Lost in Her

by Sandra Owens

  He tried to apologize, and when she wouldn’t let him, he’d surprised her by saying, “Kathleen never let me do that.”

  She didn’t think he’d meant to admit that. He had been half-asleep when the words had seemed to slip out, and only seconds later, she’d lain there in the dark listening to his even breathing and wondering why his wife wouldn’t have wanted the taste of him in her throat.

  Charlie didn’t know their story other than the little he had told her, but as she luxuriated in the feel of him spooned around her back, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. For him because he’d loved a woman who had hurt him in the worst possible way. For his wife because she had tossed aside the love of a beautiful man who had loved her with all that he was.

  When the sun tried to peek through the shades, Charlie was still awake. There was a part of her that had never been happier in her life, and there was a part that dreaded the end of her and Ryan when it came.

  If she were smart, she’d get up, get dressed, tell him it had been fun, and leave before she really did fall in love with him. That she already was a little, she couldn’t deny. But she didn’t move, didn’t get up, didn’t get dressed.

  She was apparently a fool, but how was gambling on the odds that Ryan just might fall in love with her any different than shutting off her plane and free-falling to earth? She would either survive or she wouldn’t.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Ryan hung up the phone when he got a recording saying that Cody Roberts’s number had been disconnected. Where the hell was Dog? For some reason, their SEAL sniper had been on his mind lately. They’d talked a few times shortly after Kathleen’s death, their conversations awkward, neither quite knowing what to say. Cody was the only member of the team who Ryan had even hinted to that there was more to the story of Kathleen’s death.

  At two months, the robber wouldn’t have known she was pregnant, but he probably wouldn’t have cared even if he had known. Ryan had installed cameras in the shop shortly after Kathleen opened her store, and everything from that day had been recorded. Knowing he couldn’t bear to watch it, he hadn’t asked to see the video. The cops told him that she had cooperated with the man, doing everything asked of her including opening the safe. The last thing the bastard had done before walking out the door was to put a gun to her head and pull the trigger. Although Ryan tried to console himself that she hadn’t suffered, it hadn’t helped.

  The police theorized that the robber hadn’t wanted to leave a witness. They’d never know as the strung-out crack addict had OD’d two days after killing her. Only half of Kathleen’s jewelry had been found in the man’s room, the rest undoubtedly sold to buy the drugs that did him in. Poetic justice, although Ryan wished he’d been the one to deliver the sentence. But he’d been deployed at the time, too far away to protect Kathleen and the child. The guilt for not being there to save her he likened to pouring battery acid down his throat. It had eaten away at him until there were days when he thought there would be nothing left. From one minute to the next, he bounced from heartbreak to anger at her deceit, and then he felt guilty all over again for being angry at her.

  When he’d told Cody how she’d died, his friend had said, “Damn, man, I’d kill him for you if the bastard wasn’t already dead.”

  Knowing Dog was serious, tears had stung Ryan’s eyes, and he’d almost blurted the rest. It would have been good to get Kathleen’s betrayal off his chest, and he could have trusted Cody to keep her secret. But Cody hadn’t quite sounded like himself, so Ryan had swallowed his confession, not wanting to dump his problems on his friend.

  He stared at the phone, wishing he’d made more of an effort to stay in touch with his buddy. “Where are you, man?”

  “Who?”

  Ryan glanced up at Maria. “Cody Roberts. I’ve been trying to get in touch with him, but no luck.”

  “Maybe he just needs some away time before he comes on board.”

  That would be just like Dog to disappear without a word. “What you got for me?”

  She handed him a file, and he opened it and began to read. The complaint filed against Charlie was bogus. There was no Travis Emery Parriman at the local address given, and when Maria had called the phone number listed, a teenaged boy had answered and said he’d never heard of the name.

  “How’d you get this so fast?” he asked when she handed the complaint to him.

  Maria smirked. “I have my ways.”

  So who had filed a false report and why? The airport manager was fast moving up on the list of suspects.

  He considered calling Charlie and telling her, but then she’d probably head straight to the airport to confront Haydon. Better to wait and tell her in person so if she did suspect her boss, too, Ryan would be there to control the situation.

  “I also hacked into that website and removed all the pictures of Charlie that David Haydon put up on there.”

  Maria continued to surprise him. “I appreciate that.” More than he was willing to admit. “I’ll let Charlie know.”

  Jake poked his head around the doorway. “Chiquita,” he said, “you weren’t in bed when I woke up.”

  “Your talent for observation is astounding, husband. I came in early to take care of something for Doc, but I promise to still be there in the morning, and we’ll explore some of your other talents.” She gave him a quick kiss on the lips and an ass grab as she swept past him.

  Jake’s gaze followed his wife’s retreating form before he turned back to Ryan. “She did that on purpose.”

  “Did what?”

  “Made sure all I’d think about was her in my bed.” He smirked. “Like that’s not what I think about twenty-four seven. Ready?”

  “TMI, man.” He put the complaint about Charlie in his desk drawer and then stood.

  Jake’s gaze fell on the black leather bracelet. “That new?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me see.” After a long look at it, he let go of Ryan’s arm. “Cool. What’s it mean?”

  “It’s the Star of Life.” He explained the meaning behind it. Before the conversation turned sappy and he started trying to explain what was going on in his head, he said, “Let’s go evade some Russians.”

  Kincaid was always thinking of ways to keep his men safe when on an operation, and had built a large warehouse behind the K2 offices where mockups of houses and even villages could be erected. He also employed a crew of carpenters who created duplicates of mission locations as much as they could with what intelligence could be gathered.

  The scene that greeted Ryan when he and Jake entered the warehouse was so close to the photos they had obtained of the house where their targets were being held—along with the nearby houses—that he felt as if he’d just crossed the border into Russia. Even though the buildings were plywood, and would fall over with a hard push, they looked real from where he stood.

  “There’s even trees,” he said.

  Jake laughed. “Kincaid’s never been one to do things half-assed.”

  Ryan knew that from their time together in the SEALs. Their commander had always been two steps—hell, five steps—ahead of everyone else. But trees? When Kincaid’s assistant, Barbie, walked into the warehouse to play the role of the wife, a pure white poodle on a leash prancing beside her, Ryan burst into laughter.

  “Unbelievable,” he muttered.

  The upcoming operation would be his first since coming to work for Kincaid, and he definitely appreciated that the boss went to such great lengths to ensure his men would be as prepared as possible.

  After a short strategy session, they put their plan to rescue the family and a damn poodle into motion. Throughout the day, they practiced over and over, and they would repeat the process the following day and the next. Ryan figured he would dream about yapping poodles all night.

  He was determined to be back home in time for Charlie’s air show. For that reason, he threw himself into the training and planning for the days leading up to their departure. Between
being at work by dawn, and working past dark, his ass was dragging by the time he arrived home each night.

  Charlie would have dinner waiting for him, and afterward, he’d fall asleep in front of the TV. As hard as he tried to stay awake and talk to her, he just couldn’t. What she was doing with her days, he didn’t know. He kept meaning to ask, but zonked out within seconds of his butt hitting the sofa.

  On his last night in the States, Ryan took Charlie to a raw bar on the beach. Determined to spend time with her before he left while his eyes were open, he had slept an extra hour that morning, and had arrived home before the sun set.

  “I know I haven’t been much fun this past week . . . no, make that any fun, but I’ll make it up to you when I get back.” They were sitting side by side at an outside picnic table, and he put his arm around her and pulled her closer.

  She rested her head on his shoulder. “It’s okay. I understand the demands of needing to train.”

  “Which I know you’ll be doing while I’m gone.” That worried him, but he couldn’t very well order her to keep her feet on the ground. They still hadn’t learned who had made the bogus claim. It had been called in to the FAA, which had taken the false information over the phone. With his schedule the past days, he hadn’t had time to investigate further.

  Maria had turned her attention to their mission, doing her part to organize supplies and meets with their overseas contacts, and whatever else she could do to make sure her husband came home in one piece.

  “That I am.” Charlie sighed. “I know that worries you, but I refuse to be cowed by a nameless, faceless bastard who doesn’t have the balls to face me. At least once we learned the report was bogus, I was ungrounded, and I started instructing again yesterday.”

  “I didn’t know that.” What a poor boyfriend he was turning out to be.

  She nuzzled her face against his neck. “You’ve got enough on your mind, and I didn’t want to bother you. I’m going to miss you, you know. You better not have any bullet holes in you when you get back, or I’m gonna be really pissed.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he said, unable to make any promises. “You better stay safe, too, if you don’t want to see me pissed.”

  “I’ll do my best,” she echoed, then lifted her face.

  Accepting her invitation, he kissed her. She sighed into his mouth, and he would have gone on kissing her if someone hadn’t cleared their throat.

  “Two dozen oysters on the half shell, and two beers, one with extra limes,” the server said, setting a large, round platter lined with ice shards between them. “Your captain’s seafood platter to share will be along shortly.”

  “I need hot sauce and some more lemons, please,” Charlie said to the girl’s retreating back.

  “You’re all the hot sauce I need,” Ryan said, giving her a wink.

  She snorted. “You say the most romantic things.”

  As they dug into the food, Ryan tried to remember if he had ever winked at Kathleen. Their partings had always begun and ended with her in tears, begging him to quit the SEALs. She had never understood that what he did defined him. Her greatest wish was for him to come work with her in her store. And it was her store, not his. Although he enjoyed making jewelry as a hobby, he would have slowly died doing it every day. She had never understood that either.

  Somehow, he knew Charlie would never ask him to be anything other than what he was. Maybe it was because she lived on the edge the same as he did, and would understand his need for danger. He glanced at her to see her topping an oyster on a cracker with so much hot sauce that he wondered if she’d lose her breath when she popped it into her mouth.

  “Am I going to need to give you CPR after you eat that?”

  She turned to him, those beautiful blue-gray eyes of hers sparkling with mischief. “Are you hoping?”

  “Oh yeah.” If he didn’t get them out of there immediately, he just might embarrass them both. He’d been on a tear, concentrating on the mission training, falling asleep early so he could get up early, to go at it again the next day. All because he wanted to return to his cherub in one piece. This one, though, she scared the hell out of him. When had he gone from it all being a game to wanting more?

  Charlie popped the lemon-soaked oyster-on-a-cracker concoction—topped with cocktail sauce, topped over that with several dashes of hot sauce—into her mouth while holding Ryan’s gaze. The man was doing seriously sexy things to her insides just by looking at her in that way he had.

  “Do you want the rest of our dinner?” she asked.

  “Someday, we should actually eat the food we’ve ordered.” He kissed her again. “But not this time.” Within minutes he had apologized to their waitress, paid the check for food eaten and not eaten, and added a generous tip. She knew that because she’d peeked over his shoulder when he’d scrawled his signature on the bottom of the receipt. His hand at her lower back as he escorted—pushed—her to his car sent a thrill through her. He wanted her as much as she wanted him.

  “Charlie,” he said as he turned onto the beach road, “I need you so damn much that I want to pull over, take you over those dunes, and find a place to make love to you.”

  Yes! “Pull over. Right now, Ryan.”

  He swerved so fast to the right, stopping at one of the beach access pull offs, that she could only marvel at his quick reaction to her words.

  “You, me, making love over there,” he said, pointing to a sand dune separated yards away from the others. “That will make me do my best to come home to you without a bullet stuck in my ass.”

  “You really know how to sweet talk, Hot Guy.” A bullet hole anywhere on him would ruin her day. He laughed, then jumped out of the car, came around to her side, opened the door, reached in and slid his arms underneath her, and lifted her to his chest.

  “Wow, you’ve gone caveman on me.” But it sure was sexy. He gave a perfect caveman grunt, causing her to giggle.

  “Do I get credit for not dragging you by your hair?”

  “Definitely. Not that I have enough for you to drag.”

  “I love your hair.”

  The compliment warmed her, sure, but he didn’t just say he liked her hair, or that it was pretty. He used the love word, and even though it was only the hair part of her he loved, a fierce longing for the whole of her to be loved by this beautiful man settled in her heart and refused to leave.

  After walking over the dunes, they reached the one he’d pointed out. Coming to a stop, he let go of her legs but kept an arm around her back so that she made a slow slide down his body. When her feet touched the ground, he scanned the area.

  “Good, there’s no one on the beach.” He looked down at the sand, a frown on his face. “I forgot the blanket.”

  “You keep a blanket in your car?”

  “Only since I got it in my head to make love to you on the beach some night. Wanted to be prepared if the opportunity arose. Be right back.”

  She watched as he jogged away, while wondering how she was supposed to resist falling in love with him. If she was smart . . . to hell with being smart. Ryan wasn’t anything like her ex, and although she still didn’t see Hot Guy sticking around forever, she decided she was on the ride for as long as it lasted. That should have been a hard decision to make, but for her, it wasn’t.

  Because standing in the dark, listening to the swash of the waves hitting shore, she admitted to herself that she loved him. So she would take all that he would give her, and when it was over, she would have memories of loving a man who deserved her love. And although she thought the chance slim because of his history with his wife, there was always the possibility that he might look at her one day, and like a lightning bolt to his heart, he would know he loved her back. She thrived on risks, right?

  There were no clouds overhead, and as she peered up at billions of stars twinkling in a velvet black sky, she pulled her T-shirt over her head, then slid her jeans down her legs. Too chicken to remove her bra and panties, she turned and walked d
own to the water, feeling daring. She had never done anything like that before and wondered why not.

  Walking into the surf until she was thigh deep, she laughed when a wave almost knocked her over. The water was cold but not freezing, and she turned so that the oncoming wave would hit her in the back. In front of her, Ryan stood in water up to his knees, not a stitch on. As if she were metal to his magnet, she went to him.

  “You’re like a sea goddess, here to bewitch me,” he said when she was inches from him.

  “You have a glib tongue,” she answered.

  “I’m Irish. Glib is in my blood.”

  “I’m good with your being Irish, but I’m really fond of your tongue.”

  The white of his teeth gleamed in the moonlight when he grinned. “I think you should prove to me just how fond of it you are.”

  She took a step closer. “You have no clothes on.”

  “I’m doing something wrong if you’re just now noticing that, cherub.”

  “Oh, believe me, I noticed.”

  Taking her hand, he led her deeper into the gulf, past where the waves were breaking. Although his chest and head were above the water, she was on her tiptoes. When he realized she was struggling not to swallow salt water, he laughed.

  “Climb up me, little girl, before you drown.” As she grabbed his shoulders, her feet leaving the ocean floor, he deftly slid off her panties.

  She punched his arm. “You’re a sneaky one.”

  “You’ve no idea. You know, the knights of old would be given a token from their lady before going into battle,” he said, tugging her panties up his arm. “I think I’ll keep these as my good luck charm.”

  “Ha! I don’t think they gave them their panties.”

  “Actually, I don’t believe they wore panties back then. A good practice, that.”

  “Men,” she said. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and her arms around his neck. His arms circled her back, and they held each other as the water swirled around them. Without him to anchor her, the current would have swept her away, but he was so strong that she felt safe and protected. The heat from his body kept her warm.