WARRIOR (CROSSFIRE SEALS, #5)

by Gennita Low

  To her chagrin—and secret delight—Lucas Branson was looking straight at her, with that unsettling intent-filled gaze from the night before. She made herself look busy, turning nonchalantly to Lulu to ask a question, but her girlfriend, it seemed, had eyes only for that other SEAL, Mink.

  “Lulu,” Kit said. “Where are the smaller plates?”

  Lulu blinked. “Oh. Umm, yeah. Let me get them.” She hurried off, leaving Kit alone with three hungry guys.

  “Good morning,” Lucas greeted, a slow smile forming. “How was your night?”

  “Good,” Kit replied. “Breakfast is buffet-style, so just get whatever you need, boys. Miss Clementine had an extra batch made just for you all. She said she knows how much you eat.”

  Lucas sniffed the air appreciatively. “Yeah. We tend to eat a lot. Are you joining us?”

  “In a bit.”

  “Good. You look nice in pants too, even though I prefer last night’s outfit.”

  Not as nice as he looked in shorts.. “Don’t you ever stop flirting?” Kit asked, handing him a plate from the stack.

  “I don’t flirt. I just state it like it is. Don’t I, boys?”

  “Yeah,” Dirk agreed, as he scooped scrambled eggs onto his plate. “Lucas is all about statements.”

  “Lucas’ statements are like bumper stickers,” Mink said, blowing on his coffee. “Every statement has style.”

  Kit sniffed. “Did you take a shower? You two are full of it already and it’s still early.”

  “Hey, now, we smell good!” Dirk sniffed at his shoulder. “Mink squirted me with some pink...what was that stuff you sprayed on me, bro?”

  “French toilet water,” Mink said helpfully. “Pink French toilet water.”

  The two of them laughed.

  “Be careful, boys, she has Ranger brothers,” Lulu said, as she came in, arms loaded down with plates.

  Mink got up and went to help her. “Yeah, we heard. That’s why your friend keeps sniffing so suspiciously. Rangers are notoriously smelly.”

  Kit grinned. She was going to have some great lines for her brother when he got home. “No wonder he calls you guys cupcakes. Afraid of a little dirt.”

  “What? I’ll have you know...”

  “Remind me to let you smell my...”

  “I’ll show him my cupcakes...”

  The men all protested together after that and Lulu and she exchanged grins as they rolled their eyes.

  “So easy,” Lulu mouthed. Aloud, she said, “Aunty Clementine said to join in and eat, Kit. Everything’s been taken care of already.”

  Kit went to serve herself. Honestly, this place ran like clockwork and there wasn’t much she could do to help out. The hard work would come when they started moving the furniture. Lucas pulled out a chair across from where he was seated.

  “Thank you,” she said. “How’s breakfast?”

  “Good,” He helped scoot her chair in, leaned down and continued, “I like the tattoo on your lower back. How did you get it and what do you do for fun?”

  His tone was low and intimate. It made her heart go pitter-patter. There was no polite back-and-forth inane conversation with this guy. “You know, there’s such a thing as social niceties,” she said and secretly grimaced at how prim she sounded.

  “48 hours don’t allow for social niceties.” He leaned closer. “I want to get to know you better. That’s being nice, right?”

  Kit spooned sugar into her coffee. “Nope. I call that rude. Desperate, even. Are you a desperate man, Lucas?”

  “Sometimes.” He went back to his seat. “But I’m not there yet.”

  She studied him as she took a sip. He gazed back at her, a serious expression betrayed only by the tiny quirk of his lips. Most women would find that directness very unsettling, but it was a refreshing change for her. Her job required her to use words carefully, to interpret what others meant when they said things a certain way. There were no such games with this man.

  “Forty-eight hours?” she asked. “I thought you were in town for three days.” Lulu had supplied that piece of information.

  The small quirk of his lips was now an amused curve. “It was my secret weapon. I was keeping the third day for desperate measures.”

  She laughed and took a bite of her bagel. “Or maybe you’d be resting up, tired out by all the moving.”

  His smile widened even more. He had beautiful straight teeth. “It depends on how much moving we do.”

  Gulp.

  Thankfully, Lulu appeared with a tray and sat next to her. She deposited some toast onto her brother’s plate, then turned to Kim.

  “The trick is to keep his mouth occupied at all times. Then he can’t bother you with inane conversation.”

  “You know, Mink tells me the same thing about you,” Lucas said.

  Mink was drinking his coffee and started choking. Dirk helpfully thumped his back. Lulu tossed all three of them a glare, daring them to continue the conversation, but Lucas just ignored her, catching Kit’s amused gaze with his. Laughter lines crinkling the corner of his eyes betrayed his enjoyment of his sister’s discomfiture.

  “Do you have the same problem with my sister, Kit?” he continued. “Yak, yak, yak, yak, yak.”

  Lulu reached over and smacked his arm. Just then a couple of guests came into the dining room.

  “Good morning!” One of them greeted.

  There was a chorus of ‘good mornings’ and everyone settled back to eating. Kit breathed out a sigh. It wouldn’t have been good if they had come in a few seconds later in a middle of a sibling food fight.

  As if reading her mind, Lucas said, in a low voice, “Don’t worry. We really know how to behave.”

  Lulu snorted and whispered, “Yeah, like she’s going to believe you after last night.” She smiled at the guests. “Make yourselves comfortable. Sit anywhere you want.”

  From then on, the boys were on their best behavior, charming two older women in their sixties who came and sat by them, asking them questions and joking with them about going out dancing.

  Kit listened quietly, enjoying the friendly camaraderie and thinking about her job. Her request to broaden her public information role to include some field reporting had been approved and she was excited about the next meeting with the board so she could listen in on the plans for the next few projects. It would be great if she could work with Sean Castro and his ongoing assignment.

  “You seem far away,” Lulu said, interrupting her reverie. “Planning your next reports?”

  Kit shook her head. “I finished those before coming. Don’t want to do homework when I’m on vacay!”

  Lulu smiled. “You consider helping me move a holiday?”

  “Hey, good company, good food and hopefully, a night out with my girlfriend—that’s vacation, right?”

  “True.” Lulu buttered her toast. “Once the boys move the heavy stuff, I can take care of the rest. We’ll go out then, ‘kay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey, what about us?” Mink chimed in. “Don’t we get to have a night off?”

  “Are you angling to be part of our girls’ night out, pack mule?” Lulu asked.

  “Did you hear that? We’re nothing but pack mules,” Mink said.

  “I think she’s calling you an ass, dude,” Dirk said.

  “Maybe because she got her ass kicked last night,” Mink pointed out.

  “What?”

  Oh, oh. It’d started again. Kit looked across the table at Lucas. Her pulse started racing. He was watching her, totally ignoring his friends and sister. Everything around them seemed to recede into the background.

  It’s just a look, Kit.

  She wasn’t a shy person, never considered herself special in any particular way, but that look. Oh God. Focused. Intimate. Her insides churned and melted from the heat in his eyes. It made her feel very shy. And special.

  This close, she could see his eyes weren’t brown or black, like she’d assumed. They were dark gray. The color of h
is tee shirt brought out hints of blue in them. Every time they settled on her, she was compelled to look back, wanting to know more about this man’s secret thoughts.

  That made her want to laugh out loud. Lulu would tell her that men, and especially her brother, had no secret thoughts. She’d often scoffed at how easy it was to read men. Kit didn’t explain to her friend it was so for her because she was leggy, curvaceous and model-gorgeous. Lulu had this self-image that she was a regular tomboy and that was part of the fun of being her friend, watching Lulu wonder what was up with all these guys talking like nervous teenagers around her.

  “Hey, Cumber, you didn’t answer. Are we doing anything as exciting?”

  His eyes never left hers. “I’m making plans.”

  “Umm, do they include us?” Dirk asked wryly.

  “Maybe. Depends.”

  Kit glanced down at her food. Food. Her light-headedness must be from the lack of food.

  “You aren’t planning anything until you get to work,” Lulu interrupted her steamy thoughts. “And pack mules don’t get lunch if they don’t get started soon. Go on, shoo. Get the van unloaded.”

  “Can I finish my coffee first?”

  “Tough woman, man.”

  “I think she just needs someone else to push around so we’re left in peace.”

  “You volunteering, Mink?”

  “Oh, sure, suddenly I’m relegated to become a target.”

  “No, target is lunch, dude. You’re just distraction fodder. With Cumber’s permission, of course. Right, Cumber?”

  “Humph. I’m getting tired of this asking for permission stuff,” Lulu interrupted the men’s banter. “I’ll be in the back, unloading, when you guys are ready. You coming soon, Kit?”

  Kit took a quick swallow of the rest of her juice and got up. She snapped a salute. “Oh yes, right now, ma’am.”

  Escape seemed like a good idea. Let the boys eat and then she’d deal with Lucas Branson later.

  “See you guys later,” Kit said.

  She deliberately didn’t glance at Lucas’ direction as she followed Lulu out, but felt his eyes on her all the way. She stopped to get an apple off the buffet table.

  “Target escaping, dude,” she heard Dirk mocking Mink. “You should be the first to go help out the lady. You know she’s expecting you to run after her.”

  “I’m playing hard to get,” Mink said. “Hey, Cumber, pass me the salt.”

  Kit grinned to herself. Luckily, Lulu was out of hearing distance.

  “What do you say, Cumber? Let the girls decide what stuff to move around first or go out and take over the whole operation?”

  “Let’s wait a few minutes,” she heard Lucas say as she headed out. “I’m enjoying the view from here.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Two nights later

  “That woman is an organized taskmaster, dude!” Dirk said, giving the waitress a smile as she put the mugs of beer in front of them.

  “She’d make a good sergeant,” Lucas agreed. He took a long gulp of the frothy brew. “Ahhhhh. Been wanting that all day.”

  They had moved Lulu’s furniture into her suite of rooms the first day. Tricky business, maneuvering beds and desks up and down wooden, curvy staircases. Getting the old furniture down from the upper rooms took a bit of brain and muscle. They had bought some tough ropes to lower some of the pieces over the banister. The heavier oak was a slower process, requiring a fair amount of quiet cussing.

  After that, it was bringing up Lulu’s stuff. They had to disassemble her big work desk and part of her bed so it would fit through one of the smaller doorways. There were a couple of bookshelves and what seemed like five million boxes of books and clothes.

  “How did they do all that moving in the old days, anyway?” Mink asked. “I know they had servants but that old oak furniture we moved down was massive and damn heavy. The girls would never have been able to do that themselves.”

  When the truck which was supposed to pick up the older stuff for some charity didn’t show up, they had to move all the furniture from the curb to the back shed in the evening. Not a problem for the guys but the delay had caused extra work.

  Dirk flexed a bicep and pointed to it. “Muscles. Just like the way we did it.”

  “I bet they needed more than three men. We got Cumber. He’s worth at least two in strength.”

  Lucas lifted a brow.

  “Okay, three,” Dirk amended.

  “Better,” Lucas said, amused.

  “I don’t know, dude. ‘Men were like real men back during the wahr,’” Mink said, affecting Aunt Clementine’s soft Southern accent so accurately, it made them laugh.

  Aunt Clementine had been something else. She was determined to “chaperone” the girls as much as she could and was constantly telling them tales from ‘back during the wahr.’ Lucas was never sure whether she’d meant the Civil War or the World Wars, but one thing was for sure, ‘during the wahr,’ men had been stronger than any today, more handsome, more courteous, more manly. Her aunt’s voice was dreamy when she had talked about her first love and how he’d courted her, and afterward, Lucas and the Stooges had jokingly wondered whether this lover was also from the Civil War.

  “Well, what do you expect in Charleston? Many women I meet here have this thing about the Civil War. And then they look at me and don’t see Rhett Butler,” Mink said, putting two straws in his nose to make a mustache and then added, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a...gosh be-darn.”

  “You are such an ass. Do you think Miss Clementine sees us as men?” Dirk asked.

  “I’m sure she knows we go out and fight in wars,” Cumber said, “but I think she romanticizes the Civil War and sort of gets them all mixed up in her head. I’d imagine it gets like that when you have to tell the same Civil War history stuff about the mansion to your guests every day.”

  “Man, I sure hope your sis doesn’t get to be like that when she runs the place,” Mink said. “Don’t want her to get that kind of romantic notions about men and war.”

  Lucas squinted his eyes at his friend who was still fiddling with his Rhett Butler imitation mustache, half-amused at the way he was trying to cut the straws with his pen-knife to the right length to fit above his lip.. “Speaking of romantic notions and my sister, what kind are you contemplating with Lulu?”

  Mink and Lulu. He had had suspicions for a while now but these last couple of days had confirmed it. Mink had his eyes on his sister, and surprisingly, she didn’t seem to mind. He’d never thought about his sister being interested in his best friends and wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

  “Oh-oh,” Dirk said and held up his mug. “Should I leave the table for this private brother to brother-in-arms warning?”

  “Nah. I’m just asking,” Lucas said. “Well?”

  Mink looked down at his beer. “Well, nothing. You know what I think about romantic notions. They’re for women. No offense, man. Your sister and I are just flirting, nothing more. She has a mansion to take care of and I have battles to fight.”

  “Hey, sounds like a Civil War story to me,” Dirk quipped, then waved his mug at Mink. “Hey, joking here, Rhett.”

  “Just don’t hurt my sister’s feelings,” Lucas said. “I don’t want none of that big brother must beat the shit out of his best friend crap in the future, you hear?”

  “I think your sister can beat the crap out of me without your help, Cumber,” Mink pointed out dryly. He put on his straw “mustache” again. This time, they fit perfectly. “Scarlett O’Hara she ain’t.”

  That was true. Lucas signaled to the waitress for another round. “Fine. Subject closed.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. Romantic notions, baby. How about Miss Kit there, big fella? We see you doing more than making eyes with her the last two days.” Dirk batted his eyes and affected Aunt Clementine’s accent too as he added, “Lucas, can you come back here and help Kit carry this? Oh, yes, Lucas, it’s such a beautiful evening, go take Kit for a walk.”

/>   Mink snickered.

  Lucas grinned. Kit was something else too. She’d found ways to slip from Aunt Clementine by putting the ideas into the older woman’s head. Dirk was exaggerating but he didn’t mind the teasing. He’d enjoyed the moments alone with Kit.

  He looked behind Dirk and saw Lulu and Kit coming to their table. He made a small signal to his buddies.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t the three stooges,” Lulu said. She turned and stared hard at Mink, who still had the shortened straws sticking out his nose. “What in the world is that above your lip?”

  “My Rhett Butler mustache,” Mink said.

  Kit laughed out loud. Lucas got up to bring a couple of extra chairs over.

  “That looks disgusting. They wiggle when you speak.”

  Mink half-closed his eyes. “I’ll have you know, Rhett Butler was considered dashing, sexy, manly, masterful, confident...”

  “Arrogant, roguish, insufferable...” chimed in Lulu.

  “Oy, adjectives give me a headache. I need more beer!” Dirk interrupted.

  On cue, the waitress appeared with a tray of mugs. She deposited them and turned to get the women’s orders.

  Mink nudged Lucas. “Notions tonight, yes?”

  Lucas gave Mink a long look. “I don’t want to hear about your notions if it involved you-know-who, clear?”

  “Aye, aye, sir!”

  “But we want details on yours.”

  Ignoring his two friends’ meaningful smirks, Lucas picked up his beer and turned to Kit. “It’s our last night together. Let’s do something memorable.”

  She had on a pretty long-sleeved top with swirly patterns. And her hair fell in waves around her shoulders. He wanted to take her outside and be with her alone. He knew his friends wouldn’t mind, but his sister might, seeing that it was their “girls night out,” as they called it.

  “I think these last few days have been pretty memorable,” Kit said, with a slight smile. She folded her thumb and fingers as she counted. “The Pink Room and imagining all three of you in that bed, Mink in his underwear, Dirk hanging off the balustrade, you carrying that huge armoire with that lampshade on your head, Miss Clementine’s shocked face when she caught you boys wearing the beads and laces, and now Mink with his Rhett Butler mustache.”