“I’ve never been barhopping,” she admitted, mostly to fill the pause in the conversation. “I always thought it sounded so exotic.”
“Actually, it can be pretty depressing,” Luke told her as the light turned green and he focused on the road again, thank God. “I’ve been barhopping with the other single guys from Alpha Squad. Mostly Bobby and Wes. Although occasionally their buddy Quinn would come along. The Wizard. He’s married—you know, to Lana—which never sat quite right with me, because our goal was to cruise the clubs, looking to pick up college girls. But I didn’t really know him, didn’t really know Lana—I figured it was none of my business.”
“God,” Syd said. “Did she know?”
Luke shook her head. “No. Quinn used to say that they had an arrangement. He wouldn’t tell her and she wouldn’t find out. Wes used to get so mad at him. One night he actually broke Quinn’s nose.”
“Wes is Bobby’s swim buddy, right?” Syd thought about the SEAL she’d met for the first time tonight. He was bigger than she’d imagined from the way Luke had described him. Something about him had been disturbingly familiar. When he’d slammed into her on his way out of the party…
“Bob and Wes are the best example of a two-man team I’ve ever seen,” Luke told her, the muscles in his thigh flexing as he braked to make a right turn into a crowded restaurant parking lot. “They’re good operators separately, but together—it’s like instead of getting two regular guys, you’re getting two super men. They know each other so well, they play off of each other perfectly—they anticipate each other’s every move. They’re remarkably efficient.”
“Bobby knows Wes really well, then, I guess,” Syd said.
“Probably better than Wes knows himself.”
“And Bobby’s certain Wes couldn’t be—” She cut herself off, realizing how awful her words sounded. Just because he was broad-shouldered and wore his hair exactly like the man they were looking for….
Luke parked his truck, then pushed her slightly away from him, turning to face her, to look penetratingly into her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“It was weird,” she admitted. “When he bumped into me…It was like déja` vu.”
“Wes isn’t our guy.” Luke was adamant.
She couldn’t help herself. “Are you sure? Are you absolutely positive?”
“Yes. I know him.”
“There was something about him….” And then sheknew. “Luke, he smelled like the guy on the stairs.”
“Smelled?”
“Yeah, like stale cigarettes. Wes is a smoker, right?”
“No. Last year Bobby made Wes quit. He used to be a smoker, but—”
“Sorry, he’s smoking again. Maybe not in front of anybody, but he’s definitely smoking, even if it’s only on the sly. It was faint, but I could smell it. He smelled just like the man we’re looking for.”
Luke shook his head. “Wes isn’t our guy,” he said again. “No way. I can’t—I won’t accept that.”
“What if you’re wrong?” she asked. “What if you find out that all this time he’s been right here, right under our noses?”
“I’m not wrong,” Luke said tightly. “I know this man. You didn’t see him at his best tonight, but I know him, all right?”
It wasn’t all right, but Syd wisely kept her mouth shut.
Chapter 9
“So here’s the scenario,” Syd said as Luke opened the door, letting her into the quiet coolness of his house. “You’re the only man inside an enemy stronghold when a battle, what do you call it, a firefight starts. Your team is being pushed back. You’re outnumbered and outgunned. Do you fight or flee?”
He locked the door behind them, the sound of the deadbolt clicking into place seeming to echo around them.
They were here.
Together.
Alone.
For the night.
Syd’s lips were still warm from the last time he’d kissed her—at a bar called Shaky Stan’s. He’d kissed her at the Mousehole, too, and at Ginger’s, and at the Shark’s Run Grill as well. In fact, they’d kissed their way pretty much clear across San Felipe’s waterfront district.
Syd had tried to keep the kisses short. She’d tried desperately to keep from melting in his arms. But far too often, she’d failed.
If they were truly moving in together, after that series of temperature-raising kisses, there was no way in hell either of them would still have their clothes on within five seconds of Luke’s locking that door.
Aware of that fact, with her clothes firmly on, Syd kept talking, posing one of her military scenarios. She wasn’t allowed to ask any of the SEALs specific questions about their operations, but she could pose hypotheticals. And she did, as often as possible.
“What’s inside this hypothetical stronghold?” he asked, tossing his keys onto a small table near the front door. “Is this a rescue mission or an info-gathering op?”
“Rescue mission,” she decided. “Hostages. There are hostages inside. Hostaged children.”
He gave her a comically disbelieving look as he moved to the thermostat and adjusted the setting so that the air conditioning switched on. That was good. It was too still in here, too warm. The AC would get the air moving, make it a little less stuffy. A little less…sultry.
“Make it impossibly difficult, why don’t you?” he said.
He went into the kitchen, and she followed. “I’m just trying to provide a challenge.”
“Okay, great.” He opened the refrigerator and scowled at the cluttered shelves. “If we’ve been sent in to rescue hostaged children, you better believe we’ve been given a direct order not to fail.” He reached in behind a gallon of milk and pulled out a container that looked as if it held iced tea. “Want some?”
Syd nodded, leaning against the door frame. “Thanks.”
She watched as he took two tall glasses from a cabinet and filled them with ice.
“So,” she said, mostly to fill the silence. “What do you do in that situation?”
He turned to look at her. “We don’t fail.”
She had to laugh. “You want to be a little more specific?”
“I’m inside, right?” he said, pouring the tea over the ice in the glasses. “Alone. But I’ve got radio contact with my men outside. I guess what I do is, I use stealth and I find the enemy’s points of vulnerability from inside. And then I let my team know when and where to attack. Then I find and protect the hostages, and wait for the rest of my team to come get us all out.” He handed her the glass. “Lemon? Sugar?”
“Black is fine,” she said. “Thanks.”
God, this was weird. This man leaning against the counter in his kitchen had spent a good portion of the evening exploring the inside of her mouth with his tongue. And now they were having a refreshing glass of iced tea and a casual, impersonal chat about military strategies.
She wondered if he knew how badly she was dying for him to kiss her again. For real, this time. Inwardly she rolled her eyes. Like that would ever happen.
It was amazing really. It had only been a matter of days since Luke had first kissed her, just a few feet away from where they were standing, on the deck outside this very kitchen. They’d stood there as virtual strangers, and he’d made the wrong choice. Instead of trying to win her friendship, he’d tried to control her through his powerful sexual appeal. Little did he know that would almost entirely ruin his chances at ever becoming her friend.
Almost, but not entirely.
And somewhere, somehow, over the past few days, Luke had redeemed himself.
So now they stood here as friends. And now Syd actually wanted him to kiss her.
Except now that they were friends, he had no reason to kiss her.
“So,” she said, trying desperately to fill the silence. “Tell me…why did you join the SEALs?”
Luke didn’t answer right away. He finished stirring lemon and a small mountain of sugar into his iced tea, rinsed the spoon in the sink
and put it neatly into the dishwasher. Then he picked up his glass, and went back into the living room, gesturing with his head for Syd to follow.
So she followed him. Right over to a wall that was filled with framed photographs. She’d noticed them the last time she was here. Pictures of Luke as a child, his sun-bleached hair even lighter than it was now. Pictures of young Luke with his arms around a chubby, dark-haired little girl. Pictures of Luke with a painfully thin blond woman who had to be his mother. And pictures of young Luke with a dark-haired, dark complexioned man.
He pointed now to the pictures of the man.
“This,” he said, “is Isidro Ramos. He’s why I joined the SEALs.”
Syd looked more closely at the photograph. She could see the warmth in the man’s eyes, one arm looped around young Luke’s shoulder. She could see the answering adoration on the boy’s smiling face. “Who is he?” she asked.
“Was,” he told her, sitting down on the couch, taking a sip from his iced tea and stretching his legs out on the coffee table.
Syd knew him well enough by now to know his casualness was entirely feigned. In truth he was on edge. But was it the topic of conversation he was having trouble with—or her presence here?
“Isidro died when I was sixteen,” he said. “He was my father.”
His…? Syd did a double take. No way could a man that dark have had a son as fair as Luke.
“Not my biological father,” he added. “Obviously. But he was my father far more than Shaun O’Donlon ever bothered to be.”
Syd sat down on the other end of the couch. “And he’s why you joined the SEALs?”
He turned and looked at her. “You want the long or the short story?”
“Long,” she said, kicking off her sandals and tucking her feet up underneath her. “Start at the beginning. I want to hear it all. Why don’t you start when you were born. How much did you weigh?”
As long as they kept talking, they wouldn’t have to deal with such awkward topics as where she should sleep. Or rather, where she should pretend to sleep. She couldn’t imagine being able to sleep at all, God help her, knowing Luke was in bed in the next room.
“You’re kidding, right?” She shook her head and he laughed.
“Nine pounds, fourteen ounces. My mother was five feet two. She used to tell me I was nearly as big as she was at the time.” He paused for a moment, looking up at the photographs. “My mother was pretty fragile,” he said quietly. “You can’t really tell from these pictures, because she was so happy with Isidro. The day he died, though, she pretty much gave up. She pretended to keep going, to try to fight her bad health for Ellen’s—my sister’s—sake. But it was a losing battle. Don’t get me wrong,” he added. “I loved her. She just…she wasn’t very strong. She’d never been strong.”
Syd took a sip of her tea, waiting for him to continue.
“Nineteen sixty-six wasn’t a good year for her,” he said, “considering her choices were to marry Shaun O’Donlon or have a baby out of wedlock. She was living in San Francisco, but she didn’t quite have the ‘flowers in her hair’ thing down—at least not in ’66. So she married Shaun in the shotgun wedding of the year, and I got the dubious honor of being legitimate. And—” he turned slightly so that he was facing her on the couch. “Are you really sure you want to hear all of this?”
“I’m interested,” she told him. “A lot can be revealed about a person simply by listening to them talk about their childhood.”
“If that’s the case, then where did you grow up?” he asked.
“New Rochelle, New York. My father is a doctor, my mother was a nurse before she quit to have us. Four kids, I’m the youngest. My brothers and sister are all incredibly rich, incredibly successful, with perfect spouses, perfect wardrobes and perfect tans, cranking out perfect grandkids for my parents right on schedule.” She smiled at him. “Note that I don’t seem to be on the family track. I’m generally spoken of in hushed tones. The black sheep. Serves them right for giving me a boy’s name.”
Luke laughed. She really liked making him laugh. The lines around his eyes crinkled in a way that was completely adorable. And his mouth…
She looked down into her tea to avoid staring at his mouth.
“Actually,” she confessed, “my family is lovely. They’re very nice—if somewhat clueless. And they’re quite okay and very supportive about my deviation from the norm. My mother keeps trying to buy me Laura Ashley dresses, though. Every Christmas, without fail. ‘Gee, thanks, Mom. In pink? Wow, you shouldn’t have. No, you really shouldn’t have,’ but next year, the exact same thing.”
Syd risked another glance at Luke. He was still laughing.
“So come on, finish up your story. Your father was a jerk. I think I know how it probably goes—he left before you turned two—”
“I wish,” Luke said. “But Shaun stayed until I was eight, sucking my mother dry, both emotionally and financially. But the year I turned eight, he inherited a small fortune from old Great-Uncle Barnaby, and he split for Tibet. My mother filed for divorce and actually won a substantial amount in the settlement. She bought a house in San Diego, and with the mortgage paid, she started working full time for a refugee center. This was back when people were leaving Central America in droves. That’s where she met Isidro—at the center.
“We had an extra apartment over our garage, back behind our house, and he was one of about six men who lived there, kind of as a temporary thing. I remember I was a little afraid of them. They were like ghosts, just kind of floating around, as if they were in shock. I realize now that they probably were. They’d managed to escape, but their families had all been killed—some right in front of their eyes. Isidro later told me he’d been out trading for gasoline on the black market, and when he came home, his entire town had been burned and everyone—men, women and children, even infants—had been massacred. He told me he was one of the lucky ones, that he actually was able to identify the bodies of his wife and children. So many people never knew, and they were left wondering forever if maybe their families were still back there, maybe their kids were still alive.”
His eyes were distant, unfocused. But then the condensation from his glass of iced tea dripped onto his leg, and he looked down and then over at Syd and smiled. “You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve talked about Isidro. Ellen used to like to hear about him, but I didn’t tell her too much of this darker stuff. I mean, the guy essentially had an entire life back in Central America before he even met my mother. He married her—my mother, I mean—so that he wouldn’t be deported. If he’d been sent back to his own country, he would’ve been killed.
“My mother sat the two of us—me and Isidro—down at the kitchen table and told us she was going to marry him.” Luke laughed, remembering. “He was completely against it. He knew she’d had to get married before, when she was younger. He told her she’d gotten married for the wrong reasons the first time, and that he wasn’t going to let her do that again. And she told him that marrying him so that he wouldn’t die was the best reason she could imagine. I think she was in love with him, even back then. She convinced him that she was right, they got married, and he moved out of the apartment over the garage and into our house.”
His mother had been pretty damn shrewd. She’d known what she wanted, and she’d gone about getting it. She’d known if she could get Isidro into her home, it wouldn’t be long before their marriage was consummated. And she’d been right on the money.
It was funny the way life seemed to go in circles, Lucky mused as he gazed at Syd, who was way, way down on the other end of the couch, as far away from him as she could possibly sit. Because here he was, playing the same game his mother had played. Pretending that he was acting out of some big-picture necessity, rather than from his own personal need.
Pretending that, oh, yeah, jeez, if he really had to, he’d cope with the inconvenience of having Sydney around all day and all night.
Yeah, right. Like he didn’t hop
e—the way his mother had hoped with Isidro—that the pressure from being with Syd constantly would trigger some kind of unavoidable and unstoppable sexual explosion. That sooner or later—if not tonight, then maybe tomorrow or the next day—Syd would push open his bedroom door with a crash and announce that she couldn’t stand it another minute, that she had to have him right now.
He laughed. Yeah, like that was really going to happen.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
He almost told her. Somehow he managed to shrug instead. “Ellen was born just about a year after their wedding. Their marriage turned pretty real pretty fast.”
She nodded, understanding, glancing up at the wall, at his mother’s picture. “The proximity thing. She was beautiful, and if she was in love with him…he probably didn’t stand a chance.”
“He used to talk to me about his other family,” Lucky remembered. “I think he probably didn’t say much about them to my mother, but I asked, and he needed to talk about them. I used to go with him to meetings where he would tell about these horrible human rights violations he’d witnessed in his home country. The things he saw, Syd, the things he could bear witness to…” He shook his head. “He told me to value my freedom as an American above all else. Every day he reminded me that I lived in a land of freedom, every day we’d hang an American flag outside our house. He used to tell me that he could go to sleep at night and be certain that no one would break into our house and tear us from our beds. No one would drag us into the street and put bullets in our heads simply for something we believed in. Because of him, I learned to value the freedom that most Americans take for granted.
“Isidro taught me a lot of things, but that was something that really stuck. Because he’d lived with that fear. Because his other family had been murdered.”
Syd was silent, just watching him.
“He became a naturalized citizen when I was thirteen years old,” he told her, letting himself lose himself a little bit in the softness of her eyes. “That’s one day of my life I’ll never forget. He was so proud of becoming a real American. And God!” He laughed. “That November, on election day! He took me and Ellen to the polls with him, so we could watch him vote. And he made us both promise—even though El could barely talk—that we would vote every chance we got.”
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