by Amy Gamet
Mother Nature’s latest tantrum had left a real mess in its wake, which Jackie had been working to clean up for almost five hours now. It was one of those tasks with no end in sight, when all you could do was the next thing before you, one after the other. At least it would keep her occupied while she waited for the roads to clear and her path to freedom to open up.
Selena squealed with laughter in the distance. Sloan was with her on the beach, alternating between making his security rounds of the resort and playing with the girl and kitten, Mimi, who had returned unscathed the morning after the storm. Jackie smiled. Her daughter’s happiness was the best sound she’d heard in ages, and Sloan was worth his weight in gold, if only for his babysitting abilities.
There’d been a time when she’d dreamed of having a husband to share her life with again, a man to be a father to Selena, to help Jackie pick up from even the biggest storm. But there was no one to help her, no one to share this journey, and in that moment she felt the absence of a man in her life more acutely than she had in years.
It’s worse because Bill’s gone now, too.
“Hey, can I help?”
Razorback stood a few yards away, his fatigues replaced by khaki shorts and a running shirt that made him look like a plastic manikin in a department store window. Real men didn’t have bodies like that, did they? “You didn’t sleep long,” she said.
“Almost five hours. That’s all I need.” He bent and picked up an armful of broken fronds, the muscles of his forearms standing out in relief. “Where are you putting these?”
She pushed her hair out of her eyes, enjoying the sight he made. “To the left of that dune. You don’t have to help, you know. I’ve got this.”
“I know I don’t have to. I want to.” He smiled, the gesture transforming his face from formidably strong to handsome and kind. He filled his arms completely and brought the detritus to the pile. “Leave yours here,” he said when he returned. “I’ll bring them over with mine.”
They fell into a rhythm, each collecting branches and palm fronds, with Razorback carrying them to the dunes. Together they worked far more quickly than she’d been able to alone, a satisfying clearing taking shape between the resort pool and the tall grasses that separated them from the beach.
She moved toward the pile, her arms full, just as he was scooping up the rest of the branches. “Here,” he said, opening his arms just enough for her to press her bundle into his. His hand touched the length of her upper arm as she pulled away, an electric tingle traveling up to her neck, down her spine, and settling in her pelvis.
Holy moly.
She stepped back. “Thanks.” He turned and walked toward the dune, her eyes lingering on his backside and the strong stride of his steps. She blew out air and went back to the work at hand, suddenly realizing she knew virtually nothing about this man. When he returned, she set about rectifying that. “Tell me about your life in New York.”
“What do you want to know?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. The usual stuff. Are you married?”
“Divorced.”
“How long?”
“Two years.”
“Shortly after your time with the SEALs.”
“That’s right.”
There was a story there. One that likely involved an emotional landmine, if she guessed correctly. But didn’t divorce usually come from some kind of explosion?
“You?” he asked.
“Widow.” It was her standard response, usually spoken in her most heavily accented Spanish. People asked far fewer questions when they thought you might not understand.
“I’m sorry. How did he die?”
“Car accident. Where do you live?”
“Upper East Side.”
“Brownstone?”
“Yes.”
“Nice.”
“It keeps out the cold. You don’t like answering questions about your husband.”
“No, and you don’t like answering questions at all.”
“This is fun. Let’s keep going.”
She looked up then, unsure if he was being sarcastic or not. The heat was getting to her, and the quick movement of her head made her dizzy. “Seriously?”
“What did you do before this?”
“I was a reporter.”
“For whom?” he asked.
“Do you always say whom?”
“Only when it’s appropriate. Who did you work for?”
“None of your beeswax.” She plopped down on her bottom in the sand. “Why did you become a SEAL?”
“To see if I could.” He kept working.
“You do that a lot? Try something just to see if you can do it?”
“Everyone does that.”
“No, they don’t.”
He braced his elbows on his thighs and looked at her. “You opened a resort on the beach with no husband and no help. Why did you do that?”
She laughed. “Utter desperation.”
“I became a doctor to see if I could. A surgeon, too. The best things in life are hovering on that edge of can and cannot.”
“You’re a SEAL and a surgeon? Bit of an overachiever there, aren’t you? But I have to disagree. I think the best things in life come easy. The things you’re meant to find are put firmly in your path.”
He laughed. “You have money, don’t you? Only someone with money would think like that.”
“You’re not supposed to ask people about money.”
“So what?”
She looked at the horizon. The sun was low in the sky. Soon it would set, and she hadn’t even thought about making dinner. She considered whether or not to be honest with him, and wondered why this question would give her pause more than the others. “I grew up with money. I don’t have any now.” Heat flooded her cheeks. “I’m not even sure how I’m going to pay the bill for you two coming here.” She was quiet for a minute. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“I don’t do girlfriends.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Boyfriend?”
He laughed toward the sky, a deep baritone sound she liked immediately. He pointed to her. “That’s not what I meant.”
“So why no girlfriend?”
“I don’t need one. Been there, done that.”
“Your ex.”
“I don’t see a man around here, helping you pick up the branches around your glass house.”
She pursed her lips. There was a dark cloud on the horizon, and she feared this break in the stormy weather would be short-lived. “I have to think of Selena.”
“And what about yourself?”
“I’m fine.”
He picked up his pile and walked it to the dune, then sat beside her in the sand, facing the water. “You’re lonely.”
“So are you.”
“My needs are met.”
He meant sex. She shook her head. “There’s more to it than that.”
“Did your husband make you happy?”
“No.”
“Yet you still think happiness exists.”
“And you don’t.” Her eyes raked over his features, so masculine and strong. There was a stubbornness to the set of his jaw, a flame somewhere behind his eyes that spoke of great pain and even lower expectations of other people. “You never have.”
“No.”
It showed. He held out no hope for the one thing she wanted to believe above all others. That there was someone for her in this life, that she wasn’t meant to be alone, that it was possible she would find happiness as part of a couple one day. A family for Selena.
Something about this man resonated inside her, like the thinnest of wine glasses vibrating with a soprano’s voice. But she would find no happiness here, only emptiness that resembled what she was after, a mirror image of the real thing. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she was certain just the same.
Razorback was not the answer to any of her questions.
“I need to get dinner started.” She moved to stand up, but he
beat her to it and offered his hand. Grudgingly, she took it, letting him pull her to her feet. He smelled like hard work and virile male, and she stood perilously close to him, his hand still holding hers. Her heart skipped a beat. “What happened to your face?”
He pulled away from her hand. “Afghanistan. I was carrying an oxygen tank for a patient—a kid who’d taken a bullet in his lung. The shrapnel from a roadside bomb punctured the tank and set it on fire.”
She inhaled sharply, the back of her hand coming reflexively to her mouth as she imagined the scene he described. “I’m so sor—”
“The kid died. If you want to feel sorry for somebody, feel sorry for him.”
8
Hours later, Jackie still couldn’t sleep, despite being so tired. So she turned the television on quietly and tuned in to Saturday Night Live. The US episode was delayed but broadcast in English. A guilty pleasure. They were in the middle of a skit, set on what looked like the Senate floor. A big, hairy man wore pink lingerie and twirled like a dancer, the others around him lamenting that the underwear man would never be president now.
Another guy entered the scene. The hairstyle, plaid tie, and suspenders uncomfortably familiar. “I’ll be your president.”
“Isn’t he the valet?” one man asked. The audience chuckled. Everyone looked confused. A second man spoke up. “No, that’s the guy who works at the 7-Eleven down the street.” A third said, “I thought that was the janitor.” A petite woman rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t mind him. That’s just the senator from California.”
The audience laughed, but Jackie stopped breathing, the program suddenly taking on a surreal quality.
“That’s right,” said the actor playing the senator. “Doug McGrath.”
The people looked nonplussed, shaking their heads and shrugging. “Nope, there’s no senator named McGrath.”
“I’m running for president.”
“Green party?” asked one of them.
“No! I’m a Democrat, just like you,” McGrath whined.
“The Democrat’s by the punch bowl in the G-string and pasties. Pink really isn’t a good color for him.”
“Mauve would be nice,” said the petite woman, the men nodding their agreement.
“I’m the Democrat running for president. Doug McGrath.” He pointed to the man in pink. “That guy withdrew almost two weeks ago.”
“McGrath? Never heard of him.”
“I’m the forerunner for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, with three point five percent of the popular vote,” he snapped, tugging his shirt cuffs out of his suit jacket, the familiar mannerism making her dizzy, lightheaded.
The men ignored him, staring instead at the twirling, lingerie-clad man. “Where do you think he gets lacy panties that big?” one man asked. “My wife, she’s big-boned…”
An electric ringing whined in Jackie’s ears, getting louder by the second. Doug McGrath was running for president. The frontrunner had dropped out of the race. Doug was in the lead for the party’s nomination.
Terror gripped her tightly as she grabbed her iPad, wincing in pain as she moved. She went to CNN and searched for his name, quickly confirming her fears. She covered her mouth with her hand as a picture of two men filled the top of the screen. Not just a skit then, but reality. Thunder cracked sharply overhead. She bit her lip and closed her eyes.
It’s your fault he’s gotten as far as he has.
She stared at the closed door of her bedroom closet. There was a box in there, tucked high on a shelf—the evidence that could ruin Doug McGrath. It had been left there, undisturbed for years as Selena grew up and her father made his way up the ladder of political success.
But Jackie had made her choice the night she was almost killed. She’d chosen her daughter, and she would still choose Selena if she were given the same choice today.
It was the cold that came back first in her memory—always the cold—the wind blowing across her wet skin and saturated clothing as sirens wailed in the distance. She’d stood in the moonlight, her teeth chattering as shivers overtook her body.
“You tried to kill me!”
“I saved your goddamn life! You keep your mouth shut and I’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars. We both pretend this never happened.”
“What good is money? Can it buy me a new life?”
“As a matter of fact, it can.”
She let the tablet fall out of her hand onto the bedspread, her stare unfocused. “We had a deal.” Surrender pulled her down and she rested her head on her pillow beside her daughter. She needed to run. Needed to hide. Needed to protect Selena and keep herself safe from the man who never wanted his daughter to live.
And if he was elected? Could she hide from the president of the free world? Tears came in a rush, unstoppable. She’d feared the intruder had something to do with Doug, but now there was no denying it. Nor the gun they’d found after she’d been attacked and Bill had killed the intruder.
That gun had been meant to kill her.
The deal that had kept them safe all these years had expired the moment Doug McGrath set his sights on the White House. They wouldn’t stop now, not ever. She was a liability. She had proof of his heritage, and Selena was a living, breathing testament to his lies. Jackie had to take the girl and leave. Get far away from here.
But on the screen, a weatherman was detailing the forecast and the storm damage already sustained. “…leaving large sections of the highway impassable and closed to vehicle traffic, and we’re not even through the worst of it yet. Flooding from the storm surge and the additional heavy rain put much of the area underwater…”
“No, no, no…” Pictures of flooded streets flashed on the screen, followed by a map showing the majority of roadways in red. .
She was stuck here, as surely as if she were fenced in by a prison’s walls. She was a sitting duck, just waiting for Doug to make his next move. The only things standing between her and Selena and certain death were the Navy SEALs downstairs in the kitchen.
She buried her face in the pillow. Why did Bill have to die and leave her alone like this? Why did he have to be taken from her right when she needed him most? “Please help us, Bill.” She wiped her tears into the fabric. “Help me keep my baby safe.”
An image of Ian flashed in her mind, his bronze skin dramatically scarred, his wide shoulders and muscled arms seeming to fill every room he went in. It was as if Bill was telling her to trust him, to lean on this man in his stead. Sloan had called him Razorback, and the nickname suited him.
Sharp.
Wild.
She fell asleep still thinking of him, her pillow wet with tears.
9
Razorback swore colorfully as the Jeep carrying Jackie and Selena drove out of sight. “How the hell are we supposed to protect her when she insists on going off alone?”
“Technically, she’s with her neighbor,” said Sloan.
“You know what I mean, dickhead.”
“She’s been pissed at you since yesterday on the beach. What the hell did you say to her?”
“Nothing. We were just talking.”
Sloan walked back toward the house, calling over his shoulder, “You said something.”
At least Jackie’s impromptu outing gave them the time they needed to search the Pedazo de Cielo, trying to find out why she was attacked and who was after her. They split up, Razorback upstairs and Sloan down, combing through closets, drawers, and boxes as morning turned to afternoon, finally meeting to search Jackie’s bedroom together. It was small, with just enough room for a queen-sized bed beside a flowered sofa and one long, low dresser. A small television hung on the wall, and Razorback imagined this little room was her sanctuary away from her guests and her little girl.
He picked up a silver box, found it was full of earrings, and put it back. He opened each drawer, with plain clothes neatly organized into tidy piles, and wondered if every part of her life was so perfectly organized.
&nbs
p; Sloan opened the top drawer of the dresser. “Whoa, hold your horses. I found the sexy underwear box.” He held up a strappy lace thong. “Oh, will you look at that tiny triangle of fabric.”
“Put that down.”
Sloan picked up an even lacier bra, holding it to his chest and shaking his shoulders. “Look, it’s the spy who loved me.”
“Asshole. Put that shit away.” He tried not to imagine Jackie wearing that thing, his mind already fitting it to her body.
Sloan pulled out a corset and held it to his torso. “Now, this is Senator Mason all day.”
Razorback laughed in spite of himself, Senator Mason having just dealt with a very public cross-dressing scandal. “Who wore it better?”
“Oh, I did,” said Sloan. “The Democratic convention is going to be a clusterfuck now that Waller and Mason are both out of the running.”
Razorback grunted. “Don’t talk to me about politics.”
“Why the hell not? I’m not asking your opinion or starting a debate. I’m asking if you saw what happened—”
“Shut the fuck up, Dvorak.”
“It’s entertaining, watching a whole bunch of nobodies try to wrestle their way to the top.”
Razorback turned to him. “Do you know what shut up means?”
“I’m choosing to ignore your moody bitch ass and make reasonably social conversation.”
“Politics are not social. They’re antisocial. The only way political conversations go well is if you think the exact same shit I think, and frankly the chance of that happening is pretty slim.”
Sloan raised a fist over his head. “Better pensions for the military.”
Razorback couldn’t help himself. He grinned. “Hell yeah.”
“See? We’re the same.” Sloan winked and cut into another box.
Razorback pulled a flat plastic container out from under the bed. “Romance novels. There must be a hundred of them. Why do women read this shit?”
“I don’t know. Give me a good serial killer any day of the week.”
“Seriously.” He slid the box back under the bed and lifted the mattress. Nothing.