Danger and Desire: A Romantic Suspense Anthology

by Kimberly Kincaid

  “Jill. This is promising.”

  “I was surprised when you mentioned the macho code. I thought you were a Marine,” she teased.

  “A Marine wouldn’t let it all hang out like that. He would’ve arranged for a date back at the diner. I made a rookie mistake.”

  She felt a huge grin spread across her face. “I’ll let you in on a secret. I just baked two-dozen chocolate chip cookies with you in mind, so I think it’s safe to say we’re on the same wavelength.”

  He paused.

  “My front porch is covered, and it has a couple of chairs out front, if you would like to come on over,” he offered. “And if the milk is expired, I’ll go pick some up fresh before you show up.”

  “Expired?”

  “Apparently, I haven’t been going to the store as often as I should.”

  “You’re near Pendleton, right? Give me your address and I’ll be over in about forty-five minutes.”

  He gave it to her and hung up.

  Not until she was packing up the cookies did she realize he was arranging it so she would feel comfortable by sitting outside. He had a point; normally, she’d go on two or three dates before she’d invite a man over to her house or go to his, or she would meet his friends first. Maybe it was because she met Law at the grief counseling group, but she felt like she could trust him, and this just further proved it.

  Her phone rang again. This time, she saw it was Lesley. That was really odd. The woman had only called to check in with her when she’d first started the group session.

  She would listen to the message later. She had cookies to deliver!

  Chapter 4

  Luckily, when Law checked out his fridge, he had milk that wasn’t expired, so he had time to clean up. He was hoping he could talk her into a dinner out. There was a good seafood place not too far from his house.

  When he got out of the shower and stood in front of the mirror to shave, his reflection confronted him with something he hadn’t seen in a long while. A real grin.

  “Where have you been?” he asked his reflection.

  Good question.

  Law damn near dropped his razor as his head whipped around at the sound of Xavier’s voice.

  “What the hell?!”

  Great. Now he was having auditory hallucinations.

  “I am not my mother.” His voice was emphatic. She was the one who swore that Xavier had talked to her. That was so not his gig.

  However...

  Law sighed as he smeared shaving cream on his face. His big brother Xave would be giving him a great deal of shit for having his head so far up his ass for the last thirteen months.

  “Not my fault,” he muttered as he started swiping through the foam. “The blame totally lies on you, Xavier Winston Thorne.”

  He tilted his head, then realized he was waiting for some sort of rebuttal and rolled his eyes.

  “Lawson, you have problems.”

  He concentrated on shaving. Not an easy task, because had to work around that damn smile. The thought of seeing Jill, and Xavier giving him shit from the grave, all of it made him happy. Only fifty percent of it meant he was crazy.

  By the time he had a pair of chinos and a T-shirt on, he heard her car pulling up next to his truck in the driveway. Chocolate chip cookies were nice, but a chance to see the pretty brunette was definitely the high point of the afternoon. He had the door open and stood at the top of his porch by the time she got out of her car. She was balancing a plate and she blew him away. Yeah, she filled out the tank top really well, but it was the way her eyes lit up that really tickled him.

  “Let me help you with that,” he said as he jogged down his steps.

  “That’d be great.” Jill handed over the plate, then reached in for a plastic grocery bag.

  “What’s in there?”

  “I actually baked more than the two-dozen cookies that I admitted to. Here are the other three.” She handed him the bag with a Tupperware container in it. “I figured you could have these for later.”

  “Sweet.”

  She glanced over his shoulder. “You have a nice set-up.”

  “My mother insisted on going furniture shopping the last time she was in the States.”

  “You said she lived in Belgium, right? That seems odd when her sons were all in the U.S. military.”

  Law took the opportunity to place his hand on her lower back and guide her up the stairs. “It’s a long and complicated story.”

  “Just the kind I like.” She sat down on the loveseat instead of a chair, he noted with satisfaction.

  “Did you really want milk?” Law asked as he opened the screen door.

  “Absolutely.”

  He went inside and poured two glasses. He brought them out along with some paper towels.

  “So, what do you want to know?” He asked as he settled in beside her.

  “Give me complicated. I told you mine at the diner.”

  Law bit into a cookie. Then finished the other half. He sipped some milk and watched as Jill sat back against the arm of the couch.

  “My mother grew up in Brussels. My dad went over to Belgium to work at NATO. When he met her, he said it was game over.”

  “What did your dad do?”

  “He was in Army Intelligence and liaised with members of NATO security. It was supposed to be a temporary job, but he managed to extend it into two years until he got Maman to agree to marry him and move to the States.”

  “Maman, I like that. You speak French?”

  Law nodded.

  “More than French?”

  “It comes with the territory.”

  She raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “You know, you seem to have an aversion to answering questions. I thought we got past that the other night.”

  She was right.

  “Farsi, Arabic, French, and German. Oh yeah, Spanish of course. I live here in SoCal. What about you?”

  “I lived in Houston working as an EMT—how could I not learn Spanish? It’s not great, but it’s pretty good,” she grinned.

  “You have a beautiful smile and you bake great cookies. I’d love to take you to dinner tonight.” Law said in Spanish.

  “Thank you for the compliments, and I would love to go to dinner,” she responded in kind.

  Law laughed and nodded his head in appreciation. “I’d say your language skills are up to snuff,” he switched back to English. “Did you work in the suburbs or the city while you were in Houston?” Law watched her swing her crossed leg and his eye was drawn to her toe ring…again. Was there anything about this woman that didn’t turn him on?

  Her leg stopped swinging and she stared at him. “I worked downtown, but remember, you were going to tell me the complicated story?”

  “You’re right. Talking about myself goes against the grain.” He gave her a rueful grin. “I’d promise to do better, but I’m probably going to need to be reminded.”

  “I might be up for it. Depends on how good the restaurant is.”

  She sure as hell isn’t a pushover.

  Oh yeah, I hate it when I run roughshod over women.

  “Okay, so Dad talked Maman into coming to the States. She was from a tightknit family and it hurt for her to leave them, but boy, were they something together. You could just feel how much they cared about each other. After the first year here Xave was born, two years after that came Ash, then two years after that came me.”

  “So, all of you boys followed in your father’s footsteps by joining the military. He must have been proud.”

  “He didn’t live to see it. He was on a helicopter that went down. He and five others were killed instantly. That happened when I was ten, so he never saw any of us join the service.”

  An image of his father appeared before him. God, he missed him. That was two men he missed with all his heart.

  Lawson felt the soft touch of Jill’s hand resting on his leg. “That must have been so hard for you and the rest of your family.”

  “I
t was. We tried to be there for our mother, especially Xavier, since he was the oldest. But she refused to let any of us try to switch roles. She remained the parent, and we were her boys. Looking back on it, I realize that she went to bed a lot earlier than she had when dad was alive, but that was the only change in her routine. I think that was her alone-time to mourn.”

  “She sounds incredible.”

  “Maybe,” he said slowly.

  Jill lifted an eyebrow in question.

  “I think if our family had learned how to process bad emotions after dad died, maybe Xavier would have felt comfortable sharing how much pain he was in and wouldn’t have killed himself.”

  Her hand tightened on the clenched muscle of his thigh.

  “That’s not the kind of thing they teach in school. Yeah, reading, writing and ‘rithmatic, they’ll teach us that,” she said with gentle humor. “But saving for our retirement, or how to figure out how to deal with what we’re feeling? Nope. Then, if our parents don’t show us the way, we’re shoved out of the nest like blind baby birds.”

  “I’ve never really looked at it that way. Those of us who join the military right out of high school sure as hell don’t learn much of that stuff. Sometimes your emotional growth is even stunted. At least Ash and I went to college before we enlisted, but Xave went straight in at eighteen. Ash was the one who took the girly psych stuff. I played ball.”

  Jill smirked. “Of course you did.”

  “Hey. Should I be complimented or offended?”

  “Yes,” she answered with a straight face.

  He got up from the love seat and held out his hand. “If I have to put up with your smart mouth, I’m going to need more sustenance, woman. Time for dinner.”

  Chapter 5

  Despite three crises at work and having to bring home two PowerPoint presentations that needed to be redone to cover for the East Coast trainer, Jill was still in a good mood. That means Lawson Thorne has at least a forty-eight-hour residual effect! However, knowing what’s on my plate for tomorrow, the big question is, can the good feelings last for seventy-two hours?

  Jill got up from the floor in front of her computer and headed to the kitchen. She was hungry and there was a hot pocket with her name on it.

  Her phone rang and she went back to the living room to see if she wanted to answer it. If it was the East Coast trainer again, there wasn’t a chance in Hades. When she realized it was her boss, she answered it and plopped back down on the floor so she could pull up the files that Natalie wanted to go over. When Jill finally hung up, she looked around the coffee table for her hot pocket. Had she eaten it all?

  Darn it, she was losing it. She pushed back up and headed toward the kitchen again. When she finally had dinner humming along in the microwave, she growled when the doorbell rang.

  “Didn’t I make myself clear? I’m hungry.” She set her bottle of sparkling water down on the kitchen island and made her way down the long tiled hall to the front door. She frowned when she considered the fact that the guard at the community gate hadn’t called her. That was weird. Must be some kind of general maintenance or someone from the homeowners association.

  She looked through the peephole and saw a notepad and a tie. Bingo. HOA.

  “Hello,” she greeted the man. “I know I’m paid up, so this must be about something else,” she smiled.

  “I beg your pardon, Miss?” he asked.

  “What?”

  He repeated himself, only spoke slower.

  “I’m sorry, what were you saying, Miss?”

  “My HOA dues,” Jill clarified. “I have it automatically deducted from my checking account. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Something to do with the homeowners association?”

  He seemed to relax and then he smiled brighter. “Uhm, you’re right.” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at his notepad.

  Uh-oh, that didn’t look good. But then he looked up and gave her a big smile. No dimples. She so wasn’t interested.

  “I wanted to tell you about the upcoming Labor Day celebration. We’re looking to see if you or any other residents here in your home are planning on attending. It’s going to be at Founder’s Park this year. We’re putting on quite a show. If you have kids, we’re going to have face painting and a jump house. For adults, we’re having a lot of the local restaurants putting up booths and providing samples of the best of their menus with wine pairings.”

  Jill immediately thought of Law. Would he be up for something like that?

  “I have to check, but I’m pretty sure you can put me down for two.”

  “This is a pretty big house, do you have children?” he probed further.

  Jill laughed. “Nope, no bambinos. What about you?”

  He went silent for a moment, his eyes downcast. “No, I don’t have any children,” his tone suddenly flat.

  Jill cocked her head and gave him a kind smile. He looked like he could use one.

  “So, two?” he confirmed again.

  Jill grinned. “Yep, put me down for two.” She really hoped that Law would be up for this.

  He snapped his notebook shut. “Well, ma’am, I have the information I need.”

  He didn’t even say good-bye, instead he just turned on his heel and stalked down her walkway. They really needed to get someone with better people skills on the job.

  Jill heard her phone ring again.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake. Can’t I catch a break?”

  It wasn’t for another hour-and-a-half that she realized she was hungry again, and her last hot pocket was now the texture of a rock inside the microwave. She should have saved some cookies for herself. Time for bread and cheese. She really needed to stock up on mayo and mustard.

  Three grueling days of training in the dusty, hot shrubs of the Southern California wilds in the Camp Pendleton base and Lawson was ready for a beer, a shower, and time with Jill, not necessarily in that order. He’d told her that he’d be off the radar for three days, but to expect him to touch base on Wednesday night or Thursday morning. But after assessing the new recruits, he and his team had realized it was definitely going to take the additional night to get through to the boneheads.

  “Roger, how many times do I need to tell you to keep your belly to the ground?” Law shoved the kid’s ass onto the rough earth and grimaced with disgust when Roger let out an oof of pain.

  Seriously? That hurt?

  “When you signed on for this assignment, you assured me you wanted to learn SIGINT, but you sure as hell aren’t showing a willingness, let alone any damned aptitude.”

  “But, sir,” the recruit started.

  “Don’t call me sir. Do I look like a damned officer?” Lawson hissed.

  He heard Clancy laughing behind him. “You don’t have the looks,” his teammate joked. “You need to grow back the mustache, then you’re officer material.”

  Lawson flipped him the bird before turning his attention back to Roger. “Let’s try this again. I need you to, this time, accurately calibrate and read-out the spectrum analyzer and the directional antenna. We need to know who and what we’re up against, where and how far away they are. We need that information now!”

  Law watched as the kid once again fumbled three times to get the cord for the antenna into the analyzer. It took everything he had not to rip it out of his hands. When he finally got that done, the kid attempted to calibrate the machine with one hand as he held out the antenna. Law heard Clancy snickering behind them. He was going to kill his friend.

  “Roger, that’s the wrong sequence.” Lawson kept his voice even. He knew if he sounded mad the kid would really blow it. Besides having to train the kid, he wanted his team, the Blue Blades, to kick the other Marine Raider team and grind them into the dust. Law knew that they were at the same kind of disadvantage because they were training newbies—but they weren’t stuck with a Roger.

  “How about this?” The kid’s blond hair was stuck to his forehead. He kept licking his lips and his eye tw
itched. Law looked over his shoulder at Clancy and his trainee. He could see that both of them were having trouble keeping straight faces. It so wasn’t fair.

  Law looked down at the frequency range that Roger had put into the spectrum analyzer. “It’s close, but it looks like you inverted the six and the three. Try again.”

  As soon as Roger fixed it, the signal came in.

  Success. Finally.

  Now it was time to see if they could get a read on where the other team was broadcasting from and hopefully nail them. Law had been on his team’s ass to keep radio silence. It would’ve made life a hell of a lot easier for them if they’d been able to contact the two tactical vehicles on their team, but Law forced them to stick to the plan and only report in if something went totally FUBAR. Which so far, it hadn’t.

  Law was hoping that McClellan, the SIGINT on the Red Smoke team, hadn’t been as much of a hardass.

  “I’ve got something,” Roger’s eyes lit up as he fiddled with the receiver. “Look at this. I think they’re about eight clicks northwest over that hill.”

  “Less thinking and more knowing,” Lawson growled.

  “Sorry. I know they’re over there. I triangulated three signals. One was from tactical vehicles, not ours. Another I could hear, and it was definitely Mikey from Red Smoke; he’s one of the guys that I went to boot camp with. The third signal is coming from two kilometers to the southwest of the others. It wasn’t clear, but they said something about our Lieutenant Hunt. Something about him buying beer.”

  “That has to be the Lieutenant of Red Smoke,” Clancy muttered. “Stork and Hunt had a bet on which team would come out on top.”

  “Should I radio the others?” Roger asked.

  Lawson thought his head would explode. “What part of radio silence do you not understand? Just for that, you’re the one who’s going to have to run—and I mean flat out run—your ass over to Pearson’s MRZR and tell him to get his ass over here. Then hitch a ride with him and gather Bashir. I want you all back here in fifteen minutes. If it’s sixteen minutes, your ass is grass. You got it?”