by Bonnie Vanak
“After, Jarrett! Not the physical part.” She pressed a hand to her heart. “Here. Where it hurt the most. You were home five days and then you were deployed. You left me to deal with the loss of our baby by myself.”
“I had a job to do, Lace.”
“You could have asked for leave.” Lacey’s slender shoulders trembled. “I knew how important the teams were to you, and how important you were to them. I was so proud of you that you chose that path to serve, Jarrett. I hated it when you left, but I never complained because that was the life you had chosen, and the life I chose to share with you. But just that once, I really needed you to stay home, and you left, anyway.”
She got him there. He could have. In fact, his CO asked if he was okay to take the mission. And dumbass he was, he told his CO, yeah, I’m good to go, everything’s a-okay, let me go eliminate some tangos, let me fight so I can forget this panic I felt when I thought I’d lose not just my baby, but Lace, as well. He’d gone charging into the mission with a muddied mind, trying to push aside grief and acted recklessly, almost suicidal in the risks he took.
If not for Ace pulling him in, reminding him there was no I in team and he needed to get himself together, Jarrett could have lost it for good.
By the time he returned home six weeks later, his head was clearer, but Lacey was gone.
“Five days.” She held up five fingers. “You were distant the whole time. You barely said a word to me.”
“I waited on you hand and foot and hired a housekeeper to cook and clean...”
“But you never talked with me, Jarrett. We never talked about the baby. The nursery we’d planned, the first coat of paint, the crib my dad bought for us.” Her voice cracked. “I was living at home with you, but I was already alone. No wonder they call you the Iceman. Because you were one cold bastard.”
He sucked in a breath and his temper surged. “You left me, remember? You left me and all I had was an empty house when I came home.”
“I left you to go to my parents’ house because I needed someone other than a paid stranger to do housework and cook. And what was the point of trying to make it work out? The job always came first, Jarrett. Always. My dad told me not to marry you because you were a SEAL and the divorce rate among SEALs is very high. He wanted me to stay in college and get my degree and wait. But I loved you and didn’t want to wait. I’d have done anything to make it work, Jarrett. I gave up my education, I gave up my friends to move with you onto base because I had faith that we could make it work.”
She drew in a deep breath. “And I never complained, not once, not even when you’d come home and go quiet for days. I knew you were trying to get your head together because of the awful things you’d seen...”
“And done,” he cut in.
“I didn’t want to be one of those nagging wives who pestered you to communicate. I gave you space. I let you talk when you needed to, and let you party with your SEAL buddies because they were your family as much as I was. But the one time I asked you to stay, to talk with me after we lost our baby, you clammed up. You couldn’t give me what I needed and I had no faith you’d change, Jarrett.”
She fell back onto the sofa, wiping her forehead. Jarrett stared down at his hands, the scarred knuckles and the closely trimmed nails. Big hands, big heart, she’d teased him in the past. Hands that had pulled the trigger too many times to count, had snapped the necks of the enemy. Hands that had stroked and caressed Lacey in the dark of night, and held her as she’d sobbed in the hospital.
But they were the same hands that saluted his CO after Lacey’s miscarriage and then hours later quietly turned the front doorknob in the gray hours of dawn as he picked up his duffel and left to go downrange yet again.
“I deserve that,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, Lace. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you what you needed at the time.”
Her lower lip wobbled again, that precarious little tremble hinting of her raging emotions. “It’s in the past, Jarrett. I’ve made a new life here and I’m so damn scared for my daughter.”
He covered her hand with his. “Then let me help you. I’ll drive her to school tomorrow, check out this guy and we’ll go together to pick her up in the afternoon.”
Lacey rubbed circles on her knee, and he could see her mind working. “Fleur has a test tomorrow.”
“In kindergarten?”
“The test is to put her into a higher level of learning class. I’ve been working with her on learning to read in French.”
Bemused, he shook his head. Kids these days were brighter and learned quicker than he ever did. “At her age I was finger-painting and pulling little girls’ pigtails.” Playfully, he tugged on her ponytail, hoping to coax a smile to her solemn face.
She went to the window, pulling aside the curtains. He regarded his ex. She’d done well for herself and struck out on her own. He was mighty proud of her, but didn’t quite know how to say it. Didn’t quite know how to reconnect. Once sex had been the answer, and hell, he’d gladly pick her up, sling her over one shoulder and carry her into the bedroom to explore what they’d had in bed, but first he had to gain her trust.
She’d left him because he hadn’t communicated in the past. Time to start talking.
“Lace, how about we...”
“I have an early day tomorrow. I’m going to bed.” Lacey tugged the band off her ponytail and her hair spilled around her. Loose, and wild, a little like her. He hungered to see her like that in bed once more, her silky locks spread out on the pillow as she lay back, naked, her body bared exclusively for him...
Stop thinking about sex. Yeah, right. Tell me to stop breathing. That would be easier around her.
Frowning, Lacey stared at the window.
“It’s too quiet. Usually the roosters are crowing.”
Instantly he pulled away, his body on full alert. He noticed the quiet, as well. Roosters, contrary to myth, crowed whenever they felt like it, not just in the morning. Jarrett snapped off the living room lamp. “Step away from the window.”
Standing to one side, he lifted the curtain with the back of one hand. He peered into the blackness. Every cell in his body warned something was wrong. Jarrett spotted movement by the storage shed and heard glass breaking.
And then he heard a loud pop, like a firecracker going off. All the hairs on his nape saluted the air and his body went cold. Suddenly, an orange glow erupted inside the shed, followed by thick black tongues of smoke curling into the moonlit sky.
The shed was on fire and the flames were headed for the jam they’d packed this afternoon.
CHAPTER 6
Lacey saw the fire and her stomach clenched hard. But she knew how to handle this.
Her ex drew his pistol and started for the door. “Stay here. Call the fire department.”
The fire department was twenty miles away and she wasn’t certain they would even respond, as rumor had it the fire station had been shut down due to non-payment from the government. Jarrett ran outside with his sidearm drawn. That was her shed going up in flames!
She raced into the kitchen, told Rose to watch Fleur and grabbed a flashlight. On the porch, hanging from the building’s side, was an old-fashioned school bell. She ran outside, rang it hard to alert the compound’s caretakers and then headed toward the fire.
As she reached the shed, heat curled through the air, a living thing that licked at the wood shed with greedy tongues. But she’d planned well.
The hose, curled up by the building where they’d packed the jam, was attached to the water tower. In the afternoons on hot days, the kids sometimes used it to cool off. She grabbed the hose and it came off in her hands. One section. Then another.
It had been cut too short now to reach the shed. The men who stayed on property were running toward the fire, shouting as they ran.
Lacey ran toward the buckets used for hand-watering the garden near the building. “We have to use buckets. The hose is useless,” she shouted in French. “Pierre, run to the garde
n shed and get the other hose!”
The five men who lived on the compound raced toward the scene, grabbing buckets and filling them, forming a line as they tossed water onto the flames.
The fire hadn’t spread yet to the crates. She could still save a few. Lacey ran toward the burning shed. Tremendous heat baked her body. Smoke made her eyes sting and water. But she had to save some of her wares. She started inside when someone grabbed her from the waist.
“I told you to stay in the house,” Jarrett’s voice rumbled low and deep in her ear.
“Let me go,” she protested. “I can get them.”
“It’s too late.” He picked her up, slung her over one broad shoulder and headed away from the burning shed. As she bounced upside down, she could see her future going up in orange flames.
Finally, when they were several yards away, he set her down. The smell of burning fruit and sugar made her ill. She bent over and coughed, her eyes stinging.
“Deep breaths. You’ve got smoke in your lungs. Deep, easy breaths.”
His voice was quiet and soothing, but as she stared at the men trying to put out the fire, misery engulfed her. Jars in the crates began to explode from the heat as the flames reached the crates. The bucket brigade now concentrated on wetting down the grass and preventing the fire from spreading. Finally Pierre, the man she’d hired as a gardener and painter, arrived with the hose from the garden shed. But even as they sprayed the flames, she knew it was pointless.
All the hard work of the women was gone.
“That shed contained next month’s salaries. They worked so hard on the jam. That’s their livelihood,” she said, coughing again.
“Better their livelihood than your life.” His mouth tight, the fire casting flickering shadows across the hard lines of his face, Jarrett tucked his gun away. “I told you to stay put.”
“Like I’m listening to you?”
“You should. What if someone wanted to smoke you out? Set the fire to lure you outside so they could hurt Fleur? Or take her away? Or hurt you?”
A flicker of fear raced down her spine. “Rose is watching her.”
Seeing that the men had the fire under control she turned on her heels and headed for the house to check on her daughter.
“Rose is a middle-aged, nice lady who is a great cook. Not a bodyguard.” Jarrett was on her heels, jogging behind her.
Ignoring him, she raced inside and headed for Fleur’s bedroom. Rose stood outside, hovering, her dark, careworn face twisted with anxiety.
“Fleur?” she asked Rose.
“Sleeping. What is happening, Miss Lacey?” Rose asked in French.
“It’s all right, Rose. A fire, and it’s under control now.” She opened the door to Fleur’s bedroom, relieved to see the little girl slept through the chaos outside.
As Lacey turned, Jarrett peered past her. He gently shut the door and told Rose in French, “You can return to bed, Rose. I secured the house. I’m staying here now and will keep watch.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jarrett.”
He had barely been here a day and already he issued orders. But she was too miserable to care. Jarrett followed her upstairs into the hallway bathroom as Lacey splashed cold water on her face, breathing deeply and trying to calm her nerves. He handed her a towel and their eyes met in the mirror. Soot streaked his hard features, and there was a red stain on his white T-shirt.
She turned, her alarm growing. “You’re hurt!”
“It’s not blood. It’s red paint that got on my shirt when I scaled the wall. Whoever set that fire left you a message. American go home.”
Lacey shook her head, still stunned at the audacity. They were inside her compound, her sanctuary where she’d worked hard to make women feel safe. “That wall is topped with broken glass.”
“Not anymore. Whoever set the fire removed the glass and used it as an entrance and exit point. They were damned determined to get inside, Lace. That was a fire set by an incendiary device, maybe with a timer. It’s gone beyond dead chickens and someone is targeting your NGO. Will you listen to me for once?”
Her heart raced. Inside her compound! Someone had set the fire inside her compound. What if they had set fire to the house, as well?
Jarrett was experienced in security and flushing out bad guys. His SEAL training made him one of the best. Along with arrogant and confident. Arrogant and confident he might be, but he was concerned for her safety. The dynamic changed the moment the arsonists had climbed over the wall to set the fire.
Then there was the matter of the men with the guys near Fleur’s school...
“All right.” She leaned against the sink, suddenly exhausted. “I’m listening.”
Jarrett blinked in apparent surprise. “This is a first.”
“It’s getting dangerous and I won’t have Fleur at risk. Tell me what you want.”
“Downstairs, and we’ll talk. I need to wash up first.”
He pushed past her to the sink and peeled the dirty shirt over his head, dropping it on the floor. Fascination filled her as she stared at the muscles flexing smoothly over his tanned skin as he bent over the sink. His gun stuck out of his holster, a grim reminder of the lethal soldier.
Lacey swallowed against a sudden surge of lust as he straightened and wiped his face with the towel she had used. Sharing towels, sharing drinks, Jarrett didn’t mind sharing when they were married.
Except secrets. She’d always tried to understand that was his job. He couldn’t ever talk about it.
But he’d never talked about the important things between them, either. Instead, he’d clammed up and walked away. Jarrett had never been like that before. He’d shared himself, his dreams and his feelings, and when they got married, she thought she’d found her life’s partner who’d regard her as the most important thing in his world.
Gradually, as he went on one deployment after another, sometimes back to back, she came to realize the teams were the most important thing in the world. He’d come home sometimes and barely speak.
He seemed willing to talk now and she’d listen, for Fleur’s sake.
Lacey went to the bathroom adjoining her bedroom and quickly washed up, changing into a fresh T-shirt and sleep shorts. By the time she went downstairs to the kitchen, she felt in control.
When he joined her in the kitchen, Jarrett wore a clean gray T-shirt with a football logo. Her female hormones sighed with disappointment at the covering. He did have such a terrific physique.
She watched as Jarrett checked and rechecked the window. The orange glow from the fire was banked now, and smoke hovered in the air. He went into the kitchen, pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator and drank, then handed it to her.
Sipping at the water, she watched warily as he sat at the table.
“Whoever did this knew you used the shed to store the jam and wanted to destroy your stock. Someone here on the compound must have helped them. The fire was professionally set.”
A shiver raced down her spine. “Why would someone target me?”
“I don’t know.” He gave her an even look. “You tell me what’s going on. Do you trust your staff?”
Lacey traced a circle on her knee. “If someone talked, I’m sure it wasn’t intentional. Around here, people love to gossip and tell stories. They exaggerate, too. There’s even a rumor circulating about a rich man who lives behind tall walls who lures women to his home and cuts out their hearts to use them in some black magic ritual. They say he was connected to this farm and the hoodoo that was conducted here. The original rumor had died out, but resurfaced after a local girl, Caroline Beaufort, went missing about two days ago, after I fired her.”
“What happened?”
“She was one of my recruits for the mango project. I hired her because she needed a job, but she kept complaining the work was too hard. Collette caught her taking too many breaks. I gave her another chance, but in the end, had to let her go. She was setting a bad example for the women who wanted to work.”
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br /> She hated firing Caroline, but the woman had ideas of grandeur and wanted to work as an assistant to a “rich man” who would end up falling in love with her and marrying her.
Jarrett raised his eyebrows. “And the locals started saying someone kidnapped her and cut out her heart after she left your project?”
“When you live in a community where many of the people are poor and resent those who have money, rumors like that are bound to happen.”
His gaze sharpened. “And what about you, Lace? Any rumors about you? Locals who dislike you because you have money? Those who would like to see this place burn down?”
Despite the good she’d done for the community, she could not overcome the natural resentment, especially among men. “Some, but they just talk. No one has overtly threatened me.”
Until they started leaving dead chickens on the gate and firebombing my truck.
“Is there anywhere you and Fleur can go until her visa comes through? A friend’s house? A trusted friend you’d rather stay with than here with me?”
He wanted her to run. “Of course. But this is my home, and Fleur needs the stability here. The women here need me. I’m not leaving. I won’t run, Jarrett. And if someone is after me, sooner or later, I’ll run out of places to hide.”
A small smile touched his mouth. “Knew you’d say that, Lace. You and that stubborn streak. Tomorrow call your father and see if he can nudge the DC paper pushers into expediting the visa. Get him to throw his weight behind it. I’ll drive Fleur to school tomorrow and check out those men.”
“So that means you’re staying?” She had mixed feelings about this. Relief he would hang around, for she trusted him with security.
And dread, because she didn’t trust her raging hormones. Lacey didn’t want to get involved with her ex-husband, and having him sleep so close to her room.
She could put him in the guesthouse, but for Fleur’s sake, liked the idea of him being in the same house as her daughter. Especially now.
He gave her a level look as she handed the bottle back to him. “When you planned to take Fleur to the States, who were you leaving in charge here? That metrosexual Paul?”
