Never Been Good

by Christi Barth

  Her whole different look suddenly made a whole lot of sense. “A date? Or just a three-day binge at the shooting range?” he teased. “You got a gun in there?” Flynn surged to the side, grabbing for the zipper of her open pack. It gaped wider, giving him a glimpse of the shiny metal of a barrel, right on top. “Jesus Christ, you do.”

  “I’m a U.S. Marshal. I’m meeting with my protectee, who is at known risk from past associates. Of course I’m carrying.”

  “We’re at risk? Did you hear something about McGinty?”

  “No. This is protocol, nothing more. Didn’t mean to freak you out.” Delaney twisted to lean back against the window. She gave him an appraising look that raked him from head to toe. “You’re usually the calm one. The one who doesn’t seem to give a shit about anything.”

  “Well, now I do.”

  “Good. Can I hope it’s the result of my frequent and pointed pep talks?”

  “Nah.”

  “Hmm. The love of a good woman?” she joked on a laugh.

  Love. That wasn’t a joke at all. Not if he could be sure that Sierra loved him back. Which would be the next hurdle he’d tackle after securing Delaney’s help. Because they couldn’t get on with their life together until he got the elephant of her past off her back.

  “Still, I saw you white-knuckle that cup.” She pointed to the drops of coffee he’d made overflow the lid when he squeezed it in alarm. “Something’s got you jumpy. Is that why we’re here today?”

  “That’s part of it.”

  He’d volunteered to make the trip to tell Delaney about O’Connor. They’d tailed him for two full days without seeing any sign that he knew the Maguire brothers lived there, let alone that he was out to put a hit on them. Better yet, he looked to be traveling with a brother-in-law. Nobody from McGinty’s crew. Kellan had typed it all up last night to be presented to Delaney.

  People ran into old high school friends in airports, on vacation in other countries, all the time. It was a small world, and while their town was small, it was a tourist mecca. O’Connor’s presence was a random coincidence. A Facebook-worthy mention, if they’d been normal people, but not dangerous.

  Still, giving Delaney the intel was important. In the past, Rafe had handled all the official business with the Marshals Service. He’d looked thrilled that his middle brother was picking up the slack today.

  What Flynn hadn’t mentioned to either of his brothers was why he’d volunteered. Because he wanted to ask their marshal a very personal favor.

  “Color me intrigued.” Delaney dug underneath the gun to come up with a small notebook and a pen. “Anything I can do to help you succeed in your placement, I will.”

  That was the very fine line Flynn needed to balance on. Because the favor, technically, wasn’t for him. “You keep telling us that for our new lives to work, we need to find reasons to be happy.”

  “Yessssss.” She drew the word out longer than the Cubs catcher took to signal the pitcher at the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded. “Why do I think that my own words are about to bite me in the ass?”

  “Did I really ruin your date?”

  She looked at the sturdy runner’s watch with three dials and a whole bunch of buttons on her wrist. “Right now, it’s only postponed. We’ll see how this conversation turns out before I decide.”

  Flynn had rehearsed his approach three different ways on the drive. But now, looking at her squinted blue eyes so full of suspicion? None of them were good enough to break through her multiple layers of adhesion to rules and policy and every damned quintuple-checked loose end.

  He had to use the big guns. He had to shoot from the heart.

  “I need your help. Me, personally. Nothing to do with the case. Nothing to do with my brothers. I’m asking because this matters to me. Because this person matters to me.” Asking Delaney for help fixing Sierra’s situation had been a hard decision to make. Especially without getting Sierra’s approval first. But this whole damn thing was a chicken and the egg. Did he explain first why he had an in with the Marshals Service? Or did he line up the cooperation of said marshal first?

  “Oh, Flynn.” Her voice softened to the consistency of a flannel sheet, straight out of the dryer. “You went and fell in love, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. And I’ve never felt so helpless in my entire life.”

  Delaney laughed. Clapped her hand over her mouth as soon as it escaped, and then shook her head. “Wow. I mean, for a man restarting his life for the fifth time in Witness Protection gearing up to go back and testify against the mob . . . that’s saying something.”

  Way to state the obvious. Flynn gripped the steering wheel and stared across the busy parking lot. Because she could have her laugh. Hell, she could ask him to boogie all around the lot with his underwear on his head and he’d do it. As long as she came through for Sierra.

  “I’ll do anything for this favor.” Flynn slid his gaze sideways. “It’s not one-sided. It’ll end up being a favor to you, too.”

  “Aside from keeping your idiot younger brother in line, there’s really nothing you could do to help me, Flynn. And those of us on the government dime tend not to bargain with semi-illicit felon-types.”

  Hell, did she think he was trying to bribe her? “I get it. Don’t worry. This has nothing to do with the mob, or our case. But I do have information that, if you move on it, could make you come off as a rock star of a marshal.”

  “Withholding evidence is a crime.” The words snapped out.

  “I’m not withholding. And it’s not my evidence to share. This is all hearsay. You have to do a little bit of the work yourself.”

  “Fine.” Delaney waved a hand dismissively in the air above the gear shift. “But let’s stop talking in what-ifs and get right to this amazing font of info you’re going to drop on me like a surprise Beyoncé album.”

  “I need a guarantee there won’t be prosecution for this hypothetical person I’m about to discuss.”

  She blew a raspberry. “I’m not some naive rookie, falling all over myself at your earnest pleas. I can’t promise anything until I hear the details, let alone guarantee an ADA would fall in line.”

  Damn. Had it been this difficult for Rafe when he’d struck the original deal to bring down McGinty’s crew?

  Flynn grabbed her forearm. Stared into those unblinking, icy blue eyes. “Give me your word, Delaney. That’s good enough for me, seeing as how it’s kept us Maguires alive this long. I promise you’ll be helping someone who needs it.”

  Toying with the ends of her ponytail, Delaney asked quietly, “Does this person deserve to be prosecuted?”

  “No. I swear on my mother’s grave. She’s an innocent. Just got accidentally pulled into something nasty. If anything, she wants to help you catch the bad guys. She just doesn’t know it’s possible.”

  A heavy bass beat coming from a motorcycle on their right rattled the windows. Flynn watched Delaney turn, almost absently, and check out the noise. He’d bet that she could give a full description of the bike, its driver, and the passenger from that three-second perusal.

  She rapped the backs of her knuckles against the glass twice. “Okay.”

  Flynn let out the tail end of a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. This could really happen. He could save Sierra, banish the fear that kept her tossing and turning at night. No matter what did or didn’t happen to him at the trial, her life would be good. Safe. Everything he’d gone through since entering Witness Protection was worth it if it all led up to a U.S. Marshal guaranteeing to help Sierra.

  Feeling lighter already, he picked up his coffee and slugged back half of it. “How would you like to bust a counterfeit art ring wide open?”

  “Well. What do you know?” A slow, sly grin spread across her face. “Kellan should take lessons from you, Flynn, because it turns out that you know just which one of my buttons to push.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Growing up alone, in the often bleak Midwest, Sierra didn�
�t have too many days that she counted as over-the-top fantastic. There were plenty of good days. Some even great. But few, if any in her life, that she’d deem worthy of being immortalized in a scene in a movie.

  Until today.

  This date today was perfect. And she had a sneaking suspicion that this feeling of perfection would repeat itself the more days she spent with Flynn.

  She tipped her head back to enjoy the warmth of the bright sun on her cheeks. Sierra didn’t care if her nose burned. Heck, she’d relish the peeling as a souvenir of this moment. The one with a salt-tinged breeze whipping through her hair. The one with other couples, also holding hands, walking toward them on the coastal path. The moment where she got to spend the entire day with the man she trusted with her whole heart.

  Those suckers who bought lottery tickets? Even if they won, they wouldn’t come close to the joy bursting out of Sierra’s heart today.

  “I love that you have your own truck now.”

  Flynn gave her a quizzical, sideways look as they tromped along the asphalt. “We’re not in it now. And when you got out, you said your legs were stiff from sitting for the two-hour drive.”

  “I know. They were stiff, especially after that crazy shift last night.” The Gorse always cranked up to standing room only on Saturday night. A holiday weekend with perfect weather meant Sierra’s legs felt as if she’d walked the entire length and width of Oregon last night. All while loaded down with trays of beer and burgers and then more beers. “But that doesn’t trump how thrilled I am that we got to make a two-hour drive north. That we get to have this fun day without any worry about rushing back so your brothers won’t be stranded.”

  “Pretty sure you worried about them more than I did the past few weeks. The world wouldn’t have ended if they had to walk to work one day.”

  Men. They always pretended not to care. Why did they think that made them cool? Especially when it was so easy to see right through it. To see Flynn start checking his watch, even though he didn’t say anything, when it got close to the time to pick Kellan up from the cranberry plant. Or how he’d take a cold shower instead of waiting for the water to heat up again so that he could get the car back in time for Rafe to go to work.

  “There you go again. Playing tough. But I know that inside you’re just a big ball of Marshmallow Fluff. Especially when it comes to the two of them.”

  “I hate marshmallows. They’re like dipping a Pixy Stix in glue. Can my insides be something else?” Flynn pointed to the towering spruces that fenced in the path. “How about the clump of moss? It looks soft.”

  The way he danced away from admitting how important they were to him? Adorable. So she’d play along. “Sure. You’ve got a heart of moss when it comes to Rafe and Kellan.”

  “And you. Don’t forget you.” The smile Flynn flashed at her was so tender and adoring that Sierra stopped walking. The force of that smile squeezed her heart in a new and breathtaking way.

  Oh, yes. She definitely loved this man. And felt pretty darned sure that he’d admit he felt the same way on their date today.

  Life just didn’t get any better than this.

  Flynn pulled her over to the railing where the walkway crossed a deep chasm in the black volcanic rocks below. Cars whizzed by behind then. Nevertheless, the roiling water was loud enough to be heard churning and thrashing. He pointed at a jagged assortment of those black rocks lining the shore. Just beyond was a. . . . well, Sierra wasn’t sure what it was. A circle of black rocks had water flooding over the edge with every surge of tide and wave.

  But . . . it was a complete circle. The water crested over the rock and dropped down. Straight down. Like there was a deep well, or a drain right at the start of the ocean. It was beyond disconcerting. It was beyond beautiful. It seemed otherworldly, a natural feature that would lie outside the red spot of Jupiter.

  “What is that?” Sierra breathed in awe.

  “Thor’s Well.”

  Okay. She could picture its falls poised underneath the rainbow bridge of Asgard, too.

  “That’s why I got you up so early,” he said with an apologetic caress of her shoulder. “We needed to be here at high tide to see it best.”

  “It’s . . . magnificent.”

  “See how it looks like the water endlessly drains into it? Like it never fills up?” Flynn moved behind Sierra, locking his arms around her waist. “That’s how I felt. Before we got together. I was empty, no matter what the world threw at me.”

  Sierra looked back at the water streaming down the rocks, on endless repeat. “I’m so sorry, Flynn. That must’ve been miserable.”

  “I was miserable. Too miserable to do anything about it. Or too stubborn. Didn’t see the point in trying. Until you came along.”

  “I’m nothing special.”

  “Sierra. You are completely special. You’re stronger than those rocks out there. Not giving up no matter how battered life makes you. Sweeter than anyone I’ve ever met. Most of all, you make me feel special.”

  “That, I’ll cop to.”

  Flynn pointed at the Well. “They think it’s a collapsed sea cave. The water only drops down about twenty feet. The tide sends it surging back up, through holes in the cave walls, as waves come over the top of the rocks. See, instead of draining to nowhere? The water’s actually filling up that hole, over and over and over again.”

  “You’re saying that you thought you were an empty cave. Except that you’re actually all filled up and just sexy and powerful as all get-out?”

  His low chuckle rumbled heat against her ear. “Not the words I would’ve chosen. But yeah. I didn’t know exactly how to explain to you what I went through. Figured that showing you might get the point across better. Getting called sexy and powerful is just a bonus. Go ahead and call me that anytime.”

  Feeling reckless—and more than a little sexy and powerful herself—Sierra said, “How about I say it to you when we’re both naked?”

  “That’ll work, too.”

  She twisted in his embrace to look up at those knife-sharp cheekbones that pointed down to the full lips she found so darn kissable. “All kidding aside, you sound like you were in a very bad place. But you’ve never told me what put you there?”

  “That’s a story for later.” Flynn slid his hands along her neck as he leaned his forehead against hers. “For now, know that you’re the ocean to me. You’re what keeps filling me up. I can’t thank you enough. Hopefully, today’s a start.”

  “You’ve got to stop. Every time you thank me, I’m compelled to come right back and thank you. For helping me work past my fear to embrace my life here. For showing me how strong you see me, which gives me the courage to feel it, too.”

  Flynn stopped her from saying anything more by taking her lips. Right there, in the bright sunlight with a solid row of other sightseers crowded elbow to elbow with them along the railing. He kissed her long and hard and just this side of way too much tongue for a state park.

  “That’ll be our punishment. The next one of us to thank the other will get kissed. Relentlessly.”

  She giggled and tried to pull him back into another kiss. “Is this reverse psychology? Because I kind of can’t think of anything better.”

  “Wait. Hopefully this will be better. I brought you a present.” He shrugged his backpack off. Flynn jutted his chin to indicate they should cross the highway as he dug in it. “Let’s get away from this crowd so you can open it.”

  “Flynn, this whole day is already a present.”

  “That sounded suspiciously like you were circling toward a thank you. Are you looking to be kissed again?”

  “Most definitely.”

  Grabbing her hand as he slung the pack back up, Flynn jogged the rest of the way. Kept jogging, in fact, as he stepped off the marked trail and just pushed through the waist-high ferns and bushes. They were immediately swallowed up by the thick forest.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace more private.”


  That would sound delightful, if they weren’t in the middle of a national forest they both knew less than nothing about. “Let me rephrase that question. Do you actually know where we’re going?”

  “Nah. But this is a protected scenic area. I’m sure it’s safe. We’re just heading away from all the people.”

  “What do you have in mind once it’s just us and the spruce trees?”

  “Depends on how well my present goes over.”

  Laughing, Sierra took the lead, jumping over fallen logs thick with moss. A zigzag pattern removed them quickly from any sounds or sights of the trails. Sun broke through the canopy above, but only in indiscriminate spears of golden haze. Layer upon layer of green surrounded them.

  Flynn pressed her against the springy, mossy bark of a tree. Spiky orange blossoms ringed the base of it. “This is good.” He held up a small box, tied with a blue ribbon. “Open it.”

  She didn’t need to be asked twice. Greedily, Sierra snatched the box away, curiosity burning through her. And yet she took her time removing the ribbon, rolling it up, and stuffing it into the pocket of her shorts. Because no matter what was inside the box, she was touched by the gesture alone, of Flynn going to the trouble to search out a sparkly blue ribbon. For her. That ribbon would be saved for the rest of her life.

  Sierra popped the lid. Inside was a journal covered in teal leather stamped in gold with the words DREAM BELIEVE DO REPEAT. She stroked her index finger over the embossing of each word.

  “You told me that you pressed flowers as souvenirs of good memories. I was thinking you could start doing that for memories of the two of us.” He reached down to pull off a stem with multiple orange flowers spiking from it. “Here’s one to start. Not exactly fireworks for the Fourth, but it’s as bright as a sparkler, that’s for sure.”

  It was unutterably sweet. Touching. Sierra knew she should wait. Both to protect her heart and to not put Flynn on the spot. But this gift . . . it filled her heart so darned much that she couldn’t hold it in any longer.