by Terry Spear
Finn mulled that over, then nodded. “So what now?”
“Let your female operative know—”
“Anna,” Finn said, perturbed.
Bjornolf smiled a little. “…Anna know that I’m on your side. As much as she fought me, I didn’t figure she’d believe anything I had to say. As for Meara, I’ll be behind the scenes, watching over her.”
“All right.” Finn rose, but Bjornolf remained seated. “Paul will be here shortly,” Finn said, half in warning. Paul wouldn’t like Bjornolf anymore than he did.
Bjornolf pulled out a twenty. “Hell, that’s what these guys want. The team all back together in one place, easier to hit.”
Finn cast him a thin smile. “Maybe that’s how we need to take them out. Do you know who they are?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be sitting here chatting with you. I’d have taken out the one responsible, and without a buyer, no more deals.”
“The Knight of Swords,” Finn said under his breath.
Bjornolf gave him a solemn nod. “He’s the one. Whoever he is.”
***
Finn was surprised to find Meara sitting cross-legged on Anna’s bed in her hotel room while Anna leaned back in a chair, feet propped up on the mattress, as if the two had been pajama-party buddies for years. Not that either of them was wearing PJs, but that’s what this reminded him of. The thought of seeing Meara in her pajama shorts set stirred him up all over again.
With a ragged breath, he explained as much as he could to Anna with Meara listening in. He told them who Joe really was, and when Anna’s eyes grew huge, he turned to Meara and said, “Bjornolf gets rid of assassins, leaving no trace, making it look as though they died of natural causes. At least that’s one of his jobs. No one really knows who he works for or what else he does. But I will tell you that his name means ‘bear-wolf.’ And from what I’ve heard, he earned the name for a reason. He’s not one to tangle with unless you know what you’re doing.”
Meara looked sufficiently shocked, and he thought—and hoped—she wouldn’t pay Bjornolf any attention now that she knew what he did for a living, if that was Bjornolf’s intention. But Finn was beginning to wonder if hiding his real objective was part of Bjornolf’s chameleon persona. Finn noted that Anna appeared just as surprised to learn who “Joe” was, and he thought she wouldn’t see anything good in the man now, either.
Having covertly made eye contact with Finn, Anna looked as though she wanted to talk privately about something. From the way she wouldn’t sequester him in the living area of her suite, he assumed the something was about Meara. He wondered what Meara had done now. Finn had given Anna ample opportunity to speak with him privately, but she didn’t seem to want to alert Meara that she needed to talk to him about her. Hell.
When Anna still didn’t say anything about it, he finally decided to call it a night. Whatever it was couldn’t be too bad, or Anna would have made more of an effort to speak with him secretly.
Feeling smug about Bjornolf not having a chance at seducing the women, he said good night to Anna, knowing Paul would arrive momentarily and watch her back as she did his. The time had come to take Meara back to the safe house. He assumed they’d have a tail, Bjornolf again, only Finn didn’t plan to try and lose him this time. But he damn well wanted to know what was bothering Anna.
Meara was quiet on the drive back. He figured she was frazzled and tired, so he didn’t push the issue of her following Bjornolf to the lounge when he’d instructed her to stay in the lobby.
But when they arrived back at the safe house and Meara went straight to the kitchen to grab a stash of graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows, he studied her in surprise.
“What are you doing, Meara?” Finn figured as late as it was and as little sleep as they’d had, she’d want to return to bed. Like he did. He hadn’t planned to do anything more than hold her close, thank the merciful heavens that she and Anna were safe for the time being, and sleep.
He had every intention of questioning Meara about the SEALs’ last mission the next morning after they’d both had sufficient sleep. He wanted to learn how she had become involved and what exactly she’d done that none of them had known of.
“I’m having some more s’mores,” Meara said matter-of-factly and pulled open the door to the deck. “You and Bjornolf and Anna worried me sick. I need some chocolate to help me get back to sleep.” She sounded drained by the experience as she left the house and walked down the wooden stairs to the beach.
Finn stared after her for a moment, then shook his head and followed her. There was no figuring women—especially this woman.
He’d never paid much attention to a woman walking on a beach before, but when he reached the sand and saw the way Meara was trying to navigate through the sifting particles and the way her hips were swaying, he found himself mesmerized. She soon broke the spell when she turned and motioned to the fire pit.
“Why don’t you start the fire? I’ll hold on to the fixings.” She possessively held the packages to her breast, and he noted again how beautiful but tired she looked.
He wasn’t used to a woman giving him orders, and he would have preferred that she tell him to carry her off to bed, rather than start a fire and roast more marshmallows. But he silently did what she’d requested.
His thoughts slipped to what Bjornolf had said concerning how she’d saved their lives, and despite the hour, Finn couldn’t wait for morning to have this discussion. If they’d gone to bed, that would have been another story. He started the fire, then glanced over at Meara as she settled on the bench, quietly observing the ocean, her expression one of peace, tendrils of dark curls tickling her cheeks in the cool breeze.
She looked at home on the beach with the pine trees behind her rising on the hillside and stretching ponderously over the house. When he’d seen her in the redwoods of California, he’d thought she was at home there as well. He realized then that she was the kind of woman who suited the great outdoors, no matter what the environment. Well, maybe not the desert. He couldn’t see her living there.
Unless it was a desert island. And he was shipwrecked on it with her. But there wouldn’t be any s’mores to share with her then. Oysters could work wonders, though.
He sighed. His need to know what had happened during their last mission nagged at him, and he wanted to ask her what she’d done to save Hunter and the rest of the men. Yet for an instant, he didn’t want to spoil the moment. He had to ask her, though.
He cleared his throat, drawing her attention. “Meara, Bjornolf said you saved our lives on our last mission.”
Her eyes widened, and then she smiled a little. “How’d he know I made my special homemade soup for the rest of the guys after Hunter and the others were injured? Did you know that family recipe had been passed down for generations? It works, though. It truly helps to encourage healing.”
Soup?
Finn reached for the bag of marshmallows and skewered a couple. “I thought he meant something more… directly related to the mission.”
“Like what?” She snorted. “I didn’t even know where you were going to be.” She frowned. “What did Bjornolf say I did?”
“He said you saved us. That we would have all been dead if it hadn’t been for you.”
Meara looked back out to sea. “He’s making it up.”
Finn thought he saw a niggling worry line etched across her forehead. Maybe from trying to recall something that might have happened. Had she done something inadvertently and didn’t even realize what she’d done?
“Maybe it seemed insignificant to you at the time, but it was really important. Can you remember anything to do with that last mission?” Finn asked.
“Yeah. I fought with Hunter. I was going out with this guy…”
Finn couldn’t help that he was scowling. What did he care
about some guy she was dating?
She frantically waved at the marshmallows. “Hey! You’re burning them!”
“Hell.” He shook them off the stick into the sand, the marshmallows covered in flames and the white quickly turning black. Concentrating on the task at hand, he poked two fresh marshmallows on the stick.
“Hunter didn’t care for the guy,” Meara continued.
Finn didn’t want to hear this. He was certain he wouldn’t have cared for the guy either, no matter who he was. But what did that have to do with their mission? Since she seemed focused on that instead of with his real question, he might as well let her get it out of her system first. “Was he wolf or human?”
“Wolf.”
Finn tried to appear neutral, despite not liking that she was seeing wolves, assuming she wouldn’t want to talk about it with him if he seemed to feel the same way as Hunter.
She concentrated on the marshmallows. “Don’t burn them this time.”
“Why didn’t Hunter like this guy?” Hunter’s instincts had always been good about keeping Meara from making a mistake so Finn trusted Hunter’s judgment over hers. He wondered if she actively sought problem males just to provoke Hunter.
“Here, let me have the marshmallows. Your mind is elsewhere.” She pulled off the melted ones and let him have them. “Next two are mine.” She poked the marshmallows on the stick, her fingers inadvertently sliding down the length, and he thought of how she had wanted to put her hand on him earlier that evening and stroke him like he’d stroked her.
He closed his eyes and shook the notion loose, then looked back at her and prompted, “He didn’t like this guy you wanted to date. Why?”
“He never liked any of the guys I wanted to see, Finn. Period. None of them were good enough for me, so he said.”
“He was right, too, wasn’t he?”
She grunted and sandwiched the chocolate and the gooey marshmallow between the graham crackers. “He wouldn’t like you seeing me in that way either, you know.”
Finn snorted. “We’re not talking about me. Why did Hunter not like this guy in particular?”
“It was right when you were going on your last mission. Hunter was adamant that I not see the man while he was away. He was afraid something might happen between us, and he wouldn’t be able to stop it before it was too late. I wasn’t planning on mating the guy, just dating him.
“It wouldn’t have mattered who he was, at least I don’t believe so. All he had to be was an unmated alpha male and that was it. Hunter…” She sucked the marshmallow and chocolate off her fingers, one after another. “…had an uncanny ability to know when someone wasn’t right for me. Or at least he thought he had. I really think he was wrong about this guy. That’s all.”
Finn stared at the way she sucked her fingers, wanting to be the one licking them, and then at her lips, thinking of how he’d kissed her in the sand and wanting to repeat the performance.
But damn it, he was not a moonstruck teen. And he had to get his raging testosterone under control. “What happened between you and the guy?”
“Nothing. He left. I figured that Hunter must have had words with him, and I never heard from him again.”
All right. Finn could see Hunter doing that. And anyone who wasn’t alpha enough would have backed down, tucked tail, and left. “What happened between you and Bjornolf at Anna’s hotel?”
“What do you mean?”
Her question struck Finn as odd. Why not say nothing had happened? If nothing had occurred between them.
She was watching Finn with an alpha’s challenging gaze, but he swore her armor had slipped when he heard the nearly imperceptible hitch in her voice and observed the way she stood a little straighter, stiffening her back, the way her eyes were wide with feigned innocence, as if she was hiding a guilty conscience.
Hell. “He was seated in a booth in the lounge, drinking a beer and waiting for you. Why?”
Meara looked genuinely surprised. “He said he didn’t drink.”
Taken aback by her response, Finn paused. “He said he lied,” he growled. And that was not what Finn was concerned about.
Her lips were parted in a way that offered an invitation to a kiss—at least to his way of thinking. Then she smiled a little. Finn frowned at her.
She shrugged. “I thought he’d left through the lounge and was headed outside to his vehicle. I was going to look through a window and would have gotten his license-plate number and then shared it with you. I never expected him to be waiting for me in the lounge. He had to have known you and Anna would come soon for me. I don’t know what kind of a game he was playing.”
“He stuck his hand in your pocket and felt you up.” He couldn’t help still being irritated by Bjornolf’s earlier action.
“He put a bug in there,” she countered, her face reddening slightly.
“You felt his hand on your ass, Meara.” He couldn’t help the frustration he felt at Bjornolf’s luring her toward the lounge and her plan to follow him blindly into the dark recesses.
Would she have had a drink with Bjornolf, if Finn hadn’t arrived as soon as he did? A couple of drinks? Would she have left with him if he had promised to keep her safe?
“Well?” Finn challenged, wanting to know what the hell she’d been thinking. She was just like Hunter had said she was—impulsive and putting herself in danger when it wasn’t warranted.
“He kissed me, too, damn it! So what?” Meara froze after the words spilled from her lips.
Chapter 11
Finn stared at Meara in disbelief, and he instantly wanted to pummel Bjornolf.
“Bjornolf kissing me didn’t mean anything,” Meara said to Finn, her face red, as she slumped on the bench, grabbed a stick, and began poking it in the sand. “Hell, Finn. I wasn’t going to tell you that part.”
“That he kissed you? Why the hell not?” He couldn’t help how angry he felt, partly because she hadn’t planned to tell him what had happened between her and Bjornolf. She’d only blurted the truth because Finn had ticked her off. Was that what Anna had known and had wanted to warn him about?
He still couldn’t believe the bastard had actually kissed Meara. When? No wonder the man had been so damned smug when Finn had seen him in the lounge. First, Bjornolf had felt her up and she didn’t do anything to indicate she didn’t like it, and then she’d let him kiss her?
“I figured you might want to kill him,” she said, her voice soft with regret.
“And you wanted to keep him alive.”
“No!” Her face blossomed with color anew. “I mean, of course I didn’t want you to kill him. I didn’t kiss him back. I was shocked. That’s all.”
“Shocked.” When did a woman like Meara not react to such an intrusion of her space? If she secretly wanted it! Damn it. “When in the hell did he kiss you?”
She poked the stick deeper into the sand. “In the lobby.”
“When?” he asked more gruffly.
“When you were rescuing Anna!”
He unclenched his fists. He should have left her here at the safe house—safe from the likes of someone like Bjornolf. “And then you went to meet him in the lounge. Why? To share a drink? Another kiss? Kiss him back this time?”
“You’re an ass.”
That was the Meara he knew. He smiled a little at that, but then his smile faded. Yeah, he was an ass. If Meara was intrigued with Bjornolf, who was he to say the man wouldn’t be right for her? She was Hunter’s responsibility, and he could have dealt with her falling for a deep-cover operative.
Finn settled on the bench next to her and took a deep breath. They didn’t speak for what seemed like forever. She kept poking the damn stick into the sand, and he kept stewing over Bjornolf’s intentions toward her. Finally he said, “I’m not a romantic, Meara. I don’t believe
in giving flowers or chocolate or mushy cards or any of that sentimental stuff.”
She pointed to the chocolate bars and softly said, “Might not be a date, but I haven’t had a nicer outing with a man than I’ve had with you.”
Surprised she’d feel that way, he stared at her for a moment for any indication that she was teasing him, but she seemed sincere.
“I’m talking candy hearts filled with chocolates.” He was talking real dating. And he couldn’t do it. He just wasn’t made that way. It all seemed fake, part of some ritual he didn’t believe in. And he wasn’t about to fall into that trap.
***
At first, Meara didn’t know where this conversation was going. She assumed he was trying to let her down gently—that he wasn’t the mating type. But she hadn’t meant to say a thing about Bjornolf kissing her until Finn had riled her. She realized afterward what the matter was. He was jealous!
And that had both surprised and tickled her. She already knew he wasn’t the mating type. But she also wanted Finn to know that was okay. That she enjoyed being with him, no matter what the circumstances. And that no matter what macho game Bjornolf was playing with Finn, the operative didn’t mean anything to her.
She tried to keep the conversation less serious, more lighthearted. She’d been truly scared that Finn or Anna might have been injured or worse. And her intention had only been to learn more about Bjornolf so she could help Finn discover who he was, not to see more of the man.
She needed quiet time to enjoy the beauty of the beach and ocean, and to unwind before she collapsed in bed so that she wouldn’t keep replaying what might have happened if Bjornolf had been one of the bad guys.
What she didn’t need was any more discussion about Bjornolf and that stolen kiss.
“Hmm, never thought you’d be the type who would be into flowers and the like. So what are you into?” She envisioned a woman reloading a musket for her man during the American Revolution. Someone who was stout of heart, a real outdoorswoman not bothered by sharing a snake bake on the beach. Someone probably like Anna. “A woman who reloads your weapon without being told to?” Meara asked, when he didn’t respond right away.
