Guardian

by Catherine Mann

  Sophie gestured to her driveway. “This is my house.”

  Although he already knew that. How close was his place?

  David pulled off the road. The vehicle’s idling rumble filled the silence.

  As he’d questioned her thoughts moments prior, she wondered what rattled around in his hard head while he stared at her home with such a bland expression. The two-story beige stucco home with a three-car garage looked much like the other houses lining the finger of the shore.

  Big.

  Pricey.

  Exclusive.

  He scratched along his jaw. “Nice little place you have, Counselor.”

  Why the edge of scorn? He’d said his sister lived in the same piece of exclusive lakefront property. She’d heard he’d played in the semipro golf circuit before joining the air force, so he likely had a nice cushion padding his bank account. He could probably afford to disdain such luxuries, having been given a choice. Her family hadn’t had much, especially after her father died. Sophie planned to make sure her son enjoyed the security she’d never known as a child, financial and emotional.

  Brice had already lost more than any ten-year-old should. With a mama-bear ferocity that scared her at times, she renewed her vow to keep him safe.

  Absorbed in her reflection, she didn’t notice David crossing to her side of the Scout until he stood beside her with an outstretched hand. Sophie accepted his help since it was faster than arguing. The minute her feet hit the ground, her vision swam.

  David steadied her. “Take it easy. I’ll help you up the steps.”

  His support felt too good. She shook her hand free. “Don’t worry. I really can walk. And once I get inside, Nanny will smother me with attention.”

  “Oh, right. I keep forgetting about your nanny.” He passed her briefcase, holding it like a shield between them. “Okay, then. Don’t think a bump on the head lets you off the hook for our appointment tomorrow.”

  “In my office.” She wrapped her fingers around the supple leather while he held firm.

  “After court.” He let go. “Good-bye, Blondie.” Shooting her a wave, he circled to the driver’s side.

  “David!”

  He paused, half in, one foot still touching the ground. “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  They stared at each other across the humming engine. The air between them crackled with memories of that time they’d spent tangled up on the ground together. Of what it felt like to be intimately close to someone again. Even beyond that, what it would be like to have someone with whom to share life’s burdens. Because of her husband’s secrets and betrayal, she’d never really known.

  “No worries.” David thumped his chest. “It’s what we do for our brothers and sisters in arms.”

  He eased behind the wheel but didn’t back away until she’d made it safely to the top step of her home.

  Home. Where she could relax with a late dinner…and try yet again to pretend if she worked hard enough, she could fill the void in her son’s life left by his father’s death.

  Pretend she still couldn’t feel the sensual touch of David’s fingers in her hair.

  THREE

  David nailed the accelerator.

  Sophie Campbell was an open invitation to an encore performance of having his life shredded. And he had only himself to blame for the way his marriage to Leslie had played out. He should have known better. Leslie’s first ex-husband had warned him. But he’d been so sure things would be different.

  Wrong.

  Leslie hadn’t just walked out. She’d torn apart their family. He’d brought up her son as his own, and then when she’d decided she didn’t want to be a mom anymore, there’d been nothing David could do. Her son had gone back to his biological father. Haley Rose lost her mother and her half brother.

  David didn’t want to think about what he’d lost. He needed to focus on the present, the future, his kid.

  He parked in his sister’s driveway and slumped in his seat. Some days sucked the life right out of a person. He just wanted to gather his daughter, go home, and forget about Sophie Campbell tucked against his chest.

  His sister gripped the second-floor balcony railing in the middle of a Pilates stretch. David allowed the inevitable smile to cut through his fatigue.

  Not for the first time, he considered how Haley Rose would one day look like her aunt Madison. The dominant genes of the Berg family couldn’t be missed. Madison wore her standard Lycra workout clothes, her lengthy rope of dark hair trailing forward over one shoulder.

  He stepped out of the Scout and shouted up to her, “Sorry I’m late, Mad. I tried to call…”

  “Do you see a watch anywhere?” Madison linked her hands and stretched her arms over her head, a tangle of silver bracelets sliding to one elbow. Who wore bracelets with workout clothes?

  His sister.

  He climbed the concrete steps that led up to the sunning deck on the second floor. “If you ever owned a watch, you lost it.”

  “Only on purpose.” Barefoot, she rolled up her yoga mat and tucked it under her arm.

  Her free spirit frustrated the hell out of him at times, but he had to admit she’d saved his hide the past year by providing child care and even a place to crash. With Leslie’s lack of interest in Haley Rose, he needed all the help he could get. Madison’s easygoing manner soothed his high-spirited daughter.

  What kind of parent was Sophie, with her nanny and big house?

  David shook free from his thoughts of Sophie and met Madison at the base of the stairs. “Where’s the runt?”

  “Playing with her new little friend at his house.” She held a single finger to her lips before he could interrupt. “Yes, I did a thorough check on everything from his family to his blood type before letting your child play with him. He’s a nice kid. Good manners. Does his homework and eats all his vegetables.”

  “I trust your judgment.”

  Madison snickered. “Since when?”

  “I’m glad she’s making friends. I worried about uprooting her to move here just because I didn’t want to drive the extra miles.”

  “You moved so you could spend more time with her and so I didn’t have to hang out at your gross bachelor apartment.”

  “You’re a lot nicer now that you’re grown up.”

  “Suck-up.” She swatted him with her yoga mat before opening the French doors. “Brice is the perfect playmate for your tomboy. They’re just working together on a science project for the fair. It’s not like we have to worry about their hormones yet.”

  “I’d rather not think about my daughter, hormones, and boys.” David shuddered.

  “I told you. He’s a good kid.” She lifted her brother’s wrist and looked at his watch. “I should probably go over and pick her up before they wear out Nanny.”

  “The nanny?”

  “No, her name’s Nanny. The boy’s great-grandmother. His mom’s a lawyer on base.”

  Ah hell.

  * * *

  After a quick wriggle into a shirt and pair of shorts, Sophie stalked along the shore to retrieve her son before the sun finished setting. When would this day end? Not any time soon, apparently.

  At least he hadn’t officially “ditched” Nanny this time. Nanny knew exactly where Brice was—off playing with the daughter of a nice, young, unattached flyboy who just moved to the neighborhood.

  Sophie hadn’t needed even a single guess to determine who bachelor number one might be. Grandma Anna, Nanny, wouldn’t let up until she marched her only granddaughter down the aisle again. Sophie didn’t intend to march anywhere except down her stretch of the lakeside and home. And what do ya know? Now she had his address.

  Ten minutes later, she charged along the shoreline, and as the house in question came into view, she saw David in the distance. Tall, lean, and too damn sexy, he stood on the balcony talking with a super-skinny woman wearing Lycra workout clothes.

  The kick of jealousy made her mad.

  Then she rem
embered that he lived with his sister.

  The rush of relief made Sophie madder.

  She struggled to remember the woman’s name. It had been so long since she’d attended neighborhood functions at the clubhouse. Grief and work had almost consumed her whole.

  Finally, her mind latched on to a name from a Christmas party nearly two years ago. Madison Palmiere. Madison’s husband was a bigwig at one of the major airplane manufacturing companies.

  No reason she should have guessed Madison was related to David, since they had different last names. Too bad she hadn’t thought to make the connection earlier. She wasn’t surprised so much as frustrated. Beyond the professional realm, his presence now invaded the haven of her home. She’d worked hard for peace after Lowell’s death.

  His death?

  The word sounded too benign. Death didn’t come close to describing Lowell’s stupid, careless stunt. Sophie didn’t want to hate the husband she’d loved, but the contradictory emotions spiraled inside her all the same. No man with a wife and child should fly under bridges for thrills. Stubborn and reckless, he’d done it again in spite of his promise and had died, leaving her to face everything alone.

  She thought she’d forgiven him for throwing away his life, theirs together. In the hollow silence of endless nights, she’d learned to accept fate’s arbitrary twists.

  Until one too-sexy-for-his-own-good flyboy had opened the floodgates.

  Her sandals slapped against the muddy bank with drumming force, the water lapping at her feet. Trying to hold back the flood of anger proved futile. She wanted to crank the clock back to a time before that moment in the courtroom when some unnamed quality about David Berg had challenged her awake.

  Numb was better.

  Sophie glared at David and closed the last few feet separating them.

  * * *

  “Nanny?” David gulped.

  Madison nodded. “The lady’s a real dynamo for someone in her midseventies, but…Is something wrong?”

  David shook his head. “The Man upstairs has a wicked sense of humor today.”

  Divine proof stomped into sight with a vengeance. Arms pumping, a determined Sophie stormed down the shoreline, closing in on Madison’s house. She’d obviously recovered from any ill effects from the bump on her head.

  Sophie neared the dock, slowing to a more sedate pace. She plastered a polite grimace of a smile on her face. David wondered why even a counterfeit symbol of happiness from her stirred him. He loped down the stairs, his sister’s slower pace echoing softly behind him.

  Damn, but Sophie looked hot in jean shorts and a well-worn T-shirt that looked as soft as her skin. He realized he’d never seen her in anything other than her uniform before now. She looked…more approachable.

  David stuffed his hands safely away in his pockets.

  “Hello, Madison.” Sophie’s smile faltered as she stopped a couple of feet away from him. “David.”

  “Hey, Sophie…” Madison gestured between them, her bracelets jingling. “Hey, wait. David, this is the Major Campbell you’ve been…uh…talking about from the case?”

  Sophie lifted one eyebrow. “Talking about?”

  David stayed diplomatically silent, because yeah, he’d griped about what a pain in the “briefs” she’d been more than once.

  Madison laughed softly, too damn knowingly. “I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”

  Simultaneously, David and Sophie agreed. For once.

  “Just base business.”

  “Only through work.”

  Madison quirked a delicately arched eyebrow. “Okay.”

  His thoughts shot back to that moment at the courthouse when they’d been tangled up together on the ground, his body revved by the feel of her soft curves against him. The fire had been stirred all the more by the cheap thrill of touching her afterward, when she’d been disoriented. And how pathetic was that?

  A flash of awareness sparkled in her eyes for an unmistakable moment before she turned to Madison, giving David a full view of her back, her narrow waist, the curve of her hips. “I understand my son wandered down this way.”

  If she thought she could brush him off, she could think again. David frowned. “I thought they were at your house.”

  “He’s not here?” Sophie paled under her tan.

  All too well David understood the wayward nature of parental imagination. Worst-case scenarios could script themselves with little real provocation. She didn’t need more stress after their afternoon.

  Madison fidgeted with her bracelets. “They were working together on a science project for the fair. They know not to walk along the water by themselves, so they must be on the sidewalk.”

  The sound of youthful squeals carried on the gritty desert wind before the children came into view.

  Sophie sagged, then stiffened. “David, I don’t want Brice to know about my concussion.”

  Madison gasped. “Concussion? What happened?”

  “I just fell, nothing big as far as I’m concerned. But since Lowell’s death, Brice is afraid something’s going to happen to me.”

  “Oh, honey.” Madison leaned closer. “Have you taken him to see a psychiatrist? I can give you the name of a really good family counselor I saw after my second divorce.”

  “Thanks, I’ll let you know. Right now, I just want to get my son home.”

  “Of course.” Madison backed off. “He’s your kid.”

  “Yes. He is.”

  Sophie’s full lips curved into the first uncomplicated smile he’d ever seen from her. Maternal pride illuminated her face with the timeless beauty of a mother’s love for her child. She was so damn gorgeous, he felt like he’d been blindsided by a missile strike.

  The roaring need to see her smile for him drowned out anything else.

  Then she turned away to greet her son, leaving David more unsettled than ever.

  Two bedraggled children raced into sight. Sophie walked up the driveway to meet them. Wind lifted her golden hair, exposing the vulnerable curve of her neck. She hooked an arm along her child’s shoulders just over his backpack. A silky curtain of hair slid forward and blocked her face as she listened to Brice.

  David had the answer to his question regarding Sophie’s parenting. Her ease with her son was evident.

  He would have been better off not knowing.

  Madison elbowed him in the side. “Just base business, huh?”

  Haley Rose catapulted forward, saving David from responding to a question he wasn’t sure he could answer.

  “Hi, Dad!” She flung aside her backpack and locked her arms around his waist.

  “Hey there, runt. Missed you today.” He tugged her trailing dark braid.

  David patted her back and felt the same kick of love he’d experienced the first time she curled her tiny fingers around his.

  He’d thought his daughter was happy. But now as he watched her with Sophie’s son, he couldn’t help but think how his daughter was aching to replace the half brother she’d lost. Leslie couldn’t be bothered to get her kids together, and her first husband thought a clean break was better and to hell with how many times Haley Rose cried herself to sleep.

  “Ouch, Dad. You’re squeezing too tight.” Haley Rose wriggled out of his hug.

  “Sorry, kiddo. Did you get much work done on your project?”

  Haley Rose snatched up her backpack and hitched it over her shoulder. “Me and Brice made a bunch of notes. Can he and his mom stay for supper so we can show you?”

  He looked fast at Sophie and found awareness quickly replaced by panic in her eyes that said, No way in hell. He couldn’t agree more. And he hoped Sophie fully grasped how important it was not to let the kids misunderstand. He didn’t want either child to get matchmaking ideas.

  His daughter was too fragile to take another disappointment right now. Sophie needed to hear just why it was so important. The sooner, the better. But not here where the kids could overhear.

  He would broach the subjec
t in private. And if he could wrangle some time to address the subject of Caleb Tate’s trial? Then all the better.

  * * *

  After tossing and turning all night, then court all day, the last thing she needed was extra paperwork in the office. At least the building was quiet after hours. She would make it up to Brice with a mother-son video-game tournament on Saturday—thanks to her military training on the firing range, she could actually hold her own, something her son liked to brag about. She pushed aside questions about what David and his daughter did for bonding time on the weekends.

  Focus on work. The man had already stolen enough of her concentration this week.

  Sophie sat at her desk, searching through Captain Caleb Tate’s deposition for something she must have missed. She’d already reviewed Berg’s deposition and statements made by others who’d flown with Tate that day.

  An empty to-go box held the stain of the taco salad she’d quickly downed for supper, along with two cups of coffee. A fresh cup of java steamed beside a photo of her son winning last year’s science fair.

  Right now, her case straddled the fence. Tate had chosen a jury. Most likely betting on having another aviator on the trial who would sympathize with him.

  Granted, for her, the burden of proof wasn’t as tough in a military court. The rules of evidence weren’t as strict as in a civilian trial. That didn’t mean she could—or ever would—slack off.

  She could read the depositions on the computer, but for this kind of brainstorming, she preferred printouts and government contracts, using colored pencils and highlighters to draw connections and graph notes.

  Thumbing through pages, she scanned past the questions about his name. His address. His time at the location. She paused at the part about his job information.

  CAMPBELL: State your occupation for the record.

  TATE: I am an AC-130 FCO—fire control officer.

  CAMPBELL: On that day, what type of sortie were you flying?

  TATE: We were flying an operational test mission of the new cannon mounting system.

  CAMPBELL: And what does that entail?

  TATE: The current gun mounting system on the AC-130 is from the Vietnam era. It requires a lot of maintenance to keep it running and a lot of crewmen to fire it. The system we were testing updated the stabilization gyros and aiming systems of the gun and took tasks that were manual and made them automatic.