Handsome. Chiseled cheeks. Tight butt. Panty-melting smile.
“Don’t you agree, Risa?” the head of hotel security said.
Damn. She’d let her attention drift for a just a second.
“I’m sorry. I was thinking about…a patient. Can you say that again?”
The older man smiled. “I said I feel like the additional security is very welcome.”
“Oh, yes. Me, too.” She glanced around the room. “Have we covered everything?”
With that, the meeting recessed. She and Trevor headed to his SUV.
“Where to?” Trevor asked.
“We have some appointments.”
“We do?”
“Don’t worry. None of them involve pain, torture or knives.”
There was something about the beatific smile on Risa’s face and the twinkle in her eye that set alarms clanging in Trevor’s head. Had he learned nothing from his SEAL days? Had he not learned to trust his own instincts?
Risa provided the driving directions until he turned into the Bliss Day Spa parking lot and stopped. “We’re here,” she announced, as though he would have any idea what she was talking about.
“Okay,” he said slowly.
“We have appointments. Let’s go.”
She hopped from the car before he could get his seat belt unclicked. He climbed out and had to hurry to catch her before she reached the front door.
“Wait a minute, little missy,” he said, pulling her to a stop with a hold on her elbow. “What do you mean by we? I hope you have a mouse in your pocket, because I am not going into a day spa. No way. No how.”
“Now, honey,” she cooed for the benefit of the two women walking up behind them. “We talked about this.”
“No, honey,” he said with a tense jaw. “I don’t believe we did.”
“Y’all going in?” a heavy-set blonde drawled as she held the door open.
“Yes, we are. Thank you.”
Risa pulled an extremely reluctant Trevor through the glass door. Somewhere in the back, a chime sounded.
“Welcome to Bliss,” a young woman chirped from the desk. Her name tag read “Maggie.” “Welcome back, Dr. McCool.”
“Hi, Maggie. This is Trevor Mason. We have appointments for manicures, pedicures, and facials.”
“No, Maggie. That’s incorrect,” Trevor said. “She has appointments for those things. I’ll just, um, wait in the car.”
Maggie chuckled. “First time, huh? You’ll enjoy it. I promise. Sue,” she called out, “put this gentleman in chair six by the other gentleman.” She pointed toward the back of the room.
Trevor was shocked to see three other men with their feet soaking in swirling tubs of water. God help him if his SEAL buds or any of his employees found out about this.
“Have a seat in the chair,” the woman said. “Take off your shoes and put your feet in the water.” As she was talking, the nail tech filled a tub at the base of the chair with water.
He removed his shoes and socks, pulled his jeans up to his knees and put his feet in the hot water. Sue squirted something blue in the tub and suds formed around his feet.
He had faced gunfire, knives, potential bombs, even cutthroat kidnappers, but this was scarier than all those. A woman had him barefoot with sharp instruments at her ready.
“Relax,” the guy beside him said. “This isn’t going to kill you.”
Trevor’s head snapped toward chair five. “Doesn’t it embarrass you to get pedicures?”
The man grinned and leaned forward to speak in a whisper. “I’m married to a big time movie star who’s on location here in Texas. I suspect none of her co-stars have rough feet and long nails. Gotta keep up my game.”
Trevor nodded because he couldn’t think of anything to say. Sue, his pedicure specialist, tapped on his right leg. When he looked down, she gestured for him to place his right foot on the towel-draped pedestal.
And that’s when the POW torture began. It was Hell Week all over again.
She clipped, filed, and dug under every nail, clicking her tongue at his ingrown toenail as she freed the nail corner from its skin entrapment. He’d had root canals that’d hurt less than digging out that toenail.
She slapped his left leg and started the torment on his left foot, which, luckily, didn’t require freeing a trapped nail. Then she slathered his feet with something gritty, like she was rubbing sand into his flesh. After she washed that off, she smeared floral scented lotion on his feet and up his legs and began a massage on his calves, insoles and toes.
He might have moaned.
Trevor moved to a manicure table when ordered, catching Risa’s smile as he passed her. “Next time, I get to plan our activities.”
She laughed.
The manicure wasn’t horrible, but it also wasn’t anything he’d put on his to-do list either. His mom wouldn’t miss her manicure unless she was on her deathbed. But honestly? He just didn’t get the allure.
His manicurist frowned through his entire clip, file and buff session. At the end, she put a glob of smelly lotion on his hands and began rubbing his fingers and palms and up his arms to his elbows.
“Loosen up,” the manicurist ordered as she shook his left arm. “You’re too tense.”
Trevor bared his teeth in a smile, but he learned manicurists didn’t intimidate easily. She smiled back and rubbed harder.
He finished before Risa as he declined clear nail polish. Beside him, Risa snickered as her nails were painted with a bright red.
“But Trevor,” she said, wiggling her fingers at him. “If you got red, we could match.”
“Not happening,” he growled, which made her laugh harder.
He also declined a facial while he waited for Risa to finish. He didn’t know what a facial was and figured he didn’t want to know. Besides, he liked his face the way it was.
Thirty minutes passed before Risa reappeared in the waiting area. Her face was stripped of any makeup and glowed with a dewy sheen. Man, his SEAL team would never stop laughing if they heard him use the phrase dewy sheen.
Risa handed two one-hundred dollar bills to the receptionist. “See you next week, Maggie.”
“Have a good week, Dr. McCool.”
Trevor held the door open. “You do this every week?”
“My fingernails, yes. Wasn’t it fabulous?”
He threw an arm around her neck and pulled her close. “You’ve heard about SEAL Hell Week? Well, today made me have some serious flashbacks.”
She laughed and bumped her hip on his. “Yes, but did you get a leg massage at the end of Hell Week?”
“I did not.”
“See? This is so much better.”
Her laughter filled an empty spot in his chest he hadn’t realized he had. When she smiled, his heart almost exploded. After all these years apart with no contact, could it be possible that his feelings for her had always remained? Dormant but stirred back to life like a blow on an ember?
For lunch, they headed over to Bistro 31 because, as Risa explained, it was the place for lunch in the area. Lots of hob-knobbing potential. He’d laughed because he knew how much she hated that sort of thing. She must had thrown herself into the gala chairperson role with the same determination he’d seen when she’d faced any challenge. He’d learned long ago to not get between Risa and a set goal.
The restaurant offered indoor and outdoor dining. As much as he would have enjoyed sitting in an open area, he insisted on the inside for safety. Risa had huffed but not argued. The hostess found them a quiet booth near the bar. Over Risa’s objections that she wouldn’t be able to see who was there, he took the seat facing the room with his back to the wall.
Over a long lunch of steak for him and a seared ahi tuna salad for her, they ignored the gala and all the security and diamond details. Instead they revisited memories from their childhood, of jokes played on family and friends, football games and teachers. He noticed, and suspected she did also, that they touched every subject except them and their pa
st relationship. What they’d felt for each other. The times they’d fallen into bed with a combination of lust and love. The painful separation that had come when she continued school at the University of Texas and he joined the Navy.
They’d tried the long distance thing. It hadn’t worked, not because they didn’t love each other, but they’d both been pulled into the individual worlds they had chosen. Or at least that had been the reason they’d agreed on when they’d broken up. She was too busy with school, and he was going all over the world.
He’d left the SEALs a couple of years ago and set up EyeSpy International, a security and protection agency he’d built in Coronado, California. Three months ago, his family had had a health scare with his dad and he’d made the decision to move the headquarters to Diamond Lakes, leaving only a satellite office out west. A lot of his team came with him. Few of his office staff did, so he’d been hiring staff since his arrival.
As he studied Risa, he couldn’t help but smile. She didn’t just talk. She gestured with her hands. Rolled her eyes. Moved her head side to side. So much animation. He’d missed her. He would’ve contacted her once his office and move got settled, or that’s what his plan had been, but she’d beat him to the punch with the job.
On the other hand, she’d ripped out his heart and stomped on it, figuratively. He trusted his SEAL team. He trusted the men and women he’d hired at EyeSpy, but trusting her again with his heart? Yeah, he didn’t think that was possible.
So for now, he’d protect her, enjoy being around her, and then go back to the solitary life he’d perfected.
Chapter Three
She studied him across the table—the lines etched near his eyes, the parenthesis that bracketed his lips when he smiled, the way his eyes laughed when he did—and she wondered if she—they? him?—should have tried harder. Usually hindsight was twenty-twenty, but not in this case. If they’d stayed together, would she have even attempted medical school? Would he have become a SEAL? Would they have resented each other for what they would’ve had to give up to be together?
Would they still be together?
“Hey. Where’d you go?” he asked, touching the hand she’d laid on the table.
Startled, she jerked back her hand. “What? Sorry. I was thinking about the upcoming interviews and appearances I have to do before the gala next Saturday.”
“Nervous?” He sipped from his coffee cup.
“Yes and no. I mean, I’ve been in front of cameras and done a ton of interviews, but those were always about my work.”
“Which you are comfortable talking about,” he interjected.
“Right. Now all these reporters want to talk about a fancy event and a big, honkin’ diamond instead. We’re asking people to pay a premium price to attend and I want everything to go without a hitch. It’s important the gala is a success.”
“And you’re worried it won’t be? After everything I heard this morning, it sounds like you’ve been putting all the details in place for over a year.”
“I know, I know,” she said with a smile. “I’m still trying to control everything.”
He smiled. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be Risa McCool.”
After lunch, which she insisted on paying for, they headed to the main branch of Texas Bank and Trust to collect her grandmother’s jewelry. After going through all the appropriate identification and signatures, she and Trevor were left alone with a large, metal lockbox. She opened the lid and began sorting through the various pieces of jewelry her grandmother had collected.
Back in the early days of the Texas oil boom, her mother’s grandfather, Cleve Billingham, had tapped an oil reserve while digging a new water well. The Billingham family’s lives had changed from being simple ranchers to oil barons. Her grandmother had loved jewelry and had collected quite a bit during her lifetime. Risa’s mother had inherited it, but immediately put it away for her children as she had no need for fancy jewelry. That hadn’t been Robin and Sam’s lifestyle and that wasn’t how they’d raised their children, at least until they bought their twin daughters’ ridiculously expensive condos.
Now, as Risa pulled out hunks of diamond jewelry, she shook her head. “Can you believe all this crap?”
“What? You don’t want to wear this crown into surgery?” Trevor pulled a tiara from the box and put it on her head.
“That’s a tiara,” she corrected.
“So sorry. I was out that day of SEAL training.”
She laughed. “You know, I suspect some of this is probably rhinestone, but who can tell the difference?” She held up a thick, fat bracelet laden with heavy, clear stones. “Take this, for example. Real or fake?”
He studied it. “I’d say real.”
“Seriously?”
He laughed. “How do I know? It’s kind of…” His voice drifted off as though he was rethinking what he’d been about to say.
“Gaudy? Flashy? Tacky?”
“Well, I might not have said tacky. Maybe flashy.”
She laid the wide bracelet over her wrist. “Perfect for Wendy, wouldn’t you say?”
“No. Perfect for you.”
She shook her head. “I’m not like Wendy. She’s the one with the sparkle. She can pull this off. On me, it’d look like I’m playing dress-up in my mother’s things. Of course, if you think about it, I am.”
“Honey, you’re the one who sparkles. You may be quieter than your sister, but in no way does she outshine you.” He took her hands. “You have always had a quiet strength about you that was so powerful. Wendy? She’s great. I adore your sister, but she’s not you…not by a long shot.”
Her heart sighed at his words. Her vision got a little blurry—not that she was crying. She swiped at her eyes.
“Darn dust and pollen.”
He squeezed her hand and let go. “I know. Horrible stuff. Now, how much of this junk do we need?”
In the end, they loaded up the bigger, flashier pieces for Wendy and some smaller but sparkly bracelets and earrings for her. Trevor tossed in the tiara with, “Wendy will have to have this.”
Risa remained inside the bank and let Trevor get his SUV. He pulled up at the entrance and she exited and made a beeline for the passenger door.
She patted the case in her lap. “I wonder how much money all this is worth.”
“Need to buy a bigger condo?”
She saw the smile twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Well, there is a penthouse in another building that’s available for only fifteen million…unfurnished.”
He scoffed. “For that kind of money, they could throw in a loveseat or something.”
When she laughed, it dawned on her that it’d been a while since she’d laughed this much or her heart felt so light. Maybe as long as fifteen years.
He refused to let the valet park his car, so they pulled into the gated garage and parked in the penthouse’s guest space. The residents’ private elevator was only a few steps away and they rode it to the top of the building. Trevor insisted on carrying the heavy case with the jewelry, explaining that that was why he was here.
Once inside her foyer, Trevor said, “So, where do you want to stash a few million in jewelry? I thought maybe the building had a lockbox vault for the owners.”
“No, but that would have been nice, wouldn’t it? I was thinking you’d want to put them in your room, you know, mixed in with your underwear, so you could keep an eye on them.”
When she saw the frown forming on his brow, she chuckled. “Kidding. I have a safe. We can put the case in there.”
“Bolted down somehow, I hope.”
“Oh much better. Built into the structure of the building.”
“Really?” His eyebrows arched in surprise.
“I don’t know about all the condos, but I know Wendy and I both have safes, so I assume everyone does. Mine and Wendy’s are in different locations within our units. I’ve always wondered if the architect who designed the building moved safes around as a security feature.”
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br /> “Interesting. So where is yours?”
“I thought you checked this place out. Didn’t you find it? Here I thought you were some super spy guy,” she joked.
He lifted his nose to look down at her. “Maybe if I’d been looking for a safe, but I wasn’t.”
She grinned. “I don’t think you would have found it regardless. Come in to my bathroom.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Sounds kinky. What do you have in mind?”
She rolled her eyes. “Perv.”
“Says you. I say kinky.”
She was laughing as she led him through her bedroom and into the master bath. Thank goodness she’d taken the time to make up the bed and pick up her bathroom.
“You’ve really got a nice place,” he said, nodding his head and looking around as they passed into the bathroom. “My apartment only looked this good when I’d been deployed for six months.”
“And now that you’re out?”
“Disaster zones instead of rooms.”
“Remember the first time you took me to your bedroom, but I had to wait in the hall while you picked up all your dirty clothes?”
He snorted. “Yeah. But it looked pretty good after that, right?”
“Oh, lord, no. Your room was always a pig sty.”
“I wish I could argue with you but…” He shrugged. “When you’re right, you’re right. Now, where is this safe?”
They had had a lot of sexy times in his bedroom…a lot of them. Remembering them made her stomach tightened. She pressed a palm to her abdomen.
“You okay? You look like you’re in pain.”
“Ate too much,” she lied. “Okay, the safe.”
She opened the door to the linen closet and removed the folded towels from the middle and bottom shelves. Once empty, she wiggled her hand under the wood of the next to the last shelf until she could touch the tiny button in the corner. She pressed it, and the empty shelf dropped flat against the wall and the back wall panel opened, which exposed a safe door with an electronic panel.
“Voilà! The safe.”
He nodded. “Nice.”
When she moved to punch in the code, he turned his back to her.
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