Duty Bound

by Samantha Chase

  “Um, Harper and I work together. It’s just a casual dinner, you know. Not a date. We’re not dating. No. Just friends.”

  It shouldn’t have pleased me so much, but it did. I looked over at Harper and shook my head as if to say, “What were you thinking?” She must have read my mind because that pinched look returned.

  “If you’ll excuse us, Levi,” she said with that syrupy voice she only seemed to use on me. “It looks like our table is ready. Have a good night.” She gave me a little wave as she hooked her arm through Tom’s. “I know I will,” she added under her breath, and I felt my fists clench at my sides.

  “Hey, Levi,” someone yelled from across the room. I turned and saw Cole standing next to the table with a now-empty beer pitcher in his hand. “Next round’s on you!” The guys all cheered, and I flipped them the bird before stalking over to the bar.

  Have fun, will she? With that guy? With Tom? That guy wouldn’t know how to have fun if it hit him over the head. He looked like the type that sat around and played Scrabble or did the New York Times crossword puzzle. Maybe Sudoku. Chances were he wouldn’t have a clue what to do if anything happened to Harper. Hell, she could probably take him out with one of her little kickboxing moves. The image was enough to make me laugh.

  Grabbing the pitcher, I threw my money on the bar, walked back over to the guys, and sat down. They were deep in conversation about some game, but I couldn’t help but look over to where Harper and Tom were sitting. He was talking, she was smiling, and I was pissed. Doing my best to rejoin the sports talk, I heard Harper’s laugh and turned my head in that direction.

  “Are you sure you wanted a beer, Levi?” Declan asked.

  “What? Why?”

  “Well, I was just thinking that maybe you’d want something like a cup of tea or maybe a pint of Ben & Jerry’s while you watch that little chick-flick unfolding across the room.” He broke out laughing. The guys all joined in.

  “Do you need a Snuggie or something to curl up with?” Cole asked, cracking himself up.

  “Maybe we should head back to your place and relax. You know, we can stop at the local Red Box and rent The Notebook or something if it will help you,” Sebastian added.

  Only these guys could get away with this kind of ribbing. If it were anyone else, I would have flipped the table by now. I needed to get a grip. They might have been laughing at me, but the truth was they had a point. I needed to take a step back and just ignore Harper—and her date.

  Once the laughter died down, I managed to pretty much stay focused on just the four of us. We had made a pact to get together at least once a month, and now it was time to start thinking about next month. Cole didn’t live far from here, but Declan and Seb had to put in an effort to make the drive.

  “How about we meet on my turf next month?” Declan suggested. “Make a weekend of it.”

  Everyone was on board, but my mind kept asking, “What if Harper needs me?” I couldn’t possibly share that thought with the guys without getting seriously ribbed, so I just agreed and figured I’d deal with it when the time came. “How about a game of darts?”

  “Sounds good.” The crowd wasn’t too big for a Friday night, so we didn’t have to wait for a board. It was a mindless game, and it was exactly what I needed. Aim and shoot. Aim and shoot. No one needed to know that I was picturing Tom’s face in the bull’s eye. I was doing pretty well, and my aim was spot on. I was in the zone and loving it.

  Until Harper got up from her table to head for the ladies room, which was right next to the dart boards. Since it wasn’t my turn, it wasn’t hard to take a couple of steps away so that I was kind of blocking her from getting by.

  She stopped right in front of me and sighed with irritation. “What now?”

  I shrugged and took a slow drink of my beer. “So, how’s the date going?”

  Her head fell back as she let out a frustrated growl. I was sure she meant to sound menacing, but all I could think was that I’d like to gently bite the exposed column of her throat. “Can I please get by?” she finally asked.

  “I guess it’s not going all that well, then.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What makes you say that?”

  “You didn’t answer me. If the date was going well, I’m sure you’d be all chatty about it. The fact that you’re silent tells me it’s not. I’m not surprised, really.”

  “And why is that?” She crossed her arms under her breasts, and now I had that image in my head—exactly what I’d like to be doing to them.

  “Well, it seems to me like Tom’s kind of a dud.”

  “A dud?”

  I nodded. “A dud. Absolutely. What do you see in that guy?”

  “You know what, Levi? It’s none of your business what I see in him or in anyone for that matter. Isn’t it enough that you’ve interfered with every other aspect of my life? Can’t you just stay out of this? Leave my personal life alone?”

  Her eyes were huge and bordering on pleading, and I almost felt bad. Almost. “Sorry, princess. I didn’t mean to get you all riled up. I was simply making an observation.”

  “Well, stop making observations. Stop observing. Just…stop!”

  I was waiting for her to stamp her foot to make her point, but she didn’t. I turned toward the guys and saw that they were all watching this exchange too. I was so screwed. I’d be a hundred before I ever lived this down. Harper looked in the same direction and smiled. “Hey, guys!”

  “Hey, Harper.” They each took turns saying it, and by the time I turned back to her, I realized that she’d made her way around me and had disappeared into the restroom.

  I could’ve just stood there and waited, but what was the point? I’d just piss her off more. As fun as it was watching her get worked up, anger wasn’t the emotion I really wanted to see in her. Unable to help myself, I took one last look in the direction of her date. Good ol’ Tom was looking right back at me and appeared a bit uncomfortable. I narrowed my gaze and glared at him, and it looked like he swallowed hard.

  Good.

  It wasn’t easy, but I kept my distance when Harper reappeared. Luckily none of the guys made a snarky comment either. Still, the mood was gone. All I wanted to do was get the hell out of there and go home. Maybe watch a little TV. Or maybe do a little research on Tom.

  One last look.

  Clearly I was a glutton for punishment because I turned around to get one last look at the two of them sitting together. Only now they weren’t alone. I looked closer and saw that another woman had joined them. They were all talking and laughing, and I guess I felt relieved. If I couldn’t sit there and play the third wheel on their date, I was sure as hell glad that somebody else was.

  Five

  Harper

  I don’t think I would ever pretend to be interested in a man just to make another man jealous. I mean, it feels kind of petty and manipulative, and I never thought of myself as that kind of person.

  But I couldn’t help wishing Tom had acted a little more attentive, like he was genuinely interested in me. It was honestly annoying that Levi seemed so surprised that I would have been dating anyone and that Tom so quickly assured him that we were just friends.

  It wasn’t like guys weren’t ever interested in me, after all. Strangers asked me out fairly often, so I figured I must be somewhat attractive. All my life, I’d scared men off, though. They thought I was loud, overly opinionated, and stubborn. Just like Levi did.

  It would have been nice if Levi wasn’t so surprised that a man might want to take me out.

  It also would have been nice if he weren’t so incredibly obnoxious all the time.

  And it would have been nice if Gina hadn’t come to join us at the table, making it very clear that whatever Tom and I were doing wasn’t really a date.

  But there she was. She’d come over to say hello, and I could hardly be rude and tell her to go away. Then she’d sat at the table and started flirting with Tom.

  She’d always been crazy about Gavin. I
mean, crazy about him. Gavin once told me she wanted to get married, but he’d just never been that serious about her. So it was doubly annoying to me now that she was making a play for Tom.

  One, I was supposed to be on a date with him. And, two, it just felt wrong to me—that Gavin was dead and even Gina had evidently moved on.

  With Levi being obnoxious and Gina being annoying, I was in no mood to extend dinner, so I was relieved when Tom made noises like he was ready to go.

  I said goodbye to Tom on the sidewalk outside the tavern. He and Gina were parked in the opposite direction, so they walked off together.

  For all I knew, they might spend the night together.

  I walked alone back to my car. It wasn’t late, and there were plenty of people around. I was only a few blocks away.

  But still…I felt kind of lonely and droopy as I made my way back to my car.

  Levi had been with his friends from his old unit. They’d been Gavin’s friends too.

  They looked close. Levi had looked like he’d trusted them, not as wary and on guard as he normally was. They’d teased each other and had fun like they’d known each other forever.

  As I walked, I wondered what it was like for him to transition back to civilian life. He’d grown up always assuming he would pursue a military career, so maybe he was kind of lost now that it hadn’t happened that way. Maybe that was why he couldn’t let this thing with my tires and the letter out from between his teeth.

  He needed an outlet. A purpose. A battle to fight. He’d always been that way, and he wasn’t going to happy without it.

  I tried to think of a job he could do now—one that would actually make him happy and fulfilled.

  “Harper!”

  The familiar male voice seemed to be summoned out of my musings, so at first I actually thought I imagined it.

  I paused automatically, though. It’s what you do when someone calls out your name.

  “Harper!” the voice came again, this time clearly from behind me.

  I turned around and saw Levi approaching with long, fast strides. I gulped at how handsome and masculine he looked in his jeans and t-shirt, his face and dark hair illumined only by the streetlights and moonlight.

  I’d just seen him a few minute ago. I’d been annoyed by his behavior. I definitely shouldn’t want to now grab him and sink my teeth into his broad shoulders or rippling bicep.

  I cleared my throat and managed to mostly pull myself together by the time he approached. My cheeks were burning, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that.

  “What are you doing out here by yourself?”

  I gaped up at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “Didn’t Tom have the decency to walk you to your car?”

  “He was parked in the other direction. It’s not even ten yet, and there are plenty of people around. I think I’ll be okay.” I shook my head and turned back in the direction of my car.

  Levi fell in step with me.

  “You’re actually walking me back? What, are you my bodyguard now or something?” I sounded snippy and bad-tempered, partly because he annoyed me but also because I couldn’t help but be attracted to him, despite everything.

  “You could do worse than having a bodyguard like me.” Humor was flickering in his eyes unexpectedly, which transformed him from cool and intimidating to breathtakingly gorgeous and somehow warm.

  “The police don’t think I’m in real danger.”

  “You’ve heard back from them?”

  “Yeah. They said they couldn’t trace the letter, but it wasn’t a direct threat so they think it’s just a crazy who sends those kinds of letters to anyone who says things they don’t like.”

  The flicker of amusement left his eyes, and he shook his head, glowering a little. I was pretty sure, this time, he was glowering at the police and not at me.

  For some reason, the expression didn’t annoy me. It actually touched me, filled me with a swell of feeling.

  He’d loved and trusted Gavin, the same way he did the other guys he was just drinking with. As frustrating as it was, it was almost sweet—that he was taking the fictional threat to me so seriously.

  So my tone was softer as I said, “I really think they’re right about it. The tires were incredibly mean and petty, but they weren’t an attempt on my life.”

  “These things escalate,” he murmured thickly. “They start small and get bigger.”

  My car was parked across the street, so I started to cross in the middle of the block, so I wouldn’t have to walk down to a crosswalk. There was hardly any traffic at this time of night, anyway. “Well, there’s no sign that this is getting bigger. So, for the last time, I appreciate the effort, but I really think you can back off now.”

  He stopped in the middle of the street and gazed down at me, frowning.

  “What?” I asked, suddenly flustered and breathless at the look in his dark eyes.

  “I don’t think I can.” His voice was still slightly thick.

  “You can’t what?” I was flushed again and paralyzed by his intense expression.

  “Back off.”

  “Why not?”

  It was rather a silly conversation, but it seemed to make sense to both of us.

  He shook his head and didn’t answer, and I wasn’t sure what we would have said and done if something hadn’t interrupted.

  Something else did interrupt.

  I was vaguely aware of lights approaching and started instinctively to get out of the middle of the road.

  Instead of slowing down, the approaching car sped up. I was so surprised I couldn’t move for a second, since the car was heading right toward me.

  Then something else slammed into me, and I was thrown to the pavement, kept from the worst of the impact by a pair of strong arms.

  The car continued, driving way too fast for a downtown street, and I tried in a muddled stupor to figure out what had just happened.

  There were just a few things I could process. One, I was now in a tangled heap on the ground. Two, my ankle had twisted in the fall and was already starting to throb. And, three, Levi was practically on top of me.

  “Damn,” he said, easing off me a bit. “Are you okay?”

  I just lay where I was and blinked, trying to get my mind to work.

  “Harper?” he asked, his voice more urgent. He took my face in his hands. “Talk to me. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I managed to croak. “What happened?”

  “That fucking car almost ran you down. On purpose.”

  He helped me move to a sitting position, and I rubbed my face, still attempting to orient myself. When I started to push myself up to my feet—just because it’s instinct to jump up when you’ve fallen to the ground—he put his hands on my shoulders to stop me.

  “You pushed me out of the way?” I asked, finally putting a few pieces together.

  Levi’s eyes were still searching my face and body, looking for signs of damage, I assumed. “Yeah. Damn it, you could have been killed.”

  “But there’s no reason to think it was on purpose. Maybe the person was drunk.”

  I just couldn’t fathom that someone would have actually tried to kill me—intentionally. It didn’t fit with the way I understood the world and my place in it.

  I got on people’s nerves all the time, but no one had ever really cared about me enough to want to kill me for real.

  “It wasn’t an accident. The car sped up and then aimed at you. I was standing right there.”

  He sounded so convinced and so angry that I didn’t argue. I didn’t know if he was right or not, but I couldn’t think through it all now.

  “Do you think you can stand up?” Levi asked, heaving himself to his feet. He’d scratched up his palm on the pavement but otherwise looked uninjured.

  I nodded and started to push up too, but I hadn’t even straightened up when he reached down to pull me to my feet.

  As soon as I put weight on my ankle, my leg buckled, and
Levi had to catch me around the waist.

  I should have objected to the arrangement, but I couldn’t help but like the feel of his strong arm around me, the way I had to lean against his big, hard body.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Twisted my ankle. It’s probably not too bad.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “I think so.” I put weight on the ankle again, and it hurt like hell, but I didn’t flinch this time.

  All my life, I never liked for other people to see when I was hurt.

  He sighed loudly and reached out to support me once more. “Why do you have to be so damn stubborn?”

  “And why do you have to be so damn arrogant?” I bit out, immediately riling up at his exasperated tone. I tried to pull away from it, but it wasn’t a smart maneuver, since I put too much weight on my twisted ankle. The shot of pain ran through me, stealing my breath.

  Down I almost went again.

  Levi caught me before I did, and I manfully resisted the desire to jerk away from his arm.

  “Can I at least help you get home?” The words were polite and conciliatory, but his tone was not. “Do you think you could put aside your dislike of me at least long enough for me to do that?”

  So my first instinct was to snap his head off, but he did have a very small point. It was going to be very hard for me to hobble to my car and then drive home in my current condition. I could probably have done it, but it would take a lot longer and be rather painful.

  “Fine,” I muttered. “Thanks.”

  “Try not to sound so grateful.” Despite his sarcasm, he was actually being quite helpful, in that he’d already managed to get me moving toward my car. He was supporting quite a bit of my weight, and I was hopping one-legged to make myself feel like I was doing some of the walking myself.

  He brought me around to the passenger side of my car and helped me in. As he was leaning over, I felt another sudden surge of attraction.

  His face was so close, and his body was right there in front of me. His hands were strong and gentle at the same time as he arranged me in the seat.