Danger and Desire: A Romantic Suspense Anthology

by Kimberly Kincaid

  “Let’s just take a breath,” Law said with an easy grin. He knew that Jill would regret getting upset with her neighbor, and what’s more, he wanted to get more details. “Jill, was this something that you were worried about?”

  Jill had moved away from him during the conversation and was now standing between the two men. “No, not at the time.” Law could tell she was upset and frustrated. If he had to guess, it was mostly at herself.

  Hiram opened his mouth to say something, but Law gave him a sharp look and the older gentleman settled.

  Good.

  “Jill, whoever came to your door was probably used to setting people at ease. Tell me what he said. What was his approach?”

  She looked upwards, gathering her thoughts, then she looked back at Law. “He said he was with the homeowner’s association and that he was trying to get a headcount from everyone for the upcoming Labor Day festival.”

  “Okay, what did you tell him?”

  “I told him that I might have someone going with me, because even back then I thought about asking you.” He liked her shy smile.

  “Was there anything else that you noticed about him?”

  “What struck me at the time was that he didn’t seem well-organized. Then there was the fact that at the end of the conversation he left abruptly.” Her eyes narrowed. “Actually, he was pretty rude. I remember thinking at the time that the HOA needed to find people with better people skills.”

  “And that didn’t set off your bullshit meter?” Law asked.

  “I had to take work home that day and I ended up working past midnight. So no, it didn’t.” She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Did you tell Lawson about your home security alarm being tripped last week when you were in Santa Barbara for the night?” Hiram asked Jill pointedly.

  What?!

  Law looked at Jill. She was ready to let go of both barrels on Hiram. The man was going to be drinking Edith’s pie through a straw.

  “Jill, let’s get these flowers to the shed, then you can feed me.” Law smiled. He put his arm around her waist. “Good-bye Hiram, it was good talking to you.”

  Thank God she let him guide her away. He’d wondered if she would.

  Once they were around to the back of the house she stepped out from his reach. “So, are you going to start questioning my judgment like Mr. Applegate was?” Jill demanded.

  “It’s not a matter of questioning your judgment, Jill, it’s a matter of everyone’s area of expertise,” Law said as he opened up the door to the shed.

  “Meaning?”

  “If there was a medical issue, I would stand back and let you handle it. If you told me to jump in that situation, I would ask how high. Does that make sense?”

  “I’m fine with what you’re saying so far, as long as you’re not going to say I have to jump regarding this guy who came to my door.”

  Law set down the flat of flowers and pulled Jill into his arms. “Honey, my hope on coming over here was to spend a lazy Sunday with you. I’m not about to put that in jeopardy by coming off all caveman.”

  She relaxed against him. God, she felt good. She snuck her arms around his neck.

  “Being a caveman isn’t all that bad.” Her breath was warm against his neck.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened with your alarm system? Because I have to tell you, those two things put together like that, give me a really bad feeling.”

  She relaxed more into his body, then rested her forehead on his chest for a moment before looking back up at him. “I never put those two things together. Do you really think they have something to do with one another? Because when I talked to the guys at my alarm company, they wanted to upsell me on a new system. They wanted me to get cameras around the house. They said they couldn’t be sure if it was a person trying to break in or an animal who had tripped the window alarm, so I should upgrade.”

  Who in the hell had she talked to, Bert and Ernie?

  “Did they send you a report?”

  “Yeah, it’s in my e-mail along with the estimate for the alarm upgrades.”

  “Why don’t we go have a look at those along with getting some food?”

  Chapter 7

  Jill bit her nail as she read over Law’s shoulder. He made her entire workspace look small as he sat at her desk. Darn it, there had been more to the report than she’d realized. Law pushed back from the desk, looked at her, and frowned.

  She sighed. “In my defense, after living in downtown Houston, it just never entered my head that there would be any real issues living in a gated community here in Perfectville.”

  “You want to run that by me again?”

  “Seriously, Lawson. Lorraine lived here in this little corner of Laguna Niguel for ten years, I never once heard of anything more serious than mail being stolen and that was just some high school kids. This place is locked up tighter than a drum.”

  She felt energy pumping off him in waves. It wasn’t the type of energy that she’d had in mind when she’d changed her sheets earlier in the day.

  “Combine this with the guy who was casing the place, and you have a problem.”

  Jill sat down on the other chair in the room she’d turned into her office. “But why this house? It’s not the most expensive one here. Heck, it’s not even the most expensive one on the block. This makes no sense.”

  The only thing that seemed to be going right was that she remembered to turn off the oven. She hated the idea that she was being targeted.

  “It’s going to be all right,” Law assured her as he got up from his chair and held out his hand.

  “What?”

  “I’m hungry. You promised me food. You promised me beer,” he cajoled. “We’ll get this taken care of, don’t worry.”

  She let him pull her up and followed him into the kitchen.

  “Something smells good in here.”

  “Potato skins with cheese and bacon. But because you’re also health-conscious, I have a platter of veggies to offset it. Of course, the lime offsets the calories in the Beck’s beer.”

  “A woman after my own heart,” he smiled.

  She went about serving up the food and the beer.

  “I’m hoping to take you out tonight,” he said midway through the first beer.

  “I was thinking about staying in tonight. That is, if you’re up for grilling the steaks I bought later on.”

  He gave her a long look. “I could be up for that.”

  She sighed as she put her beer down and pushed her plate away from her. “I think there’s another problem besides the guy who came to my door and the alarm going off.”

  Law set his beer down and looked at her.

  “Okay, hit me.”

  “Remember Lesley from the Grief Sessions at the rec center?”

  He nodded.

  “She called today. She wanted me to write a testimonial and then she mentioned a man trying to get ahold of me. He’s the husband of a former member of the group, so she gave him my name and contact info.”

  Law sat up straighter.

  “She told him where you lived?” His voice was sharp.

  “No. At least I don’t think so. She didn’t mention that. I’m pretty sure she just gave him my name and number. Anyway, I think that I might have deleted his messages.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Jill gave a frustrated sigh.

  “Look, I get a heck of a lot of spam coming to my voicemail. I don’t listen to messages that come in from numbers I don’t recognize, I just read the voice-to-text messages. If they aren’t able to translate, I delete them. It’s how I weed stuff out. Maybe his got deleted. It just seems suspicious that all of this is coming together at the same time, don’t you think?”

  “Who is he the husband of?” Law asked.

  “A woman named Angela Smith. She lost her two-year-old son, Richard. She was new to the area. We both arrived early a couple of times to the session, and I found out she was living in a month-to-month a
partment working as a maid. I felt sorry for her. I tried to take her out to a meal, but you could tell she was too proud. The last night she was in town, I saw her at the local bus stop with two suitcases. I talked her into letting me give her a ride to the downtown Greyhound station. She said she was going to Arizona. I asked for her cell phone number, I’ve called and left a couple of messages, but she hasn’t called me back. I hope she’s okay.”

  “Transient. Last name Smith. Husband looking for her. I’d say that’s the connection.”

  Jill bit her thumbnail and realized it was down to the quick and winced. “It’s worse than that. Lesley said he’d hired a private investigator to find her. I’d say it’s a sure thing. Lesley said his last name was Mazur.”

  Dammit. This was not how he’d been anticipating tonight to go. He’d definitely gotten the vibe that Jill wanted him to stay at her place for the night—instead, they were at his house, playing with his computer set-up.

  Fuck me.

  Clancy, the communications and computer expert from his team, was in Montana hunting with his father, so he couldn’t tap him. Instead, he reached out to his buddy on the Night Storm team, Kane McNamara. The man was a genius when it came to computers and getting information. There was only one drawback; he was one of Ash’s best friends. That meant that soon his brother would be up his ass wanting to know who in the hell Jill was.

  “So why aren’t we going to the police again?” Jill asked for the second time.

  He looked at his laptop, his computer tower, and widescreen monitor. He didn’t have anything against the set-up at her house, except it wasn’t exactly what you would call secure. Meanwhile he, and every other special forces person he knew, might be somewhat paranoid. However, nobody was as bad as his teammate, Alan.

  Alan had been shopping at a big box store and paid cash for his transaction. By the time he was out in the parking lot, there was a coupon from that same store, on his phone for a shop-vac. Which was crazy scary, since he had been considering buying one of those week before. Alan made everyone in his family get new phones and he quit that cell phone provider. As for him, now he only used a satellite phone. Clancy couldn’t convince him it was a coincidence. He told Alan that if it had been for a big-ticket item like a riding lawn mower, then he should worry.

  “The guy I’m asking for help will get us answers a lot sooner than the cops can. What’s more, Kane will be focused only on your problem,” Law assured her.

  “Doesn’t he have a real job?”

  “Yeah. But when one of ours is in trouble, he’ll make time.”

  Jill stopped looking around his makeshift office and looked him in the eye. “And I’m now one of you?”

  Shit. He hadn’t meant to just come out and say that. They hadn’t even slept together. He hadn’t made his claim yet.

  I guess I just did.

  He reached out his hand for her, and she stepped toward him. He drew her down onto his lap. “Jill, I don’t know how you feel, but I got to tell you, you mean a hell of a lot to me.” He pushed one of her wayward dark curls behind her ear and stroked his finger along her cheek to the corner of her lip. “I want to protect you.”

  Her eyes dilated.

  “You do?” she whispered.

  His thumb slid along her bottom lip as he wrapped his arm around her back and held her closer.

  “Oh, yeah. Taking care of you has become one of the most important things in my world.”

  Jill shivered. Everything that was feminine inside her melted at his words, but her brain worried.

  “Lawson, you know you can’t be responsible for another person, don’t you?”

  He clutched her closer. “I can damn well try. I can do it right this time.”

  Jill closed her eyes and rested her forehead on his chest as she snuggled closer. Her heart was close to breaking for this good, strong man. He hadn’t told her the story of Xavier, but she’d known he’d harbored guilt, and this proved it.

  “Ash tried to tell me that he was the one who should have seen the signs. That he should’ve been able to stop him.” Law’s low laugh sounded anguished. “He’s so wrong. It was me. I was the last one to talk to Xave.”

  Jill curled her hand around the back of Law’s neck. It was warm and damp to the touch. God, she wanted to bring him solace, but she knew the best thing she could do was to get him to talk and then listen.

  “You’ve never really told me about Xavier.” Jill didn’t say anything else, she just waited.

  “Xave never talked about it. It wasn’t until after he was gone that Ash and I dug it up. We had to figure it out, ya know?”

  Jill nodded. When he didn’t continue, she realized he didn’t see her because he was staring off into space. “I know. So, what did you find out?”

  “The mission was classified, so nobody was supposed to know exactly what happened for him to get the medal, but Ash’s SEAL team buddy, Kane got the file. Xavier was recce. He liked it that way. Hell, that’s what he did for Ash and me whenever we pulled some prank as kids.”

  “What’s recce?”

  “Reconnaissance and surveillance. He would scout out ahead for his team. Keep them safe. He’d take care of any problems so that the rest of the team could have safe passage.”

  “Got it.”

  “They were tasked to take a hill. Goddamn hills will get you killed because the enemy has the high ground. But Xavier had his buddy, Tom. They’d been together since boot camp, and they were up for the job. But it ended up being a trap. They didn’t know it, but they’d been sold out by one of the Afghan fighters. He’d arranged for the Taliban to take the team’s flank, so while Xavier and Tom were hundreds of meters ahead of the rest of the group, the Taliban was sneaking up behind their team.”

  Jill had heard about the loyalty and fierceness of the Afghan fighters, and she couldn’t believe they had betrayed Xavier and his men. “What happened next?”

  “Since Xavier and Tom were a sniper team, they made their way back down the hill and started to pick off the Taliban, but then they started getting shot at from the enemy at the top of the hill. It was a bloody mess. A medevac couldn’t come in with all the Taliban snipers. Xavier and Tom kept them at bay for five hours. During a lull at three a.m., Xavier went hunting. He climbed up the hill and took out the four men on the top of the hill. When that was done, he and Tom made their way to the rest of the team who had been trapped. Tom started giving aid to the wounded and called in the medevac, while Xavier and two others took off to finish off the men who’d ambushed them from below. By the time the helicopter arrived, all members of the Taliban were dead. So was half of Xavier’s unit. All because they were sold out.”

  Jill thought she might throw up.

  “He never talked about it. Rumors spread all through the Spec Ops community that it had been a goddamn massacre. Xave came out without a scratch on him. It was a goddamn miracle, and I know, I just know, it made him feel so much worse. It didn’t matter that he was responsible for saving his team members who did live.” His voice trailed off. Once again, he was staring off into space. He shuddered.

  “Then it got worse,” he whispered.

  “What happened?”

  “Ash and I insisted on a deep-sea fishing trip in the Gulf. Some of his team came along. Ash and I thought that would be good. It wasn’t. Xavier never got a chance to pay for one drink. They treated him like the second coming. I remember thinking how cool that was that they were so grateful to my brother the hero.”

  His voice was bitter.

  “Now I realize he was distanced from the very men he should have been able to look to for support.”

  Jill could feel the tension in Law’s muscles and the anger in his voice.

  “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  Law took a moment, then his electric blue eyes were staring down at her. He nodded.

  “I was the last one to talk to him.” His whispered words were anguished. “Jill, I’ve researched it. He did all the classic
shit. He was mirroring what he needed. He kept picking at me, wanting to know if I was okay. Wanting to know if there was anything wrong, if there was anything I needed to talk about.”

  His eyes shimmered with tears. She cupped his face.

  “And?”

  “I actually laughed and flipped him shit. I said I was fine and told him to get a life.” He choked out those last words.

  Jill thought her heart would break. She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. To his cheek. On his brow. Then she pulled back and looked at him.

  “Love, you didn’t know what you didn’t know. Would you want Xavier hurting this badly for something he didn’t understand?” She gripped his big shoulders, her fingers digging in. “Would Xavier want you in this much pain? Would he want you holding onto this much guilt?”

  “I don’t care what he would have wanted.” Law’s voice shook. A tear broke loose. “I want him here so I can kick his ass.”

  Law took a deep breath, and gave a semblance of a smile. “That’s so not true. I just want him here and happy. Or I want him somewhere, happy and at peace. Jill, there was nobody better, and he deserved to have the best life had to offer.”

  Law’s shoulders sagged and his head dropped. Jill had a tough time hearing his words. “He deserved to have a better brother.”

  She pushed his chin up. “Have you ever thought that maybe his last thoughts were with you? Maybe instead of a cry for help, his conversation with you was exactly what it was, a big brother who was checking up on his little brother. An act of love and caring. He loved you, Law. You know this, don’t you?”

  His jaw clenched and he nodded.

  “Ash said Xave never knew how to bend, so the winds just kept coming at him until that day he shattered. Ash didn’t think he ever saw it coming, it just got to be too much for him one day.”

  “What do you think?” Jill asked.

  “I think Xavier was fighting and was in a lot of pain, but at his core, he was a protector. If he had an idea that he was coming to a point that he would kill himself and leave all of us this hurt and devastated he would have done anything to get himself help. He would have wanted to save us from this hurt. But his demons blindsided him.”