by Tawny Weber
He was a good foot away, and they weren’t touching. But Harper felt an intimacy with him that she couldn’t remember ever experiencing before. Not with any man.
It was as if nothing she could do or say would surprise him. As if he were looking inside her and knew her deepest secrets, her every wish.
Above that, he seemed to have an air of honor about him. Something he clearly valued, since he’d embedded the word itself in his flesh.
Who knew she’d find that so incredibly sexy?
When they stepped into the kitchen, with a single wave of his hand he invited her to take over.
“Milk’s in the fridge. The glasses are a mystery.” His eyes were gleaming in the light in a way that made her think of Aztec gold. Rich, compelling, dangerous.
“Since I’d rather Nathan didn’t start drinking straight from the carton before he’s a teenager, why don’t I see what I can do,” she murmured.
She stared into those hypnotic eyes for just a second longer, images of pagan dances, bonfires and naked bodies filling her head.
Then she turned away. And just like that, the haze lifted.
But it didn’t leave completely.
Even after she’d found the glasses, after she’d called her son, when Harper relaxed on the banquet seat, a soft cushion at her back and the sun warming her arms, it was there.
She couldn’t dismiss the sexual awareness that’d sparked between them. She knew it wasn’t one-sided. But here, in the sun-drenched kitchen with her son sitting between them, it was tucked away. She could see hints of it every once in a while when Diego glanced her way. She could feel the edges of it deep in her belly.
But it wasn’t front and center.
Nathan was.
And he reveled in it.
She’d never considered her son reserved. But he opened up even more with Diego. He talked longer, with more enthusiasm, about a wider variety of things. From baseball to math struggles, Chewbacca to swim lessons. They touched on the monsters in the closet, agreed that wearing ties sucked and debated whether Iron Man could beat the Hulk without Veronica.
She’d fight to the death anyone who claimed that her son was neglected in any way. But watching him with Diego, she had to admit that this was something she’d never given him. Never thought to give him.
A strong male influence.
And Diego was just as into the discussion as Nathan. He was just as interested, just as focused, just as involved.
Now even as her mind worried over the implications, her heart sighed.
* * *
RAMSEY WAS DEAD. He had to be.
And Diego was damned tired of sitting around watching for a dead guy. Especially while lusting after his ex. He should be on base, training. Or on a mission, doing. Not lounging around a luxury house in freaking Santa Barbara with nothing to do but peek over the fence or stare at monitors all day.
How long was he supposed to watch a house where nothing was happening? Diego wasn’t sure which was going to push him over the edge, frustration or boredom. He was sure that he wasn’t suited for inaction, and that suburbia—even wealthy suburbia—was its own sort of hell.
It’d only been yesterday that Harper and the kid had come by with their container of cookies, but the kid had been back a few times. As appealing as he was, it was the mom who filled Diego’s thoughts.
Diego paced from one end of the house to the other, each time stopping to check the monitors, to take a look out the window. This was stupid. Crazy. The most useless assignment he’d ever had.
Five days, he’d been in Santa Barbara watching the house next door. And other than cookies and some impressively carnal fantasies about the blonde, he didn’t have a damned thing to show for it. He’d talked to the kid, learned that Nathan, while entertaining and fun, had no information on his father to share and didn’t seem to care one way or the other. And, sure, he’d had a couple of conversations with Harper. But other than realizing that he enjoyed her company, that they had the same taste in music, that she could make him laugh and that she was one hell of a mom, he hadn’t learned anything from them.
Nothing that’d solve a single one of the Ramsey-related questions.
Not a damned thing that’d help get him out of suburbia and back into the action. The sort of action he knew how to handle.
So it was no wonder his mood was pure crap when he heard the doorbell chime. Diego debated ignoring it for about a half second, then shoved his hand through his hair, tugged his worn T-shirt to make sure he was fully covered and headed for the door.
When he threw it open, some of the tension dropped and a wide grin covered his face.
“Hey, there,” he greeted.
Guilt? Should he feel guilt? If a teammate’s ex was off-limits, what was the rule on falling for the guy’s kid? Because as far as Diego could tell, Nathan Maclean was irresistible.
“Hey, Diego. Can I hang out? I told Mom I was gonna come see if you wanted company. She’s talking on the phone to some lady in New York, but she said I could hang out with you if you didn’t mind.” Big blue eyes gazed up at him with an appealing blend of curiosity and laughter. “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Want to hang out?” Nathan laughed. He held out his baseball, the worn red laces a contrast to the grass staining the leather. “We can play catch, maybe. Or I can help you if you’re working. I help my mom sometimes. She lets me sort things and use her drawing table, and once in a while she lets me use the computer. She has this cool program that has, like, rooms in it and furniture and stuff that you can pick out and color and arrange on the screen. I decorated a houseboat and a castle, and once she made it look like a spaceship, even.”
Were his ears ringing? Diego smacked one hand on the side of his head to check his hearing.
“So what do you say?” Nathan prompted.
What could he say? Hey, kid, you’re a lot of fun and great to hang out with. By the way, do you have any tips on where your father might be and if he’s dead or alive? Oh, and what’re your mother’s views on treason and one-night stands?
All valid questions, all at the top of his mind.
Unable to answer that, or resist the big-eyed stare, Diego opened the door wide and waved the boy inside.
“Do you want to play pool?” Nathan asked as they crossed the foyer. “I’m pretty good. Mr. Lowenstein said so. Or maybe you wanna help me practice my fastball? Mom’s good with regular catch, but not so much with pitching. I really need some help.”
“Do ya?”
“Yeah.” The small face lost some of its usual animation as Nathan’s shoulders drooped. “Some of the kids, they made fun of me for wanting to be pitcher cuz I’m too young. They said I was dumb and didn’t stand a chance.”
Little jerks. Diego hadn’t wanted to beat on a bunch of kids since he’d been one, but he did now. But given that he’d learned the hard way that violence rarely changed anyone’s mind, he figured there was a better way to get back at the mouthy brats.
“You just need to practice,” he replied. “C’mon. I’ll help.”
“Really?” Nathan’s face lit right back up. “Can you make me good enough for next season, d’ya think?”
Unless it was an explosive, Diego couldn’t say he’d had a lot of practice throwing things. But he’d be damned if anyone was going to steal the kid’s dreams.
“Let’s see what we can do,” he said, tilting his head in the direction of the backyard.
“You’re good, kid,” Diego complimented ten minutes later. The boy had one hell of an arm on him. “Who taught you to pitch?”
There, he thought, crouching low to catch the ball. A normal question that anyone would ask. And given the kid’s propensity for running off at the mouth, Diego figured it’d net him all he needed to know about Ramsey�
�s haunts, where the family hung out, possible vacation spots. Enough intel to move on and get the hell out of suburbia.
“My mom mostly plays catch with me, but my friend Jeremy’s dad helps, too. He’s okay. Not as good as Coach Peabody, though. He can throw a fastball and a curveball and he’s got this wicked cool hook ball that I wanna learn so bad. Mom said it takes practice, though. Why does everything take practice?”
The kid had excellent hand-to-mouth coordination, managing to get four pitches into Diego’s glove during his recital.
“What about your dad?” Diego asked directly, since the circular route hadn’t worked. “I’ll bet he’s taught you a lot, right?”
The little face closed up.
“I don’t have a dad.”
“Everyone’s got a father,” Diego said as he tossed the ball back. When Nathan missed, the ball bounced between his high-tops before rolling across the lawn. The boy’s jaw worked as he grabbed it.
“I said I don’t have one.” Blue eyes swimming as he lifted his trembling chin, Nathan stared at the ball. Struggling for control, Diego realized.
Could he be a bigger asshole? Diego tried to find something that’d clear the tears out of the boy’s eyes.
“My dad was a real jerk,” he heard himself saying. “He wasn’t around much when I was growing up, and when he was, he was pretty useless. He caused a lot of trouble, hurt my mom a lot. To tell you the truth, I was usually glad when he wasn’t around. It made life easier.”
“Yeah?” Nathan gave a shaky sigh. “Mine was never around. But I’m pretty sure he was a jerk, too.”
Past tense. Pretty sure he was lower than the slugs in the flower bed, Diego forced himself to keep pushing.
“Was he mean to you? Or to your mom?”
“I dunno.” Narrow shoulders hanging low enough to dim his bright blue shirt, Nathan shrugged. “I never knew him, and he’s gone now, so it doesn’t matter. I used to wish...”
“What’d you wish?” Diego asked quietly, moving forward to sit on the brick wall so he was closer to eye level with the boy.
“I used to wish I had a dad. I pretended he was a hero who’d gone away to save the planet or fight Baron Zemo or something. But I know better now,” Nathan said, wiping the back of his hand under his nose. “I know he was just a jerk. Jeremy’s dad says Jeremy is a chip off the whole block. Does that mean I’ll be a jerk?”
He should push for facts. Dig deeper. But looking into that crumpled face, Diego couldn’t bring himself to make the kid feel worse.
“You know, sometimes people let us down and it’s easy to let that disappointment make us feel bad about ourselves. I did that when my dad let me down. I thought I was like him, that I should be like him because it was because of him that I was born, you know?” Diego thought back to the many ways his father had influenced his early choices, and he shook his head.
“I finally learned that I have to do what I think is right for me. Not because it was what I thought my old man would do or even because I figured it was the opposite of what he’d do.” With those big blue eyes watching him as if he had all the answers, Diego searched for something wise to offer. “It’s easy to be mad, or to think you have to prove something. But the only person you have to prove anything to is yourself. If you think what you’re doing is right for you but it’s not selfish, if you figure it’s the sort of thing a hero would do, that the man you want to grow up to be would do, then I don’t think you have to worry about being a jerk.”
Nathan seemed to be processing all of that with deep concentration. Then he tilted his head to the side. “Do you think getting a kitten is right for me? Is that selfish? Cuz I think my mom could use the love and cuddles a kitten would give her, too. Is that okay?”
“Not gonna touch that one, kid,” Diego said with a laugh, admiring the way the kid stuck to his guns.
“Okay. We can throw the ball a little more, right?” Nathan moved back into his pitching stance, eyes glinting with a hint of his usual spark as he waited for Diego to get into place.
“So you learned all that hard stuff, right?” Nathan asked after they’d tossed it back and forth a few more times. “Are you a hero?”
“Me?” Horrified, Diego shook his head. “No way. I’m just a guy who learned that even when it’s not easy, I need to do what’s right.”
“Like Captain America?”
Diego almost pointed out that Captain America was Army, not Navy. Then he remembered why he was there.
So he carefully steered the conversation back to easy topics like superheroes, comic books and movies.
By the time Harper stepped out her back door twenty minutes later, the boy was back on an even keel. Diego wasn’t, though. He should have pushed harder for information on Ramsey. Even if the kid didn’t realize he had it, he might still know something.
“Nathan. Dinnertime.”
Still in a crouch, Diego looked over his shoulder to see Harper waving her son home. Her gaze skittered over him as she offered a friendly smile, but she didn’t move past the doorway.
Nathan was talking about a mile a minute as he danced around Diego while they walked to the gate between the backyards. The sun was setting, the air cool and soft as the scent of the honeysuckle plant growing over the fence.
“Mom’s making homemade pizza tonight. Wanna have some? She doesn’t mind when I have friends over for dinner.”
Diego’s gaze slid to the glass-backed wall of Harper’s house, tracking the sexy blonde as she worked in her kitchen. He wanted some, all right. But not pizza. And nothing he could nibble on in front of the kid.
“Nah. I’ve got work to do.”
Diego grinned at the skeptical look in Nathan’s eyes as the boy glanced from him to the house to the setting sun. Damned if the kid wasn’t too smart for his own good.
“I’m designing a security system. I can do the first part of it here working on my computer,” he explained.
“Oh. Kind of like how I decorate a spaceship on my mom’s computer?”
“Yeah, kinda like that.” Then, ignoring the guilt, Diego added, “We’ll have to sit down with your mom’s computer soon and check out all of your designs.”
With that and a couple more tosses of the ball, the boy skipped and waved his way inside. Diego didn’t need a listening device to know he was filling the kitchen with chatter about their visit.
He didn’t need a warning, either, that he was stepping over a line here that he had no business touching.
If all he was doing was pumping the kid for intel, that’d be fine. It’d mean he was doing his job. His job wasn’t to build up the child’s confidence or make him feel okay about his father being a jerk.
If all he was feeling for the sexy blonde was lust, he’d be okay. But watching Harper hug her son, watching her face light with laughter and seeing that sweetly curved body, he knew the tightness in his gut was teetering on a lot more than lust.
And it was mixed with a healthy dose of self-contempt.
CHAPTER EIGHT
COVERT OPS, STEALTH and clandestine surveillance were precise skills that merged perfectly together.
And Diego was trained in them all.
Covert Ops, spy craft and upscale suburban neighborhoods?
He was so completely out of his element.
“Come in, Kitty Cat” came Lansky’s voice through the communicator.
“Torres here,” Diego confirmed. “You got anything new?”
“That’d be an affirmative. Got three phone calls made to the house next door. All three from different numbers registered on the Coronado Naval Base. First two lasted fifteen seconds, third was three minutes.”
Shit.
Still...
“You think Ramsey, a man presumed dead who, if he isn’t wants us to believe he
is, is hanging out on base? Not possible.”
“Why don’t you tell me what it means, then?”
Diego wished he could, but he had no idea. None. Who on base would call Harper? And why?
“That’s your job to figure out,” he said, tossing it back at Lansky. “I’m here doing my job.”
“You’ve been there a week and you have jack shit,” Lansky said. Since his voice was coming through the pencil-eraser-size mini-communicator tucked in Diego’s ear, it was like having the guy’s bitching and moaning echoing through his brain.
“You have a better plan? Should I don camo, slick my face with war paint and hop the back freaking fence? You think I need to suit up in body armor, strap on an M67 grenade or two and maybe storm the French doors?”
Yeah, right.
“Better than kicking back in a cushy spread, downing gourmet eats and playing Peeping Tom.”
“As opposed to holing up in a dive poking into a few computer files between watching porn and downing the brewskis.”
Which Diego knew had to be frustrating as hell for a man who depended on action to keep his demons at bay. Still, even knowing that, Diego didn’t manage to get a grip on his irritation before the words snapped out.
Telling himself anger wasn’t going to help, he forced a couple of deep, cleansing breaths. He’d worked too hard, too long, to put rigid confines on his temper to let it shred over minor irritation. Especially when he knew Lansky was goading him, pushing for a reaction.
Besides, losing control tended to piss him off. So he took another couple of breaths, then said in a neutral, even tone, “Savino’s orders were clear. Until he rescinds or amends my assignment, I’m following it to the letter. Doing otherwise, that’s what landed us here.”
“A greedy asshole with an aircraft-carrier-sized ego, no loyalty and a dick attitude is what landed us here.” The sound of Lansky grinding his teeth came through loud and clear.
Diego got it. He had the same frustration pounding through him. He closed his eyes, rubbing the ache between them, and reminded him that Savino expected him to keep his head. To stay on track.
