Becca was standing close enough to kiss, and Lord, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to pull her tightly against him, so she could feel just what she did to him. He wanted to wrap her legs around him, cracked rib be damned.
But he didn’t. He stood perfectly still, his hands down at his sides, all amusement completely gone as he forced himself not to reach for her. The effort of doing so, however, made him start to sweat.
She made a soft sound of dismay when she saw the colors of his bruise spreading beyond his Ace bandage. Reaching again for the scissors, she began to saw through the heavier cotton of his crew-neck collar.
She had to move even closer to do it, her thigh pressed against his, her breasts brushing his chest. Mish closed his eyes, feeling a bead of perspiration trickle down the side of his face, praying she’d be done soon. He was trying to be good, but he wasn’t a saint.
Finally, she cut through. He opened his eyes only when she stepped back, when he heard the clatter of the scissors on the counter. But he was premature—the torture wasn’t over yet. Becca moved closer again, and began to peel his shirt off his shoulders.
“Don’t lift your arms or try to help,” she instructed him softly, her hands cool against the heat of his skin. She worked his sleeve down his right arm, touching him every inch of the way, and then gently pulled the rest of the shirt from his left.
Mish unfastened the bandage himself, stepping slightly back from her, bracing himself for the words he knew were coming.
“God, you call that a little bruise…?” Her words were laced with a tough disbelief, but she actually had tears in her eyes.
“I told you, it looks worse than it is.” Please God, don’t let her start to cry. If she did, he’d never be able to keep from reaching for her.
She blinked them back forcefully, grimly. “That must’ve hurt like hell. It hurts you right now—even just to stand there, doesn’t it?”
She was angry at him, and while anger was better than empathic tears, it could get him taken to the hospital if he wasn’t careful.
“Becca, I swear,” he said calmly, as matter-of-factly as he could manage, considering the way his heart was still pounding from her touch. “It’s really not that bad.”
“Bad enough for you to break out in a cold sweat.” With one finger, she caught a bead of perspiration that was dripping down his face, holding it out somewhat triumphantly to show him.
That wasn’t cold sweat. It was very, very hot, very steamy sweat. But it was probably better that she didn’t know that.
“I can’t believe you put in a full day of work,” she continued, refusing to be calm or matter-of-fact in response. “I can’t believe I stood there and watched you mucking out the stalls, and I didn’t have a clue you were hurt!” She was so angry her voice was shaking. She crossed to the back of the office, her movements jerky as she opened one of the drawers and took out a key. “As of right now, you’re out of the bunkhouse and staying in cabin 12. I’m marking it unavailable on the books—it’s all yours until the end of next week. After that, be ready to clear out if we get any walk-ins, but I doubt we will. We’re not full up with guest reservations for another month and a half.” She slapped the key onto the counter in front of him. “I’m also giving you a week off.”
He opened his mouth, and she held up her hand. “At full pay,” she added as ferociously as if she’d just informed him he was getting twenty lashes. “And if it doesn’t heal enough for you to move without pain by then, I’ll give you another week, but you’ll have to let the doctor in town check you out first. Does that sound fair?”
“I appreciate your generosity,” Mish told her. “But it’s not fair. Not for you. You’re already short-staffed.”
She looked startled, as if she’d never expected him to consider that. “I’ll take care of your chores.”
“Along with your regular job?”
It was insane, and she knew it. “I’ll…call Rafe McKinnon. He told me he was going to his brothers’ for a few days before he started looking for work up north. I’ll give him that raise he wanted. He’ll come back in a flash. He had a major thing for Belinda.”
“I thought you said the owner didn’t want to—”
“To hell with what Justin Whitlow wants,” she said fiercely, coming back out from behind the counter. “If he doesn’t like the way I manage his ranch, he can just fire me.”
With her eyes sparking and her chin held high, she looked unstoppable. If he weren’t careful, she would bulldoze straight over him. “You say that as if it would be a good thing.” He tried to smile, keep things a little more light.
She glared back at him. “Maybe it would be. If I’m too damned chicken to quit, then I have to make him fire me, don’t I?”
“There’s a difference between being chicken and being cautious.”
Mish didn’t know what was happening. Becca was standing still, but she just kept getting closer and closer to him. And then he realized that he was the one who was moving toward her, pinning her back against the counter. He was drawn toward her as absolutely as if he were a magnet and she were true north. He could smell her hair, see every individual freckle on her nose, watch the irises of her beautiful, warm eyes widen as he leaned closer and closer.
He forced himself to stop, just a whisper away from the softness of her lips, and he felt a rush of relief. Another second, and he would have kissed her. Another fraction of an inch and…
She still didn’t move, yet her lips brushed against his. He heard her sigh, saw her eyelids flutter closed as he kissed her again.
As he kissed her. What was he doing? Was he completely insane?
This was wrong. This was crazy. This was…
Incredible.
She tasted as sweet as he’d imagined, her lips introducing him to a whole new definition for the word soft.
Three kisses was enough. Lord, it had to be, it was three kisses too many. And he surely—well, probably—would’ve pulled away from her after three, if only she hadn’t touched him.
But the sensation of her hands on the bare skin of his arms was one he couldn’t deny himself the pleasure of knowing. And when she slid her hands up to his shoulders, and then to the hair at the nape of his neck…
Three kisses became four and five and more and he lost count, lost all sense of up and down, lost himself in the dizzying sweetness of her mouth.
He pulled her close, dying to cup the softness of her breasts in his hands, but settling for the feel of her against his chest. He kissed her longer, deeper, but still slowly, claiming complete ownership of her mouth.
She’d worked his hair free from the rubber band he’d used to hold it back, and as she ran her fingers through it, he knew the truth.
Three hundred wouldn’t be enough.
He had to stop kissing her. This could have been the rightest wrong he’d ever done, but it was wrong.
Her hands trailed down his back, cool against the heat of his skin, and he groaned.
And Becca nearly jumped back, away from him. “Oh, God.” She brought her hand up to her mouth, her eyes enormous. “I’m so sorry—did I hurt you?”
He stared back at her. Hurt him…? And he realised she wouldn’t have pulled away if she hadn’t thought she’d somehow hurt his bruised side. If he hadn’t made that strangled sound, she’d be kissing him still. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“There’s a Jacuzzi up by the swimming pool,” she told him. “Just inside the main cabana. It might help if you spent some time soaking.”
“I’m okay.” Mish had to clear his throat. “It’s not that bad, really.”
How was it possible that mere moments ago his tongue had been inside of her mouth, yet now they were talking to each other as if they were strangers?
They were strangers.
And he shouldn’t have kissed her. “Becca, I really have to—”
The office door opened with a squeak. And Mish quickly turned toward the counter, suddenly extremely aware th
at he was standing there not only without a shirt, but still nearly fully aroused as well.
“Oh, yikes,” Hazel said. “That must really hurt.”
He could only hope she was referring to the bruise on his side.
She turned to Becca. “Sorry that took so long. Going into your closet should merit hazardous-duty pay.”
“Ha, ha.” Becca took the shirt from her assistant. “I’ve assigned cabin 12 to Mish, at least until the end of the week. He’s got some sick days coming to him, as well.”
She moved behind Mish, holding the shirt open, so that he could slip his arms into it with relative ease. The soft cotton smelled like Becca. It was like being enveloped by her hair.
As if she’d been touching him forever, she gently turned him to face her. “Need help with the Ace bandage, too?”
Mish glanced at Hazel, who was back at her computer, across the room.
“I need…” What? To take off Becca’s clothes? Undeniably. He lowered his voice, leaned closer to her. “To talk to you. Come outside with me for a sec.”
It would be private, but not as private as pulling her with him into the back room where he could shut the door and…
Becca glanced at Hazel, too. And she scooped the key to his cabin, his package and his bandage off the counter. “I’ll walk you over to number twelve.”
“Thanks, Hazel,” Mish called, letting Becca open the door for him. Without the bandage, every step he took seemed to jar his side. Of course, it jarred with the bandage on, too.
“Feel better, sweetie. And don’t keep Becca out too late tonight.”
“Ignore her,” Becca said. “You have permission to keep me out as late as you want.”
Oh, Lord. Mish waited until they were both several yards away from the office. “Becca, look, I let myself get carried away back there, and I want to apologize.”
She stopped short, right there in the driveway. “Are you apologizing for…kissing me?”
“No, I’m…” He briefly closed his eyes. “Yes. Yeah, I am.”
Becca started walking again, quickly enough so that he had to work to keep up with her. “That’s funny. I didn’t seem to think any of those kisses warranted an apology. I mean, jeez. If you’re sorry about those, well, the ones you aren’t sorry about must be out of this world.”
“Becca, I—”
“That was a joke, Parker. You’re supposed to laugh.” She turned, slowing her pace as she walked backwards.
“I don’t suppose you’d want to discuss this over dinner.” One look at his face and she turned around again. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
“I meant what I said about the timing being bad for me,” he told her quietly. “I’m sorry if I confused things back there by finding you completely irresistible.”
Becca laughed as she glanced at him, shaking her head. “Well, there’s the prettiest rejection I’ve ever heard.”
“I am sorry,” he said again. “I don’t know what happened.”
She handed him the key, the package and the Ace bandage. “The cabin’s down to the left,” she told him. “I’ll have dinner brought to you on a tray tonight.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It won’t be me carrying the tray. I can take a hint—particularly after it’s hammered home.”
Mish watched her walk away. “Becca.”
She turned back, her eyes subdued.
“If it were purely a matter of what I wanted…If there was nothing else to consider…”
She smiled crookedly. “Get some rest,” she said. “It’s got to be tiring being so damn nice.”
“It’s definitely Mitch’s case,” Lucky said to Wes over the phone. “Remember that old leather thing he always carried? Called it his bag of tricks? Well, it’s here. In bus locker number 101.”
Lucky had lucked out and found Mitch’s bag on his fifth try. The locks had been ridiculously easy to pop open—the luck had come from the lack of bus station security guards to question why he was opening locker after locked locker.
“We’re going to set up twenty-four-hour surveillance,” Lucky decided. “If he’s anywhere in this part of the state, sooner or later he’s going to come back for his bag. And when he does, we’re going to be watching.”
“Sitting in a bus station for hours on end,” Wes contemplated. “Bob’s gonna hate that almost as much as I do.”
“You don’t have to like it, you just have to—”
“Do it. I know, I know,” Wes interrupted. “You’ve gotta stop reading those Rogue Warrior books.”
“Look, since I’m already here,” Lucky said, “I’ll take the shift till 0100 hours. I’d offer to stay later but—”
“You’ve only slept an hour in the past forty-eight. Don’t be a hero, Lieutenant. I’ll be there at 2000.”
“Make it midnight, Cinderella, and I’ll take you up on that offer,” Lucky countered, looking out the grimy windows at the street. “But first trade in the Batmobile for something with tinted windows. This place is a ghost town. We’re going to get looked at if we’re sitting in here, watching the lockers. We’ll need to sit out on the street.” They’d have a clear shot of almost the entire bus station if they parked a vehicle in the right place. “You and Stimpy can duke it out over who plays watchdog for the rest of the night. Any word from our beamish, churchgoing boy, by the way?”
Wes laughed. “Believe it or not, he’s taking one of the church ladies to dinner. He left a message saying that we need to talk to a guy named Jarell Haymore. He was on duty the night we think Mitch might’ve been at the shelter.”
“So if Bob’s already found that out, what’s he doing taking this lady to dinner?”
“Beats me. He gets weird sometimes.”
“What’d you find?” Lucky asked, his gaze sweeping the bus station. Even when he wasn’t looking directly at it, he kept the row of battered lockers in his peripheral vision. Nothing moved. Anywhere. The bus station was as empty now as it had been an hour ago.
“Well,” Wes said, “let’s see. Mitch Shaw’s nickname during BUD/S training? The Priest.”
Lucky laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“Yeah, and you’re going to love this. There are still rumors floating around that Shaw either was or is some kind of, ahem, shall we say…man of God?”
“A SEAL who’s really a priest?” Lucky shook his head in disbelief. “No way, Skelly. That reeks of BUD/S legend. Kind of like the story about the boat team that got so hungry they barbecued the instructor—and were secured two days early, and given shore leave in Hawaii for their ingenuity. I just don’t buy it.”
“I’ve never seen him with a woman,” Wes said. “Have you ever seen him with a woman?”
“Yeah,” Lucky said. God, he was tired. “I saw him with his tongue dragging in the dust as he followed Zoe around out in Montana. And you did, too.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Wes said impatiently. “Zoe Robinson could make a dead man stand up and dance. But Bob and I went drinking with Shaw a few times after we got back to Coronado. He never went home with anyone—not that I ever knew about. And it wasn’t a case of no opportunity, if you know what I mean.”
“He is a covert operative,” Lucky pointed out. “He probably knows a thing or two about how to be discreet. Let’s keep this conversation moving forward, Skelly. What else did you find out about him?”
“Medal, medal, medal. Every time the guy turned around, he was being awarded another damn medal,” Wes said. “Eighteen, to date.”
Eighteen. Lucky swore in admiration.
“Yeah. Won his first medal when he was—get this—fifteen years old.”
What? “Are you serious?”
“Why would I make this up?”
“Maybe it was a typo, or—”
“It’s too unreal, Luke. It’s got to be true. Combine that with Shaw having gone into the SEAL program his first year in the navy. In fact, I think he went from the recruiter’s office to BUD/S training
. How often does that happen?”
“Never?”
“No, it happened at least once. With Mitch Shaw. The man won two more medals straight out of BUD/S. Since then, it’s been kind of a yearly thing for him. ‘Oh, it’s April. Time for another trip to the White House to add to this collection on my chest.’”
Lucky exhaled a burst of air. “Well, if that’s the case, I think we can pretty much assume he hasn’t sold the plutonium to the first third-world country ready to hand him a suitcase filled with a million dollars in small bills.”
“I don’t know about that, Luck-meister. It’s these superheroes you’ve really got to watch out for. When they turn, they turn bad. Guys like Shaw are lugging around a ton of resentment. You know, ‘The United States made fifteen billion dollars because I saved the world, and all I got were these eighteen lousy medals…’”
Lucky laughed. “Yeah, Skelly, right. You keep on thinking that way. This is a man Admiral Robinson trusted with his life.”
“That’s true,” Wes admitted. “Apparently Robinson tapped Mitch Shaw to join his Gray Group at its inception. In other words, Shaw was Gray Group’s agent double-oh-one. You know, I’m glad I didn’t know all this last year. This guy scares me.”
“Anything else?” Lucky asked, rolling his eyes. Wes was the scary one.
“I’ve got some feelers out,” Wes said. “You know, asking around, looking for anyone who might’ve gone through BUD/S with him. But apparently not too many people survived and…Oh, my God!”
Lucky nearly dropped the phone. “What? Skelly—sit-rep! What’s happening?”
“Bobby just walked by with…”
“What?! Who?”
“Oh, baby! Bobby’s church lady looks like a supermodel! She’s got long hair and a miniskirt and lo-o-ong legs and…” Wes started to laugh hysterically. “I gotta go—maybe she has a sister.”
Wes hung up, and the silence in the bus station was even more complete than it had been before.
Bobby just walked by with a church lady who looked like a supermodel. Go figure.
Lucky and Wes had both made the mistake of making an assumption, while the truth was, there were no real givens in this world.
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