Always Ready

by Joanne Rock

  Damon steered her away from the slots to a back corner by the VIP rooms.

  “Are you allowed to tell me why you think he’s using matchmaking sites to meet women?” She couldn’t imagine Damon meant her site was involved.

  Clients at Connections didn’t pick one another’s profiles the same way they might at other, simplified sites that let members mingle in a glorified cyber bar scene. Connections couples only met because they were chosen to meet. They had compatibility on numerous levels.

  “I can’t tell you why.” He slung his arm around her as another couple emerged from one of the VIP rooms. The weight of Damon’s arm around her back drew her closer to his side, creating an intimate place to talk even amid the crowd, the blinking lights and endlessly ringing machines.

  “Connections uses excellent security—” She broke off, recalling the odd influx of cyber visitors from illicit sites. Could someone have breached the site security while her focus had been elsewhere? Had she been so preoccupied with the ninety-six-percent compatibility stat and figuring out why her system had failed that she’d missed one of the most obvious answers in the book?

  It wasn’t her system.

  It was a virus or some other form of cyber sabotage.

  “What?” Damon squeezed her at the waist, as if he could spur a response.

  “That security was excellent six months ago, but I guess that doesn’t mean it’s still good now. For that matter, I noticed some glitches in our site this morning. Do you know what this means if someone compromised the Connections Web site?”

  “It means you were coerced into meeting this guy, and you need to get out of the line of fire before he comes after you again.” Damon’s eyes were so dark, so wickedly intent that she almost felt sorry for any bad guy he’d ever faced.

  “Well, my first thought is that maybe the profiling system didn’t fail. Maybe the system was corrupted through tampering and my match with a criminal wasn’t the system’s fault at all.” The possibility shimmered before her like a mirage, a perfect, logical answer that needed confirmation but would be the answer to a whole lot of professional problems.

  “My God, I can’t believe you.” Damon released her waist, only to take her by the hand and pull her toward the exit.

  “Where are we going?” She tossed her coffee cup in a trash can as she struggled to keep up.

  He didn’t even bother looking back at her as he led her through the lobby toward the elevators.

  “I’m going to talk sense into you while I help you pack.”

  Chapter 11

  “THIS IS A HELL OF A TIME to check your e-mail, Lacey.” Damon had pulled her suitcase out the moment they entered her hotel room, but she’d sprinted toward her laptop as if her life depended on it.

  “I need answers about the security of our program. Do you realize I’ve been having a complete career meltdown over the false match my system gave me and the declining satisfaction surveys? I need to check—not just for my own peace of mind but to safeguard my clients.” Her fingers hammered the keyboard, flying over the letters as she typed.

  “You can do that on the plane.” Damon nudged the suitcase closer to where she sat on the bed, laptop in hand.

  She looked sexy as hell in her hot dress and crazy purple shoes. He even liked the little wire-rimmed glasses she’d slid onto her nose when she’d sat down, the lenses exaggerating the size of her eyes. Her whole get-up was a far cry from the clubbing clothes she’d worn last night and he wondered how many faces this woman had. Would he have uncovered more sides to her if he could have gotten to know her better? Longer? There was something chameleonlike about her personality, as though she enjoyed fitting in more than standing out. Although, now that he thought about it, the purple shoes weren’t exactly ordinary. She put a Lacey stamp on things, even if she tailored herself to suit the moment.

  “Damon.” She paused her manic typing. “My flight doesn’t leave until Sunday. Do you really think it’s necessary I run all the way home to Florida to avoid one man?” She gave him the over-the-glasses librarian glance. “It’s not like a whole army is searching for me. Or a gang.”

  “Did you hear the things I said about this guy?” He grabbed her bathing suit off the back of a nearby chair and tossed it on her suitcase, ready for her to pack.

  “Yes, I did. And I will change hotels again if you think it’s necessary, but I didn’t just come here for the hell of it, Damon. I’m having some kind of—I don’t know. Life reevaluation. And something about the sun and the relaxed attitude here is helping me heal some old insecurities.” She flipped the laptop screen to face him. “And I just received word that the blog I posted today about the sex club is the most viewed feature on the Connections Web site in over three months. How can I go home when I’m finally turning the tide on this badluck wave that’s been pulling me under for weeks?”

  Damon fisted his hand around a bright blue sweater he’d tugged off a hanger. Clearly, he wasn’t budging her without addressing her work issues first.

  He lowered himself to the bed next to her feet.

  “Why is this job so important to you?” He knew it went beyond a paycheck. “You carted that laptop on a blind date the first night we met, remember? Did you hope to sneak off to check your hit counter even then? Or write a blog about your date?”

  “I wasn’t working that night—”

  “And what about the sex club? You visited that place even though you knew it could be dicey going in since a drug dealer recommended the spot. But you wouldn’t back down because of your job. What gives?”

  She pursed her lips in a thin, flat line. Thinking? Fuming? He didn’t know. She was a tough woman to read.

  “First of all, I believe my business is important. That may amuse you. But I’ve seen the results when people who felt totally ‘undateable’ in the mainstream bar scene come to Connections and find someone to love who loves them back.”

  Pulling off her glasses, she folded them and set them on the computer keyboard.

  He was tempted to mention that while it was cool to help people fall in love, she could make the same contribution from anywhere. But she pinned him with her gaze and kept talking.

  “That was me at one time. ‘Undateable’ according to the popular-culture standard. I was overweight and developed a speech impediment because my genius twin always did all the talking and I didn’t have to. I was painfully shy because of both those things. I never learned how to flirt. Never even wanted to date since my mother married one man after another who turned out to be a loser.”

  Damon tried to see the woman she was describing and couldn’t reconcile the image with what he saw now. He’d thought maybe she was uptight about her job, but perhaps that was just natural defensiveness from someone who’d obviously worked hard to create a healthy dating world through her career.

  “What changed you?”

  “Stepfather number three tried to molest me when I was seventeen. He saw the weight problem and the speech issues and pegged me for an easy mark.”

  Anger poured through him at the picture she painted.

  “He thought wrong.”

  “Not really.” She shrugged, the old hurt rolling off her a hell of a lot easier than he could dismiss it. “I was insecure. My real father left when I was two, which I know now was a bruise on my heart throughout my whole childhood. But back then I hadn’t figured it out yet. I just felt quietly unworthy.”

  He shook his head, refusing to accept her words. Hating that she was made to feel that way. “What happened to the stepfather?”

  “Eventually he did a six-month jail term and paid off a massive civil suit from yours truly. But that was only after I fixed the speech problem, went to college and found myself under forty pounds of unhappiness.”

  He laid a hand on her ankle, needing to touch her. Connect with her.

  “So you went into this business to create a more comfortable forum for people who might have a tough time meeting people otherwise.” He could
appreciate that better now. And for the first time, he saw something more vulnerable inside her that hadn’t been apparent before.

  Scratch that. He saw something vulnerable in her that she guarded with her smarts and determination. And yeah, that was something to admire.

  “I liked thinking about what made couples a good fit. It was my way of rewriting my mother’s past, since I wished she’d chosen a husband who cared about her and shared her values instead of a cute guy with enough cash to buy her a few baubles.”

  She eyed him across the bed, her gaze dark with emotions. “It’s hard to see someone you love make one bad decision after another.”

  “I hear that.” He said it adamantly enough that he realized he needed to follow up with some kind of an explanation. And damn, but he hadn’t meant to go down that road anymore. Especially not with her.

  A woman he’d already grown to care about too much.

  She raised an eyebrow, her fingers slipping off the keyboard as she gave up any pretense of trying to work.

  “I had a girlfriend—“As he started the story, it occurred to him he’d never told it before. Not to anyone in his stoic, quiet clan, and not even to Enrique, who knew a few details by default since he’d been stationed at Kodiak Air Station in Alaska when Kelly had left. “My live-in, actually. She walked out on me while I was stationed in Alaska, deciding out of the blue we were incompatible and that she needed someone more party oriented like her.”

  Lacey nodded, setting aside the laptop altogether. “She was doing her compatibility profiling a little late in the game, wasn’t she?”

  “I think the time alone in the middle of an Alaskan winter got to her. But yeah, she decided I was too much of a workaholic, and found somebody more fun. Or so she thought.”

  “She wasn’t content with the next man, either?” Lacey frowned, and he could almost picture her inner matchmaker trying to compute why his relationship with Kelly didn’t add up.

  “I guess you could say that. After she called it quits with me, Kelly moved south with some pond scum of a guy who’d gotten her hooked on drugs and then booted her out.”

  Lacey’s eyes widened, clearly surprised at the turn the story had taken. Join the club. Maybe Damon should have been a little more careful about compatibility testing himself. And wasn’t that a realization?

  “Sometimes…” She cleared her throat and blinked. “Sometimes people have hurts that go far deeper than we can see on the surface.” She brushed her fingers along the back of his hand.

  Comforting. Wise.

  He tried to steel himself against the warmth he felt inside, but it was too damn late. Her words soothed a raw place inside him.

  “She had problems with her family—stuff I didn’t really think about until after she left.”

  “I’m sorry she put you through that. Would you—Do you think you would have taken her back?” she asked softly, studying his face as if she might find answers to questions she hadn’t asked yet.

  “I honestly don’t know.” He’d thought about it more than once. “I know part of what drove her away was my job. Alaska alone could drive anyone off the deep end.”

  Lacey was quiet for a long moment. “You loved her.”

  The key word being loved. Past tense.

  “Yeah, I did. But it’s a damn rare relationship that can survive the Coast Guard, let alone thrive.” He’d known that going in, but he’d taken a gamble with Kelly. A gamble that had hurt them both in the long run. “She’s not the first person driven to desperate measures by Alaskan weather, eighteen hours of dark and a roommate whose job pulls him out of the sack at 3:00 a.m. to search for sinking boats.”

  He shook his head to clear it of old crap. He ought to be thinking about how to get Lacey out of town instead of the woman he’d already failed.

  Still, Lacey didn’t look ready to leave anytime soon. She’d kicked her shoes off, oblivious to the suitcase he’d put on the end of the bed or the laptop beside her. Instead she gazed at him with understanding in her eyes, not judging him for driving a woman into drug addiction.

  How could he say goodbye to her right now when they were waist-deep in getting to know each other? The thought of losing his connection with her hurt more than he would have ever guessed.

  “But that’s ancient history.” He didn’t want to think about Kelly and all the ways he’d messed up in the past. “What about you? Anybody ever rip your heart out? Or have you managed to avoid that by only choosing guys you’re compatible with?”

  “Ha.” She shook her head. “I’d be a whole lot richer if that were the case.”

  Tugging at the clasp of a rhinestone bracelet, she frowned at the catch that seemed to be stuck. He leaned closer, taking over the task until the purple stones slid free. Leaving them face-to-face on the bed. Close enough to kiss.

  He dismissed the thought and straightened, unwilling to tangle his life with hers any more than necessary now that he knew she needed to leave. Soon. Memories of the briefing on Nick Castine left Damon with no doubt that the guy would come after Lacey again.

  He would drug her like he’d drugged those other women unless Damon made sure she was safe. Protected.

  “But I guess my heart has never really been all that broken,” she admitted, long after he’d asked the question.

  “Not really broken?” He had to laugh at that one. “It either is or it isn’t, babe. There’s no two ways about it.”

  She twined her fingers together and clenched her hands into a knot, a gesture that made him wonder if she wanted to touch him as badly as he wanted to touch her.

  “There’s a chance I might have held back a piece of myself to keep it safe,” she said softly, her words falling into place with the rest of what he knew about her.

  She wasn’t uptight so much as protective. She’d kept him at arm’s length all week except for when the chemistry had overpowered them both.

  Reaching for her hands, he gently pried her fingers apart and laced his own through hers.

  “I wish I was going to be there when you finally decide to let yourself go.” He raised the back of her hand to his lips and kissed the soft skin, knowing his chances to touch her were dwindling, their time together almost over.

  LACEY RECOGNIZED a goodbye when she heard one.

  No matter that Damon said all the right things about wishing he could have a relationship, the bottom line was he wanted her out of Puerto Rico. Besides, he had to have some unresolved feelings for his former fiancee if she was still calling him.

  That hurt. But maybe the pang she’d felt at discovering the identity of the woman who’d called Damon this morning was a clue that Lacey was in over her head. She should leave before things got any more serious with a man who wasn’t ready for more. Plus, with all that she now knew about Nicholas Castine, she agreed she needed to be cautious.

  Could she simply leave at a moment’s notice the way he wanted her to? Put her work second for a change? Her sister kept telling her she couldn’t allow her Web site to overshadow her whole life.

  Of course, her work had saved her in so many ways after being abandoned by her father and overlooked by her mother in favor of one crappy stepfather after another. But maybe it had already provided all the personal growth it could. Perhaps it was time to heal the rest of her without that barrier getting in the way.

  With the feel of Damon’s kiss still tingling along the back of her hand, Lacey decided to put aside professional commitments and competitions and think about herself for a change.

  She’d overcome a hell of a lot by testifying against the stepfather who’d touched her. No way would she put herself in a victim position again if she had anything to say about it.

  “I’ll leave tonight.” She met his eyes, confident in the decision even though it meant walking away from Damon. “I’ve got a rental car to return and a few clothes to pack, but I could be on a flight by nine.”

  She had no idea how hard it would be to book something at the last minute, but f
lights to Miami were frequent out of San Juan.

  “There’s one at ten-fifteen. I checked on my way over here.”

  “Great. We’ve got one whole bonus hour to say goodbye.” She hurt just thinking about it. After all the superficial relationships she’d maintained over long periods of time, the man who got around her barriers and under her skin turned out to be the man she’d known for the least amount of time.

  She’d been toast from the very beginning.

  “I know it’s not ideal—”

  “You’re right. I’d rather not have any time to lie to each other and say we’ll write when we both know this is the end.” Standing, she unwound her fingers from his.

  “I would never ask you to leave early if I didn’t think you were at risk.” He stood with her, blocking her path to the bathroom where her few travel supplies needed to be packed.

  “I know.”

  “Do you?” He gripped her shoulders, his hands molding around bare skin and spaghetti straps.

  The warmth she felt at his touch told her how much she’d come to care about him. She realized now, as she was faced with the prospect of saying goodbye, that Damon didn’t need to fill out any stupid matchmaking profile for her to recognize how right they were together. Her subconscious had recognized a strong, honorable man long before the rest of her had figured it out. The kind of hot chemistry they shared wasn’t some superficial by-product of overeager hormones. It was the intense side effect of her brain demanding she claim him before he slipped away.

  “Yeah, I do.” She knew without question that he would do whatever it took to protect her. And after being raised in such an unstable environment by a mother who didn’t know how to safeguard her kids, there was something soul satisfying to realize the extent of Damon’s commitment.

  Even if he couldn’t make a commitment to her.

  “I don’t want to say goodbye yet, either,” he assured her, stroking his fingers down her shoulder blades and making her shiver with pleasure. “But we don’t have a choice if we want to keep you safe.”

  “It would have been nice if we had more time.” The wistful note in her voice gave her away, and she hoped he hadn’t heard it.