by Laura Kaye
For fuck’s sake.
There was no apparently about it.
That woman was now his colleague. And before he’d even had his first day on the job, he’d already gone and fucked something up.
Goddamnit, Jesse.
Anger and resentment pounded through his veins. Anger at himself, for always falling short. Anger at the universe, for never once giving him a break—and gee didn’t the pity party make him feel even more awesome. And anger at her, too, if he was honest. For making him think something else was possible, for running out without a word, for being here now.
Her being on the team wasn’t a fair thing for him to be mad about. He knew that. And he’d force himself over it post haste because he could be a professional. And because he couldn’t risk doing another thing that might blow the fresh start he’d been hoping to make here.
Still, the whole snafu sucked some major ass. But sometimes it was just your turn to embrace the suck.
A little after twelve, Boone wrapped up the all-hands meeting, and Delores surprised them by bringing in platters of submarine sandwiches, salads, and chips.
“Donuts and subs all in one day?” George asked, grabbing the tray from the older lady’s hands. “Best be careful, or Jud will just move his ass in here and then you’ll never get rid of him.”
Jud nodded. “True, but I’m awesome. Anybody would be lucky to have me.”
Tara snorted, and the sound drew some appreciative chuckles.
“I think you just got shot down without T actually having to say a real word, champ,” Bobby said.
“You wound me, Tara. Wound me bad,” Jud said in what Jesse guessed what a Texas accent. The guy threw her a wink when she rolled her eyes, and hell if a tendril of jealousy didn’t try to curl around Jesse’s spine.
“You’ll live,” she said with a smirk. “And if not, George will consider resuscitating you.”
As more laughter rose up, everyone began fixing plates and chatting. Jesse couldn’t help but keep an ear tuned toward Tara, and he found himself admiring the rapport she had with the men here, and the way she gave as good as she got. It couldn’t be easy to be the only woman on a team of mostly prior military men, which made him feel even shittier for resenting finding her here. He was the outsider looking in on all their inside jokes. She was the one who belonged.
He put a turkey sub on his plate and froze. If the men were mostly vets…
Jesse looked across the table at Tara, and his gaze landed on the scar on her throat. Did that mean she was a veteran, too? And now he was really wondering what the hell had happened to her.
Each new thing about her intrigued him.
Which had him back to being pissed off again, because if they were colleagues they probably shouldn’t also be more. And, goddamnit, he’d been hoping that last night might have the chance to be something more.
Maybe not forever. Maybe not even a relationship. But more than just one night.
Tara did a doubletake when she caught him staring, and Jesse clenched his teeth together and dropped his gaze to the pasta salad, which he mechanically scooped onto his plate.
And then they were all sitting down again and shooting the shit. Jud was the one who finally pulled Jesse into the conversation. “So, Jesse, where you joining us from, man?”
He cleared his throat. “Was stationed at Coronado before I retired.”
“Aw, San Diego’s beautiful,” Jud said. “DC sucks by comparison.”
Jesse nodded. “From Montana, originally, so I’m used to winters, too. But, yeah, I’m not sure anywhere can beat San Diego’s weather.”
Jud wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “So what was your rating?”
“SPECWAR,” Jesse said, referring to the Special Warfare community that had a lot of its commands at the Coronado base. “Started out ND and then moved on to EOD.” It was his experience in those jobs as a navy diver and explosives and ordnance disposal technician that had landed him this job. This chance to do better.
Jud’s eyebrows rose. “EOD? Damn. So if I see you running, I guess I better catch up.”
Jesse grinned. “Roger that.”
Jud nodded at Tara. “T and I were both SEABEEs. I was at Gulfport, but she was at Little Creek.”
Jesse’s gaze cut to Tara, surprise filling his gut. The SEABEEs were the navy’s construction force, which sounded way more mundane than it was, by a lot. They were responsible for a whole host of dangerous jobs, including building forward operating bases in unstable areas, handling rescue and salvage operations, and supporting civilian authorities during natural disasters. And those stationed at Little Creek, the nickname for the Joint Expeditionary Base in Virginia Beach, provided combat and logistics support to the SPECWAR and SPECOPS communities there, including the SEALs. He’d worked with some of the SEABEEs stationed likewise at Coronado, and he knew they were badass and often scary brilliant to boot.
Tara arched a single brow, not much, but just enough that he noticed. And something in those blue eyes seemed to be asking him if he had something to say.
Hell, yeah, he did. Many things. Starting with, How can you think you’re not interesting? Like he’d been able to get her off his mind before learning all of this.
She looked down at her plate when she grabbed some chips, but Jesse had the distinct feeling that her intent had been more about breaking the way he’d held her gaze.
And it made his desire to feel her eyes on him that much stronger.
Damn it all to hell.
And even though he joined in the rest of the conversation—learning that Boone and Delores had worked together as long as they’d known one another, and that Bobby was from Boston, and that Mike was still in the Coast Guard reserves—part of Jesse’s brain remained fixated on Tara.
Her pretty face. Her gorgeous body. Her intriguing past.
He wanted it all.
But now that they would be working together—two members on a team of seven—he had no idea how that was going to be possible.
* * * *
Tara knew hiding out in the women’s locker room long enough to ensure that Jesse had left was a chickenshit move, but she did it anyway. Because bockbockbock.
All day, she’d caught him sneaking glances her way, and the expressions he’d worn had ranged from merely curious to clearly unhappy to, on at least one occasion, downright hungry. None of which she wanted to further explore while she was at work. For crap’s sake.
And her cowardice had paid off, apparently, because Boone and Mama D were the only ones still there when she came into the reception area.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Tara said, catching the older couple in a kiss.
“Don’t be,” Mama D said with a sassy wink. “We’ve been married forever and a day, but we still can’t get enough of each other. Isn’t that right, Boone?”
Her boss looked significantly less comfortable with the turn of the conversation. “Sure, Dee.”
Tara chuckled, her feelings more in line with Boone on this one. “Well, I’ll just say good night, then.”
“Be careful in all that rain,” Mama D said, throwing Tara a wave as she made for the front door.
The rainfall on the warehouse’s metal roof had been obvious for the past hour, but Tara didn’t realize just how hard it was coming down until she peered outside. Huge puddles had absorbed the last of the snow and now covered the ground. She hesitated on the threshold for just a minute, then made a run for it. She was drenched by the time she closed herself inside her car, and her shoes were soaked through to her feet.
The weather was supposed to be crappy most of this week, which was going to wreak havoc on their schedule if it stayed this bad, all of which was just part of the reality of doing work outside and underwater.
Pushing wet tendrils of hair back from her face, she started the car and eased out of the lot. Even set on high, her windshield wipers barely kept up with the deluge as she drove down the marina’s service road for the main entrance. Luck
ily, it was only about a fifteen-minute drive back to her place, though rush hour was undoubtedly going to be a mucked-up mess.
The only saving grace was that she hadn’t taken the Metro this morning. Normally, she didn’t mind the walk between the closest stop and CMDS, but in this it would’ve been miserable.
She grimaced when she passed someone walking along the marina’s main drive in the rain, head and shoulders hunched. Poor guy. And then she realized who it was.
Jesse.
For just a split second, she hesitated. Shaking her head at herself, she pulled to the curb, because the fact that she’d even debated whether to offer him a ride—like she would for anyone else on the team—showed precisely how screwed up this whole situation was.
She opened the window on the passenger’s door and called out as he came alongside her car. “Get in.”
Jesse did a doubletake, and then he hesitated, too.
She waved at him. “Come on, get in.”
He braced those big hands on the opening of the window. Hands that had handled bombs, apparently. She’d worked a lot of years with guys like him, long enough to know that navy EODs earned the prestige universally attributed to their rating. They were undeniably brave, incredibly calculated and precise, and often loners. She’d once heard someone describe them as being as cool as jet pilots, with the hands of a heart surgeon. In her experience, that was pretty dead on.
Like she might pose him some danger, he leaned down slowly until he was peering at her through the window. His hair was so wet it appeared jet black, and rain drops covered his face and caught on his eyelashes.
He was…almost unbearably gorgeous.
“Get in,” she said again.
“I shouldn’t.”
Something in his voice made her belly do a little flip. “You’re soaked. And it’s not out of my way. Obviously.”
“Tara—”
“Jesse, it’s a ride.”
He heaved a sigh. “It’s fine. I’m already wet anyway—”
“I’m almost certain you would’ve outranked me, but I’m going to issue this order anyway. Sailor, get in the damn car.”
The next thing she knew, he was sitting next to her, his big body making the car feel small.
She used the control on her door to close his window and watched as he dragged a hand down his face.
“See, that wasn’t hard.”
The look he threw her felt like he’d taken a blow torch to her blood. For a moment, she was totally confused by the intensity of it, and then it hit her. Oh. Oh! Her gaze dropped to his lap, which was covered by his coat, of course. Just as quickly, she glanced back to his dark eyes.
“I think you should drive.”
She let out a shaky breath. “Uh, right. Good. Driving now.”
They caught the red light at the main intersection out of the marina. While they sat there, only the drumming of the rain and the thunk-thunk of the windshield wipers between them, about a hundred things competed to be said. But Tara held her tongue because Jesse was radiating back off loud enough that he might as well have just said it out loud.
Chancing a glance at him, she found him peering out his window. The hard angles of his face in profile appeared even more stark, more masculine. God, more appealing. Tara sighed.
The light finally turned green.
They didn’t say a word until they turned onto the street that led past her apartment to his hotel.
“I’ll drop you at your place,” she said.
“I can walk from your building.”
“But why—”
“You’ve done enough.”
She heard the words, but there was something in the tone she couldn’t discern. Something that made her pull into her garage instead of passing it by like she’d intended. Residents had assigned parking spaces, so she went down two floors until she came to the reserved spot for apartment 1120.
Tara cut the engine and turned to him. “What does that mean?”
Those dark eyes cut to her. “What?”
“That I’ve done enough.”
His mouth opened and closed two times. With a shrug, he finally said, “Today would’ve been awkward no matter what, but I guess it must’ve been even more uncomfortable for you given that you never intended to see me again.”
Tara blinked. “Huh?”
His brows cranked down. “You left without a word.”
Now her gaze was the one narrowing. “I left because it was getting close to morning and I had a six AM wake-up. I didn’t know whether to wake you. So instead I called my phone with yours and created a contact.” She arched a brow.
Like there was possibly a snake in his pocket, he slowly retrieved the cell. Thumbed it awake. Opened the phone app. She knew the moment he saw the outgoing call at nearly 4 AM to ‘Tara Hunter mobile’ because his hand fell slack in his lap.
“Shit.”
“That about covers it.” She pushed out of the car and slammed the door. Then paced behind the RAV4 until he finally got his annoyingly hot ass out and faced her. “If you think today was any easier for me, you’re wrong.”
“Okay,” he said, looking appropriately chagrinned.
“That’s it? Just…’okay’?” She braced her hands on her hips.
“What else do you want me to say?”
“I…I don’t even know. But this…” She gestured back and forth between them. “This is exactly why this situation is a problem. You were mad at me today because you thought I’d ghosted on you. You didn’t see me as one of your teammates, you saw me as a woman you’d slept with. Which is another problem. Because if you don’t think it’s challenging being the only woman on this team, you’d be wrong again.”
“I understand, Tara, and I agree. I get that last night was a mistake.”
The word hit her like a gut punch, even though she’d been mulling whether it’d been a mistake or not herself. She just hadn’t been able to reduce what’d happened between them to that. It had just been too perfect, too…real. Though he obviously didn’t feel the same way or have the same hesitation. “Okay,” she managed.
“For the record, I absolutely see you as one of my teammates. Because you are one of my teammates. And I’ll treat you the same as everyone else.”
She nodded. “Good. Because I don’t want any distractions at work.”
“Fair enough,” he said, an edge to his words.
On a sigh, she turned. “Elevator’s over here.”
They crossed the garage side by side, their footsteps and the hum of the ventilation the only sounds. She pushed the call button, her stomach heavy with a weird falling sensation at how different this moment was from the last time they’d ridden in an elevator together.
All of which had been a mistake. Apparently.
The doors rolled open, and she stepped in and pressed the buttons for both the lobby and her floor. He followed, standing next to her as the doors eased shut.
This felt…so crappy. She hated it.
And that made her determined. “Since last night was such a mistake, it shouldn’t happen again.”
The bell dinged. The doors slid open.
Jesse gave a single nod. “Fine.”
And then he was gone and Tara was all alone again—and not at all sure that their conversation had done a single thing that would make work tomorrow any less awkward.
Chapter 7
You fucked up again.
It’d been nearly twenty-four hours since Jesse had left Tara in an elevator, and that one thought still hadn’t stopped running through his head. Because he almost couldn’t have handled the conversation with her any worse.
Thank God they’d both been so busy all day getting their asses kicked by the chop of the Chesapeake Bay. The team’s first job was assisting an offshore wind company with an underwater survey of a planned wind farm about seventeen nautical miles off the coast of Ocean City. The company had apparently done part of the survey last summer, but the project kept getting held up by p
olitical wrangling in the state government. Now it seemed the wind farm was back on again, and the company was under the gun to finish the survey this week, assuming the weather cooperated.
But before they could do any of that, they had to get there.
First thing this morning, they’d departed DC on CMDS’s diving support vessel Going Deep, lovingly nicknamed “the GD DSV” by his teammates. But the Chesapeake Bay could be a nasty piece of water if the wind, weather, and tides weren’t right, as was the case today. And the Delaware Bay wasn’t much better.
Jesse heaved a deep breath as they finally passed the ferry terminal at Lewes, Delaware, and came around into the Atlantic Ocean. They’d hit Ocean City in a little over an hour if the calmer seas held.
He’d been wet and cold for the entirety of the day-long trip, but still it felt good to be back out on the water. His sea legs under him again, the smell of salt air in his nose. Of course, he would’ve been able to enjoy it all even more if he hadn’t made a tricky situation worse with Tara.
When he’d awakened yesterday to find himself alone, he’d looked for a note from Tara. Not finding one had been a total gut check, because it cast doubts over everything he’d thought his night with her had been about. It hadn’t occurred to him to check his phone because apparently he was an idiot who’d been too pissed, disappointed, and late for work to think clearly.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it.
The momentary flash of hurt on Tara’s face when he’d called their night together a mistake still had him feeling two feet tall. He’d thought that was what she’d concluded, so he’d said it first because the thought of hearing her call him a mistake was more than he could stomach.
“You could’ve done so much more, been so much more. The navy is a mistake, Jesse. One you’ll have to live with now.”
His dad’s twenty-year-old words rang in his ears as he watched lights twinkle along the shoreline in one picturesque beach town after another. On a sigh, he made his way to the bridge, where he found Boone, Jud, Bobby, and Tara.
Jesse joined in the small talk as the lights of Ocean City finally came into view, and though things with Tara seemed normal and they were both hanging out with the team, none of their exchanges were directly with the other. And that sucked because it revealed there was still some weirdness between them, just one more piece of evidence that he was really fucking bad at this—this including everything from living up to his parents’ expectations to protecting his EOD techs to basic goddamned human interaction. Apparently.