Angie had become friends with a sweet, young mother with soft, doe-like eyes. She hadn’t spoken about what happened even once during the entire tour, but had shared the horrendous experience in their group. Angie had been waving goodbye to the mother who held her toddler in her arms when the IED exploded. Watching a child being blown to bits in front of you did things to your head. According to Dagger, seeing a child die was the most stressful of all war causalities.
“I’m tired of being ‘in treatment.’ I want an assignment,” Angie said.
“Yeah, I wish we could work together again instead of…” She caught herself before saying “with your brother.”
Maddy lifted her new suitcases. “I need to get going.”
Angie forced a laugh. “I promise this time I won’t go looking for you.”
“I’m sorry I disappeared. The terrorist group was moving, and I had to join them without any warning. I’m sorry I caused you and everyone else the worry.”
“No sweat. We all understood. And lucky you did…”
Maddy didn’t want to think about how close they’d come to a bomb exploding on Pier 69. “I’ve got to catch a bus. Not sure when I’ll be back.” With suitcases in hand, Maddy left the most permanent residence she’d had in years. She was on the move again.
Chapter Four
Hunter crossed his arms and leaned against the blue rental Prius. He checked his watch, acting impatient, a man waiting for his wife to arrive. Wife? He was a professional soldier, a top-notch intelligence officer, and the idea of a wife—not any wife, but Maddy—terrified him. This assignment made Belarus and Yemen seem like child’s play.
Before a dangerous mission, hours were spent in physical and psychological preparation. All possible complications were evaluated and their potential solutions considered. Like waiting during a pause in the Second Battle of Fallujah, this time he had no idea what to expect and no way to know how he’d respond to living with the spunky, sexy woman. The uncertainty left him feeling untethered and adrift, and he didn’t like the sensation. The unknown, unchartered waters of this assignment sent logic and control spinning.
He had no strategies for the complication of Maddy and his inexplicable, intense, driving attraction to her. She could bring him to his knees if he allowed her. But he had to keep the upper hand. He was the ranking officer.
He leaned away from the car and spotted the #14 bus barreling down Broadway. Maddy was crisscrossing the city by bus, obscuring any link to the apartment she shared with Angie.
He had fantasized about this moment, wondering what sexy getup she’d wear to bludgeon him with her sensuality. He knew he had been the target of her sexy outfit at their last meeting, knew she was messing with his head. He got how Miss Maddy Jeffers rolled, but she had no idea who she was messing with.
The #14, jammed with commuters returning from work, pulled up to its stop at Denny and Broadway. He told himself it was the heat making his palms sweat and his heart race. He took one slow, deep breath and focused. He was a career Marine, not an adolescent having his first wet dream.
But like an adolescent, he had wondered what she slept in. T-shirts and panties? A teddy? Or did she sleep in the nude? Those thoughts and fantasies were why he’d ended up with the busty blonde barista from Starbucks last night.
The bus hissed to a stop, and the doors opened so the hot and harried passengers could file down the steps. Maddy was one of the last to exit, carrying a flowered duffel bag over her shoulder. She was definitely not Marine-issue this afternoon in her skimpy denim shorts and a white tank top that showed off her toned curves. Desire and longing for Maddy thrummed through him.
The way Maddy blew the curls off her forehead while she descended the steps told him she was hot after her long bus ride. Her head was turned to the person behind her—a big, blond guy in a tight T-shirt with bulging biceps who carried her massive suitcase. His longish blond hair hung over his eyes as he tracked Maddy’s sexy walk like a hound dog. Hunter’s possessiveness and anger combusted.
Maddy watched while the guy placed her matching suitcase on the sidewalk. The dude angled over her, making a slow sweep of her body. Hunter started toward them with a burning need to break up the intimate moment.
Maddy shook her head and turned toward Hunter. She waved with her fingers in a girlish, non-Maddy way, and his heart picked up speed, as did his pace. He bolted across the fifteen yards to her. He shot his best I-can-kill-you-in-less-than-ten-seconds look at the surfer dude, but the guy was either stoned or too hot on Maddy’s tail to notice the danger.
Hunter stepped in front of Maddy, forcing the dude to step back. “Honey, you’re late.”
Maddy’s eyes widened in shock.
And, without any thought, simply responding to primitive, male instincts, he pulled Maddy into his arms. He felt her stiffen when he held her tight against him and kissed her—not a slight peck but a hot, possessive “you’re mine” kiss.
He was acting like a jackass, but for this mission, she was his wife and he was in charge. And he wanted that made clear. He felt her relax against him, her hands wrapping around his waist. She opened her mouth to him and pressed closer against his chest. He hadn’t expected her to respond, and now all he wanted was another sweet taste of Maddy. He ran his hand along the soft dip of her hips, to her toned thigh.
The stoner dude’s cough brought him to his senses. “I’m going to be heading out.”
Hunter looked down at Maddy’s full, pink, moist lips and waited for the moment she’d come to herself and explode. He kept his arm around her shoulder in case she had the urge to demonstrate her formidable fighting skills.
She batted those baby blues once, then twice, and then the transformation. The soft, open woman now hardened into a battle-ready Marine. She clenched and unclenched her fists at her side, and her blue eyes narrowed into a tight squint.
She pulled away and stepped closer to the dipshit who stood around like some weird voyeur. Definitely stoned. “Rod, I’m sorry for the unseemly display.”
Unseemly? This from the woman who pranced her way through the JRS building looking like every man’s fantasy.
“My husband hasn’t seen me for a few weeks, so he’s acting like a Neanderthal.” She patted Hunter on the chest, getting close enough to do something painful. She gripped his hand and bent his little finger back, not enough to break it, but enough to be clear about what she thought of his manhandling her. Judging from their first day, marriage to Maddy was definitely going to be the most challenging assignment of his career.
Chapter Five
Hunter drove in silence while Maddy stewed. She had melted in Hunter Hines’s arms. If the handsome brute weren’t inches away, she’d pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t in Kansas or some other make-believe world.
Hunter didn’t merely kiss a woman, he took possession. He demanded and devoured. She could never have imagined that Hunter Hines was capable of such deep passion. Something well-hidden had emerged when Hunter kissed and held her. And she had succumbed to the desire to belong to someone. She had been alone so long.
She glanced at the man who stared straight ahead, not giving any indication of what had occurred between them. Hunter drove as masterfully as he kissed—no wasted motion, no miscalculations, despite the bumper-to-bumper traffic heading south to the Rainier Valley. Whatever he did, Hunter remained in full command.
Heat flashed through her body as she fantasized Hunter making love in his careful, demanding way.
He kept his focus on the road as he spoke. “I owe you an apology. My behavior was,” he turned his head, and a small smile lifted one corner of his full, firm mouth, “unseemly.”
Hunter Hines, teasing. She really might have to click her heels to yank herself back to reality.
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I can’t explain it.”
Since Maddy couldn’t understand her own behavior, she chose the smarter route: Silence.
He twisted to look at her again as they
waited at a red light. “I’ve never behaved irrationally around any woman except you.”
Maddy wasn’t sure she liked the direction his apology was taking, implying that she was the reason he’d grabbed and kissed the bejesus out of her.
“But if we’re to pretend to be married, you can’t flirt with other men.”
Now that was the Hunter she knew. Not the fantasy man who had kissed her.
“Flirting? Are you implying that your manhandling of me was my fault?”
“No, absolutely not.” He gripped the steering wheel tightly, making the veins in his hands bulge. “It was the bozo tracking you like a hound dog on a scent.”
Classic male response. The kiss hadn’t been about feelings, but rather a pissing match between two alpha males. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. She rationalized that she was tired. It was the only reason his explanation hurt. Like her adolescence, she had been traveling back and forth on a city bus initially without a final destination, wondering what her next stop would be. Rather like her entire life—always moving, never settling.
Hunter made a right turn on Marion Street and parked in the shade of some alder trees across from the Renaissance-style St. James Catholic Cathedral. He shifted his long torso in the seat so his body faced hers, and he inspected her with the same careful and critical intensity that always left her confused.
“You’re upset?” His voice softened.
She’d never admit to hurt feelings over such a little something.
“Look. I acted like a jerk. You in that outfit…”
Hunter always had a way of pushing the switch to incite her to outrage and a need to do violence to his person. “My outfit? First, I’m guilty of flirting, and now it’s my outfit?”
“You know you’ve been messing with me. Admit it. You and your hot body in that tiny, tight dress.”
Maddy’s mood lightened. No slouch, Hunter Hines. “FYI. You need to look around. That dress is what every other woman is wearing.” She turned in her seat to look closer at his face. She got a whiff of hot male and his woodsy pine aftershave. With Hunter’s big frame squeezed into the small front seat, if she turned and lifted her legs, she’d be straddling his lap. She wanted to reach out and run her finger along the dark stubble on his jaw.
He leaned against the door, retreating from their closeness. His face was flushed, and he kept swallowing, his strong throat rippling. “Maddy, you’ve lived with Marines. All I’m saying is men respond to women in revealing clothes. It’s part of our DNA.”
After basic training, she knew more about the inner workings of the male brain and its sex drive then she’d ever wanted to. “Got it. Because you’re a male, you can’t control your urges. And with the city filled with women in shorts and tank tops for the summer, you can’t stop yourself from grabbing them and kissing them silly.”
His dark eyes narrowed and that full upper lip flattened. Why did she enjoy baiting this sexy grizzly bear?
She leaned closer and touched his muscular thigh. “It’s okay, Hunter. Do you think I want to make this marriage real?”
“What?” He sat up straight and hit his head on the ceiling. Then he laughed, a deep belly laugh that started in his chest and rolled down his tight abs. He put both hands up in the air. “You got me, Maddy.”
“I do?” Maddy batted her eyelashes like the heroine in a melodrama.
He shook his head and grinned. She had never seen Hunter smile in such a spontaneous, open way before. The grin spread across his face and lightened his shadowy eyes. His enjoyment did wonderful and twisty things to her stomach, like a sudden steep drop on a roller coaster.
“Truce, Maddy? I’ll try to control my primitive urges when I’m around you.” He looked down at her breasts, examining every exposed inch of her bare skin while his fingers twitched on his thighs.
Her lungs tightened as if there wasn’t enough air in the car. The blood pulsed in gushes through her body.
“As long as you don’t flaunt yourself.”
Flaunt? She readied herself to blast the idiot, karate-style—fully focused, kill energy. “Hunter…” And suddenly she couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled upward. “How can I bitch at you if I don’t know your full name?”
“Huh?” The bewildered look on his usually intense face made her laugh harder. “If we’re married, I should know your middle name.”
His dark eyes lit up like his sister’s. “James. Hunter James Hines.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Hunter James Hines.” She laughed again at the confused look on his face. “Now I can’t remember what I was going to yammer at you about.”
He chuckled. An easy, relaxed sound that vibrated in the car and in her heart. Their eyes met, and she leaned toward him as he moved closer. She stilled with anticipation. The only sound was their erratic breathing. His loud and rough, hers quick and impatient. He stared into her eyes as he tucked one of her wayward curls behind her ear. She felt suspended by his fierce look and the gentle touch.
“What’s your middle name, my ball and chain?”
She huffed. “Ball and chain?”
With his long finger, he traced the outside of her ear, and sensations skittered along her skin like sand blowing along the beach. She leaned closer, wanting to feel his hard body against hers again.
He pulled his hand back as if touching her brought pain. “We can’t do this.” His breath and words were choppy. “I’ve got to keep my hands off of you. It’s this weird assignment, pretending we’re married. It’s messed up.”
She had told herself all the same things repeatedly, so why did it hurt when he said it? It was exactly like her adolescence with each foster home—a temporary family. This isn’t forever. Not a family to love or be loved by.
She moved back into her seat and watched the people walking through the cathedral’s thick, twelve-foot doors. “Don’t worry about it. We can have a no-touch, no-feelings rule in this pretend marriage of ours.”
He turned quickly to look at her, to give her one of his dark stares. “Speaking of pretend marriages, I picked up a wedding ring for you. I wasn’t sure about your size, but I knew it had to be tiny.” He pulled a square, black jewelry box from the front pocket of his blue oxford shirt. No T-shirts and shorts for Hunter.
It was then she noticed he wore a gold wedding band on his left hand. Seeing the wedding band that marked him as belonging to her awakened the little shards of loneliness and isolation buried deep in her soul.
This wasn’t real. This wasn’t about caring. The gesture only meant the man paid attention to detail.
Hunter opened the box and took out an exquisite opal in a simple silver setting. “I hope you’ll like it.”
Her throat thickened, and she couldn’t speak. She had no words for the excess of new emotions and old pain twisting inside of her. “I’ve never had anything this beautiful.” The ring reminded her of her mother’s engagement ring—the one her foster sibling had stolen.
“The way the colors change reminded me of the blue in your eyes, the fluctuation with your moods from bright sunny blue to stormy purple.”
Maddy swallowed against all the emotion stuck in her throat. No one ever paid attention to her or her eyes. No one had cared that her most meaningful possession had been taken from her.
He took her hand into his giant palm and slid the ring onto her finger. He was looking down, but his cheeks had reddened. “For my pretend wife.”
She was asking for a lot of hurt if she mistook this ring for her own romantic fantasies. Like her mother’s ring, this one would disappear, too. She didn’t—couldn’t—believe in happily ever after. She had learned the harsh reality at the age of fourteen, and no child could continue believing in fantasies after her parents died.
She’d never let herself be that vulnerable again.
Grief washed through her over the inevitable loss of the ring on her finger and the man who’d tenderly placed it there. “Will you be able to return the ring when we’re finished with the assi
gnment?”
Hunter stiffened and started the car. “Don’t worry about it.” And he drove away from the shade of the alders and the moment of make-believe.
Chapter Six
Hunter pulled up in front of a small farmhouse in the densely populated Rainier Valley, the area where the beautiful people of Seattle didn’t live. Recent immigrants and the working poor resided in South Seattle. “We’re home.”
Maddy leaned forward to catch a better glimpse of the house. “Oh, my God. It’s nothing like I expected. It looks like Snow White’s cottage tucked in the woods. How can such a charming, rustic home sit in the middle of all these fabricated ’70s houses?”
“This whole area used to be cherry orchards and farmland.”
“Really?” Her blue eyes widened. “But there is a 7-Eleven, a psychic, and a hair salon on the next block. We’re in the middle of the ’hood.”
“Now, yes, but years ago, the valley was called Garlic Gulch or Wop City because of the Italian immigrants. I’ve heard both from our neighbor.”
“You met our neighbor?”
“Pretty hard not to. She came out when I brought in the groceries. She is the only English-speaking person on the block. She has lived here for fifty years and has seen the neighborhood go through many changes. None for the better, if you ask her.”
“I don’t care. I love the house, the flowers in the window boxes, and the chairs on the front porch. I’ve always wanted…”
Hunter watched her transformation. She shifted from enthusiastic to remote, slamming shut her feelings. For a brief moment, she was the open girl she probably had been before her childhood world had become untrustworthy. Trust didn’t come any easier for him, since he’d learned that mothers weren’t forever. It was why they both excelled at their jobs. They were suspicious of everyone.
Maddy gazed out the window, like a child watching the first snowfall of the season. “Why would anyone leave this house?”
The Grayce Walters Romantic Suspense Series Page 66