Before He Was Wicked

by Anne Marsh

  “Come on.” He stood up, bringing her with him.

  She’d angled herself between him and the beach like a good officer. He didn’t need her to protect and defend him, but he appreciated the offer. And other things. He definitely appreciated Mia’s body. Her butt brushed his front. Any closer and she’d be fully aware of his interest. Although she only came up to his shoulder, she looked competent and in charge, her hands on her hips as she surveyed her surroundings. Wispy strands escaped from her braid as if she’d just rolled out of bed, softening her edges. And Mia had a great many edges.

  “Let me buy you a drink,” she said. He didn’t know whether she wanted to deflect any more questions or make sure they were even.

  But did her motives matter?He could do one drink. It was hot. And he could really use a glass of water because he’d been wrestling with the damn boat motor for over an hour now. It would have been nice, though, if Mia had actually asked. Instead, like always, she was all tell.

  And assumptions.

  Not waiting for his response, she strode away from him, laying in a course for the beach bar, and the possibility of his refusing orders was clearly not an option she’d entertained. But...he’d worked around her need to be in charge four years ago. She was simply Mia and a woman he’d like to get to know just a little bit better in the very limited time he had before he shipped out again and she...got on with her own life.

  So he followed her pink-and-rhinestone backside up to the beach bar. His thoughts should be illegal. Sweep his thumbs beneath the edge of her bikini. One good tug and she’d come undone.

  To his chagrin, the scene at the beach bar was worse than he’d anticipated. The bride high-fived Mia as if she’d scored a hat trick and won the game for the home team, while five other women in pink rhinestone bikinis eyed him assessingly. Hell. This was not a drink with an old Army buddy. This was an interrogation. Or the dating version of musical chairs.

  “Sit there.” Mia pointed at the single empty seat beside a blond bridesmaid who looked as though she’d just won the lottery. At least they were color-coded. Pink for available and white for completely off-limits. He sat down in what he was fairly certain was Mia’s seat, but he wasn’t completely sure how he’d ended up here.

  Mia made the introductions, then waved down a waiter and placed an order for another round of drinks. The two of them were the only ones going with iced tea today. He watched her effortlessly organize her bridesmaid troop. In some ways, she was just the same as before, giving orders, arranging things. With the best of intentions—he’d give her that. She wasn’t bossy just to be take-charge. It was simply that she was a planner and not afraid to assume command. Ever. In under five minutes, she had the drink orders marshaled, seats rearranged, and the conversational train headed in a pleasant direction.

  “You’re active duty?” The bridesmaid next to him toyed with the dog tags around his neck. He put a few more inches of space between them, although there wasn’t much room to retreat. His leg bumped the bare thigh of the bride on the other side. Coward he mouthed at Mia. She’d stuck to her post on the far side of the group.

  She grinned, a gleeful smile illuminating her face at his discomfort. Whoa. Her happiness was a one-two punch to his gut. Don’t think about what it felt like to be deep inside her. Good luck with that. Maybe she’d acquired mind-reading skills in her last deployment, because her smile widened. Instead of being all serious and take-charge, Sergeant Dominatrix had a fun side. Who knew?

  “I’m helping out a buddy on the island. He’s launching a dive business and needed a few extra hands on deck. I’m active duty in six weeks.”

  Which he hadn’t planned on doing when he’d first come out to Discovery Island. Not re-upping had been a done deal. And then he’d gotten a call from his team leader, asking for one more mission, one more deployment. He’d thought he’d picked a spot, decided to settle down. But he was...bored. His feet itched to go somewhere, anywhere. Air Rescue Swimmers didn’t just rescue the drowning. They also conducted surveillance in drug ops and ran recovery missions. Their CO needed someone with his skills—and Discovery Island didn’t need him. Daeg Ross could hire any other vet and that was the truth. He’d stick it out until the replacement guy showed up, and then he’d haul ass back to San Diego and his real job.

  “Doing what?” His pink-and-rhinestone inquisitor scooted closer.

  Keep it simple. “I’m a Navy rescue swimmer.”

  Mia leaned across the table. “He picked up our pieces. If a pilot went down, Tag and his unit went in. They fished us out of the water. Bad storm, tsunami, sinking boat—they were our go-to guys.”

  College had been as far out of reach for his eighteen-year-old self as a trip to the moon or Outer Mongolia. A week after his high school graduation, he’d enlisted. He’d completed two years of training in advanced swimming and lifesaving techniques, then deployed to his first squadron. He knew his weapons and tacticals, but his job had been rescuing people. He’d never been a combatant.

  Unlike Mia.

  She’d been fierce, a fighter in bed and out. The night they’d met, she’d been a fish out of water, sending him drinks at the bar and then looking insulted when he returned the gesture. Normally, he would have avoided a woman like her. After training hard, fighting tooth and nail for each rescue, he wanted a simple, uncomplicated hookup. But he hadn’t been able to keep away from Mia. Had instead followed her home when she’d looked over her shoulder at him and said come. Nothing about her had been relaxing or fun, but he hadn’t minded. Had, in fact, been hooked.

  The bride looked at the two of them, her head snapping left, then right, as if she was watching a tennis match at Wimbledon. “You two know each other?”

  Biblically.

  “Mia bought me a drink once.” He tipped his head toward the former sergeant.

  Who grinned right back at him. “And he was worth it. Best seven dollars I ever dropped in a bar.”

  The bride shook her head. “Who knew you’d meet up again on Discovery Island?”

  Who knew indeed? The iced tea level in his glass sank to the halfway point. The overabundance of sugar had his teeth curdling. “How long are you ladies in town for?”

  The bride checked her phone. “Five more hours.”

  Her face glowed as she inundated him with endless, incomprehensible details about her wedding in two months, and which families were flying from where. In his line of work, Tag had saved other people’s families. His first rescue had sent him a picture a couple of weeks after Tag had fished the guy out of the Pacific Ocean: the man had gone home, and his daughter had sent a photo of the two of them dancing at her wedding. That was a good picture, a good day.

  While he made polite chitchat, he was aware of Mia getting up. She moved around the group, identifying drink recipients for the waiter with smooth efficiency. Alcoholic beverages sorted, she returned to the bride and produced a tube of sunscreen with an SPF of about a million and one.

  “Strapless dress. Time to lather up.”

  The bride obediently presented her back, and Mia got to work spreading the sunscreen over her bare shoulders. Slick with lotion, her hands slid up the tanned expanse of the bride’s back, then back down again...and, hello, hard-on.

  Perfect. That was his cue. He stood up to leave and did his best to pretend bridesmaid number four hadn’t just patted his butt. Plausible deniability. Mia apparently had plenty of imagination herself, because she kept sliding him covert glances. She was good. He doubted any of her friends had noticed her interest.

  He had.

  He brushed past her, paused. “You need to stop staring.”

  Chairs crowded their table at the beach bar, leaving limited room to maneuver. Instead of easing away from him, she lost her balance in the sand and made full body contact, her breasts pressed against his bare arm. One cotton T-shirt. One pink bikini top. There was nowhere near enough fabric between them.

  She leaned back and folded her arms over her chest. Too bad
. He’d been enjoying the contact. “I’m not. Staring. At you.”

  “Uh-huh.” Rattled was also a new condition for Mia. He’d seen her aroused and take-charge. Coming. Which was his personal favorite, because that was the closest she came to really letting go and...he needed to stop remembering. Right now. He nodded his head in the general direction of the bridal party. “Ladies. Thank you.”

  Mia followed him of course, her flip-flops snapping loudly against the sand.

  “Explain,” she demanded.

  He flashed a smile at her, loving the way her fingers curled into her bare arms. He got to her. No matter what words came out of her prickly, sassy mouth, she wasn’t indifferent to him. At all.

  “Remember—you don’t outrank me.” The unspoken anymore hung in the air between them. Yeah, spending time with Mia would be dangerous. He couldn’t afford a two-night stand with her, and she didn’t have room in her life for a man like him.

  *

  As soon as Tag retreated, Mia’s ladies declared themselves ready to move on. Go figure. They’d been holding out for man candy, and, now that they’d had their taste, they were good. She stared after Tag’s mighty fine backside disappearing down the boardwalk. Worn denim cupped tight buns, hugging him in all the right places. She’d hung on to his butt, digging her fingers into the hard muscles as he worked himself... Shoot. He was right. She was staring.

  “What’s next? Or should I ask—who?” Her cousin grinned happily at her.

  Yeah. She had the same question. With five bridesmaids and one bride staring at her, however, she needed to pull it together. Her brief past with Tag Johnson was her own business, and discovering he’d somehow ended up on the same island as her—however briefly—was not something she needed to share. In fact, forgetting all about his sexy butt topped her current to-do list. She’d get right on it.

  When her cousin stood up, the other women fell in behind her like baby ducks. Then they all turned and stared expectantly at Mia. Right. Because somehow she’d ended up in charge of this zoo. She consulted her iPad where she had their action plan for the day. Beach bar? Check. Next up was zip-lining.

  Oh joy.

  Mia snuck one last look down the boardwalk, but Tag had disappeared. The boardwalk teemed with activity in the late afternoon sunshine with tourists strolling up and down in the palm tree-studded shade. Discovery Island appealed to her on a fundamental level. The place was pretty. It had palm trees. But, more importantly, the locals seemed friendly, and she’d bet there was just about zero crime. Whatever. Their cruise ship floating on the horizon was plenty of reminder. Five hours until departure.

  Her own wistful sigh was irritating as heck.

  Snap out of it. It wasn’t as if anything could have come of her chance encounter with Tag. A hot one-night fling didn’t mean he was up for a repeat performance. Or that she wanted one herself. Nope. She’d had her fun, and now she had a bachelorette party to lead. She motioned for the group to move out.

  “Who’s ready for some zip-lining?”

  3

  Throwing up on a public beach was rude. But Mia’s stomach wasn’t on board with being polite, the pounding headache building between her eyes demanded relief of one kind or another. She’d captured some great pictures of her cousin with the mock veil. The ATV ride had gone well. But the zip line...big mistake.

  One of their guides had thought it would be fun to encourage them to spin upside down, and his impulsive gesture had triggered an episode of motion sickness she’d really rather forget. If she’d only stayed upright, her prescription would have continued to do its job. Instead, the overzealous guide had given her meds a workout her head couldn’t handle.

  Not ready to confront a world that rocked violently up and down, she kept her eyes screwed shut. The rustle of palm fronds overhead was actually somewhat soothing. If she was lucky—and, given the way her day had gone so far, she probably shouldn’t be investing in lottery tickets—the darned tree wasn’t sporting any coconuts. Her head simply couldn’t take any more knocks. She waited for a moment for the universe to weigh in, but her life remained coconut-free. Good times.

  “Mia?” Her cousin’s voice floated through the darkness, demanding attention. A hand squeezed her shoulder.

  “That’s me,” she muttered.

  “Are you okay?”

  No. She absolutely, positively wasn’t.

  “I’m going to head back to the boat and sleep off this headache,” she said instead. No way was she ruining her cousin’s day. “You guys finish up your shopping and I’ll meet you on the main deck for dinner.”

  Tomorrow.

  But there was no way she’d make it back onboard without an assist right now. She could lie here. Work on her siesta skills. Maybe, if she closed her eyes for a few minutes, she wouldn’t need a helping hand from the boat’s crew. And there were worse things than taking a short nap beneath a palm tree, right?

  “Are you sure?”

  “You bet.”

  “You want me to take your things for you?” Bags rustled.

  “That would be great,” she groaned. Anything you want. Just go.

  Ten minutes and a quick siesta.

  All she needed was time to settle her stomach, and then she’d be good as new.

  The thunderstorm moving toward Discovery Island had painted the last visible portions of the sky an ominous purple. The Fiesta cruise ship was a tiny white blob on the horizon...taking Mia and any chance of a reunion hookup with it. Temptation removed.

  Even though Discovery Island wasn’t really his kind of place, Tag had to admit the evening scene was a fun one. Tourists strolled down the boardwalk, debating dinner options and enjoying the sea breeze. None of them looked at the horizon and weighed the possibility of a rescue call against the height of the waves and the distance to the ocean’s surface. He loved his job, and the siren call of the storm building on the horizon promised action and a good fight. When the rain and the waves hit, wreaking their usual havoc, the island would need him. He’d have things to do.

  Sitting still and watching wasn’t his thing, because he didn’t run with the vacation crowd anymore than he did with the casserole crowd. The avid interest of Discovery Island’s long-term residents in his dating life was off-putting. To say the least. The attention shouldn’t have bothered him since he was used to living life in a fishbowl. But Discovery Island was a small place, and some days it felt more like he was a tasty squid swimming in a shark tank at a very public aquarium. Even the rescue ops part of the job had dating perils—his last rescue, the eighty-one year-old Ellie Damiano, was still trying to set him up with her granddaughter.

  Somehow, the things he rescued always stuck to him. Sure, he might have wrapped an arm around Mrs. Damiano and talked with her. But what other choice did he have? She’d just driven her car off the road and into two feet of water. She’d needed an ear to bend, and he had two perfectly good ones. He’d listened. And listened. And then listened some more. He swore, Mrs. Damiano had more to say than anyone he’d ever met before. Now she was grateful, wanting to do something nice for him, and he didn’t have the heart to turn that down.

  He just didn’t want to go out with her granddaughter.

  As the last few sunbathers packed it in, vacating the creamy strip of sand between the boardwalk and the surf, he turned away from the radar showing only empty waters around Discovery Island—no enemy hostiles or floundering commercial liners or even a capsized fishing boat—and got down to business. The sooner he said the words, the sooner he could get on with what needed doing, so he turned back to face the two men in Deep Dive’s command center. He’d served with both Daeg and Cal for multiple tours of duty, but the bond between them was more than a shared set of missions. There was no one he’d trust more with his back, and each of them had stood by the others on rescues.

  “I re-upped.” Short and sweet. A declarative sentence rather than a question, because his going back to San Diego wasn’t open for negotiation.

&
nbsp; Cal looked up from the mountain of paper on his desk and cursed. “Don’t tell me. This is Mrs. Damiano’s fault. You could try going out with her granddaughter and see if a date stops her.”

  The man had five o’clock shadow at mid-afternoon and a pyramid of Red Bull cans teetering in front of him. He’d been the one to conceive of the dive business in the first place, convinced the small California island where he’d grown up was in desperate need of an adventure diving outfit. Plus, he’d taken on the task of setting up a search and rescue program for the area. The local Coast Guard was overwhelmed and focused more on running down drug traffickers than fishing distressed pleasure boaters out of the water. Cal, of course, was committed to keeping everyone safe. Juggling both meant less sleep for everyone, although his buddy had never complained.

  Reaching over, Tag swiped a stack of papers from Mount Paperwork. Cal didn’t protest. The first one was an invoice for emergency supplies, but the second was for parts for the chopper. Lots and lots of parts. Lovely. They needed a mechanic. Or stock in an aviation company. Their used bird was a work in progress with more face-lifts than an aging beauty queen. The chopper was also an expensive work in progress, as Cal liked to point out with annoying frequency. Restoration had been Tag’s responsibility, in between running dives and setting up training exercises. Apparently, he should have made time for bookkeeping. Or kidnapping an accountant.

  “I can handle Mrs. Damiano.” Not. The old woman redefined determined. “Our CO needs a pilot,” he said, when the silence stretched on too long.

  Daeg signed a check and shoveled papers into an envelope. “You’re not the only sailor who knows how to fly a bird or a run rescue op,” he pointed out.

  True enough. The Spec Ops boys were planning on taking out a drug op in South America, however, and their CO knew the mission would hit a personal hot spot with Tag. Passion counted, because a soldier who took the mission personally would go the extra mile every time.