But then he returned to the booth just as she wended her way out of the shadowy rear—past piles of T-shirts and racks of dresses and handbags—to once more stand in the sunlight.
Offset by the bright floral flirtiness of the dress, her darker skin simply glowed. Her hair had already dried in the arid heat into a thick tangle that he couldn’t wait to run his hands through. The dress covered more than the bikini and wet T-shirt, but what it hid, it implied and the impact was equally powerful.
Lucky beyond what he deserved? No question!
Fear he was going to screw it up…
Well, there was a new thought. Until two nights ago, it had simply been the best relationship of his life. But everything had ramped up and now he couldn’t imagine not being with Carla.
He offered her his arm. She glared at him, then on a huff of exasperation, slipped her hand around his elbow.
The five of them had entered one end of the market wearing swimsuits and not much more. They exited the other wearing tourist outfits and small backpacks. Carla also carried a colorful straw bag that he’d bought for her.
They each now held a variety of clothes, sunscreen, toiletries, a couple of guidebooks, and several ridiculous geegaws that clearly labeled them as tourists traveling light. Personally, he’d been unable to resist a small, fuzzy moose toy with “Aruba” stitched into one of his broad antlers. Would it be breaking security if he gave it to Mom for Christmas? Probably, but it was still too damn cute.
They’d laughed together over Indonesian curry chicken and fries from the curiously named Mrs. Kelly’s food truck, but that didn’t make it any less delicious. Indonesia and Aruba had both been Dutch colonies for well over three centuries.
At one moment, Kyle and Carla were wandering alone, the other three guys off this way or that.
“I’m sorry it upset you earlier. I want you to know that you look absolutely fabulous in that dress.” She now owned slacks, shorts, and several tops, but she hadn’t changed into them, for which he was eternally grateful.
Carla looked over at him, her eyes hidden by sunglasses and the wide straw brim of her hat.
“Um, thanks. I’m sorry if I overreacted, but I’ve never worn girl clothes before.”
“Never?” He tried to imagine that. Women in bars, especially the ones who hung out in the Green Beret bars seeking the target-eager environment, always wore girl clothes—though often so scanty that the word “clothes” might be an exaggeration.
“Come on, Kyle. Do I look like a senior prom kind of girl?”
He inspected her as she stopped to look at a vendor of local jewelry. He could tell that she wasn’t really browsing, that it’s just what she thought a girl was supposed to do, to maintain her cover. A glance revealed that Carla had no piercings. Couldn’t even buy his girl earrings. Then he spotted a fine chain of silver from which dangled a small sailboat of carved amber wrapped in silver filigree. It was actually quite pretty work.
He waited until Carla grew bored with the inspection of earrings and necklaces, less than sixty seconds, and wandered off to see what Chad was up to. He was probably purchasing a pink Swiss Army knife labeled with the inevitable “Aruba!” because the man simply couldn’t breath right without having some sort of weapon.
Kyle quickly purchased the tiny sailboat necklace. The vendor’s smile said he’d just been ripped off, but Kyle didn’t care to take the time for a bartering session.
He slipped up behind Carla. Lowering the sailboat down in front of her just long enough to hear her brief gasp before he secured it around her neck. The boat sailed just between the first rise of her breasts.
She turned to study him and he took both of her hands.
“No, you don’t look like a prom girl. You look like someone who was the prom queen and has now grown into a stunning woman. And—” He cut her off on the verge of interrupting.
She scowled.
“—no, it does not make you one iota less the soldier I want fighting beside me.” Then he did something he’d never done before. He kissed her in broad daylight in front of others.
With a soft “damn you” against his lips, she melted against him. The woman who flowed against him was as unexpected as the soldier in form-clinging leathers. This time she didn’t grab and devour. She didn’t take control and demand. Instead, she simply slid her hands around his neck and held on.
He felt a desire to protect rather than plunder. If he were rich, he would set her up in the penthouse of one of these towering resorts looming above the market. He would lavish her with—
Kyle was going mad.
He curled his arms around her. A sigh, he swallowed. He…
…opened an eye and spotted Duane, standing there with arms folded across his “I heart Aruba!” chest and a grin on his face. He opened the other and saw Chad and Richie in similar stances.
“There’s a cliché here just waiting to happen,” Duane observed.
“Something about getting rooms, or were you thinking of the girl cooties one?” Chad asked him.
“The name is Bond. James Bond,” Richie offered up.
That broke them up and everyone laughed.
Everyone except Carla, who had pulled in her arms but remained nestled against Kyle’s chest.
Nothing to lose?
He had the whole world to lose and it was curled up in his arms.
* * *
Carla wished for heat to rise to her cheeks. She wanted to feel embarrassed, put upon, something that she could fight back against.
Instead, she stood in the circle of Kyle’s arms among the bustle of the now lively market and felt desirable and beautiful. No one had ever bought her jewelry. A tiny sailboat of hope that someday she could sail free.
Jewelry and a dress. And a kiss that hadn’t fired her up, but rather melted her down.
She was such a write-off. They should decommission her and sink her at sea like a wreck for people to dive down and wonder at.
For a moment longer she let herself remain curled against Kyle’s chest and breathe in his smell of new shirt and salt air, let herself be…
She was not ready to finish that sentence. “Loved?” What had her brain been thinking? That was so not going to happen. Well, at least she knew which part of her had died first. The only ones she’d ever wanted love from were dead and buried in Arlington.
Pushing back from Kyle’s chest, not so fast that he’d be offended or think her ungrateful, she moved from the circle of his arms.
He let her go, but kept hold of her hand to tuck back around his elbow.
She needed that at the moment. Needed to stay grounded. A quick glance at the guys showed that they weren’t offended or jealous or even looking at her as if she’d somehow changed from the soldier who’d spent six months training close beside them. Rather, they smiled as if somehow it had been their doing that she and Kyle were together. It made the…a mushy word tried to sneak in but she suppressed it…bond she felt for them that much stronger.
She offered her first true smile since coming ashore and found it returned, and it was one of the best feelings she’d ever had. Right up there with the kiss she’d just received.
“So—” She hated that she had to clear her throat before she could continue. She stroked the bit of jewelry lying so consciously on her chest. “I heard there was a real sailboat around here somewhere.”
Chapter 14
Agent Fred Smith had arranged a sailboat charter for them at the Oranjestad waterfront, a short taxi ride from where they’d come ashore. The capital city of thirty thousand was a teeming metropolis compared to the resort communities along Palm and Eagle Beaches, but they passed through it too quickly for her to form much of an impression.
They picked up the fifty-six-foot sloop from a worried-looking rental agent.
Kyle and Richie both spoke sailboat to him unti
l he relaxed.
Carla had never sailed. She’d been on transport ships and could pilot a small rubber Zodiac through a storm in the dark of night with a dozen of the world’s deadliest warriors aboard just fine. Sailboats were a new experience.
So she did her best to stand there, be a pretty airhead, and not grind her teeth overmuch while the rental agent went through the boat with the guys.
Aruba claimed two other small islands well to the east as a part of its territory, and the guys spun a story about wanting to show their sister the other islands.
The agent wasn’t buying it.
As soon as he was gone and they had started preparing to depart, she stepped lightly aboard and settled in the cockpit to watch them.
“You know…” She lounged back in her short sundress, stretching out her legs to rest on the bench across the cockpit. She was starting to appreciate the advantages to girl clothes, like torturing guys. “You boys need a better cover story if you don’t want everyone assuming we’re going to sea to have an orgy.”
Duane and Chad grinned at her wickedly. They’d caught on right away that their story wasn’t working and had done what they could to really twist the agent’s mind.
Kyle’s head shot up from whatever line he was working on and then cursed when he finally connected the truth of that.
Richie blinked at her. “Why would they think that?”
“If we’re all friendly and cozy as brothers and sister, Richie, Mama led a very wide-ranging sex life, a fact the agent clearly noted.”
He looked around at their varied complexions—New York Jew, darkly tanned Georgia, and Scandinavian white. She and Kyle were the closest to possibly being related, but not really. She expressed a lot of her grandmother’s Cherokee genes, and Kyle was just gorgeous Anglo-Saxon mutt.
The look on Kyle’s face verged on horror at impugning her virtue, as if they weren’t screwing each other at every opportunity. He mouthed a “sorry.”
She wanted to make him suffer, but couldn’t keep it in and laughed.
“Like I care what an Aruban rental agent thinks.”
* * *
Kyle had settled in at the helm. He’d taken first shift. Carla leaned back against him so that he had one hand on the tiller and the other around her waist. He’d almost broached the boat side to the waves, earning a surprised scowl from Richie, who’d been cleaning up lines on the forward deck.
“You sure you know how to sail?”
He knew how to sail, and he knew what to do with their mission. They were on course and on schedule.
What he just didn’t know how to deal with was this particular woman in his arms. It wasn’t that his blood went to his crotch every time they drew close together… Okay, it wasn’t only that. It was that his world became impossibly full, and other small concerns, like sailing, became secondary at best.
He also had a very nice view from above as her sailboat necklace slipped side to side between her breasts each time the sloop rode up over a wave and back down the other side.
“How long do we have?” Her voice was little more than a pleased murmur.
Kyle glanced up at the sails, which were now full and drawing well. If the wind held from this quarter, they could almost sail a single tack all the way to Maracaibo, Venezuela.
“A hundred and fifty sea miles. Twenty, maybe twenty-four hours. We’ll show up looking just like tourists tomorrow morning, exactly as planned.”
“I could get used to this.” Her voice was warm and soft.
So could he. Drag her off to his cave and never let her get away. Never in his life had he enjoyed a woman so much. Not even close.
But there was still a shield, a layer, something there that he didn’t quite trust. And he’d learned to listen to his instincts, a skill honed by his Delta instructors.
Time. For once they had time and perhaps this was the opportunity to figure out how to drive forward his questions of what drove Carla, without…appearing to be doing precisely that.
He almost cursed as Chad and Duane produced a lunch from down below using the foodstuffs they’d bought at the market. He sighed. Later, but soon.
Carla may have sat up, but she still wore that sundress, so it wasn’t a total loss.
“You guys are really such dweebs,” Carla informed them.
“The few. The proud,” Duane mumbled around a mouthful of a bitterbal, hissing at the spicy-hot mustard he’d dipped the deep-fried meatball into.
Kyle had known what she was doing from the moment she purchased the slacks and blouse back at the market but hadn’t changed into them. But he’d been more than happy to play along.
“For the last two hours”—she took a large bite of arepa roll stuffed with cheese, ham, and slivered papaya—“you’ve been treating me completely differently. I left the dress on to tease you. Instead—”
“Instead we’re treating you like the total babe that you are.” Chad’s grin was almost a laugh.
“I wondered how long you’d put up with it before the true Carla surfaced,” Duane added, then shifted to a thick Southern accent. “Would y’all like youse bottle of pineapple juice freshened up, missus?”
“Eat my shorts, Jenkins!”
“Gladly!”
Kyle found himself joining in the round of laughter. In this moment the years rolled back. No longer were they Delta commandos who had just pulled off one deadly raid and most likely were headed into another. They weren’t ex-Army, ex-SEAL, ex-Special Forces. They were just a group of friends hanging out and enjoying each other’s company on a beautiful sailing day in the southern Caribbean.
That he was about to lead his team into harm’s way, that part he was used to.
Not so used to doing the same with the woman he loved. Hell, he’d have trouble holding her back if he were dumb enough to try. He’d only end up pissing her off and wasting one of his best assets.
Something drove Carla Anderson and drove her hard. And he was slowly beginning to get it through his thick skull that it wasn’t all about her dead brother—her brother who had flown helicopters and died at Colonel Gibson’s side, another topic they’d never discussed.
The rest of them were laughing over Richie’s attempt to eat a stack of banana chips as if they were caviar-and-toasts at a British high tea. The loud crunching completely ruined the effect.
Kyle didn’t know what the hell to do with it.
Mom and Dad were a happy couple in Redmond, Washington. He taught martial arts, she worked her corporate gig, and most weekends still found them fishing together.
Richie had grown up a couple hours north of New York. Well-to-do family, IBM engineer and housewife.
Duane was a lot like him, Dad was ex-Marine and an executive at Coca-Cola in Atlanta. Mom was a lawyer.
Chad might look Iowa, but he was Detroit, downtown, the bad side. He’d earned every inch of his way out of there.
Carla was…Army. Her brother was dead and her mom and dad… He didn’t even know if they were dead, alive, or missing. They must have been one hell of a couple to produce a girl like the one sitting next to him.
Then he remembered, no girl clothes. Ever. No one had given her jewelry before. Ever.
He rubbed the back of his neck and shut his eyes for a moment on another bright laugh from the group, Carla’s voice ringing like a clear bell above the others.
There was a purity to her joy that he couldn’t doubt. It filled her from the inside. Overlay the veneer of a woman who attacked everything as if it was the ultimate and final challenge. Even making love.
He heard the sail slap—hard. He opened his eyes as the boat slowed and the heel leveled out. Only a quick slam of the tiller kept him from an unplanned tack.
“You awake, man?”
Kyle had slept after making love to Carla. But that was now a day and a half ago. He rubbed his f
ace again, but it didn’t help. Figuring all of the mission angles had sliced right through any attempt to catch even a few hours’ shut-eye last night.
This time he wasn’t fast enough and they tacked hard and without warning. The boom slammed across to the other side of the boat, nearly clipping Chad in the head. The jib was now backed against the mast. His attempt to recover was too little too late and only made matters worse.
“I got it.” Richie moved in across from him and laid a hand on the tiller. “Go get some shut-eye.”
Kyle nodded and headed below.
“Whoops! There goes any chance of that happening.” Chad’s voice sounded behind him as he descended the short ladder into the main cabin.
“You wouldn’t hear me complaining,” Duane responded. “Go get him, girl.”
Kyle glanced back up toward the cockpit. Carla was about to climb down the ladder. Her short dress looked even shorter from down here. It looked as if… “What the hell?”
She arrived on the plank flooring beside him. “The lady didn’t sell underwear, only dresses and things. Why, are you complaining?”
Because she’d been sitting there with them and… He shook his head. He had no idea and he didn’t know why he bothered. Not a chance of winning an argument with the woman. He aimed for the forward stateroom.
The boat was laid out with a generous galley to one side and a comfortable pilot’s berth to the other.
Carla’s fingers pressed lightly on his back, moving him along. The companionway continued forward between two wide settees to either side that could each seat four people on bench seats across a table. One of the bulkheads sported an impressive array of electronics, GPS, radio, wind and speed, radar, depth…all the cool toys.
Target Engaged Page 16
