by Anna Lowe
“What do you think?” Jake asked.
Ella kept her mouth shut, but her fox hummed inside. I love it.
Chapter Seven
It’s okay. I know how it is.
Jake replayed Ella’s words as he made a makeshift bed of the couch — which totally defeated the point of a honeymoon suite, but he was too keyed up to think much about that. All he could think of were Ella’s words.
I know how it is.
That was the amazing thing — that Ella really understood. A couple of whispered words from her was all it took to make him go from feeling like a nutcase to letting a little bit of hope creep back into his soul. The feeling that it wasn’t so crazy for him to short-circuit from time to time. That maybe, just maybe…
“You sure you don’t want the bed?” Ella asked, breaking in to his thoughts.
He looked up. Oh, he wanted the bed, all right. But only if she was sleeping there too. And Ella was offering to swap, not inviting him in.
She stood in the bedroom doorway wearing a yellow sleep shirt that went halfway to her knees — another new look for her.
He rubbed a thumb against his bare chest as she twirled a lock of her long hair. Maybe he wasn’t the only one figuring himself out these days. But, crap. If settling back into civilian life meant getting over a hump, he still had a long, slow climb ahead. So even if by some miracle Ella invited him to share the bed, he’d better say no. He was still too edgy, too unsettled. Too likely to wake up sweaty from a nightmare.
“The couch is fine, thanks.” He threw a sheet into place, wondering if Ella minded him wearing only a pair of boxers. Or even better, if she liked that look as much as he liked hers.
“Well, then. Good night, McBride.” She clicked off the lights.
“Good night, Kitt,” he said, making sure it didn’t come out in a horny growl.
He slipped into his makeshift bed and stared at the ceiling, steeling himself for what was sure to come the moment he fell asleep. Explosions. Screams. Bloodied faces. All that mixed with the image of Manny’s lifeless body in an auto body shop.
I’m telling you, man. Someone is taking us out, one by one. Hoover’s haunted voice echoed through his mind.
Hoover had always been on the paranoid side, but Manny’s death made three in a row for his unit. Chalsmith’s accident hadn’t seemed suspicious at the time, and neither had Junger’s climbing mishap. But a bullet in the head in broad daylight and a homicidal car speeding along the road on Maui… Maybe Hoover was right.
One of us is next, man. And I swear, it ain’t gonna be me.
Jake rolled, trying to distract himself by listening to the sound of the ocean. Ella had left the balcony doors open, letting the sea breeze waft in, stirring the curtains quietly.
He closed and opened his eyes a few times, testing how close the nightmares might lie. Lately, they had taken longer than usual to set in, as if the nightmares had to track him down on an island in the middle of the Pacific first. He looked at the stars for a few minutes then shut his eyes again, hoping for a little undisturbed sleep before the ugly images began.
And the strangest thing happened. He slept. Just…slept. Not a single nightmare. No tossing and turning. No wild fantasies about Ella either. Just a solid night’s sleep. He must have, because the next time he opened his eyes, it was dawn.
He blinked a few times and rolled at a nearby sound. It was Ella, padding quietly by on her way to the balcony, where she gazed at the view. Her hair was mussed, her face still creased with pillow lines, her feet bare on the tile floor. A single word popped into his mind.
Pretty.
Make that, really pretty.
The first time he’d met Ella, he’d noticed her beauty. A totally off-limits, understated beauty no man could miss. But he’d never thought of Ella as pretty because that word had feminine and off guard woven into it.
But, wow. There she was. A little pensive, maybe, but a long way from warrior princess, for sure.
“Sleep well?” he murmured, coming up to one elbow.
She turned and opened her mouth to reply but got stuck there for a moment. Her eyes traveled up and down his body before she hauled them back to his face and nodded quickly. “I did sleep well. You?”
He nodded casually, as if a good night’s sleep hadn’t come as a surprise. Maybe the salt air had helped. In which case, he would have to rethink the settle down on a quiet ranch plan.
Ella’s nostrils flared, and it hit him. Maybe sleeping better wasn’t a function of being on Maui. Maybe it came from being close to her.
“I’ll be right back,” he muttered, heading to the bathroom before she caught the dumbstruck look on his face. He started a slow, pensive shower — then hurried up to finish and dress when he realized Ella hadn’t had her chance yet. But she didn’t seem in any rush when he rejoined her on the balcony.
“So,” she said. “I guess we ought to start working on those lists.”
“Good idea,” he mumbled, trying not to stare at her long, smooth legs.
She strode inside and returned with two coffee mugs and the two lists, laying them out on the outdoor coffee table. He slid in beside her on the outdoor couch, hyperaware of how close their thighs were.
“Okay, so…breakfast first,” Ella said then made a face. “Cozy couple stuff.”
He frowned as if he hated the idea too.
She tapped background checks on all guests on the other list. “I could hang around the dining room and keep my ears open after breakfast while you go find Toby.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “The bellhop? He seems pretty clueless to me.”
“Sure, but he sees everyone coming and going. You never know. Let’s see what we can pick up from talkative staff to get a handle on who’s here and what’s going on. You know — strange behavior, unexpected guests, anonymous bookings. That kind of thing.” Then she frowned, looking back at Lily’s list. “Then I guess we’ll have to go to the beach.”
“Damn.”
She swatted his shoulder.
“Hey, it could be worse.” He pointed out.
She looked at the view over the edge of her coffee mug then let her eyes slide over to him. “Could be worse,” she agreed.
“Remember that base camp in Zaranj?”
Her laugh was music to his ears, and she held her mug out for a toast. “True. What we wouldn’t have given for all this back there.”
He tapped his mug against hers, relishing a moment that was neither awkward guy-girl thing nor sweaty soldier camaraderie, but somewhere in between. It lasted a good minute too, before Ella stood, stretched, and headed for the shower, murmuring, “Gotta get ready.”
Jake tried not to picture her naked in the shower — he really did. He also tried not to imagine Ella tipping her head back and working shampoo into her hair — or better yet, tipping her head back and letting him do that. He tried not imagining a lot of things but failed on pretty much every count.
Watching a fishing boat steam toward the horizon didn’t help, so he tore a car rental flier into tiny bits, mixed them up, and reassembled them like a puzzle. Again and again, a little too obsessively for his own liking, but what else could he do?
When Ella came out of the shower, he worked hard not to look up. Not that he would have seen much with her behind the half-closed bedroom door. But his ears tuned in to the sound of rustling fabric and the tap of her feet across the floor. The faint scent of shampoo tickled his nose, setting off those fantasies all over again.
“Ready,” she said, pushing the door open.
For a second, he gaped. He’d never seen Ella in a cute, floral print shorts-shirt combo like that before. A second later, he schooled his face into a neutral expression because, wow. The shorts showed a hell of a lot of leg, and the blue tones made her coppery-brown eyes look twice as bright.
“Ready,” he mumbled.
“I’d better fix this.” Ella turned back to the bed and twisted the sheets to make it look like a couple of honeym
ooners had spent the night there, shredding his fantasies.
Business, McBride. He sighed, pulling the sheet off the couch. Pure business.
Luckily, business included sliding a hand around her waist the second they stepped out the door.
“Loving couple, remember?” He tried to look apologetic.
“Loving couple,” Ella said in a completely flat tone.
But her body stayed warm and cozy against his side all the way downstairs and throughout breakfast, and her eyes rarely left his. Cozy couple was working — too well, at times. Her fingers played over his as the two of them lingered over coffee and croissants, and she didn’t jerk away when their legs bumped under the table. But just when things threatened to slip from cozy to steamy — like when her hand slid from an easy resting position on his knee to higher on his thigh — Ella jerked away and shut down. It came with a flash in her eyes and an under-her-breath mutter, as if she were mad at someone for making her do that.
“Okay, find Toby,” she ordered, and just like that, they ricocheted from happy honeymooners to calculating PIs.
Toby, as it turned out, was just as talkative as the previous night, but nothing in his chatter threw up a red flag.
“Anything?” Ella whispered when Jake caught up with her in the rose garden an hour later.
“Nothing. You?”
“Nothing.” She sighed. “I guess it’s time to go to the beach.”
“Damn.”
They changed into swim gear — which, in Ella’s case, meant a turquoise bikini that nearly made his jaw unhinge — and spent an hour in lounge chairs within earshot of the beach bar. They made quite a pair — her with her tattoos, him with his scraped-up legs — who cared? An hour passed, and though they didn’t pick up on any critical information, they did tick two straws in one cocktail off Lily’s list. Afterward, they took a long walk, pretending to admire the scenery while checking for weak points in the resort’s outer walls.
“What is it?” Ella asked.
Jake glared at a white sedan that revved out of the parking lot, going much too fast. It was impossible to tell one rental from another, but they all looked like possible killing machines.
Someone is taking us out…
Maybe he ought to get in touch with Hoover, after all.
“Nothing,” he said quickly, pushing the paranoia aside.
Four more days passed in the same not-quite-relaxed way. Days were divided and subdivided by the tasks on their contrasting lists. Nights were quiet — very quiet — with each of them self-consciously tucked into a separate bed. From time to time, the happy couple act worked so well, he forgot it was an act. Ella seemed to forget too, and they’d end up sidling closer, touching, gazing into each other’s eyes. But every time Jake was sure Ella would open up to him — really open up — she’d do that blink/jerk away/mutter thing and consult Kai’s list.
“Calculate distances to possible sniper positions,” she announced, sending him off in one direction while she set off in the other.
He started to wonder if Ella had her own particular, dual-personality form of PTSD. But maybe she was walking the same tightwire he was, careening from I need you in my life to You deserve better than me.
“Crap.” Ella scowled at her phone after breakfast on the fourth day.
Jake looked around. They hadn’t discovered any signs of mischief so far. Had she noticed something?
“Everything okay?”
Ella nodded quickly and spoke in a hushed tone. “Hunter was supposed to take care of something today, but I have to go instead.”
“Go where?”
Her eyes drifted across the sprawling resort and focused on a point far away. “Pu’u Pu’eo,” she said in a wistful tone.
“Pu’u what?”
She waved in a vague way. “The place where I grew up. Where we all grew up, actually — Hunter and Kai and me. Georgia Mae left the property to us. We never wanted to let it go, but it’s getting so overgrown…” She fidgeted with her napkin and scuffed the floor. “None of us has time to check on it, and it hurts to see the place neglected like that. So we agreed to sell, and the realtor just called with an interested party.” She sighed. “I guess selling the place is a good thing, but…well, you know.”
That achy, time to let go of the past feeling? Yeah, he knew all too well.
She scowled at the phone. “The realtor has someone coming to look at it this afternoon, but they’ll barely be able to walk onto the property, it’s so overgrown. Hunter can’t go to clear a path, and Kai has to spend most of the day here setting up the extra security that’s set to arrive today. So that leaves me.”
He corrected her immediately. “That leaves us.”
The grateful look on her face made his fantasies tiptoe a little closer again, and he grinned.
“Seriously?” she asked, brightening.
Jake bit back I would go to the end of the world and back for you. “Sure. Might even be fun.”
“Fun?” Her eyebrows shot up. “You should see the place, McBride. It will be hard work. None of this lazing around next to the pool stuff. You think you can handle that?”
He grinned. “I believe I can.”
Chapter Eight
Jake couldn’t understand why he felt like a jailbird set free when they hit the road. Maybe because high-end places like the Kapa’akea Resort weren’t exactly his thing. Pulling on boots instead of loafers felt good, and Ella seemed just as happy for a change of scenery too. In no time, they had changed into comfortable work clothes, rented a Jeep, and headed out.
“I guess this does keep with the brief,” Ella said as she fired up the engine and drove down the long, palm-lined drive of the resort. “We can make it look like a day trip to Haleakala or Hana, and Kai will have the resort covered as he sets up the extra security guys.”
“Just don’t let any of the guys see this Jeep,” Jake joked as they made the right turn onto the main road. The Jeep was bright pink, which went a long way in reminding him this wasn’t another army mission in some godforsaken corner of the world. The coast whipped by to his right, looking just like a travel ad. The sun warmed his face, and the wind pulled at his hair. It felt like one of those rare days off from an assignment that had dragged on for too long.
“I thought the surf out here was big.” He waved at a strip of beach where tourists tottered on surfboards in tiny little waves.
Ella laughed. “At this time of year, all the action is over on the Hana side.”
“You grew up on Maui, right?”
She nodded briskly. “I moved here after my mom died.”
He sucked in a breath. Shit. “Sorry.”
Ella waved like it was nothing, but her face tensed. She fingered her necklace, making the silver glint in the sun, and he wondered if it had been her mother’s, once upon a time. “Maui was a great place to grow up. But somehow…”
“Somehow?” he prompted after a few seconds went by.
“Don’t get me wrong — I loved it here, and I loved Georgia Mae, my foster mother. But something always pulled me back to the Southwest. There’s just something about the landscape, I guess. How rugged it is. How quiet.”
He nodded. Yeah, he knew just what she meant.
“When other girls went from decorating their rooms with unicorns to boy band posters, I was decorating mine with pictures of the Southwest.” She lifted one hand from the steering wheel and drew shapes in the air. “Canyons. Mesas. Cliff dwellings. All that kind of stuff.”
He nodded along. Maui was beautiful, but he longed for the West, too. All that sky, that space. Space enough to allow a guy to get lost in his thoughts — and maybe even find himself again.
“Is that where you’ve been since you got back stateside?” he asked.
“Yep. Arizona. I was born there. Got myself a good job on a ranch.” Her voice grew a little wistful, her focus not entirely on the road. “A big place that runs cattle and goats. Tons and tons of space… You would like it there.”
Jake was just starting to nod when Ella corrected herself abruptly. “I mean, I like it there.”
He watched her from the corner of his eye. Did part of her soul wish he were part of her life? If he were honest with himself, he’d admit that he was starting to picture her into his life the same way.
The road bent away from the coast, and Ella changed the subject. “You’re from Colorado, right? Ever thought of going back?”
Jake’s lips tightened. “I did go back.”
Ella didn’t say anything, and he figured he would leave it at that. But something spurred him to explain. After all, Ella wasn’t like everyone else. She understood him — really understood him. So he went on after a pause.
“My older brother took over the family ranch. Dad died while I was gone, and my mom moved to Tucson where her sister lives.”
Ella tilted her head in one of those so what happened? looks.
“I guess I was thinking it would all be the way I left it.” The landscape blurred as he stared off into the distance. “My brother and his wife took over the main house. She redecorated and everything. I guess it was high time, but…” He waved a hand vaguely. “Anyway, it’s their place now. Which I guess is a good thing. It kind of forced me to move on.”
He decided to leave out the part about not really having anywhere to move on to.
“I was staying with friends when Boone called with this job. But someday, when I get the chance, a job at a ranch would be nice.”
They drove in silence for the next fifteen minutes, when Ella hit the blinker and pulled over into a parking lot. There was a hardware store there, a tire and lube place, and a lunch truck in the lee of a couple of Norfolk pines.
“I need to grab a few things,” Ella said, getting out of the car. “Oh, and it would be good to pick up sandwiches. There’s nothing out by the property.”
He nodded. “I’ll get the sandwiches. Chicken with sharp mustard for you?”
Her eyes went wide.
Yes, he wanted to say. I have been paying attention.
