Her head was crammed full of sad, angry thoughts. She was lost. Being numb sounded better.
She never imagined it would end with her ashamed of herself, while still half drunk and causing a disturbance in the parking lot of the bar where she worked.
Now she’d pepper-sprayed a guy who knew Aaron.
She sat on the lowered tailgate of her boss’s pickup truck, because it was there and she was so tired. Her stomach felt queasy, and she was not quite steady on her feet.
Aaron’s friend looked like he needed to sit before he fell over, but he’d refused. His only concession to the shape he was in was leaning against the tailgate and not swaying on his feet anymore while he coughed up pepper spray and his eyes watered like crazy.
He look
ed awful. She couldn’t believe how toxic the stuff in that tiny canister on her keychain must be. A friend had given it to her when she’d started working the closing shift at a bar while she was in college. As long as she had her keys in her hand, she also had that little canister of pepper spray.
She felt like she’d poisoned this man.
He pressed the third wet towel she’d brought him to his face, and every few minutes, he’d hold out his hand for another bottle of water, which he’d slowly pour onto the towel. She guessed the wetter the towel was, the better it felt on his poor, abused face.
She had believed she hit her lowest point when Aaron died, but then she found out about all his lies. Since then, she had kept thinking that things could not get worse, and the world kept proving her wrong.
Please don’t let him have known Aaron well, she thought. Please don’t let him be a good friend who saw her drinking and flirting all night with those two guys.
Not that she should care what Aaron thought. He was dead, after all, the lying son of a bitch. She shouldn’t care. It pissed her off that she did, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
Beside her, the injured man finally stopped coughing. He’d just emptied the last bottle of water onto his towel.
“Need me to get you more water?” she asked.
“No,” he muttered, sounding hoarse and weary. “It’s wearing off some.”
“So, you knew Aaron?”
“Yeah. Nice kid.”
She huffed. “I thought he was, at first.”
“He loved you.”
“No, he didn’t. If he had loved me, he wouldn’t have lied to me.”
“Lied about what?”
“Oh, just everything.” Bitterness roiled through her until she was so mad she was shaking.
“Wait. Navy Lieutenant Aaron Carter? Twenty-five, but looked about eighteen? Sandy blond hair? Green eyes? Stationed here in Virginia Beach?”
“Yes, that Aaron Carter. He fooled you, too?”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Well, that makes two of us. I fell for his whole act, totally, and the way he … Damn.” She saw blue lights revolving in the distance and coming closer.
