Buried Secrets

by Irene Hannon

  He tossed his jacket into the backseat and snagged the Panera bag. While it was much too soon to be linking the word serious with the Carson police chief, one thing was clear. Despite their rocky start, there was a spark between them that had far more to do with attraction than antagonism. On his side, anyway.

  Did she feel it too?

  Closing his door, he checked her out. She was pulling stuff out of a small cooler and arranging it on the hood, but she looked over at him, as if sensing his perusal.

  He smiled.

  She smiled back.

  And all at once, the atmosphere between them morphed from friendly to electric.

  The attraction wasn’t one-sided.

  Only when he started toward her did she jerk her gaze away and go back to pulling items from her cooler.

  He slowed his pace, buying them both a few extra moments to regroup—yet when he moved beside her and set the bag on the hood, she fumbled a plastic container. They both grabbed for it, bringing them even closer together.

  “Got it.” His fingers closed over the small lidded drum, brushing hers.

  She stared at their hands, then up at him—and eased back a few inches. “Thanks.”

  He set the container on the hood of the Impala. Sparks were pinging all over the place . . . and she was getting nervous. He needed to lighten up the atmosphere with an innocuous comment.

  “You know, the detective buddy I mentioned has a car very similar to this.” He tried for a casual tone—and almost succeeded. Only a slight huskiness roughened his words.

  “I’m not surprised.” Her reply came out breathy, but she followed his lead and stuck to a safe subject. “Carson picked up some older vehicles from County when you upgraded your fleet. This was a detective car.”

  He peered through the windshield. Yep. Light bars front and back. That meant she’d have a siren too.

  “No wonder it looked familiar.”

  “It’s a solid vehicle.” She wiped her palms on her slacks and motioned toward the Panera sack. “So what’s in that giant bag?”

  He ticked off the menu as he removed the items. “Chicken salad sandwich. Chicken cobb salad. Turkey and avocado BLT. Plus chips and some cookies.”

  After he set the last item on the hood, he turned to find her gaping at the food.

  “You bought all this stuff for lunch?”

  He gave the repast a quick perusal—and ran a finger around the edge of his collar. Overkill with a capital over.

  “Possibly dinner too. I’m not much of a cook, so I tend to stock up when I get takeout.” True . . . but not to this extent.

  She gave the spread a skeptical inspection. “A lot of this stuff won’t be too appetizing by tonight.”

  After one too many soggy tuna salad sandwiches and wilted salads, he knew that as well as she did.

  “Then I’m glad you’re going to help me eat it, Chief Grant.” He inhaled, slow and steady. Might as well lay his cards on the table. “To be honest, that’s what I was hoping for all along. Solitary meals are getting old.”

  She shot him a startled glance, as if his candid confession surprised her, then focused on prying off the lid of the container they’d rescued. “Just make it Lisa. And I’m kind of tired of eating alone too.” She set the selection of fresh fruit on the hood and opened the lid of another container to reveal vegetables and dip.

  The first-name club had been expanded to include him—and if she typically ate alone, she must not be involved in a serious relationship.

  That was the best news he’d had all day.

  He pulled two large, clear plastic lids out of the Panera bag. “I asked the clerk for disposable plates, but they didn’t have any—so I sweet-talked her out of these.”

  “Mmm.” She gave him a quick head-to-toe. “I bet that wasn’t hard.”

  Was that a compliment—or a criticism?

  Impossible to tell from her inflection . . . and she offered no further clue as she reached for one of the lids.

  He relinquished it, surveying the food she’d brought. Besides the fruit and vegetables, she had nuts, a halved hard-boiled egg, a few thin slices of what looked like pork tenderloin, and whole wheat crackers.

  No wonder she was so thin.

  “Kind of a lean lunch, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t expend many calories standing around all day.” She regarded the Panera spread. “But I’m not exactly making an equal contribution to this meal, am I?”

  As far as he was concerned, her presence was contribution enough—though better to keep that to himself.

  “Let’s just say we have plenty and leave it at that. After all, you weren’t expecting guests. So what looks good to you from my cache?”

  “I’d love to try the chicken cobb.”

  “It’s yours.” He handed her the container.

  Her eyes widened, and she held up a hand. “I could never eat that whole thing unless that was all I ate. Why don’t we each take some?”

  “Deal . . . if you’ll sample the sandwiches too.”

  She considered the other two offerings. “I’ll take a fourth of each—fair enough?”

  “Fair enough. I’ll let you divvy them up.”

  He helped himself to some fruit, veggies, and salad while she cut up the sandwiches.

  After they’d filled their plates, he grabbed the bags of chips, cookies, and . . .

  Uh-oh.

  At his grimace, she gave him a quizzical look. “What’s wrong?”

  “I forgot the drinks.”

  “Will you be satisfied with water? I have a coolerful in the backseat.”

  “That’ll do.” He took her makeshift plate and hefted it toward the shade. “I’ll meet you over there.”

  “Okay. Let me get the rest of the food out of the heat.”

  By the time she joined him, he’d managed to find a reasonably clean, shady spot atop a large boulder unearthed during construction.

  “It’s not the Ritz, but I’ve eaten in worse places—and in far less pleasant company.”

  Keeping a respectable distance between them, she scooted onto the boulder. “Considering the kinds of conditions SEALs have to deal with, I’m not going to let that pseudo compliment go to my head.”

  She knew he’d been a SEAL?

  As if reading his mind, she spoke again. “Barbara mentioned your background yesterday.”

  He was going to have to work on his poker face if she could read his thoughts that easily.

  Lisa set her lunch in her lap and forked a piece of fruit as she continued. “If that’s an off-limits topic, just say so. I know a lot of guys who’ve been to the Middle East don’t like to talk about it.”

  “It’s not that I mind talking about it, but there isn’t much I can say. All of my missions were classified.”

  “Understood. So how long were you in the navy?”

  “Ten years. I signed on right out of college. I was a SEAL for the last five.”

  “That’s a long time to spend in a very high-risk job.” She peeled the top half of the croissant off her chicken salad sandwich and scooped up a forkful of the filling. “Why did you leave?”

  “Because it was a long time to spend in a very high-risk job.”

  She studied him. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning if you stay in a job like that long enough, you’ll likely die doing it. I wasn’t ready to meet my maker—and I came close to cashing in my chips once too often. I figured my luck was about to run out.”

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  “Not to hear my younger brothers talk. They’re always giving me grief for bailing.”

  “It’s easy for people who aren’t in risky jobs to pass judgment—and come to a lot of wrong conclusions—when someone pulls back.”

  He watched as she plucked the yolk out of the egg, set it aside, and bit into the white. She’d scaled down the danger meter in her job too. What were her reasons—and had she also gotten flack for it?

  Maybe if he shared some of his
story, she’d reciprocate.

  “Actually, they’re both in risky jobs too. Lance is a Delta Force operator and Finn is an Army Ranger.”

  Her forkful of chicken salad froze in midair. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Talk about high achievers. Does the danger gene run in your family, or what?”

  He popped a grape into his mouth and shrugged. “I don’t know about danger genes, but we do come from solid law enforcement stock. My grandfather was a police officer, and my dad was with the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Both of them saw a fair amount of on-the-job action—especially my dad. We lived in some hot spots while I was growing up.”

  “Such as?” She extracted the bacon from the turkey BLT.

  Huh. He wouldn’t have pegged her as the picky-eater type.

  But everyone had quirks.

  “Cameroon, Pakistan, Qatar. And a few tamer places like London and Washington, DC.”

  “You have been around.” She nibbled on the edge of the sandwich. “Is your dad still with the State Department?”

  “No. He retired from his government job five years ago and opened a private security firm in Atlanta—my mom’s hometown.”

  “Did you think about joining him after you left the service?”

  He grinned. “I may be tired of dodging bullets, but I’m not ready to babysit celebrities. Maybe someday.”

  “Is your mom living?”

  “And how. She’s a commercial artist—a career she nurtured despite all our years of globe-trotting once email and the internet simplified global communication.”

  “Sounds like you come from a remarkable family.”

  “I don’t know about remarkable—but interesting. And close-knit.”

  “Do you all see each other much?”

  His smile faded as he shoved his remaining fruit around with his fork. “Not enough. I’ve made a few trips down to Atlanta since I left the service, but Lance and Finn are both stationed in the Middle East. They don’t get home often, and rarely at the same time.”

  “You must worry about them a lot.” Her voice softened—and warmed.

  “Yeah.” The word came out scratchy, and he took another swig of water, buying himself a few moments. Strange. He’d already told Lisa more about himself than he typically shared with people he’d known a whole lot longer than two days. Too much, perhaps.

  Time to shift the spotlight.

  “What about you? Are your parents still living? Any brothers and sisters?”

  She shook her head when he held out the bag of chips. “One sister, Sherry, happily married in Houston, who gave me a darling niece and nephew. My mom is a neonatal nurse here. Unlike your globe-trotting family, we were all born and raised in St. Louis. Dad owned three franchise restaurants and was an inventor on the side, with five patents to his credit. There weren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish everything on his to-do list . . . yet he always made time for the family.” Her expression grew melancholy. “He died of a stroke six years ago—here one day, gone the next. It was hard.”

  Based on the sudden sheen in her eyes before she dipped her head, it still was.

  “Sounds like your family is close too.”

  She blinked and stabbed at some lettuce. “Yeah. So . . . Barbara mentioned that a SEAL buddy on the force here is the reason you relocated to St. Louis.”

  The lady wasn’t ready to share more about her family.

  Message received.

  “That’s right. Mitch Morgan.”

  “Mitch Morgan and Mac McGregor. Hmm. That’s a lot of Ms.”

  “Trust me, our SEAL mates noticed that too. They used to call us the two M&Ms.”

  A glint of humor sparked in her irises. “Did that bother you?”

  He hitched up one shoulder. “We all had nicknames—and it was better than being called Porker or Geeky. Besides, as we never failed to remind our team, M&Ms don’t melt when things get hot.”

  “Cute. So how did Mitch convince you to leave Norfolk?”

  Careful, McGregor. Don’t spook her.

  “Let’s just say he did a persuasive sell job.”

  “Yeah?” She broke off a tiny piece of crust. “How so?”

  He hesitated again. How much could he share about his motives for relocating without scaring her off?

  On the other hand, he had a feeling she’d appreciate a man who was honest and forthright.

  “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. Sometimes I slip into interrogation mode in my personal life. One of the hazards of the job, I guess.” She offered him a wry smile. “To tell the truth, I’ve scared more than a few guys off that way.”

  “You don’t scare me.” He let a beat pass to emphasize his statement. “But here’s an odd coincidence. I was holding back because I don’t want to scare you.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Now you’ve piqued my interest. And I don’t scare easily, either.”

  “I wonder if I should test that theory?”

  “I dare you.”

  He liked the flash of spirit—and impish humor—in her eyes . . . and he wasn’t the type to back down from a dare.

  “You’re on.” He set down his fork and gave her his full attention. “I liked Norfolk—but I knew the town too well. I was stationed nearby when I wasn’t overseas.”

  “Where?”

  “Virginia Beach.”

  He could almost hear the gears in her brain clicking as she scrutinized him. “You were on SEAL Team Six, weren’t you? The elite of the elite.”

  “All SEALs are equal.” It might be his standard response—but it was also true.

  “Got it. So tell me what you mean by too well.” She dipped a carrot stick into the cottage-cheesy dip she’d brought and swirled it around. “I wouldn’t think a cop—or a detective—could ever know a city too well.”

  “On a professional level, it was a definite advantage. I’d probably have stayed if Mitch hadn’t cornered me when I came to St. Louis for his wedding and convinced me I needed a change of scene. Social scene, that is.”

  She chomped on the carrot, watching him in silence.

  He could still make a joke, back off, and change the tenor of this conversation.

  But he didn’t.

  Because he believed Lisa’s assertion that she didn’t scare easily—and he was too old for games.

  “Here’s the bottom line. I’m thirty-five. I spent a lot of years giving everything to my job, until there was nothing left for anything else—including a relationship. And that was fine for a long time. I have no regrets about my choices.”

  He paused and looked toward the excavation site a dozen yards away. “But one night in Afghanistan, all of that changed. We were out on patrol. One of my buddies, who was planning to head home for good in two weeks and get married, stepped on an IED. In an instant, the future he’d planned vanished.”

  Lifting his bottle of water, he took a long drink. When the plastic crinkled, he loosened his grip. “The thing is, that could have been me. I was next in line. So I began praying for guidance, asking if it was time for me to move on and start building the future I’d always assumed was waiting for me—a future that included a less dangerous life and a wife and family.”

  Lisa leaned toward him, intent. “And you got an answer?”

  “Yes, but not in any kind of dramatic way. There was no blinding flash of insight, no writing across the sky, no message in a dream, no supernatural sign. But over the next few weeks, I felt myself moving this direction. And one day I woke up and knew with absolute certainty my life as a SEAL was winding down.”

  “So you switched from fighting terrorism in Afghanistan to fighting crime in Norfolk.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “Police work is dangerous too—especially in big cities.”

  Her words were straightforward, but a subtle tautness in her inflection blipped on his radar. There was a story there—and he wanted to hear it.

&
nbsp; “Yes, it is. I’m sure you saw your share of danger in Chicago.”

  “More than I’ve seen in Carson.” He held his breath, but she didn’t take his opening. “I suppose from your perspective, though, police work was a significant improvement on the risk scale.”

  “Yeah. So I went to the police academy, spent a year as a street cop, then fast-tracked into the detective ranks. And now here I am.”

  “So why do you think St. Louis will be better socially?”

  He finished off his remaining BLT—including the bacon—while he composed his answer. “My buddy met his wife after he moved here, and since I’d exhausted most of the usual avenues for meeting interesting women in Norfolk, I thought some of his luck might rub off on me if I followed him to St. Louis.”

  She made a project out of scraping up the last of her cottage cheese with a carrot stick. “Has it?”

  “Maybe.”

  The only response he got to that comment was a momentary freeze-frame before she went back to her food.

  Okay. Enough soul-baring for one day. Now it was her turn.

  He hoped.

  “So what about you? Why did you leave Chicago and come back here?”

  She examined the remains of her lunch. “For a lot of the same reasons you did—including an eye-opening incident, followed by much prayer.”

  “What happened?”

  Even if she’d been inclined to answer that question, the sudden crunch of gravel announcing the arrival of the horticulturist broke the private mood.

  “Duty calls.” She set her plate down and stood.

  He stifled his disappointment. “No problem. If you’re done, I’ll gather up all this stuff.”

  “Yes. Thanks.”

  As she walked over to log in the new arrival, he rose too. His plate was empty. Hers was picked over. He took a quick inventory. The chicken salad from her quarter portion of that sandwich was gone, but the croissant had been left behind. The bottom piece of bread and the contents of her quarter of the turkey BLT were gone . . . except for the bacon she’d extracted. She’d eaten about half of the small serving of salad she’d taken, again picking out the bacon and egg yolks. And the fruit, veggies, single slice of pork tenderloin, and half dozen nuts she’d taken from her own cache had been consumed.

  Finicky eater, no question about it.