The situation didn’t change any when I joined the Navy, especially once I earned my budweiser. If I was horny, it was damn easy to go out and find someone for the night, maybe a weekend, if I was coming off a particularly hard mission. My hook-ups never lasted more than a week and I’d been comfortable with the way things were. Then my life was shot to hell along with my knee and a night of hard fucking with a stranger didn’t hold the same appeal.
I hadn’t planned for a long dry spell, but that’s what ended up happening anyway. At first, it was because I was going through rehab for my knee. Once I’d healed up, finding pussy should have been the first thing I did, but I was too busy trying to wrap my head around not being a SEAL anymore to bother with it. Then Damian offered me a lifeline and I focused all my attention on whipping his security team into shape—in Vegas, where hot women looking for a good time surrounded me.
Somehow, I still hadn’t managed to break my dry spell, and fuck it all if Delia wasn’t the first woman in years to capture my attention enough for me to think I might want more than a fuck or two. She did more than just get my dick hard and it was beyond fucked up to think I only met her because Serena was in trouble. The reminder felt like a bucket of cold water on my libido, allowing me to refocus my energy on the task at hand.
Forcing myself to remove my hands from Delia’s body was harder than it should have been, which would have worried me had I given myself time to think about it. “You have twenty-five minutes left.”
My words were harsh considering the kiss we just shared, deliberately so in an effort to create some distance. Based on the stiffening of Delia’s body and the wounded look in her eyes before she turned away, they had the desired effect. It surprised me how much her hurt feelings affected me, but I still let her go without softening the blow. I wasn’t a soft man and now was as good a time as any for her to realize what she was getting into with me if we became involved—even though I knew it was a dick move.
****
Less than thirty minutes later, Delia and I were in her car headed to Serena’s office. She had taken my instructions to heart, dressing exactly as I requested. She even managed to get ready with five minutes to spare and damn near beat me to the door. What was even more impressive was the silent treatment she gave me during the drive. In my experience, women liked to talk everything to death. It didn’t matter whether they were a one night stand, a wife of one of the guys on the team, or my mom—if you hurt a woman’s feelings, you were going to hear about it.
I should have been happy with the silence, but Delia’s way of handling it was effective. I found myself wanting her to talk to me. About her feelings. And didn’t that just make me sound like a pussy?
I let the silence stand and felt a sizzle of awareness each time her eyes slid my way. It happened often and I took satisfaction in watching as her frustration with my lack of reaction grew. When she started tapping her foot and shifting in her seat, I had a feeling she was barely holding her temper in check. With every huff of breath she made, the tension between us grew until the air was practically crackling. Patience was a virtue BUD/S training had drilled into me. A tool I yielded with expert precision in my battle of wills against Delia—I had no intention of losing. When she finally cracked, I turned my head away from her so she couldn’t see my smile.
“One day. That’s all it took.” Her voice was a light rasp, sounding as if the words were being torn from her. “I met you less than twenty-four hours ago and in that short time you’ve broken into my home, manhandled me, told me I was presumed murdered, convinced me not to call the police, carted me off to a luxurious suite for the night, didn’t share the bed with me when I offered, made me an amazing breakfast, kissed me senseless, and managed to piss me off more than any man before you has ever done.”
When she listed it all out like that, I had to admit, I’d put her through a lot. It didn’t mean I was going to bend, though. “Actually, I broke into your home before you met me.”
“Argh,” she growled.
“And I wouldn’t call it manhandling. I neutralized you as a threat until I could get you to calm down, but I did it gently. You and I both know I could have hurt you had that been my intention.”
“I suppose you’re right about that,” she begrudgingly admitted, her pretty lips twisted into a pout.
“I can’t deny convincing you not to call the police, but it was for the greater good. I guess I could switch us to somewhere less comfortable if you’d prefer not to go back to the suite. And I promise to make your food taste crappy next time I cook for you, if that’ll make you happy.”
“Who says I’m going to let you cook for me again after you were such an ass earlier?”
I had skipped several of her points on purpose, but there she was, striking right at the heart of the matter. She wasn’t going to let me get away with the bullshit I’d pulled earlier. I was beginning to think there was more to Delia Sinclair than met the eye, and there was already a hell of a lot I liked about what my eyes could see.
I waited to respond until I pulled the car into a spot in the lot next to Serena’s office. Leaving the engine running, I turned to Delia. “I slept fine on the couch.”
“And?”
“If I’d joined you in that bed, I don’t know that I’d be able to say the same thing.” Until I saw her eyes flash with relief, I hadn’t considered she might have thought I slept on the couch because I wasn’t interested in her. “But as much as I know I shouldn’t have kissed you this morning, I don’t regret it.”
“Then why?”
“Because it needed to be done,” I said, turning off the engine and exiting the car. It was an effective way to end the conversation without really answering her question—not in the way I figured she wanted it to be answered, at least. The glare she leveled at me said she wasn’t happy, but she followed me into the office anyway.
“Welcome to Westhampton Realty,” a pretty, dark-haired woman greeted us. “How can I help you?”
I wasn’t sure how effective Delia would be at lying, so I took the lead. “My girlfriend was hoping her cousin Serena was working today.”
“Serena Taylor?” the woman asked. When her gaze shifted toward Delia, her eyes rounded in surprise. “Wow! You and Serena could pass as sisters.”
“We hear that whenever we’re together,” Delia replied.
“I’m sorry, but she isn’t in the office today. She left a voicemail asking for some time off a couple days ago. I thought she said it was for a family emergency, but maybe I misunderstood since you’d know if that were the case, being her cousin and all.”
“That’s why we’re trying so hard to find her,” I explained. “Nobody has been able to reach her. She’s not at home and she isn’t answering her phone. We were hoping one of her co-workers would know where she was since it’s unlike Serena to disappear like this, especially during a family crisis.”
The receptionist looked over her shoulder toward a blonde woman talking on the phone. “She and Tasha are pretty close. I was just getting ready to leave for an early lunch, but you could wait until she’s done with her call to talk to her if you’d like.”
I switched my gaze to Delia. “That sound good to you, baby?”
“I don’t know what else we can do.” Her voice quavered and the receptionist made a sympathetic noise before moving toward Tasha’s desk with a note.
I wrapped my arm around Delia’s shoulder, projecting an air of concern as I led her to a chair. “Everything’s going to be okay. We’ll figure out what’s going on with Serena.”
The receptionist stopped by our chairs before leaving. “I let Tasha know you’re waiting. It sounded like she was wrapping up her call so it shouldn’t be too much longer.”
“Thank you,” Delia whispered.
“You’re welcome, honey,” she replied, reaching a hand out to pat Delia’s shoulder. “Wish I could’ve been more help. Serena’s a sweetie.”
She walked out the door and about a minut
e later, the blonde realtor walked toward us. “Hi, I’m Tasha. You’re looking for Serena?”
“Nice to meet you, Tasha.” I stood and held my hand out to shake hers. “I’m Blaine and this is my girlfriend, Delia. Serena’s her cousin and we’re worried about her. No one has been able to reach her. We were hoping you might have an idea of where we could look or someone we could call...anything we might not have thought of already.”
“Missing?” Tasha gasped. “But I just talked to her a couple days ago.”
“The last time any of us were able to reach her was a little more than twenty-four hours ago,” I explained. “We’ve tried calling her cell, stopping by her house. Her mom hasn’t heard from her.”
“What about Jonathan?” Tasha asked.
“We haven’t been able to reach him. My aunt and I don’t have his number. Is there any chance you might have it?” Delia’s expression was a mixture of hope and worry. She was doing better at maintaining our cover than I could have hoped, drawing both of the women into her act and making them want to help her.
“I do.” Tasha walked back to her desk and grabbed her cell phone. She fiddled with it for a minute before rattling off a number while I jotted it down.
“Has she seemed okay lately? I’ve been so busy, I haven’t spoken to her as often as I should. I hate that I’m so out of touch with what’s going on in her life. I feel horrible about not realizing sooner when I might have been able to do something to help her before she disappeared like this,” Delia said.
“No, don’t talk that way. Don’t even feel that way,” Tasha chided. “Even if you hadn’t drifted apart, I don’t think she would have told you what was wrong.”
“But I’ll never know unless I find her.”
Tasha shook her head. “She’s my friend and I see her just about every day, but she didn’t tell me anything.”
“No problems at work?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation on point. We needed information and this woman was our best shot at getting it—even if she didn’t think she had anything for us.
“Not that I’m aware of, and I’d be the first person she’d tell since we gossip about work all the time.”
The report Brody sent on Jonathan Roberts left me with more questions than answers. “Boyfriend trouble?”
Her pause was answer enough. I nudged Delia’s foot, wanting her to push the issue. Odds were good Tasha would be more receptive to talk about Serena’s relationship with another woman. Luckily, she took the hint.
“I know you’re Serena’s friend and it probably doesn’t feel right talking about her like this, but if there’s anything you can think of—anything at all—it might help. The police won’t let us file a missing person’s report until tomorrow, but I know something’s wrong. She wouldn’t disappear like this. Especially not when her mom is sick,” Delia pleaded with her.
Tasha’s eyes flickered and her throat worked before she spoke. “She seemed a little off when we went to lunch on Monday.”
“Off?” Delia repeated.
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure nobody was nearby before continuing in a low voice. “Distracted, I guess. She checked her phone a few times like she was expecting a call or a message. When I asked her about it, she just mumbled something about Jonathan and then changed the subject.”
“She didn’t talk about him much.”
“I didn’t see them together often, but I always had the impression he kind of swept her off her feet. Almost like in the fairy tales where the prince falls for the regular girl.”
“Prince?” Delia sounded surprised by the description.
“Not literally. It was just that he was rich, didn’t seem to do much for work, and liked to spoil Serena. He always made me think of Prince Charming.”
I could think of another type of man who kept quiet about their work: criminals.
“Thanks for all your help, Tasha,” I said as I helped Delia to her feet.
She looked flustered by my gratitude. “I don’t feel like I was any help at all.”
“I feel better knowing my cousin has such a good friend,” Delia assured her.
“And now we know to work harder on getting in touch with Jonathan,” I added.
“Can you ask Serena to call me when you find her? Or let me know if there’s anything else I can do? Maybe talk to the police if she hasn’t been in touch by tomorrow?”
There was a fine line for us to walk with Tasha now. We’d alerted her to the possible danger Serena might be in, but I didn’t want her calling the cops too soon. “We’ll keep in touch either way and let you know what’s going on with Serena as soon as we hear anything. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she managed to catch the same bug her mom has and Jonathan’s taking care of her while she’s too ill to speak.”
“I hope it’s something like that.”
“Isn’t it strange to wish my cousin ill like this?” Delia asked as she moved toward the door, helping to break some of the tension.
“It really is,” Tasha replied with a startled laugh.
“Thanks again for all your help.”
I paused to send a quick text to Brody, telling him to focus on Jonathan. Delia was already through the door when Tasha called out, “Wait!”
I turned and she was holding a business card, offering it to me with an outstretched hand. “We know how to reach you if we need anything else.”
“Take it,’ she insisted. “It’s not mine. It’s Serena’s and it has her photo on it. We just had them updated a couple weeks ago, so it’s a current picture. I just remembered the receptionist kept a stack of them for each of us so she could give them out at the front desk.”
“Thanks,” I said as I snagged it from her hand and headed for the door. I saw Delia waiting for me through the glass doors and the hairs on the back of my neck raised. The feeling that something bad was about to happen washed over me. I took in the outside surroundings. Something was setting my internal radar off and I’d learned to trust my instincts—especially since they’d saved me so many times before on missions. When I saw a black SUV with tinted windows roar in front of the building, I knew it was the cause of the alarms going off in my head.
I was already moving fast when I saw the passenger window roll down and a gloved hand holding a gun take aim right at Delia. “Get down!” I yelled, shoving the door open.
Everything happened at once. Delia turned to look at me, confusion clear on her face. The shooter fired several rounds as I ran toward her. Her body jerked, spinning around as she fell toward the ground. One arm reached out to brace for the impact and then she was down, the side of her head bouncing off the pavement as she crumpled. I wasn’t sure how many times she’d been hit, but I knew I hadn’t been fast enough to stop her from getting shot.
Diving over her body, I tried not to put my weight on her as I provided her with the only protection I had if the shooter fired again. I braced myself on my left arm and drew my Glock with my right, taking aim as the SUV whipped around the corner on squealing tires. By the time I’d taken aim, I didn’t have a clear shot, but I could see their license plate. I committed the number to memory and lifted my body off Delia, relieved to see her looking up at me with shocked, pain-filled eyes.
Chapter 8
Delia
One minute, I was waiting for Blaine on the sidewalk, barely stopping myself from doing a happy dance because I’d been right about coming along, and the next, all hell broke loose. There was a series of loud popping sounds before I jerked and stumbled forward, a hot, searing pain tearing across my arm. It all happened so fast, yet it felt like time was moving in slow motion.
Thrown off balance, I was suddenly hurtling toward the ground as explosions continued to ring in my ears. My upper arm throbbed and I felt a trickle of blood dripping down my hand. I gritted my teeth in pain, fighting back shock as I tried to scramble to my feet. Then Blaine was there, his body suspended over mine as I lay there panting, tears streaming down my cheeks.
The
relieved look on Blaine’s face when he levered off me was unmistakable, setting butterflies off in my queasy stomach. “Where were you hit?”
“My left arm,” I answered, my voice breaking halfway through my response.
His eyes darted to my arm and he did a quick scan of my body before lifting me into his arms and running toward my car.
I heard sirens, but they sounded far off. “Shouldn’t we wait for an ambulance?”
His only answer was a swift shake of his head as he gently placed me in the passenger seat. He scanned the parking lot and looked back at the office before crouching down and adjusting me in the seat so he could get a look at my arm. I glanced over his head and saw Serena’s co-workers peering through the glass, watching us. One of them had probably called the police when they realized what they had heard was gunfire outside their front door.
“Looks like the bullet grazed you.” Blaine’s tone was relieved.
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed, pulling a knife from his front pocket and tearing a strip off the bottom of his shirt. “But we need to stop the bleeding.”
He tied the fabric around my arm and the pain became even worse. “Hurts,” I wheezed out.
“You need to keep pressure on it and keep your arm elevated. Slow the bleeding until I can get you to a doctor.”
He didn’t give me a chance to argue. He just shifted me back in the seat, strapped my seat belt on, and walked around the car, calmly and confidently. I was gaping at him while he started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, using his turn signal and everything.
The sirens were getting louder. Help was close. “We should have waited for the police.”
“Not until I know it’s a safe move,” he disagreed.
“Safe!” I shouted, wincing as a new jolt of pain blazed up my arm. “I think that ship has sailed and is long gone by now. To me, getting shot is the furthest thing from safe.”
Identity Crisis Page 7
